Japan's Foreign and Security Policy Under the 'Abe Doctrine'

New Dynamism or New Dead End?

C. Hughes

• Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781137514240
• eBook ISBN: 9781137514257
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Asian Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Japan is shifting onto a new trajectory for a more muscular national security policy, US-Japan alliance ties functioning for regional and global security, and the encirclement of China's influence in East Asia. The author explores how PM Abe Shinz?'s doctrine may prove contradictory and counter-productive to Japanese national interests.

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Introduction: From ‘Yoshida Doctrine’ to ‘Abe Doctrine’?

Abstract: Prime Minister Abe Shinzō’s foreign and security policy – highly charged with ideological revisionism – contains the potential to shift Japan onto a new international trajectory. Its degree of articulation and energy makes for a doctrine capable of displacing the ‘Yoshida Doctrine’ that has been Japan’s dominant grand strategy in the post-war period. Many have argued that Abe will remain pragmatic and not challenge the status quo. However, Abe has already begun to introduce radical policies that appear to transform national security, US-Japan alliance ties and relations with China and East Asia. The ‘Abe Doctrine’ is dynamic but also high risk. Abe’s revisionism contains fundamental contradictions that may ultimately limit the effectiveness of, or even defeat, his doctrine.

Keywords: Abe Doctrine; Abe Shinzō; grand strategy; Japan; revisionism; Yoshida Doctrine

Hughes, Christopher W. Japan’s Foreign and Security Policy Under the ‘Abe Doctrine’: New Dynamism or New Dead End? Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. DOI: 10.1057/9781137514257.0004.

Prime Minister Abe Shinzō’s stunning return to power in the December 2012 landslide election victory, and the consolidation of his leadership in a repeat victory in December 2014, has heralded the resurgence also for Japan of a more assertive, high-profile and high-risk foreign and security policy. Abe’s status as an arch-‘revisionist’ ideologue, combined with the track record of his first administration in 2006–7, indicated that he would inevitably harbour intentions to shift Japan towards a more radical external agenda – characterised by a defence posture less fettered by past anti-militaristic constraints, a more fully integrated US–Japan alliance and an emphasis on ‘value-oriented’ diplomacy with East Asian states and beyond. Indeed, Abe’s ‘diplomatic agenda’ (Abe Gaikō) has been so distinctive and so forcefully articulated in the past years that it might be labelled as a doctrine capable of rivalling, and even of displacing, the doctrine of Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru that has famously determined Japan’s entire post-war international trajectory. In contrast to Abe’s more muscular international agenda, the so-called ‘Yoshida Doctrine’ (Yoshida Rosen), forged in the aftermath of total defeat in the Pacific War, has long emphasised for Japan the need for a pragmatic and low-profile foreign policy, a highly constrained defence posture, reliance but not over-dependence on the US–Japan security treaty and the expedient rebuilding of economic and diplomatic ties with East Asian neighbours.¹

The ‘Abe Doctrine’ has always contained the potential to set Japan on a new international trajectory.² Nevertheless, after Abe’s return to the premiership for a second stint (a feat for a Japanese politician again previously achieved only by Yoshida in the post-war period) many commentators remained keen to stress the continuities with past policies. Japanese government policymakers and commentators have been at pains to deny that Abe is in any way a dangerous nationalist, and to stress that his design is simply to tackle the domestic and international constraints that have prevented Japan from overcoming its past torpor in foreign and security policy.³ This view of Abe as essentially pragmatic and able to rein in his more radical instincts has been corroborated by a range of other commentators who predicted that in his second premiership he would prioritise the consolidation of his domestic political support, most especially because his first administration foundered owing to apparent inattention to the basic management of domestic politics, a hyperactive foreign policy and ultimate failure to deliver on security promises to the US for the prolongation of Japan Self-Defence Force (JSDF), refuelling operations in the Indian Ocean in support of the international coalition in Afghanistan.⁴ If Abe was expected to take any radical action in international policy, the general consensus was that it would wait until securing a working majority in the Upper House elections in July 2013 to match the straight majority secured by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in the Lower House in the December 2012 elections.⁵ Moreover, even then the presumption was that Abe would be wary of pushing his strongest revisionist agenda for fear of disaffecting the LDP’s dovish New Kōmeitō coalition partner, of worsening already fraught relations with China and South Korea and even of alienating a US not keen to see Japan unsettling the strategic landscape as it was in the midst of a ‘rebalance’ towards the East Asia region. Japan’s major focus under Abe was instead thought to be domestic economic recovery, and if there was to be any radicalism and international risks posed these were to be in the form of his eponymous policy of ‘Abenomics’ and its associated ‘three arrows’ of massive quantitative easing, fiscal stimulus and economic restructuring.⁶

These predictions surrounding Abe’s agenda were largely borne out for the first six months of his administration. Despite Abe’s stated intent at the start of his administration to review the Japanese government’s statement on the ‘comfort women’ (jūgun ianfu) issue – an ambition held over from his first premiership – his government subsequently backed away from this plan in early 2014, conscious of the negative reaction domestically and internationally. Moreover, even though Abe’s Cabinet is replete with noted right-wing conservatives, three of whom had visited the controversial Yasukuni Shrine on 15 August 2013 to commemorate the anniversary of Japan’s defeat in the Pacific War, the prime minister himself stayed away. Instead, he seemed content to stress his revisionist credentials with photo opportunities sitting in a Ground Self-Defence Force (GSDF) main battle tank and Air Self-Defence Force (ASDF) trainer jet.⁷ Furthermore, even though Abe maintained a tough stance towards China in the ongoing tensions in the East China Sea over the Senkaku/Diaoyu territorial dispute and issues of maritime security, and began to initiate vigorous diplomacy with the US and other East Asian states to project Japan’s international presence in contradistinction to China, his administration did not pursue the hard-line security options intimated in the LDP’s election manifesto. Abe himself repeatedly called for dialogue with China and stressed Japan’s attachment to a form of revamped ‘proactive contribution to peace’ (sekkyoku-teki heiwashugi). Abe’s apparent restrained statesmanship won plaudits domestically and internationally: efforts to revitalise the Japanese economy earned him the depiction of a Superman-like figure on the cover of The Economist in May 2013.⁸ Abenomics garnered praise at the Group of Eight (G8) summit in the UK in June. It appeared overall that Abe’s slogan ‘Japan is back’ was highly credible.⁹

However, from autumn 2013 onwards, the full guise of Abe’s revisionist agenda, and thus the propensity for setting Japan on a new radical trajectory in foreign and security policy, has become readily apparent. Abe’s initiation of new developments in Japan’s defence doctrines and capabilities and the US–Japan alliance provided the first signs of a revisionist agenda coalescing in line with the expectations of many commentators.¹⁰ Nevertheless, Abe’s decision to pay an official visit to Yasukuni Shrine on 26 December 2013, exactly within one year of his assuming office, indicated not only that his revisionism was gathering momentum, but also that there were now diminishing constraints on the full extent of the prime minister’s ambitions. The visit surprised and drew sharp criticism from policymakers and commentators not only in China and South Korea, but also the US, and even the wider international community, as a highly provocative move with potentially deep ramifications for Japan’s international reputation and regional stability.

Now that Abe’s ‘true colours’ (Abe-iro) and revisionist agenda are finally revealed, and that he appears secure in power until possibly 2018, questions have begun to fully fly about the significance of Japanese foreign and security policy. Japanese government policymakers have remained engaged in increasingly problematic attempts to deny Abe’s nationalist or even militarist bent and to stress continuities with past policies, whilst at the same time arguing that the prime minister’s challenging of taboos is essential for Japan to overcome its malaise in responding to external pressures from China and North Korea and to expectations from the US and international community for a wider commitment to global security. Meanwhile, those critical of Abe have ramped up their arguments that he is intent on an irresponsible campaign of overturning post-war constraints on Japanese military power that will only worsen security relations with China and alienate South Korea and other East Asian partners.

The objective of this volume is to engage in these debates and to assess the significance of the ‘Abe Doctrine’ for Japan’s international trajectory and whether it will lend new dynamism or actually reinforce the dead-end diplomacy of recent Japanese administrations. The volume undertakes this task by analysing in depth the ideological foundations and policy objectives of the ‘Abe Doctrine’ and then examining how it plays out across three pivotal dimensions, or another three policy arrows, of Japan’s foreign and security policy: Japanese defence capabilities; the evolution of the US–Japan alliance; and relations with China, South Korea, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and other key states in the Asia-Pacific region.

The volume, in appraising the impact of the ‘Abe Doctrine’ across these three dimensions, argues that – whilst neither apologist or critical views of Abe as a figure of post-war continuity nor a rewind to a pre-war ultranationalist past are entirely accurate – there can be no doubt that his administration is fundamentally revisionist and nationalist in outlook and is thus set upon, and in fact already shifting, Japan towards a radical trajectory. This can be seen in the rapid-fire changes to security policy in the form of the new National Security Strategy (NSS) and National Security Council (NSC), State Secrecy Law, Three Principles of Defence Equipment Transfers and most significantly breach of the ban on the exercise of the right of collective self-defence. In US–Japan relations, Abe has moved ahead with the first revision of the Defence Guidelines since 1997 with the aim of enabling Japan to support the US in not just regional but also global contingencies; the plans for the relocation of US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma within Okinawa; and Japanese participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) – all designed to boost the US ‘rebalance’ to the region. In East Asia, Abe’s diplomacy has looked to build a coalition of like-minded states to assist in the quiet encirclement of China.

In turn, the volume argues that even though the rise of the ‘Abe Doctrine’ is undoubtedly generating a more proactive Japanese foreign policy and has achieved some ‘quick wins’ in raising international profile and influence, over the medium to longer term the policy is strategically short-sighted, hard to sustain and ultimately counter-productive to Japan’s national interests. Hence, the volume tends towards a verdict more in line with the critiques of the ‘Abe Doctrine’ that view it as steering Japan towards a new dead end in foreign and security policy – a dead end largely of Japan’s own making which will result not only in an eventual lack of international momentum but also along the way serious long-term collateral damage to regional relations.

The volume moves towards emphasising that the rise and then probable failure of the ‘Abe Doctrine’ – if indeed the signs are not already apparent that the Abe administration is beginning to struggle in the substantive implementation of domestic and foreign policy – can be understood as largely inevitable because of a series of internal and hence inescapable contradictions. These relate, perhaps ironically for a doctrine that might pride itself on a clearly articulated ideology and strategy, to ideological tenets that are fundamentally incompatible with the mechanisms and objectives that it seeks to utilise and achieve. The eventual conclusion is thus that the ‘Abe Doctrine’ is likely so riven with its own contradictions that, rather than producing a new and clear strategic paradigm for Japan, or reverting back to the previous traditions of the Yoshida Doctrine, it will reinforce an increasingly prominent and long-term trend in Japanese foreign po...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1  Introduction: From Yoshida Doctrine to Abe Doctrine?
• 2  The Origins and Ideological Drivers of the Abe Doctrine
• 3  Japans National Security Policy Under Abe
• 4  The Abe Doctrine and USJapan Alliance Relations
• 5  Japans Relations under Abe with China, the Korean Peninsula and ASEAN
• 6  Conclusion: Abe Doctrine as Revolution or Contradictory Failure?
• Bibliography
• Index