Reconsidering the Ashida memorandum: the relations between the emergency stationing plan and police reform

Abstract This article explores the origins of Japan’s security policy after the Asia-Pacific War. During the occupation, the Japanese government decided on the maintenance of US forces in the country after the Japanese Peace Treaty. To explain the rationale behind this, existing studies emphasize the Japanese government’s external security calculations. Highlighting the interaction between Japanese foreign and domestic policies, this article challenges this conventional claim by arguing that internal security calculations strongly influenced the Japanese government’s decision. With the creation of the Ashida memorandum in September 1947 and the expectation that the General Headquarters (GHQ) would allow for stronger police forces, Japanese Foreign Minister Ashida Hitoshi and his staff sought to restrict the stationing of US forces in Japan only to national emergencies. As opposed to such expectation, however, GHQ’s police reform significantly weakened Japan’s internal security capabilities, forcing Tokyo to depend on US forces for dealing with internal communist threats.