Problems of Japanese Post-War Diplomacy
Takeshi Nakajima
■1, Introduction
In 1990's, Japan has always been conscious of "reforms." In the field of politics, the electoral system was changed from the medium electoral district system into the single member constituency system and the proportional representation system. Also, the restriction of political donation was made to be strict, because these two points were the hotbed for the money politics. In the economy and financial field, media promoted reforms of entire economic structure. For instance, deregulation in the finance business, known as the "big ban", has been done in 1997, in order to ban the government's overprotection of domestic financial market and to regain the competitiveness of Japanese financial institutions in the world market. Moreover, in the field of administration, originated in the scandals of high-ranking officials, reforms of the central government is now under way.
There is, however, a domain exists that we have not even argued about for the past ten years. In fact, this domain is the one that we have never discussed actively and even the public opinion has been very coldly about it, although we keep carrying it as a historical and structural problem. That is, the reform of Japanese diplomatic and security policy.
Then why the Japan people has been so coldly about them?
We believe that it happened as a result of the erroneous understanding of International politics that Japanese people had for half a century.■2, Functions of a nation-state
After all, it is obvious that the International politics is taken part by nation states, and a nation-state has some essential functions to act within the International society.
The first function of a nation-state is to exert power by its military capability. This function, which provides its territory and nationals with physical safety, has been the most important function since a modern nation-state was born, and it is still playing an important role in the most primitive part of the International politics.
The second but quite important function is the economic role. For example, everybody do their economic activities within a nation-state, and the government helps the capitalistic economy running by providing social security and other public services. This function is still important today even though the global and multi-national economy has been grown up in the 1990s.
Finally, the third element of a sovereign nation is the culture identity of its national. For instance, countries like Yugoslavia and Caucasus area of Russian Federation has been suffering from a civil war between multiple ethnic groups, since these countries lost their cultural identity of communism after the end of the Cold War.■3, Essential differences of Military power and Economic power
Moreover, when we took a closer look at these functions, we may find out that the military power is the major premise of any other functions of a nation-state, since there are some essential differences among military power and economic role.
In the first place, the core of a military power is the physical force to compel someone so that it can destroy, occupy and rule particular region. And nation-states use this power as a deterrence, compulsion and rejection to other country's military threat. On the other hand, the essence of an economy is one's satisfaction and utility, which is exchanged by legal tender.
All these things make it clear that there are several significant differences between military and economic affairs. To put it in another way, military affairs is a concrete, substantial and direct concept, while economic affairs is an abstract, conceptual and indirect concept.
From these differences, we can arrive at two major features in the relationship between military and economic affairs.
The first characteristic is that military power is the major premise of any other elements, as I mentioned earlier. To cite an instance, please imagine a Third World country in a civil war. When a cease-fire has been concluded and a temporary peace comes back to the town, people may return to their normal life and restart their economic activities. They can go to the market and exchange some goods with money, or just simply walk down the street without any danger of life. When the fight resumed and shootings reopened in the city, however, the bustling market is disappeared and the street will be no longer safe to walk. Now, this small story tells us that an economic activity can only be commenced after the military order has been established, and that no one can safely trade anything as long as the war continues.
The second characteristic is that military power is the only means to cope with military threat, and economic measures cannot take over the military role completely, since military threat is a concrete concept while economy is an abstract concept, and that these two concepts are in total different dimensions. Moreover, military affairs effect one's life and existence directly, while money does not directly affects them. That means, military affairs are a dangerous and gambling job to do, since its task might be critical to one's life. This means that military affairs cannot be substituted to financial affairs, not only for its existing dimension but also for its seriousness to one's life.■4, Situation in the post-war period
In the domestic public opinion in Japan, however, these facts have not been properly recognized for almost half a century, for there were some kind of minor power behavior in the entire Japanese society.
This mistaken opinion was born when Japan lost the Second World War and occupied by the United States. As a result of the occupation, Japan lost all the military and diplomatic power as an independent state, and GHQ took all the trouble of politics including military affairs. This made the Japanese people unaware of their own diplomacy and military affairs, and later they became indifferent to the realistic recognition of International politics, just like a minor power accepting the great powers' policy as a fate.
This misunderstanding, however, kept on until the end of the Cold War, because during the Cold War the Japan-U.S. security alliance supplemented Japanese diplomacy with military strength, and thanks to the Cold War, Japan could contribute to the international security system only by building up its self-defense capabilities. As a result, Japanese people have been believed that Japan was kept peace because of their peaceful diplomacy and the Japanese constitution restricting military forces restrained participating in a war.
With the circumstances mentioned earlier in mind, we can now clearly see where the problem lies. The actual reason why Japan was politically defeated during the Gulf war is that because the Japanese public opinion could not face up to the cold, hard facts of the international politics.■5, Conclusion
The international community is now slowly forming a new post-Cold War order, and, in this context, Japan must be able to maintain a stable and peaceful international environment basically by its own. In other words, the Japan-U.S. joint declaration will keep us under the vertical specialization of the maintenance of Asian security, which weakens Japan's political influence greatly. We may, therefore, reasonably conclude that the Japanese people should have a realistic recognition of the international politics, and rid oneself of behaviors like a minor power in order to maintain its vital national interest in the coming century.Takeshi Nakajima (university student)
©KENSHOKAI/Takeshi Nakajima 1999 All Rights Reserved.