Asian Pacific Studies, vol. 1. New York; Bern: Peter Lang, 2018. vi, 263 pp. (Tables, graphs) US $99.95, cloth. ISBN 978-1-4331-4439-4.
This edited volume seeks to investigate Japan’s current position in the international system. Drawing on scholarship on Japan’s politics and international relations, the editors ask whether, following its two “lost decades” of economic stagnation, it is still in decline (falling) or again ascendant (re-rising). In other words, is Japan a major power or not?
The volume, based on a collection of papers presented at academic conferences in 2014–2015, begins with an introduction by Hidekazu Sakai, followed by two chapters on geopolitics (Thomas Wilkins, Michael Porter), four chapters on domestic political-social norms and values (Keiko Hirata, Philip Streich, Paul Midford, Kivilkim Erkan), and three on Asian regional integration and institutionalizations (Charly von Solms, Lindsay Black, Kuniko Ashizawa, Yoichiro Sato).
Sakai’s introduction lays out the central question of the book: Has Japan’s decline as an economic power led to its decline as a political power? The chapter then considers aspects of Japan’s hard and soft power and introduces the three powers central to the book: the United States, China, and Japan. The United States is presented as a unipolar but troubled superpower, China as regional challenger, and Japan as balancer allied with the United States. This tripolar thematic, in particular Japan-China relations, is repeated throughout the rest of the volume.
The case for a clear Japanese strategy to cope with the relations among these three is laid out in the lead chapter of the geopolitics section, written by Thomas Wilkins. Employing a realist framework Wilkins argues that “Japanese policymakers have made modest but determined efforts to advance grand strategy on two fronts—internal and external” (45), to wit, transformation of domestic politics and economic revitalization and enhancement of the alliance with the United States. Wilkins is careful to specify what he means by strategy: “‘the purposeful employment of all instruments of power available’ to a state toward the achievement of its national policy objectives” (27)—a definition that unfortunately is not taken up in subsequent chapters. Michael Porter’s contribution hedges between considerations of economic cooperation among the three powers and the tension between the United States-Japan alliance and China’s challenge to it.
The following section considers aspects of domestic politics and changes in norms in civil society. The contributions present a mixed picture. Keiko Hirata’s chapter on right-wing nationalist movements concludes that they have not had a direct impact on foreign policy but have indirectly contributed to worsening relations between Japan and its near neighbors. Philip Streich’s survey chapter on civil society (mostly NGOs) points out the growth of that sector but does not consider systematically the links between NGOs and official foreign policy institutions. Paul Midford’s chapter on whether recent changes in ruling party have influenced foreign policy concludes with mixed results: alliance politics and entrenched domestic institutions tend to dampen the impact of changes in ruling party. Using the War on Terror after 2001 as a case study, Kivilkim Erkan provides a chapter on the debate in Japan about whether the country should be a global civilian power or a “normal state.”
The final section considers Japan’s foreign policy and Asian regionalism. Charly von Solms argues that Japan has pursued a policy of open regionalism that includes extra-regional actors in contrast to ASEAN-centered regional configurations that include only Asian members. This policy is consistent with domestic norms and promotes a Japanese strategy of forestalling exclusive regional frameworks promoted by rivals, especially China. Lindsay Black assesses the possibilities and limitations of Japanese corporate “private diplomacy” toward China, concluding that it is less effective than it was during the Cold War era. Kuniko Ashizawa chronicles Japan’s recent forays into the “Great Game” of Central Asian region-building, finding Japan has achieved modest results in a region where it is a secondary player.
Unfortunately, the volume does not answer the central question laid out in the introduction. Conclusions about Japan’s strategic power in international relations, promised in the book’s subtitle, remain elusive, as Sato’s concluding overview of the chapters admits. There is no thematic symmetry between the introduction and the conclusion despite the editors’ common concern about Japan’s position among the great powers of the Asia Pacific. Neither is there theoretical or methodological unity among the contributions.
As is often the case with edited volumes, chapters appear in isolation with no reference to each other. By themselves the chapters are interesting and informative and the contents of each section more or less coherent, but there is no overarching unity or continuity to the contributions as a whole. For example, Lindsay Black’s chapter is included in the third section on regional institutions when it might better have been included in the previous section on domestic political actors. Worse, the volume suffers from careless editing. Grammatical and syntactical errors occur in nearly every chapter. One example, an incomplete sentence in the von Solms contribution, “The prospect building an East Asian Community unclear” (193), distracts the reader at a key point in one of the volume’s stronger chapters. Given the origins of the contributions the current volume might be better described as a conference proceedings rather that an edited volume.
David M. Potter
Nanzan University, Nagoya, Japan