Japan Understudies Its World Role : Will Military Power Follow Diplomatic, Economic Maturity?

How can Japan become once again a political force in the world when the heavy legacy of its past and its immediate political and economic comfort do not encourage it to take on such new responsibilities? Japan and the United States are facing opposite dilemmas. America is pondering its (relative) decline in the world and reflecting on the fact that its commitments have exceeded its means. The Japanese, thanks to their global economic power, have more means than commitments. Can a new balance be struck between Japan and America? Will the Japanese exercise new responsibilities to satisfy American pressures for burden-sharing in Asia and elsewhere in the world, or will they do so only grudgingly just to prevent further “bashing” by America, the guarantor of their own security?

In the inevitable redefinition of their diplomacy the Japanese are confronted with a crucial identity problem. They see themselves as part of the West; the West sees them as Asian; other Asians see them narrowly, and unfavorably, as Japanese.

Influenced by their close association with the United States after World War II, and proud of their democratic principles and economic triumphs, the Japanese consider themselves the Westerners of Asia. Though conscious of their Japanese uniqueness, to which they attribute their success, they are proud of participating in the group of the seven leading industrial countries as a symbol of their newly gained international clout. But if the West has welcomed the Japanese to its club (imposing as an obligation Japan’s greater participation in development aid and economic support of fragile democracies in Asia), the Japanese are not considered by the West as an integral part of it. This distancing is reinforced by the fear of Japan’s economic dynamism, often perceived as ruthlessly unfair.

Seen from Washington, Bonn, London or Paris, the natural political and security role of Japan is in Asia. But that continent still emotionally rejects the Japanese. The European who travels to Asia is surprised to see Asians--Koreans and Chinese in particular--still speaking of the Japanese past, just as Europeans spoke with emotion about the Germans in the early 1950s--i.e., emphasizing the massacres of the war. Add to this resentment about the present--the Japanese are not sharing their technological achievements, or treating the other Asians as equals--and fear for the future: What will happen to the balance of power in Asia and the world if Japan transforms its economic power into political and military influence?

The Japanese themselves tend to reinforce these negative feelings by proudly assuming the image of singularity that other Asians have bestowed on them; they are Japanese and not to be confused with other Asians. Postwar Japan, unlike Germany, had no equivalent of the European Economic Community in which to attempt to sublimate its identity, or a partition to remind it of its guilty past, which was in many ways dramatically absolved by Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Given all this, how can the Japanese express in political terms the realities of their new weight in the world? The Japanese Establishment seems to divide itself between two schools of thought: The “classical” school wants Japan to maintain a purely economic role abroad and the comforts of the present at home; the “realist” school, aware of the historical impossibility of an economic giant posing as a political midget, is attempting a difficult balancing act between diplomacy and economics, and between the requirements of the present and the fear of reawakening the past. It seeks to minimize the traditional aspect of power politics while maximizing its modern component, the power of economics. This school feels comforted in its approach by the evolution of the international system and the resumption of an East-West dialogue, which reinforces its hope that history may become less confrontational and thereby play in Japan’s direction. Japan, a late starter, would actually become a precursor.

Japanese diplomacy is clearly in a period of transition. It is now caught between the confrontational practices of Japanese businessmen and the Wilsonian consensus preached by their diplomats, who emphasize everywhere the role of international organizations. Some balance must be reached between the two stances. The world economic order should be more regulated, but world politics is bound to remain more tragic than Japanese diplomacy would like to imagine it.

For lack of serious alternatives, the Middle East has become a testing ground of Japan’s new approach to the world. Because the Middle East is important for their energy security, because it is far from home and can be the place where the Japanese enjoy some kind of “historical virginity,” they are trying to define in the Gulf War a diplomacy that is both original--more tilted toward Iran--and in conformity with global objectives; the Japanese are using Iran, a key geopolitical actor, to keep doors open for the West.

As the Japanese make their way through the complexities of foreign relations, the Western powers will have to play a decisive role. First they must realize that, in one way or another, Japan is bound to become once more a political animal. It is the responsibility of the West to help Japan along that path, since nothing will be worse for the equilibrium of the world than a powerful Japan that feels isolated and rejected. The Europeans--the other West for the Japanese--will have a key role, given the tensions between the United States and Japan. The Europeans should start to act accordingly by including Japan in as many Western political forums as possible, thereby recognizing and treating Japan as a political power, not merely an economic actor.