Foreign Policy Perspectives of the Japanese Left: Confrontation or Consensus?

Abstract

THE IDEA THAT left and right wings in Japanese politics hold to diametrically opposed and irreconcilable positions on foreign policy is an old one which has led some observers to claim that the replacement of a Conservative by a Socialist would result in a cataclysmic change-amounting to a virtual revolution-in Japan's international policies. More recently, however, the dream of a bi-partisan (or multi-partisan) foreign policy, based on a about what Japan should be doing in a world newly receptive to her political as well as economic initiatives, has come to be discussed as a practicable proposition. Significantly enough, the creation of such a national consensus is an oft-stated aim of the Komeitd (the clean government party of the Soka Gakkai) and also clearly accords with the aspirations of many who inhabit the centre, rather than the extremes, of Japanese politics. Outside Japan, this development is encouraged by many, though there is the occasional pessimist who notes that national consensus was last achieved in Japan in the I930s, under the aegis of the militarists. Until i960, the only significant left-wing party in Japan was the Japan Socialist party (JSP), and it was the policies and views espoused by that party which distinguished the foreign policy of the Left so radically from that of the Right. Three main currents of opinion-socialism, pacifism, and nationalism-fused into a policy of unarmed which was bitterly denounced by Prime Minister Ikeda in the i960 election campaign as an illusion. Socialist thinking within the JSP was generally doctrinaire rather than pragmatic and resulted in a basic antipathy towards capitalist countries, especially the United States. Attempts to find an intellectual position midway between capitalism and communism tended to result in an unstable equilibrium, with the pull of socialism often proving stronger than the counter-pull of democracy. Thus, despite the claims of neutralism, criticism of the United States was both more frequent and more harsh than criticism of either the