MACARTHUR EXPECTS PEACE TREATY WITH JAPAN NEXT YEAR

Wanganui Chronicle, 7 November 1949, Page 5

MACARTHUR EXPECTS PEACE TREATY WITH JAPAN NEXT YEAR

MANILA, Nov. 5 (Recd. 7 pm).— General MacArthur expected that a peace treaty with Japan would be signed in Tokio next year, said an occupation source in Japan, who cannot be named. Communist China and the Soviet Union might be present when the Allies laid down their terms for Japan’s re-entry into world affairs, but only if they agreed to Anglo-American plans that already were well developed. After the conclusion of the treaty Japan would be invited to assure herself of security in the Communistthreatened Western Pacific by entering into a pact providing her with military defences. Details of the pact have not been completed, but Japan would have a voice in selecting from alternative plans. The source said that among the alternative plans the course considered more likely would be a pact granting the United States air, navy and army bases on long-range terms. The source represented General MacArthur as believing that, with himself sitting as a presiding but non-vot-ing mediator and adviser, “minor differences in the viewpoints’of British Commonwealth, Pacific Nations and those of the United States and the United Kingdom would quickly be compromised.—Associated Press.