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

YOSHIDA LETTER • 269
YOSHIDA DOCTRINE. Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida established
this doctrine, which became a consistent Japanese post–World War
II political philosophy. The Yoshida Doctrine consists of three primary
principles. First, Japan is on the Western side in the Cold War
and makes Japan’s alliance with the United States its basis of diplomacy.
Second, in terms of national security, Japan depends on the
United States and limits its defense forces to its minimum. Third,
Japan emphasizes economic diplomacy. In order to gain independence
as soon as possible, Yoshida was confirmed that this is the most practical
way for Japan. Both the Hayato Ikeda and Eisaku Sato administrations
in the 1960s firmly inherited Yoshida’s philosophy and established
it as Japan’s mainstream policy. See also DEFENSE.
YOSHIDA, KIYONARI (1845–1891). From Satsuma, Yoshida was
an early Japanese university student in England and the United
States, and later held a number of posts in the Meiji government, including
Japan’s minister to the United States in the late 1870s. While
in the United States as a student in the late 1860s, Yoshida attended
Monson Academy in Massachusetts and Rutgers College in New
Jersey. He also lived with the Brotherhood of the New Life in upstate
New York from 1867 to 1868. Later, as Japan’s minister to the
United States, he helped plan former President Ulysses S. Grant’s
visit to Japan in 1879.
YOSHIDA LETTER. The Yoshida Letter, written by Prime Minister
Shigeru Yoshida and sent to U.S. Secretary of State John Foster
Dulles in December 1951, informed the U.S. government that Japan
would recognize the Nationalist Chinese government in Taiwan as
the official government of China. As representatives from China to
the 1952 San Francisco Peace Conference, the United States
wanted to invite the Nationalist Chinese government, whereas Great
Britain preferred the victorious communists who had taken control of
the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Because the two Western
powers could not agree on which representative to invite, neither the
PRC nor the Nationalist Chinese government attended the San Francisco
conference. The effect of this on Japan is that it was left on its
own to decide which of the two competing Chinese political organizations
it would engage in concluding a Sino–Japan peace treaty.