Michigan Monograph Series in Japanese Studies. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2021. x, 321 pp. (Tables, graphs, figures, B&W photos, illustrations.) US$34.95, paper. ISBN 9780472054978.
Southeast Asia is an arena of superpower competition between the US and China. This volume looks beyond this Great Game and makes a convincing case that postwar Japan has been a key player and a “courteous power” gently shaping this region economically and institutionally over the past few decades. By substantially investing in Southeast Asia and strongly supporting “ASEAN centrality” (hub of East Asian multilateralism), Japan has empowered the ASEAN states to diversify economically and diplomatically, and safeguard their autonomy. To date, this is the best and most balanced book on Japan-Southeast Asian relations in the twenty-first century.
This book has two parts. The first six chapters examine various aspects of Japan-Southeast Asian state-to-state relations. The next six chapters explore the role of Japanese businesses, NGOs, women, and cultural “soft power.”
In the introductory chapter, the editors trace postwar Japan’s evolving role in Southeast Asia from a focus on economics to the forging of the Fukuda Doctrine (playing a more active political role in the region), and then articulating the Indo-Pacific concept, which frames a more muscular diplomatic and security role for Japan and its allies to push back Chinese assertiveness.
In the next chapter, John D. Ciorciari argues that Japan is the key to Southeast Asian diversification (in trade, investment, multilateral diplomacy, and maritime security) by helping ASEAN states address China’s surging influence and mitigate the “dangers of retrenchment or domineering behavior by the United States” (26).
In chapter 3, Ken Jimbo notes Tokyo’s defense and security cooperation in Southeast Asia by developing security networks, capacities, and institutions. These include joint training and exercises, and capacity building in the maritime domain such as the gift of patrol boats and provision of coast guard training.
The next chapter by Kei Koga analyzes Tokyo’s “wedge strategies” towards the ASEAN states. In his case study of the East Asian Summit (EAS), Koga claims that Japan successfully thwarted the initial proposal favoured by China and a few ASEAN states that the EAS should be based on an ASEAN+3 framework.
In chapter 5, Shaun Narine opines that Tokyo’s relations have enjoyed a high degree of continuity. However, this continuity is contingent on “the reliability of the United States as a regional power, the ability of ASEAN to adopt a unified position on some key issues, and Japan’s willingness to take the next steps toward becoming a ‘normal country’” (98). Chapter 6 by Kelvin Fung examines ASEAN’s response to Japanese regional initiatives (including the Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy) and concludes that Tokyo is unable to impose its vision of a regional community on the ASEAN states, which have their own interests and preferences (120).
The next chapter, by Kitti Prasirtsuk, traces the evolving role of Japanese businesses in Japan’s Southeast Asia policy from the 1960s to the present era. Prasirtsuk anticipates that “Japan will continue to be a good source of economic and strategic diversification for Southeast Asia, so that the region does not have to be overly reliant on China” (168).
In chapter 8, Nobuhrio Aizawa examines the influential Japanese business community as a diplomatic asset, a valued insider in both Japan and Thailand, and a bridge between the two countries in the wake of the 2014 Thai coup d’état. Siriporn Wajjwalku’s chapter analyzes the challenges of Japanese aid agencies and NGOs in their cooperation with local NGOs in the Mekong subregion.
Next, Leng Leng Thang and Mika Toyota focus on grassroot engagements of Japanese women in Southeast Asia since the 1990s including translators, language teachers, entrepreneurs, volunteers in philanthropy, and wives to local Southeast Asians. These women act as a bridge between Japan and this region. In chapter 11, Karl Ian Uy Cheng Chua writes on the Southeast Asian fascination with various aspects of Japanese mass culture, especially manga and anime.
In the last chapter, the editors predict that “[u]ncertain U.S. staying power in the region, combined with an assertive China, has the potential to prompt Japan to break out of its courteous ways and become a markedly more assertive player in the region” (291–292). However, the editors also note that though the FOIP (Free and Open Indo Pacific) is its signature foreign policy, Tokyo has heeded the sentiments and sensitivities of the ASEAN states by dropping the term strategy from the FOIP and has largely embraced the ASEAN Outlook towards the Indo-Pacific.
I have two sets of caveats. First, it is unclear whether postwar Japan is inherently a courteous power because it cannot flex military muscles abroad (due to constitutional constraints and residual pacifism) or perhaps that is the externalization of an idealized cultural norm to be polite in Japan. Is Japan exceptionally courteous to Southeast Asia or is it generally courteous to most countries in the world? But is Tokyo rather “rude” to China and the two Koreas notwithstanding its vicious imperial past? Or is Tokyo courteous to Southeast Asia because relations have improved considerably after the forging of the 1977 Fukuda Doctrine and the willingness of the ASEAN states to bury the hatchet over Imperial Japan’s brutal conquest and occupation of Southeast Asia? Is being too courteous a liability in the case of Tokyo’s muted response to the Burmese military junta’s coup against state counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and deadly crackdown on protestors? Ironically, the cover of the book shows a picture of her beside then Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Second, this volume surprisingly omits Tokyo’s substantial peacebuilding and postwar consolidation of peace in conflict areas in Southeast Asia such as Cambodia, East Timor, Aceh in Indonesia, and Muslim Mindanao in the southern Philippines. No superpower or other regional great power can match Tokyo’s track record for doggedly pursuing human security in Southeast Asia. Indeed, postwar Japan is more not only a courteous power offering ODA (official development assistance) and diplomatic support to ASEAN centrality, but also a courageous one in addressing severe domestic conflict in that region.
Peng Er Lam
National University of Singapore, Singapore