What does this
historic policy shift mean to Japan? And countries in the region?
(Okumura) For many
listeners who are not familiar with the Japan issue, Japan has always been a
“normal country”, actually a success story of being the second and then the
third largest economy in the world. Why is there the pursuit of more room for
military buildup?
I sometimes wonder if Mr. Abe hasn’t done too good a job of
selling his national security program, raising expectations or fears depending
on the beholder. After years of flat or declining military spending, it is
going to go up 2% each year in real terms for five years—then Mr. Abe will be
gone, and Japanese military spending will still remain at 1% of GDP, give or
take a very small fraction, as it has been doing for ages. No, the real change
is coming in Mr. Abe’s outreach to allies and other countries with whom he
thinks Japan can engage in productive activities security-wise. That is most
evident in the increasingly close ties with Australia. His determination to
reinterpret Article 9 of the Japanese constitution to include collective
self-defense can be seen in that light: Allowing the Japanese military to play
a larger role in joint efforts with its allies—first and foremost the United
States—where vital Japanese interests are at stake.
And what’s driving all this? Let’s be honest, it’s China.
Let’s say that there are conflicting territorial and other sovereignty-related
claims, and none of the parties are willing to yield. In that case, if a state
wishes to change the status quo, it has two choices: take the matter to the
International Court of Justice, or use force. China already had nuclear
warheads and ballistic missiles; now it has an aircraft carrier. It has a
massive maritime surveillance fleet. Budgets continue to grow by leaps and
bounds. And it is aggressively pushing its claims. Japan, Vietnam and the
Philippines are feeling the pressure. And Australia worries about its backyard.
(Chinese guest) If you
take a look at the Germany and Italy, both defeated like Japan during the WWII,
they realized the transformation to become a “normal country” long time ago.
Isn’t it natural for Japan to become a normal country? From the point of view
of Japan’s neighboring countries, like China and S. Korea, why is that hard to
accept?
I’ll leave the conventional arguments to others, and offer a
different perspective. There cannot be a starker difference between the reasons
for China and South Korea in refusing to accept Japan as a “normal country.”
Take China. Japan is by far the most important security ally
of the United States in the Asia-Pacific. Japan is the greatest military asset
the United States has there. And it has been positioning itself closer and
closer to the United States. If I were Mr. Xi Jinping, I would be very annoyed,
and positively alarmed if Japan ever decided to play at the Australian level.
I don’t think that the South Koreans have ever gotten over
the fact that it passed from being a subsidiary state of China to a subsidiary
state, then territory, of Japan, then a sovereign state, all without putting up
any kind of a fight. They would feel much more at ease with a normal Japan if
they had been able to beat us to a pulp first.
So China has a real national interest in keeping Japan from
becoming “normal” while South Korea has what is essentially a psychological
issue that keeps it from accepting something that would actually be in their
national interest.
According to Japan’s
pacifist constitution, Japan is not allowed to have a national army. But the
Self-defense forces are actually the army of the nation. So the normalization
process has been started decades ago, right? It seems the normalization has
always been about lifting the restraint on the military force? Is that the
right impression?
Within reasonable limits, yes, that’s the right impression.
Now nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, I think they would be beyond the
pale of any reasonable definition of normalcy.
What is a fully normal
country, in this case, Japan, like, as currently the US, with a military
presence of some 50, 000 troops, enjoys the final say on military matters? When
can we call Japan a normal country? When will Japan be accepted as a normal
country by China and South Korea?
Actually, one definition of a “normal” country is a country
that does its best to convince a more powerful country to do as much of the
heavy lifting as possible. People in Japan call that the “Yoshida Doctrine,”
but it’s what the Europeans have been doing under the NATO umbrella all these
years. In that sense, a “normal country,” at least where the developed
countries are concerned these days, is one relying on a US military presence
and therefore, as a practical matter, does not have the final say on military
matters in its own territory. In that sense, Japan is a normal country. Collective
self-defense is part of that normalcy. That should not be a concern for U.S.
allies; for U.S. competitors, it should be.
REINTERPRETATION OF PACIFIST CONSTITUTION
Japanese PM Shinzo Abe
took a detour to change the pacifist constitution by “re-interpreting” the
war-renouncing articles. Why didn't he amend the constitution directly? Is
there enough public support for the re-interpretation?
It’s very simple. He didn’t have the votes in the Diet to
put it to the national referendum. As for public support, yes and no. Recent
polls show strong majority support for the actual measures that Mr. Abe
proposes under the banner of collective self-defense, but there are strong
pluralities or majorities against the notion of collective self-defense itself.
When it comes to the
opposition to the reinterpretation inside Japan, what’s their major concern?
The unreconstructed pacifist opposition is not the real
concern for Mr. Abe. It’s the source of the collective self-dissonance in the
people who support the specific and oppose the principle. Win them over completely,
and Mr. Abe will have a popular majority. To make a generalization, I think
that these people do not see where all this is leading to and are concerned
with the fact that there could be more to this story than they’ve been told. And
Mr. Abe and the LDP have given people some reason to harbor these concerns. Mr.
Abe has his case cut out for him, between now and the 2015 regular Diet
session, when he introduces legislation to implement the change. Personally, I
believe that institutional constraints, not least the need to keep junior
coalition partner Komeito onside, will keep any Japanese prime minister within
very strict boundaries, but I only count for one vote.
What does the move
mean exactly? Sending troops overseas to the help of US, an ally, and countries
with close relationship with Japan, like the Philippines and Vietnam?
In short, no. Protecting foreign ships carrying Japanese
citizens from war zones, clearing mines along vital sea lanes while allies do
the real fighting, and anything else concrete that the Abe regime can convince
Komeito to accept. My advice to people on all sides of this issue? Don’t make Komeito
angry.
THE FEAR OF THE RISE OF MILITARISM
One of the concern
people have is, in the wake of the reinterpretation, what’ll be next steps?
Will there be gradual steps toward a final abandonment of the pacifist
constitution?
Everything depends on external factors. The greater the
threat, the greater the momentum to relax the interpretation and, eventually,
to amend the Constitution.
There’s fear in China
at least that militarism in Japan may rise again. How likely is that scenario?
Is that an overestimate of the current situation in Japan?
Japan has one tenth the population of China, spends 1% of an
economic output that is smaller than China’s, and does not have nuclear weapons
or effective means of their delivery. What the Chinese have to fear is a weak,
isolated Japan, abandoned by the United States and feeling threatened, that
decides to become North Korea on steroids. Now that’s a very low-probability
outcome. But you asked for a scenario where militarism rises again in Japan.
Japan has been in
close contact with the Philippines and Vietnam, both of which have territorial
disputes with China. Is it likely that, following the reinterpretation, Japan
may be able to build a loose military alliance with the two countries against
China?
It depends on what you mean by “loose military alliance,”
and what China chooses to do. Would Japan selling coast guard patrol boats to
Vietnam and the Philippines qualify as a “loose military alliance”? Most likely
not. Would Japan and Australia selling jointly-developed submarines to those
two nations qualify? Now the story begins to pick up. But that’s a good number
of years in the future, and much depends on how China decides to deploy its
military and quasi-military powers over the long-run. In the meantime, Russia
is the one selling submarines to Vietnam.
REGIONAL IMPACT: CHINA & S. KOREA
Will there be an arms
race in East Asia as a result of the new Japanese move? Will the still strong
trade ties among countries be affected by their dispute? (China-Japan and that
between S.Korea and Japan?)
No. Will China’s military expenditures go up even more
rapidly? I doubt it. Will South Korea’s? I doubt it. South Korea will buy
anything from the United States that Japan does, but that’s the case regardless
of the reinterpretation. And no, the trade ties will not be affected. Tourism
is already down significantly, consumer purchases may be slightly affected, and
Japanese firms may have a harder time securing government business in China,
but I suspect that that’ll be it, at most.
Chinese President Xi
Jinping paid it a visit to South Korea and the visit has been partly read as an
effort by Beijing and Seoul in response to the Japanese move. What’s your take
on that?
There are political benefits. And commercial ones too, for
South Korea, I’ll wager. But remember, the greater geopolitical bone of
contention in East Asia remains the future of North Korea. On that, China and
South Korea can only share short-to-medium-term, tactical interests, if that.
The United States has
been one of the countries that have welcomed the Japanese defense policy
change. What’s their justification?
And everybody else in East and Southeast Asia except China
and South Korea. And the bread crumbs leads right back to Beijing. Whether you
agree with the legitimacy of the concerns or not, it’s the reality that China
has to deal with.
The Strategic and
Economic Dialogue between China and the US has just concluded in Beijing. How
much a factor is Japan in Sino-US ties?
Japan is the most important ally of the United States in the
Asia-Pacific. China cannot push Japan too far without incurring serious US resistance.
To put it another way, how much of a factor is the Unites States in Japan-China
ties? Very much, is what.
STABILITY OF ASIA
Japanese PM Abe has
said his door is open to dialogue. But with the latest move, the hope for a
summit meeting between Chinese and Japanese leaders can’t be even further. Do
you have expectation of the upcoming APEC meeting later this year in Beijing?
There are actually two factors that still pull in favor of
an informal summit, a chat on the sidelines. China is the host. To refuse to
see Mr. Abe would make Mr. Xi look small and defensive. Second, China appears
to be concentrating its guns on Vietnam, which, unlike Japan and the
Philippines, does not have the United States as an ally. Yet. An implicit offer
of a truce from Mr. Xi to Mr. Abe might be in the works.
Both Japan and Germany
were defeated in Second World War. But Germany has managed to win the trust and
respect from its neighbors, while Japan remains embroiled in constant denial of
history. Is there anything Japan may learn from Germany?
That it helps to be the biggest fish in the pond when all is
said and done? The histories are so different that the comparison favored by so
many conventional commentators merely clouds the picture. But I’ll say this. We
Japanese see modern history through the lens of the Black ships rolling in,
making demands, and Japan’s response to that. But for the Chinese, the Opium
War is the seminal event, which I think is also a perfectly legitimate
perspective. This means that the Japan-China War in 1894-95 has very different
meanings for the two sides. But World War I changed the rules of the game for
all the Great Powers except two: Japan and Germany. If the two nations could
accept that the other side will have different narratives with regard to the
Japan-China War and Japan reiterates its acceptance of responsibility for its
post-WW I actions on that premise, then we will have gone a long way to solving
the problem. I don’t think that Mr. Abe is there yet, much less Mr. Xi.
As it is said, we
can’t change our neighbors, like it or not. At the end of the day, we need to
come to terms with each other. Where to start if we still have hope to mend the
fences and fix the problems between countries?
No comments:
Post a Comment