U.S. Oil Policy Towards Japan And Its Impact On US-Japan Relations(1973-1975)

After World War II,the United States established an international petroleum system dominated by the United States through multinational oil companies.Oil has not only commodity property,but also political property.Therefore,it has become an important tool for the United States to promote hegemony in the world.With the change of the cold war situation and the revival of Japanese economy,Japan has become more and more prominent in the global strategy of the United States.The United States maintains its influence on Japan's oil industry and oil policy by formulating and adjusting its oil policy towards Japan,making Japan's development highly dependent on the United States and international oil companies,thus ensuring the stability of the bilateral relations between the United States and Japan.During the oil crisis of 1973-1974,the United States changed its orientation and policy towards Japan as it shifted to an oil policy focused on responding to the crisis.Since the impact of the crisis has gone beyond the scope of bilateral oil diplomacy between the United States and Japan,the United States has actively promoted Japan's participation in the multilateral energy cooperation mechanism led by the United States to ensure the security of Japan's oil supply.At the same time,the United States finds that multilateral cooperation is an effective way to eliminate the oil policy differences between the United States and Japan.By building a broad consensus on cooperation,the United States and Japan can effectively ease the friction on the oil issue,make up for the shortcomings of bilateral diplomacy,and consolidate the alliance between the United States and Japan.In addition,the United States maintained its dominant position in the international energy field after the oil crisis by building up multilateral cooperation institutions for oil consumers with Allies such as Japan,and maintained its influence over Japan on oil issues by strengthening energy cooperation with Japan.This paper explores the adjustment process of American oil policy towards Japan,summarizes the reasons and characteristics of policy formulation and adjustment,and analyzes the impact of policy changes on US-japan relations.The first chapter mainly discusses the evolution of American oil policy towards Japan after World War II.This paper argues that before the first oil crisis,the US oil policy towards Japan was mainly adjusted for three times.The first was in the early days of the occupation.In order to eradicate Japan's ability to wage war and ensure that Japan would not become a threat to the United States,the American government restricted the development of Japan's oil industry through strict control measures and compensation policies.The second time was after 1948,in order to achieve the revival of the Japanese economy,the United States strongly supported the reconstruction of the Japanese oil industry through the international oil companies.In this process,the international oil companies established the monopoly position over the Japanese oil industry.The third time was after the 1960 s,with the emergence of Japanese oil policy autonomy and the change of American international oil strategy,the United States began to promote the diversification of Japanese oil supply.At the same time,the influence of the United States on Japan's oil industry and oil policy was maintained by strengthening the development and cooperation with Japan in the upstream of the oil industry.The second chapter mainly analyzes the American policy towards Japan in the early stage of the oil crisis.To maintain the unity of the US-Japan alliance and ease the pressure of the oil embargo,the United States acts both multilaterally and bilaterally.Easing Japan's worries about energy supplies and easing pressure for an oil embargo by pushing it to join US-led multilateral co-operation program known as the emergency distribution plan and the "sharing of the pain".At the same time,the United States tried to stabilize Japan's neutral position by conciliating,visiting and other bilateral diplomatic means,and resisted the differentiation measures of Arab countries towards the us-japan alliance.However,the US policy did not achieve the desired effect,and Japan deviated from the international policy of the United States under the pressure of the oil embargo,which caused the two countries to disagree on foreign policy for the first time since the second world war and worsened the bilateral relations between the United States and Japan.The third chapter mainly expounds the American policy towards Japan during the post-oil crisis.Due to bilateral conflicts and differences in foreign policy between the United States and Japan,the United States has played down bilateral oil ties with Japan and advocated building consensus through multilateral diplomacy to jointly deal with the oil crisis.In this regard,the energy action group plan proposed by Kissinger and the Washington energy conference initiated by Nixon played an important role,enabling the United States and Japan to establish closer cooperation in multilateral diplomacy.In turn,the two countries' differences on oil issues were ironed out,and the US-Japan alliance was strengthened.The fourth chapter mainly explores the adjustment of American policy towards Japan after the oil crisis.The oil crisis made the United States realize the importance of a multilateral consumer cooperation mechanism.In order to maintain the leadership position of the United States in the energy field and further consolidate the US-Japan alliance,the United States actively promotes Japan's participation in the US-led International Energy Program and long-term energy cooperation program.At the same time,as the United States and Japan have patched up their differences on oil,the United States is actively cooperating with Japan in energy exploration and research and development to promote the development of bilateral relations.To sum up,the reason for the United States to adjust its oil policy towards Japan is to adapt to the changes in the international energy situation and the international oil strategy of the United States.It effectively consolidated the relationship between the United States,Japan and other industrialized countries by coordinating Japan's oil strategy and broadening the ways and scope of energy cooperation.Above all,the US has maintained its dominance of the oil sector by improving international mechanisms for multilateral co-operation and gaining the support of Allies such as Japan.