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The Northeast Asia Treaty Organization (NEATO) was a proposed international organization for collective defense in Northeast Asia. It would have comprised the United States, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. [1]
United States Secretary of State John Foster Dulles considered the possibility of forming such an alliance in the 1950s to balance against communist power and influence in Northeast Asia. [2]
Two main issues prevented the organization's creation. The first was South Korean memory of Japanese rule. In spite of outstanding questions such as Japanese property in Korea, fishing in international waters, and Koreans residing in Japan having been resolved, the psychological predisposition of Koreans against the Japanese remained.
The second was the Japanese Constitution, which outlawed Japanese use of war as a means to settle international disputes. Furthermore, due to the military alliance between the United States and Japan, the United States had undertaken the role of defending Japan in case of attack by a third power in exchange for the right to station military personnel on Japanese soil and make sympathy payments to underwrite the cost of maintaining American military bases in Japan. [3]
In lieu of the Northeast Asia Treaty Organization, the United States resorted to the San Francisco System, focusing on separate bilateral alliances with the countries of Northeast Asia.
The Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), formerly known as the Middle East Treaty Organization (METO) and also known as the Baghdad Pact, was a military alliance of the Cold War. It was formed on 24 February 1955 by Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. The alliance was dissolved on 16 March 1979.
The Treaty of San Francisco, also called the Treaty of Peace with Japan, re-established peaceful relations between Japan and the Allied Powers on behalf of the United Nations by ending the legal state of war and providing for redress for hostile actions up to and including World War II. It was signed by 49 nations on 8 September 1951, in San Francisco, California, at the War Memorial Opera House. Italy and China were not invited, the latter due to disagreements on whether the Republic of China or the People's Republic of China represented the Chinese people. Korea was also not invited due to a similar disagreement on whether South Korea or North Korea represented the Korean people.
Postwar Japan is the period in Japanese history beginning with the surrender of Japan to the Allies of World War II on 2 September 1945, and lasting at least until the end of the Shōwa era in 1989.
Bilateralism is the conduct of political, economic, or cultural relations between two sovereign states. It is in contrast to unilateralism or multilateralism, which is activity by a single state or jointly by multiple states, respectively. When states recognize one another as sovereign states and agree to diplomatic relations, they create a bilateral relationship. States with bilateral ties will exchange diplomatic agents such as ambassadors to facilitate dialogues and cooperations.
The Mutual Defense Assistance Act was a United States Act of Congress signed by President Harry S. Truman on 6 October 1949. For U.S. foreign policy, it was the first U.S. military foreign aid legislation of the Cold War era, and initially to Europe. The Act followed Truman's signing of the Economic Cooperation Act, on April 3, 1948, which provided non-military, economic reconstruction and development aid to Europe.
The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) was an international organization for collective defense in Southeast Asia created by the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty signed in September 1954 in Manila, Philippines. The formal institution of SEATO was established on 19 February 1955 at a meeting of treaty partners in Bangkok, Thailand. The organization's headquarters was also in Bangkok. Eight members joined the organization.
The First Taiwan Strait Crisis was a brief armed conflict between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC) in Taiwan. The conflict focused on several groups of islands in the Taiwan Strait that were held by the ROC but were located only a few miles from mainland China.
The Formosa Resolution of 1955 was a joint resolution passed by the U.S. Senate and signed by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower on January 29, 1955, to counteract the threat of an invasion of Taiwan by the People's Republic of China (PRC). The resolution gave the U.S. president the authority "to employ the Armed Forces of the United States as he deems necessary for the specific purpose of securing and protecting Formosa and the Pescadores against armed attack [by the Communists]".
Japan is a middle power and a member of numerous international organizations, including the United Nations, the OECD, and the Group of Seven. Although it has renounced its right to declare war, the country maintains Self-Defense Forces that rank as one of the world's strongest militaries. After World War II, Japan experienced record growth in an economic miracle, becoming the second-largest economy in the world by 1990. As of 2021, the country's economy is the third-largest by nominal GDP and the fourth-largest by PPP.
The United States foreign policy toward the People's Republic of China originated during the Cold War. At that time, the U.S. had a containment policy against communist states. The leaked Pentagon Papers indicated the efforts by the U.S. to contain China through military actions undertaken in the Vietnam War. The containment policy centered around an island chain strategy. President Richard Nixon's China rapprochement signaled a shift in focus to gain leverage in containing the Soviet Union. Formal diplomatic ties between the U.S. and China were established in 1979, and with normalized trade relations since 2000, the U.S. and China have been linked by closer economic ties and more cordial relations. In his first term as U.S. president, Barack Obama said, "We want China to succeed and prosper. It's good for the United States if China continues on the path of development that it's on".
The Australia, New Zealand, United States Security Treaty is a 1951 non-binding collective security agreement initially formed as a trilateral agreement between Australia, New Zealand, and the United States; and from 1986 an agreement between New Zealand and Australia, and separately, Australia and the United States, to co-operate on military matters in the Pacific Ocean region, although today the treaty is taken to relate to conflicts worldwide. It provides that an armed attack on any of the three parties would be dangerous to the others, and that each should act to meet the common threat. It set up a committee of foreign ministers that can meet for consultation.
The San Francisco System is a network of alliances pursued by the United States in the Asia-Pacific region, after the end of World War II – the United States as a "hub", and Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand, Australia, and New Zealand as "spokes". The system is made of bilateral political-military and economic commitments between the United States and its Asia-Pacific allies. This system stands in contrast to a multilateral alliance, such as NATO.
Pactomania is a term originally created to describe a short period of time during which the United States concluded or ratified a significant amount of alliances, treaties, and pacts. The word was first used in a New York Times article in 1955. Now, it refers to the time period from 1945 to 1955 at the beginning of the Cold War. America joined 42 alliances and agreed to nearly 100 treaties. It was a feature of President Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhowers’ Cold War strategy, influenced most by figures George Marshall, John Foster Dulles, and Senator Arthur Vandenburg.
The Mutual Defense Treaty between the United States and the Republic of China, was a defense pact signed between the United States and the Republic of China (Taiwan) effective from 1955 to 1980. It was intended to defend the island of Taiwan from invasion by the People's Republic of China. Some of its content was carried over to the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 after the failure of the Goldwater v. Carter lawsuit.
The Mutual Defense Treaty between the Republic of the Philippines and the United States of America (MDT) was signed on August 30, 1951 by their representatives in Washington, D.C. The treaty has eight articles and requires both nations to support each other if another party attacks the Philippines or the United States.
The aftermath of the Korean War set the tone for Cold War tension between superpowers. The Korean War was important in the development of the Cold War, as it showed that the two superpowers, United States and Soviet Union, could fight a "limited war" in a third country. The "limited war" or "proxy war" strategy was a feature of conflicts such as the Vietnam War and the Soviet War in Afghanistan, as well as wars in Angola, Greece, and the Middle East.
Since the early 1980s China has pursued a highly independent foreign policy, formally disavowing too close a relationship with any country or region. The stated goals of this policy were safeguarding world peace, opposing all forms of hegemony, and achieving economic modernization at home. Chinese statements repeatedly emphasized the interrelation among these goals. In other words, China needed a peaceful international environment so that adequate resources could be devoted to its ambitious development plans. The goal of economic modernization was a driving force behind China's increasingly active participation in world affairs, exemplified by its policy of opening up to the outside world, which greatly expanded Chinese economic relations with foreign countries. As part of what it called an "independent foreign policy of peace", Beijing has joined numerous international organizations, and it has maintained diplomatic relations with more nations than at any time since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. By 2007, China has diplomatic relations with 157 nations, and—in contrast with earlier periods—has been willing to interact with governments of different social systems or ideologies on a basis of peaceful coexistence, mutual respect and development.
The history of Japanese foreign relations deals with the international relations in terms of diplomacy, economics and political affairs from about 1850 to 2000. The kingdom was virtually isolated before the 1850s, with limited contacts through Dutch traders. The Meiji Restoration was a political revolution that installed a new leadership that was eager to borrow Western technology and organization. The government in Tokyo carefully monitored and controlled outside interactions. Japanese delegations to Europe brought back European standards which were widely imposed across the government and the economy. Trade flourished, as Japan rapidly industrialized.
US-China strategic engagement refers to a wide range of specific practices and interaction including economic cooperation, public diplomacy, military and foreign aid between the United States and China. This phase of engagement can be traced back to the late 1960s following an intense period of hostility caused by indirect confrontation between the two countries, particularly during the Korean War and the Vietnam War. With the US' support for Taiwan during the Taiwan Strait crises and its military expansion in the Pacific region, the relationship grew more antagonistic for the Chinese government perceive these initiatives to be US' attempt to encircle China. The domestic upheaval as a result of the Cultural Revolution in China and its commitment to communism through political radicalism accelerated the conflict. The four presidencies preceding the Bush administration were said to embrace a national policy direction toward strategic ambiguity, or deliberate ambiguity particularly in dealing with China. In October 2018, Vice President Mike Pence delivered a speech at the Hudson Institute on China, signifying the end of strategic engagement and officially proclaiming a new stage in the bilateral relationship, strategic competition.