Japan's Foreign Policy Since 1945

Kevin J. Cooney

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781317466901
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Ethnic Studies
• Index: Economics

This student-friendly text provides a detailed and up-to-date assessment of Japan's foreign policy since 1945, including policy options and choices that Japan faces in the twenty-first century. Using information based on interviews with policymakers in Japan, the author provides new insight into Japan's foreign policy options and analyzes the nation's evolving role in international affairs. The book begins with a brief overview of major issues related to Japan's foreign policy since the mid-nineteenth century, and then focuses on the direction of Japanese foreign policy from 1945 to the present. It examines issues such as Article Nine of the Japanese Constitution, national security needs, the way Japan views the world around it, the role of nationalism in setting policy, and the influence of big industry. It also includes material on Japan's response to 9/11 and the war in Iraq. Designed for both undergraduate and graduate level courses, the text includes Discussion Questions, maps, a detailed bibliography with suggestions for further reading, and an Appendix with the Japanese Constitution for easy reference.

1

Introduction

The Story of Japan after World War II

… the political organism is always experiencing both continuities and change, and thus is always in motion, slipping behind, moving ahead, holding fast, or otherwise adjusting and changing in response to internal developments and external circumstances.

—James N. Rosenau¹

Japan, as a nation, is in the midst of change, much of it brought about by the end of the Cold War. The current manifestation of this change is evidenced by the fact that Japan is sending troops overseas into combat zones (in a non-combat role) for the first time since the end of World War II; the nation is very anxious to demonstrate that it can make a “human” contribution to the world community and to its American allies, in spite of its constitutional limitations. Japan is also attempting to step out of the larger shadow of the United States into greater partnership with that nation as an equal and to take its place alongside the other great powers. At the same time, Japan is coming to terms with the fact that, in spite of its great economic strength, it is vulnerable to both international and domestic economic turbulence and to its own structural problems. It is additionally coming to terms with the reality that it is a major power on the world stage; as such it can be a tempting target for extremists. An instance of this vulnerability is the Peruvian embassy hostage incident that lasted from December 1996 though April 1997.² The role of Japan’s Self Defense Forces (SDF) in Iraq and elsewhere has now made the country a potential target of Islamic terrorist groups.

In previous writings, I have argued that Japan is in the midst of a maturation process in which it is seeking to present itself as a great power. This argument will be continued in this book. I will further argue that a process is under way in the Japanese Diet (legislature)³ to transfer power from the powerful bureaucracies in Japan to the elected legislative leadership of the Diet. More important, significant political elements within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) are seeking to escape the constitutional constraints imposed by Article Nine by amending or rewriting Japan’s postwar constitution. Article Nine being the most important barrier to Japan’s becoming a normal nation will be closely examined in chapter 2.

This text will thus be a narrative about political leaders in Japan, their foreign-policy choices, and my quest to understand the shifts and changes in their foreign policy. The book is, moreover, an account and exploration of the people in leadership positions and the way they view the world. It is also the story of the Japanese foreign-policy leadership, based on my conversations and interviews with these leaders. The basic thesis of this book is that people make policy while institutions administer the policy that is made by leadership. It is for this reason that people—or agents, if you will—will be the primary focus of this book. This will be a study of the human element in politics and specifically in foreign policy. The conclusions will primarily be based on trends in observed behavior and attitudes rather than on statistical data or institutional analysis. The study of structure or institutions will be included, but it will be secondary.

This book will also be an invitation to the reader and to the student of Japanese foreign and security policy to think about the issues facing Japan’s leaders. It is assumed that Japan’s leaders do have the nation’s best interests in mind. The question thus becomes, what are the best foreign and security policy choices for Japan? Ideology plays an important role here. The realist would make choices that differed from those made by the idealist or the intuitionalist in similar situations. I recognize my own realist inclinations, but I will present scenarios from differing perspectives and schools of thought. Each chapter has questions for thought, discussion, and debate, as there is no one simple answer as to what is in Japan’s best interest.

A further goal of this book will be to introduce the reader and student to the background and history of modern Japan’s foreign-policy issues and to place them in the context of the present. It will particularly focus on the recent choices in foreign and security policies brought about by the end of the Cold War and the role its neighbors play in shaping Japan’s foreign-policy choices. To put this aim succinctly, this book will be an empirical examination of changes in Japanese foreign policy brought on by the end of the Cold War and a study of what the Japanese political leadership believes that Japan’s role in the world should be. Japan is a major player, and its growing power on the world scene and changes in its foreign policy frequently impact the rest of the world. Furthermore, studying change in Japan provides students of foreign policy with an excellent case study of a major power engaged in foreign-policy change during an extended period of global uncertainty. To begin our examination of Japanese foreign policy, we will look at the event that changed the post-World War II foreign policy for all nations: the end of the Cold War.

The Catalyst for Change

As in Virgil’s phrase, “a new order for the ages,” so the “New World Order” rang in the end of the Cold War, and as in Virgil’s Roman Empire, the post-Cold War world of Pax Americana has witnessed wars and uprisings on all fronts. For Japan, the simple world it knew during the Cold War had become complex. Choices were no longer clear. Decisions became much more difficult, complicated, and far-reaching.

It is said that some nations live by the sword and perish by the sword. Since World War II, Japan has lived by the dove of pacifism and must now choose whether to let its role in the world dwindle, perish by its self-imposed pacifism,⁴ or take up the sword and risk the casualties and enemies it has avoided since the end of World War II.

Japan was not alone in feeling the effects of the sudden and unpredicted end to the Cold War. That event brought about profound changes in the foreign policy of many nations. The bipolar conflict that had governed the post-World War II era ended in such a way that no nation was fully prepared to deal with a world turned upside down. The new situation also created new problems, ones that had been unthinkable during the Cold War, such as the total disintegration of the Soviet Union and collapse of full control over the Soviet stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. The United States/Soviet conflict nevertheless left a residue of structures, institutions, and policies that continue to shape and govern the foreign affairs of many nations in the so-called New World Order. Japan was one of the nations whose foreign policy was particularly affected by the end of the Cold War. This situation was due in many ways to the unique-ness⁵ of Japanese foreign policy and the country’s constitutional restraints.

During the occupation of Japan by the United States after World War II, the Occupation Government, headed by General Douglas MacArthur, wrote and gave Japan its postwar constitution. This constitution has been called The Japanese Peace Constitution. The key foreign-policy peculiarity of Japan’s constitution is Article Nine of Chapter II: The Renunciation of War. It states:

Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.⁶

Article Nine was written shortly before the onset of the Cold War and is fundamental to the understanding of Japanese postwar foreign policy. As a result of the onset of the Cold War, Japan was pressured by the United States into establishing the SDF, an entity that was to have only defensive capabilities and was to provide a domestic defense against foreign invasion. The linchpin of this arrangement is the United States-Japan Security Treaty, which promises United States support if Japan is ever attacked, thus negating the need for Japanese force projection (offensive) capabilities.

The long-term effect of Article Nine was that Japan had a constitutional excuse not to act as a “normal” nation in international affairs. The primary architect of Japan’s foreign policy under Article Nine was then-Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida.⁷ His foreign-policy strategy or agenda became known as the Yoshida Doctrine. During much of the Cold War, Japanese foreign policy was based on this doctrine, which permitted Japan to focus on economic development while depending on the United States for its national security needs. The great benefit of this was that Japan did not have to spend much of its gross national product (GNP) on defense and on other needs related to national security. The cornerstone of the Yoshida Doctrine (as of the SDF) was the Japan-United States Security Treaty in which the United States guaranteed Japanese security. Japanese foreign policy, in turn, was largely based on loyalty to and support for the United States.

This policy worked well until the end of the Cold War and the Gulf War that followed. The Gulf War took Japan, politically, by surprise; “like a bolt out of the blue.”⁸ Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990, and the subsequent war had a major impact on the politics of Japan.⁹ Japan was forced to face the true reality of its economic superpower status for the first time in a major international crisis. Initially, Japan sprinted out of the blocks, only to stumble and be left dazed and bewildered when it realized that the Cold War was over and the rules had changed. Japan was asked to participate at a level that was commensurate to its economic status in the world. This demand meant a human or military contribution to the war effort, and Japan was not prepared to comply. Japan’s “checkbook” diplomacy—the policy by which it contributed financially to international actions by the United States and the United Nations but never made a “human” contribution by putting the SDF in harm’s way. This policy caused Japan to be severely criticized abroad, especially in the United States. The Yoshida Doctrine that had served it so well was in desperate need of revision.

At the core of the problem was the old constitutional question of Article Nine. The question was whether Japan could send troops overseas even if they were under United Nations command. Japan was not ready to answer this question, but the world was waiting for a reply. Japan was still in the middle of trying to come to terms with the end of the Cold War and its impact on United States-Japanese relations and on the United States-Japanese Security Treaty. Japan was searching to find its new place in the world when the Gulf War forced Japan to make some hard choices. These choices, though inadequate in the eyes of many, started a debate within Japan that has forced it to attempt to reconcile its economic superpower status with its constitutional obligations.

As a result of the external pressures brought on by the Gulf War and its aftermath, on June 15, 1992, the Japanese Diet passed the Law Concerning Cooperation in U.N. Peacekeeping and Other Operations (otherwise known as the PKO Law), which went into effect on August 10 of that same year. This law marked the most significant change in Japan’s postwar foreign/military policy since the creation of the SDF in the 1950s. It also signaled a fundamental shift in the course of Japanese foreign policy, because for the first time since World War II, Japanese soldiers could be sent on missions outside Japan, except that this time, they would be under United Nations command. The Japanese government reserved the right to send or recall the troops but could not command their missions.

The Problem and the Questions

The problem for Japan is that while its constitution renounces war and prohibits the maintenance of military forces, it is a global economic power. It is the second-largest donor to the U.N. budget, yet it exists in a global political environment that requires a human contribution involving risk by the major powers to global peace. The questions that are being asked are: “What is Japan’s new role in the world? What accounts for the gradual change in the role of the SDF? What are the domestic driving forces behind these changes? What is Japan’s long-term foreign-policy agenda?”

In the following chapters, we will look at the causes and implications of foreign-policy changes in Japan since the end of the Cold War. I recognize that the restructuring of Japanese foreign policy does not represent a fundamental change in that policy, because Japan is not fundamentally changing its loyalties; rather, the nation is working to establish a fuller partnership with the United States while at the same time protecting its vital interests in the face of a China rising as a regional rival to Japan and a global rival to Japan’s ally, the United States. Under the constraints imposed by Cold War interpretations of Article Nine, Japan limited its foreign policy under the Yoshida Doctrine out of the need to impress upon the United States that it was a loyal and dependable ally. In the post-Cold War era, Japan is seeking to enlarge its foreign-policy role to that of a normal nation. Normal nations have independent foreign policies and more important an independent military prerogative or option. Japan, under Article Nine, does not have an independent military option. At the same time, changes in Japanese foreign policy are not merely incremental course corrections, but also major shifts in national policy. Japan is undergoing a period of maturation in foreign policy in which Tokyo is stepping out of the larger shadow of the United States and taking its own place as a more equal and normal partner in the international arena.

This study of Japanese foreign-policy maturation is largely based on the literature dealing with changes in foreign policy that can be applied to Japan. It looks at this topic from three different levels of analysis.¹⁰ These are: the level of the international system, the level of the individual, and the level of the state. The importance of the choice of these levels of analysis is that Japan operates as a major player within the international system, but it is Japanese societal values and their influences that dictate Japan’s state-to-state relations. The first level of analysis used is the international system within the theoretical f...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures and Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• List of Acronyms and Terms
• Map: Disputed Kurile Islands/Northern Territories
• Administrative Map of Japan
• Chapter 1. Introduction: The Story of Japan after World War II
• Chapter 2. The Legacy of the Occupation: An “Abnormal” Foreign Policy
• Chapter 3. The Gulf War Requires Change
• Chapter 4. Theoretically Speaking: Realism and Alternative Security
• Chapter 5. Foreign-Policy Restructuring in Japan
• Chapter 6. Planning for Japan’s Future Security
• Chapter 7. The “Myth” of Gaiatsu: How Japan Views Its Place in the World
• Chapter 8. Triangulating Politics: America, China, and Japan
• Chapter 9. Where Is Japan Going?
• Appendix A: Partial List of Elites Interviewed
• Appendix B: The Constitution of Japan, 3 November 1946
• Discussion Questions
• Notes
• Bibliography
• About the Author