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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 May 2025
This is the first of a three part comprehensive survey of the US-Japan relationship defined by the Ampo Treaty of 1960, and refined subsequently in ways that have deepened Japanese and Okinawan subordination to American global power and ambitions. The article focuses on questions pertaining to the legacy of Article Nine of the Constitution, and to Okinawa and base relations as a template for exploring the troubled Ampo relationship, including the powerful and sustained Okinawan resistance to US base expansion.
1 DDE, “Memorandum for the Record,” 9 April 1958, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-60, vol. 18, p. 16
2 “Joint Statement of The U.S.-Japan Security Consultative Committee Marking the 50th Anniversary of the Signing of The U.S.-Japan Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security,” January 19, 2010, by Minister for Foreign Affairs Okada, Minister of Defense Kitazawa, Secretary of State Clinton, Secretary of Defense Gates. Link.
3 Ambassador MacArthur to Department of State, Cable No 4393, 24 June 1960, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-60, vol 18, pp. 377-384, at p. 380.
4 Odanaka Toshiki, “Shihoken dokuritsu e no oson kodo,” Sekai, August 2008, pp. 113-121. See also “Judicial independence infringed,” Japan Times, 3 May 2008.
5 “Sunagawa jiken no ‘Bei kosaku’ o itten kaiji, chunichi taishi to gaisho kaidanroku,” Tokyo shimbun, 3 April 2010.
6 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Iwayuru ‘mitsuyaku’ mondai ni kansuru chosa kekka,” 9 March 2010.
7 “Record of discussion, 6 January 1960,” US National Archives, quoted in Akahata editorial, “Lay bare all secrets related to Japan-US Security Treaty,” Japan Press Weekly, 5 July 2009.
8 Togo Kazuhiko and Sato Masaru, “Gaimu kanryo ni damasareru Okada gaisho,” Shukan kinyobi, 26 March 2010, pp. 14-17.
9 Richard Halloran, “Sign of Secret U.S.-Japan Pact Found, New York Times, 7 April 1987; and on the 2008-9 confirmation from four former administrative vice foreign ministers, see national media for summer of 2009, especially Akahata, 22 June and 7 July 2009 (where some of the documents are reproduced). Also Honda Masaru, “Kensho: Kore ga mitsuyaku da, “Sekai, November 2009, pp. 164-175.
10 “Top Secret. Agreed Minute to Joint Communique of United States President Nixon and Japanese Prime Minister Sato issued on November 21, 1969,” as discovered in 2009 by Sato's son in his father's papers, reproduced in Shunichi Kawabata and Nanae Kurashige, “Secret Japan-U.S. nuke deal uncovered,” Asahi shimbun, 24 December 2009 (link).
11 Kishi-MacArthur Agreement of 4 October 1958. (“Japan ‘ceded right to try US forces’ – secret accord ‘covers off-duty offenses’,” Yomiuri shimbun, 10 April 2010). The Okada Commission did not disclose this document, but it “surfaced” and was disclosed several weeks later. Professor Sakamoto Kazuya of Osaka University, is here cited as authority for the view that, fifty years on, this agreement still holds force.
12 Niihara Shoji, :Ampo joyaku ka no ‘mitsuyaku’, “Shukan kinyobi, 19 June 2009, pp. 20-21
13 Hans M. Kristensen, “Nihon no kaku no himitsu,” Sekai, December 2009, pp. 177-183, at p. 180.
14 US Institute of Peace, “Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States Issues Final report,” May 2009, pp. XV11-XV111.
15 A Kyodo report dated 30 July explicitly referred to Japanese pressure. See Narusawa Muneo, “Beigun no kaku haibi to Nihon,” Shukan kinyobi, 26 March 2010, pp. 18-19.
16 Melanie Kirkpatrick, “Why we don't want a nuclear-free world,” Wall Street Journal, 13 July 2009.
17 “Mitsuyaku bunsho, doko e kieta,” Asahi shimbun, 20 March 2010.
18 “State told to come clean on Okinawa,” Asahi shimbun, 10 April 2010; Masami Ito, “Court: Disclose Okinawa papers,” Japan Times, 10 April 2010.
19 Togo Kazuhiko, testifying to the Diet Committee in 2010 on his role as head of the Treaty Bureau in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1998-99, “Mitsuyaku bunsho haki – kokumin to rekishi e no hainin da,” Tokyo shimbun, 20 March 2010. See also Togo's discussion with Sato Masaru in “Gaimu kanryo ni damasareru Okada gaisho,” cit.
20 Maeda Tetsuo, “Juzoku” kara “jiritsu” e – Nichibei ampo o kaeru, Kobunken, 2009, p. 32.
21 See my Client State: Japan in the American Embrace, passim.
22 Boei mondai kondankai, “Nihon no anzen hosho to boeiryoku no arikata – 21 seiki e mukete no tenbo,” (commonly known as the “Higuchi Report” after its chair, Higuchi Kotaro), presented to Prime Minister Murayama in August 1994.
23 United States, Department of Defense, Office of International Security Affairs, “United States Security Strategy in the East Asia-Pacific Region” (commonly: “The Nye Report”), 27 February 1995.
24 The letter was penned by Hirohito's aide, Terasaki Hidenari, but emanated from the emperor. (Shindo Eiichi, “Bunkatsu sareta ryodo,” Sekai, April 1979, pp. 31-51, at pp. 45-50.)
25 Client State, p. 158.
26 “Ex-negotiator: Cost to remove U.S. nukes from Okinawa exaggerated to dupe public,” Asahi shimbun, 13 November 2009.
27 Department of Defense, “US Stationed Military Personnel and Bilateral Cost Sharing 2001 Dollars in Millions – 2001 Exchange Rates,” Yoshida Kensei, “Ampo kichi no shima, Okinawa,” Oruta (Meru magajin), No 72, 20 December 2009, p. 10.
28 See the entry for “Omoiyari yosan” in Wikipedia (9 January 2009).
29 “Peace Prize winner Sato called nonnuclear policy ‘nonsense’,” Japan Times, 11 June 2000.
30 “99 nen Bei kokai no ‘kaku mitsuyaku’ bunsho Nihon saikimitsuka o yosei,” Asahi shimbun, 26 August 2009.
31 In the revised Japanese, Korean and Chinese editions of my 2007 book, Client State: Japan in the American Embrace, I offer the following definition: “a state that enjoys the formal trappings of Westphalian sovereignty and independence, and is therefore neither a colony nor a puppet state, but which has internalised the requirement to give preference to ‘other’ interests over its own.”
32 Asahi shimbun, 19 February 2003.
33 “Kyuma: U.S. invasion of Iraq a mistake,” Japan Times, 25 January 2007.
34 “Kyuma calls for Futenma review ‘Don't be so bossy’, defense minister tells US over base relocation,” Yomiuri shimbun, 29 January 2007.
35 “Aso gaisho no Bei seiken hihan,” Asahi shimbun, evening edition, 5 February, 2007.
36 One former senior US government official commented: “staunch US allies such as Britain and Australia would never make such public criticisms.” (“Aso gaisho no Bei seiken hihan,” Asahi shimbun, evening edition, 5 February, 2007).
37 Quoted in Narusawa Muneo, “Shin seiken no gaiko seisaku ga towareru Okinawa kichi mondai,” Shukan Kinyobi, 25 September 2009, pp. 13-15.
38 Asahi shimbun, 25 February 2009. See also Maeda Tetsuo, “Juzoku” kara “jiritsu” e – Nichibei Ampo o kaeru, Kobunken, 2009, pp. 17, 25.
39 Clare Short, formerly International Development Secretary, “Clare Short: Blair misled us and took UK into an illegal war,” The Guardian, 2 February 2010.
40 Ota Masahide, interview, Videonews, 11 March 2010. Transcript at “Peace Philosophy,” 12 April 2010.
41 Terashima Jitsuro, “Zuno no ressun, Tokubetsu hen, (94), Joshiki ni kaeru ishi to koso – Nichibei domei no saikochiku ni mukete,” Sekai, February 2010, 118-125. Terashima refers to Japanese intellectuals by the term, “do-gan” (literally “slave face”, a term he invents based on his reading of a savagely satirical early 20th century Chinese story by Lu Hsun). For English translation of this Terashima text, see “The Will and Imagination to Return to Common Sense: Toward a Restructuring of the US-Japan Alliance,” The Asia-Pacific Journal – Japan Focus, 15 March 2010.
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