Japan Initiative Research Articles

Not-so-new silk roads: Japan's foreign policies on Asian connectivity infrastructure under the radar

ABSTRACTScholarly narratives concerning China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) tend to contextualise this project within China's rivalry with the United States and Japan. Such interpretations often reduce and misconstrue Japan's initiatives in Asian infrastructure finance as mere reactivity to China's advances. This paper will showcase Japan's own foreign and financial policies regarding infrastructure in Asia and the New Silk Road regions since the end of the Cold War. I argue that Japan's presence in that field is underappreciated and under-researched, as Japan's infrastructural footprint in the New Silk Road significantly pre-dates the BRI. Furthermore, I stress the fact that Japan's foreign policy in Asian infrastructure finance featured important cooperative postures toward China, especially within multilateral development banks. The paper makes a contribution to emerging scholarship on the BRI—often reliant on strategic communications and projections—by highlighting Japan's role in regional infrastructure to show how our understanding of international relations and international political economy in Asia can be better informed by economic history and area studies.

From a decentering to recentering imperative: Japan's approach to Asian security multilateralism

ABSTRACTWhy has Japan attempted to promote Asian security multilateralism for over two decades despite its open acknowledgment of the vital centrality of the US–Japan alliance in its overall foreign and security policy? Why has Japan's pursuit of regional security multilateralism sometimes swayed between an inclusive ‘Asia-Pacific’ (with the US) and an exclusive ‘East Asian’ format (without the US)? This article examines the nature of Japan's approach to Asian security multilateralism through a new analytical model based on the decentering/recentering framework and major theoretical assumptions deriving from neoclassical realism. It unpacks the process by which Japanese policy-makers have come to recognize Asian security multilateralism as a means of advancing perceived political and security interests, arising from international pressures and opportunities. The analysis is divided into three phases; (1) Japan's leading role in the formation of the ASEAN Regional Forum (1991–1994), (2) Japan's initiatives for the establishment of the ASEAN Plus Three and the East Asian Summit (1997–2005), and (3) Japan's renewed focus on the EAS with US membership (2010-onwards). The article reveals the changing dynamics of the ideas and motivations behind Japan's initiatives for Asian security multilateralism.

The Discourse of Local Ownership in Development: Rhapsodies about ‘Self-help’ in Japan's Economic Assistance to Africa

This article explores Japan's initiatives toward the development discourse on Africa through the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), and specifically in regards to a concept that is increasingly becoming a core tenet of the TICAD, the ‘national ownership’ of development. The article examines the literature on development ownership before concentrating more specifically on the Japanese responses to the discourse. The analysis explores Japan's emphasis on the principle of self-help in national development and suggests that the conflation of self-help and ownership in the Japanese discourse of development needs to be disentangled for clarity as the two concepts are not the same. Generally the article endeavours to bring into perspective Japan's attempts to stitch itself more forcefully into the fabric of the discourse on African development with the objective of contributing a more nuanced approach to the global initiative to finding a solution to Africa's development problematic. It is suggested that in doing so Japan is transposing its understanding of development, along with its belief in the state-centric approach to economic growth onto Africa. How the African policymakers have responded to the concept of ‘ownership’ in the context of TICAD is also assessed.

The Ministerial Conference for the Economic Development of Southeast Asia and Japanese Diplomacy: Japan's Initiative and its Limitations in the 1960s

The Ministerial Conference for the Economic Development of Southeast Asia and Japanese Diplomacy: Japan's Initiative and its Limitations in the 1960s

Japan and Commonwealth Africa

This article examines Japan's relations with the African countries from a post-World War II perspective and identifies an Anglo-Japanese initiative in the early 1960s to collaborate about matters relating to Africa's socio-economic development. The analysis pertains essentially to the Commonwealth African countries and further shows that apart from attempts to expand its exports to these countries, Japan's initiatives towards Africa until the 1990 left no landmarks that call for celebration, not least because Tokyo's foreign policy towards Africa was saddled with immobilist tendencies. The advent of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development since 1993 has, however, brought some dynamism to how Japan attends to issues relating to Africa's economic development. The article outlines recent events that demonstrate the dramatic transformation in Japanese foreign policy towards the Commonwealth African countries.

Japanese Anti‑ Piracy Initiatives in Southeast Asia: Policy Formulation and the Coastal State Responses

Introduction Maritime piracy concerns many nations, but it particularly alarms Japan, a state vitally dependent on the flow of resources through the pirate-infested waters of Southeast Asia. Although Japan possesses highly capable maritime forces, its constitution restricts the Self Defence Forces (SDF) from operating as a traditional military. Moreover, the Japan Coast Guard (JCG), not part of the SDF, is also restrained by antimilitarist prohibitions. However, since the mid-1990s concern over the piracy threat has triggered changes in Japan's outlook and led it to initiate significant efforts aimed at leading a regional effort to cooperatively eradicate piracy in Southeast Asia. Japan's initiatives have met with mixed success. The most radical ideas, proposals which envisioned standing ocean-peacekeeping fleets conducting multinational patrols in both territorial and international waters, made very little progress. However, at a bilateral level, Japanese initiatives have been quite successful. For example, the JCG has conducted joint training exercises with six Southeast Asian states and Japanese aid programmes have trained and equipped forces in all of the coastal states. Focusing on the political, law enforcement, and military programmes adopted by states, this article examines the formulation of Japan's anti-piracy initiatives and the responses of Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia to those initiatives. The first section describes the nature of Southeast Asian maritime piracy and its significance to Japan. The second section examines the factors which caused Japan to implement its anti-piracy initiatives and the evolution of those policies from inception to March 2004. The third section explains responses to the Japanese proposals by the states bordering the Strait of Malacca. The article's analysis draws upon the security framework provided by the Copenhagen School as represented by Barry Buzan and Ole Waever. (1) The Copenhagen School understands that security is a socially constructed concept and that discourse is a key element in the construction and identification of security issues. Based on the discourse which surrounds it, a public policy issue can be classified as non-politicized, politicized, or securitized. A non-politicized issue is one which is excluded from the policy debate and ignored by policy. A politicized issue is identified as a matter of public importance, brought into the policy discourse, and requires the commitment of public resources. A securitized issue is identified as a potential threat to the continued existence of the state. Once securitized, issues are perceived to be of such immediate importance that they are elevated above the ordinary norms of the political debate and the state acquires special rights to adopt extraordinary measures in order to protect itself. Although the security framework is employed as a key conceptual tool in this article, the analysis looks at more than just discourse. instead, it adopts an approach which is both more rational and more objective than that of the constructivist Copenhagen School. It assumes that security threats can be intrinsically real, but that the discourse surrounding and the perceptions regarding threats are key factors in determining the policy priority and resources devoted to addressing them. Non-politicized threats do not warrant a response, whereas securitized threats warrant extraordinary responses. Therefore the article also examines the various interests, security and otherwise, which have motivated policymakers in regional states to categorize the threat posed by maritime piracy differently. Where Japan and Singapore have both securitized maritime piracy, the issue has been only politicized by Malaysia and remains essentially non-politicized in Indonesia. In examining the anti-piracy cooperation between Japan and its potential partners, the analysis reveals that while the political and security priority state policymakers have placed on fighting piracy is a key factor determining the extent of cooperation, additional variables must also be taken into account. …

The earth summit and Japan's initiative in environmental diplomacy

Abstract The official Japanese position at the earth summit and many other pieces of evidence suggest that Japan is taking a more active role in international environmental issues. The Japanese initiative is significant in the post-Cold-War era when environmental issues are gaining the same prominence as national security and economic development. Although reluctant to take the initiative in global political and economic issues, Japan is more aggressive in seeking a leading role in global environmental issues. It may be motivated by a combination of factors, such as: a desire to take more responsibility to match its economic status; a feeling that it should repay the international community for its rapid accumulation of prosperity; and a calculated effort towards its own commercial interests. Japan's willingness in the environmental arena, its advanced technology, and its economic power work in its favour in implementing this strategy. However, its mixed environmental record and other historical and social factors may work against this initiative.

Japan's United Nations Policy in the 1980s

Thirty years after its admission, Japan has begun to show a new activism in the United Nations. Upon Japan's initiative in 1985, a Group of High-Level Intergovernmental Experts was organized to examine ways to improve the U.N. administrative and financial situation. In trying to determine whether Japan's role in the United Nations is likely to grow, we need to look at the areas of activity in which Japan can be expected to exert its influence and what international and domestic factors affect its future course of action. This article attempts to analyze Japan's recent actions in the United Nations in order to evaluate the evolving role of multilateralism in Japanese foreign policy.