A Pragmatic Diplomat in Pluralization: Yoshio Okawara and the Restoration of Postwar Japan–US Relations

In this article, the author will focus on the role former Japanese diplomat Yoshio Okawara played in the “restoration” in the context of postwar Japan–US relations, particularly in his capacity as Japan’s ambassador to the US. During the 1980s, a period when trade friction between Japan and the US was particularly intense, and diplomatic relations pluralized, Okawara emerged as a “pragmatist,” striving to vanquish the “perception gap” between the two nations. Today, the Donald J. Trump administration seems to be shaking up the global system of free trade. In the current situation, there is much to learn from the example set by the diplomat Okawara, a pragmatist who throughout his life did so much to narrow the perception gap that caused the trade frictions of the 1980s and to restore the Japan–US relationship that had been ravaged by war.     

FOIP 2.0: The Evolution of Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy

The “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” (FOIP) is the most important feature of Japan’s foreign policy under the Abe Administration. One of the most important questions is whether this vision aims to contain a rapidly rising China. Along with the amelioration of the relationship between Japan and China, this diplomatic strategy has been evolved from the quadrilateral security cooperation among leading democracies in this region, namely the US, Japan, Australia, and India, to a more comprehensive regional cooperation. This article regards the latter diplomatic strategic as the “FOIP 2.0” and that there emerges a possible harmony between Japan’s FOIP and China’s controversial Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).     

美国“印太”战略对南海问题的影响——以“印太”战略支点国家为重点

随着印度洋战略价值的上升,美国在"重返亚太"战略基础上推出了"印太"战略,其战略实质是美国在印太地区缔造战略支点,并将其塑造成美国霸权下的多极格局。印度、澳大利亚、日本作为美国在印太地区的战略支点国家,它们自身在南海地区具有重要的战略利益。在美国"印太"战略的引导下,战略支点国家将对南海问题产生深刻的影响,尤其是将加剧中国周边安全环境的复杂化。在中美战略博弈的背景下,考察美国"印太"战略特别是其支点国家对南海问题的影响,有助于我们把握美国"印太"战略的实质,也有益于我们全面地分析南海地区的安全形势,提出应对策略。     

Towards a “Trilateral Alliance?” Understanding the Role of Expediency and Values in American–Japanese–Australian Relations

Abstract

The emerging US–Japan–Australia trilateral alignment is representative of a new archetype of “alliance” calibrated to the changed post-Cold War, post-9/11 security environment. This article considers how we might account for this new alliance formation and how we might conceptualize it. To accomplish this the article formulates an “intra-alliance politics” framework for analysis that juxtaposes competing “Realist” and “Pluralist” images of allied behavior in International Relations theory. This framework is then employed to uncover the motivations and behavioral dynamics driving the trilateral alliance seeking to reveal whether the alignment is predicated upon common “values” or sheer “expediency.” It concludes that though the two different International Relations schools offer ostensibly competitive interpretations, the evidence suggests that they are in many ways complementary and mutually reinforcing. We must therefore consider the trilateral alliance an amalgam of both “expediency” and “values.” The application of the intra-alliance politics framework expounded here thus enhances our understanding of this particular “alliance” and the phenomenon of “alignment” in general.     

The European Union (EU) in Asian Security: Actor with a Punch or Distant Bystander?

The EU calls itself a “soft power,” making “soft power” contributions to Asian security. That is undoubtedly what the EU is and does in Asia and the track record of European contributions to Asian peace and stability through economic and financial as well as development aid and technical assistance over the decades is not unimpressive. As will be shown below, over recent years Brussels and the Union's individual member states have sought to increase their involvement and role in Asian “hard security,” attempting to get rid of its reputation of being security a “free-rider” enjoying but not sharing the burden of US regional security guarantees. While the EU will continue to be a “hard security” actor in Asian security within limits, it is advised to concentrate its security cooperation with like-minded partners such as Japan and the US as opposed to hoping that talking to Beijing on regional or global security issues produces tangible results. As will be shown below, it clearly does not as Beijing continues to conduct very assertive and at times aggressive regional foreign and security policies insisting on the “principle of non-interference” in Chinese domestic and foreign policies. Consequently, EU influence on Chinese foreign and security policies in general and its increasingly aggressive policies related to territorial claims in the East China and South China Seas will continue to exist on paper and paper only.     

Whatever happened to the rare earths weapon? Critical materials and international security in Asia

In 2008, rare earth minerals (REMs) shot to the top of the international agenda. When China began restricting exports of these critical materials, many claimed it was threatening a “REMs weapon” against the US and Japan. Yet by 2014, the crisis had quickly abated, as China shelved its policies in the face of pressure from consumer governments. This article examines why REMs emerged – and then quickly disappeared – as a threat to international security in Asia. It first conceptualizes the geopolitics of critical materials, before analyzing the politics of the REMs crisis between Japan, China, and the US. It argues that China’s ability to use REMs for diplomatic coercion was inherently weak and is unlikely to pose a similar threat to international security in future years.     

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.     

Japan’s Pivotal Role in the Emerging Indo-Pacific Order

The imperative in the Indo-Pacific region is to build a new strategic equilibrium pivoted on a stable balance of power. A constellation of likeminded states linked by interlocking strategic cooperation has become critical to help build such equilibrium. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is the author of the “free and open Indo-Pacific” concept that the US is now pushing. But Japan faces important strategic challenges. To secure itself against dangers that did not exist when its current national-security policies and laws were framed, Japan must bolster its security or risk coming under siege. US security interests will be better served by a more confident and secure Japan that assumes greater responsibility for its own defense and for regional security. The US must encourage Japan, which has not fired a single shot against an outside party since World War II, to undertake greater national-security reforms. Peace in Asia demands a proactive Japan.     

Russia and the United States: Still cold in Northeast Asia?

The US has been reluctant to acknowledge Russia's relevance to the Asia‐Pacific, the author says, because “too little time has passed since the interests of these two former adversaries collided in the region.” Russia has the longest Pacific coastline and borders with China, Japan, Korea and Mongolia. Despite the end of the Cold War, however, Russia is still not an integrated participant in Northeast Asian economic cooperation. Vladimir Ivanov is a Visiting Fellow at the Economic Research Institute for Northeast Asia in Niigata. He argues that Russia has made a clear choice between “guns and growth,” and that the country should be allowed to come in from the cold and join this region's development.     

US Defense Innovation and Artificial Intelligence

The United States seeks conventional military overmatch in the strategic competition with China and Russia through efforts to develop advanced technology for military application and new concept of operations as well as pursue organizational adaptation and human talent pool development. The current article will trace the development of US defense innovation efforts from the Obama administration to the Trump administration and focus on the technological dimension of defense innovation by illustrating ways through which the U.S. Department of Defense is attempting to apply “narrow” artificial intelligence for military purposes such as situational awareness, cyber, military logistics, command and control, and swarm technology and tactics for autonomous unmanned systems. The article will conclude by making two caveats regarding the actual introduction of artificial intelligence into the US battle network, and very briefly point to implications for US allies.     

Hiding in Plain Sight? Japan’s Militarization of Space and Challenges to the Yoshida Doctrine

ABSTRACT

Japan’s security discourse – despite accelerating shifts in its security stance over the last two decades, and more recently, under the Abe administration – remains dominated by views of essential continuity and maintenance of the “Yoshida Doctrine.” The case of Japan’s militarization of space is used to create a framework for systematically dismantling default assumptions about the durability of the Yoshida Doctrine. The militarization of space serves as a driver of broader trends in Japan’s security policy manifested in the procurement of dual-use assets in launch systems, communications and intelligence satellites, and counterspace capabilities necessary for active internal and external balancing with the US–Japan alliance; the strengthening domestically of security policymaking institutions; and the jettisoning of anti-militaristic norms. Japan’s increasingly assertive military stance, bolstering of the US–Japan alliance and cessation of hedging, facing down of China’s rise, and departure from the Yoshida Doctrine as grand strategy are thus revealed as hiding in plain sight.     

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.     

Japan as the “Indispensable Nation” in Asia: A Financial Brand for the 21st Century

This article addresses Japan's global financial “brand.” It first examines the concept of a national “brand” and the difficulties associated with creating a desirable image of a country among outsiders. It adopts an instrumental concept of branding, which focuses on the behavior that the national image should elicit from foreign countries. It also notes that effective branding must accurately reflect reality. For Japan, the goal should be to promote economic cooperation where mutual interests exist. Efforts should be focused on East Asia, where mutual economic interests are least fully realized, and where Japan's national image appears to be an important stumbling block. Japan should seek to demonstrate the potential for transition to a “post-developmental” financial model and to be the “indispensable partner” for regional cooperative and development initiatives. This will require continued progress in cleaning up and improving the competitiveness of Japan's financial institutions and financial system.     

Two postscripts to the McCarran hearings

Abstract

For nearly three decades following World War II Japan was officially considered to be America's newly befriended and unthreatening client in East Asia. Today that is no longer entirely true. A major change is underway in the justifying ideology and the imagery surrounding the US relationship with Japan. Bureaucrats, businessmen, journalists, and academics now portray Japan provocatively to the American public as a direct threat to the viability of America's key economic institutions. To understand why this shift in the official perception and evaluation of Japan is occurring, and what a change in the dominant ideological teaching about postwar Japan portends, I will focus first on two successive periods—the 1970s and the early 1980s—during which the US-Japan bilateral relationship reflected important changes in the world economy and the US position within it. Then, after having described the environment within which US-Japan frictions have been working themselves out, I shall argue that influential ruling elites in the United States are now coming around to the view that the new challenge confronting US global hegemony is the narrowing technological gap between the US and its main industrial competitors. This will lead me to say a few words about the different forces acting to shape science and technology in the United States and Japan. Finally, I shall conclude by recommending what may be a more rational approach for Japan to take in the international arena if it still wishes to preserve its “peace constitution” into the next century.     

US security strategy in Asia and the prospects for an Asian regional security regime

The US–Japan alliance serves as the cornerstone of US security strategy in East Asia. The Bush administration remains supportive of efforts by Japan to become a more “normal” nation and is expected, during its second term, to continue to encourage Tokyo to play a more active role in regional security (while refraining from open pressure or from meddling in the debate over constitutional revision). The Pentagon's ongoing Global Force Review will likely result in some modest adjustments in the US military footprint in Japan, but with no lessening of Washington's overall commitment or ability to respond to regional crises. Meanwhile, Washington will continue to support institutionalized multilateral mechanisms (including sub-regional efforts that do not include the US) as useful means to promote regional security and coordinate counter-terrorism efforts, while relying on ad hoc coalitions (or unilateral actions if necessary) to address specific threats to its own security or to the security of its allies.     

The Atlantic Alliance in a Global System

The war in Iraq led to a confrontation between emerging American and European models for global governance. In imagining the future, each has tended to project its own positive experience in the Cold War years. Europeans imagine a multilateral concert, with confederal institutions encouraging mutual appeasement. Americans imagine a benevolent unipolar hegemony. Experience in the 1990s reinforced America's unipolar perspectives. Trends in the new century make Europe's model seem better adapted to an increasingly plural world system. The conclusion speculates on the European model's relevance to Asia. Much will depend on whether China and Japan can replicate the Franco-German reconciliation. China may have more success “containing” the US within a larger Eurasian or even UN context, including, in some fashion, Europe and the US. Conceivably the Western powers may more easily balance their own relations in a Eurasian rather than transatlantic geopolitical framework.     

What Makes the USA So Innovative?

The word “innovation” tends to bring to mind the USA, rather than Europe or Japan. In the ICT industry, in particular, revolutionary companies such as Apple, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have succeeded in bringing about numerous innovations. Because of this, it has become second nature to think of innovation as a US phenomenon. What, then, gives rise to so much innovation in the USA? In this article, the author will first provide an overall view of innovation from the perspectives of economics and of management theory and examine the ways in which innovation has been interpreted and defined. Then, the author will consider the question of why the USA is so innovative as a nation from the three perspectives of its historical background, national character, and systems supporting innovation. It will be demonstrated that one of the characteristics of innovation—discontinuity—is well entrenched in the USA, as is a national character that stresses individualism and a culture that forgives failure. The author will suggest that new innovations will continue to be the driving force of US economic growth into the future.     

Obama’s Pivot to Asia and Its Failed Japan-South Korea Historical Reconciliation

Since the 1980s, Japan’s war memory has strained its relations with South Korea and China, to a less degree, the USA. Two of the thorniest issues are the comfort women and the US atomic bombing of Japan. Before the Obama administration announced its policy pivot to Asia in 2011, both Japanese and American leaders were reluctant to make amends for the past acts of their countries. However, in 2015, the Japanese conservative Prime Minister Abe reached an agreement with South Korea that “finally and irreversibly” resolved the comfort women issue, thus achieving a historic reconciliation between the two countries. In 2016, then President Obama visited Hiroshima to commemorate the atomic bomb victims. Then, in December 2016, the comfort women issue resurfaced in Japan and South Korea relations, indicating a failure of the reconciliation. Why did the USA change its policy on historical issues involving Japan? Why did Abe and the South Korean President Park Geun-hye settle the comfort women issue? Why did Obama visit Hiroshima? Why did the reconciliation fail? In this article, I propose a rational choice theory to answer these questions. Applying the proposed theory and relying on available evidence, I argue that the settlement of the comfort women issue and Obama’s visit to Hiroshima are important components of Obama’s pivot to Asia to balance China’s rise. The reconciliation failed mainly because it did not resolve the historical justice issue promoted by the human rights norms. I discuss some implications for reconciliation in Northeast Asia.     

A Middle Power's Roles in Shaping East Asian Security Order: Analysis of Japan's Engagement from a Normative Perspective

East Asia is currently in a transitional period. Recognizing the challenges presented by China's rise to the current regional order, existing literature analyses the security situation in Asia by focusing on the material aspects of power distribution between the US and China. Few works substantively discuss the roles played by middle powers such as Japan in shaping the regional order and how they can deal with the challenges of great power competition and threats to the global rules‐based order. By employing Japan's involvement in the South China Sea issues as a case study, this article examines how a middle power attempts to shape or underpin the regional security order and if such attempts are effective. The investigation of Japan's engagement illustrates that a middle power's practical support can indirectly and gradually contribute to sustaining and defending the regional “rules‐based order”.     

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.