A Choice Between The Contradiction Of UN Mechanism And Unilateral Peace

After the Second World War, Japan has long been prospecting the approach ofentering United Nations, the most authoritative international organization. In the early1950s, the tense situation in global scale began to lessen, together with the growingdomestic dissatisfaction with Japan’s making unilateral peace with the US. Togetherwith the post-war economic growth and active ethos, HATOYAMA ICHIROUCabinet came upon the political center as both the Anti-YOSHIDA group and theleader of new combined conservative Japanese Liberal Democratic Party.Meanwhile, the Soviet Union overruled the motion of Japan’s application ofentering UN, which was recommended by the United States. However, the US didn’taccomplish restraining the Soviet Union from using the veto power. TheHATOYAMA Cabinet realized that the unilateral peace could not help Japan to dealwith the obstacle caused by the Soviet Union’s taking advantage of UN’s mechanism,and then decided to take steps to entry UN diplomacy against the opposition groups.By persisting pragmatic diplomatic strategy and coordinating domestic andinternational pressure, HATOYAMA Cabinet achieved in a deal with the Soviet Unionof supporting Japan to become a member of the UN by HATOYAMA’s resigning.This paper drives to the conclusion that the HATOYAMA Cabinet designed thisdiplomatic practice neither as the end of Japan’s foreign policy of following the UN,nor as the sprout of the ethos of “Japan’s UN-Centric Policy” later on. It was in naturethe first time that the Japanese government had to deal with the relationship with theSoviet Union for solving the diplomatic contradiction between the UN mechanismand the unilateral peace, which bore significant influence toward Japanese diplomaticpolicy and reflected the function of UN under the limitation of the Cold War.