US-Japan Alliance Research Articles

Hegemony and the US–Japan Alliance

Hegemony and the US–Japan Alliance

Japan’s quest for a rules-based international order: the Japan-US alliance and the decline of US liberal hegemony

ABSTRACT The decline of US liberal hegemony raises the following questions for Japan: What is Japan’s vision of international order and strategy? How does the Japan-US alliance influence Japan’s vision? Some have argued that Japan is reactive and lacks a strategy, whereas others have claimed that the country has pragmatically pursued its interests within the given circumstances. This paper argues that Japan has maintained its own vision and strategies since the Cold War. Also, in the 2010s, Japan’s diplomatic tradition was updated to focus on actively shaping the Asia-Pacific region. Japan seeks to preserve existing liberal international (rather than domestic) rules; however, its method is classical as it includes a balance-of-power approach involving military expansion and alliances, and a diplomatic approach to making agreements with a variety of political regimes, whether democratic or authoritarian, including China. I call this emerging vision in Japan a ‘rules-based order’.

중국에 대한 일본의 위협인식과 미⋅일 동맹: ‘위협균형론’을 중심으로

본 연구의 목적은 탈냉전 이후 미·일 동맹의 변화과정에 영향을 미친 요인을 밝히는 것이다. 이를 위해서 본 연구는 국가는 자국에 가장 위협적인 국가에 대항하여 균형을 이루려는 경향이 있다고 보는 위협균형론에 기초하여 연구문제를 상정한다. 위협균형론은 위협이 총체적 국력, 지리적 근접성, 공격적 군사력, 공격적 의도라는 네 가지 요인으로 이뤄져 있다고 주장한다. 그러므로 본 연구는 위협균형론이 제시한 네 가지 요인에 기초하여 일본의 대중국 위협인식이 어느 정도 인지를 실증적으로 측정한다. 그리고 미·일 동맹의 변화과정을 추적함으로써 두 변수 간의 인과적 관계를 규명한다. 연구결과, 일본의 대중국 위협인식은 냉전이 종식된 이후 현재까지 꾸준히 강화되는 양상을 보였다. 중국의 총체적 국력, 중국과 일본간의 지리적 근접성, 중국의 공격적 군사력, 중국의 공격적 의도가 일본의 대중국 위협인식에 영향을 미쳤다. 그리고 일본의 대중국 위협인식이 높아짐에 따라 미·일 동맹도 점점 더 공고화되었다. 본 연구의 결과가 함의하는 바는 세 가지이다. 첫째, 위협균형론을 검증했다는 것이다. 이 연구는 다른 국가에 대한 위협인식이 동맹의 형성과 변화과정에 영향을 미치는 요인이라는 것을 보여준다. 둘째, 위협균형론에 대한 실증적인 검증을 시도했다는 것이다. 위협인식이라는 추상적인 개념을 측정 가능한 변수로 정의하였기 때문에 이론의 설명력을 높였다고 할 수 있다. 셋째, 중국과 일본의 관계에 이론적 설명력을 부여함으로써 양국 간의 현상을 보다 적절하게 설명하고 예측할 수 있다는 점이다.

Cooperating with “Maritime India” in the Indo-Pacific context – A Japanese view

ABSTRACT The main purpose of this article is to identify a common basis for Japan and India as maritime democracies to work together for the maintenance and enhancement of the rules-based liberal international order at sea in the face of a variety of challenges in the Indo-Pacific region, China’s maritime advancement in particular. As powerful maritime democracies in the Indo-Pacific, Japan and India will be able to engage in a wide variety of maritime security cooperation. The opinions of security experts of both countries should be mustered so that bilateral cooperation keeps up its momentum. Synergy of Tracks 1, 1.5 and 2 dialogues should be pursued for maritime security cooperation. In this bilateral effort, the US-centred alliance network, of which the Japan-US Alliance is the central portion, and India’s autonomous and multi-directional approach toward international security must be intertwined effectively. Also, security dialogues between the two countries and between the two navies should work out the division of labour between Japan and India to contribute to the Indo-Pacific regional maritime security more effectively.

Prime Minister Nakasone and The United States of America

Although it is commonly believed that as Prime Minister of Japan, Nakasone Yasuhiro focused diplomatic efforts on the United States, his first trip abroad as prime minister was to the Republic of Korea. In the 1950s, he was even a vocal critic of the US-Japan alliance. But he was different from many other politicians in reading books, traveling abroad to discuss issues with foreign leaders, and soliciting ideas and advice from intellectuals. In the end, he acquired mature views on how to fight the Cold War as well as maintain robust relations with the US. This article traces the evolving approach he had with the United States from the Occupation through the “Ron-Yasu” relationship during his prime ministership.

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.

Japan – U.S. Relations under the Abe Doctrine: Shifting Policy in East Asia Regional Stability

Reelection of Shinzo Abe as Prime Minister provides a favorable climate for both Donald Trump’s first presidential visit to Japan and an improvement of Chinese-Japanese-U.S. bilateral relations. In the 22 October 2017 ballot, Abe’s dominant Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its coalition partner Komeito, secured a two-thirds majority in the House of Representatives, the lower house of Japan’s bicameral legislature. The coalition already holds a supermajority, required for amending the constitution, in the upper house. It justified Abe for calling the national elections a year earlier than needed to secure a public mandate for addressing the growing North Korean threat and to validate popular support for deepening national economic reforms, which have had recent success in boosting Japan’s growth rate and the stock market. Still the outcome gave Abe a mandate for his policies. However, his stewardship was unclear as several other factors contributed to LDP’s overwhelming victory. At the structural level, Japan’s first past the post-electoral system tends to amplify electoral wins in comparison to proportional representation systems. Abe’s foreign and security policies highly charged with ideological revisionism contain the potential to shift Japan onto a new international trajectory in East Asia. Its degree of articulation and energy makes for a doctrine capable of displacing the Yoshida Doctrine that has been Japan’s dominant grand strategy in the post-war period. Abe will remain pragmatic and not challenge the status quo. However, Abe has already begun to introduce radical policies that appear to transform national security, US-Japan alliance ties and relations with China and East Asia. The Abe Doctrine is dynamic but high risk. Abe’s revisionism contains fundamental contradictions that may ultimately limit national effectiveness.

From Counterbalancing to Engaging China: Shift in Japan’s Approach towards the New International Order in the Asia-Pacific under the Second Abe Administration

Since returning to the post of prime minister in 2012, Abe Shinzō has been promoting Japan’s active posture in maintaining international stability in the Asia-Pacific. Abe’s vision of the new international order in the region has been based on Tokyo’s alliance with Washington, both in the security and economic spheres. Through legalization of Japan’s participation in collective self-defense pacts and revision of the Guidelines for Japan–US Defense Cooperation in 2015, Abe strengthened the Japan–US alliance. In parallel, he promoted Japan’s participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which however was realized as Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership without the Trump administration’s participation. In addition, Tokyo has been negotiating Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), Japan–China–Republic of Korea Trilateral Free Trade Agreement, and Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific. The article argues that while initially the Japanese prime minister’s regional initiatives were aimed at counterbalancing China’s rise, they gradually started putting more emphasis on engaging China in international cooperation. Applying a neoclassical-realist methodology, this study examines both the international and the domestic determinants of Japan’s shift in approach towards the new international order.

The US-Japan Alliance Dilemma in the Asia-Pacific: Changing Rationales and Scope

ABSTRACTThe changes in the US-Japan alliance are taking place in times of a global power shift – a transition from unipolarity to multipolarity – and China’s challenge to the US’ security dominance in the Asia-Pacific. The alliance security dilemma now manifests itself in the rise of ‘entrapment’ concerns for Washington and ‘abandonment’ anxieties for Tokyo. The US increasingly insists on more mutuality in alliance arrangements, while seeking to maintain ambiguity in its defence commitments to Japan. The relative decline of US power and the fluid regional security architecture, however, incentivise Japan to step up preparations for abandonment. Although Tokyo’s hedging strategy contributes to enhancement of the bilateral alliance in the short term, it also paves the way for Japan’s pursuit of strategic autonomy in the medium to long term.

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,...

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.

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.

Is the postwar state melting down?: an East Asian perspective on post-Fukushima Japan

ABSTRACTPrime Minister Abe’s return to power in Japan dealt a blow to the anti-nuclear movement and returned the country to broadly pro-nuclear policies. Meanwhile, eight years on, although the effects of the Fukushima disaster are still being felt, Japan’s anti-nuclear movement has struggled to move forward or effect changes in policy. This article argues that prospects for change will not emerge until Japan’s anti-nuclear movement is able to look beyond its national borders and articulate a perspective on nuclear power that takes into account other countries within East Asia. The 3.11 Great East Japan Earthquake revealed heretofore hidden aspects of the Japanese state and society. The truth is that Japan’s postwar state (Sengo-kokka) is actually a nuclear power state (Genpatsu-kokka), a byproduct of the US-Japan alliance under the East Asian Cold War system, which insulated nuclear policy from the standard operation of democratic politics. As a product of the Cold War, the issue of nuclear power and development extends beyond Japan’s national borders and relates to the questions of US superpower sponsorship and the armistice system in East Asia that pertain broadly to the politics of East Asia. It is important to understand that Japan’s nuclear energy is a product of the Cold War in East Asia, and the armistice system that constitutes the international system in East Asia must be discarded if Japan is to become a post-nuclear energy state.

Strategic narratives and US military bases in Japan: How ‘deterrence’ makes the Marine base on Okinawa ‘indispensable’

Governed directly by the US from the Battle of Okinawa in 1945 until its reversion to Japan in 1972, the island of Okinawa hosts the majority of US military bases in Japan despite comprising only a fraction of a percent of the total land area. The central government in Tokyo has refused to countenance revision of the status quo in the face of increasing local opposition, including mass protests and the election of anti-base politicians at the local, prefectural and national level. The relocation of the controversial Marine base at Futenma to Henoko in the north of the island, has become the locus of opposition in recent years. Activists, local media and local politicians call for it to be relocated outside Okinawa to reduce the burden on the prefecture, while the central government, conservative national media and the US maintain that the current relocation plan must be implemented – to do otherwise would undermine deterrence. This article analyses the projection of the deterrence strategic narrative in the conservative Japanese media. The first section locates the concept of strategic narratives in a discursive epistemology, and highlights the importance of discursively empowered actors, before placing the newspapers in the broader context of the Japanese media environment, which differs from that of other highly developed countries in the way it empowers traditional actors. The main section of the article then traces the development of the narrative from the late 1990s, analysing how it discursively links the Marines’ presence with the ‘China threat’, and how it renders those who question the narrative as naïve, or even dangerous, for potentially undermining the Japan–US alliance and thus the security of all Japan. The article concludes by assessing the effects of the narrative, including potential unintended consequences for deterrence in the long run.

US-Japan Defense Alliance in the Production of Next-generation Fighter-jets in Japan

US-Japan Defense Alliance in the Production of Next-generation Fighter-jets in Japan

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.

Political Change in America and Implications for the US-Japan Alliance

This article examines the domestic political dynamics behind US president Donald Trump’s “America First” approach to trade and foreign policy, to understand better how long this strain of American economic nationalism might last and what it means for Japan’s national security strategy. The political base for Trump’s trade protectionism and apparent indifference to allies has roots stretching back into American history, but this movement has strengthened in recent years due to a combination of growing economic inequality in the United States, demographic changes, and the impact of fast-paced technology development and economic globalization. These political trends are likely to persist beyond Trump’s presidency, although some potential negative effects on Japan and the US-Japan alliance in the medium-to-longer term can be mitigated by Japan’s proactive foreign policy and other steps. The alliance still offers a great deal of value to both countries—now and into the future—but Japan should consider a slightly larger global leadership role in concert with others, even as the allies work to enhance their continued cooperation on shared interests.

From the Reality of a Nuclear Umbrella to a World without Nuclear Weapons: An Interview with Katsuya Okada

ABSTRACT Katsuya Okada served as the Japanese Foreign Minister between 2009 and 2010 when the erstwhile Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) formed the administration for the first time in its history. During his term, Okada worked on several initiatives that have not since been executed. One of these projects was an investigation into the so-called “secret deal” effected between Japan and the United States in the 1960s, specifically with regard to the transit of US nuclear weapons through Japan. In this interview, Okada reflects on the actions he took during his term as the foreign minister. He also airs his opinions on other issues related to nuclear weapons, such as the management of the US-Japan alliance; the “sole purpose” policy of nuclear weapons; the nuclear strategy of the US Trump administration and the Japanese government’s reaction to it; the denuclearisation of North Korea; and Japan’s nuclear disarmament diplomacy.

Operational and industrial military integration: extending the frontiers of the Japan–US alliance

Operational and industrial military integration: extending the frontiers of the Japan–US alliance