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of political and military alignment, centering around the need for defense. To the Americans the latter seem all-important, and economic problems are felt to be of concern largely because of their bearing on defense. To most Japanese it is the economic problems which appear more important, and some Japanese are even ready to ignore completely the problems of external defense in order to concentrate their energies on economic issues and those domestic political problems which they feel to be closely related to the economy.
The problem of Japan's external defense has been temporarily solved by the theoretical conversion of American military occupation into American defense of Japan through military bases arranged for by treaty. While this solution has the support of both governments and a majority of the people in the United States and Japan, it is the source of many minor irritations, particularly for the Japanese.
For Americans the only major drawback to this solution is that it puts the cost of the defense of Japan in large part on the American taxpayer. As a temporary measure, this burden seems justified to most Americans, because our military position in east Asia depends largely on our bases in Japan and the skilled Japanese labor force available there, and a fundamental precept of our whole strategy is the denial of Japanese industrial power to the Communist war machine.
In Japan the drawbacks to the present defense situation are not only more numerous but also more obvious. Some Japanese actually believe that American defense of Japan increases rather than decreases the chance of military attack on their homeland. Still more view American military bases in Japan as potential stepping-stones to an outright colonial domination of Japan by the United States. Unlike the rest of Asia, the fear of colonialism in Japan is not an all-pervading emotional drive, and it is offset by the even greater fear on the part of some Japanese that without American protection Japan would fall prey to the Communists. Still, it is a present source of irritation which could develop serious proportions with great rapidity. In particular the semi-extraterritorial status of the American military, with all the unfortunate nineteenth-century associations of extraterritoriality, is a specific irritant stimulating this fear of American colonialism. It is certainly one detail in our relations with Japan which merits careful reexamination.
A more pervasive problem arising from American bases is the inevitable friction arising out of the daily contacts between a native civilian population and a foreign soldiery. While crimes committed by United States forces in Japan have been few and the tolerance of the Japanese public has been great, there has inevitably been a slow but steady growth of irritation over these contacts on the part of the Japanese public, running from ill-defined resentment at the too frequent sight of foreign uniforms to sharply focused indignation at the blatant sexual traffic and promiscuity surrounding foreign camps and rest resorts.
A third source of Japanese displeasure with the present defense system is its relationship to the territorial settlement. The Japanese may have given up their ambitions for empire, but they have not emotionally relinquished their claim to areas which they feel are rightfully theirs. There is resentment over the loss of the Kuriles, largely directed against the Russians, who now occupy these
