Office of the Historian

694.001/5–2350

The First Secretary of Embassy in the United Kingdom (Ringwalt) to the Director of the Office of Northeast Asian Affairs (Allison)

confidential
personal   official
London, May 23, 1950.

Dear John: In order to avoid surfeiting the Department with reports on the Japanese Peace Treaty Working Party, I have decided to pass on to you the following information given me in confidence by a reputable American correspondent. His sources, he says, are members of several of the delegations to the Conference, including delegates from the Indian sub-continent. The following list of general areas of agreement he read to me one afternoon just after the Conference adjourned. He said he was on his way to his office to embody most of the points in a news despatch to his paper:

1.
Japan should be encouraged to join the UN immediately after the signing of a treaty.
2.
The applications of Indonesia and Ceylon for membership in the Far Eastern Commission should be supported.
3.
Japan should be allowed adequate police forces for internal security. There was, however, concern that a secret police force might be re-established as soon as controls were lifted.
4.
There should be no restrictions on commercial aircraft or on ship building either as to size, number or speed.
5.
No unfair competition in overseas trade should be permitted.
6.
Japanese territory should comprise the four main, and a few adjacent islands.
7.
The Treaty should be so drafted so as not to incur the permanent resentment of the Japanese people.
8.
Japan should be encouraged through its own efforts to obtain a reasonable standard of living.
9.
Pakistan, Ceylon and India insisted that restrictive clauses in a Peace Treaty should be kept to a minimum.
10.
Peiping and Moscow should both be invited to participate in Treaty negotiations.
11.
Peiping should become a member of the Far Eastern Commission.
12.
Economic controls should be of a long-range nature and it was recommended that a study be made of Japanese dependence on imports and of sources of supply generally (apparently the United Kingdom did not take this recommendation too seriously).
13.
India would be prepared to acquiesce in security restrictions provided Japan’s economic recovery were not imperilled.
14.
New Zealand demanded complete suppression of military and para-military forces and restrictions on oil and rubber production as well as ship building. It offered no objection to civilian aircraft manufacture nor to a police force.
15.
Australia demanded control of atomic energy and war potential generally. It was strongly opposed to Japan’s fishing and whaling in southern waters and there was some talk of calling a conference on fishing in order to deal with this problem more extensively.
16.
Japan should be encouraged to join GATT, ITO, and similar organizations.
17.
Export of Japanese merchandise should not be discouraged, especially in regions where purchasing power is low.
18.
Reparations was generally agreed to be a dead issue.
19.
Territories to be taken from Japan need not be mentioned in a Peace Treaty.
20.
There should be in a Peace Treaty, a reference to human rights.
21.
Political societies such as the Black Dragon should somehow be discouraged.
22.
Japan should be obliged to conform to international agreements on the suppression of opium traffic.
23.
From the point of view of the Asiatic Commonwealths generally, all the enforcement machinery in the world could not guarantee security against Japanese aggression. The political disadvantage in interfering in Japan’s internal affairs would outweigh any benefits derived from an attempt to write security guarantees into the treaty.
24.
With reference to any American oases, India was opposed to any arrangement for such bases to be included in a Peace Treaty but there appeared to be no objection to Japan’s making separate arrangements as a sovereign nation once the Treaty were in effect.

You will note that many if not most of the above points have already been covered by reporting from this Embassy.1

Sincerely yours,

Arthur R. Ringwalt
  1. A copy of the “Report” of the Commonwealth Working Party on a Japanese Peace Treaty, May 17, 1950, was transmitted by the British Embassy in Washington to the Department on September 20, 1950. (Lot 54D423)↩