Prime Minister Nakasone and The United States of America

Although it is commonly believed that as Prime Minister of Japan, Nakasone Yasuhiro focused diplomatic efforts on the United States, his first trip abroad as prime minister was to the Republic of Korea. In the 1950s, he was even a vocal critic of the US-Japan alliance. But he was different from many other politicians in reading books, traveling abroad to discuss issues with foreign leaders, and soliciting ideas and advice from intellectuals. In the end, he acquired mature views on how to fight the Cold War as well as maintain robust relations with the US. This article traces the evolving approach he had with the United States from the Occupation through the “Ron-Yasu” relationship during his prime ministership.     

Nakasone Yasuhiro’s “Autonomous Defense” and the Security of Japan

Former Prime Minister of Japan Nakasone Yasuhiro advocated autonomous defense throughout the post-WWII period. Nakasone’s concept of autonomous defense (jishu boei) went beyond the idea of enhancing national defense capabilities—it was accompanied by a rich and varied internationalism that strove toward assuaging neighboring countries’ concerns toward Japan’s remilitarization. Nakasone also actively engaged major western powers in the global debate over nuclear issues during his term as prime minister, and it went beyond the confines of Japan’s bilateral security relationship with the United States. Thus, Nakasone’s autonomous defense concept reflected both the development of postwar Japan and the many turbulent changes in the postwar global security landscape. This essay follows the evolution of Nakasone’s autonomous defense concept during his political career from 1950 to the end of his premiership in 1988 and concludes with an overall assessment of his initiatives regarding Japanese security.     

The Making of Nakasone Yasuhiro’s Diplomacy

The upbringing and early life experiences of a political leader strongly influence development of the policy framework implemented when in office. In the case of Nakasone Yasuhiro, his experiences during the Pacific War would later be reflected in both domestic policy and international affairs. In terms of international relations, Nakasone formed relationships of trust with international leaders in both East and West that engendered respect and that contributed to his exceptional leadership in Japan’s diplomacy.     

Nakasone Yasuhiro: The Former Prime Minister and His Times

Leaders should be judged based on whether they had foresight and whether they were able to risk their jobs to live out their convictions. Japan suffered from a lack of good leaders before WWII. Since then outstanding leaders carried out their convictions and solved postwar issues. Nakasone Yasuhiro (1918–2019) was the first postwar Prime Minister (1982–1987) who squarely placed Japan as an important member of the industrialized democracies. During his term as prime minister, he improved relations between Japan and the US as well as between Japan and other Asian countries, especially China and the Republic of Korea, thereby raising Japan’s presence around the world. Domestically he boldly implemented reforms in security, privatization of state-owned enterprises, and in solidifying power in the office of prime minister. He breathed his last but his legacy remains.     

New roles in the Japan‐US alliance

"There is a much greater need for the security alliance today than at any time during the Cold War era, and at this critical juncture new lifeblood needs to be injected into this alliance if it is to continue to thrive,” writes Yasuhiro Nakasone, former prime minister of Japan, IIPS chairman, and now well into his fifth decade as a member of the Diet. Nakasone analyzes the state of the alliance, describes the changed roles of the allies, and urges new Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto to explain to the Japanese people the alliance's contribution to peace and prosperity in Asia‐Pacific.     

Japan and China: A Fresh Start in a Difficult Era

No relationship is more important to the future of Asia than the one between Japan and China. PM Abe’s visit to Beijing last month put the relationship back on a firmer footing. Yet diplomacy alone will not stabilize Sino-Japanese relations. Popular attitudes in both countries also matter, and will be shaped by the success or failure of leaders to manage the growing complexity of this relationship from food security to fisheries management to national defense and new solutions to China’s growing influence over the daily lives of Japanese. Across Asia too, Japan and China will need to coexist without impeding each other’s influence. Next year’s visit to Japan by President Xi offers ample opportunity for expanding the foundation of this latest round of diplomatic “fresh starts” in the Japan-China relationship. Uncertainty over the US role in Asia, however, has made this a more difficult task.     

冷战初期日本南海政策及东南亚战略取向

冷战使日本在美国的全球战略中作用提升,成为反共"防波堤",其具有政治目的性的东南亚"经济外交"呈现出明显的海洋战略取向,且影响至今。因地缘利益、东南亚战略,日本南海政策的基本出发点自冷战开始后始终没变,即追随美国遏制中国政策,对南海诸岛归属问题上采取模糊态度和立场,这为后来南海周边某些国家侵占南海岛礁留下所谓借口。此时日本还曾插足于南海诸岛,由于海峡两岸对南海权益的维护使其非法行为无法为继,但随着经济的发展,日本越来越依赖南海航道和加大南海石油资源的开发,这决定其"关心"南海问题就是势所必然了。     

Nakasone Yasuhiro and Japan’s European Diplomacy

While Prime Minister Nakasone frequently showed his cordial personal friendship with US President Ronald Reagan, he was successful in creating new Japan-Europe relations based on his close ties with European leaders such as UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and French President François Mitterrand. Nakasone felt that the so-called “Yoshida Doctrine” was not enough and focused more on “culture and politics.” This article reveals that this originated in his high school days when he learned French and the importance of the philosophy of liberalism.     

Reflections on Japan's past

Fifty years after the devastation of World War II, Japan's remarkable long‐term, export‐driven economic success is known as the East Asian development model and East Asian economies have become the engine for the world's economic growth. Yet the collapse of Japan's 1980s over‐inflated “bubble economy” has created apathy and pessimism, says former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone. In May 1995, on the occasion of his seventy‐seventh birthday, after more than 45 years in the Diet, IIPS Chairman Nakasone reflects on Japan's modern history and issues a call for renewal in the following speech. Above all, he says, “Japan does have a few mavericks” and “people with true convictions [should] come forward . . . the Japanese are waiting for genuine leadership.”     

The Afterlives of Post-War Japanese Prime Ministers

Despite growing interest over the last 20 years in the position and power of the Japanese prime minister, what he does after resigning from this position has been overlooked in the extant literatures in both English and Japanese. This is unfortunate because, to paraphrase former US President Bill Clinton, as an ex-leader “you lose your power but not your influence.” This article represents the first attempt to explore what post-war Japanese prime ministers have done after stepping down and what influence they have continued to exert. It does so by providing an empirical overview of the afterlives of Japan’s 33 post-war ex-prime ministers before then discussing the benefits and shortcomings of applying the comparative, conceptual literature on the role of former leaders in Western democracies to the specific case of Japan. After providing the necessary justification, it then focuses on three detailed and illuminating case studies of Nakasone Yasuhiro, Murayama Tomiichi and Fukuda Yasuo. It argues that Japanese prime ministers continue to exert influence in several informal ways.     

Constructing Peaceful Development: The Changing Interpretations of “One China” and Beijing’s Taiwan Strait Policy

For rationalists, China (PRC)’s current conciliatory policy toward Taiwan is merely “calculative.” Hence, Chinese leaders must act patiently with Taiwan to dampen the “China threat theory.” This article contends that strategic considerations cannot entirely justify Beijing’s Taiwan policy. Given the PRC’s steadfast position on reunification, it is unclear why Beijing has, since the 1990s, allowed for a looser construction of the “one China” principle and even tacitly acknowledged the existence of Taiwan’s Republic of China (ROC). In line with the constructivist theory of argumentative persuasion, my position stresses that changing discourses have affected Chinese leaders’ perceptions of the Taiwan Strait problem. New identities and interests have been reconstituted to redefine the PRC relations vis-à-vis the ROC. While it is unlikely that Beijing would formally accept the ROC, the current trajectory raises hope that cross-strait ties may become more stabilized in the long run.     

Averting a Crisis between Japan and China: A New Way of Thinking

As relations between Japan and China change due to a paradigm shift that has occurred over the past few years, the need for a new security outlook and world view has emerged. In East Asia, the foundation for the relationship between Japan and China must be fairness and justice, and the rule of law. This article proposes ways that Japan and China can work to cultivate common ground that would bring forth the possibility of a new Japan-China relationship based on the “strategic reciprocal relationship” established in 2006.     

Addressing Japan's future challenges: A proposal for a comprehensive strategy

This report is the product of a June 1994 independent research project that focused on addressing reform and other challenges facing Japan, and on charting a comprehensive course for the future. Referring to the many uncertainties of the post‐Cold War world, the project members emphasize the urgent need for wide‐ranging political, economic, administrative, and social reform. Though not without cost, enacting such measures will “contribute to Japan's ability to concentrate on both domestic problems and the many complex issues facing the world today.” Chairman of the project was Yasuhiro Nakasone. Other members are listed below.     

Japan’s Diplomacy towards Member Countries of Pacific Islands Forum: Significance of Pacific Islands Leaders Meeting (PALM)

As an island country in the Pacific region, it is natural for Japan to have diplomatic relationships with neighboring island countries. By the early 1970s, Japan started to provide Official Development Assistance (ODA) to two individual island countries in the Pacific region, and, in the mid-1980s, when most of the island countries had achieved independence, Japan’s diplomacy expanded to additional countries. In 1985 then Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone made an official visit to two of the island countries, and, in 1987, official policy expressing support for the Pacific island countries’ independence, regional cooperation, political stability, economic development, and people-to-people exchange was issued. In October 1997, the “Japan-SPF Summit Meeting” with participants of leaders from Japan and 14 South Pacific Forum member island countries/regions and government representatives of Australia and New Zealand was held in Tokyo. The 8^th Pacific Islands Leaders meeting held in May 2018 is symbolic of Japan’s diplomacy toward the Pacific Islands Forum member countries. This article is the author’s personal observation of Japan’s diplomacy toward Pacific Islands Forum member countries and the significance of Pacific Islands Leaders Meeting.     

China’s Bargaining Strategies for a Peaceful Rise: Successes and Challenges

Applying bargaining theory of international conflicts, we examine the successes and challenges of China’s strategic choices in its ascent after the Cold War. We suggest that China needs to alleviate information and commitment problems in order to rise peacefully. Since 2008, China’s “peaceful rise” strategy has faced serious challenges because of its “assertive turn” in diplomacy. We argue that China has not alleviated or settled these two problems successfully because of its ambiguous “core interest” diplomacy and undecided attitude regarding multilateral institutions in resolving the maritime disputes. China should engage in rule-based, institution building, such as a security community between China and ASEAN, to reinforce its peaceful rise commitments.     

The Japan-China Treaty of Peace and Friendship as History

This article aims to analyze why negotiations for the Japan-China Treaty of Peace and Friendship were extended for a longer period than expected. Treaty negotiations were protracted largely due to a backlash against the Normalization of Sino-Japanese relations in 1972. Moreover Japan’s diplomacy against China was entwined with political factional strife in the Liberal Democratic Party. Premier Takeo Fukuda’s diplomatic guidance was solid and steady. He created an agreement within the party over time by rejecting an early political settlement that Premier Kakuei Tanaka did in 1972. He also addressed the territorial issue calmly, and steadily advanced negotiations for the treaty. As a result, the Fukuda administration successfully achieved the Japan-China Treaty. Conclusion of the Treaty by Fukuda, who had strong ties with the pro-Taiwan camp, brought an end to the conflict over policy towards China within the LDP.     

“遏制战略之父”乔治·凯南的中国观

乔治·凯南是美国冷战初期"遏制战略"的缔造者和苏联问题专家,曾对美国外交决策产生重要影响,特别是在他担任国务院政策规划室主任期间。但是,由于对中国社会和历史缺乏全面而深入的了解,凯南眼中的中国虽然历史悠久、文化灿烂,却是一个"自大排外""自私冷酷"又"不讲原则"的古老民族。这种负面的中国印象直接影响了乔治·凯南对中美苏三国关系的定位以及冷战时期美国外交政策。乔治·凯南的文化教育背景、好友小约翰·戴维斯的影响及其信奉的现实主义政治理论是影响他的中国观的主要因素。     

The Okinawa “Effect” in US–Japan Alliance Politics

Abstract

Discontent over US military bases in Japan’s Okinawa prefecture has long been a prominent “thorn in the side” of US–Japan relations. But what exactly has been the effect of Okinawa’s base politics on the management of the alliance? We examine Okinawa’s significance on the US–Japan alliance—the “Okinawa effect”—in terms of the alliance’s strategic coherence. Through an examination of the post–Cold War history of the base issue, we argue that, while there little to suggest that the Okinawa issue has undermined the alliance’s strategic effectiveness, alliance efficiency in dealing with burden sharing problems has been diminished, at times substantially. While reduced efficiency may often be inevitable in alliances between democracies, this persistent inability to resolve burden sharing disputes in the Okinawan case means that there is still potential for deteriorating efficiency to eventually undermine the alliance’s solidarity and effectiveness.     

K. A. Wittfogel's Marxist studies on China (1926–1939)

Abstract

K. A. Wittfogel is one of the most controversial figures in the field of modern Chinese studies. In the early 1950s he established himself as the leading figure in the academic section of the Cold War. Highlights of his “fight for the Free World” were the publication of “Oriental Despotism” in 1958 and the controversy with Benjamin Schwartz over the “Legend of Maoism” in the opening issue of China Quarterly in 1960. Wittfogel was a renegade, given to apocalyptic battle-cries against real or supposed “communist” studies and theories. He claimed to be the only one in his field who by personal experience knew the communist strategies and tactics and their subversive intentions.     

Japan’s search for influence in the Korean peninsula after the Cold War: Aspirations and constraints

This article examines Japan’s search for a more active international role in the Korean peninsula after the Cold War. It argues that Japanese foreign policy toward the Korean peninsula after the Cold War has continued to exhibit a reactive posture due to several important constraints. The United States has remained an important factor in shaping the Japanese foreign policy agenda in the post-Cold War era. Moreover, the Japanese domestic political environment, despite the dramatic political realignment after 1993, has continued to favor a nonmilitary Japanese role in world affairs. Finally, the lingering Korean mistrust toward Japan has hampered Japan’s bid to increase its political profile. Consequently, these constraints ensure that Japan’s independent role in the Korean peninsula will be rather limited in the foreseeable future.