Ralph D. Sawyer on Chinese Warfare: The Paradox of the Unlearned Lesson. "From any reasonable perspective China’s continuity has been cultural rather than political, its heritage throughout one of incessant conflict as different peoples, states, and popular movements fought to control its populace and resources."

Minxin Pei asks, Is China Unstable? "China... will face rising instability if the regime fails to undertake significant political reform in the next decade."

Carl Fritz on China in 1945: One Man's Experience. "My unit was an air service group, and when the war ended members of the unit were widely scattered all over China."

Thomas D. Grant on Taiwan Trouble. "Taiwan had almost all the traits of a separate state, except that it never claimed to be a separate state."

Joseph J. Borich on US-China Relations: Springtime Ice Beginning to Melt. "Since mid-June, there have been several signs that bilateral relations may be gradually improving."

Other articles in this issue:   

If we are not in a position to exchange ratifications fairly shortly, the pressures building up in Japan for a dissolution of the Diet to regularize the present abnormal political situation may force Prime Minister Kishi to resign and dissolve the Diet before the exchange takes place. In this event, the position of those in Japan who favor close ties with the United States, whom we believe to be at the present time a substantial majority of the Japanese people, would be considerably weakened during the election campaign and thereafter. If the Japanese conservatives are able to enter the election campaign without the treaty an accomplished fact, this should create conservative unity behind a policy of close cooperation with the United States and help maintain the dominance in Japan of conservative, pro-Western elements whose position has been shaken by recent events.

On the other hand, if the United States does not act promptly this could be interpreted in Japan as a lack of confidence in the future of the U.S.-Japanese partnership. It could also lead to pressures in Japan for reviewing the treaty with the goal of altering the provisions of the treaty in a manner which will satisfy certain Communist-inspired demands.⁴⁰

The letter served Johnson’s needs. When the treaty went before the Senate as a whole on June 21, Fulbright acted as the floor manager, introducing the committee’s unanimous report recommending approval. He answered numerous questions about the meaning of prior consultations and the impact it would have on the deployment of U.S. troops abroad.⁴¹ He exchanged views with Aiken and Russell about the role of Japan in the international balance of power of East Asia. Russell also stated that Article IX of the American-imposed constitution, which renounced war as an instrument of state, was a mistake and he hoped the Japanese would void that section in the near future.⁴²

After these replies, various senators began offering statements in support of the agreement. A close reading of these remarks shows that support for the treaty remained uncertain. Seven of the twelve senators that bothered to make public comments either came out against the agreement or expressed some uneasiness about recent events in Japan and said they were going forward with misgivings and reservations. This process was going along at decent pace until Bourke Hickenlooper and Wayne Morse made long speeches before an empty chamber. These speeches were mainly for the record but delayed ratification for another day, adding a little last minute suspense to the proceedings. Johnson used this delay to refine his image. It had been good politics to present himself as a bipartisan supporter of U.S. foreign policy, but he had to make sure that he did not become Eisenhower’s token Democrat. The next day he made some quick remarks complaining about “a depressing lack of vital new ideas in our foreign policy.” The gambit worked. The sub-headline of the article in the New York Herald Tribune read “JOHNSON ATTACKS FOREIGN POLICY.” His comments dominated the account found in the Washington Evening Star. When the Senate final voted, the treaty passed 90-2, but the outcome was closer than the final tally indicates. Both Fulbright and Everett Dirksen of Illinois, the minority leader, told the press before that they expected between ten and twenty negative votes.⁴³

The two senators who cast negative ballots were blunt in explaining why. “In the light of recent circumstances, I do not feel that the stability of the government of Japan justifies our surrendering the advantages that the old treaty afforded to the United States,” Russell stated. Long offered objections he had voiced before: “This treaty is entirely a one-way street. We give much and gain practically nothing that we do not already have.” He, however, had a new objection in light of the protests in Tokyo. “The Communists around the world will seize upon the ratification of this treaty to claim that we have imposed upon a vanquished nation terms and conditions to which the people of that nation were unwilling to agree.”⁴⁴

The formal exchange of the instruments of ratification was a quick process. Just seven hours after the Senate vote a ceremony took place in the personal residence of Foreign Minister Fujiyama. The event took all of three minutes. Guards kept protesters at bay, but Fujiyama had an escape route planned for himself and MacArthur in case a mob broke through.⁴⁵

Observers in the media were quick to praise the Senate for ratifying the new pact but warned that the crisis was still far from over. Editorials in the New York Herald Tribune, Washington Evening Star and Washington Post stated that America needed a new foreign policy for Japan. What that policy should be was a matter that went unaddressed.⁴⁶ Writing from Tokyo, Herald Tribune correspondent Marguerite Higgins predicted, “America is going to have quite enough trouble in its relations with Japan in the turbulent months ahead without continuing to pay the penalty of the kind of self-deception that so greatly contributed to the fiasco of the canceled Eisenhower trip.” The problems in the relationship were of Japanese making. In late June the Hearst chain ran a series of articles entitled “ARE WE LOSING JAPAN?” But when Kishi resigned, order returned to Tokyo. The prophets of doom were soon in an embarrassing situation as Japan returned to normal without a fundamental reconsideration of U.S. foreign policy. In July, an article in U.S. News and World Report appeared under the headline “DID U.S. WIN IN JAPAN AFTER ALL?”⁴⁷

In concluding this study, one would do well to remember that Otto von Bismarck, the German Chancellor, said those who like sausage and the law should never watch them being made. We might add the conduct of foreign policy in a decentralized democracy to that list. A popular idea in the United States holds that partisan politics should stop at the water’s edge; foreign affairs should not be made a political issue, but in this particular episode, partisanship made treaty ratification work the way the founding fathers intended. There was a debate—it was ugly at times—but each side had a case to make on certain issues. The Democrats in the Senate had the better position on Eisenhower’s trip to Japan. The Republican administration had a stronger case on the treaty. It took the work of Lyndon Johnson, however, to help advance the administration’s argument. (He was, of course, interested in advancing his own career and fortunes.) In both instances, the side with the stronger case prevailed. Foreign policy is made by politicians and it would be wrong to expect politics to be taken out of the process. Politics, even partisan politics, has an important role to play in the making of U.S. foreign policy.