Historical Dictionary of United States-Japan ... - Bakumatsu Films

238 • STONEWALL, CSS
position, he continued until Pearl Harbor to advocate a hardline
policy toward Japan’s hegemonic aspirations. Toward the end of
the war, he promoted the use of the atomic bomb. He also believed
that Washington should assure Tokyo that surrender would not endanger
the institution of the emperor. He resigned his post as Secretary
of War in September 1945, soon after Japan’s surrender.
STONEWALL, CSS. Built by a French shipbuilding company and sold
to the Confederate States of America in 1864, the ironclad ram CSS
Stonewall arrived in the United States too late to help the Confederacy
turn the tide in the American Civil War. The ship was sold by
the United States government to the Tokugawa shogunate in 1867,
but delivered to the new Meiji government after the fall of the Tokugawa
government in early 1868. Under the name Kotetsu (literally
“ironclad”), the ship took part in the Battle of Hakodate in 1869, the
last significant battle between the new Meiji imperial forces and supporters
of the fallen Tokugawa government. Renamed Azuma, the
former CSS Stonewall served in the Imperial Japanese Navy until
1888. See also BOSHIN WAR.
STRUCTURAL IMPEDIMENTS INITIATIVE (SII). During the
U.S.–Japan summit meeting at the Arche Summit in July 1989 attended
by U.S. President George H. W. Bush and Japanese Prime
Minister Sosuke Uno, the two leaders formally decided to establish
the Japan–U.S. Structural Impediments Initiative. The first Structural
Impediments talks were held in Tokyo in September 1989, while later
talks alternated between the two countries’ capitals until the initiative
process ended in June 1990. Starting in the mid-1980s, new frictions
in the Japan–U.S. economic and trade relationship began to surface.
The problem areas were individual commodities, such as automobiles
and semiconductors, and a structural trade imbalance arising
from certain institutional and business practices. In July 1990, the final
report of the Structural Impediments talks was issued.
The purpose of this was to supplement economic policy cooperation
efforts for correcting foreign trade imbalances and to distinguish
and solve structural impediments that had become barriers to adjusting
trade and the balance of international payments between Japan
and the United States.