Japan's Security Policy and the ASEAN Regional Forum

The Search for Multilateral Security in the Asia-Pacific

Takeshi Yuzawa

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2007
• Print ISBN: 9780415403375
• eBook ISBN: 9781134141647
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Local & Regional Planning Public Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Based on primary resources, including documents and extensive interviews with Japanese policy makers, this book provides a comprehensive and detailed empirical analysis of Japan's involvement in Asia-Pacific security multilateralism after the end of the Cold War with special reference to the ARF. Giving an in-depth account of new developments in Japan's post-Cold War security policy, Yuzawa also examines:

• Japan's initial motivations, expectations and objectives for promoting regional security multilateralism
• Japan's diplomacy for achieving these objectives and experiences in the ARF since its formation
• the effectiveness and limitations of the ARF with regards national and Asia-Pacific security
• the effects of Japan's experiences in the ARF on its initial conception of regional securty multilateralism and the implications of this for the direction of its overall security policy
• problems and difficulties that arose as a result of Japan's post-Cold War security policy of simultaneously pursuing two different security approaches - namely the strengthening of regional security institutions and the Japan-US alliance.

This book will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars of Japanese security studies, as well as international relations, Asian politics and international organizations.

1
Japan’s growing interest in Asia-Pacific security multilateralism

The road to the Nakayama proposal (1989–91)

Introduction

The main object of this chapter is to examine Japan’s changing conception of and policy towards Asia–Pacific security multilateralism in the period from the cusp of the end of the Cold War up to the Nakayama proposal (1989–91). Specifically, it asks the following questions:

1. Why did Japan suddenly change its position on regional security multilateralism and propose to establish a region-wide forum for security dialogue in 1991?
2. What were the main objectives of Japan’s multilateral security policy in this period?
3. What factors explain the rapid shift in Japan’s conceptions of and policy toward regional security multilateralism?

This chapter first briefly reviews the evolution of Japan’s security policy and its position on regional security multilateralism during the Cold War period. The second section of the chapter conducts a detailed analysis of the policy making process behind the Nakayama proposal. The analysis of this section begins with an individual level analysis, focusing on the role of Satō Yukio, a senior MOFA official, in the formation of the Nakayama proposal. Satō played a significant role in motivating the Japanese government to take the lead in promoting a region-wide security forum by advocating a new approach to the post-Cold War regional security, which became the intellectual underpinning of the Nakayama proposal. It then moves on to examine the underlying factors that influenced the Japan’s decision to take the initiative in promoting a regionwide security forum. The focus of this section includes factors at the international level, including the opportunities and uncertainties presented by changes in the regional strategic environment with the end of the Cold War. The remainder of this chapter rethinks the relationship between the individual and international levels to explain the motivations behind the Nakayama proposal.

The evolution of Japan’s security policy during the Cold War

It has been argued that Japan’s foreign and security policy during the Cold War era was ‘passive’ and ‘reactive’. While successfully ascending to great economic power status, Tokyo intentionally kept itself as far removed as possible from involvement in the Cold War contest. As a result, Japan was often criticised for eschewing international responsibilities commensurate with its economic power and pursuing a policy of ‘one nation pacifism’. Japan’s passivity in part reflected a well-defined strategy, which aimed to concentrate on the reconstruction of its economy while eschewing major military build-up by relying on the US for its national security. The strategy, which was developed by Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru and thus came to be known as the ‘Yoshida doctrine’, has served as the basic framework for Japan’s foreign and security policy ever since, though Yoshida himself admitted that Japan should not continue to rely on its security on the US.¹

In September 1951, Yoshida signed the Japan-US Security Treaty in order to keep the US forces on Japanese soil while simultaneously concluding the San Francisco Peace Treaty, which restored Japan’s sovereignty. The 1951 security treaty only granted bases to the US forces and did not oblige it to defend Japan, but the treaty was revised in 1960. The revised treaty provided that ‘the US is granted the use of bases and facilities in Japan for the purpose of contributing to the security of Japan and the maintenance of international peace and security in the Far East’ (Article VI).²

The build-up of Japanese military forces was also intentionally limited in line with the Yoshida doctrine. The intensification of the Cold War, marked by the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, led Washington to press Tokyo to initiate a major build-up of its own military force. Despite significant pressure, the Japanese government made only minimal concessions, agreeing to set up the National Safety Force (NSF) with 110,000 personnel. In 1954, Japan passed the Two Defence Laws that formed the Japan Defence Agency (JDA) and the Self Defence Force (SDF), including the ground, maritime and air forces, out of the NSF. However, Japan’s defence capability was still limited to those necessary for only minimum defence. For instance, the total number of SDF personnel was limited to 152,000, which was less than half of what Washington had demanded.³ At the same time, the Japanese government formally articulated its defence policy along the lines of the Yoshida doctrine. In 1957, the Japanese government adopted the Basic Policy of National Defence (BPND), which established general principles that not only codified Japan’s dependence on the US in dealing with external aggression against Japan but also guided the gradual development of the SDF pertinent to the nation’s power and situation.⁴

The overwhelming influence of the ‘Yoshida doctrine’ over Japan’s security policy making during 1950s and 60s also rested on the existence of a number of legal and normative constraints on Japan’s security policy. One of the major domestic constraints was the Constitution, which was promulgated in 1946. Article 9 of the Constitution, which was originally imposed by the US occupation authorities with the aim of demilitarising Japan, stated that ‘Japanese people will forever renounce use of force as a means of settling international disputes and thus not maintain land, sea and air forces as well as other war potential’. Although this peace clause caused serious disputes about the legitimacy of Japanese rearmament between the ruling and opposition parties especially in the early post-war years, since then most of the Japanese public has supported the government interpretation of the Constitution that Japan as a sovereign state has the right of both individual and collective self-defence and thus can possess the SDF as long as it is maintained strictly for self-defence purposes.⁵ However, the Japanese government has proclaimed that actual exercise of the right of collective self-defence is unconstitutional since this would exceed the minimum forces levels for self-defence.⁶ These legal constraints also generated the notion of ‘exclusive defensive defence policy’ (senshu bōei), which would legitimise the use of military forces only in the case of an attack on Japanese territories and would limit defensive forces to the minimum required for selfdefence. ⁷

The Constitution alone, however, could not place significant limits on the conduct of Japan’s security policy. This legal constraint was buttressed by anti-militarist sentiments in broad segments of the Japanese public, which grew out of the traumatic experience of total defeat in World War II, including the atomic bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Japanese public was, as a result of these experiences, highly sensitive to any policy to revise Article 9 of the Constitution and develop a more active security policy.⁸ This anti-militarism surfaced when Prime Minister Kishi Nobusuke attempted to revise the Japan-US Security Treaty in order to make Japan an equal partner of the US. Kishi’s initiative was seen by a majority of the Japanese public as a move to expand Japan’s military role and return to pre-war militarism. The move provoked the mass demonstrations that forced the cancellation of a planned visit by President Eisenhower, the largest demonstrations ever in Japanese history. In July 1960, the Diet eventually passed the ratification of the new security treaty, but Kishi was forced to pay the price by tendering his resignation.⁹ The crisis over the revision of the security treaty had a major influence on the government’s subsequent treatment of security policy, as policy makers realised that rapid changes would not be possible without a political backlash.

The Yoshida strategy was further institutionalised in Japan’s security policy in the 1960s under the administrations of Ikeda Hayato and Satō Eisaku. The US involvement in the Vietnam War posed serious concerns to Japan over the possibility of its entanglement in the US led War as Washington put enormous pressure on Tokyo to provide full-scale support for the US forces. However, the Japanese military contribution to the US war effort was limited to the provision of bases. Japan even implemented a number of new constraints on its security policy in order to ease public concerns about its entrapment in the Vietnam War. For instance, in 1967, the Satō administration introduced a ban on the export of arms, which prohibited the export of weapons to communist countries, to countries covered by UN Security Council’s resolutions on arms embargoes and to countries involving conflicts (in 1976, Prime Minister Miki Takeo administration further strengthened the restriction, extending the ban to all countries and forbidding the export of arms production-related technologies). In 1968, Satō also enunciated the three non-nuclear principles, which declared that Japan would not produce, possess or bring nuclear weapons into Japan.¹⁰

Hence, under the Pax Americana, Japan could achieve unprecedented economic growth while avoiding direct involvement in Cold War military entanglements. Indeed, by the end of the 1960s Japan took a seat in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and its economic power was even approaching that of the US.

Japan’s inactive security policy, however, began gradually to change after the late 1960s with the relative decline of American hegemony in both military and economic spheres. The weakening of US power was demonstrated by President Nixon’s announcement of the Guam Doctrine in 1969, which sought to reduce US forces overseas while demanding that its allies share more of the burden of their own defence, and the removal of the US dollar from the gold standard, which collapsed the Bretton Woods system. Nixon’s unilateral decision to open relations with China (called ‘Nixon shocks’ in Japan) also exposed the relative decline of US power, thus altering the strategic environment and generating a more fluid international system. These events gave Japan a real sense of insecurity since they threatened the basic conditions for Japan’s post-war economic success; the US commitment to the defence of Japan, which enabled Japan to pursue almost exclusively its own economic interest, and the stable international currency system, which allowed Japan to gain access to international markets.¹¹ Japan’s concerns about the weakening of the US military presence in Asia were further amplified in the mid 1970s by a number of factors, including the intensification of bilateral trade frictions, the US withdrawal from Vietnam and the inauguration of the Carter administration, which publicly pledged to remove the US forces from South Korea. Added to this, the threat to reliable oil supplies during the 1973 oil crisis was for Japan a potent reminder of its economic vulnerability. These shocks forced Japan to seek a more independent foreign and security policy within the context of the Yoshida strategy.

The first step was the adoption of the National Defence Programme Outline (NDPO) in 1976, which provided a policy framework for weapons procurement and the improvement of defence capabilities for the first time in the post-war era. The NDPO stressed the need to enhance the quality of the SDF based on the ‘Standard Defence Force Concept’, which stated that Japan should possess an adequate defence capability that could repel ‘limited and small scale aggression’ without US assistance while large-scale attack directly against Japan, which was considered beyond its capacity, should be dealt in cooperation with US forces. Whilst reaffirming Japan’s reliance on the US security guarantee, the NDPO signalled a departure from total dependence on the US and its intention to take greater responsibility for its own national defence. At the same time, however, the Japanese government adopted a limit of one percent of gross national product (GNP) on defence spending as a compensation for opposition parties’ support for the NDPO.¹²

Heightened concerns about US strategic intentions in Asia also persuaded Japanese policy makers to take the initiative in securing its commitment to defending Japan. In 1975, the Japanese government proposed a bilateral dialogue on coordinating military operations under the provision of the Japan-US Security Treaty. This eventually led to the two countries concluding the Guidelines for Japan-US Defence Cooperation in 1978, which called for joint studies of operational issues in the three contingencies, including deterrence of aggression against Japan, response to an armed attack on Japan and bilateral cooperation in case of conflicts in the Far East, which would have an important influence on Japan’s national security. The establishment of the guidelines stipulated greater military cooperation between Japan and the US, including joint military planning and exercises, operational preparations and intelligence exchanges.¹³ In short, the guidelines elevated the Japan-US security relationship to that of military allies and provided Japan with a framework through which it could make a military contribution to regional security, albeit indirectly.

The US withdrawal from Indo-China in 1975 following the end of the Vietnam War also provoked Japan to take the diplomatic initiative for the first time in its post-war history with a view to contributing to the stability of Southeast Asia. In 1977, Prime Minister Fukuda Takeo took a tour of Southeast Asian countries and announced the ‘Fukuda Doctrine’, which demonstrated Japan’s willingness to share in efforts to maintain regional peace and security through economic and diplomatic means.¹⁴ The Japanese government hence began to utilise its economic aid to bridge the gap between ASEAN countries and Vietnam with the purpose of achieving greater stability in Southeast Asia. It also established a number of dialogue processes with ASEAN to develop greater political and economic cooperation.¹⁵ These initiatives can be seen as indicative of Japan’s aspiration to fill the vacuum left by the US withdrawal from Southeast Asia.

The Japanese concept of security was also redefined in response to changes in the international strategic environment. In 1979, Prime Minister Ōhira Masayoshi initiated a research group to formulate a new national security strategy. The result was the emergence of the concept of ‘comprehensive security’, (sōgō anzen hoshō) which called for Japan to employ comprehensive measures to maintain its national security, including not only military means but also political and economic instruments.¹⁶ The pursuit of comprehensive security was motivated primarily by Japan’s awareness of the need to contribute to the maintenance of international peace and security, as necessitated by the end of Pax Americana. The report of the Ōhira research group recommended that Japan should make greater efforts towards self-reliance and contribute to the maintenance and strengthening of the international system, particularly through non-military measures, such as diplomacy, economic and technological cooperation. The special emphasis given to the use of non-military instruments in addressing its international obligations in part reflected Japan’s intention to resist US pressure to assume a larger military role.¹⁷ It is important to note, however, that the concept of comprehensive security did not entirely disregard the military dimension of Japan’s security policy. For instance, the report strongly suggested that ‘Japan strengthen its self-reliance efforts for defending its national security’.¹⁸ Although the concept was not adopted as an official guideline for Japan’s security policy, it has nevertheless had a significant impact on Japan’s policy making since then.

The 1980s witnessed new developments in Japan’s security policy. The outbreak of ‘the Second Cold War’, marked by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and the massive increase in its naval and air deployment in the Pacific, once again prompted the Japanese government to undertake more responsibility with regards to its defence, not only because the actions of the Soviet Union were perceived as a direct threat to Japan but also because of heightened American pressure on Japan to shoulder more of the security burden. In 1981, the Suzuki administration, for example, announced that Japan would assume responsibility for the defence of the sea-lines of communication (SLOC) up to 1,000 nautical miles from Japan. This instigated a study on the joint operational requirements of the sea-lane’s defence.¹⁹

Japan’s defence cooperation with the US was further expanded under the Premiership of Nakasone Yasuhiro, a nationalist politician enthusiastic about boosting Japan’s international profile. Nakasone took a number of initiatives that weakened the constraints on Japan’s security policy including a decision to ease the ban on the defence technology exports to the US in 1983, to increase host nation support for the US military base in Okinawa and to participate in research on the US Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI). Finally, Nakasone abandoned the one percent GNP ceiling on defence spending in 1987 and Japan’s defence budget was increased by six percent per year with the aim of upgrading air defence and sea control capabilities to support the US security strategy.²⁰ At the same time, the Nakasone administration also initiated the political use of foreign aid, attempting to support US strategic objectives as exemplified by the substantial increase of Japan’s Official Development Assistance (ODA) to countries deemed to be of strategic importance to the West, such as Turkey, Pakistan and Egypt. As a result, by the end of 1980s, Japan became the world’s largest donor of foreign aid.²¹

Overall, although external factors during the Cold War period, including the intensification of superpower confrontations and US pressures, provided constant pressure on Japan to expand its military capabilities and its defence cooperation with the US, these two aspects of Japan’s security policy developed only incrementally. Indeed, the existence of firm domestic legal and normative constraints prevented Japanese policy makers from seeking the enlargement of the nation’s military capabilities and its roles in the bilateral alliance beyond the minimum level required for its national defence. The result was that Japan’s military role in the Asia-Pacific region was almost invisib...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Sheffield Centre for Japanese Studies/Routledge Series
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1: Japan’s growing interest in Asia-Pacific security multilateralism
• 2: The surge of Japan’s enthusiasm for Asia-Pacific security multilateralism and the formation of the ASEAN Regional Forum (1992–93)
• 3: Japan’s policy on the evolution of Confidence Building Measures in the ARF
• 4: Japan’s challenges for promoting preventive diplomacy in the ARF
• 5: Japan and multilateral security dialogue in the ARF (1994–97)
• 6: Japan and multilateral security dialogue in the ARF (1998–2005)
• 7: Japan’s changing conception of the ARF
• Conclusion
• Notes