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East Asia's power
plays
Erich Marquardt
In
the last month, a series of confrontations have
occurred between Japan and South Korea that are
threatening Japan's power and interests in East
Asia. These events include Japan's expressed
interest in attaining sovereignty over a series of
disputed islets, its whitewashing of the
historical record involving its militant past, and
visits made by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to
the Yasukuni Shrine honoring Japan's war dead,
including convicted Class-A war criminals. Japan's
increase in its military projection capabilities
also has contributed to South Korea's sense of
concern.
These confrontations, in addition
to Japan's military build-up, can be attributed to
the country's growing nationalism. As the memory
of World War II fades, Japanese society is
becoming more nationalistic, resulting in Tokyo
pushing for an increased military role in the
world. Tokyo's nationalistic actions have
concerned many of its allies in East Asia, most
notably South Korea, which is now in a verbal spat
with Japan over the preceding concerns.
One of the important reasons behind
Japan's military build-up involves China's
strengthening position in Asia. As Beijing grows
in power and modernizes its military, Tokyo
understands this will weaken Japan's own position
in East Asia. Japan, which is already isolated
politically and geographically in Asia, is
watching this change in the power balance with
concern. While Japanese leaders are correct in
recognizing that the Japanese military will need
to become more powerful in light of changes in the
regional balance of power, these leaders also need
to recognize how important it is to retain
strategic allies in East Asia, especially South
Korea.
The current debate
The
catalyst to the present souring of relations
occurred on February 22, when Japan's Shimane
Prefecture Council approved a provincial bill that
established "Takeshima Day". Takeshima is Japan's
term for a chain of islets between South Korea and
Japan that are contested by both Seoul and Tokyo;
in Korea, the islands are called Dokdo, or Tokdo.
In 1905, the islets were declared by the Shimane
prefecture to be part of its territory;
nevertheless, the islands have been controlled by
South Korea for 50 years. While the islets are
uninhabited, they are surrounded by rich fishing
grounds and there are reports of gas and oil, as
yet unexplored.
The Shimane prefecture's
decision to declare "Takeshima Day" sparked angry
protests in South Korea. The statement on February
23 by Takano Toshiyuki, Japan's ambassador to
Seoul, declaring that Tokyo retains sovereignty
over the islets did not help the matter.
Furthermore, the decision follows a series of
other actions by Japan that has concerned its
regional neighbors. For instance, Japan's
educational history books distort its wartime
history and refuse to provide an accurate account
of the country's expansionist and militant past;
the latest controversy is over a junior high
school history textbook. Additionally, the
country's top political leaders - including Prime
Minister Koizumi - continue to visit the Yasukuni
Shrine, which honors approximately 2.5 million
Japanese who died in wars between 1853 and 1945,
as well as more than 1,000 World War II criminals,
including four convicted Class-A criminals.
Tokyo's nationalist actions prompted South
Korean President Roh Moo-hyun to warn on March 23,
"Now, the South Korean government has no choice
but to sternly deal with Japan's attempt to
justify its history of aggression and colonialism
and revive regional hegemony." Roh cautioned,
"there could be a hard diplomatic war … that may
reduce exchanges in various sectors and cause
economic difficulty. But we do not have to worry
much about it … we are determined to take the
hardship on our shoulders if we really have to."
Since December 2003, the two countries had been
working on a free-trade agreement. While the talks
were derailed due to disagreement over how far
Tokyo should go to reduce and remove import
tariffs on agricultural products, Japan's
declaration of Takeshima Day escalated the matter
further. "We are considering starting the [free
trade] talks when the political situation calms
down," Roh said.
The increasing strength
of the Japanese military has also prompted concern
in East Asia. Due to its expansionist and militant
actions before and during World War II, Japan was
barred from rebuilding its military in any
significant manner. For instance, Article 9 of the
Japanese constitution states that "land, sea, and
air forces, as well as other war potential, will
never be maintained. .However, as the memory of
World War II fades further into history, both
Japan and its strongest ally, the United States,
have come to agree that Article 9 may be
impractical and that Japan should become a
"normal" country again.
Indeed, Japan's
International Peace Cooperation Law, enacted in
1992, permits it to send troops to participate in
UN peacekeeping operations. The US intervention in
Iraq, for example, is utilizing Japan's
Self-Defense Forces. As stated by Lo Fu-chen, who
was Taiwan's envoy to Japan from 2000 to 2004,
"When I was the representative to Japan, the
administration of President George W Bush sent an
official to Japan discussing the amendment of
Article 9. The war ended 60 years ago and the US
wanted Japan to become a normal country."
It appears that Tokyo is slowly working
toward this objective by strengthening and
increasing the status of the Japanese military. On
March 21, Koizumi told a crowd of graduates at the
National Defense Academy, "With the great
challenges posed by new threats such as terrorism
and ballistic missiles, we must improve our
defense capabilities to respond efficiently to
situations." Tokyo has increased its military
budgets, has assisted in peacekeeping operations
in locations as distant as Iraq, has agreed to
join Washington's missile-defense program, and has
publicly recognized that it will work to combat
threats to its power.
For instance, in
December 2004 Tokyo released a 10-year defense
program that openly labels China as a potential
threat to Japanese interests. Tokyo has spoken out
against the European Union resuming the arms trade
with China, has joined the United States in
calling the Taiwan Strait a "common strategic
concern", has agreed to a missile-defense program
that could possibly be used one day to weaken
China's military might, and has warned that Japan
will use its Coast Guard to take control of the
contested Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands (the islands were
formally claimed by Japan in 1895, but are
contested by China, Taiwan and Japan).
Deteriorating relations with South
Korea
Thus far, Japan's nationalism has had
the most tangible effect on South Korea. Japan's
deteriorating relations with South Korea are an
unsettling development for Tokyo. Japan's island
status, its wartime history and its firm relations
with the United States have kept it isolated from
its Asian neighbors. Since the fall of the
Japanese empire at the conclusion of World War II,
the United States has utilized Japan as its
bridgehead to East Asia. Washington garrisons its
military forces in Japan, and has involved itself
in Asian conflicts and affairs in order to keep
Japan from falling out of the US sphere of
influence and into a Chinese one. The loss of
Japan for the United States would count as a major
setback for US influence in Asia and for US
interests as a whole.
Because of these
factors, Japan has found itself politically
isolated in East Asia. Its relations with the
United States and Australia presently secure its
influential position; however, Japan now faces the
growth of China, which is rapidly modernizing its
economy and military. China's population of 1.3
billion people dwarfs Japan's 128 million. China
had a trade volume in 2004 of $1.2 trillion, third
in the world behind the United States and Germany.
The US Central Intelligence Agency predicted that,
according to Beijing's current progression,
China's gross domestic production (GDP) will equal
Great Britain's in 2005, Germany's in 2009,
Japan's in 2017, and the United States' in 2042.
China's size as a country means that if
Beijing is able to continue its stable growth as a
power, it should supplant Japan's influence in
East Asia and force Japan to recognize a
debilitating shift in the balance of power. For
the United States, it will mean Japan will be
forced to accommodate with China, thus diminishing
Washington's influence in East Asia and marking a
failure for US President George W Bush's current
National Security Strategy that argues that in
order to contain China, the US "must build and
maintain our defenses beyond challenge".
Plus, there is no guarantee that the
United States will remain completely committed to
Japan's defense. The difficulty that US forces
have encountered in eliminating the insurgency in
Iraq has made it clear that interventions are
costly and need to be avoided when possible.
Former US assistant secretary of defense under the
Ronald Reagan administration, Lawrence Korb, for
example, recently cautioned, "You've got about
another year. If you don't cut back in Iraq, your
all-volunteer army and marine corps are going to
be in trouble." While it is still assumed that the
United States will come to Japan's aid in case of
a conflict, there is no guarantee this will be the
case a decade or two in the future. This explains
why Japan has been increasing the strength of its
military and reviving nationalist sentiment
necessary to move toward this end.
These
power realities mean Japan must make every effort
to establish good relations with other influential
Asian states; in conjunction with these states,
Tokyo will be able to increase its regional power
and potentially be able to limit China's growing
regional influence. South Korea is one of these
influential states, and it also shares good
relations with the US, whose troops it has housed
since the 1950-1953 Korean War. The difficulty for
Japan is that its growing nationalism - necessary
for the boosting of its military potential -
infuriates South Koreans, who remember Japan's
wartime atrocities on the Korean Peninsula during
World War II.
Tokyo must be wary of
enflaming the region. Already, South Korean
politicians are creating an alliance that aims to
combat increased Japanese influence in the region
and the globe. The alliance, currently dubbed the
Lawmakers' Conference for Peace in Asia, plans to
prevent Japan from acquiring a permanent seat in
the United Nations Security Council; it will work
to do this by building alliances with
organizations in other Asian states that also are
concerned with Japan's growing power. The group
has apparently made inroads with Beijing. The
first meeting of the alliance is scheduled for
August. In the words of Representative Kang
Chang-il of the governing Uri Party, who is part
of the conference, "We are concerned that a recent
series of provocative acts from Japan might be a
prelude to the revival of militarism."
If
Japan degrades its relationship with South Korea,
it risks Seoul improving its relations with
Beijing at the expense of Tokyo and Washington.
Seoul is facing a population growing more distant
from the United States and is seeking to pursue a
more independent foreign policy in Asia. Seoul and
Beijing are improving their relations. Since Seoul
still relies on US military support, it would be
an avoidable setback for Japan to alienate South
Korea enough for it to move further away from the
Japan-US orbit and more toward the Chinese one.
Further, the region as a whole has not
reacted well to Japan's increase in military
power. While Japanese Defense Agency Director
Yoshinori Ono argued that the Japanese
Self-Defense Forces' "activities inside and
outside Japan are welcomed by the public and are
giving a positive impression" and that "the 'soft
power' arouses empathy from the local people of
the various countries", many of Japan's neighbors
do not agree.
For instance, on March 22
Prime Minister Koizumi stated that the Asian
countries situated on the sea lane that passes
through the Malacca Strait should create an
anti-piracy cooperative framework to increase
stability in the strait. The Strait of Malacca is
a key sea lane for the transport of goods as it
links the Indian and Pacific oceans. Twenty-five
percent of world's trade passes through the
strait, and, more critically for Tokyo, some 80%
of Japan's oil is brought through the waterway.
The International Maritime Bureau ranks the strait
as the second-hardest hit piracy hotspot on the
globe. Koizumi argued that as part of this
framework, Japan would send its Coast Guard along
with aircraft to patrol the strait in order to
combat piracy. Koizumi's proposal was rejected by
both Indonesia and Malaysia, the two states that
are situated along the strait. This rejection
highlights how little interest there is in Japan
increasing its regional military role.
Conclusion
China has reacted
quickly to capitalize on South Korea's current
dissatisfaction with Japan. Beijing aims to limit
US influence in East Asia, and that requires
pulling Asia's pivotal states into the Chinese
orbit of Beijing, which has publicly labeled its
present strategy the "peaceful rise" policy and is
assuring that it is not interested in regional
expansion and wants simply to increase its trade
and economic clout with Asia - its conflict with
Taiwan notwithstanding.
Beijing's massive
economic growth has worked to foster positive
relations with many Asian states, and it is this
with which both Japan and the United States need
to be most concerned. If states such as South
Korea gravitate increasingly toward China, it will
result in a major shift in power in Asia. This is
why it is important for Japan, which under its
current policies, stands to lose by such a power
shift, to minimize avoidable conflicts with the
states it is trying to woo in East Asia, most
notably South Korea.
Furthermore, there is
no guarantee that the United States will always
stand close by Japan's side. As China grows in
military strength, Washington may come to accept
its increased role in the region. Under its
current policies, this would not bode well for
Japan as it would stand to lose power in the
region and have a weakened capability to achieve
its interests. Therefore, while this potential
development induces Japan to increase the strength
of its military, it must do so with the acceptance
of East Asia's influential states; failure to earn
their acceptance may leave Japan increasingly
isolated in East Asia with few foreign-policy
options at its disposal.
The Power
and Interest News Report (PINR) is an
independent organization that utilizes open-source
intelligence to provide conflict analysis services
in the context of international relations. PINR
approaches a subject based upon the powers and
interests involved, leaving the moral judgments to
the reader. This report was published with
permission of the PINR. All comments
should be directed to content@pinr.com. |
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