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Korea and the Japan-U.S. Alliance: A Japanese Perspective
Abstract
Due to the geographical proximity and history, the Korean peninsula has traditionally been and continues to be one of the primary security interests for Japan. The Korean peninsula has been the strategic pivot in Northeast Asia and would directly affect the course of Japan’s own security. The memoirs of Munemitsu Mutsu (late ninteenth-century Meiji-era diplomat) Kenkenroku, a realist classic in understanding Japanese diplomacy toward Korea, depicted how Japan struggled in dealing with Korea during the Sino-Japanese War over the Korean peninsula in the transition to the modern era.1 As one Korea security expert and former military intelligence officer noted, the relationship between Japan and the Korean peninsula has traditionally been described as “shinshi-hosha” in Japanese, “lips and teeth, cheekbone and jawbone” in English, taken from an ancient Chinese phrase—which meant a relationship so mutually dependent that if one falls the other falls with it.2 Since the defeat of Japan in the Second World War and the end of the colonial period, Japan has allied with the United States to deal with security on the Korean peninsula and Northeast Asia.
During the Cold War era, Japan’s foreign and security policy was guided by four principles articulated by Prime Minister (PM) Shigeru Yoshida in the post-World War II (WW II) period. Known as the Yoshida Doctrine, these principles were: prioritizing economic development as Japan’s primary goal; refraining from substantial armament and involvement in international conflicts; aligning with American political leadership and recognizing its military protection; and pursuing a foreign policy based on international cooperation rather than ideological alliances (Brzezinski, The grand chess board: American primacy and its geostrategic imperatives, Basic Books, 1997, 178). The Yoshida Doctrine represented a comprehensive security policy characterized by a strategy of minimal rearmament for Japan, emphasizing economic recovery and relying on a security alliance with the US (Akaha, Asian Survey 4:324–340, 1991, 324–325; Okazaki, International Security 2:188–197, 1982, 188). As a subordinate partner in the bilateral relationship, Tokyo acquiesced to the unequal terms of the security treaty established in 1951 during the waning days of the US occupation of post-war Japan, formalized further with the ratification under the San Francisco Peace Treaty a year later. However, by the 1950s, mounting domestic criticism in Japan regarding the origins and inequities of this initial security agreement compelled the Nobusuke Kishi cabinet to seek renegotiation. Subsequently, a revised treaty was finalized in Washington in January 1960 (Shinoda, T. (2011). Costs and benefits of the U.S.-Japan alliance from the Japanese perspective. In Inoguchi, T., Ikenberry, G.J., and Sato, Y. (Ed.), The U.S.-Japan security alliance: Regional multilateralism (pp. 13–29). New York: Palgrave Macmillan., 13; Kazuya, S. (2009). Conditions of an independent state: Japanese diplomacy in the 1950s. In Iokibe, M. (Ed.), Eldridge, R.D. (Trans.), The diplomatic history of postwar Japan (pp. 50–80). New York: Routledge., 71–74).
This chapter endeavors to scrutinize Japan’s strategic responses to evolving regional dynamics in light of China’s ascent, as expounded upon in the preceding chapter, employing a multi-tiered security framework. The recalibration of military balances in Northeast Asia and East Asia has markedly intensified pressures on Japan’s defense and security policies. Consequently, policymakers have prioritized the imperatives of safeguarding Japan, formulating robust security strategies, and addressing long-neglected gaps in Cold War era military planning, all of which have emerged as pivotal issues necessitating comprehensive reassessment over recent decades (Smith, Rearmed Japan: The politics of military power, Harvard University Press, 2019, 90). This chapter critically examines Japan’s initiatives in internal balancing as a foundational aspect of its strategic posture, evaluating their efficacy in meeting Japan’s imperatives for security. Furthermore, it probes Japan’s external balancing efforts through its alliance relations with the US, and its soft balancing strategies involving security cooperation with India, ASEAN, and other regional stakeholders. The discourse includes an in-depth analysis of the complexities and constraints inherent in Japan’s engagements with these actors, as well as their intricate dynamics vis-à-vis China. Finally, the chapter appraises Japan’s regional security policies through multilateral and minilateral frameworks, framing these endeavors within the context of its broader soft balancing strategy.
Japan is on the verge of what would be a dramatic shift in defense posture. The ‘spear and shield’ structure of the US–Japan alliance, at the center of its security policy for most of the postwar era, is being revamped by a move toward autonomous defense. Why would a country confined to a largely passive and Americanocentrist posture for more than half a century suddenly change course? I argue that autonomy is for Japan the only way out of an unprecedented ‘entrapment-abandonment dilemma’: any attempt to prevent defection by the United States in the face of an increasingly assertive China heightens to an unacceptable level the risk of Japan being dragged into a US-led conflict in the Korean Peninsula, and vice versa. Japan’s ability to wield the spear would likely have destabilizing consequences for the whole Asia-Pacific region.
As noted earlier, it was somewhat surprising to find Japan among the countries identified by cluster analysis as middle powers. But as discussed in Sect. 5. 5, Japan was the only country in Asia-Pacific that experienced a significant and consistent decline in its relative position (between 14.3 % and 20 % depending on the scenario) compared to its 1992 positions in all of the four CIAPs, but was also identified as a middle power by cluster analysis as Sect. 6. 2 shows. This outcome therefore serves as a reminder that the words of Morgenthau and Organski are still valid today, namely that the reputation of a nation might outlast its actual possession of power particularly in peaceful times. In the same vein Rose argued that “[t]he link between objective material power capabilities and policymakers’ subjective assessment of them remains murky” which is demonstrative of the subjectivity of public and sometimes scholarly assessments of the capabilities of nations. Andrew Hurrell explained that greatpowermanship “is a social category that depends on recognition by others”. Recently Gadi Heimann has shown that weaker states such as Prussia in 1815, Italy and Japan in 1919 and China as well as France in 1945 were perceived and treated as great powers by other international actors even though they lacked the necessary means. The fact that Japan’s relative position deteriorated between 1992 and 2012, as many other actors in Asia-Pacific improved their positions, supports the argument that public perception of Japan as a great power is still based on the country’s strong position of earlier decades.
National integration became a major priority for the Japanese elite's nation-building policy after World War II. The ambiguous identification of postcolonial Koreans in Japan (the Zainichi Koreans), however, shows that the policy of integration has not developed in a linear or coherent form since those postwar years. This paper examines why long-term migrants—fourth or even fifth generations in some cases—have not fully integrated into host country, and asks how a particular ethnic group becomes engaged in mobilizing across a transnational space until it becomes a diaspora group that is deeply involved in political struggles and international relations. This paper uses the example of the Zainichi diaspora to identify and explore such a transnational space—a space that also provides leverage that can be exploited by individuals or collective actors who make up the elites of both the host state and the homeland. By focusing on the changing roles of the Korean Zainichi diaspora in the light of shifting policies that reflect Japan's external security environment, the article argues how host state policies allow an entity such as the Zainichi diaspora to transform itself into an agent capable of structural change.
Domestic politics combined with strategic repositioning toward the U.S. set back ties between Japan and South Korea in 2004-05. Despite the North Korean nuclear crisis and the challenge of shifting great power relations in Asia, as well as closer economic and cultural bilateral ties, politicized forces are pulling the two countries apart. © 2006 by The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
This book examines North Korea's nuclear diplomacy over a long time period from the early 1960s, setting its dangerous brinkmanship in the wider context of North Korea's military and diplomatic campaigns to achieve its political goals. It argues that the last four decades of military adventurism demonstrates Pyongyang's consistent, calculated use of military tools to advance strategic objectives vis à vis its adversaries. It shows how recent behavior of the North Korean government is entirely consistent with its behavior over this longer period: the North Korean government's conduct (rather than being haphazard or reactive) is rational - in the Clausewitzian sense of being ready to use force as an extension of diplomacy by other means. The book goes on to demonstrate that North Korea's "calculated adventurism" has come full circle: what we are seeing now is a modified repetition of earlier events - such as the Pueblo incident of 1968 and the nuclear and missile diplomacy of the 1990s. Using extensive interviews in the United States and South Korea, including those with defected North Korean government officials, alongside newly declassified first-hand material from U.S., South Korean, and former Communist-bloc archives, the book argues that whilst North Korea's military-diplomatic campaigns have intensified, its policy objectives have become more conservative and are aimed at regime survival, normalization of relations with the United States and Japan, and obtaining economic aid.
This article describes the emergence in 1997 of the issue of Japanese who are suspected of having been kidnapped by North Korea, when a North Korean defector provided information on Yokota Megumi, who disappeared at the age of 13. It then lays out the manner in which this issue grew into a dominant factor in Japan-North Korean relations over the next five years. The heart of the article's analysis deals with the factors that brought the kidnapping issue into US and South Korean policies toward North Korea, especially the limitations it progressively placed on the policies of Seoul and Washington and the Perry initiative.
The Clinton administration's decision to place the issue on Secretary Albright's agenda in Pyongyang sent a message to Pyongyang that terrorism issues would have to be settled with Japan in order to receive any meaningful financial compensation in any agreement with the United States on missiles. It also sent a message to both Seoul and Pyongyang that the United States would not risk damage to its alliance with Japan by removing North Korea from the terrorism list without certainty that removal would bring big, substantial benefits to US policy. Moreover, it interrupted Seoul's plans to secure Japanese money to help fulfill its promise of large-scale infrastructure aid to North Korea, which i turn blocked aid from the international financial institutions.
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then MOFA Director of the Policy Coordinating Division of the Foreign Policy Bureau, voiced this frustration in his memoirs After the nuclear crisis, MOFA became more proactive in the establishment of KEDO, and the sharing of financial contributions
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Have Closer Consultations with Japan, Please” AJISS (The Association of Japanese Institutes of Strategic Studies) Commentary, no Koizumi noted in a Diet session that the North Korean threat and the need to maintain the Japan-U.S. alliance as reasons for supporting the Bush administration on Iraq
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For example, President Clinton placed the abductee issue on the agenda of Secretary Madeline Albright’s visit to Pyongyang On the Clinton years, see Larry Niksch, “North Korea and Terrorism: The Yokota Megumi Factor
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For a historical overview, see Takashi Inoguchi, “Korea in Japanese Visions of Regional Order
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After the nuclear crisis, MOFA became more proactive in the establishment of KEDO, and the sharing of financial contributions
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Japanese defense officials visited ROK and China to explain the interim report of the Guidelines. The ROK officials showed a “very positive” attitude, and it was after this process that trilateral cooperation progressed. Akiyama, Nichibei Senryaku Taiwa ga Hajimatta
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Chousen Hantou Enerugi Kaihatsu Kikou (KEDO) Setsuritzu Kyoutei to Keisuiro Sien Kyoutei no Seiji Katei” [The Political Process of KEDO Establishment and LWR Funding Agreements
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Koizumi noted in a Diet session that the North Korean threat and the need to maintain the Japan-U.S. alliance as reasons for supporting the Bush administration on
- Masashi Nishihara
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Nihon no Misairu Bouei
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President Clinton placed the abductee issue on the agenda of Secretary Madeline Albright’s visit to Pyongyang in
- L Niksch
This was deemed as unrealistic and the debate moved to developing combined strike capability in which Japan would directly support U.S. air strikes against enemy missile sites. Michael Auslin and Christopher Griffin, Securing Freedom: The U.S.-Japanese Alliance in a New Era
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Securing Freedom: The U.S.-Japanese Alliance in a New Era, A Report of the American Enterprise Institute
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For a historical overview, see Takashi Inoguchi, “Korea in Japanese Visions of Regional Order
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Rikubaku Daini buchou no kaisou [The Japan Self-Defense Force’s Intelligence War: Memoirs of Ground Force Staff Intelligence Bureau Chief
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Nichibei no Kyoudou Taisho ga Tamesareta
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