Published on February 19, 2020.
This article introduces Masayuki Takayama’s column in Shukan Shincho and discusses the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, the MacArthur Constitution, U.S. military bases in Japan, and the so-called “cork in the bottle” remark.
It argues that postwar Japan remains within an American system of surveillance, while also criticizing Makoto Iokibe’s understanding of history and Japan-China relations, pointing to China’s continued hostility through the Nanjing Massacre narrative, arrests of Japanese citizens, and schemes around the Senkaku Islands.

February 19, 2020
Is he the kind of person who will listen to persuasion?
Besides, China still spreads the lie of the Nanjing Massacre, arrests Japanese nationals at will, and plots schemes over the Senkaku Islands.
What part of that is a “good Japan-China relationship”?
The following is from Masayuki Takayama’s serial column, which appears at the very end of Shukan Shincho, released today.
This week, once again, he proves that he is the one and only journalist in the postwar world.
Readers not only in Japan but throughout the world will surely exclaim, “He is extraordinary!”
Full of Guantanamos
The Ground Self-Defense Force occasionally opens its live-fire exercises at the foot of Mount Fuji to the general public.
Because, under the constraints of a foolish constitution, it cannot be called military force, it is called a firepower exercise.
Every time, 900,000 people apply, and 30,000 are able to watch.
When I went there quite some time ago, Makoto Iokibe, president of the National Defense Academy, was there.
It is not as though I did not know him at all.
Out of the habit of a former newspaper reporter, I called out, “Hello.”
The moment he looked at me, he made a very unpleasant face and turned away.
I thought that was rude, but a person accompanying me admonished me, saying, “After writing that much abuse about him, expecting him to look pleased is asking too much.”
It is true that I had taken him up in this column, or perhaps elsewhere.
Pearl Harbor, where Roosevelt trapped Japan.
He denied that by saying, “There is no evidence.”
What kind of swindler leaves a document saying, “I deceived them”?
He is convinced that “justice was on America’s side, and it defeated evil Japan.”
I certainly wrote, “Why is such a man president of the National Defense Academy?”
It may have been fortunate that it did not turn into a sword-drawing incident.
In fact, at this firepower exercise, I met one more interesting naval officer.
His name was Stackpole.
I asked whether he might be a relative of Major General Henry Stackpole, who had been commander of the Okinawa Marines a little earlier, and he proudly replied, “I am his nephew.”
So when I asked him the meaning of the “cork in the bottle” that his uncle had spoken of, he fell silent.
The major general’s remarks appeared in The Washington Post in March 1990.
“If U.S. forces withdraw, Japan will immediately return to being a military power and will also acquire nuclear weapons at once,” and “U.S. forces in Japan are the cork in the bottle to prevent Japan from becoming so.”
To put it more plainly, it means that Japan is the same as Cuba.
If Cuba, located at America’s flank, were allowed to do as it pleased, it would immediately draw in the Soviet Union, and the Cuban Missile Crisis occurred.
To prevent that, at the end of the nineteenth century, the United States militarily occupied Cuba and imposed on it a constitution that forced it to relinquish both diplomatic rights and the right to take military action.
Furthermore, it placed a powerful U.S. military base at Guantanamo so that, if an anti-American uprising occurred, it could be suppressed immediately.
In that way, Cuba could be kept under control until Castro appeared.
Japan is the same.
The MacArthur Constitution deprived Japan of both military power and the right of belligerency.
Moreover, Stackpole ended up saying that “in the name of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, Guantanamos were placed all over Japan.”
It was laughable to see Joseph Nye and Armitage, who had pretended to be pro-Japanese while deceiving Japan, become startled and run around denying it.
But if one looks calmly, if the purpose were preparedness against the Soviet Union and Communist China, Hokkaido would be the most suitable place, yet there is not a single one there.
Most of them are placed as though enclosing Tokyo.
The Marine bases in Okinawa are strange as well.
The landing ships necessary for the Marines to go into action are not deployed there.
Instead, high-speed transport aircraft are deployed.
When something happens, they fly from there to Yokota and subdue Tokyo.
That is because landing ships would not make it in time.
At that time, the Seventh Fleet in Yokosuka would also, like Perry, bombard the capital from Tokyo Bay.
China knows this, and when it proposed dividing the Pacific with the United States, it suggested, “If you like, we can also take over as the cork in the bottle.”
Japan was disarmed by a strange constitution, and then, in the name of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, mountains of bases for monitoring Japan were placed throughout the country.
Nobusuke Kishi said that this was wrong.
“You bear the responsibility for having disarmed us.
At the very least, when China or Korea attacks us, defend Japan,” he said, and revised the Security Treaty.
This year marks exactly sixty years since Karoji and Nishibe, who understood nothing, raised their voices in opposition to the revision of the Security Treaty.
At that milestone, Iokibe published in the Asahi a comment that still showed he understood nothing: “The U.S.-Japan Security Treaty had benefits both for Japan, which had no national defense capability, and for the United States, which wanted bases it could use freely in the Far East.”
He does not even question why Japan has no national defense capability.
Regarding China’s rampage, he also says, “Abe should make use of the current good Japan-China relationship to persuade Xi Jinping.”
Is he the kind of person who will listen to persuasion?
Besides, China still spreads the lie of the Nanjing Massacre, arrests Japanese nationals at will, and plots schemes over the Senkaku Islands.
What part of that is a “good Japan-China relationship”?