Tanaka, Takahiko
(1990)
Soviet-Japanese normalization talks in 1955-56: With special reference to the attitude of Britain.
PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science.
Abstract
Soviet-Japanese relations were re-established in October 1956. After the end of the Pacific war, the Soviet Union and Japan did not restore diplomatic relations because of Soviet refusal to participate in the San Francisco Peace Treaty. In the middle of the 1950s, both countries began to search for a way to normalization. In the summer of 1955, the negotiations for normalization of Soviet-Japanese relations started in London. The most intractable problem was the territorial question over the disposition of the Kuriles and southern Sakhalin. The negotiations were prolonged because the two governments could not reach a definite agreement on this issue. On 19 October 1956, as a result of the negotiations which had lasted for more than a year, both the two countries finally reached an agreement to re-establish diplomatic relations by shelving the territorial issue. This thesis mainly deals with process of the Soviet-Japanese normalization talks. The following points were mainly focused in this thesis. Firstly, the negotiations on the territorial issue are examined and described in detail. Chapter 1 deals with Anglo-American treatment of the issue during the period from the Yalta Secret Agreement to the San Francisco Peace Treaty and discribes how the territorial issue came into existence. Chapters 3 to 8 describe the development of the negotiations on this issue in 1955-6. Secondly, this thesis examines British and American attitudes towards the normalization talks. Previously, American attitudes have been touched on by the preceeding works. But the attitudes of Britain, which was one of the most important signatory to the San Francisco Peace Treaty and one of the most significant western allies for the Japanese, have been ignored. This thesis attempts to cast some analytical light on the British attitudes by relying on the documents of Public Record Office. The American attitudes are also examined, based on the State Department documents. Finally, domestic influence in Japan on the negotiations is analized. Though there are many domestic factors which should be examined, focus of analysis is placed on policy divergence within the Japanese political leaders. These foci are not treated separately in this thesis. Rather, the Soviet- Japanese normalization talks are dealt with in this thesis as an interaction among those abovementioned factors.
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