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.     

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.”     

Security in Asia: Roles and tasks for Japan and the US

Beyond any doubt, Japan and the United States share common security interests in Asia and must take active measures to strengthen their alliance, because their alliance is the foundation for Asia's peace and prosperity, argues Motohide Hashimoto. Hashimoto is a senior research fellow at IIPS who was seconded from the Ministry of Finance, where he is a specialist in fiscal and monetary policy. He worked at the Defense Agency's Bureau of Defense Policy from 1990–1992.     

Why we need the US‐Japan security treaty

There are a number of arguments that opponents of the US‐Japan security treaty have used over the years to explain why the security treaty is either unnecessary, unfair, or both, and should be scrapped. These arguments are unreasonable at best and dangerous at worst, says Daizo Sakurada, associate professor of international relations at the University of Tokushima. He examines and responds to each argument, showing why the security treaty is necessary for peace in the Asia‐Pacific region. An earlier version of this paper was published by the Centre for Strategic Studies in New Zealand as CSS Working Paper 7/97, entitled “For Mutual Benefit: The Japan‐US Security Treaty from a Japanese Perspective.”     

How China Seeks to Foster an Asia‐Pacific Security Community: Peace through Consultation,Cooperation and Co‐development

Faced by increasing challenges to its national security and development, China has taken active measures to improve its security position in the Asia‐Pacific and to foster a lasting and commonly‐beneficial regional security order based on its “New Asian Security Concept”, highlighting common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable peace. Though the Chinese government tends to follow a bilateral rather than collective approach to consolidate its regional security stance for the time being, one can expect China to push forward an all‐inclusive and comprehensive platform for enhanced collective security. Yet China will not pursue a completely new security order to replace the old one. Instead, it is taking a pragmatic and incremental approach to shape the necessary environment for the evolution of the US‐led hegemonic order into a more pluralistic, inclusive, and comprehensive one, where peace and security are guaranteed through closer political consultation and more integrated economic and social development among regional countries. If Sino‐US relations can be well managed and China keeps projecting its growing power in a restrained and contributive way to provide more public goods for regional peace and development, then one can hope for an Asia‐Pacific security community to take shape in the coming decades.     

The construction of an East Asian order and the limitations of the ASEAN model

An East Asian Summit will be held in Malaysia this December. Like other institutions in the region, the summit will be hosted by ASEAN. Only nations that have signed the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (or TAC), which sets out the basic principles of ASEAN, will receive an invitation to the summit from ASEAN. This unprecedented summit may become a historic starting point on the path towards the founding of an East Asian community. If so, the TAC may well come to represent the basic principles of the East Asian community. The commitment to peaceful resolution of conflict that is enshrined in the TAC could be expanded from Southeast Asia to East Asia. If a Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in East Asia could be concluded, it would surely constitute a major contribution to peace and prosperity in East Asia. At the same time, however, it is likely that the bedrock principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries—as stipulated in the TAC—would also become a fundamental doctrine of an East Asian community. Even within ASEAN there are some who regard this principle as outdated, as it is used as a pretext for resisting pressure to democratize. If it retains the TAC as its basis, will an East Asian community be able to share the concept of democracy?     

Development of the Mekong Region as Part of Japan's Diplomatic Strategy for East Asia

Japan's active engagement in the development of the Mekong region since the 1990s needs to be understood not only from an economic but also from a diplomatic perspective. Japan seeks to collaborate with ASEAN in facilitating multilateral “political dialogue” in the Asia-Pacific region and building an East Asian order based on “universal values” such as democracy and the rule of law, and the Mekong region could be the “weakest link” of ASEAN. After outlining Japan's twenty-year undertaking to cultivate Mekong-Japan cooperation, the author suggests that it is time to broaden the scope of the cooperation and accelerate Japan's “proactive contribution to peace” policy to cope with the changing security environment.     

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.     

安全预期、经济收益与东亚安全秩序

冷战后,东亚地区不仅没有进入一个充满紧张和冲突的时期,反而维持了相对长时间的和平状态。有关东亚安全秩序的既有解释主要强调的是体系结构或过程,但不足以解释东亚安全秩序内部的动力和机制,以及这种秩序蕴含的内在不稳定性的主要原因。本文提出了一种功能论的解释,认为美国和中国分别为东亚地区提供了安全预期和经济收益两项最为重要的公共产品,是维系当前东亚安全秩序的基础。然而,在中国崛起和美国重返东亚带来的冲击下,这两种地区性公共产品的供给脱节和供给矛盾使既有东亚安全秩序面临内在的不稳定性。为了应对这种不确定性,达到稳定周边环境和缓解崛起疑虑的效果,中国在为本地区提供稳定的经济收益的同时也需要在政治和军事方面采取积极的安全保障措施,营造东亚安全秩序的新基础。     

Finding stability in change

Asia is facing a period of great change as we head toward the twenty‐first century. It is vitally important that Asian nations find stability within this change, not simply for its own sake, but in order to increase the prosperity and well‐being of citizens, says Anthony Lake, former National Security Advisor for President Clinton. He argues that common, globally‐accepted “rules of the road” must be adopted in order to ensure a peaceful stability in the Asia‐Pacific region and in the world. This is a revised version of a speech Lake gave to the Symposium of the Global Forum on 19 September 1997 at International House of Japan in Tokyo.     

Introduction: East Asia's Contested Security Order

East Asia's security environment is changing rapidly. Over the past five years or so, the security order has become increasingly unsettled as it is buffeted by a complex array of forces. The region is entering a period of growing rivalry and animosity states are uncertain over the strategic intentions of great and rising powers, nationalism is an increasingly pervasive force, and military spending has been ramping up in many countries over the past decade. That the security environment is changing is unarguable. But what is the extent of these changes? And what are the implications of these shifts for regional states? This paper introduces the special issue “East Asia's Contested Security Order”. It begins by discussing the broad contours of the changing East Asian security order and what is at stake for regional powers. It then introduces the seven articles in this edition that challenge existing conceptualisations of the East Asian security order, articulate diverse perspectives on that order held by regional, middle and smaller powers, examine their complex and different security strategies that contribute to shaping the regional order, and consider the extent to which the regional security order may be said to be “contested”.     

Changing Global Landscape and Enhanced US Engagement with Asia—Challenges and Emerging Trends

United States President Barack Obama's announcement of significant shifts in US polices towards the Middle East and East Asia in 2009 has affected the global strategic landscape. President Obama's announcement of enhanced US engagement with Asia has posed certain challenges to the prevailing regional architecture of ASEAN centric institutions and ASEAN centrality which has fostered peace and stability, and prosperity in the region. The rise of China and its growing political and economic influence in the region and its military modernisation have aroused US concern that a rising China could in the future challenge its primacy in the Asia region. President Obama's announcement of a web of military alliances of treaty allies and strategic partners with the stationing of US marines in Darwin in November 2011 was perceived by China as an attempt by the US to contain China or constrain its rise. ASEAN is uneasy about any emergence of big power rivalry in the region.     

Strategic Japan-South Korea Cooperation: Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro and Korean Peninsula Diplomacy

The Nakasone administration placed a high priority on relations with South Korea in diplomatic efforts for stability and peace in Northeast Asia. He was the first Japanese Prime Minister to make an official visit, displaying a powerful leadership style in regard to Japan-South Korea relations that led to success in establishing a relationship of strategic cooperation between the two countries.     

APEC,globalization, and 9/11

The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC) has, in the main, been based on attempts to advance neoliberal ideas about economic governance, although this has stimulated a great deal of controversy and resistance. Having failed—despite much effort—to entrench neoliberalism within APEC the United States and other “Western” members of APEC are now “securitizing” economic policy in an effort to reconfigure the Asia Pacific along lines favored by major capitalist players in the region. Critics argue that this securitization of economics is simply a tactical effort to bring in through the back door policies that APEC members have resisted in the past. Faced with the prospect of not getting its own way through straight trade negotiations within APEC, Washington appears to be promoting measures — “urgently needed in the name of security”—that might never have been accepted otherwise. At the same time, a twin strategy of pursuing bilateral trade negotiations with key APEC states is threatening the multilateral nature of the body, further emasculating APEC's position as a serious trade body.     

改变与延续:奥巴马政府的东亚政策与东亚一体化

本文旨在探讨奥巴马政府的东亚政策及其对东亚一体化的影响.作者认为:奥巴马政府的东亚政策可以用"安全"、"繁荣"、"人权"和"环保"四个词来概括,在安全和经贸方面大体会延续前任政府的政策,在环保和人权方面会进行一定的变革,在经贸方面也会和以往有所不同.总体而言,奥巴马的东亚政策对东亚一体化既有积极的一面,但也必须认识到其消极的一面.最后,针对美国的关注与担忧及如何推动东亚一体化,本文提出了一些政策建议.     

Perspectives on the study of culture and international politics: From Nihonjinron to the new Asianism∗

Stephanie Lawson, Professor of International Relations at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, considers the role that the concept of “culture” has come to assume in the study of international politics, especially in relation to the Asia‐Pacific region. Much of the cultural nationalist rhetoric associated with the “Nihonjinron” as well as discourses surrounding the “new Asianism” has had two main consequences. One has been to reinforce static perceptions of culture as a marker of essential difference. On the other hand, some obvious instrumental uses to which it has been put by some political elites in the region has generated a great deal of cynicism about the concept. Taking culture seriously requires a different approach—one which stresses the dynamic properties of culture and its potential role in transcending the “East‐West” divide. The original version of this paper was presented at the Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies, St. Antony's College, Oxford, on 29 November 1998.     

Pitchers and catchers: Politicians,bureaucrats, and policy‐making in Japan

Yasuhiro Nakasone draws on his five years as Prime Minister of Japan and over forty‐five years as a member of the Diet's Lower House to analyze some of the fundamental characteristics of Japan's policy‐making process. He asserts that Japan urgently needs to reconstruct this process, so that political decisions are entrusted to elected politicians rather than to unelected bureaucrats. But he stresses that politicians must also have the responsibility to stand up for their principles, and be willing at times to go against the popular consensus. Yasuhiro Nakasone is chairman of IIPS and a member of the House of Representatives. He was assisted in the preparation of this article by IIPS Visiting Research Fellow Philipp Schuller, a doctoral candidate at Oxford University. An earlier and partial version of this article appeared in the October 1994 issue of Intersect.     

20世纪初韩国的和平思想——日本的“东洋和平论”批判和韩中日间合作的探索

20世纪初期,在日本帝国主义进行侵略和扩张的过程中,伊藤博文政府为了建立"东洋和平"和西方势力抗衡,主张在韩中日之间开展合作。但事实上这种主张不过是把当时以日本为中心的东北亚地区秩序合法化的说辞。针对这一点,安重根、安昌浩、申采浩等韩国独立运动家指出国家正处于丧失国权的危机之中,在对日本主张的"东洋和平"进行批判的同时,强调只有在韩国等周边国家的独立得到保障的情况下才有可能实现真正意义上的"东洋和平"。1910年日本帝国主义强行合并韩国以后,申采浩、朴殷植等韩国独立运动家在指出日本合并韩国的非法性的同时,还强调韩中日等东北亚地区国家间建立在信任基础上的交流和合作的重要性,主张韩国的独立有利于"东洋和平与世界和平"。尤其值得一提的是,柳麟锡在强调韩中关系在东北亚的重要性及中国作用的同时,还提出了韩中日三国在相互信任的基础上朝着共生关系发展的构想。     

A “Proactive Contribution to Peace” and the Right of Collective Self-Defense: The Development of Security Policy in the Abe Administration

Since the inauguration of the second Abe cabinet in December 2012, there have been many important developments in the area of security policy. This article examines each new policy and how it fits in to the National Security Strategy principles of a “proactive contribution to peace” and international cooperation. It concludes with a comparison of the new policies with those of other major world powers and a discussion of the main source of opposition to Japan's security policy.     

The Japan‐US alliance and the Asia‐Pacific region

For the past fifty years the Japan‐US alliance has provided the framework for Asia‐Pacific security, says Jusuf Wanandi, Chairman of the Centre for Strategic International Studies in Indonesia and former research fellow at IIPS. The region's political and economic dynamics are changing, Wanandi says, and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) supports an increased Japanese security role, with regional organizations acting as a conduit. But before Japan will win the confidence of some Asian neighbors, he says, Japan must open its economy, reform its domestic politics, and come to terms with its militaristic past.