Abstract: The adjustment of the Abe administration’s foreign policy on China from tension toward détente was achieved through the combination of internal and external factors such as the China School within the Japanese ruling coalition, Japan’s business community and US economic protectionism. Starting from the promotion of bilateral interaction by means of the China-Japan Ruling Party Exchange Mechanism to discussing the feasibility of China-Japan economic and trade cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and influenced by US trade protectionism in particular, the Abe administration decided to implement foreign policy that would ease tensions between China and Japan, claiming that China-Japan relations “has entered the era of coordination from that of competition.” The adjustment of the Abe administration’s China policy is still tactical, and it remains uncertain whether Japan can adhere to the spirit of the four political documents signed between China and Japan and implement the four-point principled agreement they reached. Full text available here.
Country or Region: Japan
Fan, Xiaoju
Abstract: At the end of 2017, reports concerning Japan’s military and security affairs were frequently seen in the media, bringing the strategic agenda of Japan again to the attention of the outside world. First, the National Security Guarantee Strategy formulated in 2013 and initially intended to cover a 10-year period, is likely to undergo adjustments at the end of 2018. It is generally believed that the Japanese government is considering adding contents such as the Indo-Pacific pact and developing the capability to launch attacks on enemy bases in the revised strategy. Correspondingly, Japan will initiate discussions on the revision of the National Defense Program Outline early in 2018, which will be guided by the new security strategy as well as focus on how to reflect the US-Japan military cooperation after the new security law is implemented and how to respond to the US demand to increase the purchase of American arms. Full text available here.
Young, Jason
Abstract: Responses to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) have been mixed. Many commentators have welcomed the opportunity for infrastructure development and projects to build economic, political and social connectivity across the region. Others have been openly critical or slow to formulate a clear position. In general, advanced economies have responded less positively than developing economies. This paper employs a constructivist approach to interpret responses to the BRI in advanced economies through analysis of commentary in the United States, the European Union, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. It identifies a diversity of responses within and among these economies and a strong ideational coherence in the frameworks used to assess the BRI. It is concluded that the reception of Chinese-promoted concepts in international affairs, like the BRI, remains challenging due to the dominance of liberal and realist assessments and the accompanying political values. This suggests a need for greater intellectual engagement and more substantial feedback between China and the advanced economies, so as to open the way for a long overdue regional conversation on how development is conceptualized and co-created in a region with diverse approaches to regional economic policy. Full text available here.
He, Kai
Abstract: This article proposes a new concept of ‘contested multilateralism 2.0’ to describe the puzzling institutional building efforts by non-ASEAN members after the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC) in the Asia-Pacific. It suggests that different to ‘multilateralism 1.0’ of the 1990s, which was mainly led by ASEAN, this wave of multilateralism has been initiated by other powers, such as the United States, China, Japan, Australia and South Korea, either by forming new institutions or by reinvigorating existing ones. This article advances an institutional balancing argument. It suggests that ‘contested multilateralism 2.0’ is a result of institutional balancing among major states under the conditions of high strategic uncertainty and high economic interdependence after the GFC. One unintended consequence may be that it could well lead to a more peaceful transformation of the regional order in the Asia-Pacific if regional security hotspots, such as the Korean crisis and the South China Sea dispute, can be managed appropriately. Full text available here.
Grønning, Bjørn Elias Mikalsen
Abstract: Japan is abandoning its once unidirectional foreign security policy towards the USA, two notable examples of which are its increasingly comprehensive and substantial security relations with the Philippines and Vietnam. Putting these burgeoning Japanese security partnerships front and center, this paper asks the following questions: What are the characteristics of Japan’s maturing security partnerships with the Philippines and Vietnam? What factors have driven and enabled their recent emergence? What promotes and constrains their future development? What do these maturing Japanese non-US security partnerships reveal about Japan’s direction as a security actor in and beyond East Asia? The paper finds that these two Japanese security bilaterals, which have six basic characteristics in common, are fundamentally driven by the contemporary shift in the balance of power and the strategic challenge that China’s emerging maritime power and ambitions present Japan. It moreover argues that the substantiation of these security partnerships have been pursued under American auspices and further invited by Japanese nationalism and security legislative reforms. Notwithstanding these encouraging factors, however, domestic and geo-strategic constraints and counter incentives lead this paper to expect further substantiation, but limited military significance in the future of these security partnerships.
Ishibashi, Natsuyo
Abstract: Japan’s policy toward India since 2000 appears to be a sign of new directions in Japan’s security policy since its decision to establish a strategic partnership with India is different from the previous policy of exclusive bilateralism centering on the US–Japan alliance. Nonetheless, Japan’s recent security partnership with India is part of Japan’s long-term effort to support the US-led liberal political and economic order in East Asia. This paper argues that Japan’s policy toward India since 2000 has evolved toward becoming fully aligned with US policy toward the Indo-Pacific region. The critical shift in Tokyo’s policy toward India came in spring 2005, when Japanese political leaders and policy elites came to recognize India as an important balancer against China as a result of the violent anti-Japanese demonstrations in China. They decided to support including India into the East Asian Summit and incorporated India into their new values diplomacy. This shift in Japan’s policy toward India, along with efforts to increase interoperability between Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Forces and Indian Navy, coincides with US strategy to bring India into the US-led coalition to balance against China
Wilkins, Thomas S
Abstract: This article argues that the creation of ‘strategic partnerships’ as an alternative form of alignment represents an effort by Tokyo, and other US-allies, to ‘decenter’ their respective security policies from their erstwhile over-dependence on Washington. By examining the nature, purpose, and dynamics of strategic partnerships more closely, and investigating the empirical case of Australia, we can gain a greater appreciation of their significance both to Japan’s evolving security policy and the broader role they play in the Asia Pacific security landscape. The article argues that Australia has been the most significant and successful of Japan’s new strategic partnerships to date, has therefore come to represent the template for other new alignments, and hence provides a yardstick against which their effectiveness can be measured. It concludes that while the strategic partnership certainly represents a new departure for Japanese security policy – ostensibly independent of the US-alliance – closer inspection reveals how this relationship remains fundamentally bound to the broader American-hub-and-spokes system.
Yuzawa, Takeshi
Abstract: Why has Japan attempted to promote Asian security multilateralism for over two decades despite its open acknowledgment of the vital centrality of the US–Japan alliance in its overall foreign and security policy? Why has Japan’s pursuit of regional security multilateralism sometimes swayed between an inclusive ‘Asia-Pacific’ (with the US) and an exclusive ‘East Asian’ format (without the US)? This article examines the nature of Japan’s approach to Asian security multilateralism through a new analytical model based on the decentering/recentering framework and major theoretical assumptions deriving from neoclassical realism. It unpacks the process by which Japanese policy-makers have come to recognize Asian security multilateralism as a means of advancing perceived political and security interests, arising from international pressures and opportunities. The analysis is divided into three phases; (1) Japan’s leading role in the formation of the ASEAN Regional Forum (1991–1994), (2) Japan’s initiatives for the establishment of the ASEAN Plus Three and the East Asian Summit (1997–2005), and (3) Japan’s renewed focus on the EAS with US membership (2010-onwards). The article reveals the changing dynamics of the ideas and motivations behind Japan’s initiatives for Asian security multilateralism.
Midford, Paul
Abstract: This article poses the question of why, after having consistently pursued an isolationist strategy of avoiding security ties with partners other than the US, and having followed the US in opposing regional security multilateralism, did Japan suddenly reverse course and get out in front of the US with its first post-war regional security initiative. This article addresses this question by tracing the internal debates, policy process and motivations that drove Japan to reverse its position, a process that transformed Japan into the leading champion of regional security multilateralism in East Asia.
Hughes, Chris
Abstract: Japan’s lifting of its arms export ban through the Three Principles on the Transfer of Defense Equipment and Technology has opened up new strategic opportunities for its policy-makers to reinforce existing, and build new, security partnerships. Japan still retains the intent to sustain and develop an indigenous defense production base, now through international collaboration rather than mainly autonomous production, and the leverage this may provide to hedge within and outside the US–Japan alliance framework. However, this paper demonstrates that Japan’s principal objective through international arms transfers is very much to use this as a mechanism to strengthen Japan’s integration of capabilities into the US–Japan alliance and overall US ‘rebalance’ strategy in East Asia. Japan’s main moves in developing an arms transfer strategy have either revolved around US–Japan bilateral projects, or cooperation with US allies and partners. Moreover, Japan’s continuing deficiencies in military technology and experience of international collaboration on the government and private sector levels means that its arms transfer strategy remains quite limited in ambition and especially implementation.
Midford, Paul
Abstract: During the cold war the United States was overwhelmingly central in Japan’s security policy. Japan hosted US bases and the Self-Defense Forces held joint exercises with the US military, even while shunning contacts with other militaries. Japan essentially refused even to discuss security with its neighbors. Special exceptions were made for the United States in otherwise sweeping policies, such as the exception for the United States in Tokyo’s ban on weapons exports and co-development. Since the end of the cold war, Japan’s security policy has undergone a little noticed transformation: it has steadily moved away from being centered on the United States as its sole security partner. Tokyo has initiated bilateral security dialogues with its Asian neighbors and assumed a leadership role in promoting regional multilateral security cooperation as a supplement to the US alliance. Japan has begun building bilateral security partnerships with a range of countries and actors, from Australia and India to the European Union. Paradoxically these changes have occurred even as the US–Japan alliance has strengthened. The articles in this special issue examine these new security ties with states and multilateral organizations, and other changes in policy that have made the United States less ‘special,’ such as by allowing arms exports to other actors.
Chun, JaHyun, and Daeun Choi
Abstract: This study investigates the causes of Japan’s failure to reconcile the matter of South Korean “comfort women” from World War II. It draws on reconciliation theory to determine the cause of failure by Japan. After a review of the literature on this issue with an emphasis on its history, the effect of Japan’s problem‐solving attempts, and the backlash after the 2015 “comfort women” agreement, we call attention to Japan’s weak civil society and its distortion of history in textbooks as internal causes of this failure. Moreover, we highlight the US–ROK–Japan trilateral security cooperation as an external cause of the deterioration of the reconciliation attempts. We conclude by noting that internal and external factors have made it more difficult for Japan to reconcile the matter of South Korean “comfort women.”
Oh, Seung Jin
Abstract: East Asia is still politically and diplomatically divided while increasingly becoming integrated economically. East Asian states, excluding Japan, share a common experience in that they were deprived of their sovereignty, in part or as a whole, by Western or Japanese colonial powers. The experience still defines current international relations among East Asian countries, raising the issue of justice in international law. International lawyers, however, have been, in general, reluctant to talk about justice in international law. Before the 19th century, international law was dominated by naturalism or natural law doctrine. The international community was composed of European states, excluding non‐Christian and non‐European states. From the early 19th century to the end of World War II, international law was dominated by these states’ will. International law had developed various principles to facilitate Western powers’ colonial occupations and in the 19th century, international law was a tool for Western colonialism and imperialism. After World War II, international law almost abolished the divide between European and non‐European, Christian and non‐Christian, and civilized and non‐civilized states. Colonization is not allowed anymore and many parts of the world that had belonged to former colonies in Africa and Asia became independent states. Further, human rights are no longer considered internal affairs of a state. Asia met with Western powers when positivism was prevalent. The relationship between China and neighboring countries, such as Korea, Burma, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Ryukyu Islands, had been maintained by a tributary system until the mid‐19th century. The China‐centered tributary system, maintained for centuries in East Asia, was replaced, however, by a capitulation system from the mid‐19th century. East Asian states concluded many unequal treaties with Western powers and East Asian people might have been confused by the paradox of the principle of equality among sovereign states and the unequal nature of the treaties that were forced against them. Efforts to recover sovereignty and to decolonize after World War II in East Asia seem to be far from satisfactory. Japan has never recognized its legal responsibility from colonialism. Even with the conclusion of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, many territorial issues still remain unresolved in East Asia. The Peace Treaty did not settle various colonialism‐related claims between Japan and neighboring countries, failing to render an effective remedy for past human rights violations. Thomas Franck argues that a rule’s legitimacy enhances its compliance. Steven R. Ratner argues that international law rules would be deemed just if they were to (i) advance international peace, and (ii) respect basic human rights. If the international community is really a legal community where states are bound by rights and duties, it should be naturally based on justice. The legacy of past colonialism in East Asia that might hinder global peace and respect for human rights should be addressed in the near future.
Lee, Seung Hyok, and Wooyeal Paik
Abstract: The Japanese often frame the history of East Asia in a “Japan versus China” dichotomy, and they have long embraced a “national narrative” that emphasizes the linkage between the Korean Peninsula and China in the traditional Confucian worldview. The narrative asserts that the peninsula has been culturally and geopolitically “attached” to China, and it has served as an important ideational backdrop to Japan’s positioning in the changing regional security environment. In this article, we analyze the origin and contents of the Japanese national narrative, and examine how it has influenced both the Japanese view of the peninsula and policy‐making. We focus on how it has reemerged in the post‐Cold War and the rising China era, and how it has been particularly applied to frame current South Korea–China relations. We then turn to analyze whether contem porary South Korean policies toward China offer evidence in support of the narrative. We conclude that the Japanese concern that South Korea could eventually “get pulled into China’s orbit” is a highly unlikely scenario, and that the Japanese narrative exhibits a time lag in incorporating contemporary factors into its historically generated storyline. South Korea’s understanding of regional politics is intrinsically different from that of the pre‐modern periods, and its relations with China are more complex than this particular Japanese narrative would suggest. Its interactions with China are guided by contemporary economic, political, and sociocultural considerations about the national interest, and the reality of the divided peninsula in the post‐Cold War period.
Ra, Jong-yil
Abstract: [Note: This a speech the author presented at the Northeast Asia Cooperation Forum hosted by the East Asia Research Center, School of International Relations, Renmin University of China, that was printed in the Journal of East Asian Affairs.] There are in general at least two aspects in any security regime among nations: One is a hard one, such as military strategic balance, diplomatic relations including treaties, organizations, and so on. There is another aspect which may comprise what may be called soft ones. Culture governs relations among people, attitude toward one another, implicit assurances about expected behaviour of the other side, and is a common value whether of implicit or explicit kind, shared identity, sense of attachment or belonging, etc. This latter aspect of the security regime in the context of Northeast Asia which I propose to address together with all who are present today, one of the reasons for doing so ebing the former aspect of the subject has been covered rather well and the latter relatively little.
