Lanham; Boulder; New York; London: Lexington Books [an imprint of Rowman and Littlefield], 2020. xxiv, 376 pp. (Figures.) US$130.00, cloth. ISBN 978-1-4985-8795-2.
This edited volume provides a wide-ranging and comprehensive look at contemporary Japanese foreign policy. It brings together an impressive range of Japanese, Asian, and European specialists throughout its 17 chapters. The book is divided into four parts, including the “Three Pillars” of Japanese foreign policy proclaimed in the late 1950s—Japan as an Asian country, a member of the West, and UN centrism—plus sections on domestic sources of Japanese foreign policy, change and continuity in policy, and Japan’s diplomacy in Asia and Africa.
The first section addresses key contemporary topics in Japanese foreign policy, including the importance of US extended deterrence for Japan and its alliance with the US, relations with the EU, Tokyo’s quest for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council, and the influence of Asian identity in Japan’s foreign policy. The second section, by far the shortest, has chapters on the prime minister’s leadership in foreign policy (so-called Kantei diplomacy, the best chapter on this topic to date in this reviewer’s opinion) under the Abe administration, the influence of Japan’s Constitution on foreign policy, and the impact of two changes in the ruling party on foreign policy between the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) and the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). The third section on continuity and change boasts chapters on defense, policy toward territorial disputes with neighbours, foreign aid, human security and peacebuilding policy, and an especially strong chapter on the governance of global fisheries. The fourth section has five chapters that cover attempts to define an independent role in East Asian regionalism, changing policy in Southeast Asia, relations with India, the influence of China’s Belt and Road Initiative on policy toward Central Asia, and policy toward Africa.
In his chapter, retired senior diplomat Satoh Yukio builds on his book published in Japanese on the same topic, arguing that American-extended deterrence is a key source of continuity in Japanese policy, one that spans the Cold War and post-Cold War eras. He astutely observes that the US commitment to maintaining extended nuclear deterrence for Japan is undergirded by Washington’s desire for Tokyo not to develop nuclear weapons, and that as long as Japan can rely on a US nuclear umbrella it has no incentive to do so. Consequently, the very idea remains confined to the fringes of Japanese politics while the public remains overwhelmingly opposed to developing nuclear weapons. Satoh also emphasizes that it was the DPJ, a party that developed a reputation for supposedly being weak on defense, that implemented an epoch-making change in Japanese defense policy by explicitly stating for the first time in Japan’s National Defense Program Guidelines (NDPG)—then the country’s most basic defense policy document—that US-extended nuclear deterrence was essential for Japan’s security (7). The NDPG also pledged that Japan would cooperate with the US to maintain its nuclear deterrent, followed by the DPJ’s dialogue with the US on the matter. Thus, Satoh argues, Japan’s response to growing nuclear threats has not been to move toward developing nuclear weapons, but rather to deepen cooperation with the U.S. to ensure its nuclear umbrella. In this sense, recent comments by Japanese politicians about the need for nuclear sharing—by stationing US nuclear weapons in Japan—appear to signal reduced confidence in the US nuclear umbrella that may also undermine long-term confidence in the alliance.
Like Satoh Yukio’s chapter, Kiba Saya’s chapter identifies cases where DPJ rule, contrary to its weak reputation on foreign policy, made important contributions to Japan’s foreign and security policies. In fact, this is a main theme of her chapter. Specifically, Kiba identifies Japan’s strengthened contribution to global security through participation in two new UN peacekeeping operations in Haiti and South Sudan, its institutionalization of the combination of Self-Defense Forces (SDF) peacekeeping with Official Development Assistance projects, its initiation of capacity building assistance as a major role for SDF, its establishment of Japan’s first overseas military base in Djibouti, and the easing of rules on the export of weapons and military technology. Indeed, it is hard not to see the DPJ’s strengthening of Japan’s contributions to peacekeeping as the real proactive pacifism, while the Abe administration’s ending of all unit-level SDF participation in peacekeeping by comparison looks like passive pacifism.
Oba Mie’s chapter on Japan’s quest for an autonomous role in East Asian regionalism argues that Japan has sought a “regional ‘niche’” to pursue its own interests and vision rather than merely following the United States,” although at times she refers to this as “anti-US angst” (248, 257). Oba also analyzes Japan’s ever-expanding definition of the region from East Asia to the Asia-Pacific, and then the Indo-Pacific. The Asia-Pacific definition was developed to discourage US abandonment in the early 1990s. By contrast, the move to expand the region into the Indo-Pacific was designed to water down China’s regional dominance by expanding the region. It is easy to predict that Japan will next champion the Euro-Pacific region. Although Oba argues that since 2010 Japan has moved to deepen Washington’s engagement in East Asian regionalism while trying to preserve its autonomous diplomacy, or jishu gaiko, the result appears to be a sacrifice of autonomy in favour of doubling down on an ever tighter alignment with, and dependence on, the US. However, she implies that the Trump administration’s erratic behaviour laid bare the risks of such a strategy. In this sense Oba’s dismissal of Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio’s East Asia community concept as “a pipe dream” (255) is exaggerated. For all its flaws in delivery, Hatoyama’s concept represented a major strategic option for Japan—ameliorating the sources of threats to Japan’s security rather than merely addressing them militarily through an ever greater dependence on the US. Indeed, threat amelioration has been a major objective in Japan’s promotion of regional multilateral security cooperation.
This book is an invaluable resource for experts in Japanese foreign policy and East Asian international politics. It will be especially useful as a textbook for undergraduate and beginning graduate courses on Japanese foreign policy, especially as the existing texts are now dated.
Paul Midford
Meiji Gakuin University, Tokyo