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CIAO DATE: 3/99
Toward A Non-Threatening US-Japan Alliance *
Department of Political Studies
University of Auckland
International Studies Association
40th Annual Convention
Washington, D.C.
February 16–20, 1999
Do not cite without the author’s permission.
Introduction
The concept of comprehensive security in Japan has never been clearly defined. As the Japanese see it, security is broader than the mere military capability to defend Japan’s territorial integrity. Having little natural resources of its own, Japan’s survival as well as its economic well-being depend on stable overseas supplies of resources such as oil and precious minerals. During the World War II, Japan failed to militarily establish its own hegemonic domain in Asia, in which supply of the needed natural resources could be assured by its own military forces. Japan’s post-World War II security policy had to address improving relations with the rest of Asia, from which natural resources would be supplied and through whose waters such resources would be shipped. Thus, as Japan’s economy grew, its security interests extended beyond Northeast Asia.
Japan concentrated its effort on rebuilding its national economy, and entered a security alliance with the United States since 1951. US protection during the Cold War allowed Japan to keep its defence expenditure at a minimum, thereby enabling the country to fully utilise its national resources in the economic recovery. The strategy later was known as the ‘Yoshida Doctrine’ after Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida, who laid the foundation of Japan’s post-war mainstream conservatives. The vast United States market absorbed a large quantities of manufactured exports from Japan, whereas US military presence in Northeast Asia deterred potential conflicts in the region, assuring safe passage of import and export vessels for the Japanese.
Japan’s comprehensive security, as defined above, experienced a series of turmoils during the 1970s. As a weak recovering economy, Japan protected many of its infant industries with tariff and non-tariff barriers during the 1950s and 1960s. However, Japan’s formal trade barriers, such as tariffs, quotas and investment restrictions, were scheduled to be removed for most of the industrial sector by the mid-1970s as a result of a series of multilateral and bilateral agreements and trade liberalisation talks.
Furthermore, the United States faced a fiscal crisis in the early 1970s due to both its ‘Great Society’ social welfare expenditures and the costs of the prolonging Vietnam War. On one hand, the United States pursued detente with the Soviet Union to curb the growth of the military expenditure. On the other hand, the United States demanded that its allies share the burden of maintaining military security and economic stability of the Western world. Demand for an upward adjustment of yen by the United States and the floating exchange system that followed the failed negotiation for the adjustment opened up a new era in US-Japan relations, in which Japan was expected to undertake a larger part of the burden of maintaining regional security in Northeast Asia and global economic stability.
The Oil Shock of 1973 reminded the Japanese of the vulnerability of their economy. Structural adjustment of the Japanese economy did take place as a result, in which high-technology and knowledge-intensive industries replaced resource-intensive ‘smoke-stack industries’ as a core of the economic activities. Nevertheless, overall dependence on imported oil from the Middle East for Japan’s energy needs remains high.
Japan’s rapid industrialisation also brought about ever-weakening competitiveness of the domestic agricultural sector. Competition with the industrial sector for both labour and land pushed the production costs of domestic agriculture much higher, and the government policy of import bans and subsidies faced increasing protests by foreign countries. The domestic subsidies also contributed to the increasing budget deficit.
Japan’s security policy has tried to address all of the above concerns, but diversity of the concerns which cut across the ministerial jurisdictions warranted that overall policy coordination was essential, at which the Japanese government scored poorly. Furthermore, remedying one of the concerns sometimes contradicted the solution of another. 1 Dependency on the United States and its decentralised decision-making structure often exposed Japan to conflicting demands. All these factors have made it difficult to determine what are components of Japan’s ‘comprehensive security.’ A cynical view of the ‘comprehensive security’ is that Japan uses this obscure concept to minimise its military commitment to regional defence. Nevertheless, the concept of ‘comprehensive security’ is a complex and dynamic one, in which geographic conditions, military strategy, and economic interests interact.
Within the dynamic framework of ‘comprehensive security,’ Japan’s so-called ‘low-profile’ and ‘US-dependent’ diplomacy was not a constant given. The US-Japan alliance has lived through changing regional and global political circumstances, and the alliance has also transformed itself to meet the challenges posed by these external changes. The end of the Cold War posed a major question as to whether the US-Japan alliance should continue, and if so, in what form. Recent discussions on the role of the Japanese Self Defence Forces in times of military crisis surrounding Japan, and the controversy over Japan’s participation in the joint Thetre Missile Defence (TMD) research project raise serious questions. How far will Japan go along with the United States? Will such defence cooperation violate the Japanese constitution? How will Japan’s neighbouring countries perceive the expanding scope of the US-Japan alliance?
Despite the publicly expressed confidence in the alliance among the defence establishments in both countries, at least major revisions into the nature of the alliance and the role of the Japanese and Americans in the region are called for on both sides of the Pacific. In the following pages, I will first review the dynamic evolution of Japan’s notion of comprehensive security and the role of the US-Japan alliance within this larger framework. In doing so, I will attempt to identify key variables which have affected, and will likely continue to affect, the nature of the US-Japan alliance. These include geopolitical and geoeconomic interests of both the United States and Japan, as well as domestic public opinion in each country. Based on the analysis of the key variables identified, I proceed to argue with caution that the US-Japan alliance is likely to continue for foreseeable future. The reason of my caution will be stated in regard to some of the variables which will likely cause diversion of US and Japanese interests. And finally, based on the analysis of Japan’s diverging interests, I will propose an alternative model of US-Japan alliance, with a particular focus on ‘de-nuclearising’ the US-Japan alliance.
Resource Access and the US-Japan Alliance
Japan is no doubt one of the most dependent countries in terms of natural resource availability. Its petroleum supply entirely depends on overseas producers, and more than three quarters of the imported oil originate in the Middle East. Key mineral resources, such as iron ore and copper, also come from overseas suppliers, such as the United States and Australia. In order to assure a stable supply of natural resources, Japan’s security interests stretch from stability in its trade routes to political stability in the producer nations. Assurance of such stability throughout most of the post-World War II period depended on the bilateral security alliance with the United States. The 1947 Constitution and the lack of financial resources strictly limited Japan’s military capability. Asian countries’ suspicion against Japan due to the war memory have deterred Japan from pursuing such security interests via military means. Thus, for the Japanese, the alliance with the United States seemed to be the best alternative in pursuing economic recovery from the devastation of the World War II. For the United States, having economically strong and politically stable Japan as an ally became a strategic objective as the relationship with the Soviet Union cooled down and the communist force of Mao Tse-Dong took control of China in 1949.
Since the signing of the bilateral security treaty, all of these conditions that initially led to the US-Japan alliance have interacted in a complex manner. Despite the rise of Japan to the status of financial superpower, constitutional interpretation and perception of Japan by other Asian countries did not change as quickly. This situation left Japan with little choice but trying to keep the United States on its side with incremental increases in its commitment to defence burden sharing. Such increases had to be just enough to satisfy the Americans, but not so much as to threaten other Asian countries. 2
The constitution has not been amended since its promulgation in 1946. However, Japan has flexibly interpreted its constitution to meet the emerging security needs. In particular, collective defence with the United States and the existence of the Self Defence Forces (SDF) have been endorsed through a combination of careful persuasion of the public by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the court’s reluctance to rule on the cases which directly challenged the constitutionality of the SDF and the alliance. This ambiguity has been one of the major obstacle to removing suspicion against Japan among its Asian neighbours.
As the Japanese economy grew rapidly, the financial restraints on its military expansion became less significant. Prime Minister Miki’s cabinet limited its defence expenditure to 1% of the Gross Domestic Products, and subsequent cabinets observed that ceiling (the only exception being the Nakasone cabinet in 1987). However, Japan’s yen-based GDP almost doubled between 1975 and 1992, effectively enlarging its defence expenditure to the third largest in the world, when counting pensions for retired military personnel. During the 1980s, demand for burden sharing from the United States rose. Japan increasingly committed itself to the submarine hunting and intelligence gathering roles, as a part of the collective defence to keep eyes on the Soviet strategic naval forces, and if necesssary, to stop them from entering the open Pacific. 3
The expanded role of the Japanese SDF within the framework of US-Japan relations reflected the rise of the “cost” of assuring US presence in the region. Prime Minister Suzuki promised President Reagan Japan’s commitment to the defence of sealanes stretching 1,000 nautical miles from the Japanese archipelago in 1981. Suzuki later made a critical mistake of double talk, denying making such a commitment in fear of domestic opposition. However, the rift caused by this incident was quickly repaired by Prime Minister Nakasone, who succeeded Suzuki. Nakasone’s talks of ‘closing the three straits’ surrounding Japan in a crisis, and turning the archipelago into an ‘unsinkable aircraft carrier,’ reassured American commitment. Despite the overall public support of Nakasone’s policy, attacks were launched from both the left, who opposed Japan’s military expansion, and the right, who viewed Nakasone as a ‘sell out.’ The purchases of Aegis missile-frigates and Orion Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) planes, the transfer of Japan’s key military-related technology to the United States, and an increasing Japanese share of the cost of basing US troops in Japan indicated the increasing costs of assuring US presence in the region.
Although to a lesser extent, resource access is of American interests as well. Access to the Middle East oil is an area in which Japanese and American interests largely coincide. However, as the American demand for a financial contribution by Japan during the Gulf War indicated, Japan is made increasingly responsible for maintaining security of global common goods, such as stable supply of oil from the Middle East. Other global common goods, such as economic development and political stability of the developing countries are increasingly assisted by Japan’s financial contribution through bilateral and multilateral aid and loans. As privatisation became the dominant development ideology among major industrialised countries, and governmental economic aid shrank (particularly from the United States), overseas developmental aid to developing countries has been increasingly shouldered by Japan. 4
Expectation that Japan performs more than a financial role in international relations has been rising among both the Americans and the Japanese, and the SDF’s roles in maintaining both regional and global stability have expanded. 5 Nevertheless, absence of Japanese soldiers in the areas of actual conflicts has been the source of resentment among the American public, and criticism against the ‘check-book diplomacy’ reached its new and dangerous peak at the time of the Gulf War.
In 1992, the Japanese Diet passed the United Nations Peace Keeping Operations (UNPKO) Law, through which the SDF were authorised to perform limited non-combat duties overseas under the United Nations (UN) flag. 6 Despite the promotion of active diplomacy by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in recent years, aversion to Japan’s overseas military commitment persists among the public and political leaders, including those in the ruling LDP. Nevertheless, the law and the Japanese participation in UNPKOs in Cambodia and Mozambique played an important role in taming the public opinion in the United States which still viewed Japan as a ‘free rider’ of the US-provided security.
The importance of continuing the US presence in Northeast Asia was emphasised by the Clinton administration, but possible US withdrawal from the region after the collapse of the Soviet Union was becoming a more realistic fear in the minds of the Japanese leaders. Even if the US administration was still commited to the US presense in the region, Congress did not hesitate to threat Japan and other allies in Northeast Asia with possible withdrawals in order to gain trade reciprocity. The administration has so far contained voices for US withdrawal, helped by the fear of actual military conflicts in the Taiwan Strait and on the Korean Peninsula.
Among the Asian countries, the current level of US presence as status quo forms a unique consensus. 7 From the Japanese point of view, US troops stationed in Japan are guarantors of the US commitment to the defence of Japan, as deaths of US personnel would deter the US from possibly taking an isolationist stance toward a conflict in Asia. 8 Meanwhile, other Asian countries, with the probable exception of North Korea, see the current level of American presence in the region as a deterrence against Japan’s expansion. On the other hand, some have argued that continuing US presence in the region is in effect allowing Asian countries to remain in the current state of mutual distrust, preventing a badly needed regional security framework from emerging. 9 These two arguments are not mutually exclusive. Asian suspicion of Japan remains to a significant extent, although some progress has been made between Japan and China, South Korea, and Russia. A drastic reduction of US troops in the region is likely to destroy the sprouting seeds of trust among the Asian neighbours, and the resulting arms race would have a major global implication, considering the size of economies and the level of technological expertise in the region. Although such a development will clearly hurt US interests, US commitment to preventing such an event is not ‘given.’ In the absense of immediate threats from the region against the United States, US interests in the region must be presented in a more visible terms in order to justify its presence. 10
There is a great amount of uncertainty as to how far Japan will be able to meet the US demand of burden sharing within the US-Japan alliance. For the first time since 1978, revision of the ‘Guidelines for Japan-US Defence Cooperation’ (hereafter referred to as the ‘Guidelines’) was started in 1997 by the Japanese government, in consultation with the United States. The related bills to enable the new Guidelines were proposed to Diet in 1998, but they failed to pass during the ordinary session as the LDP lost its majority in the upper-house. The new Guidelines would have reassured the US uses of its bases in Japan for not only defending Japanese territory, but also for launching operations for crises in other areas. The new Guidelines also would have committed the Japanese SDF to various supportive missions in conjunction to the US operations. The Guidelines only ambiguously indicated the geographical scope of such operations as the ‘areas adjacent to Japan,’ 11 although most observers understood that its main objective was to enable joint US-Japan operations in response to possible crises in the Taiwan Strait or on the Korean Peninsula. 12
Although the leftist Social Democratic Party (SDP), a key opposition to Japan’s military expansion throughout the post-World War II period, significantly declined in strength after the 1993 election, this did not necessarily translate into strengthening of the most conservative forces. The centrist Democratic Party (DP) absorbed many former members of the SDP, as well as liberal former members of the LDP. The DP has cooperated with the LDP on a selective basis, but the DP’s internal diversity prevents it from taking a drastic step for further US-Japan defence cooperation. The conservative Liberal Party (LP), led by a former LDP leader Ichiro Ozawa, quickly lost its members to defection, despite the key role Ozawa played in putting together an anti-LDP coalition in 1993. The recently emerged coalition of the LDP and the LP, possibly attracting case-by-case support from the New Clean Government Party (CGP) forces, may create a secure majority bloc in both chambers of the Diet. Although the CGP has taken a more supportive stance toward US-Japan defence cooperation than the SDP in the past, the CGP’s support basis is a Buddhist organisation which advocates peace and is critical of overseas expansion of the SDF’s roles. Thus, it is likely that the Guidelines-related bills will have to be modified before resubmission in order to pass the Diet, but such modification may be of nominal nature, rather than substantial. 13
Yet another uncertainty involves the anti-American base movement in Okinawa. The raping of a fifteen year old girl in 1995 by three US military personnel ignited a long accumulated frustration of the Okinawans, whose land is still largely occupied by the US forces. Difficulty in relocating US bases to the main islands of Japan due to a lack of host communities has also directed the Okinawan frustration at the central government of Japan. 14 While the central government maintains an upper-hand in the defence-related policies, Okinawa’s anti-base governor Masahide Ota was defeated by LDP’s Inamine, who campaigned on improving access to the resources of the central government for economic development of Okinawa. Although the base-related issues will remain in discussions, only a moderate demand for force reduction is likely to come out of the new governor. However, cooperation of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) opposed to US military presence in Okinawa has emerged between Okinawa, Japan, and the United States. 15
Export Market Security
The resource-poor status of Japan makes trade an essential part of Japanese survival. Large import bills, especially those for petroleum imports, mean that the country needs to maintain a favourable trade balance in other areas in order to pay for resource import bills. Therefore, manufacturing and service exports, which earn money through added values, are locomotives of the Japanese economy. Continuous access to the developed markets that can absorb Japanese products in these industries, such as the United States and Western Europe, have been a matter of national concern for Japan.
The dependency on US market, and Japan’s large trade surplus in particular, has resulted in a series of sectoral trade disputes. As Japan’s economy went through the structural change, the focus of disputes has shifted from labor-intensive industries to high-technology and service industries. Inter-departmental politics in the United States during the Cold War favoured the alliance of the State and the Defence departments, which assigned low priorities to economic issues, thereby easing the pressure on Japanese industries. Toward the end of the Cold War, Japan’s increasing control of the high-technology industries alarmed the US defence establishment, and the US government adopted a strategic trade policies in this sector, which linked foreign exporters’ accesses to the US market with reciprocated accesses by the US exporters to these countries’ markets. 16 In the wake of the post-Cold War era, the Clinton administration emphasised trade reciprocity to the automobile sector, which brought the two countries to the edge of mutual imposition of trade sanctions. 17
Caution against too much dependence on the US market led Japan to diversify its trade partners. Economic growth of Northeast and Southeast Asian countries have provided such an opportunity. To some extent, increasing economic cooperation with Southeast Asia was a conscious effort orchestrated by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry since the early 1970s. 18 In the crumbling of the bipolar world system in the early 1970s, MITI saw an opportunity to enhance trade and investment relations with both capitalist and communist countries of Asia. Although improvement of relations with the Communist Bloc was slow and incremental, rapid expansion of trade and investments with capitalist countries in Southeast Asia resulted in ‘miracle’ economic growth in the region, which in return absorbed an increasing amount of Japanese exports.
One of the common features among the Asian Newly Industrialised Countries (NICs) (and China in recent years) is their heavy dependence on the US market for their exports. A sizeable part of their exports originated in plants built by Japanese direct investments in these countries, helping to reduce Japan’s trade surplus on the US-Japan bilateral account. American and European companies have also heavily invested in the region. Therefore, East Asia’s trade surplus with the United States cannot be solely blamed on Japan and other East Asian countries. Nevertheless, a large US trade deficit with East Asia has constantly been a source of conflicts, and is likely to remain so in foreseeable future. US Congress has demonstrated its willingness to link the trade issues with the security issue. The booming regional economies in East Asia during most of the 1980s accommodated the American demand for trade liberalisation in the region, but the economic slump in the late 1990s has reduced the East Asian governments’ abilities to accommodate such US demands. If such trend continues, it will negatively affect both US defence commitment to the region and Asian access to the US market.
Japan’s Comprehensive Security in the Post Cold War Era
During the Cold War, the US strategic objective in Northeast Asia was in preventing any hegemonic power, which may inhibit US access to the region, from arising, including a heavily-armed and strategically independent Japan. This fit well with both Japan’s domestic pacifism and the concern of China and Korea against a strong Japan. 19 However, the post-Cold War US-Japan alliance faces a critical transition. More selective engagement by the United States in regional security matters outside the Western Hemisphere has been the declared doctrine since President Nixon, but such tendencies are expected to accelerate as the US reduces its military expenditure. Despite the high levels of defence spending in recent years, Japan’s defence forces are only able to play supplementary roles in assisting US forces in the region. 20
The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union were significant events in a sense that Japan no longer felt immediate military threats against its territorial integrity. Nevertheless, these events little changed Japan’s self-perceived vulnerability. Its energy and mineral resource dependency remain extremely high, trade liberalisation in the agricultural sector has reduced its food self-sufficiency, and its manufacturing industries still need large overseas markets, despite the effort since the 1980s to enlarge domestic consumption. Disruption of trade is less likely to be caused by superpower confrontation, but increased potential of regional conflicts along Japan’s trade paths followed the end of the Cold War, as its end removed the rid off the traditional and potential regional rivalries. 21
US pressure on Japan to shoulder a larger share of the burden in maintaining regional security and global economic stability can been seen as continuation of Nixon’s policy, although re-intensification of the Cold War during the Reagan period may have provided some breathing space for the Japanese on economic burden sharing in the form of market liberalisation. In this regard, the end of the Cold War did not undermine Japan’s security needs. What has changed, however, is the cost of assuring US presence in the region. Mercantile trade policies by Japan are no longer tolerated by the United States in the post Cold War era. However, in spite of the proclaimed US commitment to ‘fair trade,’ congressional demands for sector-based reciprocity have occasionally gotten out of administrative ‘containment,’ resulting in America’s own mercantile foreign economic policies. 22 Japan’s shouldering of the cost of US troops in Japan has increased, and expectation of the United States that Japan performs a part of the regional police role in Northeast Asia has risen.
Thus, Japan faces readjustment of its foreign economic policies, although such changes are consistent with Nixon’s burden sharing demands, and far from fundamental. Nevertheless, Japan’s overall security environment in the 1990s differs from that of the previous decade in regard to the importance it assigns to the Asian countries. However small, the ‘miracle’ economic growth of the Asian countries has reduced Japan’s trade dependency on the United States. Despite the recent setback in the Asian economies, this trend seems to likely continue in the foreseeable future. This in turn has placed Japan between the United States and Asia on certain economic issues, such as government regulations of capital flows and methods and schedule of trade liberalisation. 23 Such diversification of dependency has not yet taken place to a significant extent in the military sphere, and the US-Japan alliance remains the backbone of Japanese security. However, this has not prevented Japan from seeking a more omni-directional diplomacy, including participation in the Asian Regional Forum (SRF), and movement toward a peace treaty with Russia. Again, the end of the Cold War made it easy for Japan to pursue such avenues, but this was not a fundamental change to Japan’s political economic policy. 24
Not to Threaten, Not to be Abandoned
The dilemma for Japan is that its pursuit of a more independent defence policy is likely to trigger opposition from everywhere: United States, Asian neighbours, and domestic public opinion. At the same time, gradual reduction of the US presence in Northeast Asia is likely to leave Japan vulnerable, unless Japan adopts a more independent defence policy. This dilemma has persisted throughout Japan’s post-World War II period, but the fear is more pronounced in the post-Cold War period. During the early Cold War period, Japan’s defence did not even assure an independent capability to fend off potential aggression against its territory. Attack on Japan by communist forces was directly linked with the super power competition, and the ‘trigger mechanism’ or ‘trip-wire’ theory adopted by the SDF strategists meant that by raising the threshold of conflicts with Japan’s improved defence capacity, US intervention was easily expected. Japan’s SDF needed only to withstand the attack until additional US forces arrive. The only fear was that Japan’s loss of territory, if it happened, might be traded with possible Western gains in the European front, in a likely event of the superpowers fighting in multiple fronts. 25
Denuclearising the US-Japan Alliance
Japan’s post-World War II defence policy making has been characterised by lack of public scrutiny. In regard to nuclear weapons, the so-called three non-nuclear principles, launched by the Sato cabinet, have prohibited Japan from manufacturing one, possessing one, or letting others bring one into Japan. However, the last of the three principles were watered down by the 1960 secret agreement between the US and the Japanese governments, allowing transit passages (with no consultation) and reintroduction (with consultation) of nuclear weapons. 26 When Okinawa was returned to Japan in 1972, nuclear weapons were supposedly removed from its soil based on the above principles. Nevertheless, recent Asahi Shimbun articles show a strong evidence that a secret minutes has existed that allowed redeployment of nuclear weapons into Okinawa in cases of crisis upon consultation with the Japanese government. 27 Furthermore, command, control, and communication facilities, which are parts of the integrated nuclear weapon system, are not prohibited in Japan. 28
The Japanese government has maintained that nuclear weapons have not been present either in Okinawa nor in the rest of Japan since there was no consultation by the US government. Nevertheless, since the US government has a stated policy of not disclosing the location of its nuclear weapons, this consultation mechanism has been effectively voided. Although Asian fear of strategically independent Japan persists, expansion of US-Japan defence cooperation without stated and observed limits also cause a fear of joint US-Japan military hegemony. 29
In 1994, US Deputy Defence Secretary John Deutch announced that nuclear weapons handling rooms and storage compartments in surface ships will be removed. Also, US Defence Secretary William Perry indicated that nuclear-armed Tomahawk missiles (that could be launched from attack submarines) were not deployed at sea. 30 Such policies, if true, should be made public through official verifications.
Japan’s cooperation in the TMD research poses a complex question. On one hand, as a non-nuclear weapon state, Japan’s improved defence capacity against nuclear attacks is welcome. On the other hand, since Japan is allied with a nuclear weapon state (the United States), its participation into the joint research program is an actual contribution to not only Japan’s own defence, but also to that of the United States. Put aside the legal argument of constitutionality of such a move, actual deployment of such a system near Japan would make strategic arms reduction talks with Russia more difficult, and China will be more inclined to accelerate its nuclear weapon modernisation. Since Japan’s independent undertaking of such a research is nearly impossible in terms of costs and technologies, Japan should refrain from the research and focus its efforts on strategic arms reduction and nuclear non-proliferation.
Conclusion
The concept of comprehensive security which places more emphasis on diplomatic efforts and economic cooperation can be utilised in reducing Japan’s vulnerability without antagonising its neighbours with increased perception of threat. Despite US pressure that Japan shoulder a larger burden in regional defence, the US policy makers seem to understand the constitutional limit imposed upon Japan. Since the mid-1980s, the focus of the US demand has also shifted more onto sharing the cost of research and development of the most sophisticated weapon systems. Japanese technology in some defence-related areas surpassed that of the United States, and the cost of new development has risen to the extent that even the United States has a difficulty in unilaterally undertaking it. Not having to go through another piece of legislation, the Japanese government prefers this type of contribution over actual participation of the SDF in combat situations. Also, US-Japan cooperation in the high-technology sectors was enhanced after a series of trade disputes in these sectors. In this regard, it is less likely today, compared to a decade earlier, that MITI’s mercantile industrial policy in the high-technology sector would jeopardise the overall bilateral relations.
Such bilateral cooperation, with an aim of further extending such a network to other Asian countries, but without provoking any other Asian country, may play a leading role in building a regional security framework. Japan’s economic liberalisation, which opens a door to Asian exports, will also enhance Japan’s credibility in the regional matters. In such a scenario, the military presence of the United States may fade away without causing instability in the region. Its continued economic presence, which will possibly have declined in proportional terms, will still serve as an assurance that the US will not retreat into a closed North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA), but continue to provide an outlet for Asian products. A smooth transition to such a regional framework based on trust among Asian nations requires cautious policy making. The United States needs to understand that the power imbalance with Japan in the bilateral alliance by nature leaves Japan in fear of being abandoned, and bullying Japan either on economic or military burden sharing will not help minimise such a fear. Therefore, Japan’s aim for regional multilateral security framework should not be viewed as a movement away from the United States. Japan needs to understand that the Americans do not necessarily share the unique situations in which Japan is placed. Japan’s geopolitical vulnerability, need for some trade surplus, historical legitimacy deficit in Asia, constitutional limits on the Self Defence Forces, and domestic pacifism which supports the constitution need to be well communicated with the American public in a honest manner. Too much accumulation of foreign currency reserve via mercantile trade policy, abuse of the ‘vulnerability argument’ for justifying too much trade surplus through lobbying and public relations, and arrogance toward Asian neighbours all work against Japan’s long-term diplomatic interests.
The Post-Cold War Northeast Asia presents Japan with a major challenge. The concept of comprehensive security offers Japan an alternative approach to assure its survival without threatening other countries. 31 Although Japan’s lack of military means of contribution to international peace often overshadows its other areas of contributions, and there is more Japan can do in the economic and diplomatic spheres, Japan’s ‘comprehensive security’ is not a mere cover for its lack of contributions to peace. It is a concept that can provide a dynamic foreign policy challenge to Japan into the twenty-first century.
Despite some pessimistic observations about its future, the US-Japan alliance seems to survive with some modification in its objectives and means. Japan’s support roles in joint US-Japan military operations will likely expand, though strict limitations on the nature of the SDF participation should be imposed. Provided that American economic interests in Asia will continue to expand, some level of military presence is essential, and bases in Japan provide the best deal available for the United States. However, the United States should not take advantage of the countries which host its bases. A lack of force reduction at the time of reduced threats can be interpreted by China, North Korea, and Russia as signs of aggressive posture of the US-Japan alliance.
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Endnotes
*: Prepared for presentation at the 40th annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Washington, D.C., February 16–20, 1999. Back.
Note 1: Sogo anzen hosho senryaku hokokusho [Comprehensive Security Strategy Report], p.26, cited in Hiroshi Nakanishi, ‘Sogo anzen hosho ron no bunmyaku—kenryoku seiji to sogo izon no kosaku [The context of comprehensive security—meeting of power politics and mutual dependence],’ Nenpo Seijigaku, Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten, 1997, p.110. Back.
Note 2: Careless remarks by some LDP politicians denying or justifying Japan’s behaviour in Asia during the World War II have done much harm to Japan’s relations with Asia. Censorship of textbooks by the Japanese Ministry of Education, sugarcoating or even deleting certain descriptions of war-time aggressions, have also caused friction with Asian neighbours. Back.
Note 3: The Sealane defence was not only for securing Japanese merchant fleets, although it was propagated that way in order not to stir the opposition. Its other purpose, if not the main, was to prevent cruise and ballistic missile-equipped Soviet submarines from leaving the Sea of Okhotsk. As the ‘Swing Strategy’ required that the US Seventh Fleet be shifted to the Indian Ocean in case of European crisis, the Japanese SDF was expected to fill the vacuum in Asia. Back.
Note 4: Japan’s ODA has been viewed with cynical eyes. ODA in return for ODA-based projects awarded to Japanese firms and ODA for further resource exploitation are some of the criticism. Robert M. Orr, The Emergence of Japan’s Foreign Aid Power, New York: Columbia University Press, 1990, chpter 3. Back.
Note 5: Ichiro Ozawa, who orchestrated the non-LDP coalition of 1993, has been a key proponent of Japan’s active foreign policy, including dispatch of SDF overseas. Ichro Ozawa, Blueprint for A New Japan: The Rethinking of a Nation, Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1994. Back.
Note 6: Yasuhiro Takeda, “Japan’s Role in the Cambodian Peace Process,” Asian Survey, XXXVIII (6), June 1998, pp.553-568. Back.
Note 7: Michael Mandelbaum ed., The Strategic Quadrangle: Russia, China, Japan, and the United States in East Asia, Washington DC: Council on Foreign Affairs, 1995, 154-155, 160-162. However, fear of US-Japan joint hegemony also persists in North Korea, China, and Russia. Recent US-Japan joint-development plan of the theatre missile defence (TMD) system, for example, invited a sharp criticism from the Chinese officials, as deployment of such a system would possibly neutralise China’s strategic missile force. Back.
Note 8: The same rationale applies even more strongly to South Korea. The Carter administration’s decision to withdraw US ground troops from South Korea in the late 1970s, which later was indefinitely postponed by the Reagan administration, caused a major stir among the South Korean defence establishment. Back.
Note 9: Anthony DiFilippo, ‘Why Japan Should Redirect Its Security Policy,’ Japan Quarterly, April-June 1998, p.29. Back.
Note 10: Some view China as a new threat and try to construct US foreign policy along the line of ‘containment’ employed against the Soviet Union earlier. The Clinton administration, despite numerous rifts with China including the Taiwan, human rights violations, and copyright infringement issues, has maintained a policy of ‘engagement.’ Others point out that tension remains between North and South Koreas, and the US bases in Japan are ever more important in US strategy in East Asia. However, whether the US-Japan alliance will continue, transform itself, or dissolve, also depends on other factors, including the economic ones. As the Korean situation cannot be a long-term problem, post-Korea, and even post-Taiwan, rationales are needed for continuation of the US-Japan alliance. Back.
Note 11: ‘The Guidelines for US-Japan Defense Cooperation,’ Journal of East Asian Affairs, XII (1), Winter/Spring 1998, pp.307-320. Back.
Note 12: The government was tight-lipped on this point, and the opposition parties were reluctant to cooperate with the LDP without further clarification on the scope of the new guideline. China has maintained that the Taiwan is a domestic issue and rejected interference by outside powers. The absence of geographic scope in the Guideline is also a diplomatic consideration for this Chinese position. This ambiguity, having a possibility of allowing SDF participation in joint military operations with the US anywhere on the globe, was the focus of the opposition. Back.
Note 13: The most recent discussion focuses on having the Japanese private sector and local governments undertake the logistical support role to the US troops in times of crisis. Leaving ambiguous whether such participation is voluntary or mandatory, the coalition forces attempt to bypass the debate on the SDF’s participation in such missions. Asahi Newspaper English, 8 February 1999. Back.
Note 14: A high concentration of US military personnel in Okinawa has given an impression that the burden of defending Japan is unfairly imposed upon Okinawa. Back.
Note 15: Occasionally, such NGOs play a pivotal role in base-related decisions, as Pollard shows in the case of US base closure in the Philippines. Vincent Pollard, ‘Systematic Qualitative Comparison of Sources of Power in Presidential Foreign Policy Decision Making by Diosdado Macapagal, Ferdinando Edralin Marcos, and Corazon Cojuangco Aquino,’ PH.D Dissertation, University of Hawaii, 1998. Back.
Note 16: High-technology products, such as machine tools, semiconductors, supercomputers, and FS-X planes represented trade disputes between Japan and the United States in the 1980s, along with the increasing disputes in the service sector trade. The disputes in the high-technology sector altered the traditional domination of the ‘high politics’ (military and diplomatic matters) over ‘low politics’ (commerce matters) in the US administration even before the end of the Cold War. The rise of techno-nationalism in both Japan and the United States severely hurt the bilateral relations. For detailed accounts of the semiconductor disputes, see Yoichiro Sato, ‘Public Opiniopn and Foreign Economic Policy: Japan Semiconductor Trade Policy, 1979-1991,’ a paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association (APSA), 28-31 August 1997, Washington, DC; For the FSX controversy, see Michael J. Green, Kokusanka: FSX and Japan’s Search for Autonomous Defense Production, Cambridge, MA: Center for International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1992. Back.
Note 17: The first Clinton administration’s foreign policy was increasingly dominated by the economic departments. Even the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the vanguard of the traditional high politics, was mobilised for gathering information for trade negotiations in the automobile sector. Masaaki Sato, ‘Nichibei jidosha kosho no misshi tachi [The secret agents in the Japan-US automobile negotiation],’ Bungeishunju, September 1995, pp.148-156. Back.
Note 18: Tsusho Sangyo-sho Tsusho Sangyo-kyoku Shijo Dai 3-ka Shijo Dai 4-ka eds., 70 nendai no tai kyosanken tonan ajia tsusho seisaku no hoko [Direction of the trade policy towards the communist bloc and Southeast Asia in the 1970s], Tokyo: Okurasho Insatsu-kyoku, 1972. Back.
Note 19: Yoshihisa Hara, ‘Josetsu: Nichibei anpo taisei—jizoku to henyou [Introduction: Japan-US security system—continuity and change],’ Kokusai Seiji, no.115, May 1997, pp.3-5. Back.
Note 20: Without an aircraft carrier and mid-air refuelling capacity, Japan’s sea control ability depends on air support within the range of its land-based aircraft. Back.
Note 21: Conflicts in the Taiwan Strait or the South China Sea, or pirating activities in the Malacca and Lombok Straits, pose major threats to Japan’s trade security. In the case of conflicts involving Taiwan, Japan seems to head the direction of shouldering a military burden limited to rear supports and intelligence gathering, in cooperation with the United States. Southward beyond Taiwan, however, Japan solely relies on the United States military, its own economic means to assure stability in domestic politics of the countries adjacent to its trade path, and multilateral regional organisations, such as the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), to promote regional cooperation. Back.
Note 22: For more detailed analysis of the inter-branch politics in the United States on trade issues, see Takatoshi Ito, ‘U.S. Political Pressure and Economic Liberalization in East Asia,” in Jeffrey A. Frankel and Miles Kahler eds., Regionalism and Rivalry: Japan and the United States in Pacific Asia, Washington DC: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1993, pp.403-413. Back.
Note 23: Within APEC, a major division has risen between the ASEAN bloc, which prefers an informal and self-initiated approach to trade liberalisation, and the North America-Oceania bloc, which prefer a legalistic and binding approach to the same matter. This places Japan in an ambiguous situation in-between. Back.
Note 24: Unpredictability of the US leadership in a ‘nonbipolar world’ is pointed out as Japan’s preference for multilateralism. Michael J. Green, Arming Japan: Defense Production, Alliance Politics, and the Postwar Search for Autonomy, New York: Columbia University Press, 1995, p.150. Back.
Note 25: Neil Renwick, Japan’s Alliance Politics and Defense Production, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995, p.39; Nakanishi, pp.101-102. Back.
Note 26: Shigeto Tsuru, Nichibei Anpo Kaisho he no Michi, pp.55-60. Back.
Note 27: Asahi Newspaper English, 11 and 12 January 1999. Back.
Note 28: Toshiyuki Toyoda, Souichi Iijima, and Jiro Maki, Taiheiyo no Hikakuka Kousou, pp.2-5. Back.
Note 29: Tsuru, pp.130-133. Tsuru, in support of Japan’s ‘benevolent draft dodging,’ argues that Japan does not have to choose between heavily armed strategic independence and enhanced military cooperation with the United States. Instead, Tsuru emphasies Japan’s non-military contributions to peace which makes Japan a ‘non-military, pro-active state.’ Back.
Note 30: Richard Jackson, ‘Clearing the US nuclear decks,’ New Zealand International Review, March/April 1995, p.16. Back.
Note 31: Renwick sees an ‘expanded, more independent Japanese military capability’ as ‘unavoidable,’ and the extent of such shift be determined by the perceived threats from Russia, China, and the Koreas. Renwick, p.66. An equally important point is that the defence policies of these countries are also affected by the security policies of Japan and the United States. Back.
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