In the United States, the polarisation of domestic politics has manifested itself in US foreign policy in decidedly negative ways. The culture of filibustering and the gridlock surrounding Obamacare, the debt ceiling debate, and budget deliberations, which prevented US President Obama from attending the APEC meetings and East Asia Summit in Indonesia and Brunei in October, have undermined the credibility of US leadership in the region. Political deadlock seems to have contributed to the decline in public support for President Obama.
Despite the reforms that were pledged at the Central Committee’s Third Plenum in November, China still faces an array of domestic political challenges including rapidly growing income inequality, low living standards among the estimated 260 million rural migrant workers, widespread corruption, food safety issues, air pollution, the de-leveraging of the financial sector, and the lack of structural reform to shift to sustainable growth. The failure to address these domestic political challenges has the potential to seriously derail the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Under this scenario there is an increased risk that Beijing could be tempted to become adventurous in its foreign policy in order to divert attention from its domestic governance shortcomings, focus public frustrations on an external enemy, and thereby achieve domestic cohesion.
In Japan, the economic situation appears to be improving with the initial success of Abenomics. However, the risk now is that while the first two arrows (aggressive monetary policy and flexible fiscal spending) have hit the mark, the follow-through on the third arrow of growth strategy, which needs to have the greatest impact if Abenomics is to be successful in the long term, has been underwhelming. While Prime Minster Abe has been relatively pragmatic so far, an economic setback could tempt him to push conservative and nationalistic policies, which would further worsen Japan’s already tense bilateral relations with China and South Korea.
In South Korea, the constitutional court ruled that the denial of South Korean victims’ ability to pursue compensation for damages suffered during Japanese colonial rule was a violation of human rights and unconstitutional. Even though this court only has domestic jurisdiction, the ruling is in conflict with the overall thrust of South Korean foreign policy and the 1965 Japan-ROK diplomatic normalisation agreement. Under that treaty, Japan and South Korea settled all legal claims between the two countries and Japan provided South Korea with US$500 million in economic assistance. Thus this domestic action strikes at the very underpinnings of the Japan-ROK bilateral relationship and has raised tensions unnecessarily.
Nationalism has been on the rise around Northeast Asia, and its spillover into policymaking in the region is compounding the challenge of reconciling the domestic politics–foreign policy nexus.
China’s national narrative, as seen through a CCP lens, emphasises the role of the Communist Party in overcoming suffering at the hands of Japan’s military during the Pacific War. China’s period of national humiliation and anti-Japanese sentiment lingers at the forefront of the Chinese national consciousness. Now that China has risen to become the second biggest economy — and the second-largest defence spender — in the world, it is starting to regain its national confidence. As part of the internal debate in China, questions are now being raised about the long-term relevance of the low-key approach to international affairs (tao guang yang hui) as espoused by Deng Xiaoping, and some conservative nationalists appear to be in favour of jettisoning the principle once China is firmly situated as a major power. Given this situation, greater efforts are needed to guard against unilateral changes to the status quo and to bring China into the fold as a responsible regional stakeholder and as a partner of the United States and Japan.
The optimism surrounding the amazing speed with which Japan rose from the ashes of defeat of World War Two, and rebuilt itself as an economic powerhouse, has turned to frustration. In the decades since its asset assets bubble burst in the early 1990s, economic growth plateaued and Japan failed to take decisive action to revitalise its economy. Japan’s demographic challenges have also exacerbated the sense of frustration. Public opinion in Japan has gradually become more questioning about Japan’s post war pacifist posture, and the rise of China and the threat posed by North Korea have become easy targets for the venting of frustrations. Recent polling shows that 90 per cent of the Japanese public have negative feelings toward China and vice versa.
Meanwhile, South Korea’s history as a country caught at a geopolitical crossroads between China, Russia, and Japan has fostered an exceptionally strong sense of national identity. South Korea has gone on to achieve remarkable economic growth, become an OECD member, and undergo a stunning process of democratisation. But its continued focus on history issues and the wrongs that Japan committed in the first half of the 20th century, in a manner that inhibits present-day cooperation, reflects a highly volatile national consciousness. This trend has even gained strength under President Park Geun-hye, who much to Japan’s dismay and against normal diplomatic protocol, has criticised Japan in third countries, rather than bring her complaints directly to Japan in a bilateral summit.
The narrative that is increasingly shaping Northeast Asian countries’ national identities is problematic given the highly insular mentality it feeds and the antagonistic postures it encourages. Greater efforts are needed to promote national narratives within the broader framework of regional cooperation and give focus to the shared peace and prosperity and intertwined destiny of the region.
If the confrontational postures that have emerged in the region become entrenched, there is the risk that the future regional order may be derailed. There is a need for increased effort to convince the respective publics in East Asian countries of the importance of regional cooperation and for intensive dialogue between leaders for the mutual promotion of brave leadership that does not succumb to the temptation of short-term domestic political gains at the expense of long-term regional cooperation. Policymakers must be more conscious of the medium- to long-term evolution of regional order and focus regional cooperation in order to overcome nationalism, de-fang domestic political dynamics that undermine bilateral cooperation, and pursue domestic objectives that are compatible with regional cooperation and the goal of shared peace, prosperity, and stability in East Asia.
Hitoshi Tanaka is a senior fellow at the Japan Center for International Exchange and chairman of the Institute for International Strategy at the Japan Research Institute, Ltd. He previously served as Japan’s deputy minister for foreign affairs. This article is an extract from East Asia Insights Vol. 8 No. 3 September 2013, which is available in full here, and is reprinted with the kind permission of JCIE.
‘While Prime Minister Abe has been relatively pragmatic so far, an economic setback could tempt him to push conservative and nationalistic policies.’
This is back-to-front!
The conservative/nationalistic agenda of the Abe government already is quite well advanced with passage of the controversial secrecy law, the security strategy and military build-up approved on Dec. 17, the new emphasis on instilling patriotism, and the plan to rewrite the 1947 Constitution to allow for collective self-defense.
Meanwhile, very little has been accomplished in terms of economic reform. Abe’s oft-repeated pledge to be a “powerful drill bit and sturdy blade” to break through the bureaucratic bedrock of regulation sounds increasingly like empty rhetoric …
1. My thanks to Mr Hitoshi Tanaka for insightful piece on Japanese perspectives on East Asia. Some of the assumptions though might be rather nuanced, with consequential impact on the substantive discussion. I explain below.
Mr Tanaka writes:
“Despite the reforms that were pledged at the Central Committee’s Third Plenum in November, China still faces an array of domestic political challenges including rapidly growing income inequality, low living standards among the estimated 260 million rural migrant workers, widespread corruption, food safety issues, air pollution, the de-leveraging of the financial sector, and the lack of structural reform to shift to sustainable growth. The failure to address these domestic political challenges has the potential to seriously derail the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).”
Looking around the globe at other examples, I would have thought that more than reasonable progress has been made by China, and more was perhaps was not feasible in addressing “the estimated 260 million rural migrant workers, widespread corruption, food safety issues, air pollution, the de-leveraging of the financial sector, and the lack of structural reform to shift to sustainable growth”, given that time is also a factor social change and more time is needed.
2. Mr Tanaka also asserts:
“In Japan, the economic situation appears to be improving with the initial success of Abenomics.”
I am actually a little puzzled by what Mr Tanaka means by success here. Looking at the evidence thus far I would have thought that for the moment Mr Abe’s policies have meant a cheaper yen and rising prices, particularly a higher cost of energy for consumers, and higher stock prices among asset prices, besides providing some boost to domestic demand in a limited measure; exports seem to have responded to a weaker yen. Therefore in my view it is too early to pass any judgment on the success of Mr Abe’s economic measures, as tangible benefits have yet to reach the larger public. In particular it is quite possible that the expansionary economic policies by themselves may not achieve much, and reforms, which importantly include a value added tax and reform of the labour market, both measures that would impact adversely on consumption and wages respectively and for this reason may not be popular with the public, may be required; these reforms remain a question mark for now as does the outcome of any reform.
3. Regarding Japan-Korea relations, I think the court decision that Mr Tanaka refers to, one way or another, would only marginally affect the weight of different perceptions of history that characterize the bilateral relationship. Japan also persists in its own version of history without any let up, pace the remarks of Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto, a mainstream politician, that “comfort women” played a useful role for Japan, for example.
4. Again, it is the weight of different perceptions of history that also bedevils China-Japan bilateral relationship, with reminders such as a jaunty Mr Abe photographed in an SDF aircraft with bold 731 markings helping to keep the memories alive, for example.
5. It is indeed a confrontational picture as Mr Tanaka notes, but one, which, in my view, is not complete without, for example, a discussion of United States, with its hub/spoke alliances with Korea and Japan; with its relationship of deep economic interdependence with China; and also a discussion of Russia with its policy alignments with China at the present conjuncture — all in context of America’s pivot to Asia perspective. Furthermore, some European countries too seem to be striking a more independent relationship with China than the NATO alliance or the EU would lead one to expect. Such and similar aspects may perhaps need to be factored in.