Postwar Japanese diplomacy has both benefited and suffered from the Yoshida Line of foreign policy, consisting of the peace constitution and the U. S. -Japan security treaty. This set of Yoshida's choices during the occupation period became the foundation of Japan's postwar economic recovery and eventually the rapid economic growth rendering Japan a world-class economic power. Deeply embedded in the Yoshida Line, however, was the structure of “dependence” on the United States for economic growth as well as security protection. This in turn has often invited, rather inevitably, challenges from nationalism attacking the lack of “autonomy” or “independence” of postwar Japan.
This structural problem was also a source of criticism by external countries, especially the United States, for Japanese inaction or “free-riding, ” and the lack of a strategy. As Japan grew into an economic power and the negative views became prevalent concomitantly, some analysts rebuffed the criticism by arguing that the Yoshida's commitment to “light armament, economic growth, and the U. S. -Japan security ties” indeed constituted a strategy of postwar Japan. Simply put, the Yoshida Line was elevated to the Yoshida Doctrine.
There were three types of discourse on the Yoshida Doctrine, which began to emerge since the end of the 1970s. One was to argue that the Yoshida Doctrine had been a viable strategy of postwar Japan, but that it would now need to be modified in a more proactive fashion. The second argument claimed that nationalistic challenges against the Yoshida Doctrine should be inevitable as Japan had recovered a sense of national pride, but that domestic political balance was still favorable to the supporters of the Yoshida Doctrine. Thirdly, it was contended that the Yoshida Doctrine was a strategic representation of Japan's political realism and should be retained as such particularly against the logic of military realism.
The common denominator among the three was that the deep structure of “dependence” on the United States was taken for granted, or even assumed as the source of postwar Japan's successful strategy. This meant that the structural problem, susceptible to challenges by nationalism, was kept intact, which has now re-emerged as an old and new problem for Japan as it gropes for a new diplomacy, including possible revision of the peace constitution, in the 21st century.
The articles in this volume traces the development of the Yoshida Line since the occupation period to the 1960s, when the deep structural problem was dodged, rather than rectified, in the evolutionary process of Japan's foreign policy making. There are three sets of propositions relevant for this period. Firstly, Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida had not successfully integrated his basic foreign policy with his Asian diplomacy, particularly toward China, demonstrating the lack of independent Asian policy on the part of postwar Japan. Secondly, close examinations of the origins of the peace constitution and the U. S. -Japan security treaty, as well as the origin of economycentered approach, reveals that the leaders, including Yoshida himself, did not expect that their choices should remain unchanged after the occupation period. Thirdly, this in turn calls for the scrutiny of Japanese diplomacy in the 1960s, when Japan grew into a global economic power precisely by putting a lid on the structural problem entrenched in the Yoshida Line.
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