Japan still remembers the vital role played by the Old Fox JRJ in the San Fransisco peace conference. Otherwise Japan would not will be in this position today.
There's a JRJ Memorial Monument in the Kamakura Temple.
The NewYork Times reported (28 April 1952)
“The voice of free Asia, eloquent, melancholy and still strong with the tilt of an Oxford accent, dominated the Japanese peace treaty conference today.”
The Soviets had other plans. The Cold War time politics is too detailed to write here but anyone can read his speech and also about the politics behind this at that time. JRJ thwarted the Soviet delegates moves.
< It is the Sri Lankan Minister’s remarks filled with sarcasm on the amendments with which the Soviet Union sought to “insure to the people of Japan the fundamental freedoms of expression, of press and publication of religious worship, of political opinion and of public meeting – freedoms, which he said, the people of the Soviet Union themselves would dearly love to possess and enjoy,” .
Disagreeing with the Soviet Union, the Sri Lankan Minister said: “the reason why, therefore, we cannot agree to the amendments proposed by the Soviet delegate, is that this treaty proposes to return to Japan sovereignty, equality and dignity, and we cannot do so if we give them with qualifications. The purpose of the treaty then is to make Japan free, to impose no restrictions on Japan’s recovery, to see to it that she organizes her own military defence against external aggression, and internal subversion, and that until she does so, she invites the aid of a friendly power to protect her, and that no reparations be exacted from her that harm her economy.” >
Also his famous closing words..
“This treaty is as magnanimous as it is just to a defeated foe. We extend to Japan a hand of friendship, and trust that with the closing of this chapter in the history of man, the last page of which we write today, and with the beginning of the new one, the first page of which we dictate tomorrow, her people and ours may march together to enjoy the full dignity of human life in peace and prosperity.”
