Photo/Illutration A document on Japan-U.S. relations compiled in the late 1950s, left, which was released by the Foreign Ministry as part of routine disclosure in 2010, and a copy of the same document that was released after it was blackened out in response to information disclosure made in 2017. (Naotaka Fujita)

When asked to release a record on talks with Washington on Okinawa's return to Japan and other diplomatic documents inked about half a century ago, the Foreign Ministry refused, citing security risks.

However, it was later discovered that some of the documents requested by The Asahi Shimbun had already been made public, suggesting that official records could be held back based on arbitrary standards.

The revelation of the ministry’s slipshod handling of an information disclosure request comes as other government ministries and agencies have been criticized for questionable management of documents.

One of the documents the ministry refused to release to The Asahi Shimbun was dated July 15, 1968. It discussed how to proceed with reversion of Okinawa to Japan from the United States in negotiations with U.S. government officials.

The five-page document outlined Japan’s negotiation policy, which was written by Fumihiko Togo, a senior official in charge of the matter at the Foreign Ministry. The document was treated as top secret when it was produced.

Okinawa, which came under U.S. military control following Japan’s defeat in World War II, was returned to Japan in 1972.

The Asahi Shimbun requested the release of documents in 2017 based on the information-disclosure law to review bilateral negotiations around 1970 concerning the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty.

The document on talks on Okinawa’s return was one of the records the ministry disclosed. But it was mostly blackened out, except for the first page containing its title.

The ministry makes it a rule to publish documents, in principle, 30 years after they were compiled.

But it kept almost all of this particular document under wraps, citing the risks of “undermining Japan’s security and relationship of trust with the United States and other countries.”

The Asahi Shimbun took the issue to the Information Disclosure and Personal Information Protection Review Board at the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications to dispute the Foreign Ministry’s rejection.

After the board concluded that the document should be made public, the Foreign Ministry made it available in its entirety in August.

The fully released parts were about the U.S. military bringing nuclear weapons to Okinawa during a time of great emergency, a key point in the negotiations over Okinawa’s reversion.

But The Asahi Shimbun learned when it asked researchers about the topic that the ministry already released records of the same content from 2010.

The records were released after the Democratic Party of Japan investigated past secret pacts between the two countries while it was in power.

The Foreign Ministry’s haphazard handling of government records is not limited to just this case.

Yujin Fuse, a freelance journalist specializing in defense issues, asked the ministry two years ago for the disclosure of documents compiled in the latter half of the 1950s on talks on the revision of the Japan-U.S. Administrative Agreement, the predecessor of the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement.

In response, the ministry blackened out parts or all of the 26 of 27 documents he requested, similarly citing risks of hurting national security and relations with the United States.

When The Asahi Shimbun examined those documents after they were provided by Fuse, it discovered that the documents’ appearances were identical to those already released by the ministry as part of the routine disclosure since 2010.

Fuse conveyed the finding to the ministry, which finally disclosed in September all the documents he had requested after acknowledging that those records have already been published in fact.

The Foreign Ministry promised to prevent a recurrence of such blunders.

“The two incidents took place when a limited number of ministry employees had to deal with numerous requests for information disclosure and the deadline prescribed by the information-disclosure law,” the ministry said.