Last Week: Significance of Japan’sInternational Relations

• Metaphors help shape our view of Japan in the World

• Japan matters in politics, economics and security, regional and global levels

• Japan is significant actor, especially in relationship with the US and East Asia

Unit 2 Pattern of Japan’s

International Relations: Historical Development

Professor Glenn Hook

Aim • To discuss the historical development of

Japan’s international relations from the

Chinese world order to the post-Cold

War world

Objectives

1) to identify empirically the pattern of Japan’s international

relations from the late nineteenth century onwards;

2) to discuss why Japan has adopted the specific pattern of

international relations identified;

3) to illustrate the constraints as well as opportunities for

Japan as a late-comer to the Western-dominated

international system.

Militarism economism a potential revival?

?

Historical Overview

• Japan as a tributary of China under the T’ang dynasty, AD 618-906 (Chinese world order)

• Sakoku-jidai Tokugawa era (1600-1868)• Rising industrial power - victory in Russo-Japanese

War, 1904-5 (Imperial world order)• Militarism and colonialism (World War II) • Anti-militarism and bilateralism post-1945 (Cold War order)• Normalization, multilateralism

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjPsRaqZIN8

Patterns of Japan’s international relations: Chinese world order;

• Japan as a subordinate tributary power

• Japan as an isolationist rival state

• Japan as a colonial power

Imperial world order• Advance of imperial power into East Asia

• Acquisition of economic and military power during the Meiji era

• Datsua nyūō (abandonment of Asia joining with Europe) – Anglo-Japanese Alliance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoW2WYdOsvg

Fukuzawa Yukichi 1835-1901

Cold War order

• Alignment with the United States

• Restive relations with communist powers

• Separation of economics and politics (Yoshida doctrine, seikei bunri)

Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru signing the US-Japan Security Treaty in San Francisco, 1951

Post-Cold War period

• Bilateral, regional and global hedging

• Continued prioritization of bilateralism

• Growing independence and proactivity?

The ‘Ron-Yasu’ US-Japan special relationship was emulated by Bush and Koizumi

Ronald Reagan and Yasuhiro Nakasone - Junichirō Koizumi and George W. Bush Jr.

Historical patterns of Japan’s international relations (summary)

• Dependence upon/gravitation towards major power or hegemon of the day (China, UK, US)

• Rational international strategy: unilateral hegemony, East Asian region-building, trilateral and multilateral cooperation

• Reactive and proactive moves

Methodology: Why has Japan adopted the specific pattern of

international relations identified?• Structural constraints of the international

system of the time.• Agency of powerful leaders and policy makers• Strategies guided by a range of domestic and

international norms

Japan as a late-comer to the Western dominated international system

• Constraints: Unequal treatment by Western powers, rejection of

Japanese proposal at League of Nations, tied to US during Cold War (constraining ties with communist states)

• Opportunities: Learned from Western starter states how to modernize, chance to challenge established powers by forming an alliance with Nazi Germany, used periods of increased multipolarity to forge relations with communist states

History

Time

In progression: The hegemons followed by Japan (China, UK, USA)

Conclusion• Japan’s international relations charted in

relation to rise and fall of great powers

• Challenger, but ultimately sought support of major power of the day (China, UK, US)

• Within the bounds of constraints and opportunities dictated by the international system, Japan instrumentalised its foreign relations to catch up with the West.