Japan’s Interests and Policies in Northeast Asia
A Critical View
Mitsuo Okamoto
Northeast Asia is a geopolitical region toward which there are three fundamental considerations for Japan’s diplomacy. First, the Asia-Pacific region make up over 50% of the world’s population, and the total gross domestic product (GDP) of the region reaches close to 30% of the global total. Yet, the region is characterized by financial instability, political vulnerability, and starkly polarized distribution of incomes. Second, China’s influence in the region is rapidly growing and its hegemonic influence is already widely perceived. Third, the end of the Cold War has not brought much change in the region, in particular, in such areas as the Korean Peninsula and the Taiwan Straits. The residue of the Cold War rivalry and zero-sum mentality lingers in the Ryukyu Islands where the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty claims political justification of reinforcing Japan’s defense capability in the region.
For securing Japan’s security and prosperity, it is essential for Japan to establish and maintain the regional peace, stability, and prosperity, for which the Japanese Government has three basic principles. First, Japan will continue to ensure deterrence against destabilizing elements in the region in close cooperation with the United States. Second, Japan will actively promote regional cooperation and take the initiative in the modernization of the entire region no matter what it may mean. Third, Japan will continue and strengthen dialogue and cooperation with the major countries outside the region.
What is described above represents more or less the official Japanese viewpoints. The half-hidden agenda of the declared viewpoints resides in the primacy of the U.S. military presence in the region. People in Okinawa, for example, feel very much the continuation of the Cold War configuration of the world politics because of the overwhelming U.S. military presence there. The Japanese government, contrary to the progressive Japanese Constitution with its unique pacifist philosophy of non-violence, seeks to consolidate a strong military alliance with the United States which intends to exert its political, economic, and military control in the region. There is no doubt that the American military-industrial complex feeds on a Northeast Asian situation of this kind.
While in Europe NATO plays a central role for the security in the region, there is no such arrangement in Northeast Asia. Instead, the U.S. has a separate dyad military alliance with Japan and with Korea. Nations comparable to Great Britain and France who can talk with the U.S. as historically equal partners do not exist. Neither is there an international city like Geneva where diplomats from different countries exchange opinions of political and economic implication. And yet the region is surrounded by three major nuclear powers, namely, Russia, China, and the U.S.
As to the U.S. military presence in the region, there are two main reasons why the U.S. government hangs on the maintenance and even the reinforcement of its military bases in Okinawa. The one is the geopolitical vantage point of holding the Ryukyu Islands for U.S. military operations not only in the Northeast Asia but Asia-Pacific region in general and even for the Indian and Persian Gulf regions. As stated already, the formidable increase of the political as well as economic power of China is seen by Japanese as a new challenge in the region, although the Russian presence has not entirely disappeared from the scene.
The other reason is U.S. dependence on the extremely favorable financial arrangement for its military bases within the Japanese territory. The generous arrangement, called “a special consideration“ or “compassionate budget“ (omoiyari yosan), subsidizes the U.S. forces stationed in Japan. Some ¥ 244.1 billion (US$ 2.2 billion) is spent by Japan in fiscal 2004 to support U.S. military personnel, their families, Japanese employees at the bases, the costs of building and maintaining the facilities, and utility charges. This is included in Japan’s defense budget of some ¥ 4,903 billion (US$ 44.6 billion) in a category called “base countermeasures“ (kichi taisaku keihi). Japan’s defense budget is the second or the third largest in the world.
There is a deep-seated suspicion between China and Japan primarily due to some impertinent yet provocative remarks made by leading Japanese politicians on Japan’s military aggression in the first half of the 20th century. The overt animosity expressed by Chinese citizens in the recent Asian Cup Football Game in Beijing shows not only the sensitivity of the Chinese people on their historical memory, but also the side-effects of the irresponsible remarks just mentioned. The Japanese people, in particular politicians, should cultivate greater sensitivity about how the history of Japan’s military invasion in China has remained a traumatic experience for the Chinese even some sixty years after the end of WW II.
Although the recent incident of booing against the Japanese team at the Asian Cup Football Game in China may have several reasons, yet it immediately reminds us of the media report about the frequent visits to the war-related Yasukuni Shrine by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi since his taking office in 2001, which stirred up considerable indignation in neighboring countries in general but in China and Korea in particular. He does not seem to worry much about hurting international relations because of his illinformed knowledge and personal sense of modern history. It must be said, however, that his behavior is supported by like-minded Japanese who are similarly ill-informed and consider the Asia-Pacific War during the period from 1931 to 1945 as a just war to defend Japan’s political and economic lifeline and survival vis-à-vis the Western colonialism and aggression.
On the other hand, the relation between Japan and the Republic of Korea (ROK) has considerably improved in the last two decades. In particular, the so-called “Sunshine Policy” of President Kim Dae-Jung, which is usually evaluated only in the context of his discrete and peace-minded overtures to North Korea, was also directed in reality to Japan and contributed to a significant improvement of the political, economic, and cultural relationships between Japan and the ROK.
The recent disclosure of the illegal uranium enrichment and plutonium extraction activities at the Korean Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) in the ROK undoubtedly poses a serious matter of concern. Its negative influence on the Six-Party Talks on the nuclear issues of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) can not be avoided. The International Atomic Energy Agency’s fair and unyielding attitude toward the ROK is essential to avoid criticism of a so-called “double standard“ practice if one expects a successful result from the negotiation with the DPRK. However, a frank “confession“ of transgression of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by the South Korean government itself decreases the suspicion about the credibility of the ROK and should not constitute the justification for another nuclear aspirant country to develop an secret nuclear activity.
As to the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the region, the officially announced joint project of Japan and the U.S. to develop Theater Missile Defense (TMD) is far more worrisome than anything else as it might destabilize the East Asian political and military situation and give rise to a new nuclear arms race in the region. North Korea’s withdrawal from the NPT has generated not only widespread serious concerns about its further nuclear development but also a possible confrontation between the DPRK and the U.S.
Incentives to defend against short- and medium-range missiles have become strong due to the increased missile potentials in the region. The joint project between Japan and the U.S. to introduce TMD in the region is regarded by experts to become an alarming element for destabilizing the political situation in Northeast Asia. Taiwan has a strategic interest in joining TMD systems with limited capabilities. China and North Korea have expressed their concern that TMD deployment will trigger a regional arms race and give the U.S. a free hand to dominate the area.
Thus, faithful adherence to the NPT has gained a different meaning because of the new development in TMD systems. Although the NPT has grave weaknesses and is far from an ideal treaty, it is nonetheless the only international treaty to limit the role of nuclear weapons. It is, therefore, imperative that the DPRK return to the NPT regime in the near future. At the same time, unless the nuclear weapon states fulfill their obligation tipulated in Article VI of the NPT, its legitimacy will be further undermined and it will completely lose credibility that it can prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
With regard to a North-East Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone, there have been presented several proposals such as the ones by John Endicott, Kumao Kaneko, and conference resolutions declared at Seoul, Korea, and Ulan Baatar, Mongolia. Also, the Peace Depot, a Japanese citizens’ non-governmental think-tank, represented by Dr. Hiromichi Umebayashi, has worked out a proposal called a “3+3 Agenda.“[1] It suggests an agreement on a Nuclear Weapon Free Zone among South Korea, North Korea, and Japan, endorsed by China, Russia, and the U.S. The project was first presented at an non-governmental workshop at the Preparatory Committee meeting for the 2005 NPT Review Conference, which was held in May 2004 in New York and which I chaired with a colleague from the ROK.
Such an additional Nuclear Weapon Free Zone is vitally important in a region of the world where a superpotential nuclear power (Japan), a nation which claims nuclear autonomy (ROK), and a nuclear suspect (DPRK) coexist. It is incumbent upon us to promote the idea of the Nuclear Weapon Free Zone to repel the new trend of militarization in the region as well as militarization of space.
Although the gap between Pyongyang and Washington is still wide, the Six-Party Talks on the Korean nuclear issue, scheduled to resume shortly in Beijing, will cautiously offer hope for peace and security in Northeast Asia.
It is a unique identity of the city of Hiroshima to host this conference in order to demilitarize the mind of politicians, for it is politicians and not people who start war. However, unless demilitarization goes hand in hand with denuclearization, its significance will diminish. For, as the Russel-Einstein Manifesto rightly points out, unless war were prohibited, leaders of any nation would seek to resort to nuclear weapons in time of war.
This paper was written for the conference "The Challenge of Hiroshima. Alternatives to Nuclear Weapons, Missiles, Missile Defenses, and Space Weaponization in a Northeast Asian Context" organized by INESAP and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation on October 8-11, 2004, in Hiroshima, Japan.
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