PEACE CONFERENCE NEXT YEAR— Separate Treaty With Japan If Necessary

Greymouth Evening Star, 8 November 1949, Page 5

PEACE CONFERENCE NEXT YEAR— Separate Treaty With Japan If Necessary

WASHINGTON, November 7 (Rec. 10.45 a.m.). —A peace conference with Japan will probably be held with or without the Communist nations towards the middle of 1950. State Department officials regard the treaty as a means, for establishing a new basis for Japan’s future and they have made It clear that they will strenuously resist any effort to write 'a punitive treaty. Security For Japan

Simultaneously with the peace conference, the American Government will negotiate a military treaty with Japan, providing for United States land, sea and air bases in Japan for five to 10 years. Their primary, purpose, according to responsible informants, would be to secure Japan against any Communist attack from the Asiatic mainland. The British Foreign Secretary, Mr Ernest Bevin, now favours a separate peace treaty with Japan if Russia and the Chinese Communist Government continue to insist that negotiations mus<t be conducted through the Council of Foreign Ministers, says

Reuter in a London message, quoting an informed source. It is understood that Mr Bevin pressed strongly during his September discussions with Mr Dean Acheson in Washington for some means of ending the state of war with Japan. It would be unthinkable for British opinion, conscious of the immense part played in the Far Eastern war by the Dominions Governments, to accept a peace settlement through a body composed, at most, of the Big Five. British officials in London deny reports that there is already an Anglo-American draft treaty with Japan. American Attitude ‘ It is generally believed in diplomatic quarters that Mr Acheson, unlike Mr Bevin, is not yet convinced that it would be useful to conclude a treaty without the co-operation o? Russia or Communist China.

American opinion apparently is that no Japanese Government would feel secure after having signed a peace which lacked the support of its two most powerful nations.