Japan Alliance Research Articles

The Politics of Displays: Science and Technology Exhibitions in Cold War Japan

ABSTRACT This article investigates how science and technology, especially nuclear energy and space travel, materialised as concrete things and were embedded into everyday life through exhibitions and three-dimensional experiences in Japan during the cold war. In the historical and geopolitical context of Japan in the late 1950s and 1960s, the United States (US)–Japan alliance required that American propaganda agencies such as the US Information Service (USIS) in Japan operate effectively. To this end, science and technology were embodied as specific materials by being reproduced and circulated as tactile objects through exhibitions and displayable models, which formed a desirable environment that involved not only aesthetically attractive designs but also the implicative meanings of the geopolitical dynamics of the time. In particular, the article scrutinises how several exhibitions displayed new materiality in the form of miniatures and models under a newly proposed and constructed techno-environment. It does so by analysing records of exhibitions, expositions, and three-dimensional models that were displayed in Japan in the late 1950s and 1960s.

The US–Japan alliance and the role of the US Marines on Okinawa in extended deterrence

Abstract The relocation of the controversial Marine base at Futenma on Okinawa to Henoko in the north of the same island has been framed by Japanese politicians, officials, and analysts as crucial to deterrence. Critics respond that deterrence is merely a pretext, and the relocation is a politically convenient solution that perpetuates discrimination against Okinawa by the central government in Tokyo. This article draws on deterrence theory to evaluate the deterrence claims made by relocation proponents. It finds little evidence to support them: the Marines’ capabilities pale against the massive US forward deployment, including the Seventh Fleet and the Fifth Air Force. As for the local balance of forces, the Marines are unlikely to participate immediately in a local conflict, and their geographical location leaves them vulnerable; current US strategy is to down-scale and disperse Marine units. If one were focusing on defence rather than political convenience, the Marines would be relocated off Okinawa. In terms of credibility, the article finds that other US bases in Japan play a much more important ‘tripwire’ role, and ultimately, given inter alia the security treaty, joint exercises, and deep interoperability, US extended deterrence to Japan is as credible as possible under the circumstances.

The security policy community and the consensus on the US–Japan alliance: the role of think tanks, experts and the alliance managers

The article addresses the issue of continuity of the consensus on the US–Japan alliance in the post-Cold War era, by employing the concepts of a security policy community (SPC) that comprises both government office-holders and non-governmental actors focused on the foreign and security policy. The main argument is three-fold; firstly, one of the major forces behind the continuity and enhancement of the security consensus on the US–Japan alliance has been the formation of the transnational SPC that includes members from the US and Japan; secondly, since the end of the Cold War, the SPC has developed a dense network of members, institutions, and practices that supports the advocacy of alliance enhancement as well as community cohesion and nurturing of new members; and thirdly, the think tank- and university-based experts play an increasingly vital role in the formation and dissemination of the security consensus. The article suggests that such arrangements can have both positive and negative consequences and that a proper balance between openness and exclusiveness, expertise and novelty, and continuity and innovation is required in order to maintain a vibrant marketplace of ideas for security policy. The article also indicates that with the transformation of the Indo-Pacific security architecture from the hub and spoke to the networked system, SPC might serve as a model in other US alignments.

Hideo Fukumi: Medical research in the shadow of biological warfare.

Hideo Fukumi (1914-1998) is renowned for his position as the director of Japan's National Institute of Health and his scientific contributions to the fields of bacteriology, virology and epidemiology. This article introduces Fukumi's career cultivated over decades in the Japanese national medical system and focuses on his research on Shigella, Salmonella and influenza. Yet any assessment of his career also has to take into account the considerable controversy and scandal it engendered. This necessary reassessment situates Fukumi's contribution within what has been revealed of Japan's biological weapons programme which reached its zenith during the Second World War. Very few scientists, including Fukumi, were prosecuted for their roles in this programme. Contrarily, they became core personnel in post-war medical research due to the patronage of the United States-Japan alliance in the context of the Cold War. Controversies that later surfaced over Fukumi's role in influenza immunisation campaigns reflect two currents of debate: A belated reckoning with Japan's use of biological weapons and the way this was 'normalised' and overlooked in the post-war period. The role of Japanese scholars and citizens' movements who have interrogated Japanese war crimes and the U.S. cover-ups and made a demand for greater ethical transparency in medical science.

Space and the US–Japan alliance: reflections on Japan's geopolitical and geoeconomic strategy

AbstractJapan, and its alliance with the USA, is central to the unfolding politics of the new space race. This essay draws attention to the ways the Japanese state has positioned its geopolitical and geoeconomic interests related to space in the context of the US–Japan alliance. It probes the material and ideational elements that are driving the Japanese state to closer alignment with its formal ally in the military, civilian, and commercial space domains. But while all these realities bode well for alliance collaboration, there are reasons to be cautious. While the Japanese state has proactively aligned its space policy and postures with the USA, it is not forever caught in the US orbit. Given the uncertain fate of US domestic politics that bears on great power competition, Japan is also prudently positioning for how the status of its ally may evolve. This is what complicates straightforward projections about alliance cooperation and balance of power politics in the unfolding international space order.

Cold War Democracy: The United States and Japan

The special relationship between the US and Japan has proven remarkably resilient. American policymakers continue to see great strategic value in sustaining the Japanese alliance, while Japan’s conservative elites still view the US as the surest means to national security. The collapse of communism created some uncertainty as to the alliance’s purpose; however, North Korea’s nuclearization and China’s rapid rise to geopolitical prominence have removed any such doubts. Symbolic and ideational discursive constructs justifying the US–Japan alliance have undergone far more profound changes since the late 1940s. Jennifer Miller’s Cold War Democracy gives equal emphasis to institutional and ideological expressions of this special relationship from its inception in 1945 to the early 1960s. This well-researched monograph delineates ways in which American and Japanese elites wrestled with, and ultimately contained, popular democratic movements calling for Japan’s disarmament and neutrality. Rather than lending political support to anti-communist dictatorial strongmen, as was the...

Beautiful failure: A case study on #EqualityActJapan and a lesson in failing well on social media

Together with Athlete Ally, All Out and over 100 LGBT organisations in the Japan Alliance for LGBT Legislation, Human Rights Watch created the #EqualityActJapan campaign, calling for the first LGBT equality bill in Japan. Sadly, although this global digital campaign was impeccably delivered, exceeding key performance indicators such as cost efficiency, engagement, reach and total petitions delivered to political targets, the bill was never introduced. This paper discusses what happens when a campaign meets all of its digital campaigning key performance indicators but not its policy or legislative objective, providing a case study in how to fail well on social media. The lessons learned from this experience are crucial to apply to future digital campaigns.

The Geopolitics of Public Memory: The Challenge and Promise of Transnational Comfort Women Activism

Japan conscripted a disputed number of “comfort women” to sexually service their soldiers in occupied territories during World War II. In the aftermath of war, this apparatus was ignored by international diplomacy, and few survivors related their experiences as sex slaves. However, during the early 1990s, sexual crimes against women achieved international attention, emboldened by and emboldening silence breakers whose personal experiences were both affirmed and negated by competing global stakeholders. Activists seeking recognition of and reparations for crimes against survivors of Japan’s comfort women system have since deployed memorials to contest Japan’s position that comfort women were sex workers. These memorials materially instantiate the conflicted interpretations of the scope and severity of Japan’s war crimes, whose undecidability signifies ruptures in the contemporary symbolic order of the United States, Japan, and South Korea alliance. This project examines how online audiences construct the meanings of the highly contested 2017 San Francisco memorial.

Okinawa Beyond the Hub-and-spoke Alliance System: A Reappraisal

Okinawa is a cornerstone of the US–Japan alliance. However, it has been marginalised in East Asian international relations whereby a state-centric view of international relations predominates. In an era of power transitions and increasing importance of non-traditional security concerns, Washington and Tokyo need to recognise Okinawa’s contribution as a non-state actor in upholding human security values for the alliance to stay attuned to shifting regional and global needs.

Hegemony and the US–Japan Alliance

Hegemony and the US–Japan Alliance

Ireland's Neutrality Policy and Japan's Alliance Policy

This paper offers a comparative analysis of Ireland's neutrality policy and Japan's alliance policy. These policies have been adopted as the basic stance of diplomacy for each country for years. In both cases, these longstanding policies have an important bearing on today's circumstances. This paper considers two issues, first, why did Ireland and Japan each take a different direction for their basic stance of diplomacy, one for neutrality and the other for alliance with the United States, while the situations of Ireland in 1939 and those of Japan in 1951 had some commonalities? Second, why did the paths of each stance of diplomacy since their inception take different directions in Ireland and Japan? While Ireland's neutrality policy has undergone a considerable remodelling since the end of the Second World War, Japan has continued to strengthen its security alliance with the United States. In examining these two issues by way of comparative analysis, I use the same frame of reference, focusing on three dimensions, namely, security, national identity and relations with key countries. These three factors are valid in answering the above-mentioned research questions, illuminating both differences and commonalities between the two countries.

Japan's ‘Indo-Pacific’ question: countering China or shaping a new regional order?

Abstract Japan's primary objective of the ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’ (FOIP) strategy is to shape and consolidate regional order in the Indo-Pacific region based on the existing rules-based international order. The concept initially aimed to achieve two different objectives—shaping a regional order in the Indo-Pacific and ensuring the defence of Japan; however, Japan has gradually shifted its strategic focus onto the former, separating national defence from the FOIP concept, which reflects a change in the degree of its commitment to the two objectives. On the one hand, as its overall security strategy, Japan has determined to steadily enhance its national defence by increasing its own defence capabilities and strengthening the US–Japan alliance, while transforming its partnerships with like-minded states, such as Australia and India, into a diplomatic, and potentially military, alignment. This has been brought about by shifts in the regional balance of power, particularly the rise of China and the relative decline of the United States. On the other hand, as part of its FOIP strategy, Japan's attempts to build a new regional order in the Indo-Pacific region aim to defend the existing rules-based order established by the United States from challengers, particularly China. Yet, given the strategic uncertainty over Japan's international coalition-building efforts to create a new regional order, Japan has made its approach flexible; Tokyo is using its ambiguous FOIP concept to gauge other states' responses, understand their perspectives, and change its strategic emphases accordingly—so-called ‘tactical hedging’. Japan has pursued similar means to achieve the two key objectives. Nevertheless, the country's core interest, the defence of Japan, is more imperative than building a regional order in the Indo-Pacific region, and Japan faces different types of challenges in the future.

The Autonomy‒Alignment Trade‐Off: Japan’s Evolving Defense Posture

Tokyo’s defense doctrine and behavior have undergone a number of significant shifts under the Abe administration. These have occurred against the backdrop of declining U.S. power in Asia and, more recently, the Trump administration’s idiosyncratic “America First” policy. These developments thus raise questions about Tokyo’s strategic orientation and the continued durability of the U.S.‐Japan alliance. Is Tokyo hedging against possible U.S. strategic abandonment of Japan and shifting toward a more independent defense posture? Drawing on interviews with government officials in 2019, it is argued here that the recent evolution of Japan’s defense policy has instead been premised on the continuation of the alliance as the core of its national security strategy. The U.S.‐Japan security relationship has therefore been conducted primarily under the framework of traditional alliance management.

Ireland's Neutrality Policy and Japan's Alliance Policy

Ireland's Neutrality Policy and Japan's Alliance Policy

Japan’s Diplomatic Strategy toward East Asia: Creation and Evolution of ‘Dual-Track Diplomacy’ in the Post-Cold War Era

Abstract Japan’s diplomatic strategy toward East Asia underwent three main changes in the post-Cold War era. The first change occurred soon after the 1991 Persian Gulf War propelled Japan to consider a potential way to contribute to international security, resulting in the creation of dual-track diplomacy. The second was the consolidation of Japan’s dual-track diplomacy by strengthening the US–Japan alliance and supporting the ASEAN’s multilateral initiatives in the early 2000s. The third was the enhancement of Japan’s own security efforts to maintain regional stability while making the most of the existing political and security mechanisms in East Asia—multilateralizing US alliance networks and enhancing the ASEAN-led multilateral frameworks. In the future, two factors would likely play a critical role in shaping Japan’s diplomatic strategy: the degree of the future US commitment to the alliance with Japan and the level of China’s assertiveness.

Hegemony and the US–Japan Alliance

With the transformation of the global security environment during the post-Cold War and post-9/11 period, new security measures have emerged. Nevertheless, why does the Japan–US alliance, one of the traditional security measures, continue to exist? Although many existing studies have pointed to emerging threats throughout the Asia-Pacific, this book presents a different reason for the continuation of the alliance by utilizing neo-Gramscian framework. Chapter 2 examines the development of the Japan–US alliance and the hegemony (or historic bloc) led by the United States from the postwar era to the early post-Cold War period (1951–1991) as a premise to discuss the post-Cold War Japan–US alliance in subsequent chapters. It argues that the alliance was strengthened through the interaction between ‘coercion’ (US demand for Japanese rearmament as well as the foreign dispatch of Japan Self Defense Forces [SDF]) and ‘consent’ in the form of Japan’s acceptance, according to the neo-Gramscian view. Specifically,...

Unambivalent alignment: Japan’s China strategy, the US alliance, and the ‘hedging’ fallacy

AbstractThis article examines whether the Asia-Pacific region’s geopolitical vicissitudes are causing Japan to ‘hedge’ against deepening uncertainty and risk through major strategic realignments or diversification of security and economic ties, as the original hedging literature would expect. It examines trends since 2009 in three domains fundamental to identifying whether shifts are underway in Japan’s strategic orientation vis-à-vis China: security policy (primary), trade/investment, and public opinion. Despite deepening uncertainty (and volatility), especially in ‘the Trump era’, this study finds negligible evidence of hedging behavior: e.g., realigning toward Beijing or adopting a ‘middle position’, much less developing any meaningful security ties with China. Rather, contemporary trends point in the opposite direction: Japan’s China strategy primarily centers on strengthening indigenous deterrence capabilities, bolstering the US–Japan alliance, and diversifying regional security ties beyond Beijing. Even the latter, somewhat paradoxically, aims to deepen ties with Washington and to keep it actively engaged in regional affairs.

The more the merrier? Sino-Japanese security relations in the context of complex interstate rivalry in the Asia-Pacific region

This paper analyses the evolution of Sino-Japanese rivalry in the security sphere concentrating on the Chinese perspective, and placing it within the wider context of complex interstate rivalry between China, Japan and the United States. From a theoretical viewpoint, this research contributes to the literature on interstate rivalry from multiparty perspective, which has been overlooked in existing research. China–Japan–US complex interstate rivalry includes elements of positional, spatial and ideological rivalry simultaneously. When rivalries mix two or more rivalry types, they become more difficult to resolve. The two broad trends of China’s military build-up and deepening US–Japan alliance evolve in tandem intensifying rivalry dynamics and increasing positional elements of rivalry. There are many indications on various levels that for China, controlling Japan’s international ambitions has become less important and more attention is paid to ways in which Japan helps the United States in reaching its objectives in Asia through their alliance agreement. The cases analysed to display complex interstate rivalry include the Taiwan question, territorial disputes in the East and South China Seas, and the North Korean nuclear issue.

Japan Should Scrutinise the Credibility of the US Nuclear Umbrella: An Interview with Shigeru Ishiba

ABSTRACT Shigeru Ishiba is a heavyweight in Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party and served as Defence Minister from 2007 to 2008. In this interview, he shares his views on the role of nuclear weapons in US–Japan alliance and Japan’s security policy. Especially, he put emphasis on the need to ensure that extended deterrence by US nuclear weapons is always credible, while he acknowledges the miseries of nuclear weapons. In the face of growing threat of North Korea’s nuclear and missile programme, Ishiba also noted that Japan’s policy of not allowing the introduction of nuclear weapons in its territory should be re-examined, effectively casting doubt on the third pillar of the Three Non-Nuclear Principles. Missile defence is another item that he thinks must be strengthened to enhance the credibility of nuclear deterrence. He went on to praise Japan’s plutonium policy as this constitutes ‘potential nuclear deterrence’ for Japan.

Japan–Iran Relations since the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal

The US–Japan alliance has been one of the most important elements in configuring Japanese diplomacy since World War II. Accordingly, Japan’s relations with Iran always require striking a delicate balance among Japan’s security policy based on the US–Japan alliance, its energy demands, and its historically good bilateral relations with Iran. Japan welcomed the nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 group of nations in 2015. Iran holds the world’s second largest natural gas reserves and ranks fourth in proven crude oil reserves. Japanese companies were eager to re-enter the Iranian market with its rich natural resources and over 80 million strong population. However, the inauguration of President Trump in January 2017 and his antagonistic stance toward Iran has slowed this move. The Japanese government has taken the initiative to improve relations with Iran after lifting its sanctions against that country, while trying to mitigate possible risks. This article aims to examine relations between Iran and Japan after the Iran nuclear deal from three aspects: economic relations, nuclear cooperation, and security.