Allied Council for Japan

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The Allied Council for Japan ( Japanese 対 日 理事会 , tainichi rijikai ) was set up in Tokyo in April 1946 on the basis of the resolutions of the Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministers in December 1945.

Members were ex officio chairman of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) Douglas MacArthur and his deputy William F. Marquat for the USA , as well as two representatives each from National China , the Soviet Union and Great Britain , which represented its Commonwealth . They represented the main warring victorious powers of the Pacific War . Meetings took place every fortnight, the results of which were made available to the public.

Meeting on April 15, 1946

It should have been the job of the council to oversee the work of the SCAP and, if necessary, to suspend actions it did not approve of until the Far Eastern Commission (FEC) made a final decision. After the experience of the USA at the Potsdam Conference and in the Allied Control Council , however, President Harry S. Truman had come to the conclusion that the Soviet Union should not be allowed to participate in occupation policy . This was one of the few points of complete agreement with his subordinate MacArthur, who had little more than contempt for either organization.

MacArthur gave a lengthy opening address at the inaugural session on April 5, 1946. He let it be known that he was in no way willing to let SCAP speak in questions of occupation policy. He then appointed Marquat Provisional Chair in his place and left the meeting. This was the only time he appeared. The second American member acted from May 1946 to March 1947 George Atcheson , then until April 1952 William J. Sebald . Only the question of land reform was assigned to the council for discussion. Up until 1947 there were constructive discussions at the meetings. From the summer of 1947 onwards, SCAP also refused to provide the council with information - mostly requested by the representative of the Soviet Union. Due to a lack of agendas, 47 of the 53 meetings held in 1948 and 1949 ended after just a few minutes. On November 24, 1948, the judgments of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMFTE) were upheld in full. Otherwise, the Soviet side limited itself to criticism of the US imperialists and the Americans to crude anti-communist propaganda. With the imminent conclusion of the peace treaty of San Francisco , the right to exist of the "organization."

literature

The verbatim transcripts of the meetings can be found in the Japanese National Library .

  • Immanuel CY Hsu: Allied Council for Japan . in: Far Eastern Quarterly, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Feb. 1951), pp. 173-178.
  • Nishida Satoshi: Rebuilding the Japanese Economy after World War II. American Policy on Japan and Post-War Economic Reforms in Japan 1942–1952 . Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-515-09056-8 , pp. 120-3.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Agreement of Foreign Ministers at Moscow establishing Far Eastern Commission and Allied Council for Japan, Dec. 27, 1945 . In: Political Reorientation of Japan Part II-A, p. 421.
  2. ↑ Harry S. Truman: Memoirs . Bern 1945, Volume I: The year of decisions, (1945) . P. 421 f.
  3. ^ Douglas MacArthur: Reminiscences . New York 1964, p. 292 ff.
  4. ↑ Philip Piccigallo: The Japanese on Trial . University of Texas Press, Austin 1979, ISBN 0-292-78033-8 , p. 31
  5. ↑ as microfilm: Makoto Iokibe (Ed.): The Occupation of Japan . Bethseda 1987-95