Japan’s position in Asia is evolving in the development of geopolitical and geo-economic conditions in the region. For a long time, Japan as the world’s second-largest economy assumed a crucial regional position by providing capital, technologies, and foreign aid that contributed to sustaining the economic growth and industrial upgrading of the countries in Asia. Japan’s relative regional position declined due to its long-term low economic growth and the advent of other countries, particularly China. Yet, Japan remains a crucial country in Asia as it can assist the economic and infrastructure development of other countries and provide political support for the development of multilateral institutions that offer regional public goods. Japan’s security stance also matters as it assumes a crucial middle-power position in intensive great power politics between the U.S. and China, and Japan-related maritime territorial disputes have a significant influence on the evolution of regional security environments.
Japan’s unstable conditions in domestic politics ended in late 2012 with the formation of the second Abe Shinzō administration. The administration is of great importance for Japanese diplomacy because it has created a solid domestic political base by lasting for more than seven years and because this longevity has been sustained partially by the people’s satisfaction with outcomes that the administration has produced in foreign and security policy. The administration, which raises ‘proactive contribution to peace’ as the fundamental diplomatic slogan, has undertaken constructive diplomacy by combining material resources and ideational means in various policy areas that cover the economy and security.
This chapter presents the overall background of the Abe administration’s Asian diplomacy. The following section briefly explains the implications of the Abe administration’s diplomacy towards Asia, followed by a section to overview the development of Japan’s Asian diplomacy. It then reviews past literature on the Abe administration’s Asian diplomacy and elucidates the limitations of past literature. This chapter also offers a brief argument and plan of the book.
The Abe Administration and Its Diplomacy Towards Asia
In the new millennium, the presence of Asia in the global economy and world politics has risen significantly. The region as a group has achieved impressive economic growth, being a major source of manufacturing products and dynamic services. Such economic prowess has transformed into political representation, which is typically seen in the large membership of Asian nations in the Group of Twenty (G20) forum. Despite prominent performance in the economy, Asia remains a region of security concern with various inter-state conflicts. While North Korea has jeopardised the stability of Northeast Asia with the continuous development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, Japan has territorial disputes with China, South Korea, and Russia. The border disputes between India on the one hand and Pakistan and China on the other have provoked sporadic skirmishes.
Political uncertainty in Asia is seen in terms of great power politics. The relative presence of the U.S. has gradually declined in Asia. U.S. President Obama’s announcement that America was no longer the world’s policeman led to security instability in Asia. The subsequent Trump administration adopted the ‘America-first’ approach, pursuing protectionist trade policy and anti-multilateralism. Not only did such inward-looking diplomacy deteriorate the liberal intentional economic regime but also undermined stable political relations with major U.S. partners in Asia. In contrast, China has steadily raised its political, economic, and military presence in Asia through proactive diplomacy, continuous economic growth, and strength in military capabilities. While China’s diplomatic assertiveness and military offensive became salient in maritime affairs, which have raised tensions particularly in the South China Sea, its regional presence rose in the economic domain through the launching of new regional initiatives such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The rise of China in the geopolitical and geo-economic domains has a crucial impact on power politics with the U.S. and the foreign and security policies of other states including Japan.
Japan’s position in such a dynamic Asia exhibited significant evolutions. Its economic power, the main source of external influence, shrank gradually due to the long-term stagnation from the 1990s. Japan’s ratio in the world gross domestic product (GDP) halved in fifteen years from 17.6 percent in 1995 to 8.6 percent in 2010. The domestic political turmoils after the 1990s produced an unfavourable influence on its foreign and security policy as short-lived administrations particularly after the Koizumi administration in 2001–2006 disturbed Japan from formulating diplomatic strategies from the cohesive and long-term perspective.
The second Abe administration, which was formed in December 2012, drastically changed Japan’s diplomatic profile. The administration has secured a long-term reign—more than seven years—thanks to successive victories in national elections. This political stability is particularly salient because the previous six cabinets including his own first cabinet lasted for less than 16 months each, leaving little or no significant legacy in Japanese diplomacy. The solid domestic political base and a long-term reign have provided the Abe administration with considerable leeway to undertake Asian diplomacy from the long-term perspective. Diplomatic performance has become the source of domestic support for the Abe administration as successful results in external policy, coupled with positive outcomes from Abenomics—the administration’s economic policy package—underpinned the nation’s satisfaction with the administration.
The Abe administration has undertaken prudent diplomacy in evolving geopolitical environments in Asia. The administration has maintained a close partnership with the U.S., Japan’s sole ally. While most of the political leaders have been struggling to forge stable relations with U.S. President Donald Trump, Abe developed trustworthy relations with him by becoming the first foreign leader to meet him after his election victory in November 2016 (Terada 2019: 1055). Japan under Abe has developed close partnerships with other countries such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members, Australia, and India. While Abe visited all ten ASEAN countries within the first year of the second administration, he has been one of the key leaders engaging proactively in the development of the quadrilateral forum among the U.S., Japan, Australia and India. Diplomatic tensions with China rose in two years after the start of the Abe administration partly due to a visit to the Yasukuni Shrine in December 2013. However, Japan–China relations gained stability after 2017 particularly through summit diplomacy between Abe and Chinese top leaders. The Abe administration’s diplomacy has been unique in the advocacy of diplomatic ideas. The administration raises, as the fundamental foreign policy tenet, ‘proactive contribution to peace’, which was positioned as the key idea behind the National Security Strategy (NSS), based on the principles of international cooperation (Kitaoka 2014). The Development Cooperation Charter also proclaimed the positive use of foreign aid for peacebuilding operations even opening a chance to give support to foreign armed forces that undertake non-military activities. Furthermore, Abe has made a deep impression by presenting crucial diplomatic slogans such as the Democratic Security Diamond and the Free and Open Indo-Pacific.
In general, the Abe administration has forged stable diplomatic relations with major countries in Asia except for South Korea with which the administration has serious diplomatic tensions over historical issues such as the comfort women problem. The Abe administration’s foreign and security policy towards Asia doubtlessly has particular uniqueness in Japan’s diplomatic history in the post-World War II period. The administration’s active engagements in political, economic, and security affairs in intensive interactions with the U.S., China, India, Australia, ASEAN, and so on have a significant influence on the international relations of Asia.
The Brief Overview of Japan’s Asian Diplomacy
During the Cold War era, Japan was tightly embedded in the Russo-U.S. confrontation. Japan as a key U.S. partner in East Asia functioned as a bulwark against the communist threat. Under the Japan–U.S. Security Treaty, which was signed in 1951 and was revised in 1960, Tokyo has provided bases in Okinawa and other parts for Washington to use for the projection of its military power. Under the American nuclear umbrella, Japan pursued economic growth, following the ‘Yoshida Doctrine’.1 After a high economic boom in the 1950s through the 1970s, Japanese enterprises gradually penetrated the East Asian market. The relocation of production bases to East Asia was accelerated by the Plaza Accord in September 1985, which led to the high appreciation of the yen. The formation of plural manufacturing bases in East Asian countries constituted the foundation of regional production networks and growing intra-regional trade. Japan also propped up the industrialisation of East Asian countries through the provision of foreign aid, which was used for the development of infrastructure. Japan’s foreign aid policy had distinctive features compared with other western nations by emphasising the ‘self-help’ principle and giving priority on loan rather than grant.
Compared with Europe, Asia was underdeveloped in the advance of multilateral institutions for regional cooperation. The European nations have developed various regional institutions on the basis of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1952. Asia did not have inter-governmental institutions for a long time except for ASEAN. Japan took the initiative in founding the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) whose first ministerial meeting was held in Canberra in 1989. The APEC has developed into the key regional institution that discusses economic affairs in the Asia-Pacific by organising the summit meeting and other committees. Then, ASEAN-centred institutions were created successively such as the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in 1994, the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) in 1996, and the ASEAN Plus Three (ASEAN+3) in 1997. Japan positively supported ASEAN’s multilateral initiative. While Japanese Foreign Minister Nakayama’s proposal in 1991 to develop the ASEAN Post-Ministerial Conference (PMC) into a forum for political dialogue designed to improve the sense of mutual security constituted one base for the creation of the ARF (Hook et al. 2011: 242–43), Prime Minister Hashimoto Ryūtarō’s proposal in January 1997 to hold a regular top-level meeting between Japan and ASEAN led to the creation of the ASEAN+3. When the Asian economies were hit by the Asian financial crisis in 1997–1998, Japan showed leadership in overcoming this sudden setback. Not only did it hold an international conference to discuss rescue packages for Thailand in August 1997, but it also provided huge funds under the New Miyazawa Initiative, support packages of US$30 billion for the crisis-hit countries. While Japan’s initiative to create the Asian Monetary Fund was not realised, an alternative network of swap agreements developed into the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralisation (CMIM), a representative full-fledged form of regionalism under the ASEAN+3.
The U.S.–Japan alliance was ‘political’ first and strategic second. Because of its overall importance in Japan’s external policies and internal politics, the end of the Cold War did not lead to the termination of the Japan–U.S. Security Treaty whose prime objective was to defend Japan from the communist threat. Tokyo and Washington sought to redefine their security partnership. The new National Defence Program Outline, formulated in November 1995, reaffirmed the centrality of the Japan–U.S. Security Treaty to Japan’s security policy. The Japanese and American leaders confirmed, in the 1996 Japan–U.S. Joint Declaration on Security, that the Japan–U.S. relationship would remain the cornerstone for achieving common security objectives and for maintaining a stable and prosperous environment for the Asia-Pacific region. Under this new orientation, the geographic scope of the Japan–U.S. security alliance expanded from the previous ‘Far East’ to ‘Asia-Pacific’ (Hook et al. 2011: 140). The revised Guidelines for Japan–U.S. Defence Cooperation fr...