Japan- A Rising Sun?

It would have been hard to read the newspaper, a news magazine, or an opinion journal in the late 1980s and early 1990s without soon encountering expressed awe for Japan's booming economic prowess and the opinion that the center of world economic and political power might soon shift from Washington, D.C. to Tokyo. More recently as Japan has experienced a prolonged economic slump and seeming ineffectual government. The country's prime minister has been derisively dubbed (Ryutaro) "Herbert Hoover" Hashimoto, after the U.S. president that many blame being too irresolute to stave off the onset of the Great Depression and, in July 1998, was forced to resign when his party suffered major losses in parliamentary elections. Few observers had much faith, however, that the new prime minister, Keizo Obuchi, offered much hope of taking dramtic action to heal Japan's economic woes. One news report characterized him as "remarkably dull, even by the stodgy standards of senior Japanese politicians," and another commentator described Obuchi as having "the pizzazz of a cold pizza."¹ Now the pop wisdom is to relegate Japan to near "has been" status and to hold up China as the rising power of Asia.

It is probably that Japan is neither the next world hegemon nor on the point of irrelevance. Whatever its current and, almost certainly, temporary, economic woes, Japan remains a major power that constitutes a pole in the evolving multipolar system. Japan's $2.7 trillion GDP makes it an economic powerhouse. It also possesses many other power assets, including an educated and able population and technological sophistication. There is also evidence that Japan is becoming more active and assertive internationally. It is, for instance, campaigning quietly for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council (Yasutomo, 1995).

What is not yet clear is whether Japan will acquire the military forces and the political will to use those forces in a way that realists would argue is necessary to achieve the uncontested status of major power.

World War II left Japan devastated, demilitarized and dominated by the United States. Japan began to recover during the 1950s, but it did so within the context of the Cold War. In a largely tacit arrangement that both Washington and Tokyo supported, the United States assumed both the burdens and benefits of leadership by providing most of Japan's defense while Japan normally followed the U.S. diplomatic lead.

Internally, the horrific suffering, including being atomic-bombed, that the Japanese suffered in World War II left them profoundly pacifistic. One reflection of Japan's pacifism is that it has unofficially limited spending on the country's Self-Defense Force (SDF) to no more than 1 percent of Japan's GNP. Furthermore, the SDF has neither long-range offensive systems such as bombers or aircraft carriers, nor nuclear weapons. There is also a clause (Article 9) in Japan's constitution that bars the "use of force as a means of settling international disputes." Another reflection of Japanese pacifism is evident in 1995 survey that found that only 25 percent of Japanese respondents in favor of having armed SDF troops participate in UN peacekeeping operations. In fact, only 10 percent of Japanese said they would be willing to fight for their country if a war occurred, with 41 percent saying no, and 49 percent unsure (Ladd & Bowman, 1996-32, 109).

Now, changes in the international system and in Japanese attitudes are creating a new assertiveness that could lead to an increase in the size and capacity of the SDF. A Japan armed with nuclear weapons is not completely implausible. "Japan's reemergence as an independent military power would be unsettling," notes one commentator, but, he predicts, "it may not be preventable" (Menon, 1997-34).

With the Cold War over and with the common enemy gone, the economic rivalry between the United States and Japan has sharpened. There has been particular friction over Japan's huge annual trade surpluses with the United States. Compounding Japan's sense that U.S. friendship is not as strong as it once was are worries that isolationist pressures in the United States are weakening its commitment to defend Japan and, more generally, to promote the stability of Asia (Green, 1996). There is a "nagging feeling," one Asian diplomat has commented, "that after the Cold War, America isn't going to have the will or the wallet to make the sacrifices that a superpower has to make."² Japan has legitimate concerns about the growth of China's power (including its nuclear weapons) and about the policy of an unstable, perhaps nuclear-armed North Korea. "For the last 100 years, our focus has been on America," says one Japanese official; "from now on, it will have to be China."³ Worries such as these, especially if they intensify, may move Japan to increase its arms to defend itself and its interest in the region.

Japan's future role on the world stage will also be influenced by the outcome of the struggle going on within Japan over whether or not to become less passive militarily. While antimilitaristic feelings remain very strong in Japan, some observers worry about the rise of "revisionists" in Japan who contend that Japan was trying in the 1930s and early 1940s to liberate Asia from Western colonialism and that, therefore, Japan should shed its guilt for the war. This faction is still small, but, one Japanese observer warns, "The visions are rapidly increasing their influence on public opinion...particularly in education circles and in the media" (Kunihiro, 1997-36).

The combination of external and internal pressures has weakened Japan's official pacifism. Reacting to foreign criticism about its unwillingness to play a military role in the Persian gulf War, Japan's prime minister asked the parliament in 1992 to allow noncombat units of the SDF to participate in UN peacekeeping missions. After a tumultuous debate, the legislature approved the request. Soon some 1,000 Japanese soldiers were on their way to take part in the UN operations in Cambodia.

Many observers applauded Japan's willingness to act. The United States, for example, has been steadily pressing Japan to increase its military presence, in part to relieve the United States of the cost of maintaining a large military presence in the Western pacific and South China Sea. Others are worried. The step "sets a precedent," fretted scholar Motofumi Asai. "People will get used to the idea, and then [Japan] will take the next step toward engaging the military with the world. I don't think that's to the advantage of the United States or other countries. Eventually they will find out," he concluded ominously.⁴

How far Japan will go in building and using its military forces cannot yet be predicted, but there is no question that it continues to consider its options. "Until recently, it was a taboo to discuss this matter," former prime minister Yasuhiro Nakasone has commented. "But now it is not a taboo, and people are thinking about it seriously."⁵ Nakasone favors a greater military role and argues that at some point "we should think of revising the Constitution."⁶

The possibility of acquiring nuclear weapons is also beginning to be occasionally discussed in Japan. As political scientist Seizaburo Sato notes, "Russia is still there [powerful and near Japan]. If the U.S. did withdraw [from the western Pacific], if China continues to mobilize its military forces, if North Korea goes nuclear, then Japan would go nuclear. You would have to prepare yourselves against Japanese forces. And we are pretty efficient." ⁷

Japan will have to be especially careful about amending Article 9. "The question," one Western diplomat commented, "is whether they can write the amendment in a way that makes it clear to the rest of Asia that the Japanese military will not be given license to roam through the region under [its] own command."⁸ Such an image also troubles many Japanese. "We cannot help but be concerned that a completely different direction is about to be taken," the liberal newspaper Asahi Shimbun editorialized recently. "In the worst case, [it could] involve Japan in an American war."⁹

Notes

1. New York Times, July 26, 1998, p. A12.

2. Newsweek, November 22, 1993, p. 38

3. New York Times, June 16, 1996, P. E3.

4. New York Times, June 10, 1992, P. A7.

5. New York Times, April 21, 1996, p. E5.

6. New York Times, May 28, 1996, p. A8.

7. Hartford Courant, January 6, 1992, p. 49.

8. New York Times, January 17, 1993, p. A9.

9. New York Times, April 21, 1996, p. E5.