Japan's Role in International Politics since World War II

Edward R. Beauchamp

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781136524271
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

The best scholarship on the development of contemporary Japan This collection presents well over 100 scholarly articles on modern Japanese society, written by leading scholars in the field. These selections have been drawn from the most distinguished scholarly journals as well as from journals that are less well known among specialists; and the articles represent the best and most important scholarship on their particular topic. An understanding of the present through the lens of the past The field of modern Japan studies has grown steadily as Westerners have recognized the importance of Japan as a lading world economic force and an emerging regional power. The post-1945 economic success of the Japanese has, however, been achieved in the context of that nation's history, social structure, educational enterprise and political environment. It is impossible to understand the postwar economic miracle without an appreciation of these elements. Japan's economic emergence has brought about and in some cases, exacerbated already existing tensions, and these tensions have, in turn, had a significant impact on Japanese economic life. The series is designed to give readers a basic understanding of modern Japan-its institutions and its people-as we stand on the threshold of a new century, often referred to as the Pacific Century.

THE PARTICIPATION OF JAPANESE MILITARY FORCES IN UNITED NATIONS PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS

Milton Leitenberg*

Since their establishment in 1954, the Self Defense Forces (SDF) of Japan have been a contentious issue in Japanese domestic politics. The legitimacy of their existence was opposed by the Japanese Socialist Party, which warned, in addition, of the dangers inherent in their existence or expansion. Nevertheless, as early as 1958 and again in 1961, there were requests from UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold to the Japanese government that Japan commit members of the SDF for service with United Nations peacekeeping missions. Such proposals were supported by the Japanese ambassador to the United Nations, by U.S. diplomats, and by a series of Japanese commissions established to examine the nation's national security issues.

These suggestions were rejected for decades by successive Japanese governments of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Under the pressure of the 1990–1991 Gulf War, however, authorizing legislation was finally passed in June 1992. Additionally, a rapid and large increase in UN peacekeeping operations after the end of the cold war, and the complete reversal of the positions of the Japanese Socialist Party when Tomiichi rbecame prime minister in June 1994 in a coalition government, have totally altered Japan's stance on in terna tional peacekeeping.

Members of Japan's SDF have now been successfully deployed with UN peacekeeping missions in Cambodia, Mozambique, Zaire, and most recently in the Golan Heights. Asian countries that had expressed qualms and reservations about Japan's participation beforehand now evidentiy accept it. All of these deployments have so far been under the provisions of Chapter 6 of the UN Charter, which excludes participation in combat. The 1992 legislation, however, permits eventual expansion of Japan's participation, if the Japanese parliament approves the extension.

This article reviews the history of these developments, and particularly the events that have taken place since 1990. It then assesses the desirability and potential benefits that may result from the participation of Japanese military forces in UN peacekeeping operations, as well as the fears that have been expressed to the effect that such expansion of the roles of the SDF could ultimately lead to a resurgence of Japanese “militarism.” Finally, the article discusses in some detail the major source of reservation regarding the future conduct of Japanese governments once the threshold of SDF service beyond Japan's shores has been crossed.

Introduction

In September 1992, Japanese military forces were for the first time committed to participation in a United Nations peacekeeping mission, the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC). This occurred under new Japanese legislation enacted in June 1992. It was followed by other short-term deployments with UN contingents: in Mozambique in May 1993; in Zaire in 1994; and most recently with UN peacekeeping forces on the Golan Heights in 1996. In September 1994, the Japanese Socialist Party (JSP) reversed decades-old policies, accepting all that they had before opposed in regard to the Japanese Self Defense Forces (SDF), including its constitutionality and legitimacy. However, the constitutional question has always been a proxy for less symbolic and more basic issues: How can the Japanese public and political leadership guard against a resurgence of “militarism”—the enlargement of forces and the accretion of political influence that would permit the use of the Japanese military for aggressive purposes?

Has the discussion of this question been realistic? Could the growth and use of military power any longer take place without the approval and direction of the government? Does any incremental step toward the involvement and integration of the Japanese military in international collaborative activities, such as UN peacekeeping, mean the start of unavoidable and inevitable military independence, and the loss of control over the military by Japanese civil society and government? What would be the most desirable policies to follow so that the Japanese military behaved in accordance with international norms for the indefinite future? After fifty years of isolation, is the most likely deterrent against future misbehavior the SDF's integration with Asian and other militaries; or should attempts to maintain that total isolation continue indefinitely? Does the thoroughgoing and heretofore essentially absent Japanese national understanding of the practices of its armies in Asia between 1931 and 1945 place an added burden on these questions?

This paper reviews the record of the proposals, over many decades, for Japanese participation in UN peacekeeping operations; its evolution under the pressure of the Gulf War in 1990– 1991; and from then to the present. Japanese legislation presently permits SDF forces to participate in UN missions authorized by the United Nations Security Council under the provisions of Chapter 6 of the UN Charter. The paper then examines whether that should be extended to UN or other international coalition operations authorized or delegated under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter—that is, permitting Japanese forces to engage in combat. It also speculates on the nature of the positions that Japanese policymakers might take when military actions are debated in the UN Security Council, if Japan were to gain a permanent seat on the Council.

History

A Framework for SDF Activity

The first discussion of Japanese participation in UN peacekeeping forces took place as early as 1946, when the Imperial Diet debated what came to be called “the pacifist clauses” of the draft constitution.¹ With the U.S. military occupation just begun and Japan not yet a member of the UN, the issue was considered much too abstract and irrelevant to the prevailing circumstances. When the constitution, drafted by American Occupation officials, was ratified in 1947, Article 9, the basis of so much contention for the next 45 years, stated:

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.

The Japanese public was strongly opposed to any significant rearmament, and it was an extremely popular initiative. When North Korea invaded South Korea in June 1950, however, the U.S. government's idealism vanished and its position changed. A large portion of U.S. ground forces moved to Korea, and with the occupation still in force, a National Police Reserve of 75,000 men was organized in the summer of 1950. In August 1952, shortly after the 1951 peace treaty went into effect, the Reserve was upgraded to the National Safety Force, and in February 1954, the Japanese “Self Defense Forces” (SDF) were established.²

Since that time, Japan has had an army, nvand air force, whatever they may be called. Japanese governments have successively reinterpreted Article 9, first to permit the establishment of the SDF, and in successive decades to sanction defense cooperation with the United States under the U.S.-Japan Mutual Security Treaty as well as in other ways. In fact, during the Korean War, Japan—then still under U.S. military occupation— sent minesweepers to operate off the Korean coast to assist UN forces in response to a request from the United States. The ships were technically part of the Japanese coast guard: The deployment was made secretly, and even incurred casualties.³ At present Japan's military expenditure is the fourth highest in the world, and the three branches of the SDF—ground, sea, and air —are among the world's best trained and equipped military forces.⁴

The 1954 SDF legislation was accompanied, however, by a resolution in the House of Councilors (Japan's upper legislative house) stipulating that the SDF could not be sent overseas to any other country. The major motive behind this resolution was reportedly not to counter the possibility of sending troops abroad for UN missions, but to prohibit any attempt to send troops outside the country for collective self-defense purposes under U.S.-Japan security arrangements. Although the Mutual Security Treaty became the bedrock of Japanese national-security policy, Japan was forbidden to participate in other collective-security arrangements. Defense cooperation was limited to that with the United States. The SDF could be used only for the defense of Japan against an armed attack on Japanese territory.

Basic contradictions inherent in the existence of Japanese military forces, the country's nominal obligation to UN peacekeeping as a member-state, Japan's national legislation, and the direct utilization of Japanese military forces in UN peacekeeping, were all explicitly joined in the mid- and late 1950s. They would not be resolved, however, until the early 1990s. The very first statement of “Basic Policies for National Defense,” adopted by the Japanese National Defense Council and the Cabinet on May 20,1957, had as its initial principle: “To support the activities of the United Nations, and promote international cooperation, thereby contributing to the realization of world peace”; while the fourth and last principles read: “To deal with external aggression on the basis of the Japan-U.S. security arrangements pending more effective functioning of the United Nations in future in deterring and repelling such aggression.”⁵ The conundrum was established immediately: How could Japan cooperate with the United Nations to maintain international peace and security if it did not participate in UN peacekeeping operations?

Before Japan was accepted as a member of the United Nations in 1956, debates took place in the Diet regarding the constitutionality of Japan's participation in a UN force when Japan did become a UN member:

The government answered that Article 43 of the Charter could be interpreted to suggest various possible ways of contributing to UN activities, the exact nature of which would be determined by “a special agreement or agreements” to be concluded between the member state and...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Series Contents
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Volume Introduction
• Reinventing Security: Japan Since Meiji
• Japan in the coming century: Looking East or West?
• Japan's Abiding Sakoku Mentality: Economic Myths Explained
• The korean “comfort women” movement for redress
• Free-Floating Anxieties on the Pacific: Japan and the West Revisited
• Japan's United Nations peacekeeping and other operations
• Japan's 1991 minesweeping decision An Organizational Response
• Pax nipponica?
• Collaboration or Conflict? Foreign Aid and U.S.-Japan Relations
• Perennial Anxiety: Japan-U.S. Controversy over Recognition of the PRC, 1952–1958
• The U.S.-Japanese Alliance at Risk
• Japanese-American Relations After the Cold War
• Whither japan-u.s. relations?
• Partners for the Coming Century
• The Japan-U.S. Security Arrangements in a New Era
• Economic Relations: What Lies Ahead?
• Foresight needed in japan-u.s. ties
• Japan and the spratlys dispute Aspirations and Limitations
• Japan and global environmental leadership
• The participation of japanese military forces in united nations peacekeeping operations
• Yeltsin's visit and the outlook for japanese-russian relations
• Diplomacy and Security in the Twenty-first Century