South Korean views on Japan's constitutional reform under the Abe government

In this Special Section, this article reviews South Korean views on Japan's ‘peace’ Constitution and the Abe government's attempts at constitutional reform. It identifies three different understandings among South Korean academics on why Japan is escalating attempts to revise the Constitution under the Abe government. An in-depth analysis demonstrates that all three perspectives pay specific attention to Japan's constitutional reform in relation to security policy changes. However, they differ in assessing the impact of Japan's constitutional reform on South Korea as well as how South Korea should deal with such a change. A minority opinion considers Japan's ‘remilitarisation’ through constitutional revision as conducive to South Korean security interests by increasing deterrence against North Korea, whereas the dominant opinion is that any attempt to revise the Constitution could be in and of itself a potential threat to South Korea's security due to a lack of trust attributed to unresolved historical conflicts between Korea and Japan. However, all three approaches pay hardly any attention to the positive role of Japan's peace Constitution while Japan's peace Constitution might provide a regional peace model in Northeast Asia.     

To revise or not to revise: the ‘peace constitution’, pro-revision movement,and Japan's national identity

Why do conservative nationalists in Japan continuously seek to revise the constitution despite the past failures, and what is the likelihood of successful revision and its impact on Japan's norm of pacifism and its use of force? The article offers an analytical framework for the issue based on national pride and national security, and argues that the ‘revisionists’ seek to create a new national identity, one that infuses a greater sense of national pride among the public and enables the exercise of collective self-defense, thereby removing Japan's postwar psychological and institutional limitations on nationalism and military activities. The LDP's 2012 draft is most explicit and ambitious in this regard, with the current revision attempt under Abe having the highest chance of success since the 1950s. Successful revision would significantly expand Japan's security activities, particularly within the framework of the US–Japan Security Alliance, and entail the end of Japan's unique postwar institutionalized pacifism, although the norm of pacifism will linger on as a constitutional principle. For a smoother return to the international military scene, the Japanese government must distance itself from historical revisionism and utilize its enhanced military role to promote regional public goods rather than merely protecting its narrow national interests.     

Rethinking the Europe‐Taiwan relationship

This article attempts to construct an overview of Japan's defence problematique in the post‐cold war era. Its approach is to survey the historical legacies that have shaped Japan's defence policies and perceptions, and to assess how these fit, or do not fit, with the new security environment within which Japan now finds itself. The purpose is to argue that a policy of non‐offensive defence (NOD) could solve many of the difficult defence questions that Japan now faces. As a consequence, the discussion will concentrate mainly on military and political issues, mostly leaving aside questions of economic, societal and environmental security on the grounds that these issues interact less strongly with NOD. Section 1 considers the geopolitics of Japan's security that arise from its being an island country. Section 2 analyses some crucial historical considerations, particularly Japan's status as a great power, and the particular circumstances of its historical relationship with its neighbours. Section 3 looks at Japan's position during the cold war, examining how the legacies of its defeat in the Second World War blended into the demands placed upon it as a front‐line ally of the United States against Chinese and Soviet power. Section 4 surveys the actual and possible changes in Japan's security environment consequent upon the ending of the cold war. It focuses on Japan's relationships with the United States, the East Asian region, the international system as a whole, and finally on Japan's relationship with itself. Section 5 considers the requirements for a Japanese defence and security policy in the post‐cold war era.     

Japan's security agenda in the post‐cold war era

The radically changed regional security environment in the post‐cold war Asia‐Pacific poses serious challenges to Japan's security policy. Tokyo must develop a new strategic view of the region to complement its tendency to emphasize security based on economic growth and interdependence. Japan's relations with the United States, Russia and China have far‐reaching, long‐term regional security implications, yet Tokyo is barely managing to respond to bilateral political and economic issues as they arise. While the waning of the cold war security threat and budgetary considerations are putting increasing constraints on Tokyo's spending for both defence and foreign economic assistance, there are conflicting international demands and fears concerning expanded Japanese international security roles. At the same time, Tokyo's desire to participate more actively in United Nations peacekeeping and to gain a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council is hampered by the domestic constitutional debate and widespread pacifism, both legacies of the Second World War and the cold war. Tokyo must muster both domestic and international support for legitimate uses of the nation's enormous power potential.     

Developmental states in transition: adapting,dismantling, innovating,not ‘normalizing’

Abstract

In recent years, there has been an increasingly vigorous debate by a wide range of participants over the past, present and future of Japanese security and the national defence policy. Ever since the end of the Cold War, international relations theorists have cast their gaze to Japan, and have been given to re-examining ‘comprehensive security’ with a particular eye for the meaning of ‘security’. The 1990s were a particularly interesting time for this scholarly revisionism, while events of September 2001 have cast an entirely different spectre on the nature and expectations of Japanese security, both domestically and internationally. This article is particularly concerned with the developments in the 1990s as scholars sought to reassert the ‘defence’ component of the comprehensive security policy hitherto pursued by Japan. This re-examination has elevated former Japanese Defence Agency (JDA) bureaucrat Kubo Takuya as the key architect in crafting Japan's security policy. Tsuyoshi Kawasaki's contributions to the debate are especially interesting on this point. He rightly challenges the short-comings of the so-called ‘domestic-constructivists’, especially Berger and Katzenstein. However, in attempting to demolish their cases for ‘selective biases’ he then proceeds to selectively argue a similarly biased case in asserting the superiority of yet another derivation of the realist cause – ‘postclassical realism’. His key premises are based on his interpretations of the architect of Japan's National Defence Program Outline, Kubo, and in doing so ‘proves’ the military aspect of Japan's security policy and its ‘inherent superiority’ as an explanatory framework. Equally, one can mount a case for the ‘comprehensive security’ proponents by citing the work and presence of the late Okita Saburo in his contributions to understanding post-war security policy. This article will demonstrate a similar argument to that of Kawasaki's based on an analogous analytical framework which grounds Japanese security consciousness in a deeper historical context. It is part of a larger project which seeks to give empirical substance to constructivist interpretations of Japanese security.     

A new dynamism in Sino-Japanese security relations: Japan's strategic use of foreign aid

Abstract

In November 2004 a Chinese nuclear submarine cruised into Japan's territorial waters near the Okinawa Islands. In response, the Japanese government dispatched several Japanese naval ships and planes to chase the Chinese submarine until it navigated into international waters. This event, which potentially could have become the first exchange of fire between Japan and China since the Second World War, illuminated increasingly problematic security relations between the two neighbouring countries in the twenty-first century. In fact, deterioration of Sino-Japanese security relations is not a recent phenomenon but has already been evident since the mid-1990s, when Japan imposed a series of economic sanctions on China. Between 1995 and 2000 Japan had suspended its foreign aid to China in protest against: China's nuclear weapons tests; China's large scale war game including the launch of missiles across the Taiwan Strait; and Chinese naval activities in disputed areas in the East China Sea. This article looks at Sino-Japanese security relations since the mid-1990s through three case studies of the aid sanctions imposed by Japan on China. It clarifies the domestic political and bureaucratic interests that motivated aid sanctions and determined the decision-making process leading to these sanctions. The article argues, that with certain politico-security interests, Japanese governments actively used foreign aid as a strategic instrument to counter provocative military actions by China in the East Asian region since the mid-1990s. Despite the limited influence that Japanese aid sanctions have actually had on Chinese military behaviour, Japan's strategic use of foreign aid has undeniably created a new dynamism in security relations between the two neighbouring great powers in Asia.     

The North Korean abduction issue: emotions,securitisation and the reconstruction of Japanese identity from ‘aggressor’ to ‘victim’ and from ‘pacifist’ to ‘normal’

Abstract

After Kim Jong-il's confession in 2002 that North Korean agents had abducted thirteen Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s, North Korea has become the most detested country in Japan, and the normalisation of bilateral relations has been put on the back burner. The abduction issue has taken precedence in Japan even over North Korea's development of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. It has also grossly overshadowed the atrocities for which Imperial Japan was responsible in the 20th century. Why has there been such strong emphasis on an issue that could be disregarded as comparatively ‘less important’? This article understands the ascendency of the abduction issue as the epitome of an identity shift under way in Japan – from the identity of a curiously ‘peaceful’ and inherently ‘abnormal’ state, to that of a more ‘normal’ one. The differentiation of North Korea as ‘abnormal’ emphasises Japan's own (claim to) ‘normality’. Indeed, by incarnating the perils of Japan's own ‘pacifist’ ‘abnormality’, which has been so central to the collective sense of Japanese ‘Self’ in the post-war period, the abduction issue has become a very emotional argument for Japan's ‘normalisation’ in security and defence terms. The transformation from ‘abnormal’ to ‘normal’ is further enabled by Japan trading places with North Korea in the discourse, so that Japan is defined as ‘victim’ (rather than former aggressor) and North Korea as ‘aggressor’ (rather than former victim). What is at stake here is the question whether Japan is ‘normalising’ or ‘remilitarising’, and the role of the abduction issue discourse in enabling such foreign and security policy change.     

Japanese policy and the North Korean ‘soft landing’

Abstract

The nature of security on the Korean Peninsula has undergone fundamental change in the post‐Cold War period, characterized by the growing recognition on the part of the major regional powers that there is a need for economic as well as military approaches to security and conflict avoidance. The chief manifestation of this trend is the emergence of the US Department of State's ‘soft landing’ and other engagement policies as attempts to resolve North Korean security threats. Some commentators have seen the soft‐landing policy as an opportunity for Japan to use its economic power to contribute to regional and international security. This article examines the evolution and rationale of the soft‐landing policy, how Japanese policy‐makers evaluate its potential as a solution to the North Korean security problem and the current extent of Japan's contribution to it. The article also points out the‐limitations of Japanese support for the soft landing due to international restrictions on the Japanese government's room for diplomatic manoeuvre, domestic political obstacles to engaging North Korea and the general lack of Japanese private business interest in the North. Finally the conclusion shows that, despite the recognition of the need to engage North Korea economically, Japanese policy‐makers have devoted their energies principally to the redefinition of the US‐Japan military alliance based on the legitimacy of the North Korean threat.     

Between realism and idealism in Japanese security policy: The case of the ASEAN regional forum

Abstract

While ASEAN played the leadership role for erecting the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), Japan generated positive impact on the historical trajectory leading to the birth of the ARF. This paper asks the following question: On what ideational foundation was Japan's support for the ARF based? Utilizing a conceptual framework based on the theoretical literature of multilateralism, the paper analyzes three major Japanese perspectives on the ARF in the inception years (1991–95) — Idealism, Realism, and Liberalism — while paying special attention to Liberalism, the perspective underlying Japan's actual policy. Liberalism, while leaning toward Realism, still incorporated some elements of Idealism. For Liberals, centering around the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the ARF was a vehicle to foster a sense of trust, however fragile, on the basis of providing and sharing quality information about China, Japan, and the United States, without undermining the existing security arrangements including the US‐Japanese alliance.     

Postclassical realism and Japanese security policy

The recent domestic constructivist studies characterize Japanese security policy as a serious anomaly to realism and a crucial case vindicating their approach to the larger study of world politics. The present paper challenges this view. It advances a postclassical realist interpretation of Japan's core security policy in the past quarter century. Japan's military doctrine expressed in the 1976 National Defense Program Outline (NDPO) is consistent with postclassical realism's predictions, as opposed to neorealism's predictions, which focus on the dynamics of the regional security dilemma and the question of financial burden resulting from military build-up. In addition, postclassical realism offers a more compelling theoretical guide for understanding Japan's core security policy than defensive realism or mercantile realism. This paper backs up its argument with the empirical evidence that Takuya Kubo, the author of the NDPO, himself intentionally based the NDPO on a postclassical realist line of thinking.     

Japanese women in grassroots politics: building a gender-equal society from the bottom up

Abstract

The 1979 UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women highlights the importance of equal participation of women in public life. Since the early 1960s, women in Japan have voted in elections at significantly higher rates than men. However, Japanese women's equal participation in policy formulation and decision making lags far behind major democracies. Gender equality is stated under the Japanese Constitution, but social practices are far from equal. There are no legal constraints on Japanese women's right to candidacy for public office, but they are far underrepresented in local and national elected assemblies. In 1999 an important landmark in the substantial progress towards gender equality took place when the Japanese government, for the first time, legally denounced the stereotyped division of roles on the basis of gender and described men and women as equal partners. An unprecedented amount of legislation, together with policy changes and organizational reform at the national level were introduced from this state-led initiation. In the same year, women's grassroots groups were rapidly moving beyond the reach of policy, organizational, and legal changes; they successfully conducted a major nationwide campaign for ‘More Women to Assemblies¡’ and increased the number of elected women representatives at the local level at an unprecedented rate. The purpose of this article is to assess the potential of increased women's political voices in Japan, which can be seen as an alternative way of solving the problems of political disengagement in the male-dominated representative democracy. To this end, the article examines the course of watershed events in 1999 towards a gender-equal society in Japan, with special emphasis on the importance of grassroots missions in eliminating barriers to Japanese women's political participation.     

Kantei diplomacy? Japan's hybrid leadership in foreign and security policy

This article operationalizes Japanese leadership in foreign and security policy, specifically the Abe administrations’ consistent China balancing. It will do so to dispel instances of Premier-centered diplomacy and posit that Abe's diplomatic agenda has rested on a ‘hybrid’ policy-making authority, where the leverage enjoyed by the Prime Minister's office (the Kantei) rested on little-appreciated politicized personnel appointments and demotions within the bureaucratic apparatus, specifically the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Moreover, successful Japanese leadership has functioned especially when operating within the scope of the US strategic framework towards East Asia. While structural constraints, such as the ever-present influence of the USA and bureaucratic coordination, may constrain options, effective leadership in foreign policy-making can indeed make a difference within those boundaries.     

Political survival and the Yasukuni controversy in Sino-Japanese relations

Abstract

This article presents a reinterpretation of Japan's responses toward China's pressure over the Yasukuni issue. It is generally taken for granted that Japan's official responses to China's pressure over the issue are determined by the personality of individual leaders, the emergence of Japanese conservative nationalism and the calculations of Japan's national interests with regard to China's strategic role. With the examination of two cases during the Koizumi and Abe administrations between 2001 and 2007, this paper offers an alternative interpretation by highlighting the rationality of individual political actors and the primacy of domestic political survival. The article suggests domestic political legitimacy of individual leaders is a vital factor that affects Japan's official responses to China's pressure over the Yasukuni issue.     

The rise of the Chinese ‘Other’ in Japan's construction of identity: Is China a focal point of Japanese nationalism?

Abstract

Since 1945, the United States (US) has served as a focal point of both Left-wing and Right-wing Japanese nationalism. Both sides argued that the US was an arrogant hegemon that unjustly robbed Japan of its autonomy, and prevented Japan from achieving its own ideal national identity. Both sides frequently demanded that Japan should be more ‘resolute’ and resist unfair demands emanating from the US. In recent years, however, both camps are increasingly using the same rhetoric to criticise the Japanese government's China policy. China is also being depicted as an overbearing state that unfairly browbeats Japan into making diplomatic concessions. Given the similarities between the portrayal of China and the US, has China now become a nationalist focal point for both the Japanese Left and Right? Utilising constructivist insights, this article seeks to shed light on this question, by examining how the Japanese Right and Left portray China, and explores the implications for Japan's China policy.     

Identity and recognition: remembering and forgetting the post-war in Sino-Japanese relations

Abstract

In the 1990s, Japanese views of China were relatively positive. In the 2000s, however, views of China have deteriorated markedly and China has increasingly come to be seen as ‘anti-Japanese’. How can these developments, which took place despite increased economic interdependence, be understood? One seemingly obvious explanation is the occurrence of ‘anti-Japanese’ incidents in China since the mid-2000s. I suggest that these incidents per se do not fully explain the puzzle. Protests against other countries occasionally occur and may influence public opinion. Nonetheless, the interpretation of such events arguably determines their significance. Demonstrations may be seen as legitimate or spontaneous. If understood as denying recognition of an actor's self-identity, the causes of such incidents are likely to have considerably deeper and more severe consequences than what would otherwise be the case. Through an analysis of Japanese parliamentary debates and newspaper editorials, the paper demonstrates that the Chinese government has come to be seen as denying Japan's self-identity as a peaceful state that has provided China with substantial amounts of official development aid (ODA) during the post-war era. This is mainly because China teaches patriotic education, which is viewed as the root cause of ‘anti-Japanese’ incidents. China, then, is not regarded as ‘anti-Japanese’ merely because of protests against Japan and attacks on Japanese material interests but for denying a key component of Japan's self-image. Moreover, the analysis shows that explicit Chinese statements recognising Japan's self-identity have been highly praised in Japan. The article concludes that if China recognises Japan's self-understanding of its identity as peaceful, Japan is more likely to stick to this identity and act accordingly whereas Chinese denials of it might empower Japanese actors who seek to move away from this identity and ‘normalise’ Japan, for example, by revising the pacifist Article Nine of the Japanese constitution.     

Japan's export of infrastructure systems: pursuing twin goals through developmental means

This article focuses on the export of infrastructure systems as Japan's foreign economic policy that is unique in terms of diplomatic goals and means. It seeks to address how and why the Japanese government has strengthened commitments to expanding infrastructure exports to major Asian countries. This article argues that the Japanese government took advantage of developmental means of state-led initiative and institutionalised government-business collaboration in sustaining the export of infrastructure systems. It also contends that the Japanese government pursued, in the infrastructure export initiative, twin goals of creating a new growth engine to revitalise the Japanese economy and strengthening strategic links with Asian countries to balance China's regional influence.     

Security Implications of Japan's Information Gathering Satellite (IGS) System

Countries which previously limited their space activity to civilian purposes have increasingly come to employ dual-use technology as a first step into the world of military space. Japan's Information Gathering Satellite (IGS) system, intended to support disaster relief situations, and provide information for diplomatic and defense policy decision-making, is exemplary of this trend. Not coincidentally, the program was approved shortly after the 31 August 1998 North Korean launch of a Taepo Dong missile that sailed over Japan. While the program had been unsuccessfully proposed previously, Japanese politicians, surprised by the launch, became amenable to the point of perhaps rushing their decision. This article suggests that what capabilities these satellites render appear to Japanese policy makers to be a secondary concern to the initiation of an autonomous intelligence capability.     

Bridging between Myanmar and international society – Japan's self-identity and kakehashi policy

Abstract

Numerous academic works have critiqued Japan's Official Development Assistance (ODA) programme for being mercantilist and failing to promote democratization and human rights (Orr 1990; Rix 1993; Arase 1995, 2005). Such accounts assess Japan's ODA policy from Western theoretical perspectives that advocate Western approaches, such as military and economic interventions to contain repressive states. While receptive to these criticisms, Japanese policy-makers have perceived their country's international role in ‘bridging’ (kakehashi) terms and structured their ODA accordingly, as this paper details in the case of Japan's ODA policy towards Myanmar. ¹ 1. Myanmar is used throughout this paper in place of Burma in line with the preference of the Japanese government. Burma is employed when referring to events prior to 1989. The rationale behind Japan's kakehashi approach lies in the construction of Japan's self-identity as a state able to reenter international society after World War II through focusing on economic development rather than military and coercive action. Proponents of the kakehashi approach construct Japan both as a model of successful democratization through development which other states can learn from, as well as the means through ODA to ‘bridge’ the divide between repressive regimes and liberal democratic capitalism. This critical approach examines Japan's kakehashi or bridging strategy in terms of Japan's response to the anti-government protests in September 2007, Cyclone Nargis in May 2008, and in the build up to parliamentary elections in November 2010 in Myanmar to demonstrate the permanence of this approach in spite of a change of government in Japan. In so doing, the kakehashi approach reveals opportunities to engage with, rather than contain, repressive regimes, thereby raising the possibility of enticing such states back into international society though economic incentives.     

Reassessing pre-war Japanese espionage: The Rutland naval spy case and the Japanese intelligence threat before Pearl Harbor

Soon after the termination of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance in 1921, Squadron Leader Frederick Joseph Rutland covertly offered the Japanese navy technical help to develop aircraft carriers. In doing so Rutland played a significant role in the evolution of Japan's offensive capability that made the attack on Pearl Harbor possible. Of as lasting importance was the impact the case had in shaping the perception of ‘the Japanese threat’. British security and intelligence agencies' knowledge of Japanese naval intelligence actions in accepting this ‘offer of service’ and running Rutland as a clandestine agent was not balanced by any understanding of the fragmented nature of the Japanese leadership and intelligence bureaucracy. The case in the 1920s provided the Security Service and SIS with the apparent evidence to justify reassessing Japan from benign if opportunistic former ally to hostile power, apparently proving that Japan's intelligence actions reflected sustained hostile intent throughout the inter-War period.     

International and domestic challenges to Japan's postwar security identity: ‘norm constructivism’ and Japan's new ‘proactive pacifism’

Abstract

Japan today is widely portrayed as on the verge of a significant identity shift that could lead to dramatic new security policies. Yet, Japan's first formal national security strategy, adopted in December 2013, proclaims repeatedly Japan's long-standing ‘peace-loving’ policies and principles. Why does a conservative government with high levels of popular support not pursue policies more in line with views widely reported to be central to its values and outlook? The answer lies in Japan's long-standing security identity of domestic antimilitarism, an identity under siege to a degree not seen since its creation over 50 years ago, but – as evidenced in Japan's new national strategy document – one that continues to shape both the framing of Japan's national security debates and the institutions of Japan's postwar security policy-making process. Relational approaches to identity construction illuminate challenges to Japan's dominant security identity, but a focus on domestic institutions and electoral politics offers the best course for modeling identity construction and predicting its future resilience.