Abstract
AbstractThere is a consensus that the post-war Japanese foreign policy is based on the Yoshida Doctrine or Yoshida Line, which refers to the strategies of former Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida, who relied upon US military security, and maintained limited defense forces while focusing on economic recovery and growth. This paper reconsidered the Yoshida Doctrine, referencing multiple related arguments and evidence, reaching a conclusion that post-war Japanese foreign policy should not be called the Yoshida Doctrine or Yoshida Line. The Yoshida Doctrine is an analytical concept created by researchers in the 1980s to justify Japanese foreign policy. This was done in response to the domestic and foreign criticism of low-level military spending, despite the flourishing economy. The Yoshida Doctrine differs from other foreign policy doctrines and has no merit for being called a doctrine. Furthermore, the ideas supporting this doctrine are not based on definitive proof; rather, they merely represent Yoshida's image, and a spurious correlation, drawn between limited defense spending and high-economic growth. The analysis carried out in this study reveals that the Yoshida Doctrine is fundamentally flawed. As a result, this study insists that it is necessary to abandon the Yoshida Doctrine as a base for future research on Japanese diplomacy.
Highlights
Since 1952, post-war Japanese foreign policy has been based on the Yoshida Doctrine or Yoshida Line, which refers to the strategies of former Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida, who relied on US military security and maintained limited defense forces while focusing on economic recovery and growth
The analysis carried out in this study reveals that the Yoshida Doctrine, which has been viewed as the core of post-war Japanese foreign policy named after Shigeru Yoshida, is fundamentally flawed
The term was initially used by Nishihara in response to criticism that Japan lacked a ‘diplomatic strategy,’ when he claimed that Japan possessed a ‘strategy originally developed by Yoshida and inherited by successive leaders of the ruling party’ ‘even if the foreign ministry does not wish to acknowledge’ (Nishihara, 1978: 151–154). Nishihara said that this strategy, which included expanding the overseas market, avoiding more than minimum defense spending, and noninvolvement in international political disputes, should be called the ‘Yoshida Doctrine’ because it was formulated by Yoshida and continued by his political successors
Summary
Since 1952, post-war Japanese foreign policy has been based on the Yoshida Doctrine or Yoshida Line, which refers to the strategies of former Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida, who relied on US military security and maintained limited defense forces while focusing on economic recovery and growth. According to the widely held view, the Yoshida Doctrine is based on three main pillars: Japanese security through American alliance, minimized military armaments and expenditures, and an emphasis on economic growth and recovery (Nishihara, 1978: 151–155; Nagai, 1985 [2016]: 77–89; Pyle, 1987, 1992: 243–270; Kōsaka, 1989: 299; Nakanishi, 2003; Soeya, 2008; Sugita, 2016) These pillars are related not concurrently but causally. The term was initially used by Nishihara in response to criticism that Japan lacked a ‘diplomatic strategy,’ when he claimed that Japan possessed a ‘strategy originally developed by Yoshida and inherited by successive leaders of the ruling party’ ‘even if the foreign ministry does not wish to acknowledge’ (Nishihara, 1978: 151–154) Nishihara said that this strategy, which included expanding the overseas (especially Asian) market, avoiding more than minimum defense spending, and noninvolvement in international political disputes, should be called the ‘Yoshida Doctrine’ because it was formulated by Yoshida and continued by his political successors. The Yoshida Doctrine is believed to have been the guiding force in Japan’s foreign policy for more than 40 years
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