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islands, rather than against the United States for having agreed to their transfer. There is some sentiment for the return of the Bonin Islands, though this issue is likely to remain as inconsequential as are these islands themselves. The chief Japanese irredenta is the Ryukyu Islands, where a native population of about 800,000 apparently shares Japanese desires for the return of these islands to Japan. The only reason why Okinawa and the lesser islands in this chain have not been restored to Japan is that the United States feels that it must have a major base there and that this base, unlike those in the main islands of Japan, should be under American political control. On this point American concepts of defense and Japanese national aspirations meet in a head-on clash.
Despite the various sources of possible friction over the present solution of the defense problem, it is basically satisfactory to both countries. The real difficulty arises over the fact that both sides recognize it as only temporary and have very different concepts of what the long-term solution should be. The United States takes for granted that Japan will rapidly restore its military power and assume at least the burden of its own defense and perhaps part of the mutual security load in other parts of the Far East. Most Japanese are quite unprepared to accept this view and hope to avoid rearmament by a policy of neutrality or else the development of a suddenly effective international order. The sharpness of the disagreement is epitomized by the differing views in the two countries on Japan's renunciation of war, which was written into the new constitution with the strong encouragement of the American occupation. In the United States this is regarded already as a dead letter awaiting formal interment. In Japan, however, the sentiment is so different that no political party has as yet dared openly advocate the abandonment of this pious but unfortunately still impractical national policy. Here lie the seeds of a major disagreement between the United States and Japan, not over objectives but over the best means of achieving the defense of Japan and continued peace in her part of the world.
This problem can be solved in the future only if both principals approach it with a willingness to compromise. There is reason to believe that through a series of small modifications in the defense of Japan the burden can be slowly but safely shifted from American shoulders to those of the Japanese to the mutual satisfaction of both. There is a danger, however, that either one side or the other might at any time take so uncompromising an attitude that cooperation would appear unfeasible to the other and a major break in friendly relations would result. This eventuality becomes more likely to the degree that the defense problem becomes an issue in domestic politics in either country and thereby becomes not an area for flexible international negotiation but for rigid, unilateral action.
In Japan the defense problem is already to a certain extent a domestic political issue. The Socialist Party, in its opposition to the now dominant Liberals, has openly opposed the defense pact with the United States and has bitterly objected to any Japanese rearmament as economically impossible and politically hazardous to the continuance of democracy in Japan. This does not mean that at least the right wing of the Socialist Party, if transferred from the opposition to a position of cabinet responsibility, might not alter its stand and support
