Far Eastern Commission

It was agreed at the Moscow Conference of Foreign Ministers, and made public in communique issued at the end of the conference on December 27, 1945 that the Far Eastern Advisory Commission (FEAC) would become the Far Eastern Commission (FEC), it would be based in Washington, and would oversee the Allied Council for Japan. As agreed in the communique the FEC and the Council were dismantled following the Japanese Peace Treaty of September 8, 1951.

The arrangement of commission overseeing a council was similar to those that the Allies had put in place for overseeing the defeated Axis powers in Europe. It was a mirror image of those Axis countries, like Hungary, which fell to the Soviet Union and were occupied by the Red Army alone, Japan having fallen to the United States and occupied by the U.S. Army, the United States was given the dominant position on the Tokyo based Allied Council for Japan. The change in name of the FEAC to FEC was significant because as the U.S. Secretary of State James F. Byrnes reported after the Conference "As early as August 9 we invited the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and China to join with us in carrying out the objectives of the Potsdam Declaration and the Terms of Surrender for Japan. The Far Eastern Advisory Commission was established in October, but Great Britain had reservations regarding its advisory character, and the Soviet Union requested a decision regarding control machinery in Tokyo before joining the work of the Commission". [ [http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/decade/decade19.htm Interim Meeting of Foreign Ministers, Moscow: Report by Secretary Byrnes on Moscow Meeting] , December 30, 1944] [ [http://www.ndl.go.jp/constitution/e/shiryo/01/019shoshi.html US proposals for The Far Eastern Advisory Commission Terms of Reference (SWNCC 65/7)] August 21, 1945 ]

The Far Eastern Commission formulated policies for Japan to fulfil under the terms of surrender it consisted of 13 members , decisions were taken by a majority vote but U.S., U.K, USSR, and China were able to veto decisions made in the commission.Between 10 July 1947 and 23 December 1948 the FEC made 13 policy decisions which fell into three categories: disarmament; democratization; and economic recovery. [ [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0020-8183(194902)3%3A1%3C180%3AFEC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-8 Far Eastern Commission] International Organization, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Feb., 1949), pp. 180-182]

Disarmament

In order to further remove Japan as a potential future threat to the U.S. the Far Eastern Commission decided that Japan was to be partly de-industrialized. The necessary dismantling of Japanese industry was foreseen to have been achieved when Japanese standards of living had been reduced to those existing in Japan the period 1930 - 1934. [Frederick H. Gareau "Morgenthau's Plan for Industrial Disarmament in Germany" The Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 2 (Jun., 1961), pp. 531] [(Note: A footnote in Gareau also states: "For a text of this decision, see Activities of the Far Eastern Commission. Report of the Secretary General, February, 1946 to July 10, 1947, Appendix 30, p. 85.")] (see Great Depression)

References

* [http://www.info.dfat.gov.au/info/historical/HistDocs.nsf/vVolume/C1A0561F3A0D928ACA256B7E002F2484 Establishment of the Commission] Minter to Makin Letter CANBERRA, 3 January 1946. An Historical Publication on the website of the Australian Government's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Further reading

* [http://www.ndl.go.jp/constitution/e/shiryo/03/053shoshi.html 3-4 Establishing Far Eastern Commission and its Meetings with GHQ] Documents with Commentaries Part 3 Formulation of the GHQ Draft and Response of the Japanese Government
* [http://210.128.252.171/constitution/e/shiryo/04/126/126_001r.html Transcript of Twenty-Seventh Meeting of the Far Eastern Commission] , Held in Main Conference Room, 2516 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W., Saturday, September 21, 1946
* [http://www.ndl.go.jp/constitution/e/etc/glossary.html Glossary of abbreviations] relating to the Birth of the Constitution of Japan. (National Diet Library website)

Footnotes