Japan must enlist US military power to pursue a containment policy toward an expanding China.
And yet Japan’s stock market reacts to small changes in the outlook for China’s economic growth every day. China is Japan’s largest export market and offers the best hope of growth for many of Japan’s leading companies. This leaves Japan in an awkward position, because it has to balance its deep mutual economic dependency with China with the need to deter possible military confrontation. How can Japan take stances and pursue policies whose outcomes are so clearly at cross-purposes?
The answer is that Japan cannot. But in which direction should the country turn, and where should politicians seek to build broad popular support? No doubt economic concerns should be given priority because they have a greater immediate effect on people’s livelihoods and standard of living. Under Japan’s pacifist Constitution this choice is natural and imperative: a strong security system without bread is ridiculous.
In the years after the Second World War Japan relied on the US–Japan military alliance for protection from Soviet expansionism. This security policy was necessary until the dismantling of the Soviet Union in 1991. Japan’s potential enemy has since been replaced by emerging China, which Japanese vested interests have turned into the new enemy.
The treaties that ended war and established diplomatic relations between Japan and China were signed only 40 years ago. Does this relative newness mean Japan should prepare for a new war with China? No. Such thinking is nightmarish: China has developed nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. If Japan fights against China on its own, Japan’s defeat is inevitable.
But what about Japan’s alliance with the world’s strongest military power — the US? Surely the support of the US would give Japan the edge in any conflict with China? But Japan cannot count on US power in a confrontation with China because the foremost security threat for the US is its financial deficit. US Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged as much last year. China currently holds nearly 2 trillion in US Treasury, agency and other securities. In any serious confrontation, or in the lead-up to it, China would naturally sell or demand repayment of its US debt holdings. The disastrous consequences for the US economy are now being factored into the US Defense Department’s scenario analyses. The military power of the US cannot be relied to turn against its Chinese banker.
This is the background for and foundation of the US–China Strategic and Economic Dialogue, which was first held in Washington in 2009 and completed its fourth edition in Beijing in May this year.
This is the reality of ‘Chimerica’: a relationship of such deep financial and economic interdependence that it defines a new global paradigm — one in which Japan is being increasingly marginalised and its importance downgraded.
Even in the military sphere, the US is far from challenging China. Instead, the US has begun trying to direct it in ways that will strengthen order and maintain international public goods.
There are plenty of reasons to be concerned about the trend toward Chinese militarism. Since the Tiananmen protests in 1989, China has increased its military spending every year and stopped democratic political reforms.
The US–Japan security treaty has not enhanced Japan’s security. On the contrary, it has increased Japan’s insecurity by promoting militarism in China and putting China in a strategic position that makes it difficult to withdraw its support for North Korea. This is tragic.
China is not a military threat to Japan, and even if it were the US cannot and will not go to war with China to protect Japan. The notion that the US–Japan military alliance is a form of deterrence is nonsense.
The right way forward for Japan is to abrogate the defence treaty with the US. US military bases in Japan should be closed and military personnel sent home. Japan should use diplomacy to achieve ‘win-win’ resolutions of disputes with China, including territorial disputes.
Japan should aim to become an ‘Asian Switzerland’. This concept, which was widely endorsed immediately after the war, is now barely mentioned at a time when East Asia is gradually descending into military competition. Japan should return to the peace spirit that characterised the aftermath of the war, when the nation decided to work toward world peace.
Susumu Yabuki is Emeritus Professor of Economics at Yokohama City University. He blogs at China Watch Room.
This article is drawn from the author’s recent book: Chimerica — the US–China collusion and the Way Forward for Japan.
Peaceful competition and cooperation should be the way for forward for China, Japan and the US. It will be in everyone’s interest to do so.
It is important to realise that there will be inevitable changes along the way and adopt sensible strategies to manage and adapt to changes by each side.
Yabuki San, I disagree with your statement that “Since 1989, China stopped democratic political reforms” In fact, China has continued to reform its political system based on its own unique domestic conditions.
I bought a few dozens of books during my last trip to China on political reform, democracy and all kind of issues. Their experts having lived and worked in different western countries for years produced comprehensive reports about the pros and cons of political systems in the US, UK, France and Germany, and spelled out in an objective manner what China may learn from these countries and avoid their shortcomings.
If we look at Japanese democracy that resulted in a frequent changes of Prime Minister (almost every few months or every year), I do not think Japanese democracy is a model for anybody to follow.
What is the purpose of having an election system that fails to produce leaders that are not able to get things done? How long can Japan afford to have leaders that done nothing for Japan and the Japanese people? Will democracy in Japan at its current form resulted in disaster for Japan in the 21st century?
Dear Mr Wei Ling Chua
Regarding political reforms, I am now remembering a discussion with late Liao Gailong廖盖隆 in the summer of 1988, who proposed Gengshen 庚申Reform. Comparing his reform program with Wu Bangguo’s 吴邦国 ‘five nos’ 五个不搞declared in March 2011, I should conclude China stopped political reform.
I never advocated ‘Japanese democracy’ nor ‘Japanese model’, which seems to me a kind of mobocracy. The great historian late K. Asakawa wrote during the US-Japan war: ‘democracy is the highest and hardest known polity precisely because it challenges the civic morality of every man. When his sense of responsibility is not alive, democracy becomes a false pretence.’ Asakawa’s key words criticized post-war false democracy more than half a century beforehand.
Best regards
Susumu Yabuki
Although it takes a successful launching and landing of China’s space station program to make a convincing case, there are benefits in seeing scholars assessing international politics from the perspective of the structure of the international system that leads to their advocacy of changing the course of foreign policy towards pursuit of peace.
On the one hand, nations are reluctant to fight unless they believe they have a good chance of winning. On the other hand, China’s rise – the shift in its capabilities – provides deterrence against global war aims. Succeeding in achieving a preponderance in power, China has delivered a dividend for world peace.
The magnificent gesture Dr Yabuki has made, as a representative of Japanese foreign policy circles, in expressing the desire for peace is wonderfully welcome.
“Japan should use diplomacy to achieve ‘win-win’ resolutions of disputes with China, including territorial disputes.”
The notion that Japan can benefit by throwing away their prime trump card (the alliance with the USA) is patently absurd. If anything the move towards “lovey-dovey” roundtable discussion of the territorial disputes and cultural disagreements (textbook controversies) with China after a end to the USA-Japan Alliance would only lead to a domination by China due to the lack of Japanese hardpower to counter China’s. In effect, the end to the alliance that has stabilized the East Asia region for decades would lead to a massive growth of Chinese influence over Japanese affairs perhaps to the point of the relegation of Japan to a mere puppet. While a peaceful outcome to all the disputes in the China Sea(s) would be preferable, the answer is not to throw away all of Japan’s options, backups, and trump cards just to satisfy a China that has, in recent years, been belligerent and power-hungry.
What Susumu Yabuki is arguing for in the article is a surrender of all of Japan’s safeguards to make China feel safe, which while perhaps assuring China would leave Japan totally defenseless. There is no reason why the round-table discussions Susumu Yabuki advocates can not be done in the current status quo situation.
A wiser course of action would be to continue as is, build up the Japanese military to provide adequate coverage, continue to support democracy in China, and to begin/continue round-table discussions on China’s territorial disputes.
Dear Mr Tu
Recently Okinawan Governor H. Nakaima rejected the US plan to deploy the MV-22 Osprey transport aircraft at Futenma air station. This is a symbolical gesture, which means China is not an enemy, and the US-Japan Alliance does not work anymore for its original purpose. On the contrary, it supported Chinese militarism and discouraged the democratic movement in China. The north wind could not remove China’s cloak, we should learn from Aesop’s fables.
Best Regards
Susumu Yabuki