The Japanese Question: Power and Purpose in a New Era

Recently I have read the following book. Its main points are:

Book title: Pyle, Kenneth. 1996. The Japanese Question: Power and Purpose in a New Era. Washington: AEI Press.

Main points:

Ch.1 - Introduction:- only rarely in modern history had a nation captured so substantial a fraction of international trade in such a short period as Japan had in the past three decades.(3)

-the goal of this book to study how Japan formulated its national purpose in the post-world war II period. (3)

- much more than had been commonly recognized, Japan’s purpose in the postwar period was the result of its conservative leaders’ opportunistic adaptation to the circumstance of the international order. (3)

- Japan formulated an economic-first policy that depended on the US security guarantee; they also chose to interpret the constitution so narrowly as to frustrate all attempts by the Americans to engage Japan in collective security commitments. (4)

- its economic achievement stimulated Japan to make a re-assessment of its national purpose starting from the 1980s. A new conservative agenda proposed a new and broader sense of national interest was worked out. No longer acting as a follower in the international system, this agenda included a program of institutional reform in Japan, and to convert Japan to international leadership. (4)

- at the beginning of the 1990s, the question of Japan’s future national purposes surfaced again. What form of this leadership would take was an open question. Much would depend on the US initiatives, including a revised US-Japan alliance. (5)

Ch. 2. - mindful of Japanese nationalism and militarism, world leaders were intensely ambivalent as to whether Japan should enlarge it security role. Nakasone Yasuhiro noted the international distrust over Japan. (7).

- in sum the new post-war constitution did not intend to deprive Japan of the capacity for self-defense or normal participation in the newly contemplated UN peace-keeping forces. (11).

-Japanese themselves often seemed distrustful of their national character. Nakane Chie, known for her work on Japanese character said that the Japanese way of thinking depended on the situation rather than on principle, the Japanese had no principles. (15)

-another factor keeping the Japanese question alive was the widespread impression internationally that Japan’s conservative leadership had never dealt forthrightly with the issue of WWII (17). Apologies for past aggression seemed insincere. Japan had not disowned their past sins. (17).

- in the immediate postwar period, Japan’s relations with the rest of Asia were distant and limited to trade. Conservative leadership resisted all efforts to engage Japan in collective security agreement with other Asian nations (19).

Ch.3- throughout the postwar decades, Japan’s role in the world was a product of the political order imposed on it by the victors. Its role as a trading nation was supported by a remarkably durable popular consensus inside Japan. (20). Its passivity was usually interpreted as a product of wartime trauma, pacifism, and peace institution. Nevertheless, we missed the essence of postwar Japanese political history if we overlooked its orientation toward economic growth and political passivity as the product of a construed foreign policy. (20)

-Japan’s purpose in the postwar world was the result of an opportunist adaptation to the condition. The key figure in shaping the postwar conception of Japanese national purpose was Yoshida Shigeru.(21) A study had convinced him what his instinct had already told him: Japan’s long term interest lay in a bilateral military agreement with the US, the new world power.(22)

- the critical moment for the determination of Japan’s postwar orientation arrived in 1950 with the dangers and opportunities offered to Japan by the Cold War. Soviet-US rivalry offered certain opportunities and gave Yoshida a bargaining leverage. (23)

-Yoshida refused to rearm Japan. He skillfully argued that rearmament would impoverish Japan and create the kind of social unrest that the Communists wanted. (24)The Yoshida Doctrine had three tenets: 1. Japan’s economic rehabilitation must be the prime national goal; 2. Japan should remain lightly armed and avoid involvement in international political issues; 3. Japan would provide military bases to the US army, navy and air forces. (25)

-Yoshida was succeeded by Ikeda Hayato and Sato Eisaku, both supported the Yoshida Doctrine. Ikeda formulated a plan for doubling the national income within a decade. (32)

- by 1980 the confidence that a mercantilist role in international affairs would best suit Japanese national interest was widely accepted in the mainstream of the politic, bureaucratic and business elites.(36) Kosaka believed that Japan could adapt to the new circumstance and survive as a trading nation. (37)

(to be continued)