The Role of Japan and the Future of American Relations with the Far East

American interest and involvement in Asia is not a recent aberration, but a continuing phenomenon going back to the days of the China Clippers and extending through the period when the United States followed a policy of isolation in other areas. Today Japan is the leading nation in Asia, vastly superior economically and technically to other states in the area. Linked to the United States by a Mutual Defense Treaty, Japan has substantial armed forces capable of assuring the country's immediate conventional defense. In his State of the Union message, President Nixon recognized this primacy, stating "Japanese-American friendship and coöperation are the linchpin for peace in the Pacific." Japan is contributing to the development of the free states of Asia through increasing economic and technical coöperation. We welcome this policy and will not ask Japan to assume security responsibilities inconsistent with the felt concerns of the Japanese people. Looking at the region as a whole, the ultimate ideal is a community of the free states of Asia coöperating for their common interests in the political, economic, and security fields, with which we are associated only to the degree that these states desire our association. Japan must play a major role in any such community.