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Separating economics from politics: Japan’s trade with two planned economies, 1950–60

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Japan and the Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1950–1964

Part of the book series: St Antony’s Series ((STANTS))

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Abstract

Following its unconditional surrender Japan lost control over its foreign trade to SCAP. Such scrutiny, in addition to the disjunction caused by World War II, brought Japanese trade with China and the Soviet Union to a virtual standstill. A slightly more liberal trading regime appeared from 1947 onwards with the beginnings of the ‘reverse course’. As late as March 1949, official US policy still aimed to ‘augment, through permitting restoration of ordinary economic relations with China, such forces as might operate to bring about serious rifts between Moscow and a Chinese Communist regime.’1 Just two months later, however, Washington extended US export controls to include China—albeit less severe than those imposed on the Soviet Union—and General Headquarters in Tokyo applied these to Sino-Japanese trade.2

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Notes

  1. NSC 41, ‘US Policy Regarding Trade with China, FRUS, 1949 IX: 826–34. 2 Yasuhara Yoko, ‘Japan, Communist China, and Export Controls in Asia, 1948–52’ Journal of Diplomatic History (winter 1986): 81–2. 3 Nihon Times (4 Feb. 1949). 4 William Costello, ‘Could Japan go Communist?’ Nation (14 May 1949): 534. 5 Michael Schaller, TheAmerican Occupation ofJapan (1985) NY: 189. 6 Makiko Hamaguchi-Klenner, China Images of Japanese Conservatives (1981) Hamburg: 71; Soeya Yoshihide, Japan’s Economic Diplomacy with China, 1945–1978 (1998) Oxford: 25–6; Fukui Haruhiro, Party in Power (1970) Berkeley: 241; R.K. Jain, China and Japan, 1949–80 (1981[A]) Delhi: 26; Lalima Varma, The Making of Japan’s China Policy (1991) Delhi: 116–8; Leng Shao Chuan, Japan and Communist China (1958) Kyoto: 110–2.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Musashi University, Tokyo, Japan

    C. W. Braddick (Professor of International Political History)

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© 2004 C. W. Braddick

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Braddick, C.W. (2004). Separating economics from politics: Japan’s trade with two planned economies, 1950–60. In: Japan and the Sino-Soviet Alliance, 1950–1964. St Antony’s Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230005693_4

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