Reconciling with Japan a triumph for our nations
Eighty years ago, Japan’s major cities were devastated. Tokyo had been firebombed to destruction and Hiroshima and Nagasaki reduced to ashes. Yet today Japan is the world’s third-largest economy, a vibrant liberal democratic society, and Australia’s most important security partner in our immediate region.
It was serendipitous that the Australian government announced, just two weeks before the 80th anniversary of the Japanese unconditional surrender on the USS Missouri, that Australia would buy Japanese-designed frigates.
The Australian story in post-war Japan is a fascinating one. Robert Menzies was the driver of the reconciliation. He had spoken out against racial hatred towards Japan even during the war, insisting “it will only be by a profound stirring in the hearts of men that we shall reach goodwill”.
Reconciliation started with the controversial decision by the Menzies government to persuade the US to negotiate and sign the ANZUS alliance. The Americans made this conditional on Australia signing the Treaty of San Francisco, the peace treaty between 49 countries and Japan.
The American strategy was to bring Japan in from the cold as quickly as it could as a liberal democratic and capitalist society, and to build it up as a critical ally of the free world in the Asia-Pacific region.
There was strong opposition in Australia to the signing of the San Francisco Treaty, including from the Labor Party. Many, including the RSL, saw it as too soft on Japan.
Nevertheless, the Menzies government went ahead and signed the treaty – on the very day I was born – and the Americans agreed to conclude the ANZUS alliance with Australia.
When we signed the ANZUS alliance in 1951, we wanted the Americans to underwrite our security against the threat of a resurgent Japan. Today, that treaty is one of the two anchors that keeps the US in the Indo-Pacific region, assisting the balance of power with a growing China. The other anchor is Japan, which likewise has a security treaty with the US.
The next great landmark in Australia’s relations with Japan came in 1957 when the Menzies government signed the Commerce Agreement with Japan. This was mutually beneficial.
Australian resources helped to drive the Japanese post-war economic miracle, and Australian businesses and the broader population gained great prosperity from exports to Japan. The Commerce Agreement was highly controversial. It was bitterly opposed by the Labor Party and the ACTU. Indeed, the ACTU mounted a 30,000-strong demonstration against the Treaty through the centre of Sydney.
Yet this Commerce Agreement, which Menzies pushed ahead with despite strong opposition, including from the RSL, was the foundation of Australia’s hugely successful economic engagement with Asia.
Liberal governments in Australia followed Menzies’ lead. In 1977 the Fraser government signed a treaty of friendship and amity, the Treaty of Nara. This was the first such treaty Australia had ever signed and it was also the first treaty of this kind Japan had signed. It was a huge step forward in the relationship between our two countries.
Then when I was the foreign minister we signed the Joint Declaration on Security Co-operation – this too was a landmark agreement; Japan’s first post-war security agreement with any country other than the US. It covered co-operation on border security, counter-terrorism, disaster relief, peacekeeping, maritime and aviation security, law enforcement, weapons non-proliferation and more. It also established annual foreign and defence ministers meetings.
My own family has been on the national journey with Japan. In February 1942, my father, as a modest gunner in the 8th Division of the AIF, was taken prisoner by the Japanese in Singapore. He remained in the Changi Prison of War Camp for 3½ years.
He left that prison of war camp alive, thanks to the Americans bringing the Pacific War to an end with the dropping of two atomic bombs. Had the Americans and the Allies instead invaded Japan, and fought their way for months or longer to defeat the Japanese army and people in their own country, then we know the Japanese high command had given orders to execute all prisoners of war.
If the war had continued, an estimated 800,000 American and Allied troops would have died in the invasion of Japan, and millions of Japanese would have died as they tried vainly to defend their country.
My father would have been executed. Here’s the upside: for the political left, I would never have been born! But for me, Harry Truman was the greatest of modern American presidents. He wanted the war to be brought to a quick end and he wanted that done before the Soviet Union was able to take more of Japan’s territory than it eventually did.
As a member of the federal parliament, my father crossed the floor and voted with the Labor Party against the San Francisco Treaty in 1951. But when it came to the 1957 Commerce Agreement, through gritted teeth, my father voted for it.
For me, the war was tragic history but we had to move on. As foreign minister, I knew that a balance of power in the Indo-Pacific region was axiomatic if we were to live in peace. That balance of power required not just the presence of the US in the region but close relations between America’s allies. In particular, we had to find ways of strengthening our relationship with Japan. Over the years, we did.
The final transition of my family from Japanophobes to Japanophiles came when my daughter was posted as a young diplomat to Tokyo and gave birth to my first grandchild, Henry, in the Aiki Hospital. So for our family, our experience with Japan through three generations was to go from a prison camp to a maternity ward.
There’s only one thing more I would like Japan to do. I would like it to allow the building of a suitable memorial to the thousands of Allied POWs who were transported to Japan and made to work as slave labour. That is the last incomplete step in reconciliation.
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It’s quite remarkable how much progress the Australia-Japan relationship has made over the past eight decades. As we approach the 80th anniversary of the end of the Pacific War this week, we can reflect on one of the great triumphs of human progress.