Japanese Leaders Research Articles

The Views of Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio on Japan’s Foreign Policy Within the Context of the Search for a New Grand Strategy

At present, security environment in East Asia is becoming increasingly fraught, characterised by the growing strategic rivalry between the US and China. Meanwhile, Japan is faced with the challenge of formulating such a foreign policy approach that would both ensure its national security and avoid further escalating the US-China conflict. In these circumstances, it is of interest to examine the views of Japanese Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio (2009–2010) on Japan’s foreign policy and its role in the international community. This article analyses Hatoyama’s attitudes and rhetoric within the context of Japanese political elites’ longstanding search for alternatives to the Yoshida Doctrine, which underpinned Japan’s grand strategy throughout the Cold War. While the Prime Minister’s attempts to modify Japanese diplomatic approach have often been considered incoherent or “naïve”, the author argues that, drawing partially from the concepts pertaining to Japan’s role on the international stage that were introduced in the 1990s, Hatoyama consistently advocated the formulation of a new strategy. While admitting that some of Hatoyama’s proposals were not well-thought-out and went beyond the political mainstream, the author posits that he pursued the same goal as previous Japanese leaders, namely achieving balance in Japan’s relations with the US and China. The parameters of Hatoyama’s strategy were different from both the Yoshida Doctrine and the emerging course towards a more robust security policy, which was fully implemented under the second administration of Abe Shinzo (2012–2020). This strategy was based on Japan’s proactive role in upholding global stability through non-military means, reducing its dependence on the US, deepening integration in East Asia, and achieving friendly ties with China. The objectives of this article are to analyse Hatoyama’s political philosophy, identify the similarities and differences between it and other key contemporary foreign policy initiatives, as well as examine the Prime Minister’s approach towards foreign-policy making. The sources include Hatoyama’s speeches and writings as well as a range of academic literature devoted to analysing his foreign policy with an emphasis on the works of Japanese scholars.

Operation STARVATION, 1945: A Transnational History of Blockades and the Defeat of Japan

Going beyond the conventional focus on the British blockade of Germany in the First World War, this essay situates blockades in a broader transnational history of waging war on civil populations. From the early twentieth century through the Second World War, blockade strategies evolved as part of a global circulation of ideas and practices on how wars might be won by starving, bombing, and demoralizing the enemy’s urban masses. The Allied blockade and German U-boat campaigns were connected, as each side learned from the other’s attacks on the civilian food supply. Moreover, the ‘lessons’ of 1914–18 shaped blockade strategies for the next war not only among Europeans, but also among the Japanese and Americans in the Pacific. For Japanese planners, who investigated European home fronts in the First World War, the transnational lessons were largely defensive. The island nation adopted dynamic programs of imperial food self-sufficiency. Yet in the Second World War, Japan experienced a devastating collapse in food supply, precipitated by perhaps the most successful blockade in history—the Allied blockades of Japan’s food and raw material supplies from Asia that culminated in Operation STARVATION. The prospect of mass starvation, I argue, helped persuade Japanese leaders to surrender.

Varieties of engagement: Japanese corporate leaders’ strategic relations with foreign shareholders and institutional change

PurposeApplying the concept of “entrepreneur managers” from dynamic capabilities theory to the question of how some Japanese managers develop and use their relationships with foreign investors, this article explores organizational contexts in which Japanese managers use foreign shareholders as resources to enhance firm capabilities in the global marketplace, deploy assets effectively and implement changes to traditional organizational customs. The article asks why and how some top managers implemented institutional changes and adopted customs that are common in the shareholder-based system while others did not.Design/methodology/approachWe conducted qualitative interviews with 11 inverstor relations (IR) managers of large, listed Japanese firms in Kyoto and Tokyo.FindingsFirst, by inviting a hedge fund partner and using their human capital and social capital, a Japanese CEO committed to strengthening his firm’s competencies in the global market and introduced changes that are common in the shareholder-based system. Second, a CEO with an MBA degree and exceptional communication skills in English and Japanese dedicated himself to executing much of the strategic advice suggested to him by foreign shareholders and altered some of his firm’s traditional Japanese management practices. Third, even though many Japanese firms welcomed and used foreign shareholders as advisors to help them streamline and/or acquire firm assets, their top leaders’ implementation of organizational changes was limited. Fourth, the top leaders of family-owned firms were reluctant to initiate dialogue with foreign investors.Originality/valueThis article adds some useful organizational context to existing scholarship on institutional theory by examining Japanese leaders’ strategic management in their relations with foreign investors. Using the concept of dynamic capabilities, it addresses the role of innovative strategic managers in firms’ institutional changes.

The expression of compassion in leadership in intercultural organizational situations: The case of Japanese leaders in India

AbstractIn this paper, we examine the role played by compassion in leadership in intercultural situations. Focusing on the growing and important economic context of Indo‐Japanese business, we develop a model that identifies contingent factors that affect Japanese leaders' expressions of compassion in intercultural organizational contexts. We engage with the spiritual capital construct and analyse leaders' lived experiences leading to a novel extension of the well‐established Nested Spheres Model of Culture. By adopting an inductivist and social constructivist approach, semistructured interviews with Japanese business leaders operating in India are employed to generate data. The empirical data show how changes in time and place cause deeply embedded cultural values (such as compassion) to surface and become more explicit in leadership. The study also underlines the need to explore the wider spatial, temporal, and economic contingencies that affect both the dynamics of compassion in “intercultural” business situations and spiritual leadership in intercultural contexts.

Distinctive features of modern Japanese diplomatic service

The present study is an inquiry into the current state of Japanese diplomatic service and its distinctive features. The author makes use of the latest Japanese-language primary and secondary sources in his analysis that are rarely employed in Russian Japanology. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan is the main government body responsible for Japan’s foreign affairs and its diplomatic service. The Ministry’s work is based on a number of laws mostly enacted in the 20th century, though all of them have gone through a series of amendments. Since these laws provide for only a necessary framework with little detail, their implementation lies in the hands of bureaucracy, which allows for a swift response to changes that may occur by adapting the structure of the Ministry and creating ad hoc chambers without amending the basic laws. This is of paramount importance given the turbulent state of global affairs and Japanese leaders’ bid to elevate Japan to a top-tier cohort in the international arena. To address the challenge, the Japanese leadership has made the Foreign Ministry more accountable and dependent on the ruling party and the prime minister, reflecting Prime Minister Abe’s long-standing desire to act with fewer constraints on the side of bureaucracy. At the same time, the Japanese diplomatic service has faced quite a few issues. Over the last decade, new embassies have been established, and their functions have been greatly bolstered, most prominently regarding the support for Japanese companies’ expansion overseas. However, the Ministry’s ranks fail to expand quickly enough to offset the amount of work to be done. The annual intake to the Ministry stands at about 80 ‘generalists’ and ‘specialists.’ The understaffed diplomatic service runs the risks of becoming overwhelmed and thus ineffective. While the leadership is aware of the problem, it is yet unclear how exactly the problem is to be tackled.

Maternal responsibility and blame in technological disaster: radiation risk management as gendered labor after Fukushima

State governance after the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident created a culture of silence and tolerance surrounding radiation risk, and deliberately fueled the popular understanding that acting upon radiation-related concern was antithetical to national and regional economic recovery. Outright denial of danger by Japanese leaders, paired with loosened safety standards and limited state support for affected residents by way of guidance and compensation, led to a privatization of radiation risk management that placed responsibility for exposure reduction onto families while also constraining their action. Drawing on in-depth interviews and participant observation, this article explores how such dynamics fell most heavily on concerned mothers, who were far more likely to take on this additional realm of domestic labor and care work due to deeply ingrained norms of gendered labor and citizenship. Yet such maternal labor was not lauded as a valuable social contribution. Rather, concerned mothers found themselves in a double bind in which to care for their families through vigilant avoidance of potential risk was to betray the state. Risk mitigation came to require a significant amount of emotion work associated with not appearing overly anxious or paranoid, constantly assessing the risk perception of others, and at times suppressing concern and compromising on risk tolerance. The results of this study suggest that neoliberal models of environmental risk management, particularly in moments of high uncertainty surrounding the risk in question, can not only create internal, interpersonal, and community conflict but also exacerbate existing gender inequalities.

Deterrence, resilience, and engagement: Tokyo’s response to the Ukraine war and Russia-China alignment

Russia’s unprovoked attack against Ukraine entails significant implications to Japan’s security and its surrounding environment. How is Japan responding to Russia’s use of force? What are the drivers of its responses? This case study examines official speeches by Japanese leaders and government senior officials, government announcements, opinion polls, and analyses by Japan experts to understand Tokyo’s perceptions and responses to Moscow’s military attack against Kiev. Seen from Tokyo, the invasion of Ukraine is not only an attack against the rules-based international order but also a manifestation of Japan’s security concerns regarding China’s growing military capabilities and closer Russia-China alignment, especially the potential use of military force to change the Indo-Pacific region’s power balance. This article also finds that Tokyo’s response to Russia-China alignment and the Ukraine invasion continues to be wedded to an approach is characterized by a mixture of engagement, resilience, and deterrence, aiming at both Russia and the growing Russia-China alignment.

Interviews with 34 Japanese Leaders and Employees Reveal the Secrets of Success and Long-Term Survival of Japanese Companies

Japanese leadership style has encompassed worldwide success and criticism. For example, Toyota is an example of a leading and successful Japanese company in industry. With its new and creative ideas, this company was able to rebuild the marginalized image of Japanese cars in the international business scene and take a large share of the car market in the world. Our interviews with 34 Japanese leaders and employees and our observations as senior consultants in Japanese organizations have shown that the innovative and agile organization of these organizations minimizes inefficiencies in the two prominent areas of human resource and leadership development. However, a quote from a Japanese business leader posits that “non-Japanese employees of Japanese firms frequently mention the penchant that many Japanese managers have for public criticism. Whereas Americans would prefer to receive negative feedback in private, Japanese seem to prefer to give it in public. And in some cases, the negative feedback goes one step beyond into the realm of “chewing out,” or just plain yelling.” We identified 5 secrets of success and long-term Survival of Japanese companies. They are strategy, social capital, new competencies, leadership development and systems approach. Now we will look at the five secrets of the success of these organizations so that managers can use them.

The U.S.-Japan Alliance and Taiwan

executive summary: This article analyzes the historical evolution of Japan's positions, posture, and policies relevant to a possible conflict across the Taiwan Strait, including the potential roles of the U.S.-Japan security alliance and Japan's Self-Defense Forces. main argument In April 2021, Japan's then prime minister Yoshihide Suga and U.S. president Joe Biden made global headlines when they jointly "underscored the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and encouraged the peaceful resolution of cross-Strait issues"—the first such reference in a summit-level statement since 1969. This statement catalyzed a striking degree of public discussion in Japan and expressions of concern about cross-strait stability from Japanese leaders. It also elicited widespread, though often misleading or inaccurate, assertions overseas that Japan's position vis-à-vis a "Taiwan contingency" had abruptly or radically transformed. Especially given the proximity of Japan (and U.S. military bases in Japan) to Taiwan, soberly appreciating the complexity and incremental evolution of Japan's nuanced and intentionally ambiguous positions and policies, as well as its unique domestic constraints, is critical. Doing so is especially crucial for policymakers to accurately assess the status quo, manage expectations within and beyond the alliance, and ensure sound decision-making as the cross-strait deterrence challenge seems all but certain to deepen in the years ahead. policy implications •Japan's decades-old, intentionally ambiguous official posture toward a possible Taiwan Strait contingency has not radically changed. Any action Japan would take in a possible crisis will depend on top-level political judgments about the particular contingency's nature, how it began, how Taipei and Washington have responded, and the perceived threat to Japan itself. • Ambiguity—by design—should not be misunderstood as apathy or ambivalence in Tokyo about democratic Taiwan's future or cross-strait peace and stability. Recent developments suggest a new sense of urgency and openness to deepen contingency and bilateral planning with Washington to enhance deterrence and to prepare options if deterrence fails. Though not originally motivated by a possible Taiwan contingency, Japan's national security and alliance reforms over the past decade have expanded the options for allied cooperation and Japan's potential role(s) in the event one occurs. • Important constraints on Japan are still apparent. It remains an open question how—and how quickly—Japan's leaders could respond to use of force by China against Taiwan and what consequences any indecision could have on Japan's and the alliance's response or how a conflict plays out.

Queer Korea

Queer Korea

An analysis on reporting pattern of People’s Daily’s international news coverage: The case of Sino-Japan summit meeting since the normalization of relations between Sino-Japan

To study the international news reporting patterns of the Chinese media, this research provides a longitudinal analysis of the news coverage of Sino-Japan summit meetings from 1972 to 2019 in the People’s Daily. Based on the framing theory, the results of the analysis show that different aspects of the summit are selected to be covered in the news depending on the Chinese government’s policy towards Japan in different time periods. However, the news coverage itself has maintained a high degree of consistency. Before the period of reform and the opening up of China, there was no mention of the summit meetings’ content; reports only introduced the date, location and attendees. After the reform, information reported about the summit meetings increased and the coverage began including quotations from both the Chinese and Japanese heads of state; at the same time, reports adopted a ‘propagandized’ text editing mode by quoting more from Chinese leaders than Japanese leaders. Furthermore, the People’s Daily framed the Chinese government’s attempts to stabilize and develop Sino-Japanese relations over time.

Sinitic Brushtalk in Vietnam’s Anti-Colonial Struggle against France: Phan Bội Châu’s Silent Conversations with Influential Chinese and Japanese Leaders in the 1900s

Abstract The Chronicles of Phan Sào Nam, written by Phan Bội Châu in Literary Sinitic in 1929, recorded about one hundred “silent conversations” by means of Sinitic brushtalk between Phan, the Đông Du (Go East) group, and people from numerous countries during the 1900s. Through brushtalk with influential Japanese and Chinese leaders, Phan discussed many crucial and critical issues concerning the anti-colonial struggle against France and the national liberation movement in Vietnam. Because many of the issues discussed were politically sensitive, there was a need for secrecy by restricting access to only the relevant interlocutors. For this reason, using brushtalk was felt to be more sensible than seeking help from interpreters. The contents of these “silent conversations” constitute a living testimony to the richness of discussions among East Asian political figures during this period. Various conceivable solutions to sociopolitical problems were put forward, in keeping with bilateral interests in the volatile and tumultuous diplomatic situation in East Asia at the dawn of a new century.

한일 지도자의 연설문 분석 -코로나 위기 속 신뢰 구축과 협력 촉구를 중심으로-

한일 지도자의 연설문 분석 -코로나 위기 속 신뢰 구축과 협력 촉구를 중심으로-

Who’s in control? Varying and changing translations of ‘birth control’ in Japan

ABSTRACT This article examines how the Japanese conceptualized ‘birth control’ in the twentieth century by analyzing the various terms its supporters used to describe contraception. The Japanese translations reveal the core ideas that defined the Japanese birth control movement, specifically eugenics and Neo-Malthusianism, during the tumultuous decades surrounding World War II as Japan competed for hegemony in the Pacific. The use of different terms over the decades reveals the struggles among Japanese leaders and intellectuals to ‘control’ the reproductive fate of the Japanese race.

How Neomercantilist Japan Became a Leading Defender of Economic Openness

How Neomercantilist Japan Became a Leading Defender of Economic Openness William W. Grimes (bio) Saori Katada’s new book Japan’s New Regional Reality: Geoeconomic Strategy in the Asia-Pacific provides the best guide to Japan’s contemporary foreign economic policy available today. While the book is written in a modest tone that belies its ambition and importance, there is much to learn here about Japan, and its role in Asia and the world, that is new and exciting. Japan’s New Regional Reality deserves to be read by both scholars and practitioners with an interest in the Asia-Pacific’s political economy. The book combines analysis of Japanese domestic political economy, the international environment, and the interactions between the two. Unlike most authors, Katada is equally comfortable with domestic and international politics as well as—perhaps more unusually—a full range of economic issues from trade and investment to finance and development assistance. Such thoroughness is what makes the story so compelling. The book is not an exercise in theory-building or methodologically driven political science; rather, it describes and analyzes in detail, and from multiple angles, a sea change in Japan’s political economy. Japan, in Katada’s telling, is a country whose role in the world economy and economic governance has been transformed by globalization and the rise of China. It is “not the same Japan that used to engage in trade conflicts with the United States twenty-odd years ago, and this new Japan influences the Asia-Pacific region in ways that are quite different from the past” (p. 1). It has turned away from the neomercantilism of the Japanese miracle and become a dedicated pillar of the liberal international order. The book analyzes both the reasons that the Japanese political economy has been transformed and the implications for Japan’s role in the world. Equally important, Katada takes seriously the idea that the Japanese state has acted strategically, and not just reacted to either U.S. pressures or domestic interest group politics. The shift of Japanese business preferences from neomercantilism to liberalism was partly driven by global liberalization pressures outside the [End Page 146] country in the 1980s and early 1990s. These included U.S. gaiatsu (external pressure) on Japan to lower trade barriers and reduce anti-competitive practices within Japan as well as the growing ambition and reach of global and regional trade rules. These pressures reduced the Japanese state’s ability to protect and nurture domestic companies. Equally important, however, was the rapid appreciation of the yen after the 1985 Plaza Accord, which created incentives for Japanese firms to procure offshore production at the same time that other East Asian economies in China, South Korea, and Southeast Asia were dismantling barriers to trade and investment in order to advance their own industrialization goals. As Katada puts it, Japanese businesses became “disembedded” (p. 5, and discussed in chapter 3) from the cozy political and economic networks that had long characterized the relatively closed domestic economy. In Katada’s telling, however, Japan is not merely a poster child for globalization and the triumph of market forces. Geoeconomics also looms large in this story. Three threads come together in chapter 3: growing regional economic integration, the loss of trust in U.S. benevolence, and the rise of China. First, the growth of regional production networks in East Asia meant that Japan’s outward economic engagement was no longer U.S.-centered. It also meant that Japanese companies became disembedded from their domestic supplier networks and stable labor-management systems. This shifted the purpose of Japanese foreign economic policy from appeasing U.S. demands toward nurturing complex value chains in which Japanese firms were often the key players. Second, with the 1997 Asian financial crisis, Japanese policymakers became aware that their priorities in Asia differed significantly from those of the United States, making apparent the need for regional cooperation in which Japan could play a key role in providing leadership and public goods. Finally, the rise of China as an economic and political power has both enticed and frightened Japanese leaders. They wanted, and still want, to gain from growing Chinese prosperity and productive capacity while...

DENIAL OF HISTORY? YASUKUNI VISITS AS SIGNALING

AbstractUnder what conditions would Japanese leaders visit the controversial Yasukuni Shrine and why? Previous studies have focused primarily on the domestic benefits and effects of such visits, claiming that leaders employ visits to follow their own conservative ideology and gain domestic political support. Given the harsh international criticism that tends to ensue, however, political leaders should also consider the cost and international effects of such visits. This study proposes three necessary conditions for such visits: a conservative ruling party, a government enjoying high popularity, and Japan's perception of a Chinese threat. With regard to the latter, a security threat from China has allowed Japan to use these visits as a credible signal of its resolve against China. Comparative analyses of Japanese cabinets after the mid-1980s support this argument.

A colonial trans-Pacific partnership: William Smith Clark, David Pearce Penhallow and Japanese settler colonialism in Hokkaido

ABSTRACTImmediately following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, the new, Western-oriented Japanese government decided to make the colonization of the adjacent northern island of Hokkaido a showcase of and economic engine for Japanese modernity. In so doing, Japanese leaders consciously modeled Japanese settler colonialism there on American models, particularly in the treatment of the indigenous Ainu. As part of this project, a large number of American advisors were hired, including three American professors from Massachusetts Agricultural College who were to found a similar institution in Sapporo. Although the story of these professors is well-known in Japan, their connections to Japanese settler colonialism have never been properly investigated. I argue that these professors, most importantly William Smith Clark and David Pearce Penhallow, served as important conduits of colonial knowledge, spreading both American technologies of settler colonialism to Japan and a positive image of Japanese imperialism in the United States after their return. Most significantly, they spread new, ‘scientific’ understandings of the Ainu that conformed to classic Western colonial tropes and contributed to their systematic dispossession. In these ways, these American ‘brokers of imperialism’ worked in tandem with their Japanese employers to both physically and discursively reform Hokkaido into an American-style ‘frontier’.

The fault in Japan’s stars: Shinzo Abe, North Korea, and the quest for a new Japanese constitution

In the wake of North Korea’s progressive missile testing that set even the usually stoic Japanese people into a panic mode, Japan has found itself at the mercy of its former enemies. In an ironic twist of fate, Tokyo’s security outlooks seem to have become hostage to the strategic calculations of its fiercest nemesis in the past. This paper asks whether Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s desire for constitutional change is precipitated mainly by the resurgence of Japanese nationalist sentiments as what many of his critics claim, or if there are genuinely rational justifications for revising the country’s 72-year old Constitution. And if so, why has it been so elusive for many Japanese leaders? Using neoclassical realism theory, I analyze the structural contexts and domestic intervening variables that simultaneously drive and prevent the realization of constitutional change in Japan. I argue that state leaders like Abe and those who have come before him have always been prone to acquiring flawed and inaccurate perceptions of the systemic stimuli; susceptible to making irrational and unsound decisions; and ineffective at mobilizing the national resources demanded by their preferred policies and strategies. Thus, despite having rational justifications, the quest for constitutional change has remained elusive for many Japanese leaders. Success will require Abe to carefully harmonize domestic and international expectations; prudently balance Japan’s benign security intentions and hawkish military strategies; and shift away from his pragmatic–ambivalent style of domestic politics.

Does Conscience Have to be Free? A Multiple Crossroads of Religious, Political, and Diplomatic Arguments: 1868-1874

This article will focus on the conundrum of building the political legitimacy while institutionalizing religious freedom which the newly established goisshin 御一新 government confronted. Liberation of "evil sects", which not only meant Christianity but also other religious sects such as fujufuse-ha of Nichiren school, was an issue which the Meiji state wanted to dodge. Western states demanded the lifting of the ban on Christianity but Japanese political leaders were vigilant against the idea. Reluctantly the Meiji state lifted the ban on Christianity in 1873 but they had started the institutionalization of Shinto as the state religion in advance. The government officials viewed that Christian faith and churches in Western countries were devised to prevent public mind from dissolution. They strived to establish an alternative version of religious authority in Japan instead of introducing the principle of conscientious freedom. However, on the other hand, a new generation of intellectuals raised the protection of the individual right of religious freedom as an urgent issue.
 I will analyze the diplomatic negotiations between the Western countries and the Meiji government officials, reports on the Western religious and educational systems in the Iwakura Mission records, voices of Buddhist and Shinto groups, and publications by leading intellectuals such as Nakamura Masao and Katō Hiroyuki so as to build a picture of how the concept of conscientious liberty was treated in such entangled contexts.

Eastward Ho! Japanese Settler Colonialism in Hokkaido and the Making of Japanese Migration to the American West, 1869–1888

This article examines how Japanese colonial migration to Hokkaido in the first two decades of the Meiji era paved the way for Japanese trans-Pacific migration to the United States in the 1880s. It elaborates how Japanese leaders carefully emulated the Anglo-American settler colonialism in Japan's own expansion in Hokkaido by focusing on the emergence of the overpopulation discourse and its political impact in early Meiji. This colonial imitation also inspired the Japanese expansionists to consider the American West an ideal destination for Japanese emigration in the late nineteenth century. This study thus challenges the nation-centered and territory-bound history of the Japanese empire by showing that Japan's colonial expansion in Northeast Asia and Japanese trans-Pacific migration to North America were intertwined since the very beginning of the Meiji era.