Japan’s choices in a multipolar world

Authors

Aurelia George Mulgan

In Brief

In January 2009, Japan's former Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro (1982-87) reflected on the global strategic implications of the international financial crisis in an article published in the Yomiuri newspaper. In it, he observed that 'the ongoing financial crisis has prompted the world to shift from a structure that relies heavily on the United States to a multipolar system that does not.'

The structural shift in the world order to multipolarity offers Japan a clear choice. Will it expand and strengthen its security contributions to the US alliance in order to buttress American primacy in East Asia, or will it seek to carve out a more independent regional and global role for itself, which takes account of declining American power? Professor Terumasa Nakanishi of Kyoto University has argued that the only option for Japan in the transition from a US-dominated world order to multipolarisation is to ‘stand as a pole’.

Standing as a pole presents Japan with several feasible options that are not necessarily mutually exclusive. In military affairs, it might entail Japan developing a greater capacity to defend itself through an enhanced deterrence capability beyond so-called threshold deterrence and mobilisation. The primary thrust of such a strategy would be to reduce Japan’s reliance on the United States in crucial areas of national defence, such as improving Japan’s satellite intelligence-gathering capability and developing greater sea and airpower to defend its maritime territory.

This would build a hedge against any weakening of the alliance, particularly in areas where Japan felt it could not rely automatically on America’s military assistance. Supporters of such a strategy might argue that the decline in American hegemonism in East Asia was a long- overdue opportunity for Japan to move beyond persistent pacifist posturing to an openly military realist posture.

Whilst retaining the framework of the bilateral security treaty, Japan would no longer define its security future principally in terms of upgraded military cooperation with the United States via the collective self-defence route.

In the triangular relationship with the United States and China, Japan might seek a more balanced or equidistant position between the United States and China that matched the measured but perceptible tilt in US orientation towards China. Such a stance would anticipate one of Japan’s greatest alliance tests over the next decade: how to deal with a United States that was increasingly preoccupied with engaging with China at the same time as managing China’s emergence as a great power and rival hegemonic influence in Asia. Adjusting to the reordering of America’s Asian priorities might involve a Japanese reassessment of its dependence on the alliance to provide backing for its own dealings with China and as a guarantee of its importance to the United States.

It would acknowledge a growing fear in Japan that its national interests might be sacrificed for the sake of America’s more important relationship with China.

In terms of alliance management, standing as a pole might require Japan to build a new model of US-Japan bilateral cooperation on the basis of independent Japanese or shared bilateral initiative in the pursuit of jointly formulated economic, financial, trade and security goals. This could be encouraged by requests for greater US recognition of the full strategic value of American military bases in Japan, including to the forward defence of the United States, and returning control over these bases and the right to air traffic control to Japan. (This proposal has already been made to the United States – by LDP politicians, Fukushiro Nukaga and former Defence Agency Director-General Shigeru Ishiba – in December 2004.)

It could be further assisted by a new emphasis on where the United States needs Japanese policy cooperation as well as on Japan’s continuing financial, technological and military contributions to the bilateral relationship. The reinvigorated multilateralism of American foreign policy under the Obama administration might offer some
potential for such developments, but this would depend on whether the new international cooperation called for by the Obama administration was broadly conceived as Japanese cooperation with US goals or more egalitarian forms of policy coordination. If the United States stuck to old patterns of pressuring Japan for concessions on trade and security, it would be difficult for Japan to abandon the entrenched habit of scrambling for minimalist contributions in response to American requests.

In terms of Japan’s regional affairs, standing as a pole might entail the pursuit of more independent minilateral and/or multilateral approaches. A new minilateralism might grow up around coordinated Japan-US-China action on international policy issues, or coordinated security cooperation with friendly states such as Australia and India. Japan might also lead the creation of new or expanded regional frameworks based on a more durable multilateralism in areas such as trade, finance, diplomacy and security. Japan’s record of initiating regional institution-building proposals in finance and economic integration could facilitate such a role.

Finally, standing as a pole might entail Japan adopting a new type of burden-sharing in the international community, which could emerge in dealing with transnational security threats. For instance, the Aso government decided recently to permit the deployment of Maritime Self-Defence Force (MSDF) destroyers to fight piracy in waters off Somalia by invoking Article 82 of the Self-Defence Forces (SDF) Law on maritime policing (normally used for patrols in Japan’s territorial waters). Two destroyers will participate in the mission, escorting Japanese vessels in waters off Somalia.

Coordinated Japanese action to deal with illegal migration, infectious diseases and environmental degradation would be other possibilities. Under a DPJ government, such moves might extend to participating in collective security operations under the auspices of the UN.

The real question, however, is whether Japan would be able and willing to embrace any of these options. A substantial upgrading of Japan’s military capabilities and greater defence independence, for example, would immediately engage the convoluted politics of Article 9, as would any participation in collective security operations.

The solutions to Japan’s present situation lie primarily in its domestic politics.

Even for minimalist international gestures, the delays that domestic political problems inject into the policy process risk Japan being marginalised in world affairs. Currently it is difficult for any Japanese prime minister to present a credible face on the world stage given the parlous political position he finds himself in at home.

Aurelia George Mulgan is a Professor at UNSW@ADFA and a Research Associate at the Australia-Japan Research Centre, Crawford School of Economics and Government, ANU.