Britain Out — Japan IN
In Singapore, where Japanese firms now control one quarter of all investments, Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew gives this advice to visiting British businessmen, "Be aggressive! Be like the Japanese!"
But the British aren't aggressive like the Japanese. In January 1968, Britain made her historic abandonment of the Empire east of Suez.
Japan was quick to fill the void.
A press correspondent wrote from Tokyo, shortly after Britain's withdrawal, "When Britain beats her retreat from the East, Japan will emerge as the only logical contender to fill the power vacuum — and she is unlikely to miss such a matchless opportunity to expand her political and economic influence.
"Within five, or at the most, ten years," continues the report, "Japan will dominate the Orient's trade absolutely and be the East's unquestioned political leader . . . Britain's calendar of retreat is most fortuitously timed for Japan."
China's internal problems have also contributed to the political vacuum in Asia. The Japanese Foreign Ministry has announced, "There is not time to lose in launching the new mission because the Red Guard has unexpectedly weakened China's power in Asia, with Indonesia's link to Peking shattered, a large opening for fresh enterprise suddenly appears."
Even Red China Dependent on Japan
Up until the end of 1967, Communist China's leading trade partner was Japan! More than 623 million dollars of trade was the annual commerce between these two nations. Next to the United States and Australia, Japan traded most with Red China.
However, during the autumn of 1967 the Chinese Communists turned a cold shoulder to Japan with the intention of punishing Premier Sato for his pro-western tour of Asia and the United States. They switched their markets to Europe in an attempt to economically boycott Japan.
This move proved financially disastrous to China instead of hurting Japan. It took the Chinese only three short months to run up a $326.6 million trade deficit. China quickly learned that she had little to sell that the Europeans wanted.
The Chinese were forced to realize that THEY NEEDED JAPAN MORE THAN JAPAN NEEDED THEM! In mid-January, 1968, Chou En-Lai of Red China humbly expressed the hope that the China-Japan Trade Agreement which expired in 1967 could be renewed.
Japan is rapidly becoming the real POWERHOUSE of Asia — to which even Red China must look!
Japanese-Soviet Trade
Last November 10th, the Soviet Union and Japan concluded a major agreement for a joint natural gas refining project in Siberia and on the island of Sakhalin. Under the new agreement, Japan would develop the natural gas resources with plants both in Siberia and Japan. The Japanese would provide the managerial personnel and sales distribution to the eastern European countries by means of the Russian owned Trans-Siberian Railways.
Trade between Japan and the Communist east European satellite nations has grown 33 percent over the past year. Presently, Japan is planning to build a direct rail line between the Sea of Japan and Eastern Europe!
In February, 1968, Nikolai Baibakov, Soviet Deputy Premier, visited Japan in hopes of persuading the Japanese to develop the timber and mineral resources of Siberia.
Nuclear Blackmail
Now look at Japanese-U.S. relations.
Strong pressure was recently brought on Prime Minister Sato by the Japanese people as well as the Okinawans themselves for the return of Okinawa to Japanese control. When Prime Minister Sato visited President Johnson in Washington last November, he was denied his request. He was told that as long as the Vietnam War continues, Okinawa and the nearby Bonins are too vital to the United States because of the U.S. military bases on them.
Later, the United States set in motion the diplomatic machinery to return the Bonins to Japan and also promised to set a date for the return of Okinawa within three years, pending the course of the Vietnamese war.
The Japanese people do not want to wait! Consistent pressure, frequent demonstrations and repeated petitions forced Premier Sato to make a very significant compromise deal with the Japanese public last December.
Up until recently the Japanese people have shown a fanatical aversion and fear of nuclear weapons. The public will protest and students will demonstrate every time Japan considers building a nuclear plant, storing nuclear weapons, expanding a nuclear defense fleet, or even harboring a nuclear-powered ship such as the U.S.S. Enterprise. A recent poll by the Tokyo Observer revealed that only 8.9 percent of the populace wanted Japan to have nuclear arms.
While Sato knows the power of the public, he also knows Japan must possess a nuclear defense system — ostensibly for protection from Communist China and Russia.
Premier Sato's compromise of mid-December, 1967 was stated as follows: "People of Japan, I will go to work to return the island of Okinawa to Japan, if you will accept the idea of nuclear arms expansion in Japan."
One of the inferences drawn from Premier Sato's statement is that Japan expects the return of Okinawa when U.S. nuclear defenses there become unnecessary, or when Japan is ready to supply them. His specific aim is to meet public opinion head on regarding the issue of nuclear weapons. He is striving to create a change in political opinion in Japan sufficient to permit the impossible — the return of Okinawa to Japan with the United States' nuclear bases intact.
Pakeo-Fukuda, leader of the opposition Liberal-Democratic Party, and most likely successor to Sato, has said: "Japan must get away from the nuclear allergy." The statements of both Sato and Fukuda were published under big headlines in Tokyo. Significantly there were no public demonstrations and no opposition in Parliament. A major change in public opinion in Japan toward the ultimate possession of nuclear weapons is under way.
Okinawa has thus become the political lever by which the Japanese people are being forced into accepting Japan's future role as a self-sufficient nuclear power.
U.S. Pushing Japan to Become Nuclear Power
Though it is against Japan's constitution to maintain any land, sea, or air forces, yet Japan maintains a standing army of more than 250,000 men (each one is considered to be officer material), 30,000 reserves, dozens of powerful Nike-Hercules and Hawk missiles, 7 nuclear power plants and a full-fledged Department of Defense. An annual Self-Defense Forces Day is held every November 1st.
Washington officials frankly admit that they expect Japan to develop a big military establishment to assist the U.S. in Asian power politics. One Tokyo observer stated that the United States has no other alternative but to push Japan toward eventually becoming a THERMONUCLEAR POWER.
Japan's uranium trade with Australia has been increasing.
Robert A. Scalapino, an authority on Japan at the University of California, wrote recently, "For the next five or six years, Japan will develop her space and nuclear programs in such a fashion as to make convertibility for defense purposes possible on the quickest, easiest, and cheapest basis should the necessity arise." Significantly enough, this is the same method used to convert seemingly peacefully oriented heavy industry into full-scale production of war equipment practically overnight prior to World War II!
Japan, a Friend?
Why should the U.S. worry? Isn't Japan an ally and friend of the West? Wouldn't Japanese nuclear power stand as a bulwark against Communism? Wouldn't the emergence of Japan as a nuclear power actually help the United States and Australia by assuming the role of peace-keeper in Asia?
Despite popular belief, Japan is not permanently committed to a pro-Western position.
America has foolishly followed the policy of assuming that the peoples of Germany and Japan can be converted to the virtues of Democracy in less than a generation. Though both nations are ostensibly utilizing the Democratic form of government — enforced upon them by the United States — neither has been "converted" to Democracy. Both the Japanese and Germans are willing, for the present, to put up with their so-called Democratic form of government — until some serious internal crisis is precipitated.
"The Japanese people do not know the meaning of the word Democracy" said Yukio Ozaki, former mayor of Tokyo and one of Japan's greatest parliamentarians. Most people have forgotten that Democracy was rejected by the people of Japan in the 1930's.
Japan tolerates her present form of government as long as it is economically expedient. If the time were ever to come — and it will come — that the Japanese could not feed off of American aid, we would witness a remarkable change in attitude toward the United States. Friendship would quickly evaporate.