Japan's Security Research Articles

Особенности развития полиции Японии: история и современность

This article highlights the issue of the history of the development of the Japanese police and its current state. The interest in this topic is due to the traditionally high level of security in modern Japan, which is ensured, among other things, due to the effective activities of its law enforcement system. The positive experience of the Japanese police in combating crime and ensuring law and order has already been borrowed by a number of Asian countries, but little studied in our country. The main focus of the article is on the consistent disclosure of the development process of law enforcement agencies in Japan. Three stages of their formation are highlighted. The current stage of development of law enforcement agencies in Japan is considered in more detail. The author presents the structure and size of the police, the peculiarities of the distribution of employees in the center and in the field, presents the functions of the police and the priority areas of its activities. The author highlights the issue of police interaction with citizens as the most important factor in ensuring security. In this aspect, the author believes that the experience of the Japanese police reform in the early 2000s deserves close attention, which ensured an increase in citizens' trust in the police, the development of new forms of interaction with the population, contributed to improving the quality of police activities and directly affected the results of law enforcement officers, first of all a decrease in crime and an increase in crime detection.

Japan's Revolutionary Military Change: Explaining Why It Happened Under Kishida

Japan's security policy is changing rapidly, with drastic increases to its defense budget and the acquisition of counterstrike capabilities. While the deteriorating security environment undeniably motivates Japan's defense posture, the speed and extent of these recent changes still present a puzzle. Why was it under Kishida Fumio—a former leader of Kōchikai, the liberal and oft-considered pacifist faction within the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP)—that Japan achieved its watershed moment on defense? This article explains this change through the exigencies of Kishida's domestic political survival. It was through his leadership of a minority faction within the LDP, his image as a dove, and support for fiscal discipline, that Kishida managed to find the largest common denominator among competing domestic political forces. Had it not been for Kishida, the speed and degree of Japan's recent transformation in security policies would have been unlikely. In light of these findings, we conclude by considering the policy implications for understanding Japan's security posture.

Party politics and foreign policy: The Liberal Democratic Party in Japan's security policy expansion in Southeast Asia

AbstractThis article explains the role of political parties in influencing a democratic state's international security cooperation policy. It focuses on Japan's expanded security cooperation with Southeast Asian countries pushed by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) under Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The LDP as the ruling party saw Japan's expanded security cooperation with Southeast Asian countries as an effort to success Abe's “Take Back Japan” campaign and to overperform the previous Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) administration. Moreover, Japan was able to expand its security cooperation with Southeast Asian countries because LDP and its junior coalition partner New Komeito, using its preliminary review system in foreign and security policy making, and its stable power in parliament, were able to pass security legislations allowing Japan's to have more security cooperation with Southeast Asian countries.

The effect of enterprise unions on employment adjustment speed in Japanese firms

AbstractUsing 20‐year dynamic panel data, we analysed the difference in employment adjustment speed and behaviour between unionized and non‐unionized firms, whether continuous or discontinuous, to investigate the effects of enterprise unions on job security in Japan. We confirmed that unionized firms were more reluctant to downsize and continue to offer stronger job security than non‐unionized firms. However, the unions’ influence on job security has gradually weakened. The primary contribution of this study is its clarification that unions in Japan played the role of guardians of job security under increasing globalization and technological innovation over the 20‐year sample period. Our clarification provides evidence that a different type of union, distinct from those in Western countries aiming for wage increases, is deeply embedded in the Japanese stakeholder system.

What Made South Korea–Japan Security Cooperation Retreat During the Moon Jae-in Administration?

This article elucidates the reasons behind South Korea’s diminished security cooperation with Japan during the Moon Jae-in administration (2017–2022). The author discovered that President Moon halted ongoing security cooperation activities initiated by his predecessor, even though the North Korean nuclear threat became exponential. In particular, this article argues that not the national-level factors, such as South Koreans’ negative perception of Japan on the basis of their collective memory, but the leader factor was the main reason for the worsening of South Korea–Japan’s security cooperation during the Moon administration, contrary to most people’s expectations. The Moon administration’s progressive political leaders, who had acquired anti-United States/anti-Japan and pro-North Korea/pro-China perspectives during their anti-government protests in the 1970s and 1980s, decided to be confrontational towards Japan to their political benefit. The reality that the security cooperation between South Korea and Japan jumpstarted once the conservative Yoon Suk-yeol administration leaders replaced them supports this finding.

The Agents of the Committee for State Security in Japan After the Second World War: Bir and Halef

The Agents of the Committee for State Security in Japan After the Second World War: Bir and Halef

The Impact of Japan’s Discharge of Nuclear-Contaminated Water on Aquaculture Production, Trade, and Food Security in China and Japan

The aquaculture and fisheries sectors play critical roles in promoting a global nutritious and climate-friendly food system. The Japanese government started implementing the discharge of nuclear-contaminated water (NCW) into the Pacific Ocean in August 2023, which was followed by stopping the import of seafood from Japan to ensure the safety of imported food for Chinese citizens. The discharge of NCW into the ocean by Japan will directly harm the marine ecological environment and the global ecosystem due to the importance of China as the largest producer, processor, and exporter of aquatic products (APs). This paper employs the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model to simulate the future impacts of discharging the NCW under three different scenarios. The results showed that discharging NCW will lead to a global decline in AP production and also has negative repercussions on the macroeconomic landscape. Japan will face the most significant negative impact on its national macroeconomy, e.g., Japan’s GDP, total imports, total exports, household income, and social welfare will decrease by 2.18%, 3.84%, 8.30%, 2.61%, and $130.07 billion; similarly, for China, the decrease will be 0.03%, 1.21%, 0.08%, and $728.15 billion, respectively. If China’s AP consumption decreases by 10% and 20%, it will result in protein deficits of 1.536 million tons and 3.132 million tons, respectively. Japan’s deficit will reach 138,000 tons and 276,000 tons. This necessitates supplementation via the consumption of other protein-rich foods, posing a significant threat to the nutritional security of food in both China and Japan.

Rethinking change in Japan's security policy: punctuated equilibrium theory and Japan's response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine

ABSTRACT Change in Japanese foreign and security policy has long been characterized as “incremental”. However, Japan’s response to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine provides an opportunity to reconsider this paradigm. In the aftermath of the 2014 annexation of Crimea, then-Prime Minister Abe Shinzō chose not to put Crimea on the agenda, prioritizing instead relations with Russia. However, Prime Minister Kishida Fumio responded to the 2022 invasion by increasing ties with NATO, promising to double Japan’s military spending, and acquiring capabilities that were once considered off-limits, including cruise missiles. This dramatic policy shift is analyzed using punctuated equilibrium theory (PET). We find that the 2022 invasion became a focusing event, shifting public and elite opinion in unison. Where Crimea was played down, Ukraine was clearly linked to Asia, to a possible invasion of Taiwan, and as a threat to the entire liberal international order under which Japan had prospered. We argue that overall change in Japan’s policy has not been continuous, rather, focusing events, such as Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, 9/11, and the 2012 “national security crisis” have precipitated fundamental change. Thus, we conclude that PET provides a better understanding of policy change than incrementalism.

Japan’s agricultural policy towards food security improvement. Key strategies, initiatives and outcomes

Food security in Japan has been under observation of analytics in both Japan and abroad as it is one of the key national security issues. Leading academic researchers of this issue in Japan include Suzuki N., Takeya T., Yamamoto R. and Oguchi H. However, the main focus of their analysis is the social aspect. The English language literature provides more materials on food security problem, but the situation is changing faster than information flows across the border. It means that the most up-to-date resources for analysis of the topic are the documents of the Japanese official institutions. Based on the Global Food Security Index (which takes into account the issues of food affordability, availability, quality and natural resources resilience), Japan is considered to be 6th most self-sufficient country in the world. However, the Japanese government still sees the national food security issue as problematic for the country’s stability due to heavy dependency on agricultural import. To overcome the trend, Japan utilizes multiple mechanisms to eventually improve agricultural self-sufficiency. The main focus is kept on the following 4 critical levers – i) productivity improvement, ii) agricultural employment improvement, iii) demand shift towards traditional dietary and new markets opening and iv) SDG agenda. The research also provides a case study of technologies implemented in the agricultural field in Japan in order to improve the self-sufficiency level. Moreover, emphasis is made on the government policies to develop the local market and to build the new markets abroad for the domestic farmers’ production expansion.

Individual Preparedness for Large-scale Earthquakes among International Students in Japan: A Cross-sectional Questionnaire Survey.

Individual preparedness for large-scale earthquakes is essential for safety and security in Japan, where earthquakes frequently occur. Foreign residents in Japan face barriers to gathering disaster information, and international students are likely to be more vulnerable to the effects of earthquakes due to the shorter duration of their stay in Japan. However, no studies have been conducted on international students' individual preparedness for large-scale earthquakes in Japan. This study aimed to investigate individual preparedness for large-scale earthquakes among international students in Japan. This cross-sectional study was conducted from May to August 2023 among 360 international students aged ≥20 years enrolled at seven Japanese-language educational institutions in Osaka, Kyoto, and Hyogo prefectures. Of these, 120 (33.3%) agreed to participate in the mail surveys. Students with invalid answers were excluded and 114 (31.7%) were included in the analysis. The information obtained using a self-administered questionnaire included participants' characteristics, methods used to collect information on individual preparedness for large-scale earthquakes (information sources and languages), and individual preparedness for large-scale earthquakes. Many international students had not implemented safety measures at home and lacked information about safety confirmation, evacuation sites and routes, items to wear during evacuation, items to take in case of evacuation, or items to stockpile at home. In particular, approximately half of the participants lacked knowledge about nearby evacuation sites, and only 37.7% had confirmed their evacuation routes to nearby evacuation sites. Only 32.5% had prepared bags containing emergency items to take in case of an evacuation, and most had not packed the items, even though they were stocked at home. In addition, only 8.8% had stockpiled radios and emergency portable toilets at home. It is necessary to promote individual preparedness for large-scale earthquakes among international students in Japan.

Interpreting Japan’s Security Interests in the Korean Peninsula

This paper aims to interpret Japan's security interests in the Korean Peninsula using a qualitative research method and realism theory as the conceptual framework. During its empire periods, Japan was known for controlling several areas in Northeast Asia including Korea. Various inhumane treatment was carried out by Japan to the inhabitants of the Korean Peninsula for 35 years (1910-1945). But that treatment stopped after Japan's defeat in World War II in 1945. Korea, which was divided into two at that time, still hated Japan. But that hatred can be overcome by South Korea but not by North Korea. Some of the actions that endanger Japan were finally carried out by North Korea. Given that North Korea had lost the country that helped it, namely the Soviet Union, Pyongyang increased its behaviour that threatened Japan's security, such as using nuclear threats or launching ICBM over Japan’s air territory. Therefore, Japan must implement security policies that can counter North Korea’s threat. Such policies are postwar processing, security, economics, national sovereignty, and the safety of Japanese lives. This paper suggests that Japan must be able to defend itself from North Korean threats. Once safe, Japan can develop its economic interests. Then Japan can live and thrive and at the same time “expand” its leverage to the country that threatens it.

The Russia-Ukraine War and Its Impact on the Food Security of Korea, China, and Japan: A CGE Approach

Purpose - In 2021, Ukraine and Russia exported 12% and 17% of global wheat, being significant grain producers and exporters. However, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine greatly impacts Ukraine’s wheat production and trade. In this regard, this study examines the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on global food security using the computable general equilibrium approach.
 Design/Methodology/Approach - We utilized the global multi-sector standard GTAP model, specifically the GTAP Database Version 11, with a base year of 2017. For this research purpose, the original 160 regions and 65 sectors of the GTAP database were aggregated into 23 regions and 24 sectors. Due to the uncertain nature of the conflict duration between Russia and Ukraine, we designed three scenarios: Slight, Medium, and Severe. Each scenario represents varying degrees of wheat production, trade disruption, and an increase in wheat production by third producers for shocks.
 Findings - The study reveals several effects: real GDP decreases for Ukraine, Russia, Turkey, India, and Georgia, while countries like Egypt, Turkey, Azerbaijan, India, Korea, and Japan experience diminished economic welfare. Russia’s invasion can affect wheat imports of countries like Turkey, India, Mongolia, and Egypt. Ukraine, Egypt, Turkey, and India registered trade surpluses, while others recorded deficits
 Research Implications - The ongoing conflict complicates assessing long-term consequences on global food security. Policymakers are advised to monitor closely, implement strategies to mitigate disruptions, and foster international collaboration to alleviate adverse effects on trade, economies, and food security, particularly of nations heavily reliant on Ukraine’s wheat exports, like Egypt, Turkey, Mongolia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan.

China as a Focus of Japan's Security Strategy

China as a Focus of Japan's Security Strategy

Japan and the liberal international order: rules-based, multilateral, inclusive and localized

Abstract This article examines Japan's security and foreign policy as an example of how a major power engages in the liberal international order (LIO) and what this implies for the future of that order. Facing China's increased power and influence in the past two decades, Japan has made strategic adjustments in response to regional and global power transitions while developing an idea of a wider geopolitical landscape on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's initiative. However, this article argues that Japan's idea of an expanded regional scope and its vision of order were addressed decades earlier through ‘comprehensive security’ (sogo anzen hosho). While the country is an ally of the United States and clearly accepts the alliance as a key part of international order, Japan has its own ideas about international order; these accept much of the LIO but go beyond it, particularly in the articulation and operationalization of comprehensive security. By adopting the concept of norm localization, this article argues that Japan does not have the power to coerce others to take any actions to defend the current international order, but it can adapt and tweak the dominant LIO norms, principles and practices to build congruence with local norms of sovereignty and territorial integrity embedded in its own region. To create a broader consensus in favour of sustaining the LIO, major powers like Japan can approach the sceptics by presenting an alternative to either total rejection or total acceptance of the LIO norms.

The Next Generation of Japan's National Security

The Next Generation of Japan's National Security Marina Fujita Dickson (bio) and Yoichi Funabashi (bio) Japan's security policy has undergone several drastic changes in past decade: the establishment of the National Security Council in 2013; the easing of defense equipment exports in 2014; and, most recently, the publication of the new National Security Strategy, National Defense Strategy, and Defense Buildup Program white papers in late 2022, combined with the increase of the defense budget to 2% of GDP and plans to establish new measures like a counterstrike capability. While many analysts have highlighted these developments as significant shifts in Japan's strategic priorities, a single major factor looms in the background that continues to hinder developments—Japan's aging population. Japan's attempt to become a "normal nation"—a country with an effective security policy that can accept the use of force as a potential policy tool—is constrained today by a declining birth rate, an aging population that both stresses the government's budget and limits the recruitment pool for the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF), and the slow pace of technology adoption in the JSDF. Tom Phuong Le's book Japan's Aging Peace: Pacifism and Militarism in the Twenty-First Century addresses these major challenges and uniquely explores the intersection between Japanese defense policy and the country's demographic crisis, detailing exactly why and how these issues are causational. First, fewer children mean fewer potential military recruits. Second, an older, aging population requires a larger budget for institutions like the pension system, leaving less money for defense matters, such as recruiting and retaining troops. Le carefully describes both the uniqueness and individuality of the problem; while most developed economies today are experiencing declining birth rates, Japan's crisis has arguably attracted the most attention as a social phenomenon over the last two decades. In exploring how the abovementioned demographic shift affects Japan's defense, Le compares Japan with its neighbors South Korea, Taiwan, China, and Singapore, which all have some form of mandatory conscription. Yet, each of these countries faces the same issue of an aging population—and [End Page 169] some of these countries (such as Taiwan and South Korea) are experiencing this problem to an even more acute degree than Japan. Having tapped into the full extent of their recruitment pool, these four countries could be looking at a potentially more dire situation in their future. Indeed, Japan is not the only country, but rather just the first, to face the challenge of an aging population. Le argues that the way in which Japan manages this crisis domestically will thus be a lesson for its neighbors. Throughout the text, the author also underscores the various constraints on Japanese militarism beyond demographics, including issues resulting from an underdeveloped military industrial complex, arms export principles, public opinion, the constitution, the international stigma of militarism, the U.S.-Japan alliance, and Japan's three nonnuclear principles, among others. While the government can alleviate some of these issues through policy reform, many are norms that cannot be overcome without "significant social engineering" (p. 11), which is beyond the capability of the government. While Le's discussion of Japan's intertwined demographic and defense challenges—and the immense hurdles Japan faces to overcome them—is crucial, Le's most important contribution to the existing literature is perhaps his examination of "militarism" itself as a concept. Some scholars have predicted that Japan will "return to normal security behavior" (p. 34), but what do they mean by that precisely? Because there is a lack of specificity in this idea of a return to normal, it is unclear what path of militarization Japan would take and what it would mean for the country's future. It is clear, however, that Japan's "return to normal" in military terms will not be a return to the 1930s. To understand this point, one must look beyond conventional metrics of militarization such as the "increased activity" of the armed forces or changes in the defense budget to other indicators such as civil-military dynamics, the prevalence of military symbols in public view, and education on Japanese history and war, to name a few. In...

Japan in 2022

Japan’s domestic politics in 2022, though immensely shocked by Abe’s assassination, continued as usual without major changes from 2021. The LDP–Komeito coalition prevails, and opposition coalitions failed to prevent it from dominating. Although the Japanese economy is recovering from COVID-19 with increasing consumption, the recovery rate is slower than expected. The Japanese economy suffered both internally and externally in 2022. While adhering to the principle of exclusive self-defense under the US–Japan Security Treaty, the Kishida government is trying to improve deterrence with a new security strategy focusing on strengthening its counterstrike capability.

Taiwan and Japan's Security: An Anatomy of Japanese Approaches to the Taiwan Issue

Taiwan and Japan's Security: An Anatomy of Japanese Approaches to the Taiwan Issue

Taiwan and Japan's Security: An Anatomy of Japanese Approaches to the Taiwan Issue

Taiwan and Japan's Security: An Anatomy of Japanese Approaches to the Taiwan Issue

External Threats and Public Opinion: The East Asian Security Environment and Japanese Views on the Nuclear Option

AbstractThe Japanese public has been assumed to possess a deeply ingrained aversion toward the acquisition of nuclear weapons. We employ a survey experiment to ascertain whether this aversion is unconditional or may erode in the face of hypothetical deterioration in Japan's security situation, and in particular a hypothetical withdrawal of the US security-nuclear umbrella, increased North Korean nuclear weapons testing activities, and movement by South Korea toward the attainment of a nuclear arsenal. We find that the Japanese nuclear aversion may come under stress in the face of such developments. Additionally, we find that the elasticity of Japanese attitudes with respect to the nuclear option in the face of external security deterioration may be associated with an important individual-level demographic characteristic, namely, gender.

Russian-Japanese relations and the Chinese factor: Evolution and transformation (2012–2022)

The election of V.V. Putin for a new presidential term in 2012 and his further foreign policy initiatives affected the intensification of Russia’s foreign policy in general, as well as its Japanese direction. The article attempts to highlight the development of Russian-Japanese relations in the period of 2012–2022, including the phase of aggravation of relations after the start of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine on February 24, 2022 and Japan’s accession to the US anti-Russian sanctions, as well as the role and influence of China on the bilateral Russian-Japanese format, the East Asian region, the specifics of Chinese-American relations in the context of the “trade war” in the Japanese dimension, etc. Based on the published works of leading Russian experts, the author examines the dynamics of mutual perception of the images of Russia and Japan at the level of Russian and Japanese public opinion. Particular attention is paid to the study of the evolution of Russian-Japanese trade and economic, military-political, energy, Arctic, and humanitarian contacts. The paper traces the features of Russian, Japanese and Chinese motivations regarding regional security issues, attitudes towards the Ukrainian events, including the Russian special military operation, Moscow’s reaction to anti-Russian sanctions, towards the pressure from the United States and their allies. In general, the problem of the evolution of the notional triangle “Russia – Japan – China” at the present stage, the deformation of its key elements and the prospects for further development are formulated.The author focuses on the coverage of Russian-Japanese contacts in the areas of regional security before and after February 24, 2022, including the South Kuril options, as well as the analysis of hidden possible Japanese political motivations during the rule of Shinzō Abe regarding the problems of the deepening of the Russian-Chinese strategic partnership and the projections of this partnership on the security of Japan and the Japanese-American military-political alliance. An important aspect of the work is the coverage of the dynamics of the Russian-Japanese political relations in the light of the Russian leadership designating Japan as an “unfriendly state” and the further development of bilateral Russian-Japanese and Russian-Chinese models of interaction in the Asia-Pacific region.