Look back in fear: Percy Spender, the Japanese Peace Treaty and the ANZUS Pact
Titel:
Look back in fear: Percy Spender, the Japanese Peace Treaty and the ANZUS Pact
Auteur:
Meaney, Neville
Verschenen in:
Japan forum
Paginering:
Jaargang 15 (2003) nr. 3 pagina's 399-410
Jaar:
2003-09
Inhoud:
This paper aims to explain why, after World War II, Australia - especially Percy Spender, its External Affairs Minister from 1949 to 1951 - pursued, unremittingly and against British wishes, a peace treaty that would prevent Japan from again becoming a military threat and an American alliance that would engage the United States in Australia's defence. It is suggested that the answer is to be found in Australia's long-held fears of Japan and its belief, borne out by the experience of World War II, that Britain was unable to provide for Australia's security. Australian fears were, to some extent, racially based, a fact that contributed further to the problem of responding rationally to the new geo-politics of the post-war Pacific. From the mid-1930s, Spender had been obsessed by these anxieties about Australia's vulnerability to an attack from the north and, as result of this, he was, more than most of his colleagues (including Prime Minster Menzies), determined to try both to impose a harsh peace on Japan and to obtain a defence alliance with the United States which would give Australia a say in America's global strategy.
Tijdschrift beschrijving