戦後日本の貿易戦略におけるオーストラリアの役割 : 占領軍総司令部によるスターリング貿易支払協定の運用:1948-50年

抄録

The purpose of this paper is to examine the roles played by Australia in the reconstruction of postwar Japan's trade networks, by highlighting the policy of the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) for Japan's postwar reconstruction of its trade networks with the sterling area. While Japan resumed its trading activities in 1947, it lacked the foreign currency to finance its purchase programs. The world-wide dollar shortage forced many countries to impose tight exchange controls, hampering the expansion of trade. Hence, the SCAP concluded the Overall (Sterling) Payments Agreement and the Sterling Trade Agreement with the sterling area in 1948. These agreements enabled Japan and the sterling area countries to trade on a sterling payment basis and to balance trade at the highest possible level through a semi-multilateral settlement system, whereby several sterling area countries, including Australia, combined as a single trading party with Japan, thus minimising the need to use scarce dollar funds. Before mid 1949, however, the SCAP did not show much interest in expanding procurement from the sterling area, which could not supply Japan with adequate amounts of essential commodities such as raw cotton and foodstuffs. On the other hand, the sterling area countries continued active purchasing, through easy sterling payment, of essential cotton textiles, which might otherwise have earned dollars for Japan. These factors resulted in the accumulation of a sterling surplus in the SCAP's hands. On the eve of the devaluation of the pound sterling in September 1949, it seemed imminent that the SCAP would invoke the 'dollar clause' of the Overall Payments Agreement, which entitled it to convert its sterling funds into dollars in such an emergency. Britain was so alarmed at this danger of dollar loss that it showed its preparedness to terminate the trade and payments agreements and to risk drastic curtailment of Japanese trade, by reintroducing dollar cash payments. It was the Supreme Commander, General Douglas MacArthur, who saved this situation by making it clear that he had no intention seek dollar payments from the sterling area countries. This worked as a frontrunner for the expansion of Japan's sterling trade. It seemed necessary for the SCAP to develop Japan's trade networks on a more multilateral basis centred on sterling channels, in order to attain its economic self-reliance without excessive dependence on US economic aid and dollar trade. Under this strategy, Australia played a role not only as an alternative commodity supplier but also as a lubricator of Japan's sterling trade by earning credits through its bilateral trade surplus with Japan and circulating them within the sterling area, thus supplying the other sterling countries with the purchasing power of Japanese goods.