Organizer and Discussant: Sheila A. Smith, Boston University
Chair: Masashi Nishihara, National Defense Academy, Japan
Japan's rise to prominence in international politics has occasioned increased interest in the Japanese state. This panel will explore the ways in which domestic institutions have shaped Japan's approach to its external environment.
The panelists suggest that the impact of domestic institutions differs in accordance with the various means by which the Japanese state can pursue security. The traditional means for achieving state security in international politics focuses on the organization and use of force. Smith and Heinrich examine how domestic political processes circumscribe the parameters of acceptable behavior for the postwar Japanese military, and the way in which the notion of a limited role for the Self Defense Force in the exercise of national policy limits the options available to the Japanese state.
Security can also be achieved by non-military means, however, and the other two panelists explore the way in which the Japanese state has pursued these options to create a more favorable international climate for Japan. Midford examines Japan's diplomatic strategy of "reassurance" and shows how successful Japan has been in presenting a non-threatening image. Soeya takes a different tack to show how the notion of security in Japan in fact differs from conventional wisdom in international politics.
Japan's Peacekeeping Policy: Who Decides?
L. William Heinrich, Columbia University
Views of Japanese decision-making are polarized: one group champions a rational choice model in which politicians play the decisive role, another contends that by virtue of their information and other resources, bureaucrats dominate the decision-making process. Understanding Japanese decision-making has taken on renewed importance with the end of LDP dominance and the rise of coalition governments.
This paper will examine the debate in the context of Japanese foreign policy, specifically decisions on participation in UN peace-keeping operations. After providing an outline of the decision-making process, I proceed to examine six cases in which Japan considered participating in UN sponsored peace efforts. In three of these cases, the dispatch of the Self Defense Force was approved (Cambodia, Mozambique, and Zaire), and in the other three, the dispatch of the Japanese military was rejected (Iraq-Kuwait border, the former Yugoslavia and Somalia). The focus is on the interplay between the governing political parties and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which special attention to new features of decision-making.
Examination of these cases suggests a far more complicated reality than either model would suggest. By virtue of the Japanese Constitution, politicians have the power to veto decisions that are against their interests, no matter what bureaucrats might prefer. Thus decisions on Iraq-Kuwait, the former Yugoslavia, and Somalia overrode the preferences of bureaucrats. But in at least two cases of approval (Mozambique and Zaire), it is necessary to consider the ability of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs to manipulate information in order to influence the decision making process as a means of achieving its aims.
Making the Best of a Bad Reputation: A Comparison of Japanese and Russian
Reassurance Strategies in East Asia
Paul Midford, Columbia University
Bad reputations can be easy to acquire and yet difficult to shed: bad reputations are sticky. This paper hypothesizes that states have an incentive to project a benign image.
Japan and Russia are introduced as states that earned bad reputations based on their past actions. Japan's bad reputation stems from its pre-1945 record of aggression. Russia's reputation derives from the expansionist politics of pre-revolutionary Russia, and especially its Soviet predecessor. The paper considers whether Japan and Russia understand, as hypothesized, the importance of projecting a benign image. To this end, the security policy of each and the beliefs of policy-making elites are examined.
The study concludes that Japan has recognized the importance of reputation since 1945, and has pursued a reassurance strategy. Emphasis is placed on the impact of the end of the Cold War on Japan's reassurance strategy and its regional security role. The paper also concludes that during the Cold War, the Soviet Union's highly ideological vision of international politics prevented it from recognizing the importance of a benign reputation. Indeed, the Soviets believed the opposite: a threatening reputation could enhance its security and influence over its East Asian neighbors. However, with Gorbachev's ascendancy in the second half of the 1980s, Moscow came to understand the importance of maintaining a benign reputation. The paper will examine Gorbachev's East Asian reassurance diplomacy of the late 1980s, and its continuation by his successor, Yeltsin.
The Revision of Taiko: New Thinking and Old Obstacles
Yoshihide Soeya, Keio University
The National Defense Program Outline, commonly referred to as Taiko, was revised at the end of 1995. This paper attempts to illuminate the changing nature of linkage between Japan's national defense policy and the regional security environment by looking into the new thinking and obstacles in the process of revising Taiko.
When Taiko was adopted by the Japanese government in 1975, the prevailing international environment was that of detente under which the peculiar mechanism of pursuing the "standard defense capability" without considering seriously its implications for the regional security environment was justified and developed. Now in the so-called post-Cold War era, the linkage appears to be becoming more direct, which is reflected in a proposed revision of Taiko. How will old obstacles such as postwar pacifism seeded in the political system and norm affect the final outcome?
As such, the paper will be composed of two parts: one analyzing the case of the 1976 Taiko, and the other examining the ongoing process of revision. The study will present a case study showing how differently Japan has begun to see the regional security environment from the previous two decades and how political obstacles will affect the pattern of Japan's exposure to the regional security environment in a new era.
Driven by Post-Cold War Realities: The Japan-Korea-China Triangle
Victor D. Cha, Georgetown University
The end of the Cold War has prompted many scholars to argue for the increasing importance of ethnopolitical and historical factors in determining state behavior. This argument, it is said, has relevance for Japan's future interaction in Northeast Asia. The breakup of Cold War structures of power will engender a renewal of historical rivalries and animosities between Japan and its two neighbors, Korea and China. In addition, pundits argue that because of historical affinities, relations between China and Korea will improve. These triangular dynamics would be amplified in the case of Korean unification, thereby further isolating Japan. This paper argues that such historically-driven explanations/propositions, while rich in insight, lose sight of certain strategic and evolutionary realities in the region. I will argue that when viewed through the lenses of the two dominant theoretical perspectives international relations (realism and liberalism), the Japan-Korea-China triangle will be characterized by a consolidation of the Japan-Korea axis and deterioration on the Korea-China axis. Primary realist factors in this regard are age-old balancing tendencies set off by the waning U.S. post-Cold War seurity presence in Asia. And from a liberalist perspective, the key variables are maturing democratic relationships (between Japan and Korea), and generational changes in national images. In pursuing this line of argument, this paper will critically examine some of the historical truisms about Japanese-Korean animosity as well as assess the impact of the North Korean nuclear issue on security interaction in post-Cold War East Asia.