Comment on “Japan's Security Policy in East Asia”

Abstract

I find myself much in agreement with the general argument of Auslin and Green (2007) on the main elements of Japanese strategic thinking, which are based on the fear of isolation, the calculation of the geopolitical strength of China, and the accommodation to the prevailing international order. I will comment very generally on the last two elements before I give a South-East Asian perspective of the security policy of Japan. On the matter of a rising China, I agree with the authors’ argument that the present Japanese policy toward it is one of engagement and containment, not unlike that of the USA. As to the Japanese accommodation to the prevailing order, it is manifestly obvious that Japan perceives that order after World War II, and especially after the Cold War, to be American dominated. Yet the difficulties the Americans are now facing in Iraq can have profound consequences for the US global position. The longer the USA is involved in Iraq and Afghanistan, the greater the likelihood, the authors argue, of the redeployment of US troops from East Asia. But what is the Japanese thinking on the impact of these wars on the US position in East Asia? Despite extensive Japanese involvement in South-East Asia after the war, that involvement had been primarily economic. South-East Asians had for long not accepted a direct Japanese security role in South-East Asia for fear that Japan could repeat the experience of World War II. Thus, in 1977, a very important landmark in Japan–Association of SouthEast Asian Nations (ASEAN) relations, the Fukuda Doctrine, took account of South-East Asian sensitivity by rejecting a Japanese military role in South-East Asia. That sensitivity was still manifest in the 1980s when the Philippines and Indonesia expressed their concern over a statement by the Nakasone government about the extent of Japan’s defense perimeter. Today, the South-East Asian mood is changing. One important indicator is that there have been few objections, if any, by important South-East Asian leaders to recent Japanese actions on the security level that suggest a trend towards a “normal” nation. These actions include the upgrading of the defense agency into a ministry and the dispatch of ships to aid the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) effort in Afghanistan, and of troops to Iraq. Such dispatches cannot be construed to be directly related to Japan’s defense, and go well beyond South-East Asia from Tokyo. What has led to this changed mood? One reason is the increasing South-East Asian perception that the Japanese had played a constructive role in their region since the war. Through their aid, investment, and trade, the Japanese played a very big part in the economic development of the region. It is unlikely, given this record, that a Japanese military role in the region will be a resurrection