Japan -- The Dangers of Normalization
In response to Anne-Marie’s query, I do think the September 11th general election in Japan is well worth watching -- and watching closely.
I was in Tokyo earlier this month when the Diet rejected the center piece of Prime Minister Koizumi’s reform agenda -- privatization of the postal system. Foreigners, however, are interested in the other big item in the Koizumi platform – the "normalization" of Japan’s military through constitutional reform. I have some thought on this.
But, importantly, the current upheaval in Japan is triggered by the postal reform controversy – and its manifold implications for Japan’s government, society, and economy – not foreign policy. The postal system is where most Japanese put their savings and it is these financial assets – the largest pool of saving in the world – that allows the ruling Liberal Democratic Party to pursue spending programs that service its constituencies and retain its lock on power. So Prime Minister Koizumi is pursuing a high-risk strategy – threatening to break up his own political party to get his way. Koizumi promised to call elections if he lost the vote. Defiantly, his own LDP failed to give him the votes and now the issue is before the electorate.
When I was in Tokyo, I actually ran into – literally – one of the leading figures in the Diet showdown on the evening of the vote. My son and I were walking into the ANA Hotel in central Tokyo at the very moment that Shiruka Kamei – a rebel LDP member who helped orchestrate the Koizumi defeat – sprang from his limo and entered the ANA, and we found ourselves walking together through the throng of reporters, TV cameramen, and photographers to the elevators. Kamei was heading to a news conference in the hotel ballroom where he announced he was leaving the LDP to help launch a new political party, Kokumin Shinto (People’s New Party). Now his career is in the hands of his constituents in Hiroshima.
In her post, Anne-Marie sited a recent piece on the coming election that argues that Koizumi is making a move to consolidate his power, stirring up nationalist sentiments, awakening anti-Americanism, and perhaps after the September 11 election "dramatically alter[ing] Japan’s profile in Asia and the world, particularly if it is determined to change one of the most enduring legacies of the 1945 surrender: Japan’s constitutional renunciation of the use of military force."
My sense is that there is a glimmer of truth to this view -- Koizumi, as one of my Japanese friends notes, "is taking Japan down a dangerous path." Moreover, the U.S. is deeply implicated in this move. In my view, America’s policy of pushing – or encouraging, whatever term you want to use – Japan in this direction is likely to be a classic case of "be careful of what you wish for. . . . "
Here are the points that I would emphasize.
First, as I mention above, the current political storm is not about foreign policy. It is about domestic political reform. Koimuzi himself said recently: "The biggest question at stake in the election is whether or not you support the privatization of postal services." So what is most at stake on September 11 is the fate of the LDP and reform of the Japanese system. If Koizumi ends up splitting the LDP and the Democrat Party wins the election – that would be the most consequential outcome of the election.
Second, Koimuzi’s efforts to "normalize" Japan is not new. It has been part of his platform from the beginning. Moveover, the Japanese debate about reforming Article Nine of the Constitution dates back at least to the first Iraq war. The debate has been about providing Japan a legal basis to participate in "collective security" within the framework of alliance and the United Nations. Putting the specific question of constitutional reform to the side for a moment, there is mainstream support in Japan – and around the region and world – for Japan to play a stronger role in areas of UN-sponsored peacekeeping, humanitarian intervention, and conflict prevention. In effect, the search has been to find a Japanese "third way" between constitutional pacifism and normalized military power.
Third, in the meantime, the stakes have risen – North Korean nukes, the rise of China, 9/11, and the American estrangement from the UN. Japanese people generally feel more threatened by developments within the region. They also feel pressure from the United States to "step up to the plate" and be a more fully capable ally. Even before September 11, the U.S. has been urging Japan to breakout of its old postwar straightjacket. The so-called Armitage report – a bipartisan group of Japan foreign policy specialists and diplomats – called for the U.S. and Japan to transform their relationship into something akin to the U.S.-British special relationship. Japan would be a more normal military power but tied tightly to the U.S. in an alliance that has wider regional reach. In office, Powell and Armitage spoke of the need for Japan to revise its constitution. Japanese diplomats felt this pressure from Washington, particularly when it has been coupled with the Bush administration’s seeming ambivalence toward fixed-formal alliances. One senior Japanese diplomat posted in Washington described to me what he understood to be the imperative of Japanese foreign policy – to make the alliance "useful" to Washington, which meant making Japan a military power that could go more places and do more things. Koizumi is an enthusiastic constitutional revisionist and he has responded to the increase in Japanese public insecurity and pressure from Washington to press his case.
Fourth, the actual LDP draft terms of constitutional revision are relatively moderate. The Preamble with stay the same. The first paragraph of Article Nine will not be changed – this is the one where Japan relinquishes its war waging rights. The second paragraph will be changed to say that Japanese Self Defense Forces can be used to defend the country. So, as my friend Takashi Inoguchi of Chou University tells me, the language of "pacifism will stay and the status quo will be preferred." Of course, this is where constitutional language meets politics – what does self defense mean? Even without constitutional reform, this definition has been expanding – and it is likely to do so even more after reform.
Fifth, the new Japanese impulse to revise the constitution is not really a response to "growing Japanese nationalism." It is hard to detect a rise in nationalism at the popular level. The Japanese scholar, Masaru Tamamoto – who is now with the Japanese Institute for International Affairs – sees the debate about the constitution more as an issue of "statehood" – that is, the ability of Japan to use force as an expression and right of state sovereignty. It is more about reclaiming the lost sovereignty of the Japanese state than a response to a swelling public nationalism or patriotic emotion. As Tamamoto says in an email to me: "Such a statehood, of course, is only possible with American encouragement and participation."
In an insightful essay in the Far Eastern Economic Review (can’t get link – it is the January 2005 issue), Tamamoto makes this point:
"Today’s dominant political and intellectual voices [in Japan] deem that Japan had ceased to be a state afer World War II. The argument is simple: Recovery of statehood means reacquiring the right to use force as an instrument of state policy. In a sense, the rise of such thinking is understandable. After all, Japan is maneuvering between the United States and China, two countries that are extremely sensitive about sovereign statehood, and whose policies are driven by the equation of sovereignty and national security. "
"The Japanese quest for statehood means the ability to engage in collective security policy with the United States – Japanese soldiers fighting alongside American GIs. Already, there are 600 Japanese ground troops in Iraq as part of the ‘coalition of the willing’ – although these soldiers stay put inside their isolated fortress, since their primary mission is to be there and not get killed. This is the first time since 1945 that Japanese soldiers have ventured into a war zone."
Sixth, this new political climate is not really a product of anti-Americanism. The article Anne-Marie cites suggests that there is rising sentiment in favor of inviting America to remove its bases and leave Japan. Yes, there is a strong local opposition to bases in that area – polls, for example, show that residents in Okinawa think the airbase located in the center of their city should be moved. But they want them moved to another location in Japan. Leaders and the public are not entertaining the idea of a Japan free of an American military presence – quite the contrary – the alliance with the U.S. is seen by much of the Japanese people as an integral part of the constitutional order itself.
As I argued in an earlier post, Koizumi and Washington are playing with fire. To put it bluntly, normalization of the Japanese military opens East Asia to a new era of arms races, security competition and political instability. It threatens to launch China on a path that the United States will regret. A more normal Japan will make the U.S.-Japan alliance a more provocative and controversial institution within the region. For decades the bilateral alliance has been seen as the linchpin of stability in the region. It now threatens to be the lightening rod of instability. Official Washington wants its alliance with Japan to look more like its special relationship with Britain. But Britain has nuclear weapons and independent military forces. This is not what we should want Japan to look like in East Asia. Germany is a better model.
The challenge today is to help Japan continue its search for a "third way" toward more active participation in regional and global security and governance. As Masaru Tomamoto says in his Far Eastern Economic Review article, "At the moment, Japan does not have a workable formula to maintain the security relationship with the United States and foster cordial relations with China." At this moment, the U.S. should not be trying to renationalize and remilitarize Japan so it can be a full alliance partner in President Bush’s war on terror. Rather, the U.S. should be trying to help build an East Asian regional order that can accommodate both a rising China and a Japan that has a sense of its own statehood. Germany has been doing this within the context of the EU and NATO. On the other side of the world, the U.S. and East Asia need to invent regional institutional structures to help China and Japan both continue to redefine their political and security identities without blowing the region apart.
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Professor Ikenberry,
A very interesting post. I do think you hit the point exactly in your last paragraph. The question I would ask is whether to create a new regional security structure for Asia. The OSCE has 55 members in western Eurasia and I wonder if it wouldn't make more sense to extend it to all of Asia instead of creating a new regional grouping there.
August 28, 2005 1:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Isn't China already in the middle of an arms race with the U.S. I've heard estimates that there spending on the military is increasing by 12-13 percent a year, which is faster growth than in there economy. If Japan were to remilitarize, would China actually be able to increase its spending at a greater rate?
August 29, 2005 3:18 AM | Reply | Permalink