著者

吉田 真吾

出版者

東京大学東洋文化研究所

雑誌

東洋文化研究所紀要 (ISSN:05638089)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.160, pp.79-126, 2011-12

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In 1960, the U.S. and Japanese governments signed the new U.S.-Japan security treaty, replacing the old one which had been concluded in 1951. Why did these two governments decide to form the new treaty? While the process of the treaty negotiations which started in 1958 have received abundant scholarly attention, the question of why the two governments decided to launch the negotiations has not been scrutinized. To fill this void, this paper addresses the question and puts forward three main arguments as the reasons behind the formation of the new treaty. First, as the character of the Cold War shifted from military confrontation to political-economic competition in the mid-1950s, American policymakers feared that Japan might disengage itself from the U.S. and approach the Communist bloc, and thus deemed concessions to Japan's demands regarding U.S.-Japan security relations necessary. Second, since the military tensions of the Cold War had seemingly lessened, Japanese society started to criticize U.S. military presence in Japan and began to call for the creation of a more "equal" security treaty. Third, as a result of the U.S. combat forces'withdrawals, to which the two governments agreed to mitigate the criticism from Japanese society in 1957, Japanese policymakers grew concerned that the U.S. security guarantee to Japan had become less credible, which they sought to rectify by formalizing the U.S. defense commitment to Japan in the form of a new treaty.