Toward Neutrality

In his cutaway and the top hat that his wife carefully brushed for him, Japan's new Premier Hatoyama called last week upon the symbol of his country's ancient traditions, the Emperor. Later, in a grey worsted suit, dabbing nervously at his mouth with a handkerchief, Ichiro Hatoyama paid his respects to Japan's new democratic practices. "Good morning everybody," said conservative Hatoyama, making his radio debut on a man-in-the-street interview hookup. "If you have any questions, please do not be shy."

An Osaka student began: "I like you, but your policies seem very narrow-minded." Hatoyama laughed uneasily: "But I'm not as arrogant as Yoshida, eh?" A Tokyo girl clerk adjured him: "Hatoyama-san, please be consistent in your austerity program." Ichiro Hatoyama replied: "I intend to be so." Then a Tokyo worker plunged headlong into the intricacies of trade with Red China and Formosa. Easily, as if the question involved no difficulties, Hatoyama answered the worker: "The Chinese Communists and Nationalists are both good, independent nations. Both are our good neighbors. I want to establish relations with Russia and Red China as soon as it is feasible."

Discord in Tokyo. Not everyone thought the problem so simple. For the next two days before the Diet, the opposition hammered at Hatoyama's Foreign Minister, Mamoru Shigemitsu, demanding that he clarify the Premier's offhand statement. Shigemitsu, who signed the Japanese surrender aboard the Missouri and was afterwards purged, had been reassuring everybody that "Japan's place" lay within the U.S. alliance. Now he hedged. "The problem must be studied from the viewpoint of treaty conditions and actual reality," he said. "Japan has recognized the Formosa government. But the appearance on the mainland of a large Communist government is an actual fact. It is natural to approach this government . . . in matters of promoting trade."

"Two-tongued diplomacy," cried a supporter of ex-Premier Yoshida. "To the world, Shigemitsu professes antiCommunism. At home, he talks of coexistence." Shigemitsu denied the taunt, but the opposition catcalled "Liar! Liar!" Finally, Premier Hatoyama had to put himself once more on record, this time more guardedly: "On whether I intend to recognize Red China or not, I would like to point out that there are many factors involved, and I cannot say when."

Initiative from Moscow. A Nipponese version of neutralism seems to be developing in Japan: not India's plague-on-both-your-houses style, but a let's-get-the-best-of-both-worlds neutralism. The Communists reacted with delighted promptness. "The U.S.S.R. has always been desirous of establishing and developing relations," announced Vyacheslav Molotov. Hinting disguisedly that Shigemitsu might perhaps care to amend Japan's relations with the U.S., Molotov proposed that Russia and Japan "normalize relations . . . in accordance with the interests of both sides." All in all, said Molotov, "the Soviet government takes a positive attitude."

Hatoyama and Shigemitsu are conservatives of long anti-Communist record. But they came to power in a curious alliance with the Socialists (TIME, Dec. 20); they are not averse to playing to an increasingly neutralist public opinion, and they are supported by business interests eager to increase trade with Red China. All week long Japanese officials paid studied calls upon U.S. friends to reassure them that full cooperation with the U.S. remains the "immutable foundation" of Japanese policy. The fact is, however, that Russia would pay much for Japanese recognition of Red China, and for the major discord among U.S. allies that such a move would signify.

The Russians also could pay much: trade and fishing concessions, or the return of Southern Sakhalin and the speckled Kuril Islands of Japan's northwestern shores, or the return, say, of 10,000 Japanese P.W.s still held in Soviet labor camps. And the Russians, as usual, could gain much by dangling such baubles without delivering them. Obeying Japan's new impulse to neutralism, Mamoru Shigemitsu commented that "there is need for a careful study of the sincerity of the Russian statement." Molotov's initiative, he added, was "a big step forward."

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