Hegemonic cooperation and conflict : postwar Japan's China policy and the United States 0275963144

Citation preview

HEGEMONIC COOPERATION AND CONFLICT Postwar Japan’s China Policy and the United States

Qingxin Ken Wang

Westport, Connecticut London

Written under the auspices o f the Center o f International Studies, Princeton University

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wang, Qingxin K., L964— Hegemonic cooperation and conflict ; postwar Japan’s China policy and the United States / Qingxin Ken Wang, p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-275-96314-4 (alk. paper) 1. Japan—Foreign relations—China. 2. China—Foreign relations— Japan. 3. Japan—Foreign relations— 1945-1989. 4. China—Foreign relations—20th century. 5. Japan—Foreign relations—United States. 6. United States—Foreign relations—Japan. 7. United States—Foreign relations— 1945-1989. I. Title. DS849.C6W358 2000 327.52051—dc21 98-044534 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 2000 by Qingxin Ken Wang All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 98-044534 ISBN: 0-275-96314-4 First published in 2000 Praeger Publishers, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www. praeger. com Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48-1984). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For My Parents

Contents Preface

ix

I. Introduction 1. International Relations Theories and Hegemony 2. Japan’s Integration into American Hegemony:An Overview

3 27

II. Three Sources of American Power 3. The Erosion of American Preponderant Material Power

51

4. American Structural Dominance and Japanese Dependence

57

5. Normative Sources of American Hegemony in Japan

77

III. Evidence of Japan’s Hegemonic Cooperation with the United States 6. The Yoshida Letter and the Origins of Postwar Japan’s China Policy

111

7. The Politics of Japan’s Diplomatic Normalization with China

135

8. The Road to the Peace Treaty with China

179

9. The Resumption of Japan’s Third Yen Loan to China

221

10. Conclusion

257

Appendix

273

Selected Bibliography

275

Index

285

Preface Historian Paul Kennedy’s best seller, The Rise and Fall o f the Great Powers, has provoked an intense debate on whether or not American hegemony has declined, which is yet to be resolved. The debate has continued into the 1990s in somewhat different forms. It now centers on the shape of the post-Cold War order and the world role o f the United States in the new world order. The questions now have become like these: whether the end of the Cold War has ushered in a unipolar world centered around the sole hegemon, the United States, or a multipolar world reminiscent of classical great power rivalries? whether the end of the Cold War has marked the “end of the history” and the triumph of liberalism championed by the United States, or the beginning of “clash of civilizations”?1 The uncertainties about the current status of American hegemony have reflected the divergent conceptualizations of power and hegemony and their constituent bases. Whether or not the United States has remained a hegemon depends very much on what constitute the bases of American hegemonic power and how the United States translate these power bases into actual influence and control. With­ out resolving these conceptual questions, the debates about the status of American hegemony will not be easily resolved. Until recently, the study of international power and hegemony has largely been informed by political realism and its recent variant, neorealism. Increasingly, neorealism has come under serious challenges by two rival theories of interna­ tional relations, neoliberalism and constructivism. These three theories offer three different answers to the conceptual questions concerning international power and hegemony. Each theory stresses the importance of one dimension of international power. Whereas neorealism stresses the material dimension of power, neoliberalism emphasizes the structural dimension of power and constructivism focuses on the normative or ideational dimension of power. The advent of neoliberalism and constructivism has shattered the long-standing consensus about the nature and basis of international power and hegemony informed by neorealism. Thus, em­ pirical testing has become crucial not only for resolving the theoretical debates among the proponents of the three different theories, but also for resolving the policy debates.

X

Preface

This study is an attempt to provide a preliminary test of the three theories against postwar Japan’s relations with the United States over China policy. Postwar Japan’s China policy offers a good case study for the empirical test of these three theories because the case raises some important questions concerning the studies of hege­ mony in general and American power in particular. After its disastrous defeat in 1945, Japan was militarily occupied by the allied powers and subject to a series of social and political reforms initiated by the occupation authority. These reforms led to the revolutionary transformation of not only Japanese society and the politi­ cal system, but also Japanese international outlook. In the 1951 San Francisco peace settlement, which ended the military occupation, Japan was formally incor­ porated into the Western anti-communist alliance led by the United States. The San Francisco peace settlement marked the beginning of Japan’s enduring security cooperation with the United States. The decades of the 1970s and the 1980s wit­ nessed dramatic changes in international relations evident in the emerging USSoviet nuclear parity, the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, the rapid eco­ nomic ascendancy of Japan, and finally the end of the Cold War. Some of these changes prompted Herman Kahn to predict in 1972 that “the 1970s and 1980s will see a transition in the role of Japan in world affairs not unlike the change brought about in European and world affairs in the 1870s by the rise of Prussia.”2 Simi­ larly, former US ambassador to Japan Edwin O. Reischauer observed in 1975 that “Japan has grown economically too large and the American economic and strate­ gic stance has become too uncertain to permit Japan safe refuge in the lee of Ameri­ can policy.” By the early 1990s, there was suggestion of America’s “coming war with Japan.”3 Nonetheless, despite the dramatic changes in the 1970s and the 1980s Japan has remained firmly integrated in American hegemony and refrained from the temptation of pursuing a neutralist policy. Japan’s hegemonic cooperation with the United States has continued well beyond the end of the Cold War. This is exemplified by Japan’s contribution of more than thirteen billion dollars to the anti-Iraqi coalition forces led by the United States in 1991 and the 1996 ClintonHashimoto declaration which further expanded the scope of US-Japanese security cooperation. Postwar Japan’s China policy has epitomized its prolonged hegemonic cooperation with the United States, which contrasted sharply with the intense power rivalry in China between the two Pacific powers in the prewar period. Shortly after the San Francisco peace settlement, Tokyo concluded a peace settlement with the exiled government of the Republic of China in Taiwan and adopted a non-recognition policy toward the newly established People’s Republic of China. Thus there began the long-lasting cooperation between the United States and Japan over the China issue. Until 1972, Tokyo had remained diplomatically estranged from China. The diplomatic normalization in 1972 was not a result of bold initiative on the Japanese part, but a reaction to the Sino-US rapprochement initiated by the Nixon administration. After the normalization, Tokyo continued to maintain its close cooperation with the United States. It would take another six years before Japan signed a long-delayed peace treaty with China. The peace treaty was concluded against the backdrop o f a policy shift in the Carter

Preface

xi

administration to expedite the Sino-American diplomatic normalization in the summer of 1978. In the wake of the Tiananmen incident in July 1989, Tokyo once again followed the American lead in the imposition of economic sanctions against China by suspending its foreign aid to China. The Japanese resumption o f foreign aid to China in July 1990 did not take place until the Bush administration signaled its willingness to improve Sino-American relations. The consistency of Japanese deference to the United States over the China question over the last four decades cannot be more striking. It gives rise to the following questions which are of central importance to the studies of international power and hegemony in general: Why has Japan continued to defer to the United States in its China policy? What is the role of American power in contributing to the Japanese cooperation? What are the sources of American power, if any? And how has the United States exercised power to maintain Japan’s cooperation with the United States? These questions form the focus of this study. Over the course of writing this book, I have owed a large debt of gratitude to a number of mentors and colleagues and friends who have provided indispensable guidance, advice, encouragement, and comments at different places and at differ­ ent stages of the project. At its early stage, Claude E. Welch and Jerome Slater patiently guided the project from its inception in Buffalo and encouraged me to ask big questions about world politics. They read early versions of the entire manu­ script meticulously, and provided critical advice and intellectual inspiration, for which I am truly grateful. Without their erudition and generosity, this project would not have been possible. Special thanks also go to Roger Des Forges, Paul Diesing, Christopher Holomon, Gary Hoskin, and Frank Zagare who have been indispens­ able sources of intellectual support and guidance. Seymen Atasoy, Guoli Liu, James McAlister, Blake Strack, and T. Y. Wang have also offered their generous collegial support and assistance. At its later stage, the project has benefited tremendously from a generous offer of a postdoctoral fellowship from the Research Program of International Security, Center of International Studies, Princeton University. Spe­ cial thanks go to Aaron Friedberg, director of the research program, who provided critical advice, intellectual support, and valuable comments on some portions of the manuscript, which are indispensable for the completion of the project. Special thanks also go to Kent Calder, Gerald L. Curtis, Michael Doyle, Robert Gilpin, Peter J. Katzenstein, Gilbert Rozman, and Richard Ullman who have also been very generous in offering their valuable guidance and encouragement, as well as comments on various draft chapters of the manuscript. Moreover, a note of thanks also goes to a large number of scholars and friends who provided valuable support and assistance during my field trips to Japan. Among them, Chen Zhaobin, Hagiwara Seiji, Inoguchi Takashi, Kojima Takao, Morino Tomozo, Sasaki Takeshi, Sato Hiroaki, Soeya Yoshihide, Tanaka Akihiko, Tomita Kensuke, Washio Tomoharu, and Zhao Quansheng deserve special mention. The Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Hong Kong, and the Department of Political Science at the National University of Singapore provided important logistical support during the final stage of this project, for which I am also very thankful.

xii

Preface

A number of libraries in different places and countries have offered important support for my research during the course of this project for which I am very thankful. They include the Lockwood Memorial Library at the State University of New York at Buffalo, the Firestone Library at Princeton, the Starr East Asian Li­ brary of Columbia University, the Central Libraries of Waseda University and To­ kyo University, Japan, the Bird Library of Syracuse University, the Watson East Asian Library of Cornell University, the US Library of Congress, the National Archives of the United States, the New York City Public Library, and the Central Library of the National University of Singapore. Furthermore, members of my family have been constant sources of moral sup­ port for this book, which made this undertaking a more enjoyable experience. Especially I would like to thank my wife Weiling and my son Alexander who have given their unreserved understanding and support for this seemingly endless project which exacted a large amount of time and attention from them over the years. For many years, my parents, Wang Lianyan and Xu Qiuxia, have been stressing to me the importance of knowing the world outside China. They gave me the curiosity and courage to begin my journey o f intellectual life on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. This book is dedicated to them. Finally, a note on conventions is necessary. Japanese personal names throughout the book are presented in original Japanese form—that is, the surname is followed by the given name, in reversal of conventional Western practice. Exceptions are made when Japanese authors publish in English and give their surname last. Chi­ nese personal names are also presented in the same manner. Chinese personal names are spelled out in the pin-yin form, the new system of romanizing Chinese charac­ ters, which has been widely used in newspapers and most scholarly publications.

NOTES 1. For example, see Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall o f the Great Powers (New York: Vintage Books, 1986), Francis Fukuyama, “The End of History?” The National Interest, no. 16 (Summer 1989); Joseph Nye, Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature o f American Power (New York: Basic Books, 1990); Charles Krauthammer, “The Unipolar Moment,” Foreign Affairs (Winter 1990/1991); Robert W. Tucker and David C. Hendrickson, The Imperial Temptation: The New World Order and America's Purpose (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1992); and Samuel P. Huntington, “Clash of Civilization?” Foreign Af­ fairs (Summer 1993). 2. See Herman Kahn and B. Bruce-Briggs, Things to Come (New York: Macmillan, 1972), p. ix. 3. Edwin Reischauer, “Foreword,” in Robert Scalapino, ed., The Japanese Foreign Policy o f Modern Japan (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1975), p. xvii. Also see George Friedman and Meredith Lebard, The Coming War with Japan (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991).

I Introduction

1 International Relations Theories and Hegemony How is hegemony created and maintained? What are the constitutive bases of hegemony—material, structural, ideational, or a combination of these? How does domestic structure influence the hegemonic structure and vice versa? These ques­ tions have formed one of the major focuses in the recent studies of international relations. Three major theories of international relations have provided different answers to these questions. Neorealism and its variant, the theory of hegemonic stability, provide a first cut. The theory of hegemonic stability postulates that the creation and the mainte­ nance of the international order depends on the existence of a hegemon, which possesses the preponderance of material power in the international system. Hege­ monic cooperation takes place because the hegemon enforces international coop­ eration through the overt use or the threat of military force. Subordinate states comply with the hegemon as they calculate that the failure to cooperate will incur severe punishment by the hegemon. The erosion of the hegemon’s material strength presages the decline of the international order as it makes it more difficult for the hegemon to enforce hegemonic cooperation. Neoliberalism provides a second cut. Like neorealists, neoliberals believe that states are self-seeking and their interests are exogenously given. They acknowl­ edge that the realist conception of power may capture the essence of international relations in the traditional world whereby states live in constant fear of war and the use of force brings about benefits. But they contend that in the modem world which is characterized by complex interdependence and the costliness of the use of force, states’ influence and power are derived from asymmetric interdepen­ dence or dependence, rather than material resources. In other words, asymmetric interdependence or dependence in the modem world is the main power resource states employ to exert influence. In the extreme case, the asymmetric interdepen­ dence is so lopsided that it gives rise to the concentration of control, or hegemony. In this case, hegemony is founded on structural conditions, such as subordinate states’ dependence on the dominant state, rather than material conditions. Hege­ mony is established when a dominant state creates a structural situation whereby it can produce and provide exclusive goods to secondary states which cannot be

4

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

obtained elsewhere. Such hegemony is often institutionalized through the creation of international regimes. The secondary states’ dependence on the dominant state for exclusive goods becomes the power resource which the dominant state can employ to exert influence over the secondary states and maintain hegemony. Constructivism provides a third cut. Constructivists contend with the neorealist and neoliberal assumption that states’ interests are predetermined by material con­ ditions. They argue that states’ interests are defined in a normative context and hence are conditioned by intersubjective factors such as ideology, beliefs, values, identities, and learning. Power and interests do not exist independent of social and political values of policy makers or how policy makers relate their own states to other states. International cooperation occurs when there is a convergence of ideas and values among different states. In other words, intersubjective factors are independent sources of power to be employed by states to exert influence over other states. While constructivists acknowledge the importance of material conditions as the basis of hegemony, they argue that material power alone is not a sufficient condition for hegemony. Hegemony is the rule both by material power and con­ sent. Hegemonic ideas and values are particularly important in forging the con­ sensual basis for hegemony in two respects. The acceptance of hegemonic ideas and norms by secondary states legitimates the dominant state’s rights to impose its will on secondary states and transform power into authority. Furthermore, over time, hegemonic ideas and values are internalized by elites as well as societal actors in subordinate states and become the basis on which new national interests are defined. Thus, these ideas and values in turn motivate the action of secondary states even if the original material conditions which give rise to hegemony are removed. In other words, hegemony can be maintained automatically even if the original material conditions that give rise to hegemony in the first place are no longer present. In short, both neorealism and neoliberalism share the assumption that man and the state are rational and their interests are exogenously given, but they each focus on a different aspect of power. Neorealism stresses the material condition as the only determinant of power, while ignoring structural and normative sources of power. Neoliberalism focuses on the structural source of power while paying less attention to the material and normative power. Constructivism distinguishes itself from neorealism and neoliberalism by assuming that man and states are not neces­ sarily rational and that their interests are not exogenously given but malleable. Thus, it treats intersubjective factors as the most important determinants of power while slighting the importance of material and structural determinants of power.

THREE DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO HEGEMONY Neorealism The contemporary study o f international politics has been dominated by the realist school of thought for many decades. Realism sees power and anarchy as

International Relations Theories and Hegemony

5

two essential features of international politics. Realists argue that states inher­ ently strive for power and independence, rather than interdependence and coop­ eration.' As noted succinctly by Hans Morgenthau, the founding father of realism, international politics “is a struggle for power. Whatever the ultimate aims of in­ ternational politics, power is always the immediate aim. Statesmen and peoples may ultimately seek freedom, security, prosperity, or power itself. But whenever they strive to realize their goal by means of international politics, they do so by striving for power.”2 Power is defined as “the ability to influence the behavior of others in accordance with one’s own ends.” Thus, power is relational and exists only in relationships between men, groups, or states.3 Because of the difficulty of operationalizing this behavioral definition of power, realists tend to equate power with states’ control over material resources.4An important corollary of equating the behavioral concept of power with material resources is that different types of power capabilities are fungible. Using power as a common denominator, different kinds of power capabilities in different contexts and situations become interchangeable. Wealth can be converted into military power and military power can bring about wealth.5 The basic tenets of classical realism have been refined and reformulated into a systemic logic by structural realists, otherwise known as neorealists. Kenneth Waltz, the main exponent o f structural realism, postulates that the structure o f the international system imposes strong constraints on the behavior of states. In the international system whereby the organizing principle is anarchic and states within the system perform the like function of providing security, the distribution of capabilities alone determines the structure of the international system. Thus, in this self-help system, balance of power becomes the inexorable logical structure of the international system. Like classical realists, Waltz defines power as aggregate power resources such as population, territory, economic strength, and military capabilities.6 Neorealists believe that states loathe cooperation and interdependence for two reasons. First, cooperation and interdependence may create excessive dependence on their foreign partners and reduce states’ autonomy. As Kenneth Waltz writes, “high interdependence of states means that the states in question experience, or are subject to, the common vulnerability that high interdependence entails.”7 More­ over, states see world politics as a zero-sum game. They worry that gains from cooperation and interdependence may favor other states more than themselves. Relative gains are more important for states in a self-help world than absolute gains.8 The Theory o f Hegemonic Stability

Other neorealists contend that while balancing is a logical option in many cases for states preoccupied with self-preservation, it may not be the only option avail­ able for states, especially when the distribution of power is uneven in the interna­ tional system. Under the condition of the uneven distribution of power, states’ security interests may be better served when they form an alliance with the more powerful state, rather than with the weaker states. This is because this so-called bandwagoning act enables the weaker states to avoid being subjugated by the more

6

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

powerful states while sharing benefits accrued from the bandwagoning. Conse­ quently, the bandwagoning will likely produce a structure of hierarchy in the inter­ national system whereby the most powerful state, or the hegemon, reigns supreme.9 This is in fact the basic assumption of the theory of hegemonic stability, a variant of neorealism. The theory of hegemonic stability consists of several arguments. First, an international order typically arises out of uneven distribution of material conditions when one state possesses a preponderance of power resources. In the words of Robert Gilpin, hegemony, which denotes the international order created by the hegemon, is a situation in which “a single powerful state controls or dominates the lesser states in the system.” As Gilpin perceives, the hegemon’s control over the international system is mainly based on the uneven distribution of power, hierarchy of prestige, and the rules and norms that govern interstate relations. The preponderance of the hegemon’s power is most essential for control over the international system. Power is equated with aggregate power resources, or “the military, economic and technological capabilities of states.”10 Moreover, a hegemon is not only indispensable for the creation of international order and regimes that comprise the order, but also for the maintenance of the international order and regimes. Economically, a hegemon is essential for the stability of international economic regimes. As Charles Kindleberger, one of the original proponents of the theory, writes, “for the world economy to be stabilized, there has to be a stabilizer, one stabilizer.” If a hegemonic power has both willingness and capability to assume the responsibility of the leadership of international economic regimes, the regimes will remain liberal and stable.11 Militarily, a hegemonic power is essential to ensure the peace and stability of the international system defined as the absence of international war.12 While some theorists such as Kindleberger see the hegemon as a benevolent and altruistic leader o f the international system, others like Gilpin believe the hegemon is malevolent and self-seeking. The hegemon creates the international order and regimes as vehicles to advance its own interests and increase power vis-a-vis other states. International order and regimes inevitably reflect the dis­ tribution o f power among member states of regimes, and the interests of the hegemon. But all of them share an important assumption central to the theory of hegemonic stability, that is, the hegemonic order provides public goods such as economic openness, peace, and security to members o f the international system. The existence of a hegemon is essential not only to ensure the equitable distribu­ tion o f public goods but also to enforce burden-sharing by members of the sys­ tem (that is to overcome the free-riding problem). In a way, the function o f the hegemon is equivalent to the coercive mechanism of the central government at the national level.13 A corollary is that the erosion of the hegemon’s power, which is often triggered by the uneven growth of power, tends to lead to the decline of hegemony. This is because the decline of hegemonic power tends to weaken the hegemon’s ability to enforce compliance by secondary states and encourage the latter to seek more policy autonomy, or even change the hegemonic system created by the dominant

International Relations Theories and Hegemony

7

state. In the words of Gilpin, “as the power of a state increases, the relative cost of changing the system and thereby of achieving the state’s goals decreases.”14 In other words, the decline of the power of the dominant state will intensify conflicts between the dominant state and subordinate states, and possibly lead to interna­ tional war if the conflicts cannot be resolved peacefully.15 Without a doubt, by linking states’ behavior with the international distribution of power, both classical realism and neorealism has offered a compelling logic for the analysis of international politics with a rare parsimony. Nonetheless, this parsi­ mony is achieved at the neglect of other potentially important factors which may influence states’ behavior. First, structural realism’s assumption that states are uni­ tary may be oversimplified as it ignores the constraining effects of domestic poli­ tics. Foreign policy decisions in any country are often made as a result of intense bargaining and reconciliation between various political groups and actors. Do­ mestic political inertia and structural rigidities may also complicate states’ responses to changes in the international distribution of power.16Yet neorealism assumes that achieving military security is states’ overriding interest and says very little about how states define their interests and the constraining effects that domestic politics may impose on foreign policy.17 Second, neorealism assumes that states are rational and will respond to interna­ tional changes through careful calculation of national interests. Nonetheless, how domestic elites perceive the changes in the international distribution of power may affect states’ response to the international changes.18 States’ misperception and cognitive limitation may hamper their rational calculation.19 Moreover, as will be discussed below, other factors such as value, ideology, norms, and learning may also play important roles in shaping states’ response to international changes.20

Neoliberalism Rooted in the liberal tradition of international relations, neoliberalism arises as a direct challenge to some of the basic tenets of classical realism and neorealism. Neoliberals contend that realism may capture the essence of international politics in the traditional world whereby the threat of war is constantly looming on the horizon, states’ overriding goal is survival, and the use or threat of military force is effective in bringing about desired outcomes. Nonetheless, realism is no longer a useful intellectual tool to understand the modem world whereby military security is no longer an overriding concern for states and force is not useable in most cir­ cumstances.21 As Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye suggest, under the modem world charac­ terized by “complex interdependence,” states interact with each other through multiple channels, and military force only plays a minor role. Moreover, under complex interdependence, power is diffused. Wealth and political stability are as important goals as military security for states. This reasoning suggests that power can be desegregated into different “issue structures.” Hence, the international sys­ tem is likely to have several structures of power and power resources are not nec­ essarily fungible across different structures.22

8

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

Finally, neoliberals propose a different conceptualization of power bases. While neoliberals share the realist view that there is a close association between material power resources and influence, they contend that the distribution of aggregate power resources may no longer accurately reflect the distribution of power and influence under complex interdependence. This is because aggregate power resources need to go through a process of power conversion in order to translate into actual influ­ ence and a lot of power potentials are lost in the process o f conversion. Thus, they stress the importance of structural power such as asymmetrical interdependence and institutional power as alternative power resources which may be a more accu­ rate reflection of power and influence. Asymmetrical interdependence or depen­ dence in each issue structure is one of the new sources of power which can be employed by states to influence other states’ behaviors. Interdependence is de­ fined by two dimensions: mutual sensitivity and vulnerability. Sensibility refers to the extent to which changes in one country affects others. Vulnerability refers to the costliness of a country’s making effective adjustments to international changes or the costs of disrupting an existing relationship.23 Like aggregate power resources, states can manipulate asymmetrical interde­ pendence to achieve control and prevail in interstate conflicts. But in comparison with material power resources stressed by neorealists, asymmetrical interdepen­ dence is intangible and can be exercised more subtly.24 The measurement of dependence is a complicated matter. Keohane and Nye suggest interdependence is defined by two dimensions: sensibility and vulnerabil­ ity. But such measurements are difficult to operationalize. On the basis of Albert Hirschman’s conceptualization of dependence, David A. Baldwin suggest that in­ terdependence should be defined as vulnerability only, or the cost of disrupting a relationship.25 James Caporaso further clarifies the measurement of dependence as power. Caporaso suggests that dependence be measured by three indicators: the magnitude of the more dependent state’s interest in a particular good, the extent of the control of the good by the less dependent state, and the ability of the more dependent state to substitute for the good. To put it more concretely, when state A supplies another state B with a large amount of important goods (i.e., military security, foreign currency, or trade markets) which cannot be replaced easily at a reasonable cost, that state is said to possess the power to influence the dependent state. The amount of influence a state has is proportional to the extent to which other states rely on that state for the supply of the exclusive goods.26 Neoliberals’ new conceptualization of power laid an important basis for regime theory. While acknowledging the impact of material conditions on states’ behav­ iors, neoliberals place emphasis on international regimes as an important interven­ ing factor in shaping states’ behaviors. International regimes are defined as “sets of implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures around which actors’ expectations converge in a given area of international rela­ tions.”27 While regimes are established under certain international structural con­ ditions, regimes can constrain states’ behaviors independent of the underlying material structures. This is because, through institutionalizing international coop­ eration, regimes reduce transactional costs for interaction between states and alter

International Relations Theories and Hegemony

9

the calculation of interest by the states.28 In the words o f Arthur Stein, regimes’ “very existence changes actors’ incentives and opportunities.”29 Thus, regimes, once created, become a new source of power independent of the material power structures that give rise to its creation in the first place.30 Neoliberalism and Hegemony

Neoliberals do not have a consensual view on hegemony. Some neoliberals view power as diffused and not fungible across different issue structures under complex interdependence. By implication, overall hegemony rarely exists under complex interdependence. For them, hegemony only exists within issue structures.31 Yet others give more allowance to the fungibility of power across different issue structures. While they disagree with realists’ argument that security is the overrid­ ing concern for states, they believe there remains a degree of hierarchy of issues whereby some issues (e.g., economic and financial issues) are more important than others (such as environmental issues).32Thus, in the words of James Caporaso, asymmetric interdependence or dependence is a multi-issue “net” property across different issue structures, rather than an issue-specific property. When a state is being relied on by other states to a great extent for the supply of a large number of goods in many issue-areas, this state has the potential to exert dominant influence on other states, or become a hegemonic state.33 Thus, neoliberals view hegemony as based on structural conditions, rather than material conditions. Unlike neorealists, whose conceptualization of hegemony is based on the preponderance of material resources, these neoliberals conceptualize hegemony as the situation “when one state is powerful enough to maintain the essential rules governing interstate relations.”34 The hegemon’s ability to control the essential rules is derived directly from structural power, rather than material power. Structural power, as defined by Susan Strange, “is the power to choose and to shape the structures of the global political economy within which other states, their institutions, their economic enterprises and (not least) their professional people have to operate.”35 To put it differently, the hegemon’s power and influence are derived from its ability to subtly shape the interests and orientations of secondary states through institutions, rather than its ability to change their actions through overt coercion.36 Moreover, these neoliberals rejected the neorealist contention that hegemonic regimes and the goods produced by them are public goods. Hegemony resembles a private club, with the hegemon acting as a quasi-centralized authority to enforce the collection of dues for the production of goods and benefits and to supervise the distribution of these goods and benefits.37 Thus, structural power is closely linked, and in fact can be equated, with dependence for three reasons. First, as noted earlier, dependence is partly a result of one state’s desire for another state’s goods. If the dominant state can shape secondary states’ interests and preferences in ways that make secondary states desire certain goods and benefits, then the dominant state can induce secondary states’ dependence on the dominant state. Second, the dominant state’s ability to distribute private goods and benefits through the control of hegemonic regimes is

10

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

another source of secondary states’ dependence. If the dominant state can maintain its control on the distribution of the goods and benefits desired by secondary states, the dominant state can increase secondary states’ dependence on the dominant state. Third, if these private goods and benefits are exclusive, that is, there is no alternative way of getting them, except from their participation in hegemonic regimes, secondary states’ dependence on the dominant state is further increased. In short, secondary states’ dependence on the dominant state can be viewed as the hegemon’s actualized structural power and is a good indication of the hegemon’s structural power.38 Over time, this dependence becomes a source of power, independent of material power bases, which can be employed by the hegemon to control policy outcome in certain issue areas. In the words of Bruce Russett, subordinate states’ dependence on the hegemon would become “fungible resources . . . which” the hegemon could employ “to maintain a degree of hegemony in other areas” without resorting to the overt threat or use of force.39 With its ability to enforce exclusion, the hegemon can inflict cost on subordinate states by excluding “uncooperative government from one’s defensive or deterrent umbrella” or from “the most-favored nation system.”40 To sum up, the neoliberal paradigm of international politics provides new in­ sights in the analysis of hegemony. First, power is not as fungible across different issue areas as claimed by realism. Second, international regimes can be a source o f power. Finally, structural power defined as asymmetrical interdependence or dependence can be a major source o f power for hegemony. N onetheless, neoliberalism has some inherent weaknesses. Clearly, neoliberalism shares realism’s rationalist assumption that states are rational and utility-maximizers. There are limitations to the rationalist assumption, as it takes interests and prefer­ ences as given and does not tackle the question of how interests and preferences are defined. While neoliberals believe interest and preference can be shaped by institutions, they do not pay much attention to how values, norms, and beliefs may change interest. Moreover, neoliberalism also shares realism’s assumption that states are unitary actors, and hence pays little attention to the effects o f do­ mestic politics on international behaviors.41

Constructivism Constructivism rests on a completely different set of epistemological and onto­ logical assumptions about men, society, states, and their relations. It believes hu­ man actors (agents) and social structures are mutually constitutive. Social struc­ tures like societies, states, and international structures are constructed by actors on the basis of intersubjective knowledge and do not exist independent of actors’ con­ ception o f what social structures are about. In turn, social structures constitute and shape the power and interest of social actors.42 Constructivism directly challenges the core assumption of both neorealism and neoliberalism that states’ identities and interests are exogenous to the international system and are predetermined by material conditions. As constructivists postulate, states’ identity and interest are endogenous to the international system and are

International Relations Theories and Hegemony

11

determined in a normative context and conditioned by intersubjective factors such as ideology, beliefs, values, identities, and learning.43 Constructivists emphasize the power to produce intersubjective knowledge, or what is known as “discursive power.” As they argue, material power is determined and conditioned by discur­ sive power as material power does not exist independent of intersubjective knowl­ edge which gives meaning to it.44 Constructivism and Hegemony As constructivists conceive, hegemony is a type of hierarchical international order whereby one dominant state exercises transnational authority over second­ ary states.45 Typically, hegemony has two important dimensions. The first one is its hierarchical power, which is based on disparate material conditions and mani­ fests itself in the functional differentiation between the dominant state and sec­ ondary states with respect to cultural, economic, and military matters. An ex­ ample of the division of labor would be that the dominant state plays the role of military guarantor or the lender of last resort for secondary states. Such division o f labor is usually negotiated between the dominant state and secondary states and institutionalized through treaties, shared norms, and ideology. The depen­ dence enables the dominant state to influence secondary states and, as a last re­ sort, intervene militarily in secondary states when they depart from the prescribed lines.46This dimension of hegemony is similar to what neorealists and neoliberalists alike emphasize. Nonetheless, central to constructivism is the second dimension o f hegemony, which is legitimacy. Legitimacy refers to the acceptance of hegemonic power by secondary states and the international community. Legitimacy of hegemony can be attained through rationalizing the hegemon’s transnational power on the basis of hegemonic ideologies. Thus, through legitimacy, hegemonic power is trans­ formed into hegemonic authority. Typically, domestic legitimacy of hegemony in secondary states entails the dominant state’s manufacturing of a consenting iden­ tity for secondary states on the basis of hegemonic ideologies and the propagation of these hegemonic ideas to secondary state elites. Secondary state elites may embrace these hegemonic ideas through a process of socialization by which hege­ monic ideas are transmitted to secondary states and become internalized by sec­ ondary state elites.47 The acceptance of the hegemon’s conceptions of world order, state identities, and underlying ideologies by secondary states legitimizes the functional differen­ tiation as well as dominant state’s rights to command and secondary states’ obliga­ tion to follow, thus leading to the maintenance of stable hegemony even in the absence of coercion.48 This is because the internalization of hegemonic ideas by secondary state elites provides a basis for ruling elites to reconstitute new state identities and redefine state interests in accordance with those of the hegemon, and thus contribute to the maintenance of hegemony.49 The constructivist conception of hegemony has enriched our understanding of hegemony by highlighting the importance of the ideational source of power. None­ theless, existing constructivist studies on hegemony have an important drawback.

12

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

That is, they have paid little attention to the mass public’s attitudes toward hege­ mony in secondary states and the effects of the mass-public socialization with hegemonic ideas on hegemony. This is because public attitudes are thought to have little independent constraints on hegemony as mling elites in secondary states can either suppress domestic opposition or manipulate public opinion.50 There are three reasons why the secondary mass public’s attitudes toward hege­ mony deserve serious attention. First, public opinion has an independent influence on foreign policy in any country. While ruling elites in secondary states may be able to suppress public opposition or manipulate public opinions, they may not have a totally free hand in imposing a pro-hegemonic foreign policy that contra­ venes the values and interests of the mass public. Foreign policy in any country needs to be consistent with the fundamental national values of that country in order to gain a semblance of what Alexander George calls “normative legitimacy.” Public support for foreign policy may be particularly salient in democracies as ruling elites are directly held accountable to the public.51 Foreign policy that en­ joys public support will be more stable and less vulnerable to public criticisms and challenge by political opponents. Thus, in Kenneth Boulding’s words, “the image of the powerful cannot diverge too greatly from the image of the mass without the powerful losing power. On the other hand, the powerful also have some ability to manipulate the images of the mass toward those of the powerful.”52 This may also apply to pro-hegemonic foreign policy. Hegemony is bound to encounter resis­ tance and galvanize nationalism in the societies of the secondary states as it under­ mines national sovereignty of secondary states. Political repression in secondary states may help maintain hegemony in the short-run. But in the long run, hege­ mony without the support of the secondary mass public is unlikely to be stable or last long. For example, cases in point are the Buddhist uprising in South Vietnam in 1963 that caused the downfall of the American-sponsored Diem regime and the uprisings in Eastern Europe in 1989 which led to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Con­ versely, the secondary mass public may develop an independent influence favor­ ing hegemony and further strengthen the stability of hegemony. Postwar Japan is a case in point. Second, while ruling elites may be able to manipulate or move public opinion toward a certain foreign policy, shifts in public attitude toward hegemony initiated by ruling elites may be so profound as to produce cultural change, leading to un­ controllable and unintended effects on the foreign policy. For instance, as Charles Kupchan notes, empire builders often propagated nationalist rhetoric to the public in order to gain support for military expansion, yet in the end the leaders end up trapped by their own rhetoric because the propagation led to unintended cultural change.33 Lastly, the corollary is that the hegemon may be able to influence the secondary mass public’s attitudes toward hegemony by socializing the secondary mass public with hegemonic ideas and inducing cultural change in secondary states— in effect, enhancing the stability of hegemony. In short, the secondary mass public’s attitudes toward hegemony are important in influencing the stability o f hegemony and may provide one important avenue for the hegemon to strengthen hegemony. Without looking at how the hegemon

International Relations Theories and Hegemony

13

may influence the secondary mass public’s attitude toward hegemony in strengthening hegemony, the constructivist conceptualization of hegemony is necessarily incomplete. In the following sections, I provide a conceptualization of how the hegemon may strengthen hegemony through socializing secondary states with hegemonic ideas and inducing cultural change. I envision a two-step process by which the hegemon may influence secondary states’ foreign policy to achieve enduring hege­ monic cooperation. First, the hegemon may seek to transform the culture of mili­ tary security in secondary states by socializing the secondary mass public with hegemonic ideas. Second, the embeddedness of hegemonic ideas in secondary states’ culture of military security as a result of the socialization of the mass public may lead to the transformation of the political process in secondary states, which may induce secondary ruling elites to continue their cooperation with the hegemon. The Definition o f the Culture o f Military Security Before I go on to examine the process by which the culture of military security can be transformed by the hegemon through the mass public’s socialization with hegemonic ideas, it is necessary to define the concept of the culture of military security. For the purpose of this study, I am concerned with a category of collec­ tively shared beliefs, values, and images that are political or philosophical in na­ ture, but have great bearing on a state’s military security and appropriate strategy and tactics. For the lack of a better word, I use the term “culture of military secu­ rity” to describe these ideational components and will use it interchangeably with security culture.541 define the culture of military security to mean a state’s collec­ tively held beliefs about how domestic political order and international order are constituted, images about the international system and their national identity and of those of other states in the international system, and beliefs about the efficacy of force in constructing international order.ss These security-related beliefs and ideas may inform policy makers as to the nature of international conflict, how international order is to be constructed to attain national security, and whether or not force should be used to resolve interna­ tional conflict. To put it differently, they may inform policy makers as to whether to construct hegemony, to resort to balance of power or pacifist means such as international institutions, or a combination of these measures, to attain national security.56Beliefs about domestic political order are included in the culture of mili­ tary security because they may also shape individuals’ images about national iden­ tity and international order.57 Thus, like strategic culture, security culture can be considered a subset of political culture. How the Mass Public May Socialize with Hegemonic Ideas Hegemonic ideas, like any new ideas, when diffused to the population in secondary states, will inevitably generate a lot of resistance as they may clash with traditional values and beliefs which may have been firmly embedded in the belief systems of the population through other more intimate sources of socialization process such as family and school.58The diffusion of hegemonic ideas to the societies

14

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

of secondary states can be a prolonged process of ideational contestation between foreign ideas and indigenous ideas.59 When favorable conditions are present, hegemonic ideas, like any norms in the norm-building process, may “cascade” to a large number of societal actors and eventually become internalized by the mass public of secondary states.60 Why then may the mass public be inclined to accept hegemonic ideas? What factors are conducive to the mass public’s socialization with hegemonic ideas? As early as 1965, Karl Deutsch and Richard L. Merritt identified three factors— gov­ ernmental policy, spectacular events, and cumulative events— as important in in­ ducing cultural change.61 Likewise, recent constructivist studies have identified similar factors in norm-building and fostering cultural change. They can be roughly grouped into two categories: human agency and external events.62 The process of cultural change fostered by the hegemon should be similar to the process of cul­ tural change in general and norm-building in particular. Drawing on these studies, we can identify two major elements, governmental policy and external events, as important in inducing the mass public’s socialization with hegemonic ideas. First, the population may socialize with hegemonic ideas under intense official propagation initiated by either the dominant state or ruling elites in secondary states. The dominant state may be motivated to propagate its ideas and values as it wants to rationalize hegemony and gain domestic legitimacy for hegemony in sec­ ondary states. Furthermore, ruling elites in secondary states may want to propa­ gate hegemonic ideas and beliefs to the society out of political expediency in order to enhance their own political legitimacy. Ruling elites in the dominant state or secondary states may act as what Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink call “norm entrepreneurs” to facilitate the population’s socialization with hegemonic ideas and foster cultural change in secondary states.63 The belief systems of the masses are vulnerable to propaganda and manipulation by secondary state elites and the hegemon because of two reasons. First, belief systems of the masses are fragmented and sometimes confused in the absence of accurate information. In contrast, ruling elites have more access to information and their ideas and beliefs tend to be derived from causal suppositions and inference.64 Moreover, the domi­ nant state and secondary state elites are in a unique position to change public opin­ ion as they possess and even monopolize the legitimate means of sanctions such as material inducements and coercive mechanism.65 The dominant state and secondary states can manipulate public opinion through censorship, or “thought reform.” The manipulation may take the form of the dis­ semination of official policy speeches, the institutionalization of certain norms and beliefs, and the restructuring of educational curricula and educational pro­ grams.66 To avoid the unpleasant experiences of cognitive dissonance, the mass public in secondary states may internalize hegemonic ideas and make their beliefs conform to governmental policy.67 Second, external events may also induce the mass public’s socialization with hegemonic ideas independent of governmental policy and official propaganda. Hegemonic ideas may be embraced by the secondary mass public when the population experiences what Deutsch and Merritt called “spectacular events” (i.e.,

International Relations Theories and Hegemony

15

international or domestic crises, war, revolution) or “cumulative events” (i.e., continued economic growth or population growth trends, or waves of successive low-intensity conflicts).68 When countries undergo a period of enormous political or economic turmoil, traditional as well as indigenous values and beliefs in these countries may be called into question. New and prominent ideas such as hegemonic ideas will likely be accepted as the populace embarks on a search for a new cultural or moral compass when experiencing a loss of cultural orientation.69 Individuals do not embrace po­ litical ideas or beliefs randomly. Rather they select certain political ideas because these ideas perform certain social or economic functions for them such as contrib­ uting to their goal-attainment or helping them to adjust to others or expressing their psychic needs and tensions.70 Alternatively, individuals may choose a par­ ticular ideology because there is a “congruent” relationship between ideas and the individual’s own experience.71 Cumulative events, taken in isolation, may not have significant impact on the belief systems of the people because of the low intensity. But when similar events recur over a certain period of time or certain trends increase in scope and intensity, they may induce the population in secondary states to accept hegemonic ideas in the way that spectacular events do.72 While each of these factors— official propagation, spectacular, or cumulative, events— may act independently to facilitate the population’s socialization with hegemonic ideas, the impact o f each factor alone on cultural change may be quite limited. The impact o f these factors on cultural change will also be greatly reduced when each factor takes place simultaneously to counter the effects o f the others.73 Conversely, the population’s socialization with hegemonic ideas may be most likely to happen when more than one o f these factors come together and reinforce each other. In the words .of Deutsch and Merritt, “where . . . the spectacular action o f a government paralleled a predominant trend within its own society and at the same time did not encounter frustrating difficulties o f the international environment, it could indeed reinforce and restructure major images o f a large part o f the population.”74 Thus, the hegemon may be in a unique position to bring about cultural change in secondary states as the hegemon distinguishes itself from ordinary states in its possession of preponderant material power and its greater ability to generate, con­ trol, shape, and interpret both spectacular as well as cumulative events such as winning a major war, dropping an atomic bomb, maintaining a prolonged period of international peace, or stimulating economic recovery in secondary states. More­ over, the government of the dominant state also distinguishes itself in its ability to have a strong influence on the governments of secondary states. If the hegemon, in collaboration with governments of secondary states, can generate, control, or shape events in ways that make the experiences o f the population congruent with hege­ monic ideologies, or provide an interpretation about events to help the mass public of secondary states make sense of what is happening around them, the hegemon may acquire a unique ability to induce the mass public of secondary states to em­ brace hegemonic ideas and produce cultural change in the country. For example,

16

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

during the early part of the postwar period, the US government’s close collabora­ tion with the Japanese government to interpret Japan’s devastating defeat in World War II and promote economic recovery helped dampen Japanese nationalism and induced the Japanese population to accept American conceptions of pacifism and an East Asia international order centered on the US-Japan alliance. While security-related beliefs of the mass public may be vulnerable to manipu­ lation by governments to a certain extent and receptive to environmental changes under certain conditions, once transformed, they may develop a life of their own and constitute a new culture of military security. The new security culture may be very resistant to change for a long period of time as it may be passed on to a new generation through socialization without critical examination.75 The Implications o f the Secondary Mass Public s Socialization with Hegemonic Ideas

The embeddedness of hegemonic ideas in the security culture of secondary states may have important implications for the maintenance of hegemony as the hegemon-induced change may act as an independent source of constraints on sec­ ondary state elites. In particular, the cultural change in secondary states may have two important implications for the maintenance of hegemony. First, elites themselves in secondary states, like the population, may internalize new cultural values and national identities informed by hegemonic ideas and be­ come emotionally and cognitively committed to the fulfillment o f new national identities and goals. As has been noted earlier, elites in secondary states may thus define national interests and frame policy debates on the basis of a new cultural orientation in ways that prolong hegemony.76 Moreover, the embeddedness of hegemonic ideas in the security culture of sec­ ondary states may have an important implication for the maintenance o f hege­ mony which has hitherto received little attention. That is, some ruling elites in secondary states may be compelled by the shifts in the military security culture to continue supporting hegemony out of political expediency even though they may not genuinely believe in hegemonic ideas.77 This is because, as Lucian Pye ob­ serves, political culture provides order and form for the political process, and changes in political culture inevitably cause changes in the political process. Like­ wise, as Gabriel Almond suggests, “every political system is embedded in a par­ ticular pattern of orientation to political action.”78The entrenchment of hegemonic ideas in the population of secondary states means that the hegemonic conceptions of world order, images of national identities, and their underlying ideologies may infuse the public political disposition, reorient the intellectual paradigms and cen­ tral values of most ruling elites, redefine the organizational goals and interests of elite institutions and bureaucracy, and in effect create a balance of political forces in the elite community as well as the population toward favoring the continued maintenance of hegemony. In other words, some ruling elites may be compelled to continue hegemonic cooperation because of concern with their own domestic le­ gitimacy even though they may be inclined to adjust national security strategy in

International Relations Theories and Hegemony

17

response to new strategic imperatives. In short, the hegemon may be able to maintain hegemony by inducing cultural change in secondary states through a two-stage process. First, the hegemon, with its preponderant material power, may be able to induce the cultural change in sec­ ondary states through shaping events and propagating its own ideologies in and around secondary states at the same time, leading to the socialization with hege­ monic ideas by the subordinate populace and elites. Furthermore, secondary states’ cultural change may contribute to the maintenance of hegemony since ruling elites may have internalized the hegemonic ideas themselves and define national inter­ ests on the basis of hegemonic ideas. Alternatively, the cultural change may lead to the change in the political process of subordinate states and thus compel the elites to continue their cooperation with the hegemon for the sake of their own political legitimacy and power.

SUMMARY OF THE THREE THEORIES AND THEIR HYPOTHESES Neorealism suggests that international material conditions alone predict states’ foreign policy behavior. The theory of hegemonic stability, a variant of neorealism, posits that hegemonic cooperation between the hegemon and secondary states is a function of the hegemon’s preponderant material power in enforcing secondary states’ compliance and the erosion of the hegemon’s material power presages a decline o f secondary states’ cooperation with the hegemon. This reasoning yields three hypotheses with regard to US-Japan relations on the China question. First, the theory predicts intense conflicts of interest between the United States and Ja­ pan over the China question. Second, the theory predicts that Japan will cooperate with the United States as long as American material preponderance remains. This is because in light of the stark power disparity between the United States and Japan, Washington would bring strong pressure to bear on Tokyo and force Tokyo to comply with American policy objectives toward China. Finally, neorealism pre­ dicts that the relative erosion of American material power would intensify its con­ flict with Japan, leading to a breakdown in American hegemony in Japan. Neoliberalism shares neorealism’s assumption that states’ interests are exog­ enously given and that interest predetermines rules and norms. While acknowl­ edging the importance of material conditions, neoliberalism places singular stress on the structural and institutional aspects of power, which are derived from mate­ rial conditions but take on a life of their own. Hegemony is founded on subordi­ nate states’ structural dependence on the dominant state, which may be institution­ alized through hegemonic regimes. Supporting hegemony may produce essential goods for subordinate states and thus induce their dependence on the hegemon. The neoliberal perspective yields three different hypotheses with regard to USJapan relations on the China question. First, neoliberalism predicts that Japan’s integration into American hegemonic regimes may provide the United States some institutional power resources, which may be subtly used by the United States to enforce Japan’s cooperation with the United States on China. Moreover, as Japan becomes increasingly dependent on the United States over the years, the United

18

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

States may acquire an increasing amount of structural power vis-a-vis Japan, which may serve as unintended constraints on Japan, or power resources to be employed subtly by the United States, to induce Japan’s cooperation with the United States on China. Finally, it also predicts the continuation of Japan’s cooperation with the United States on China despite the erosion of American material preponderance which gave rise to American hegemony in the first place. Constructivism postulates that states’ preferences and interests are endogenous to the international system and are shaped by intersubjective factors such as ideas, beliefs, and norms. As states change their identities in the process of interaction with each other, they also redefine their interests. Constructivists conceptualize hegemony as founded on both material and normative conditions. Material pre­ ponderance is a necessary condition, but not a sufficient condition, for hegemony. Initially, hegemonic ideologies, and the new identities of subordinate states which are derived from these ideologies, serve to rationalize or legitimate material domi­ nance. Over time, hegemonic conceptions of world order, national identities, and the underlying ideologies can be socialized by both the bulk of elites and the popu­ lace in subordinate states and become embedded in the security culture of second­ ary states. Even if the original material conditions that give rise to hegemony in the first place are no longer present, the embeddedness o f hegemonic ideas in subordinate states’ security culture may still contribute to the maintenance of he­ gemony for two reasons. First, as the majority of ruling elites and the populace come to socialize and become emotionally identified with hegemonic ideas, they will likely define national interests on the basis of the new cultural orientation centered around hegemonic ideas. Second, the embeddedness of hegemonic ideas in secondary states may transform the political process in ways as to facilitate the continuation of hegemonic cooperation. Thus, three hypotheses for Japan’s coop­ eration with the United States on the China question are in order. First, Japanese elites’ socialization with American ideas may lead to the ideological convergence between the two countries, and thus contribute to Japan’s cooperation with the United States on the China question. Second, the Japanese mass public’s socializa­ tion with American hegemonic ideas and the resultant cultural change may place political constraints on Japanese ruling elites in ways as to compel them to con­ tinue Japan’s cooperation with the United States, even though they themselves may not accept American hegemonic ideas. Third, Japan’s cooperation with the United States on the China question may continue in spite of the decline of Ameri­ can material power.

THE MAIN ARGUMENT AND THE METHODOLOGY Postwar Japan’s China policy offers a good case study to test the three different theories of international relations on hegemony—neorealism, neoliberalism, and constructivism. The objective of this book is to offer a preliminary test of the three different theories by examining postwar Japan’s relations with the United States regarding China from 1950 to 1990. The objectives of this book are two-fold: The first objective is to examine how Japan cooperated with the United States on China

International Relations Theories and Hegemony

19

policy during this period. The second objective, which is more theoretical, is to explain Japan’s cooperation with the United States on China during 1950-90 in light of the three leading international relations theories. A detailed examination of Japanese-American relations on the China question can shed new light on impor­ tant questions raised by the three different schools of thought as to how hegemony is created and maintained in general and whether hegemony is founded on the basis of material conditions, asymmetric interdependence, or ideational conditions. An attempt will also be made to evaluate the utilities of the three theories in ex­ plaining Japan’s cooperation with the United States on the China question. The main argument of this book can be briefly summarized as follows: Japan maintained close cooperation with the United States on the China question con­ sistently during the period of 1950-90. Japan’s continued cooperation with the United States on the China question was due to the exercise of three different dimensions of American hegemonic power informed respectively by neorealism, neoliberalism, and constructivism: American material power, structural power, and ideational power, which constituted three major pillars of American hege­ mony. American material power rests ultimately on American military prepon­ derance. The American military protection of Japan through the US-Japan secu­ rity treaty and Japan’s increasing economic dependence provided the most impor­ tant structural sources o f power for the United States. American ideational power is manifested by America’s ability to induce profound cultural change in Japan, and ultimately by the embeddedness of American conceptions of world order, Japanese state identity, and their underlying ideologies in the Japanese security culture. American ideologies of democracy, anti-communism, and pacifism served as important normative justifications to rationalize Japan’s integration with the Western alliance in the face of a common ideological enemy, the Soviet Union, and Japan’s new state identity as a pacifist Western ally. The American-induced cultural change in Japan contributed to the gradual convergence of Japan’s na­ tional interests with those of the United States with regard to China policy. More­ over, the cultural change also brought about the transformation of the political process, manifested in the rise of the pro-US Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) as a perpetual ruling party and the dominance of the moderate conservatives in the LDP, which further facilitated Japan’s hegemonic cooperation with the United States. Furthermore, these three components of American powers played differ­ ent roles during the different periods of American hegemony. The material com­ ponent of American power was most instrumental in extracting Japan’s coopera­ tion with the United States on China in the early period of American hegemony. Nonetheless, its importance declined as time went by. As Japan became increas­ ingly dependent on the United States and the American-induced cultural change gradually took hold, the structural and in particular the normative components of American power had become more important in bringing about Japan’s coopera­ tion with the United States on the China question. To put it differently, the three theoretical perspectives on hegemony— neorealism, neoliberalism, and constructivism— can all explain Japan’s coopera­ tion with the United States on China to a certain extent at a different period of

20

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

time. Overall, it is necessary to combine neorealism , neoliberalism , and constructivism together in order to come to a full understanding of why Japan has cooperated with the United States over the years. This is because each theory has its own deficiency but can complement each other when combined. This book is a “discipline-configurative” study as suggested by Harry Eckstein. There are obvious limitations as to the theoretical contribution of this single case study, since its comparative value may be called into question. But as Harry Eckstein notes, a “discipline-configurative” study may put the existing theories to work, or may help generate some feedback on existing theories.79 The evaluation o f the utility of these theories is particularly relevant against the current backdrop of intensifying debates between neorealism and neoliberalism and between rational­ ism and constructivism. The rest of this book will be arranged as follows: Chapter 2 provides an over­ view of the origins of Japan’s integration into American hegemony, its effects on Japanese domestic politics, and the subsequent evolution of Japan’s relations with the United States. Based on the three different theories of hegemony, Chapters 3, 4, and 5 identify respectively three different sources (or dimensions) of hegemonic power which the United States could employ to maintain its hegemony in Japan. Chapter 3 focuses on the changes of American material power during the period between 1945 and 1990. Chapter 4 traces the degree of Japan’s military and eco­ nomic dependence on the United States after its integration into American hege­ mony. Chapter 5 examines the extent to which some American hegemonic ideas and values have been internalized by Japanese elites and the populace, and the effects of internalization on the Japanese political process. Together these three dimensions of American power constitute three different independent variables in the study. The four chapters that ensue are intended to demonstrate how the three different sources o f American power have constrained postwar Japan’s foreign policy by presenting a detailed analysis of the Japanese foreign policy-making processes re­ garding four major issues in Japan’s China policy between 1950 and 1990. Each of these issues represents a major foreign policy decision in Japan’s postwar relations with China at a different period of time. Chapter 6 looks at the origins of Japan’s nonrecognition policy toward China in the early 1950s. Chapter 7 examines the issue of Japan’s relations with China in Japanese domestic politics in the late 1960s and the early 1970s and Japan’s decision for diplomatic normalization with China in 1972. Chapter 8 focuses on Japanese domestic politics and Japan’s signing of the Sino-Japanese peace treaty in 1978. Chapter 9 analyzes the Japanese domestic po­ litical context and the controversial resumption of Japan’s third yen loan to China, which was suspended in the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen Incident. Finally, Chap­ ter 10 summarizes major findings of this study with regard to the constraints of American power on Japan’s China policy, evaluates the utilities of the three theo­ ries, and draws some implications for the studies of hegemony in general.

International Relations Theories and Hegemony

21

NOTES 1. E. H. Carr, The Twenty-Year's Crisis, 1919-1939: An Introduction to the Study o f International Relations (London: Macmillan, 1939); George Kennan, “The Sources of So­ viet Conduct,” Foreign Affairs 25 (July 1947), pp. 566-82; Hans Morgenthau, Politics among Nations (New York: Knopf, 1967); Arnold Wolfers, “Statesmanship and Moral Choice,” World Politics I (January 1949), pp. 175-95. 2. Morgenthau, Politics among Nations, p. 25. Also see Arnold Wolfers, “Statesman­ ship and Moral Choice,” pp. 175-95. 3. This is a definition provided by A. F. K. Organski, World Politics (New York: Knopf, 1958), p. 104; also see A. F. K. Organski and Jacek Kugler, The War Ledger (Chicago, 111.: University of Chicago Press, 1980), pp. 33-34. Similarly, Morgenthau defines power as “man’s control over the minds and actions of other man.” Morgenthau, Politics among Nations, p. 26. 4. Organski, World Politics', and Klaus Knorr, The Power o f Nations: The Political Economy o f International Relations (New York: Basic Books, 1975). 5. For example, see Karl W. Deutsch, The Analysis o f International Relations (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1978), pp. 45—46. 6. Kenneth Waltz, Theory o f International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979), pp. 100-101, 131. For another neorealist who argues in the same vein, see Stephen Walt, The Origins o f Alliances (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University, 1987), pp. 17—49. 7. Waltz, Theory o f International Politics, pp. 106-7. 8. Joseph M. Grieco, Cooperation among Nations: Europe, America, and Non-Tariff Barriers to Trade (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990), chapter 2. 9. Arnold Wolfers, Discord and Collaboration (Baltimore, Md.: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979), p. 124. 10. Robert Gilpin, War and International Change (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 13 and 29. 11. Charles Kindleberger, The World in Depression, 1929-1939 (Berkeley, Calif.: Uni­ versity of California Press, 1973), pp. 292 and 305. 12. Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics, pp. 9-13. 13. Kindleberger, The World in Depression', also see Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics, pp. 144-45. 14. Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics, p. 95. 15. George Modelski, “The Long Cycle of Global Politics and the Nation-State,” Com­ parative Studies in Society and History 20: pp. 214-38; Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics, pp. 10-15. 16. Graham Allison, The Essence o f Decision (Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Com­ pany, 1969). 17. Joseph S. Nye, “Neorealism and Neoliberalism,” World Politics 40, January 1988, pp. 238-39; for the effects of domestic political bargaining on foreign policy, Glenn Snyder and Paul Diesing, Conflict among Nations: Bargaining, Decision-Making and System Struc­ ture in International Crises (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press), pp. 510-25. 18. For a critique of the determinism of the hegemonic stability theory see Robert Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984), pp. 31-46. Also see Aaron Friedberg, The Weary Titan: Britain and the Experience o f Relative Decline, 1895-1905 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988), p. 7. 19. Robert Jervis, The Logic o f Images in International Relations (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1970).

22

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

20. For the effects of international regimes, see Keohane, After Hegemony, chapters 5 and 6; G. John Ikenberry and Charles Kupchan also argue that convergence through social­ ization can also contribute to maintaining cooperation between dominant power and sec­ ondary states. See Ikenberry and Kupchan, “Socialization and Hegemonic Power,” Interna­ tional Organization 44, 3 (Summer 1990). 21. The term “neoliberalism” draws on Joseph S. Nye, “Neorealism and Neoliberalism,” World Politics 40, 2 (Winter 1987-88), p. 239. As Nye suggests, neoliberals share the tradi­ tional liberals’ emphasis on “the political processes of learning and redefining national in­ terests, as encouraged by institutional frameworks and regimes.” For the dichotomy of the two worlds, see Richard Rosecrance, The Rise of the Trading State: Commerce and Con­ quest in the Modern World (New York: Basic Books, 1986). 22. Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye, Power and Interdependence (Boston, Mass.: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1989), chapter 2 and pp. 49-58. 23. Keohane and Nye, Power and Interdependence, chapter 1. Stefano Guzzuni strangely refers to Keohane and Nye’s work as neorealist. But he did acknowledge that the distinction between neorealism and neoliberalism has increasingly blurred as both rely on the rationalactor model. See Guzzini, “Structural Power: The Limits of Neorealist Power Analysis,” International Organization 47, 3 (Summer 1993), pp. 444, 449. 24. See Keohane and Nye, Power and Interdependence, pp. 32-33; and James Caporaso, “Dependence, Dependency and Power in the Global System: A Structural and Behavioral Analysis,” International Organization 32, 1 (Winter 1978), pp. 28-29. Also see Scott C. James and David A. Lake, “The Second Face of Hegemony: Britain’s Repeal of the Com Laws and the American Walker Tariff of 1846,” International Organization 43, 1 (Winter 1989), pp. 1-29. 25. Albert Hirschman was one of the first to link power with dependence defined in terms of trade vulnerability, see Albert Hirschman, National Power and the Structure of Foreign Trade (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California, 1945), pp. 18. For Baldwin’s discussion on the measurement of dependence, see David A. Baldwin, The Paradoxes of Power (New York: Basil Blackwell, 1989), pp. 177-80, 193-96. 26. Caporaso, “Dependence, Dependency, and Power in the Global System,” pp. 2122.

27. For this definition of regimes and their constituents, see Stephen Krasner, “Struc­ tural Causes and Regime Consequences: Regimes as Intervening Variables,” in Stephen Krasner, ed., International Regimes (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University, 1983), pp. 1-22. Also see Oran Young, “International Regimes: Problems of Concept Formation,” World Politics 32 (April 1980). And Friedrich Kratochwil, “The Force of Prescription,” International Or­ ganization 38,4 (Autumn, 1984), pp. 687. 28. Stephen D. Krasner, “Structural Causes and Regime Consequences,” pp. 1-22; also see Robert Keohane, After Hegemony, chapter 6. 29. Arthur Stein, “Coordination and Collaboration: Regimes in an Anarchic World,” in Krasner, International Regimes, pp. 138-39. 30. Stephen Krasner, “Regimes and the Limits of Realism: Regimes as Autonomous Variables,” in Krasner, International Regimes, pp. 355-68; also G. John Ikenberry, “Institu­ tions, Strategic Restraint, and the Persistence of American Postwar Order,” International Security 23, 3 (Winter 1998/1999), p. 52. 31. For example, see Keohane and Nye’s issue structure model, Keohane and Nye, Power and Interdependence, pp. 49-53; Also see David A. Baldwin, “ Power Analysis and World Politics,” World Politics 31,2 (January 1979), pp. 164-66. 32. For example, Susan Strange views four issue-structures, security, production, finance, and knowledge, as most important issue-structures. See Susan Strange, “The Persistent Myth

International Relations Theories and Hegemony

23

of Lost Hegemony,” International Organization 41, 4 (Autumn 1987), p. 565. Similarly, Donald J. Puchala and Raymond F. Hopkins make a distinction between specific regimes and diffuse regimes. See Puchala and Hopkins, “International Regimes: Lessons from In­ ductive Analysis,” in Krasner, International Regimes, p. 64. 33. See James Caporaso,’’Dependence, Dependency, and Power in the Global System,” pp. 20-22 and 37-38; also see Hayward R. Alker, Jr., with Nazli Coucri, Analyzing Global Interdependence, Vol. 3: Methodological Perspectives and Research Implications (Cam­ bridge, Mass.: Center for International Studies, MIT, 1974), p. 54. 34. Keohane and Nye, Power and Interdependence, pp. 43-49. 35. Strange, “The Persistent Myth of Lost Hegemony,” p. 565. Similarly Bruce Russett defines structural power as states’ “ability to define the context within which others must make decisions.” See Russett, “The Mysterious Case of Vanishing Hegemony; Or, Is Mark Twain Really Dead?” International Organization 39, 2 (Spring 1985), p. 211. This notion of structural power should not be confused with neorealists’ notion of international struc­ ture. The former stresses the systematic and impersonal bias of the international system, which is positional, while the latter emphasizes the distribution of material resources among states, which is relational. Structural power also has an institutional element, which is simi­ lar to Joseph S. Nye’s notion of “cooptive power.” See Joseph S. Nye, Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature o f American Power (New York: Basic Books, 1990), p. 31; and Guzzini, “Structural Power,” pp. 450, 463. 36. Ikenberry, “Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Persistence of American Post­ war Order,” pp. 56-57. 37. John A. C. Conybeare, “Public Goods, Prisoners’ Dilemmas and the International Political Economy,” International Studies Quarterly 28 (1984), pp. 8-13; and Duncan Snidal, “Public Goods, Property Rights, and Political Organizations,” International Studies Quar­ terly 23 (1979), pp. 558-64. Also see Russett, “The Mysterious Case of Vanishing Hege­ mony,” pp. 222-28. 38. For similar arguments, see James A. Caporaso, “Introduction to the Special Issue on Dependence and Dependency in the Global System.” International Organization 32 (Win­ ter 1978), p. 4; and Guzzini, “Structural Power,” pp. 462-63. 39. Russett, “Mysterious Case of Vanishing Hegemony,” pp. 213-14, 220. 40. Ibid., pp. 224-25. Also see Stephen D. Krasner, “Regimes and the Limits of Real­ ism: Regimes as Autonomous Variables,” in Krasner, International Regimes, pp. 364-66. 41. For the limitations of the rational-choice approach and game theory, see Duncan Snidal, “Game Theory and International Politics,” in Kenneth Oye, ed., Cooperation under Anarchy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. 35-41; and James Rosenau, “Before Cooperation: Hegemons, Regimes, and Habit-Driven Actors in World Politics,” International Organization 40,4 (Autumn 1986), pp. 876. Also see Robert Keohane, Inter­ national Institutions and State Power: Essays in International Relations Theory (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1988), p. 172. 42. Alexander Wendt, “The Agent-Structure Problem in International Relations Theory,” International Organization, 41 (Summer 1987), pp. 358-59. Roy Bhaskar, The Possibility o f Naturalism (Brighton, U.K.: Harvester Press, 1979), pp. 48-49; and Anthony Giddens, Studies in Social and Political Theory (London: Hutchinson, 1977), pp. 118-19. 43. Ronald L. Jepperson, Alexander Wendt, and Peter J. Katzenstein, “Norms, Identity, and Culture in National Security,” in Peter J. Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics (New York: Columbia University Press 1996), p. 40. 44. Ted Hopf, “The Promise of Constructivism in International Relations Theory,” In­ ternational Security 23, 1 (Summer 1998), pp. 178-80.

24

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

45. Alexander Wendt and Daniel Friedheim, “Hierarchy under Anarchy: Informal Em­ pire and the East German State,” International Organization 49, 4 (Atuman 1995), p. 695. 46. Ibid., pp. 696-98. 47. Ikenberry and Kupchan, “Socialization and Hegemonic Power,” International Or­ ganization, pp. 289-92. Likewise, Michael Doyle notes that metropolitan state’s cultural values are transmitted into the periphery and thus strengthens the stability of empire. See Michael Doyle, Empire (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1986), pp. 228-29. 48. Wendt and Friedheim, “Hierarchy under Anarchy,” pp. 700-5. 49. Ibid., p. 704. 50. For example, Ikenberry and Kupchan write that “although normative claims articu­ lated by the hegemon may take root in the public at large, it is ruling elites that must em­ brace these claims if they are to have a long-term and consequential impact on the behavior of secondary states. While public opinion can influence elite restructuring, it is through the dynamics of elite politics and coalition-building that socialization takes place.” See Ikenberry and Kupchan, “Socialization and Hegemonic Power,” p. 293; likewise, Wendt and Friedheim write that “in informal empires subordinate state actors rule their societies jointly with domi­ nant ones, and this rule need not be particularly legitimate domestically.” See Wendt and Friedheim, “Hierarchy under Anarchy,” p. 706. 51. Alexander George, “Domestic Constraints on Regime Change in U.S. Foreign Policy: The Need for Policy Legitimacy,” in Ole R. Hosti, Randolph M. Siverson and Alexander L. George, eds., Change in the International System (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1980). 52. Kenneth Boulding, “National Images and International Systems,” in James Rosenau, ed., International Politics and Foreign Policy, (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1961), p. 392. 53. Charles Kupchan, The Vulnerability of Empire (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994). 54. This term draws on Thomas U. Berger’s concept of political-military culture. See Berger, “Norms, Identity and National Security in Germany and Japan,” in Katzenstein, ed., The Culture of National Security, pp. 325-26. But as it will become clear subsequently, my notion of security culture differs from his in that security culture includes images of domestic order, state identities, and international order. 55. This definition draws on Boulding’s definition of “national images.” See Boulding, “National Images and International Systems,” pp. 390, 392. Also Herbert C. Kelman, “So­ cial-Psychological Approaches to the Study of International Relations: Definition of Scope,” in Kelman, ed., International Behavior: A Social-Psychological Analysis (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965), p. 24. 56. This part of security culture overlaps with the notion of “strategic culture.” See Jack Snyder, “The Concept of Strategic Culture: Caveat Emptor,” In Car C. Jacobsen, ed., Stra­ tegic Power USA/USSR (London, 1990); and Iain Alastair Johnston, Cultural Realism: Stra­ tegic Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese History (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995). Nonetheless, the culture of military security as defined here is different from strategic culture in that the former puts more emphasis on political and institutional beliefs that have bearing on military security, whereas strategic culture focuses on the instrumental means to attain military security. 57. Jepperson, Wendt, and Katzenstein, “Norms, Identity, and Culture in National Se­ curity, “ pp. 52-59. Also see Kelman, “Social-Psychological Approaches to the Study of International Relations,” pp. 26-27. 58. Boulding, “National Images and International Systems,” p. 392. 59. Ann Swidler, “Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies,” American Sociological Review 51 (1986), pp. 278-80.

International Relations Theories and Hegemony

25

60. Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink, “International Norm Dynamics and Politi­ cal change,” International Organization 52,4 (1998), p. 896. 61. Karl W. Deutsch and Richard L. Merritt, “Effects of Events on National and Interna­ tional Images,” In Kelman, International Behavior, pp. 169-74. 62. Paul Kowert and Jeffrey Legro, “Nirms, Identity, and Their Limits: A Theoretical Reprise,” in Katzenstein, The Culture of National Security, pp. 469-83; Finnemore and Sikkink, “International Norm Dynamics and Political change,” p. 896. 63. Finnemore and Sikkink, “International Norm Dynamics and Political Change,” pp. 896-97. Also see Richard M. Merelman, “Learning and Legitimacy,” American Political Science Review 40 (1966), p. 549. 64. Kupchan, Vulnerability of Empire, p. 89. 65. For similar arguments, see Merelman, “Learning and Legitimacy,” p. 549; and Doyle, Empire, p. 41. 66. Deutsch and Meritt, “Effects of Events on National and International Images,” pp. 138-39. Also see Finnemore and Sikkink, “International Norm Dynamics and Political change,” pp. 899-901. 67. Finnemore and Sikkink, “International Norm Dynamics and Political Change,” p. 904. 68. Sidney Verba, “Conclusion: Comparative Political Culture,” in Lucian W. Pye and Sidney Verba, eds., Political Culture and Political Development (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1965), p. 555. 69. Clifford Geertz, “Ideology as a Cultural System,” in David E. Apter, ed., Ideology and Discontent (New York: The Free Press, 1964), pp. 63-64. For the notion of prestigious or prominent ideas, see Robert Dahl, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Ha­ ven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1971), p. 185. 70. Robert Lane, Political Ideology: Why the American Common Man Believes What He Does (New York: The Free Press, 1962), p. 423. 71. Lane, Political Ideology, p. 426. 72. Deutsch and Merritt, “Effects of Events on National and International Images,” p. 136. 73. Ibid., pp. 170-71. 74. Ibid., p. 172. 75. For a similar observation, see Kupchan, The Vulnerability of Empire, pp. 70-94. 76. See Wendt and Friedheim, “Hierarchy under Anarchy,” p. 695. 77. Doyle, Empire, p. 37. 78. Lucian W. Pye, “Introduction: Political Culture and Political Development,” in Pye and Verba, Political Culture and Political Development, p. 7. And Gabriel A. Almond, “Com­ parative Political System,” in Heinz Eulau, et al., eds., Political Behavior: A Reader in Theory and Research (Glencoe, 111.: The Free Press, 1956), pp. 34—42. 79. For example, as Harry Eckstein writes, disciplined-configurative studies “can im­ pinge established theories if the theories ought to fit it but do not. [They] may also point up a need for new theory in neglected areas.” See Eckstein, “Case Study and Theory in Politi­ cal Science,” in Fred I. Greenstein and Nelson Polsby, eds., Handbook of Political Science, vol. 7 (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Publishing, 1975), pp. 99-100.

2 Japan’s Integration into American Hegemony: An Overview When those states which have been acquired are accustomed to live at liberty under their own law, there are three ways of holding them. The first is to despoil them; the second is to go and live there in person; the third is to allow them to live under their own laws, taking tribute of them, and creating within the country a government composed of a few who will keep it friendly to you. —Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

The American occupation of Japan began after Japan’s signing of the documents of surrender on the deck of the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 8,1945. In the few years that followed the United States, through the authority of the Su­ preme Commander of the Allied Forces (SCAP) in Japan, initiated a series of social and political reforms which aimed at transforming Japan’s political-cultural identity in order to ensure that Japan would never again constitute a military threat to the world. The SCAP reform programs, embodied in the twin policy of demili­ tarization and democratization and most importantly the rewriting of the Japanese constitution, encountered strong resistance from most of Japanese conservatives who took great pride in Japanese culture and tradition, but won supporters mostly from the left who viewed feudalism as the main source o f Japanese militarism. As the Cold War conflict intensified in Asia, the Truman administration set out to revise the earlier reformist policies and put emphasis on Japan’s military and economic integration into the American-led Western anti-communist alliance, rather than political-cultural transformation. The reversal course, as this new American policy came to be known, rectified the “excesses” of the earlier reform programs by suppressing the leftist movements and strengthening the conservatives who were receptive to the American anti-communist ideology. The reversal course alien­ ated the leftists but pleased most of the conservatives. The fall of China to communism strengthened American leaders’ resolve to conclude an early peace treaty with Japan lest Japan succumb to communist influ­ ence. Intense Japanese debates on the terms o f the US-Japan peace settlement gave rise to three very different proposals advocated by three different political forces. Each of the three proposals had a distinct vision about postwar Japan’s

28

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

national policy and orientation in the emerging Cold War world. On the left, the Socialists and other leftist elements, who aspired to build socialism in Japan, fa­ vored Japan’s permanent neutrality in the Cold War to avoid being entangled in military conflicts while opposing Japan’s rearmament or alliance with the United States as a solution to ensure its physical security. While conservative politicians had united themselves in their defense of Japa­ nese traditions embodied in the imperial institution, different conservatives had held distinct worldviews and perceptions of Japan’s place in the world. Leaning toward the right, the bulk of the conservative politicians attached a great impor­ tance to Japan’s sovereignty and viewed the postwar constitution as a symbol of American domination. They advocated Japan’s large-scale rearmament and the maintenance of friendly relationships with all nations as the best approach to de­ fend Japan’s sovereignty and traditional virtues while opposing Japan’s alliance with any particular country in the Cold War. While the leftists and the conserva­ tives were bitter ideological enemies, they were both driven by political national­ ism of different kinds. They shared an idealist vision of rebuilding postwar Japan into a genuine independent nation free of foreign domination and interference and found common ground in Japan’s neutrality in the Cold War as the best approach to fulfill this idealist vision. On the center-right, a group of moderate conservative politicians personified by then Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru adopted a pragmatic approach to Japan’s national policy and orientation after the restoration of Japan’s sovereignty. Preoc­ cupied with postwar Japan’s economic reconstruction, Yoshida advocated Japan’s economic and military integration into the American-led Western alliance while opposing Japan’s large-scale rearmament. The policy program came to be known as the so-called Yoshida doctrine. In the end, Yoshida’s policy plan carried the debates. The Yoshida doctrine not only formed the basis of Japan’s peace settle­ ment in San Francisco in September 1951 but also laid the foundation for Japan’s integration into the American-led Western alliance. For the sake of distinguishing the two groups of conservative politicians es­ pousing Japan’s different roles in the Cold War world, the conservatives on the right, who advocated the preservation of Japanese traditions and large-scale rear­ mament but opposed the US-Japan alliance, will hereafter be referred to as rightconservatives. The pragmatic conservatives, who supported the preservation of Japanese tradition to a certain extent as well as Japan’s alliance with the United States while opposing Japan’s large-scale rearmament, will hereafter be referred to as centrist conservatives.1 In the coming years, the Yoshida doctrine would be subject to intense challenges by the two opposing groups o f politics. The conflicts and interactions between these three groups o f politicians would form the basis of postwar Japanese politics and shape the direction of Japanese domestic and foreign policy in fundamental ways. For reasons to be explored throughout this book, most of succeeding Japanese governments have consistently adhered to the Yoshida doctrine as the foundation of Japanese foreign policy despite domestic political challenges and turbulent international changes. Namely, they have maintained Japan’s close

Japan’s Integration into American Hegemony: An Overview

29

cooperation with the United States on security affairs while minimizing its overseas military involvement.

THE AMERICAN POLICY VISION FOR POSTWAR JAPAN AND ITS CHANGES American foreign policy objectives immediately after the occupation of Japan were rested on a structural theory which attributed Japanese military aggression to the “feudalistic” nature of Japanese society and hence that the main mission of American occupation was to rid Japan of the remnants of Japanese feudalism. This theory was reflected in the succinct statement by Assistant Secretary of State Dean Acheson in September 1945 that “the present economic and social system in Japan which makes for a will to war will be changed so that the will to war will not continue.”2 This theory was translated into two concrete policy objectives in Ja­ pan: demilitarization and democratization. In September 1945, as General Dou­ glas MacArthur, the head of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers (SCAP), arrived in Japan, the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee (SWNCC), the pre­ decessor of the National Security Council, mapped out a blueprint for postwar American foreign policy in Japan known as the “Initial Post-surrender Policy for Japan” (SWNCC 150/4/A), which defined American postwar policy objectives in Japan in terms of demilitarization and democratization. The document instructed the SCAP to remove the militarists and ultranationalists from public office and to dismantle the giant Japanese industrial monopolies, the zaibatsu, which were thought to be responsible for the war. Inspired by the progressive tendencies of the New Deal, the document laid the official basis for the political reforms which were to be implemented in Japan by the SCAP in the next two years. The document provided the guidelines for democratization in Japan, including the legalization of union rights and political opposition parties, the release of political prisoners, and the enfranchisement of women’s voting rights.3 The culmination of the reforms was the rewriting of the Japanese constitution, which took effect in March 1947. The new constitution reflected both the American official objectives contained in the SWNCC-228 and General MacArthur’s ingenious invention. The new consti­ tution established a genuine parliamentary system with the Japanese emperor, who exercised an enormous amount of power during wartime, relegated to a symbolic figurehead. To protect the operation of the parliamentary system, the authority of the cabinet was significantly curbed so as to preclude unduly executive interfer­ ence. Second, the constitution explicitly guaranteed and protected civil rights such as the right to form political parties and labor unions. Third, to prevent Japan from becoming a military threat to the world in the future, the constitution explicitly prohibited Japan to wage war as an instrument of foreign policy. Article 9 of the constitution, which originated from the so-called MacArthur Notes, stipulated that “the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.”4 The SCAP’s reformist vision of Japan’s postwar destiny was soon subject to revision as the Cold War intensified and extended into Asia. As the tide of the

30

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

Chinese civil war began to turn in favor of the communists in 1948, the Truman administration was forced to reassess its Asian policy. The Chinese communists’ relentless onslaught on the Nationalist forces gradually led to a rethinking in the American policy toward Japan. The State Department’s Policy Planning Staff led the charge to revise American policy toward Japan. Members of the Policy Plan­ ning Staff were of the opinion that it was the spread of communism in Asia, rather than the resurgence of Japanese militarism, that should guide US policy toward Japan. Japan’s industrial strength, while damaged by the war, remained formi­ dable and Japan could be made a cornerstone of the American security system in East Asia in the unfolding US-Soviet rivalry. George Kennan, who disproved much of the social and political reforms initiated by the SCAP, was one of the first to appreciate Japan’s strategic role in the unfolding global conflict. In September 1947, four months after assuming the post of the director for the State Department’s Policy Planning Staff (PPS), Kennan told an audience at the National War College that Japan, along with the United States, Western Europe, Central Europe, and the Soviet Union, represented five centers of industrial and military powers in the world. As US-USSR relations deteriorated, the challenge for American national security was to keep Western Europe and Japan in the American camp and right the balance of power in favor of the United States. For Kennan, China was not important strategically because of its underdeveloped economy and backward military capabilities. The fall of China to communism would not pose a military threat to the United States.5 Kennan’s view coincided with the view of the State Department’s China spe­ cialists who believed that even if China fell to communism, the Chinese commu­ nists would not necessarily succumb to Russian dominance. This was because, as they believed, China’s communist movement had developed independent of the Russians. Thus, there was a tacit consensus in the State Department that the United States should avoid supporting the Nationalist government and should be prepared for eventual recognition of a communist China if the Nationalists lost the civil war. Through trade and political recognition of China, they hoped that the United States could exploit any rifts between China and the Soviet Union and eventually wean China away from Moscow. This line of thinking was eventually incorporated into the NSC 48/2 which was approved by President Truman and Secretary o f State Dean Acheson.6 Nonetheless, as Kennan and his PPS colleagues believed, the fall of China to communism would affect the security interests of the United States through its psychological impact on Japan. The economic crisis in Japan had made Japan particularly susceptible to the Chinese communist appeal. The Japanese economy was deteriorating rapidly after the war. Inflation was rampant. By 1947, after con­ siderable efforts by the SCAP, inflation was reduced by half to 150 percent. The economy grew at only a rate of 8.5 percent. To make Japan impervious to commu­ nism, the immediate US policy objective toward Japan, as George Kennan be­ lieved, should be to'restore, rather than weaken, Japanese industrial and military strength, and to strengthen the conservative rule there. Upon return from a survey mission in Japan, Kennan elaborated his views on

Japan’s Integration into American Hegemony: An Overview

31

Japan into a policy position paper, which became the basis of NSC 13. NSC13/2 (the amended NSC 13) was approved by President Truman in October 1948 and formed the basis of a new US policy toward Japan. The document proclaimed Japan’s economic recovery as the primary US policy objective. Specifically, NSC 13/2 advocated the postponement of an early peace settlement in order to gain time for the stabilization of Japanese economic and social conditions, the relax­ ation of the SCAP’s control over the Japanese government, the strengthening of conservatives’ rule in Japan and depurging Japanese officials involved in the war, the curbing of the power of organized labor and other left-wing forces, the stimu­ lation of Japanese economic recovery with American economic assistance, the increase of Japan’s trade with Southeast Asia, and the creation of a Japanese police force to maintain social and political stability.7 As the Japanese economic crisis worsened, the stabilization of the Japanese economy was placed as a top priority in this new policy change. After the approval of NSC 13/2, President Truman issued a nine-point economic stabilization directive to rescue the Japanese economy and hand-picked the Detroit banker Joseph Dodge to supervise the implementation of the stabilization programs. The nine-point eco­ nomic stabilization program, which came to be known as the Dodge Line, stipulated stringent measures to curb inflation by balancing the governmental budget, reduc­ ing credits, limiting domestic consumption, and promoting exports. The stabiliza­ tion program led to the creation of the powerful Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) in 1949 to bolster the government-business relationship.8

THE UNITED STATES AND THE EMERGENCE OF JAPANESE CONSERVATIVE RULE The American occupation of Japan proved to have an enduring impact on Japa­ nese postwar politics. In early October 1945, shortly after the American occupa­ tion authority issued an order to release all political prisoners, the first legal Japa­ nese Communist Party (JCP) came into being after its original founding in 1922. Four other major parties were soon created: the Japan Socialist Party (JSP), the Democratic Liberal Party (Jiyuto, hereafter referred to as the Liberal Party), the Progressive Party (Nihon Shimpoto), and the Japan Cooperative Party (Nihon Kyodoto).9 The political ideologies of these major parties varied widely. The Communist Party was wedded to orthodox Marxism-Leninism. Strangely, their analysis of the cause of Japanese military aggression was somewhat similar to that o f the SCAP. They attributed the cause of the war to the feudalistic nature of Japanese society. Their avowed objective was to bring about a two-stage revo­ lution in Japan by violence if necessary: a bourgeois-democratic revolution by overthrowing the imperial system and then a socialist revolution by overthrowing Japanese capitalism. The Socialist Party was composed of various socialist factions which belonged to different parties in the prewar period. The official Socialist Party platform was based on a three-point political program which was pronounced at its inaugural convention. The three points included the denunciation of militarism and monopoly

32

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

capitalism, the promotion of democracy, and the building of socialism in Japan. Internally, the party was divided ideologically. The right-wingers assigned the cause of Japanese military aggression to the failure of capitalism to eradicate remnants of feudalism and vowed to foster genuinely liberal democracy. The right-wing faction identified with British Fabianism, supporting parliamentalism and social democracy, but rejecting orthodox Marxism. The left-wing faction was closely associated with the JCP both in ideology and organization.10 The three conservative parties shared some common ideological orientations. First of all, they took pride in Japanese culture and tradition epitomized by the imperial system and the emphasis on group loyalty over individual dignity, and had strong reservations about the political reforms undertaken by the SCAP. More­ over, they were receptive to Western culture and capitalism to a certain degree, but were loath to communism since the Marxist notion of class struggle is anathema to time-honored traditional virtues that stress social harmony. Finally, they attached much importance to the restoration of Japanese national pride and independence after the devastating defeat of the war. Many progressives as well as liberals leaned toward the West in their foreign policy outlook but opposed Japan’s subordination to the United States. Nonetheless, these conservative parties differed from each other in certain specific issues. The Liberals believed that Western values could be synthesized with traditional values and advocated a modified Confucian ethic. The Progressives stressed a reformed capitalist system and were particularly concerned with social equity and welfare.11 Before taking strong hold in Japanese politics, the fledgling conservative par­ ties were shaken by the issuance of the purge order known as “The Removal and Exclusion of Undesirable Personnel from Public Office” by the SCAP in early 1946. The purge order, which mainly targeted “the active exponent of militant nationalism and aggression,” removed most of the active conservative politicians from political leadership. The purge immediately reduced the size of the Liberal Party’s membership in the Diet from fifty to forty and that of the Socialist Party from seventeen to seven. Flatoyama Ichiro, the Liberal Party leader and former minister of education, was purged on the eve of his assumption as prime minister in 1946. The Progressive Party was hit hardest, as only twenty-seven out of its 274 lower house members survived the purge.12 The purge had another important effect on the conservative parties as it began a process which historian John Dower called the bureaucratization of Japanese con­ servative parties.13 The purge opened the door to a new generation of politically ambitious people. Many of them were high-ranking national bureaucrats who filled the power vacuum left by the purged professional politicians. These bureaucratsturned-politicians, including three future prominent prime ministers, Yoshida Shigeru, Ikeda Hayato, and Sato Eisaku, gained their political prominence by vir­ tue of their seasoned administrative skills and technical expertise. In effect, the political purge created an ideological cleavage in the conservative camp between the professional politicians elected before the end of the war and the new politi­ cians elected after the war, especially those ex-bureaucrats who turned politicians. The ex-bureaucrats tended to be more pragmatic and more concerned about Japan’s

Japan’s Integration into American Hegemony: An Overview

33

economic development, whereas the professional politicians were more ideologi­ cal and nationalistic. The ideological conflicts laid the basis for political conflicts in national politics and factional rivalries within the conservative camp after the recovery of Japanese independence in early 1952.14 The effect of the purge on postwar Japanese politics was revealed immediately in the first postwar election in the lower house held in April 1946. As most of the old-time Diet members had been removed, the first postwar election produced a disproportionately large number of novices in the national legislature who were either ex-bureaucrats, prefectural assemblymen, or local officeholders. O f the 464 seats in the lower house, 377 seats (or 81 percent) went to new members. As much as 14 percent of the Diet members of the ruling Liberal Party were ex-bureaucrats.15 The Liberal Party won 120 seats in the lower house election and became the largest party in the parliament. Yoshida then assumed the post of premiership. After Hatoyama Ichiro, president of the Liberal Party, was purged, Yoshida Shigeru, a career diplomat in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, former Japanese ambassador to England, and a leader of an antiwar group during the war, took the reins of the Liberal Party with the understanding that he would give back the party presidency to Hatoyama when the latter returned to the political world. The first Yoshida government was succeeded by a Socialist-Democratic (formerly the Progressive Party) coalition government following the lower house election held in April 1947, the first election held under the new constitution. The hard-line anti-communist Army Staff in the SCAP had reservations about the reformist policies initiated by the Government Section of the SCAP. As the Cold War accelerated, the Army Staff in the SCAP became apprehensive of po­ tential international communist infiltration in Japan and viewed the socialist Katayama government with hostility. The shift in official American policy toward Japan had strengthened the influence of the Army staff in the SCAP. When Katayama transferred his power to his coalition partner, the leader of the Demo­ cratic Party, Ashida Hitoshi, the Army Staff’s patience ran thin. They seized on the Showa Denko scandal to bring down the Socialist-Democratic coalition gov­ ernment led by Ashida.16 The SCAP then began to forge increasingly close ties with the conservative Liberal Party and suppressed the leftist movements. It was under this changing international and domestic environment that the conservative Liberal Party presi­ dent Yoshida organized his second government in October 1948. The second Yoshida government cooperated closely with the SCAP in rectifying the “excesses” of the earlier reforms: the Dodge stabilization program, the depurging of the Japanese officials implicated in World War II, the revision of the labor laws to curb the bargaining power of unions and the right to strike, the purging of the communists in the public and then private sectors, and the termination of the deconcentration program aimed at dismantling the Japanese zaibatsuP The Liberal government under Yoshida Shigeru became firmly entrenched in power after the general election held on January 23, 1949, in which the Liberal Party garnered a majority of seats (264, about 56.7 percent of total seats) in the House of Representatives.'8The 1949 election relegated the other two major parties,

34

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

the Democratic Party and the Socialist Party, to minority status and laid the basis for the Liberal hegemony in the political world in the next few years. It made it possible for the Liberals to play a predominant role in the adoption o f a proAmerican Japanese foreign policy orientation in the upcoming peacemaking with the United States. As Yoshida wrote in his memoirs, “the result of this general election laid a solid foundation for the Democratic Liberal administration which lasted for six years, during which much was accomplished in the reconstruction of the nation and our efforts to regain our sovereign independence were finally crowned by the signing of a peace treaty at the San Francisco peace conference in September 1951.” 19

THE YOSHIDA DOCTRINE AND THE SAN FRANCISCO PEACE SETTLEMENT The American Debates on the Peace Settlement The Chinese communist victory in the fall of 1949 and the subsequent signing of the Sino-Soviet alliance treaty heightened the Truman administration’s concern about Japan’s susceptibility to communism and the urgency of concluding an early peace settlement with Japan. As Secretary of State Dean Acheson believed, the prolongation of the American occupation in Japan would fan anti-American senti­ ments in Japan and make Japan more susceptible to communist appeal. An early peace settlement with Japan was deemed necessary to avoid alienating the Japa­ nese populace, strengthen the political standing of the pro-American conservative government, and above all, to tie Japan firmly to the American camp. Thus, Secre­ tary of State Dean Acheson ordered the revision of NSC 13/2 and began to push for an early peace settlement with Japan. In October 1949, the State Department completed a comprehensive draft peace treaty which reflected the increasing Ameri­ can preoccupation with the Cold War and the looming Soviet threat. The draft treaty explicitly stated that the goal of the peace settlement was to ensure Japan’s alignment with the United States in the Cold War. The 1949 draft treaty stipulated that Japan preserve a democratic government which provided for free elections and freedom of speech.20 To forestall the revival of Japanese militarism, the draft treaty imposed a ban on Japanese rearmament after independence and suggested some flexibility after five years.21 Compared with an earlier peace treaty drafted in 1947, which imposed restrictive conditions on Japan such as a ban on Japanese military force and military industries for twenty-five years, the 1949 draft showed some more flexibility on Japan’s rearmament.22 Nonetheless, it was clear that the prevention of the revival of Japanese militarism remained an important policy priority for the State Department in 1949.23 The State Department’s endeavor for an early peace settlement with Japan was vehemently opposed by the Defense Department. Defense Secretary Louis Johnson and Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) officials were alarmed by the Chinese communist victory and believed that the conclusion of a peace settlement with Japan would further undermine American security interests in the region. To counter the Chinese threat, they advocated the continued American occupation of Japan, unimpeded

Japan’s Integration into American Hegemony: An Overview

35

access to military bases there, a large-scale Japanese rearmament to support the American containment policy in Asia, and American military intervention in Taiwan to prevent the island from falling into communist hands.24 The Defense Department’s proposal for Japan’s rearmament ran into strong resistance from the State Department. The State Department worried that Japanese rearmament would provoke fierce protests from Japan’s neighboring countries, especially Australia and New Zealand, which feared that the American endorse­ ment for Japanese rearmament would pave the way for the revival of Japanese militarism.25 On the issue of Japanese rearmament, the State Department found an important ally, General MacArthur, the head of the SCAP. MacArthur had shared the State Department’s view that an early peace settlement was desirable in order not to alienate the Japanese people. He had publicly stated in 1947 that he favored Japan’s neutrality in the Cold War and the making of Japan into the Switzerland of the Pacific after its independence. As to Japan’s security, he had proposed that Japan’s security after independence be guaranteed by the United Nations or the collective security of the great powers. Concerned about the revival of Japanese militarism, he disagreed with the Pentagon’s views to rearm Japan as a solution to Japan’s security.26 But in deference to the Pentagon’s strong views on Japanese rearmament, he advocated a compromise proposal that the peace settlement in­ clude a provision making it possible for the American military to garrison key points in Japan until Japanese militarism no longer posed a threat to Japan and its neighbors.27MacArthur’s intervention served to restrain the Defense Department’s hard-line approach to Japanese rearmament.28 The Chinese communist victory in 1949 and the subsequent signing of the SinoSoviet alliance treaty spurred a “loss of China” frenzy in the US Congress and the McCarthyist paranoia about communism. The rigid atmosphere put more pressure on the State Department to take a more interventionist approach toward the Chi­ nese civil war and to accommodate to the Defense Department’s policy positions with regard to the peace settlement.29 The outbreak of the Korean War on June 25, 1950,- occurred just three days after John Dulles, the American special envoy to Japan in charge of treaty negotiations with Japan, made his first trip to Japan to probe Japan’s position on the peace treaty. The war strengthened the Defense Department’s argument about a monolithic international communism and height­ ened the importance of American bases in Japan, thus forging a consensus be­ tween the SCAP in Japan, the State Department, and the Defense Department on a new Asia policy. A unified American policy toward militarizing Asia now emerged: military intervention in Korea, an early peace settlement with Japan with the main­ tenance of American offensive military bases in Japan, the encouragement of Japan’s limited rearmament and its participation in the anti-communist collective security in Asia, the promotion of Japan’s trade with the noncommunist countries in South­ east Asia, and the renewed American intervention in the Chinese civil war and the increase of assistance to Taiwan.

36

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

The Japanese Debates on the Peace Settlement After Yoshida assumed the premiership for his second term in October 1948, Japanese across the political spectrum were poised to support an early peace settle­ ment to regain Japan’s independence and restore their national pride. Japan’s physi­ cal security in the post-occupation period was at the heart of the Japanese debate about the shape of the peace settlement. The Potsdam Declaration required Japan to be completely disarmed. This term was reflected in Article 9 of the 1947 consti­ tution in which Japan renounced war as an instrument of foreign policy. Thus the question of how Japan could achieve its security in light of the pacifist constitution dominated much of the debate over the peace settlement. A proposal put forth by the Japanese Foreign Ministry suggested that the great powers of the day, the United States, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and China, provide a collective guarantee for Japan’s security, on the basis of Japan’s permanent neutrality. Some officials of the Foreign Ministry also toyed with the idea that Japan seek the United Nations guarantee of its security.30Another option was contemplated. That was, Japan could turn to a powerful third nation to guarantee its security. The Ashida memorandum was the first express official Japanese proposal to ask for an American guarantee of Japan’s security in the post-occupation period. The memorandum was drafted by Ashida Hitoshi, then foreign minister in the Democratic-Socialist coalition gov­ ernment headed by Katayama. The memorandum stated that in light of growing international tensions and Japan’s demilitarization, Tokyo desired to have its secu­ rity guaranteed by the United States with a special security pact between the two countries. But the memorandum did not request the continued stationing of Ameri­ can troops in Japan. It assumed that the American guarantee of Japanese security could be accomplished without keeping military bases in Japan.31 The outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950 had an important impact on the Japanese debate on the peace settlement. Gradually, three different proposals with regard to Japan’s peace negotiations were articulated respectively by three differ­ ent groups of political forces— leftists, right-conservatives, and centrist conserva­ tives. They differed widely on their conceptions about post-occupation Japan’s national purpose and identity, the Cold War conflict, and Japan’s security strategy. The Korean War had shaken many conservatives on the right, many of whom were members o f the Democratic Party, and provided an impetus to galvanize Japanese political nationalism. These conservatives had been critical of the pacifist constitution. To them, the pacifist constitution had wounded Japanese national pride as it deprived Japan of her sovereign right to defend herself. The outbreak of the Korean War convinced them that the constitution was endangering Japan’s national security. Viewing the war as a precursor to World War III, which would inevitably spill over to Japan, these conservatives on the right began to call for the revision of the constitution and Japan’s immediate rearmament.32Former Prime Minister Ashida Hitoshi o f the Democratic Party personified the right-conservative agenda. In the wake of the Korean War, he abandoned his support for entrusting Japan’s security in the framework of the US-Japanese security treaty and spearheaded the drive for Japan’s rearmament.33As he came to believe, Japan might be engulfed in the Korean

Japan’s Integration into American Hegemony: An Overview

37

Conflict because of its geographical proximity to Korea even though Japan did not want to take sides in the conflict. Japan’s rearmament was necessary not only for the complete restoration of Japan’s sovereignty but also for her own physical security in the wake of the Korean War. Entrusting security to the United States may satisfy Japan’s security interests, but it would grossly compromise Japanese national independence and sovereignty. He went on a nationwide tour to propagate his proposal for Japan’s rearmament. As he passionately argued, Japanese “must defend the nation with our blood” and “it is national humiliation to depend on foreigners for defense.”34 The leftists, which fanned the bulk of the JSP and JCP, had been ardent sup­ porters o f the political reforms initiated by the SCAP. The Socialists, especially from the left, felt that the reforms constituted a democratic-bourgeois revolution that would eradicate the feudalistic nature of Japanese society and pave the way for the building of socialism in Japan. Naturally, the Socialists were very critical o f the reverse course and the SCAP’s increasing support for their ideological ad­ versaries at home. Nonetheless, the majority of the Socialists did not advocate a pro-Soviet foreign policy line for Japan in the intensifying Cold War. Rather, they advocated Japan’s permanent neutrality in world affairs. The Socialists believed that Japan’s permanent neutrality was the best option to guarantee Japan’s physi­ cal security after the restoration of Japanese sovereignty since it would enable Japan to stay out of the intensifying military conflict and concentrate on economic development. Such a neutrality would require that Japan negotiate an overall peace settlement with all of its former enemies. Alternatively, Japan’s embroilment in the Cold War conflict would necessitate its military dependence on external pow­ ers and compromise Japan’s sovereign rights, or entice Japan to violate its new constitution by large-scale rearmament. In any case, Japan’s involvement in the Cold War would greatly increase Japan’s physical vulnerability as it increased the chance of risking war with the Cold War enemies. Thus, this leftist policy program envisioned a new Japanese state identity as a pacifist and neutral state in the Cold War .conflict. In December 1949, the Japan Socialist Party formally incorporated these positions into the “three principles of peace”: Japan’s permanent neutrality, total peace with all belligerent states (i.e., peacemaking with both the United States and the Soviet-led communist world), and opposition to American military bases in Japan. Alarmed by the growing conservative voice for Japan’s rearmament in the wake of the Korean War, a fourth principle, opposition to the revision of the Japanese peace constitution and rearmament, was included. As the Socialists be­ lieved, Japan’s militarism was responsible for Japan’s disastrous defeat in World War II. Demilitarization would serve Japan’s national interests by easing Japanese neighbors’ suspicions. The Socialists saw themselves as the defender of the paci­ fist constitution.35 The Socialist Party’s position on Japan’s security policy in the post-occupation period resonated with the Japanese public. A Mainichi Shimbun poll conducted in 1949 found 48.4 percent of respondents in support o f neutrality, 20.5 percent in favor of alignment with the United States, and 14 percent advocat­ ing some kind o f collective security arrangement.36 Disagreeing with both the leftist vision and the right-conservative vision, Prime

38

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

Minister Yoshida Shigeru developed a middle-of-the road vision for postwar Japan’s national purpose and identity, which reflected the combination of the international power reality, the influence of the American ideologies on him, and his own per­ sonal convictions. Before entering politics in 1946, Yoshida had been a longtime diplomat. His stint as Japanese ambassador to Britain in the 1930s earned him a pro-Western reputation. Yet like other postwar conservative politicians, he was nationalistic and deeply attached to the Japanese tradition. He had strongly opposed the aboli­ tion of the imperial system, an idea which was toyed with by the SCAP. Yoshida was critical of some of the SCAP’s reform policies. He personified a mainstream conservative argument against some of the SCAP’s political reforms. As he be­ lieved, the Japanese military aggression in the war was an aberration which briefly interrupted Japan’s impressive progress, and was not an inherent part of the Japa­ nese tradition. What Japan needed, he felt, was an opportunity to get back on the right track, rather than “reforms.” He nonetheless accepted the SCAP’s reformist policies out of his deference to the victors’ wishes. As prime minister in 1947, Yoshida reluctantly lent his support for the new constitution and presented it to the Japanese Diet for approval after he was assured by the SCAP that the emperor system would be preserved.37 Yoshida’s worldview came in closer convergence with that of the SCAP after the revisionist American policy plan was adopted in 1948. With American encouragement, his government led the charge to implement the reverse course.38 Nonetheless, his disagreement with the SCAP’s earlier reformist agenda notwithstanding, Yoshida endorsed the SCAP’s objective of demilitarization wholeheartedly. He had developed a strong distrust toward the Japanese military and became one of the main critics of Japan’s wartime military regime. This anti­ militaristic attitude was further strengthened by his close encounter with General MacArthur. As historian John Dower suggests, “MacArthur’s lofty early visions of a pacifist Japan had some influence on Yoshida.” Thus, Yoshida supported Article 9 of the new constitution which prohibits Japan’s use of force overseas unreservedly.39 Yoshida’s anti-militaristic belief had an important impact on his vision for Japan’s national purpose after independence. Sharing the nationalistic impulse of the con­ servatives, he was convinced that Japan’s ultimate national purpose should be to rebuild its national greatness. Nonetheless, Yoshida believed that for the time be­ ing, Japanese national pride could be restored through the rebuilding of its economy, rather than through rearmament. This was because rearmament would not only violate the constitution, but incur strong opposition from the Japanese populace who suffered from the devastation of the war. Furthermore, he opposed rearma­ ment for pragmatic reasons. Yoshida was of the opinion that Japan’s immediate rearmament would inevitably drain its limited resources and retard its economic recovery. Rearmament would also jeopardize Japan’s economic relations with its neighbors as they would view it as the revival of Japanese militarism. For Yoshida, Japanese rearmament would have to proceed slowly and be camouflaged, and this only after Japan’s economy fully recovered.40 Moreover, Yoshida was opposed with equal vigor to the idea of permanent

Japan’s Integration into American Hegemony: An Overview

39

neutrality. A permanent neutrality would mean Japan’s continued isolation from the dynamics of world politics. Japan’s isolation from the world since the early 1930s proved both economically and politically disastrous for Japan. Japan’s continued isolation from the world would strip Japan of the economic opportunity to rehabilitate herself. Moreover, he believed neutrality provided no guarantee for a nation’s physical security in a world that was engulfed in the Cold War conflict. Japan’s reliance on the United Nations for security was impractical and even dangerous since the United Nations lacked reliable enforcement mechanisms to guarantee Japanese security. Nor did he believe that the collaboration of major powers could guarantee Japan’s security, since the United States and the Soviet Union would not be able to reach an agreement in light of deteriorating bilateral relations.41 For Yoshida, Japan’s national destiny in the post-independent period lay in its close association with the United States. Being a former high-ranking diplomat had made Yoshida deeply appreciate realpolitik in world affairs. His stint as ambassador to Britain also made him one of the main elements o f the pro-AngloAmerican clique in the Foreign Ministry. Yoshida had endorsed the Meiji leaders’ pro-Western foreign policy orientation and shared their belief that Japan’s national destiny lay in close association with the Western world as such close ties with the West would benefit Japan both economically and militarily, and pave the way for achieving its national greatness. Thus, Yoshida had staunchly supported Japan’s military alliance with Great Britain during the Japanese imperial era.42As Yoshida viewed, the end of World War II marked the emergence of the United States in replace of Britain as the leader of the Western world. He shared the American perception of the Cold War as an ideological struggle between Western capitalist democracies led by the United States and international communism led by the Soviet Union. But unlike American leaders, Yoshida did not perceive an immediate communist threat to Japan from outside. He did not believe that the Korean War threatened to engulf Japan as neither the Soviet Union nor China dared to confront the technologically more sophisticated United States. Yoshida’s perception of a communist threat stemmed mainly from communist subversion from within Japan, which might endanger Japan’s political stability. Moreover, as a believer of capitalism, Yoshida was loath to the Marxist doctrine of a total state-controlled economy and feared that communist subversion in Japan might pose a threat to the Japanese capitalist system and economic recovery. Thus, Yoshida was convinced that it was in Japan’s interest to stand on the American side, the new hegemon, in the Cold War struggle. Militarily, Japan’s close association with the United States would ensure Japan’s physical security without rearmament. Economically, close association with the United States would facilitate Japan’s economic recovery as the United States was the world’s leading capitalist country and would provide trade opportunity and advanced technologies indispensable for economic recovery.43 Furthermore, Yoshida acknowledged the desirability of concluding an overall peace settlement with all of Japan’s former enemies, including the Soviet Union and its allies. But in light of the US-Soviet confrontation, Japan’s intimate military relationship with the United States would be unacceptable to the Soviets and thus foreclose the opportunity for an immediate overall peace settlement. Nonetheless,

40

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

the deterioration of US-Soviet relations was not without advantage for Japan. As Yoshida believed, the two rival powers were likely to compete for Japan’s favor and thus provided Japan with better bargaining leverage for the negotiations of a partial peace settlement with the United States.44 By 1949, as US-Soviet relations deteriorated rapidly, the American guarantee o f Japanese security was left as the only viable alternative for Yoshida. While the prevailing opinion within the Japanese government continued to entertain the hope that Japan’s security could be guaranteed by US forces stationed outside Japan proper, Yoshida had correctly discerned that the United States had no intention of relinquishing its advantageous military bases in Japan. He calculated that the con­ tinued stationing of American troops in Japan was a price that Japan needed to pay for her restoration of sovereignty. For him, the choices confronting Japan were realistically stark: a separate peace treaty with the United States with continued presence of American troops on Japanese soil, or indefinite prolongation of the occupation, which was emotionally unacceptable to the Japanese.45 The Yoshida government’s final position on the Japanese terms o f peace settle­ ment was crystallized in a secret offer made by Yoshida through his political confidant and finance minister, Ikeda Hayato, who led an economic mission to Washington in early May 1950.46 The letter brought by Ikeda Hayato to Wash­ ington read: The Japanese government desires to conclude a peace treaty at the earliest possible oppor­ tunity. Even after such a treaty is made, however, it will probably be necessary to allow US forces to remain stationed in Japan in order to guarantee the future security of Japan and the Asian region. If it is difficult for this desire to be tendered from the American side, the Japanese Government is willing to study the manner in which it might be offered from the Japanese side.47

In short, partly due to the reality of international power and partly due to his receptiveness to the American ideologies of pacifism and anti-communism, Yoshida came to advocate a national policy program for post-independent Japan which bore a lot of resemblance to the emerging consensual American policy toward Japan: Japan should integrate itself into the American-led Western alliance through a bilateral security pact while concentrating on its economic recovery and keeping its international military involvement minimal. This program, which has come to be known as the Yoshida doctrine, would form the basis of Japan’s subsequent peace settlement with the United States and lay the foundation for postwar Japan’s domestic and foreign policy.48

The Signing of the US-Japan Mutual Security Treaty In late January 1951, Dulles arrived in Japan to begin formal negotiations with the Yoshida government. Dulles pressed on the creation of a 350,000-man Japanese army to participate in the anti-communist alliance system and explicitly linked Japan’s concessions on the issue with the American guarantee to defend Japan.

Japan’s Integration into American Hegemony: An Overview

41

Yoshida invoked Article 9 of the constitution as a weapon to resist Dulles’s pressure and offered Dulles to contribute to the regional security system by non-military means.49 To strengthen his bargaining position with Dulles, Yoshida even secretly encouraged the Socialists to organize a demonstration against Japan’s rearmament. In the end, confronted with Yoshida’s tenacious stand on the issue and the opposition of General MacArthur and Japan’s neighboring countries, Dulles gave in to Yoshida.50 On September 8, 1951, exactly six years after Japan’s surrender, a Japanese delegation led by Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru signed a peace treaty with fortyeight nations in San Francisco. The peace treaty stipulated the restoration of Japanese sovereignty and the end of the Allied Powers’ occupation of Japan upon the ratification of the peace treaty by the signatories. At the conference, Moscow demanded a package settlement stipulating Japan’s neutralization and the recognition of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). When these demands were rejected by the United States, Moscow balked at signing the treaty.51 On the same day, the United States and Japan signed the US-Japan Mutual Security Treaty, which marked the beginning of Japan’s incorporation into the American hegemony. Article 1 of the treaty stated that “Japan would grant to dis­ pose United States land, air, and sea forces in and about Japan. Such forces may be utilized to contribute to the maintenance of the international peace and security in the Far East and to the security of Japan against armed attack from without.” Thus, Japan provided for the continued stationing of the American military in Japan in exchange for a vague American pledge to defend Japan. The preamble o f the treaty reads that “the United States of America, in the interest of peace and security, is presently willing to maintain certain of its armed forces in and about Japan, in the expectation, however, that Japan will itself increasingly assume responsibility for its own defense against direct and indirect threat.”52 The security treaty made no mention of Japan’s participation in the American military operation. This reflected Washington’s softening position on Japan’s rearmament and its acquiescence to the Yoshida doctrine. To forestall the revival of Japanese militarism and the sub­ version of communism, a provision was included in the US-Japan security treaty that grants the United States the right “to put down large-scale internal riots and disturbances in Japan, caused through instigation or intervention by an outside Power or Powers.”53

THE MAINTENANCE OF US-JAPAN COOPERATION DURING THE COLD WAR AND BEYOND In the years that followed the restoration of Japan’s sovereignty, the American ideologies embodied in the Yoshida doctrine were subject to intense challenges by the conservatives on the right personified by Hatoyama Ichiro, and the Socialists on the left. Driven by intense nationalism, Hatoyama Ichiro and his followers saw the US-Japan security treaty and the American-authored constitution as not only infringing on Japan’s sovereign rights but also endangering Japan’s military secu­ rity and were determined to revise Yoshida’s policy program. The leftists were

42

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

equally critical o f the US-Japan security treaty which they viewed as a breach of the pacifist constitution and an infringement of Japan’s independence. For the next ten years, Japanese politics was polarized by the ideological conflicts, which cul­ minated in the 1960 security treaty crisis when the leftists organized nationwide protests against the renewal of the US-Japan security treaty.54 The 1960 crisis marked an important turning point for Japanese politics. Subse­ quent Japanese governments headed by Ikeda Hayato and Sato Eisaku sought to reunite the Japanese with the national purpose embodied in the Yoshida doctrine by reemphasizing economic growth as a top priority. Gradually, the ideological conflicts prevalent in the 1950s gave way to the growing pragmatism engendered by the country’s phenomenal economic growth. The Yoshida doctrine had then taken root as the consensual national basis for Japan’s domestic and foreign policy and thus set the stage for a sustained period of close cooperation between Japan and the United States on international affairs. The 1970s saw a series of international turmoils— the collapse of the Bretton Woods system, the Sino-US rapprochement, the two oil shocks, the US debacle in Vietnam, and the Soviet expansion on a global scale. These symptoms of the weak­ ening American power which had impinged on Japan in important ways coincided with Japan’s rapid economic ascendancy. By the late 1970s, Japan had caught up with the West economically as the result of a two-decade period of rapid economic growth and emerged as an economic superpower.55 The immediate effect of these international changes was the increase of American pressure on Japan to assume more military responsibility in Asia. The changes in the international power distribution provided new impetus for political nationalism and ignited new debates on the Japanese national purpose. Brimming with self-confidence, some prominent Japanese argued that the decline of the US presence in Asia suggested to many Japanese that Japan could no longer take the US security commitment for granted and that the days were gone when Japan could concentrate on its economic catch-up with the West while entrusting its security to the United States. The time was ripe for Japan to redefine its national interests and play a more assertive political role in the region commensurate with its growing economic might in the midst of a more fluid international environment. Nonetheless, the internal and external pressures did not make a significant im­ pact on Japanese foreign policy centering around the US-Japan security treaty and domestic pacifism. As a response to a rising Soviet threat and a diminishing Ameri­ can presence in East Asia, Prime Minister Miki Takeo formulated the National Defense Policy Outline in 1976, which called for the upgrading of Japanese mili­ tary capability. Nonetheless, he quickly placed an official cap of 1 percent GNP on Japan’s military budget in order to placate domestic critics buoyed by the grow­ ing strength of pacifism. Two years later, Tokyo concluded the “Guidelines for Defense Cooperation” with the United States which aimed at increasing Japan’s security cooperation with the United States and enhancing the interoperability of the two militaries. But Japan’s military cooperation was limited to the defense of Japan’s home territories and did not apply to collective security outside Japan.56 When Prime Minister Ohira Masayoshi took office in 1978, he recognized that

Japan’s Integration into American Hegemony: An Overview

43

Japan was at a historic crossroads and believed that it was time for Japan to con­ tribute to the world peace and prosperity not only when it was called upon, but because it was in the Japanese national interest to do so.57 Nonetheless, Ohira believed Japan’s active international role should remain confined to the economic and political arenas while relying on the leadership of the United States for strate­ gic matters. Therefore, Prime Minister Ohira consistently resisted the American pressure for increasing Japanese defense expenditures. He developed the concept o f “comprehensive security” to diffuse American pressure while retaining the es­ sential characteristics of the Yoshida doctrine.58 The renewal of the Cold War and the growing Soviet threat after the early 1980s provided an important impetus for Japan to step up its security cooperation with the United States. Suzuki Zenko, who succeeded Ohira, shared much of Ohira’s com­ mitment to maintaining the US-Japan security treaty and bilateral cooperation on international affairs. But like Ohira, he was loath to an expanding Japanese military role in the Pacific. In response to the Reagan administration’s request for Japan to share more responsibilities for the defense of Japan in the event of a Soviet military attack, Suzuki reluctantly agreed to expand Japanese naval defense responsibility for sea lanes to one thousand nautical miles from Japan. But intense domestic paci­ fism made Suzuki back off from this pledge upon his return to Japan.59 Japan’s security cooperation with the United States gathered more momentum with the advent of the Nakasone government. In the face of the growing Soviet menace to Japan, Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro sought to strengthen USJapan security cooperation. In a joint statement issued at the 1983 Western summit held in Williamsburg, USA, Nakasone proclaimed that Japan’s security was “indi­ visible” from the Western alliance. During the same trip, he also made an oftquoted remark that Japan’s contribution to the Western alliance was to serve as a “giant aircraft carrier against Soviet backfire bomber.” As a result, the Nakasone government reaffirmed the Suzuki government’s commitment to defend sea lanes up to one thousand nautical miles from its shores and upgraded Japanese defense capabilities. Nakasone’s controversial defense policy had posed a challenge to the Yoshida doctrine and incurred strong domestic opposition as pacifism had increas­ ingly taken hold in Japan. In the end, Nakasone had to scale down his defense plan as mapped out in the Mid-Term Defense Plan for 1983-87. When Nakasone pro­ posed to dispatch Japanese mine-sweepers to the Gulf during the Iran-Iraq war in 1987, he caused an uproar in Japan. In the end, he had to abandon the attempt.60 For the majority of Japanese elites, the end o f the Cold War seemed to vindi­ cate the Japanese view that the world was moving inexorably into global interde­ pendence whereby “military power no longer has the decisive weight,” to use the words o f Hisashi Owada, former vice minister of foreign affairs.61 While they shared the view that Japan should seek a more active international role, they saw no alternative to the US-Japanese alliance for Japan’s security in light of the en­ trenched pacifism in Japanese society. They believed that the US-Japanese alli­ ance should remain the foundation in Japan’s search for a more active interna­ tional role in the post-Cold War era. In fact, Japan could enhance its international prestige and influence by playing an exemplar role as the global civilian power.62

44

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

Japan once again maintained close security cooperation with the United States during the 1991 Gulf War by making a financial contribution of thirteen billion US dollars to the War, which represented a large portion o f the total war costs incurred by the US-led coalition. Moreover, Tokyo also sent a mine-sweeping flotilla to the Gulf shortly after the end of the war. The Japanese contributions to the Gulf War conformed to a consistent pattern o f US-Japan security relations which had exemplified the Yoshida doctrine since the restoration of Japan’s sov­ ereignty in 1952: maintaining close US-Japan security cooperation to the extent that it did not overstep the boundaries of Article 9 of the constitution.63 The con­ tinued US-Japan cooperation on security affairs after the Cold War culminated in the revision of the 1978 bilateral security cooperation guidelines in 1997, which paved the way for a more active Japanese security role in East Asia through the framework of the US-Japan alliance.

NOTES 1. The terms “left” and “right” are complicated ones and have different meanings in different countries. Moreover, even the same terms may have different understandings for different people in Japan. The meaning of “right” in this book draws on the writings of the late eminent Japanese political theorist Maruyama Masao. Maruyama characterized rightwing nationalism in Japan as consisting of the following major tendencies: giving precedence of loyalty to the nation over every other form of loyalty, defending national traditions and cultures, emphasizing national spirit and unity, support of militarism and opposition to pacifism, suspicion of foreigners and outside influences, hostility to democratic rights and socialism. Based on this definition, Maruyama suggested that while almost everybody in Japan was a right-wing nationalist in the prewar period because of the prewar governments’ deliberate cultivation of Japanese nationalism, the ultranationalists expressed this ideology in a more blatant form. See Maruyama Masao, “Introduction,” in 1.1. Morris, Nationalism and the Right Wing in Japan: A Study o f Post-war Trends (London: Oxford University Press, 1960), pp. xvii-xviii. As will be stressed elsewhere in Chapter 5 and other parts of this book, while most conservative politicians in the postwar period, including the centrists and the rightists, shared some of the nationalist tendencies identified by Maruyama in one way or another, the postwar right-wing nationalism had become much more moderate and mild in com­ parison with the prewar nationalism, especially with regard to militarism. While many right-conservatives favored Japan’s large-scale rearmament, they wanted a strong mili­ tary for the self-defense of Japan in the light of heightening Cold War conflicts, rather than for the purpose of military expansion. Maruyama’s definition should be viewed as a general reference to the right wing, rather than being applied strictly to the postwar rightwing nationalism. Lastly, my definition of the right-conservatives is somewhat similar to that of the rightidealists as defined by Thomas U. Berger. See Berger, “From Sword to Chrysanthemum: Japan’s Culture of Anti-militarism,” International Security 17, 4 (Spring 1993), p. 137. 2. For Acheson’s statement, see John Dower, “Reform and Reconsolidation,” in Harry Wray and Hilary Conroy, eds., Japan Reexamined: Perspectives on Modern Japanese His­ tory (Honolulu, Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press, 1983), pp. 345-46; For this argument, also see Masataka Kosaka, 100 Million Japanese: The Postwar Experience (Tokyo: Kodansha International Ltd., 1972), pp. 37-38.

Japan’s Integration into American Hegemony: An Overview

45

3. Michael Schaller, The American Occupation of Japan: The Origins of The Cold War in Asia (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), chapter 2. 4. For more details about the SCAP’s political reforms in Japan, see Theodore H. McNelly, “Induced Revolution: The Policy and Process of Constitutional Reform in Occu­ pied Japan,” in Robert E. Ward and Sakamoto Yoshikazu, eds., Democratizing Japan: The Allied Occupation (Honolulu, Hawaii: University ofHawaii Press, 1987), pp. 77-106. Also see John Dower, “Reform and Reconsolidation,” in Harry Wray and Hilary Conroy, eds., Japan Reexamined, pp. 345—46; also see Kosaka, 100 Million Japanese: The Postwar Ex­ perience, pp. 37-38. 5. John Lewis Gaddis, Strategy of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of Postwar Ameri­ can National Security Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), pp. 37-45. 6. Gaddis, Strategy of Containment, pp. 68-69. 7. Schaller, The American Occupation of Japan, p. 132. 8. Ibid., pp. 132-40. 9. Robert Scalapino and Junnosuke Masumi, Parties and Politics in Contemporary Japan (Berkeley and Los Angeles, Calif.: University of California Press, 1962), pp. 26-31. 10. Allan B. Cole, George O. Totten and Cecil H. Uyehara, Socialist Parties in Postwar Japan (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1966), pp. 86-87 and 98-104. 11. Scalapino and Masumi, Parties and Politics in Contemporary Japan, pp. 31 and 38. 12. Gerald Curtis, The Japanese Way of Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), p. 6. 13. John Dower, Japan in War and Peace: Selected Essays (New York: New Press, 1993), p. 229. 14. For a similar observation, see Iwanaga Kenkichiro, Sengo Nihon no Seito to Gaiko (Partisan Politics and Diplomacy in Postwar Japan) (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1985), p. 180. 15. Scalapino and Masumi, Parties and Politics in Contemporary Japan, pp. 33-35. 16. Kosaka, 100 Million Japanese, pp. 84-85. 17. John Dower, Empire and Aftermath: Yoshida Shigeru and the Japanese Experience, 1878-1954 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979), pp. 305-68. 18. See Scalapino and Masumi, Parties and Politics in Contemporary Japan, pp. 3940; also see Masumi Junnosuke, Postwar Politics in Japan, 1945-1955 (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1985), p. 178. 19. Shigeru Yoshida, The Yoshida Memoirs (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1962), p. 90. 20. Frederick S. Dunn, Peace-Making and the Settlement with Japan (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963), pp. 84-85. 21. Schaller, The American Occupation of Japan, pp. 166-77. 22. For the content of the 1947 draft treaty, see Richard B. Finn, Winners in Peace: MacArthur, Yoshida and Postwar Japan (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1992), p. 245. Also Dunn, Peace-Making and the Settlement with Japan, pp. 58-59. 23. Michael M. Yoshitsu, Japan and the San Francisco Peace Settlement (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983), p. 55. 24. Schaller, The American Occupation of Japan, pp. 172-73. 25. For example, both Dean Rusk, assistant secretary of state for Far Eastern affairs, and James Webb, undersecretary of state, were against the Pentagon’s rearmament pro­ posal. See Igarashi Takeshi, “Peace-Making and Party Politics: the Formation of the Do­ mestic Foreign-Policy System in Postwar Japan,” Journal of Japanese Studies, 11:2 (1985), p. 331. 26. For MacArthur’s views on the peacemaking with Japan and Japan’s security after independence, see Takeshi Igarashi, Tainichi Kowa to Reisen: Sengo Nichibei Kankei no

46

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

Keisei (The Peacemaking with Japan and the Cold War: The Origins of Postwar US-Japanese Relations) (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1986), pp. 64-65; also see Finn, Win­ ners in Peace, pp. 247-48; and Dunn, Peace-Making and the Settlement with Japan, p. 80. 27. Finn, Winners in Peace, p. 254; also see Yoshitsu, Japan and the San Francisco Peace Settlement, pp. 13-15; and Schaller, The American Occupation o f Japan, p. 124. 28. For MacArthur’s influence on Dulles, see Martin Weinstein, Japan s Postwar De­ fense Policy, 1947-1968 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971), p. 61. 29. Schaller, The American Occupation of Japan, pp. 260-71. 30. Yoshida, The Yoshida Memoirs, p. 28. 31. Watanabe Akio, “Kowa Mondai to Nihon no Sentaku” (The Peace Settlement and Japan’s Choice), in Watanabe Akio and Miyazato Seigen, eds., Seinfuranshisuko Kowa (The San Francisco Peace Settlement) (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1986), pp. 31-37; and Weinstein, Japan s Postwar Defense Policy, chapter 2. 32. For the views of members of the Democratic Party on the peace settlement, see Igarashi, “Peace-Making and Party Politics,” pp. 333-39. 33. Ashida came to be closely associated with ultra-rightist social groups, which advo­ cated Japan’s rearmament and constitutional revision. One such organization was known as the League for the Acceleration of Rearmament (Saigumbi Sokushin Remmei). See I. I. Morris, Nationalism and the Right Wing in Japan: A Study of Post-war Trends (London: Oxford University Press, 1960), p. 187. 34. Otake Hideo, “Rearmament Controversies and Cultural Conflicts in Japan: The Case of the Conservatives and the Socialists,” in Kataoka Tetsuya, ed., Creating Single-Party Democracy: Japan's Postwar Political System (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1992), p. 63. 35. Igarashi, “Peace-Making and Party Politics,” pp. 349-50. Also see Tani Satomi, “The Japan Socialist Party before the Mid-1960s: An Analysis of Its Stagnation,” in Kataoka, Creating Single-Party Democracy, p. 87. And J. A. A. Stockwin, The Japanese Socialist Party and Neutralism: A Study o f a Political Party and Its Foreign Policy (London: Melbourne University Press, 1968), pp. 31 and 46. 36. Mainichi Shimbun, November 21, 1949. 37. Dower, Japan in War and Peace, pp. 208-41. 38. For example, Yoshida had also supported the postponement of the peace settlement as embodied in NSC 13/2. While he was concerned that a prolonged American occupation would lead to the alienation of the Japanese, and their bitter resentment toward the occupy­ ing country, he believed that the postponement of a peace settlement was advantageous for Japan as the passage of time might assuage those hostile feelings of the victors and bring better terms of peace settlement for Japan. See Yoshida, The Yoshida Memoirs, p. 244. 39. For General MacArthur’s influence on Yoshida, see Dower, Empire and Aftermath, pp. 398-99. 40. For Yoshida’s position on Japan’s rearmament, see ibid., pp. 377-400. For a related account, see Dower, Japan in War and Peace, pp. 224—25. 41. See Yoshida, The Yoshida Memoirs, pp. 8-9, 28. Also Dower, Empire and Aftermath, p. 373. 42. Dower, Empire and Aftermath, p. 307. 43. Wakamiya Yoshibumi, Sengo Hoshu noAjia Kan (Postwar Japanese Conservatives’ Perception of Asia) (Tokyo: Asahi Shimbunsha, 1995), pp. 57-60. Also Yoshida, The Yoshida Memoirs, chapter 23; and Dower, Empire and Aftermath, pp. 295-99, 373, 393. 44. Dower, Empire and Aftermath, p. 374. 45. Ibid., pp. 373-74; and Igarashi, “Peace-Making and Party Politics,” pp. 327-28. 46. Miyazawa Kiichi, Tokyo-Washinton no Mitsudan (Secret Talks between Tokyo and

Japan’s Integration into American Hegemony: An Overview

47

Washington) (Tokyo: Bigokai, 1975), pp. 54-55. 47. Dower, Empire and Aftermath, p. 375. 48. For more detailed discussion on the origins of the Yoshida doctrine, see Kenneth Pyle, The Japanese Question: Power and Purpose in a New Era (Washington, D.C.: The AEI Press, 1992), p. 25. 49. Dower, Japan in War and Peace, pp. 230-31. 50. For Yoshida’s negotiation with Dulles on Japan’s rearmament, see Yoshitsu, Japan and the San Francisco Peace Settlement, chapter 3; also see Igarashi, “Peace-Making and Party Politics,” pp. 323-56. 51. See Donald Hellmann, Japanese Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy (Berkeley: University of California, 1969), p. 31. 52. For the full text of treaty, see Roger Buckley, US-Japan Alliance Diplomacy, 19451990 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), appendix. Also see Yoshida, The Yoshida Memoirs, pp. 267 and 274. 53. For Dulles’s and Yoshida’s positions on the US rights to intervene in Japan and the text of the security treaty, see Weinstein, Japan s Postwar Defense Policy, p. 62 and Appen­ dix A. 54. For details on the 1960 security treaty crisis, see George Packard, Protest in Tokyo: The Security Treaty Crisis o f1960 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966); and Kataoka, “The 1955 System: The Origin of Japan’s Postwar Politics,” in Kataoka, Creating Single-Party Democracy, pp. 166-67. 55. Shiro Saito, Japan at the Summit: Japan s Role in the Western Alliance and Asian Pacific Co-operation (London: Routledge, 1990). 56. Michael Green and Murata Koji, “The 1978 Guidelines for the US-Japan Defense Cooperation: Process and the Historical Impact,” paper prepared for The Conference on Power and Prosperity organized by the National Security Archive and the Institute on Glo­ bal Conflict and Cooperation, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, California, March 14-16, 1997. 57. Pyle, The Japanese Question, pp. 68-72. 58. Edward A. Olsen, U.S.-Japan Strategic Reciprocity (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Insti­ tution, 1985), pp. 15-18. 59. Saito, Japan at the Summit, p. 72. 60. Aurelia George, “Japan and the United States: The Dependent Ally or Equal Part­ ner?” in J. A. A. Stockwin, et al., Dynamic and Immobilist Politics in Japan (Honolulu, Hawaii: University of Hawaii, 1988), pp. 260-62; Frank Langdon, “Japan and North America,” Robert S. Ozaki and Walter Arnold, eds., Japan's Foreign Relations: A Global Search for Economic Security (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1985), p. 29; and Pyle, The Japanese Question, pp. 103-5. 61. Hisashi Owada, “Diplomacy of Japan in the Post-Gulf Crisis World,” in Japan s Post Gulf International Initiative (Tokyo: Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1991), p. 12.

62. Eugene Brown, “The Debate over Japan’s Strategic Future: Bilateralism Versus Regionalism,” Asian Survey, vol. 33,6 (June 1993); also see Berger, “From Sword to Chry­ santhemum,” p. 146. 63. For details about Japanese response to the Gulf Crisis and the government’s policy in the crisis, see Courtney Purrington and A. K., “Tokyo’s Policy Responses during the Gulf Crisis,” Asian Survey 31,4 (April 1991), pp. 307-23; also see Purrington, “Tokyo’s Re­ sponses during the Gulf War and the Impact of the Iraq Shock on Japan,” Pacific Affairs 65, 2 (Summer 1992), pp. 161-81.

3 The Erosion o f American Preponderant Material Power Classical realism and neorealism have equated power and influence with the pos­ session of material resources. While realists are cognizant of the importance of intangible resources such as political development and social stability and national morale, they invariably stress the importance of tangible material resources as the basis of international power and influence. States exercise power through the overt threat or use of military force in order to prevail in interstate conflicts. War is the ultimate exercise of power. The more material resources a state possesses, the more powerful the state becomes. The dissipation of a state’s material resources necessarily leads to the decline of that state’s international power and influence. While realists disagree on what types of resources are the most important deter­ minants of power, they more or less agree that population, territories, economic resources measured in terms of Gross National Product (GNP) and manufacturing capability, and the size of armed forces constitute the key determinants of power.1 By these classical measurements of national capabilities, the United States emerged after World War II as a state which possessed a preponderant amount of material resources. These power resources have rendered the United States the most powerful state in the world, or the hegemonic power. By the same measurements, the American share of the world’s material power resources has decreased sharply after the late 1960s as a result of the economic recovery of Japan and Western Europe and the US-Soviet nuclear parity. The end of the Cold War has given rise to a unipolar world, with the United States emerging as the only superpower in the world. Nonetheless, the end of the Cold War has not reversed the trend of diminishing American material dominance in the world. America’s simultaneous leads in all the dimensions of material power—economic, military, technological, and geographical—after the Cold War may be unprecedented historically in comparison with previous system leaders.2Nonetheless, the American leads in these areas have continued to shrink with the ascendancy of Japan, China, and the European Union.3 For realists, the decline of the American share of world power resources has important implications for American power and influence. The slip in the American share of world power resources means the decline of American power and influence

52

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

in the world and increasing difficulties for the United States to maintain the cooperation of its allies and others on American terms. In other words, the shrinking of American economic resources led to the decline of American hegemony.4 The litany of the rise and decline of American power after World War II is all too familiar. It will suffice to simply highlight several major aspects of change in the American share of the world’s material power resources in the postwar period.

THE SHRINKING AMERICAN SHARE OF WORLD ECONOMIC RESOURCES By several aggregate measures, the United States possessed a preponderance of economic resources at the end of World War II. The GNP of the United States shortly after World War II accounted for about one-third of gross world product. American share of world manufacturing production at the same time was more than 45 percent.5 Moreover, the United States was the world’s largest trading na­ tion, conducting close to one-fifth of total world trade.6 The US share of world resources began to slip in the 1950s and the trend continued into the 1980s. As Paul Kennedy observed, between 1960 and 1980, the American share of gross world product decreased from 25.9 percent to 21.5 percent. Likewise, American share of world manufacturing production slipped to 31.5 percent in 1980.7 Finally, the US share of world trade has also dropped. As Robert Keohane observed, between 1950 and 1960, US trade as a percentage of total trade of the US, the EEC, and Japan combined decreased from 33.3 percent to 27 percent.8 The notable drop in the American share of world economic resources has been accompanied by the rapidly rising Japanese share of world economic resources during the same period. The destruction of World War II considerably shrank the size of the Japanese economy. In 1965, even after two decades of rapid economic recovery, the Japa­ nese GNP was only 19 percent of that of the United States. As the growth o f the Japanese economy continued to outpace that of the United States, the Japanese economy increased in size relative to that of the United States. By 1980, Japan’s GNP was about 44 percent of that of the United States. The trend has continued into the 1990s. By 1993, Japan’s GNP approached 67 percent of the US GNP in the same year (see Table 3.1 and Table 3.2). Likewise, Japan’s foreign trade volume as a percentage of the total foreign trade of the US and Japan combined has increased even more dramatically. In 1955, Japan’s total trade constituted only 17 percent of total US foreign trade. By 1980, Japan’s total foreign trade constituted 57 percent of US foreign trade volume. This percentage has stabilized into the 1990s (see Table 3.3). In short, the data suggests two important trends. First, the postwar period witnessed the relative decline of the American share of world economic resources. Second, the American economic decline is particularly steep in relation to Japan as a result o f Japan’s rapid economic growth. In other words, the gap o f eco­ nomic power between the United States and Japan from 1950 to 1990 narrowed remarkably.

The Erosion of American Preponderant Material Power

53

THE EROSION OF AMERICAN NUCLEAR DOMINANCE The postwar period also witnessed a similar decline in the American share of world military resources. The United States ended World War II victoriously with its monopoly of atomic bombs. Nonetheless, the nuclear monopoly was short­ lived. By 1949, the Soviet Union exploded its first nuclear bomb. Subsequently, the distribution of world military resources has become increas­ ingly diffused. By the mid-1960s, Britain, France, and China had become the new members o f the world’s exclusive nuclear club. Then by the late 1960s, the Soviet Union had reached strategic parity with the United States as a result of the decade-long intensive nuclear arms race between the two superpowers. These developments meant the American decline in one key aspect of military power resources (Table 3.4). To be sure, the United States has continued to maintain a distinct advantage in nuclear technology after the 1970s, which has become more conspicuous after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Nonetheless, the nuclear proliferation that started in the early part o f the Cold War has made it increasingly difficult for the United States to contemplate the nuclear option in international conflict and thus has undercut the significance o f the nuclear tech­ nological advantage.

Table 3.1 Distribution of Aggregate Power Resources among Great Powers (1965-93) 1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1993

US GNP military exp. armed, forces

685 52 2.7

977 78 3.1

1537 91 2.1

2614 144 2.1

4054 258 2.2

5568 306 2.2

6348 298 1.8

USSR/Russia GNP military exp. armed forces

333 52 2.8

537 76 3.3

890 128 4.1

1424 207 4.3

2118 277 3.9

2660 292 3.4

777 114 2.3

China GNP military exp. armed forces

96 6.5 2.4

157 12 2.9

271 32 4.3

552 47 4.5

776 40 4.1

1351 50 3.5

2047 56 3.0

Japan GNP military exp. armed forces

131 1.25 0.25

282 2.34 0.25

615 5.5 0.24

1153 11 0.24

2459 24 0.24

3688 36 0.25

4260 42 0.24

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

54

Table 3.1 (cont.) Germany GNP military exp. armed forces

177 7.7 0.44

272 9.0 0.51

499 18 0.5

848 28 0.5

1003 32 0.5

1404 39 0.55

1698 37 0.4

France GNP military exp. armed forces

118 6.1 0.59

190 7.7 0.57

379 15 0.58

634 26 0.5

812 32 0.56

1130 41 0.55

1239 43 0.51

Britain GNP military exp. armed forces

101 5.9 0.43

137 6.6 0.38

286 14 0.35

445 23 0.32

617 32 0.33

861 35 0.31

938 34 0.27

S o u rc e : US Anns

Control and Disarmament Agency, W orld M ilita r y E x p e n d itu re s a n d A r m s Transfers,

various issues. Both Gross National Product (GNP) and military expenditure are calculated in billions of current US dollars. The size of armed forces is measured in millions of military personnel. Figures for Ger­ many before 1990 were those of West Germany. N ote:

Table 3.2 Comparison of Japanese and US GNP (in billions of dollars and by percentage) 1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1993

685

977

1537

2614

4054

5568

6348

Japan

' 131

282

615

1153

2459

3688

4260

Japan/US

19%

29%

40%

44%

61%

66%

67%

US

Source'.

Adapted from US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, W orld M ilita r y E x p e n d itu re s a n d various issues.

A rm s T ransfers,

The Erosion of American Preponderant Material Power

55

Table 3.3 Comparison of US and Japanese Total Trade (in billions of dollars and by percentage)

US Japan Japan/US Source'.

1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1993

1995

27.0 4.5 17%

35.7 8.5 24%

82.3 38.2 46%

214 113 53%

478 270 57%

581 305 52%

857 486 57%

1347 776 57%

United Nations, In te rn a tio n a l Trade S ta tistic s Yearbook, various issues.

Table 3.4 Comparison of Strategic Forces among Major Nuclear Powers 1960

1970

1980

1990

1559 3127

2100 4960

2022 10608

1876 11966

USSR/Russia Launchers Warheads

138 352

1835 2216

2545 7480

2354 10880

Britain Launchers Warheads

120 105

64 144

64 144

64 96

36 36

130 130

132 452

68 75

280 270

304 324

US Launchers Warheads

France Launchers Warheads

—

China Launchers Warheads

—

-

—

Source: S IP R I Yearbook: W orld A rm a m e n ts a n d D isa rm a m en t, 1991

1991), p. 25.

(Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell,

56

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

NOTES 1. For example, A. F. K. Organski proposed population and GNP as the two main components of power index, see Organski, World Politics (New York: Knopf, 1968), chap­ ter 9 and A. F. K. Organski and Jacek Kugler, The War Ledger (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), chapter 2. Likewise, Ray Cline suggested that power can be mea­ sured by the equation (P=(C+E+M)x(S+ W). C equals population plus territories; E and M indicate economic and military capability respectively.; and S and Wmeasure strategic pur­ pose and national will. See Cline, World Power Assessment: A Calculus of Strategic Drift (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1975), chapters 1 and 2. 2. For this argument, see William C. Wohlforth, “The Stability of a Unipolar World,” International Security 24, 1 (Summer 1999), pp. 9-22. 3. Aaron L. Friedberg, “The Future of American Power,” Political Science Quarterly 109, 1 (1994), pp. 1-22. 4. For example, see Friedberg, “The Future of American Power,” p. 1. 5. Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature o f American Power (New York: Basic Books, 1990), pp. 74-75. 6. See David Lake, “International Economic Structures and American Foreign Eco­ nomic Policy, 1887-1934,” World Politics 35, 4 (July 1983), pp. 217-28. 7. Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Mili­ tary Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (New York: Vintage Books, 1986), pp. 432 and 436. 8. Robert Keohane, After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984), p. 199.

4 American Structural Dominance and Japanese Dependence Neoliberals do not dispute the relative decline o f aggregate American power resources. Nonetheless, they argue that the American decline has been overly exaggerated for two reasons. First, the preponderance of American power resources right after World War II was due to the extraordinary weakness of its close competitors. Hence, it was unlikely to be sustained indefinitely, once these countries recovered economically from the devastation of World War II. Thus, the slip in American share of world power resources by the late 1960s was not a reflection of the decline of American power, rather it was a return to normalcy. As neoliberals argue, the American lead over its competitors may have shrunk after the late 1960s, but the United States has continued its lead in most power arenas.1 Second, neoliberals believe that realists’ inadequate use of aggregate measure­ ments to measure American power further distorted the reality of the international distribution of power and exaggerated the decline of American power. To fathom American power more accurately, neoliberals contend that it is necessary to exam­ ine the structural aspects of American power resources such as asymmetrical inter­ dependence with other countries and institutional sources of powers.2 As neoliberals believe, by virtues of its preponderant strength after World War II, the United States has reconstructed the postwar international order in its own image. The postwar American hegemonic order is comprised of a set of international military and economic regimes, such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). These regimes formed the foundation of American foreign economic and military relations with Western industrialized states in the postwar period. Without a doubt, these American hegemonic regimes were founded on the basis of preponderant American material strengths such as nuclear monopoly, a strong manufacturing basis, and a huge amount of Gross National Products. Without these preponderant power resources, the postwar international order would not have been created. Nonetheless, neoliberals believe that, once created, these American hegemonic regimes have taken on a life o f their own and become independent power resources which could be employed by the United States to

58

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

promote its national interests and maintain hegemony in other areas.3 These independent powers are derived from two structural sources. First, these regimes provide some institutional power resources for the United States in the form of institutional rules and norms in the hegemonic regimes. These rules and norms continue to privilege American interests and enable the United States to retain its ability to define the context of the institutional decision-making process and shape the structures of the international political economy, indepen­ dent o f the material strengths that led to their creation. Second, neoliberals argue, the postwar American hegemonic regimes restruc­ tured American allies’ foreign economic and military relations, which led to their heavy dependence on the United States. By being placed under the American nuclear umbrella, American allies became militarily dependent on the United States in the face of the Soviet threat. Moreover, through the American economic re­ gimes, the United States successfully promoted international capitalism by tear­ ing down international trade barriers and encouraging the smooth flow of goods and capital across borders, which became increasingly indispensable for the eco­ nomic prosperity of American allies and thus induced their economic dependence on the United States. From the neoliberal perspective, Japan’s dependence on the United States de­ veloped as a result of its incorporation into the American hegemonic regimes such as the US-Japan alliance and the postwar international economic order. Over the years, as Japan became increasingly dependent on these regimes for its economic prosperity and military security, the United States acquired a greater amount of structural power vis-a-vis Japan, which could be employed to maintain American hegemony in Japan in certain areas. The following is an examination of developments of these structural power resources for the United States vis-a-vis Japan.

AMERICAN SECURITY REGIMES AND THE “LONG PEACE” The creation of the hegemonic military regimes such as NATO and the USJapan alliance has contributed to the relative military stability and peace in the international system during the Cold War for the members of the Western alliance system. This stability is evident in two aspects. First, a “zone of peace” among Western industrialized countries was established and military conflicts among these countries— so endemic prior to 1945— have been avoided. How exactly this zone of peace was maintained among the industri­ alized democracies is still being debated. American material strength in the West­ ern alliance (such as its nuclear preponderance) may have pacified the rest of the industrialized democracies by disarming Germany and Japan. The zone of peace may also have been created because American-led capitalist expansion and the resultant growing economic interdependence among the industrialized democra­ cies reduced the incentives for countries to make use of their military forces. More­ over, the democratization of Japan and Germany under American auspices may also have contributed to the peace, since democracies do not fight democracies.

American Structural Dominance and Japanese Dependence

59

Moreover, while a stable peace was not attained between the Western camp and the communist camp, a degree of stability between the two camps was maintained through the American nuclear deterrence strategy. This stability was achieved through the signing of arms control treaties and peace treaties to maintain stable boundaries between the United States and the Soviet Union. The American nuclear preponder­ ance at the global level may have disappeared by the late 1960s as a result of the emerging US-Soviet nuclear parity, but America maintained its nuclear preponder­ ance within the Western alliance system. As Western European countries and Japan shared the American perception of the Soviet threat, the American nuclear domi­ nance in the Western alliance ensured the American allies’ dependence on the United States for maintaining a semblance of military stability with the communist camp. As long as the nuclear gap between the United States and its Western allies re­ mains, the military dependence of Western Europe and Japan on the United States will remain. As nonmilitary powers, West Germany’s and Japan’s military depen­ dence on the United States was particularly acute during the Cold War, since they were particular vulnerable to the Soviet threat. Their military dependence was fur­ ther reinforced by the fact that they are not permanent members of (and therefore have no influence on decision-making at) the UN Security Council. Nonetheless, the peace and stability achieved in the postwar period was not a public good. Rather, it is a private good produced exclusively for members of the Western alliance system led by the United States. Many developing countries in the third world, being excluded from the private club of the Western alliance sys­ tem, did not enjoy stable peace as the United States and the Soviet Union fre­ quently chose to fight their proxy wars in the third world.4 The zone of peace expanded further after the end of the Cold War as the com­ munist world disintegrated. This is evident in the expansion of NATO into East Europe with the revision of the NATO treaty in July 1997. Moreover, the United States also moved to stabilize NATO’s new military relations with Russia after NATO’s expansion through the signing of the “Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security” with Russia in May 1997. Under the American aegis, the zone of peace is also expanding in East Asia. This is evident in the signing of the 1996 Clinton-Hashimoto declaration and the revision of the 1978 US-Japan Security Cooperation Guideline which effectively extended the Japanese military responsibility under the US-Japan security treaty to the entire Asia-Pacific region. On the other hand, to stabilize US-Chinese relations after the expansion of the Japanese military role, the United States also sought to establish a US-Sino strate­ gic partnership evident in the regular summit meetings between the two countries, the installation of a hotline between Beijing and Washington and the signing of a US-Sino naval agreement to avoid accidental naval encounters. Japan’s integration into the US-led Western alliance proved to be of tremen­ dous benefit to Japan and allowed Japan to reap an enormous amount of peace dividends. As Robert Scalapino aptly described, the US-Japan alliance for Japan was a low-risk, high return policy.5 Specifically, the benefits of the alliance for Japan are two-fold. Militarily, Japan’s close military alliance with the United States offered Japan a

60

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

nuclear shield in the face of the Soviet menace during the Cold War and compen­ sated for Japan’s military weakness. This alliance was instrumental in bringing about regional peace and stability in East Asia which was indispensable for Japan’s postwar economic growth. Without regional peace and stability, Japan’s economic growth would have been severely disrupted. Economically, the alliance also benefited Japan tremendously. The alliance not only enabled Japan to achieve military security, but achieve it at a very low cost. The alliance allowed the Japanese to maintain a low military expenditure while concentrating most of its resources on economic development. Japan’s military expenditure has accounted for only 1 percent or less since the mid-1960s.6 The low military expenditure has been one of the important factors contribut­ ing to Japan’s miraculous economic growth in the postwar era. As economists Hugh Patrick and Henry Rosovsky demonstrated in their simulation studies, if Japan allocated 6 or 7 percent of its GNP for defense expenditure, it would reduce Japan’s annual growth rate by two percentage points. The cumulative effects of a reduction in the growth rate of 2 percent from 10 percent to 8 percent during 1954— 74 would reduce the size of Japan’s economy in 1974 by 30 percent.7 Moreover, the low military expenditure might have helped indirectly to maintain political stability in Japan, which is difficult to factor in economic simulations. Higher mili­ tary spending would have inevitably reduced public spending on welfare and in­ frastructure-building programs and increased the likelihood of social agitation or even unrest. Social instability would in turn jeopardize economic development.8 Since these benefits are private goods accrued to Japan due exclusively to its close integration into the American security regime, they induced Japan’s heavy security dependence on the United States during the Cold War. Japan’s security dependence on the United States may have become the power resource that the United States could employ in order to maintain hegemony in other areas.

AMERICAN DOMINANCE IN THE WORLD ECONOMY AND JAPAN’S DEPENDENCE After the end of World War II, under American leadership, the industrialized democracies created a-set of multilateral institutions such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to eliminate trade barriers and promote international economic cooperation. These institutions formed the basis o f the postwar international economic order. Furthermore, the American dollar became the primary medium of international economic exchange and thus provided the linchpin for a stable international financial system indispensable for the expansion of international trade and capital. The creation of the liberal international economic order under the auspices of the United States gave the United States a preponderant structural power in three major economic structures: the monopoly over world production and trade, the credit supply, and state-of the-art scientific knowledge, which is indispensable for the development of advanced technology and manufacturing. By virtue of its economic

American Structural Dominance and Japanese Dependence

61

preponderance, technological prowess, and the American dollar, the United States played a dominant role in the postwar international economic system.9

American Economic Dominance in the Early Part of the Cold War American structural dominance in the global economy is evident in three glo­ bal economic structures: world trade structure, world financial structure, and world scientific knowledge. America’s lion share of total world trade translates into other countries’ trade dependence on the United States. As principal allies of the United States have been the main beneficiaries of the private goods generated by the liberal international economic regimes, their economic prosperity has become heavily dependent on the open world trade markets in general, and the open American trade market in particular as the American market forms a large part of the world market.10 The United States has carefully orchestrated Japan’s integration into the postwar international economic regimes with the strategic objectives of preventing Japan from accommodating to international communism in the wake of the fall of China to communism and the subsequent outbreak o f the Korean War. American policy planning for Japan’s integration into the Western trading system started with the reorientation o f Japan’s trade away from China and toward anti-communist Southeast Asia. Japan’s accession to the GATT in 1955 under American auspices was another important step in Japan’s economic integration with the West." Nonetheless, more than half of the thirty-three GATT members, including European and British Commonwealth states, objected to Japan’s membership in the GATT because of fresh war memories and invoked article 35 to be absolved from trade concessions to Japan. It was not until the early 1960s that these countries accepted Japan as a full member of the GATT and lifted high tariffs against Japanese imports. The United States was left as the only industrial nation willing to absorb higher levels of Japanese exports in the first decade after Japan’s entry into the GATT. Morepver, Japan was able to receive trade concessions, especially the Most Favored Nation treatment, by the United States, without reciprocal trade obligations.12The signing of the five-year long-term textile trade agreement in 1962 further opened up American textile markets to Japan despite the strong objection of the American textile industry.13 By 1964, Japan has become deeply entrenched in the Americanled postwar economic order with its accession to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in April of that year. Japan has benefited enormously from its integration into the US-led postwar international economic order. Japan’s foreign trade has been one of the most im­ portant growth engines for postwar Japan’s economy and accounted largely for Japan’s economic miracle in the postwar period. Japan’s integration into the lib­ eral international trading system led to the rapid expansion of Japanese exports and hence to the acceleration of economic growth. Between 1955 and 1960 Japan’s exports more than doubled from 450 million dollars to 1.1 billion dollars. Japan’s trade expansion led to its accelerating economic growth. Its GNP grew at an an­ nual rate of more than 12 percent between 1958 and I960.14 While world trade

62

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

volume tripled in value during the 1960s, Japan exports increased sixfold. Trade expansion once again contributed to Japan’s rapid economic growth, with its GNP increasing at an annual rate of more than 10 percent on average in the 1960s. The two decades of rapid economic growth transformed Japan into an economic super­ power by the early 1980s. The relationship between Japan’s economic growth and exports has been a con­ troversial issue. Few have dismissed foreign trade as a factor contributing to the creation of the Japanese economic miracle. But economists and political scientists have disagreed among themselves as to just how important foreign trade is in Japa­ nese economic growth and whether or not Japanese growth is an export-led growth. Some argued that Japan’s economic growth is mostly induced by the domestic markets, citing the low share of Japanese exports in the GNP.15 The share of for­ eign trade in Japan’s GNP is in general lower than those of Western European countries. Japan’s foreign trade in current prices has constituted about 10 percent of its GNP between the early 1950s and early 1970s. It was not until the 1973 oil crisis that the share of foreign trade in Japan’s GNP rose to 15 percent because of increasing import and export prices. But most of them believed that Japanese exports, just like other factors such as the government’s industrial policy, cheap labor, high savings rate, and high lit­ eracy rate, have played a very important role in postwar Japan’s economic devel­ opment. They argued that the share of foreign trade in the GNP may not be an accurate indicator of a nation’s dependence on foreign trade, as it does not take into account the balance of payment and exchange rates.16 The lower share of Japanese foreign trade in the GNP may be a result of the lower exchange rate of the yen against the US dollar in the 1950s and 1960s. Moreover, the lower share of Japanese foreign trade in the GNP may also be explained by Japan’s distance from major international markets.17 These economists and political scientists believed that the significance of for­ eign trade for postwar Japanese economic growth should not be underestimated. While export growth has not been the main source of the Japanese economic miracle, export expansion has been of “strategic importance” to postwar Japanese eco­ nomic growth, in the words of economists Lawrence Krause and Sueo Sekiguchi. According to Krause .and Sekiguchi, export expansion contributed to Japanese economic growth in three aspects. First, export expansion was necessary to fi­ nance much-needed raw material imports. Japan is extremely deficient in natural resources. In the prewar period, China was the main source of raw material for Japan. Japan’s integration into the postwar economic order ensures Japan’s access to new sources of raw materials.18 As Table 4.1 shows, almost all petroleum (99 percent) in Japan in 1971 was imported. Without strong exports, Japan would not have enough foreign currency for raw material imports. Second, Japan’s export expansion has provided indispensable means to finance Japanese imports of foreign advanced technologies necessary to accelerate the economic development at home. Economists have found a significant correlation between Japanese economic growth and technology imports for 1950-60.19Natu­ rally, the United States, being the technological leader in the postwar period, was

American Structural Dominance and Japanese Dependence

63

Table 4.1 Japanese Imports of Selected Raw Materials in Relation to Domestic Consumption and to Total OECD in 1971

Product

Japanese imports as a share of domestic consumption

Japanese imports as a share of total OECD imports

Ranking of Japan among OECD countries as importer

Crude oil

99.0%

15.9%

1

Coal

58.4

41.0

1

Iron ore

99.3

42.3

1

Manganese ore

84.4

32.3

1

Copper ore

94.2

77.1

1

Zinc ore

78.5

31.2

1

Lead ore

100.0

26.4

1

Bauxite

100.0

12.3

3

Wool

100.0

22.6

1

Cotton

100.0

35.5

1

Rubber

27.4

15.4

2

Prepared by Lawrence B. Krause and Sueo Sekiguchi, “Japan and the World Economy,” in Hugh Patrick and Henry Rosovsky, A sia 's N e w G ia n t (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1976), p. 386.

Source:

the main source of Japanese technological imports. Finally, Japanese export growth allowed the expansion of certain industries that could take advantage of larger economies of scale and became the driving force for economic growth.20 It is in this regard that Japan’s integration into the postwar liberal international trading system has been particularly important. To the extent that Japan’s integration into the postwar international economic order has been critical for Japan’s economic growth, Japan’s economic prosperity has become increasingly dependent on the world economy in general and on the United States in particular because of the dominant size of the US market and the ability of the United States to maintain a semblance of stability in the world economy. In the words of historian Michael Schaller, “Japan’s high rate of export growth created a new dependence on American raw materials and consumers” and thus bound Japan even closer to the United States.21

64

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

As Tables 4.2 and 4.3 show, Japan’s trade dependence on the United States has remained significant during the postwar period despite its miraculous economic growth.22 Between 1955 and 1970, American share of Japan’s exports had been maintained consistently close to 30 percent. On the contrary, during the same pe­ riod, Japan’s share of American exports had been kept below 10 percent. In other words, Japan’s trade dependence on the United States was three times as much as American trade dependence on Japan during 1955-70. The 1970s and early 1980s saw Japan’s trade dependence on the United States decrease slightly as a result of Japan’s drive for trade diversification. But during this period, American share of Japanese exports remained well above 20 percent, yet Japan’s share of American exports was once again kept below 10 percent. In other words, despite Japan’s trade diversification, Japan’s trade dependence on the United States between the early 1970s and early 1980s was twice as much as American trade dependence on Japan. Japan’s drive for internationalization after 1986 only increased Japan’s de­ pendence on the world market in general and the United States in particular.23 The international financial structure is the second structure in which the United States has exerted dominant influence since the end of World War II. In the early

Table 4.2 Japanese Trade with the United States (in millions of US dollars) Total Exports

Total Imports

Exports to US

1955

2,011

2,471

456

23%

774

31%

1960

4,055

4,491

1,102

27%

1,545

35%

1965

8,452

8,169

2,479

29%

2,366

29%

1970

19,318

18,881

5,940

29%

5,560

29%

1975

55,753 • 57,863

11,149

20%

11,608

20%

Year

%

Imports from US

%

1980

129,807

140,528

31,367

24%

24,408

17%

1982

138,831

131,931

36,330

26%

24,179

18%

1985

175,858

127,512

66,038

38%

25,855

20%

1991

314,395

234,103

92,088

29%

53,717

23%

1995

442,937

336,094

112,024

25%

75,901

23%

S o u rc e : Hideo Kanemitsu, “U.S.-Japanese Trade Relations, 1955-1982,” in Akira Iriye and Warren I. Cohen, eds., T he U n ited S ta te s a n d J a p a n in th e P o stw a r W orld (Lexington, Ky.: The University Press of Kentucky, 1989), pp. 168-69; and the United Nations, In te rn a tio n a l T rade S ta tistic s Y earbook , vari­

ous issues.

American Structural Dominance and Japanese Dependence

65

part of the postwar period, the United States had also maintained a dominant posi­ tion in the international financial structure through its monopoly of the global credit supply. After the war, the United States helped create the Bretton Woods System to provide a semblance of international monetary stability, which was indispensable for the smooth functioning of the liberal international trading system. The Bretton Woods System was centered around the IMF and the dollar’s convertibility to gold, with the United States as the largest credit-provider of the IMF. With the American dollar pegged to gold, the dollar became the principal currency for in­ ternational trade and investment as well as the main reserve currency for most central banks. The United States in fact was the “money manager of the world.” To ensure sufficient liquidity supply for international trade, the United States extended a large flow of foreign loans to Western Europe and other allies through the Marshall Plan and other related aid programs. Moreover, the United States also ran balance of payment deficits in order to supply an additional source of liquidity.24 The ter­ mination of the dollar’s convertibility into gold in the early 1970s did not mean the decline of the United States as the world’s money manager. Rather it meant the

Table 4.3 The United States Trade with Japan (in millions of US dollars)

Exports to Japan

Imports from Japan

Year

Total Exports

Total Imports

1955

14,291

11,384

651

4.5%

432

3.8%

1960

19,629

15,018

1,341

6.8%

1,149

7.7%

1965

26,691

21,364

2,080

7.8%

2,414

11%

1970

42,659

39,952

4,652

11.0%

5,875

15%

1975

107,130

96,116

9,563

8.9%

11,268

11%

1980

220,549

240,834

20,790

9.5%

30,701

13%

1982

212,193

243,952

20,966

9.8%

37,744

15%

1985

211,419

358,705

22,166

10.5%

72,282

20%

1991

418,218

507,020

48,028

11.0%

95,712

19%

1995

582,965

770,822

64,260

11.0%

127,195

17%

%

%

Hideo Kanemitsu, “U.S.-Japanese Trade Relations, 1955-1982,” in Akira Iriye and Warren I. Cohen, eds., The U n ite d S ta te s a n d J a p a n in th e P o stw a r W orld (Lexington, Ky.: The University Press of Kentucky, 1989), pp. 168-69; and the United Nations, In te rn a tio n a l T rade S ta tistic s Y ea rbook , vari­ ous issues.

Source'.

66

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

further strengthening of the American financial position. Until the late 1980s, American banks were responsible for the overwhelmingly large share of total bank assets in the developed world and about three-quarters of these bank assets were denominated in US dollars.25 American dominance in the postwar international financial system rendered Japan heavily dependent on the United States in the postwar period. The Japanese dependence, which was particular prominent in the early part of the postwar pe­ riod, was deliberately cultivated by the United States to serve American foreign policy objectives. As the SCAP adopted the reverse course in Japan in the late 1940s to promote Japan’s economic recovery, it came to realize that the shortage of American dollars was an acute economic problem which threatened Japan’s postwar economic recovery. Washington thus extended various kinds of economic assistance programs to Japan in order to redress the balance of payment problems and promote Japan’s foreign trade with the Western world and the non-communist part of East Asia.26 The Korean War led the SCAP to seal off Japan’s trade relations with China and hastened its efforts to reorient Japanese trade relations toward the Western world in order to forestall Japan’s accommodation to China. The introduction of the socalled “economic cooperation” program in Japan took the form of integrating Japa­ nese trade with Southeast Asian trade by tying American aid to Southeast Asia with the purchase of Japanese manufactured goods. A more important component of the economic cooperation program took the form of a large amount of Ameri­ can military procurement in Japan for the execution of the Korean War, which was seen as a substitute for foreign aid. By making the Japanese economic recovery dependent on American war procurements, Washington hoped to gain a leverage on Japanese foreign policy and ensure Japan’s cooperation with the United States after Japan’s independence.27The Japanese procurement orders accumulated from American military forces in Korea accounted for 45.6 percent of total Japanese exports and 26.4 percent of total dollar earnings in 1951.28Between June 1950 and 1954, the US poured about three billion dollars into Japan for war and war-related supplies. As Japan specialist Chalmers Johnson wrote later on, “the Korean War was in many ways the equivalent for Japan of the Marshall Plan.”29 Between 1952 and 1962, Japan’s military procurements from the United States totalled more than six billion dollars, averaging 500 million dollars per year. These purchases pro­ vided sufficient dollars to balance Japan’s trade deficit with the United States and the rest of the world.30 The escalation of the American war in Vietnam presented Japan another economic opportunity to expand its trade and secure needed Ameri­ can dollars for imports. Once again Japan became an important source of Ameri­ can military procurements for the war. Japanese statistics showed that between 1965 and 1972 Japan earned seven billion dollars in extra sales of goods and ser­ vices related to Vietnam.31 The American monopoly in the w orld’s basic scientific knowledge and technological innovation is the third leg of American structural dominance in the world economy in the early postwar period. The United States emerged as the leading technological power in the world after 1945.32 This technological edge

American Structural Dominance and Japanese Dependence

67

was epitomized by America’s monopoly of nuclear weapons right after the end of World War II. Since then the United States continued to maintain a leading edge in basic scientific research and technological innovation. As of 1990, the number of American winners for the Nobel Prize in science-related areas reached 171, more than twenty times greater than the number of Japanese winners (Table 4.11). Am erican advantages in basic scientific knowledge fueled the Am erican technological, economic, and military advances in the postwar period.

American Economic Dominance in the 1980s and the 1990s In the late 1980s, the declinists have argued that American global economic dominance diminished because of rising international economic competition from Japan and Western Europe and the economic and social sclerosis at home. None­ theless, as it became apparent by the early 1990s, the declinists exaggerated the economic decline of the United States and the rise of Japanese economic strength for two reasons. While Japan gained significant economic ground relative to the United States, Japanese economic gains do not mean that Japan overtook the United States in economic strength. Rather, they show that Japan simply diminished the American relative lead in the global economy. Moreover, the declinists overlooked many fundamental weaknesses of the Japanese economy such as an overvalued yen, overpriced real estate markets, and bad bank loans, which contributed to the burst of the Japanese bubble economy in the early 1990s. Although the US share of gross world products and trade declined in the 1980s, the United States continued to maintain its dominance in the structure of world production and trade. While the competitiveness of US companies eroded in the 1970s, there was an upsurge in US manufacturing productivity growth after the early 1980s. US manufacturing sectors experienced an impressive upsurge in pro­ ductivity growth in the first half of the 1980s.33While the productivity growth then slowed down slightly in the second half of the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s, it still surpassed the Japanese productivity growth rate in the same period, which has seen a continued slide between 1970 and 1995 (see Table 4.4). The upsurge of US productivity growth after the early 1980s enabled US com­ panies to reassume their leadership in global economic production in the early 1990s. Across many high-tech manufacturing sectors including biotechnology, computer software, semiconductors, and aerospace, American companies regained their dominant control on market shares, some of which were lost to their Japanese counterparts in the 1980s.34 As Table 4.5 shows, American semiconductor companies controlled a lion’s share of the world chips markets, save the Japanese market in the 1990s. Even in the Japanese market, where Japanese companies maintained a monopoly control of market share, US companies gained an increasing market share between 1991 and 1993. In the computer software industry, American dominance was even more remarkable, what with the buttress of Silicon Valley (the world’s software technol­ ogy mecca), the presence of the largest venture-capital market in the world, and the support of world-class university computer departments and research centers.

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

68

Table 4.4 Manufacturing Labor Productivity Growth (average annual growth rates) 1973-79

1979-85

1985-95

United States

1.5

3.5

2.4

Japan

4.1

3.4

2.3

Germany

3.3

1.3

1.8

Source:

OECD, S cien ce, T echnology a n d In d u stry : S c o re b o a rd o f In d ica to rs, p. 153

Table 4.5 The US and Japanese Share of World Semiconductor Markets, 1991 and 1993 US Share

T Japan Share

Rest of the World

European Market 1991 1993

45.0% 50.0%

15.0% 13.0%

40.0% 37.0%

US Market 1991 1993

70.0% 67.6%

20.0% 23.1%

10.0% 9.3%

Japan Market 1991 1993

12.0% 15.1%

86.0% 82.0%

2.0% 2.9%

Rest of World Market 1991 1993

43.0% 40.9%

34.0% 35.0%

23.0% 23.8%

Source:

Cited by Eric Marshall Green, E c o n o m ic S e c u rity a n d H ig h T echnology C o m p e titio n in a n A g e (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1996), p. 136.

o f T ransition: The C a se o f th e S e m ic o n d u c to r In d u stry

By the mid-1990s, the United States made three-quarters of the packaged software sold in the world. Half of the world’s computing power is in the United States, seven times more than in Japan, which is its closest competitor. There are about two million software programmers in the United States. In comparison, there are no more than one million software programmers in Japan.35 In Business Week's 1996 survey of the Global 1000, four US information technology companies— Microsoft, Intel, IBM, and Hewlett-Packard— ranked among the top twenty-five

American Structural Dominance and Japanese Dependence

69

Table 4.6 Market Values of the US and Japanese Companies in the World’s Top 1000 Companies US

Japan

1990

1991

1992

1997

1990

1991

1992

1997

No. o f companies among top 10

2

4

8

7

7

5

1

2

No. of companies among global 1000

353

359

383

447

345

309

245

182

Share of combined values of global 1000

32%

38%

42%

50%

47%

35%

25%

16%

Source:

These data draw on various issues of B u sin ess Week, international edition.

of the Global 1000 and top four among the world’s information technology (IT) companies.36 By virtue of their dominance, these leading American IT companies have largely determined the structure of world information technology industries and defined the rules by which IT companies in other countries should play in the competitive game of information technology. Another indication of American dominance in the structure o f global produc­ tion is the American dominance in the operation of multinational corporations. While Japanese companies reached a parity with US companies in the late 1980s in terms o f market values (evident in the Japanese dominance in the world’s larg­ est ten companies and the number of Japanese companies on the list of the world’s largest 1000 companies, which was equal to that of US companies in 1990), the pattern reversed quickly. By 1992 US companies dominated the top ten list as well as the list of 1000 top global companies. The American dominance continued. In 1997, seven out of the world’s ten largest companies were US companies (com­ pared with two Japanese companies). Close to half o f the world’s largest 1000 companies were US companies (447 US companies vs. 182 Japanese companies) (see Table 4.6). American dominance in the structure of world production is further evident in its dominant share of the world’s foreign direct investment. While the total amount of Japanese foreign investment increased substantially in the 1980s and the early 1990s, a large gap remained between the United States and Japan in terms of the total amount of direct foreign investment (see Table 4.7). The American dominance in the global credit supply may have eroded since the 1980s because of the ascendancy of Japanese economic power. As the Japanese

70

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

Table 4.7 Outward Foreign Direct Investment among Major Industrialized Economies, 1973-95 (cumulative flows)

United States

1973-80

1981-95

$119 billion

$472 billion

Britain

51

315

Japan

17

288

Germany

24

202

France

13

214

Source:

OECD, Scien ce, T echnology a n d In d u stry : S c o re b o a rd o f Indica to rs, 1997, p. 180.

yen appreciated in value and Japanese funds poured into the United States, Japan’s financial dependence on the United States considerably lessened in the 1980s. By 1986 Japan had become the world’s largest creditor nation, with the United States as the largest debtor nation. There was an increasing financial interdependence between the United States and Japan. Nonetheless, the US dollar continued to serve as the principal currency for settling international trade accounts and the main reserve currency for most central banks in the world, thus lengthening Japanese financial dependence on the United States. Moreover, the erosion of American financial power may have been tampered by the burst of the Japanese economic bubble in the early 1990s and continued American dominance in multilateral financial institutions, such as the IMF and the World Bank, that the United States helped to create after World War II. By virtue o f its large amount of financial contribution, the United States continued to be the only member of the IMF that holds a veto in that organization (see Table 4.8). With close to 18 percent of votes, the United States has a right of veto over most important decisions, such as capital increases and amendments to the Articles of Agreements, for which 85 percent of the votes are required.37 The American dominance in the world financial markets gave the United States an unparalleled capability to influence the decision-making of foreign central banks as well as private banks.38 In the world structure of basic scientific knowledge and technology, the technological gap between the United States and its closest competitors remained considerable in the 1990s, notwithstanding the fact that the American lead in technological innovation shrank in the 1980s as the Japanese scaled up their innovative activities.39 American dominance in technological innovation can be seen in America’s share of OECD gross domestic expenditure on R&D (GERD) and the share of total numbers of researchers in all OECD countries. Between 1981 and 1995, the US share of OECD’s GERD remained consistently at the level

American Structural Dominance and Japanese Dependence

71

Table 4.8 Quota and Voting Ratios in the IMF (ninth quota increase) SDR billion United States

% of total votes

26.53

17.8

Germany

8.24

5.6

Japan

8.24

5.6

France

7.41

5.0

United Kingdom

7.41

5.0

Italy

4.59

3.1

Canada

4.32

2.9

Netherlands

3.44

2.3

Belgium

3.10

2.1

Switzerland

2.47

1.7

Sweden

1.61

1.1

Group of Ten

77.38

52.2

Other industrialized countries

11.03

7.6

Total industrialized countries

88.42

59.8

Russia

4.31

2.9

China

3.39

2.3

Other industrializing countries

48.74

35.0

Total developing countries

56.44

40.2

144.86

100.0

Total Source:

Adapted from A. F. P. Bakker, In tern a tio n a l F in a n c ia l In stitu tio n s (New York: Longman, 1996),

p. 20.

of close to 50 percent. The number of US researchers consistently accounted for around 40 percent of the total number of researchers in all OECD countries during 1981-93. Japan, America’s closest competitor, consistently gained no more than 20 percent in its share of GERD during 1981-95. Japan’s share of total numbers of

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

72

Table 4.9 Estimates of share of OECD gross domestic expenditure on R&D (GERD) and of total numbers of researchers by major OECD members (percentage) Share of GERD

Share of Researchers

1981

1985

1991

1995

1981

1985

1991

1993

US

46.8

48.2

44.2

43.7

43.2

43.0

42.2

39.1

Japan

14.7

15.8

18.4

18.6

19.7

20.4

20.6

21.4

France

7.1

6.6

6.9

6.6

5.4

5.5

5.5

5.9

10.0

9.2

9.8

9.3

7.9

7.7

10.2

9.3

7.4

6.0

5.2

5.2

8.0

7.0

5.5

5.7

Germany Britain Source:

OECD, Scien ce, T ech n o lo g y a n d In d u stry : S c o r e b o a rd o f In d ica to rs, 1997, p. 119.

OECD researchers remained below 22 percent during 1981-93. American dominance in advanced technology can also be seen in the number of patents granted to US residents in comparison to residents of other major OECD countries. Between 1981 and 1995, US residents consistently gained the highest share in patents in all major patent markets among OECD countries, with more than 50 percent in the US market and 30 percent in Europe. Residents of Japan, the closest competitor, had a share of less than 20 percent in patents granted by the US and Europe respectively.40 There is a tendency for the United States to widen its lead in the share of patents both at home and abroad (Table 4.9). The annual growth rate for US resident patent applications stabilized in the early 1980s at home but increased slowly abroad. But the growth rate for US resi­ dent patent applications since then rose very markedly. By the early 1990s, the annual growth rate for US resident patent applications abroad increased to 24.6 percent. In comparison, Japan’s share of patents grew rapidly both at home and abroad in the early 1980s, but has since levelled off. In the early 1990s, the annual growth rate of patent applications for Japanese residents became negative in Japan and fell sharply for external patent applications. The American edge in scientific and technological knowledge became an important basis for continued American dominance in global production and trade (Table 4.10). Despite their impressive technological advances, Japanese companies continued their dependence on American technologies in high-tech industries such as co m puter softw are, sem iconductors, pharm aceu ticals, biotechnology, telecommunications,- and aerospace.41 The American dominance in high-tech industries is particularly significant, since the global economy is increasingly being driven by knowledge-based inform ation technology and since traditional

American Structural Dominance and Japanese Dependence

73

Table 4.10 Resident and External Patent Applications in Major OECD Countries Resident patent applications

External patent applications

1980-85

1986-90

1991-94

1980-85

1986-90

1991-94

0.5

8.6

6.9

5.2

16.1

24.6

Japan

10.6

3.5

-1.6

10.3

14.8

1.7

France

1.4

-1.4

4.1

2.6

11.6

10.9

Germany

1.9

1.0

-0.2

2.2

13.4

8.7

Britain

0.1

-0.9

-1.5

8.0

17.1

22.9

US

Source'.

OECD, Scien ce, T echnology a n d In d u stry : S c o r e b o a rd o f Indica to rs, 1997, p. 132.

Table 4.11 The Number of Nobel Prize Recipients in Science-related Areas (as of 1990) US

Japan

Physics

55

3

Chemistry

36

1

Medicine and Biology

68

1

Mathematics

12

3

171

8

Total S o u rc e : JETRO, U.S. a n d J a p a n in F igures,

II (Tokyo: JETRO, 1992), p. 95.

manufacturing industries such as steel and television no longer provide an adequate basis of international economic competitiveness.42 In short, American dominance in the world economic structures may have eroded in the 1980s, but its dominance was by no means diminished. Declinism was more a psychological response to rapid changes in the international economy than a product of actual reality. Japan’s overall economic dependence on the United States continued well beyond the 1990s. While the 1980s saw a more balanced or interdependent economic relationship between Japan and the United States with Japan’s emergence as an economic juggernaut, Japan continued to be much more

74

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

economically dependent on the United States than the United States was on Japan. The new relationship between the United States and Japan after Japan’s economic ascendancy can be at best characterized as “asymmetric interdependence.”43Japan’s continued economic dependence on the United States since 1945 might have become an important structural power resource which the United States could employ to maintain a degree of American hegemony in Japan.

NOTES 1. Joseph S. Nye, Jr., Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power (New York: Basic Books, 1990), pp. 72-87. 2. Nye, Bound to Lead, pp. 29-31; also see Susan Strange, “The Persistent Myth of Lost Hegemony,” International Organization 41,4 (Autumn 1987), pp. 562-71. 3. Bruce Russett, “The Mysterious Case of Vanishing Hegemony; Or, Is Mark Twain Really Dead?” International Organization 39, 2 (Spring 1985), p. 213; Also see Stephen Rrasner, “Regimes and the Limits of Realism: Regimes as Autonomous Variables,” in Krasner, ed., International Regimes (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1983), pp. 255-368. 4. The discussion on the notion of the zone of peace draws heavily on Russett, “The Mysterious Case of Vanishing Hegemony,” pp. 215-17. 5. Robert Scalapino, American-Japanese Relations in a Changing Era (New York: The Liberty Press, 1972). 6. Daniel Okimoto, “The Economics of National Defense,” in Daniel I. Okimoto, ed., Japan s Economy: Coping with Change in the International Environment (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1982), p. 245. 7. Hugh Patrick and Henry Rosovsky, “Japan’s Economic Performance: An Overview,” in Patrick and Rosovsky, eds., Asia s New Giant (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institu­ tion, 1976), p. 45. 8. Okimoto, “The Economics of National Defense,” pp. 251-52. 9. Strange, “The Persistent Myth of Lost Hegemony,” pp. 562-71; also see Russett, “The Mysterious Case of Vanishing Hegemony,” pp. 218-27. 10. Strange, “The Persistent Myth of Lost Hegemony, p. 564. 11. Michael Schaller, Altered States: The United States and Japan since the Occupation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 70. 12. Ippei Yamazawa, Economic Development and International Trade: The Japanese Model (Honolulu, Hawaii: East-West Center, 1990), p. 167. 13. Schaller, Altered States, p. 181. 14. Ibid.,p. 108. 15. For example, see Chalmers Johnson, MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth o f Industrial Policy, 1925-1975 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1982), p. 16; also see Eugene J. Kaplan, Japan: The Government-Business Relationship (Washington, D.C.: US Department of Commerce, 1972), p. 3. 16. For this argument, see Leon Hollerman, Japan's Dependence on the World Economy: The Approach TowardEconomic Liberalization (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1967), chapter 2. 17. Hugh Patrick and Henry Rosovsky, “Japan’s Economic Performance: An Overview,” p. 57. 18. See Lawrence Krause and Sueo Sekiguchi, “Japan and the World Economy,” in Patrick and Rosovsky, Asia s New Giant, p. 386. 19. For example, see Terutomo Ozawa, Japan’s Technological Challenge to the West,

American Structural Dominance and Japanese Dependence

75

1950-1974: Motivation and Accomplishment (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1974). Also see Merton J. Peck, “Technology,” in Patrick and Rosovsky, Asia s New Giant, pp. 525-86. 20. See Krause and Sekiguchi, “Japan and the World Economy,” p. 401. 21. Schaller, Altered States, p. 182. 22. For a good analysis of Japan’s trade dependence on the United States between 1955 and 1982, see Hideo Kanemitsu, “U.S.-Japanese Trade Relations, 1955-1982,” in Akira Iriye and Warren I. Cohen, eds., The United States and Japan in the Postwar World (Lex­ ington, Ky.: The University Press of Kentucky, 1989), pp. 145-70. 23. Bruce Cumings, “Japan’s Position in the World System,” in Andrew Gordon, ed., Postwar Japan as History (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California, 1993), pp. 59-60. 24. Benjamin Cohen, “A Brief History of International Monetary Relations,” in Jeffrey A. Frieden and David A. Lake, International Political Economy (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987), pp. 245-68. 25. Strange, “The Persistent Myth of Lost Hegemony,” pp. 568-69. 26. For details about the SCAP’s role in the management of the Japanese economy during this period, see William Borden, The Pacific Alliance: The United States Foreign Economic Policy and Japanese Trade Recovery (Madison, Wise.: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984). 27. For details about the “Economic Cooperation” program, see Borden, The Pacific Alliance, pp. 140-60. 28. Akio Watanabe, “Southeast Asia in U.S.-Japanese Relations,” in Iriye and Cohen, The United States and Japan in the Postwar World, pp. 89-90. 29. Cited in Borden, The Pacific Alliance, p. 146. 30. Schaller, Altered States, p. 108. 31. Ibid., pp. 198-201. 32. For more details on the US technological lead in the postwar period, see Richard R. Nelson and Gavin Wright, “The Rise and Fall of American Technological Leadership: The Postwar Era in Historical Perspective,” Journal of Economic Literature 30 (December 1992), pp. 1950-54. 33. For details on the weaknesses of the Japanese economy, see Bill Emmott, The Sun Also Sets: Why Japan Will Not Be Number One (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989). 34. Michael Prowess, “Is America in Decline,” Harvard Business Review, July-August 1992, p. 36. 35. The Economist, “The Software Industry,” May 25, 1996, p. 14. 36. Business Week (international edition), July 8, 1996, p. 49. 37. A. F. P. Bakker, International Financial Institutions (New York: Longman, 1996), p. 14. 38. Strange, “The Persistent Myth of Lost Hegemony,” p.569. 39. Nelson and Wright, “The Rise and Fall of American Technological Leadership,” pp. 1950-54. 40. OECD, Science, Technology and Industry: Scoreboard of Indicators, 1997, pp. 3637. 41. For Japan’s continued dependence on the United States in the 1980s and the 1990s, see Nye, Bound to Lead, chapter 5. Also see Cumings, “Japan’s Position in the World Sys­ tem,” pp. 59-60. 42. For more details about the changing nature of the world economy, see “The World Economy,” The Economist, September 28, 1996. 43. For the use of this term, see I. M. Destler and Hideo Sato, “Coping with Economic Conflicts,” in Destler and Sato, eds., Coping with U.S.-Japanese Economic Conflicts (Lex­ ington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1982), p. 289.

5 Normative Sources of American Hegemony in Japan The strongest is never strong enough to be the master forever unless he trans­ forms his force into right and obedience into duty. —Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract

Through a combination of persuasion and coercion, American leaders actively sought to inculcate the Japanese elites and the populace with American ideologies of pacifism and democracy, and the American conception of a US-centric postwar regional order in Asia. While different components of these American ideas were appealing to various segments of the Japanese elite community and the populace, the Japanese centrist politicians in the conservative camp led by Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru were most receptive to these American ideas. Therefore, the Yoshida doctrine, which advocated Japan’s integration with the US-led Western alliance, concentration on economic reconstruction, and minimal involvement in international affairs, thus embodied much of the American conceptions of regional order and the underlying American ideologies. The Yoshida doctrine, which laid the foundation for postwar Japan’s foreign policy orientation, drew strong attacks from both the left and the right as soon as Japan recovered its sovereignty in 1952. Driven by political nationalism, the bulk of the populace and the elites from both the right and the left saw the peace settle­ ment as grossly infringing Japanese sovereignty and severely wounding their na­ tional pride. For the coming decade, Japan would be mired in what Kent Calder called “political crisis” as the Yoshida doctrine and the political forces that sus­ tained it would be subject to intense challenges from both-the right and the left.1 Nonetheless, despite the challenges by the leftists and the right-conservatives, the centrists’ policy program came to be gradually embraced by the bulk of the mass public and the elites as the consensual national program with the thorough “breakdown o f the conservative-progressive cleavage,” to use Gerald Curtis’s words.2 These changes amounted to the transformation of Japan’s security culture and the embeddedness of American hegemonic ideas in the new culture. The cul­ tural transformation in Japan was brought about by a number of important factors,

78

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

including intense official propagation, and the reinforcement o f a successive wave of dramatic domestic and international events. Furthermore, the changes in the Japanese security culture led to the transforma­ tion o f the political process in Japan and created political conditions which might be conducive to the maintenance of American hegemony in Japan as hypothesized by the constructivists. These conditions included the perpetual dominance of the pro-US LDP in the political world, and the dominance of the centrist conservatives inside the LDP.

THE IDEOLOGICAL CONVERGENCE BETWEEN AMERICA’S JAPAN POLICY AND THE YOSHIDA DOCTRINE The twin American objectives of democratization and demilitarization toward Japan formulated in the wake of Japan’s defeat amounted to a cultural revolution in Japan and the remaking of Japan’s national identity. Just one month after the occupation started, the occupation authority issued an order banning the teaching of all militaristic and ultra-nationalistic ideologies in schools and purging all teach­ ers associated with such ideologies in order to “eliminate from the educational system of Japan those militaristic and ultra-nationalistic influences which in the past have contributed to the defeat, war guilt, suffering, privation, and present deplorable state of the Japanese people.” The SCAP then recruited into schools liberal teachers who were receptive to American ideals. The SCAP also decentral­ ized the education system and set the guidelines as to what should be taught in schools. Subsequently, a directive was issued to attack symbols of prewar Japa­ nese ultranationalism. It prohibited official support of state Shintoism and the teach­ ing of Shintoism in schools.3 Censorship was employed against Japanese literary works and films which exhibited the tendency of exalting feudal virtues.4 On the first New Year of the occupation period, the Japanese emperor was ordered by the occupation authority to issue a famous statement to renounce his own divinity and deny the superiority of the Japanese race. By then, the occupation authority had completely undermined almost every aspect of the supposed uniqueness of Japan’s kokutai (national polity) which provided a theoretical underpinning for prewar Japanese nationalism'. As one Western scholar commented, “throughout their long history no greater change than this had ever come to the Japanese people.”5 To ensure that democracy took root in Japan, the SCAP also launched a propaganda campaign and radio broadcast programs aimed at educating the Japanese people about the ideals of democracy.6 General MacArthur, the most powerful man in Japan during the occupation, personified the American official conception o f a new Japan as a pacifist, Westernized, and dependent ally of the United States at this period. As he believed, the elimination of the Japanese military threat entailed more than the dismantling of Japanese war machinery. It entailed the fundamental transformation of Japanese culture and national identity through democratization and even the spread of the Christian faith in Japan. Through these transformations, Japan would reemerge on the world stage with a distinctly Western and pacifist identity. In early 1947 in a

Normative Sources of American Hegemony in Japan

79

message to Congress, MacArthur boasted of his mission to undertake a “reformation of the Japanese people,” introducing them to the “maturity of enlightened knowledge and truth.” For MacArthur, Japan’s cultural transformation, more than anything material, was the best defense for the United States against the onslaught of communism in Asia. In his own words, the cultural transformation would make Japan a “powerful bulwark of peace” in the Pacific. Ultimately, the spread of democracy and Christianity in Japan and beyond would unify Asia and America by creating an “invincible spiritual barrier” against the ideology of communism. Nonetheless, MacArthur was not ready to leave Japan completely neutral and adrift. Through Westernization, Japan would be firmly placed under American tutelage and its security would be guaranteed by American military power. In his own words, the new Japan would form the “Western outpost of our defense” buttressed by American military power and the Christian faith.7 The reverse course in the late 1940s no doubt represented a major American foreign policy change toward Japan. While it reflected a major change in America’s global military strategy (which was to consolidate Western allies and assume the leadership of the Western world in the ideological and strategic struggle against the Soviet Union), it did not represent a fundamental change in America’s Japan policy objectives embodied in democratization and demilitarization. Instead of treating Japan as a major threat, the reverse course viewed Japan as an American ally in the global power struggle with the Soviet Union.8Politically, Japan’s fledg­ ling democracy as embodied in the new constitution was preserved despite the suppression of the leftist movements, the curtailment of labor rights, and the strengthening of conservative rule. Militarily, the American concern about the po­ tential revival of Japanese militarism continued to linger and uprooting Japanese militarism remained an important policy objective in Japan despite the reversal course. Militarily, while the American demilitarization policy toward Japan was now modified to encouraging Japan’s limited rearmament, the Truman adminis­ tration continued to view Japan as a potential military threat and did not want to see a rehabilitated Japan with a strong and independent military as evidenced in the intense debates between the Defense Department and the State Department prior to the San Francisco peace settlement. Japan’s rearmament was to proceed in a measured way and more importantly was to be checked by the American military presence in Japan. The continued American military presence in Japan was a doubleedged sword. It would allow the United States to deter both Soviet expansion in Asia and the revival of Japanese militarism. As sanctioned by the bilateral security treaty negotiated in 1951, the United States retained the legal right to intervene in Japan militarily when it saw fit. In short, the reverse course did not change the American policy objectives of democratization and demilitarization and the conception of Japan’s new Western identity that flowed naturally out of these objectives. The reverse course differed from the reformist policy in that the former stressed Japan’s economic and mili­ tary integration with the closely knit West under American leadership, while the latter simply emphasized Japan’s cultural integration with the United States. Rather than contradicting the new security objective o f the reverse, course, the American

80

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

reformist policy of democratization and demilitarization paved the way for and reinforced Japan’s tighter integration with the West. Clearly, the American conceptions of the postwar regional order in East Asia and the Japanese roles and identities in the new order as articulated respectively by both the American reformists and the American cold warriors bore much resem­ blance to the Yoshida doctrine, which advocated Japan’s military alliance with the United States, concentration of its resources on economic reconstruction, and mini­ mal military involvement in world affairs. In particular, the Yoshida doctrine partly converged with America’s reformist vision in its stress on Japan’s democratiza­ tion and demilitarization as embodied in the postwar constitution. While Yoshida as a Japanese conservative had some reservations about the American democratic reforms in Japan, he nonetheless acquiesced to the pacifist constitution as the foun­ dation of postwar Japan’s national polity, which gave rise to Japan’s new identity as a pacifist and democratic state. The Yoshida doctrine also partly converged with the policy vision of the American cold warriors which called for the rebuilding of the Japanese economy and Japan’s integration into the American-led Western alli­ ance. Yoshida’s advocacy of the US-Japan alliance was based on Yoshida’s accep­ tance of America’s leadership role in the new regional order and Japan’s subordi­ nate role in the US-centric anti-communist alliance. In short, the Yoshida doctrine converged with the American policy toward Japan ideologically in that they both envisioned a dramatic transformation of Japan’s state identity into a pacifist mem­ ber of the Western anti-communist alliance and the international capitalist system led by the United States.9 The convergence between the Yoshida doctrine and American policy visions toward Japan was a direct result of the exercise of American normative as well as material power. Evidently, MacArthur and his close personal encounters with Yoshida during the occupation played an important part in bringing about this convergence. Yoshida’s anti-militarism suggested that he had become imbued with many elements of this reformist vision articulated by the SCAP and General MacArthur.10Yoshida then juxtaposed the various elements of the American con­ ceptions of world order in ways that would best suit the reality of international power and Japanese national interests. While historians continued to debate on the precise extent to which American policy visions for Japan was embraced by the Japanese elites, there is a widely shared agreement that the United States played a central role in the reconstruction of the Japanese political system, which in turn made the Japanese more receptive to American ideologies.11

THE EMERGENCE OF A NEW SECURITY CULTURE IN POSTWAR JAPAN Shortly after the conclusion of the San Francisco Peace Treaty, the pro-American foreign policy program embodied in the Yoshida doctrine became the focus of political attacks an'd protests among the public. The majority of the Japanese were very critical of the peace settlement and saw the US-Japan security treaty as a sell­ out o f Japan’s sovereign rights. They characterized the San Francisco peace

Normative Sources of American Hegemony in Japan

81

settlement as “dependent independence” or “subordinate independence.”12A poll conducted by Yomiuri Shimbun in March 1952 when the San Francisco peace treaty was ratified by the US Senate revealed that more than a two-thirds majority of the Japanese opposed the US-Japan security treaty.13 Japan’s neutrality versus alignment in world politics soon became the focal point of political contention as politicians from both the left and the right sought to capitalize on the public disenchantment with the Yoshida doctrine. They lost no time in launching their political challenges to the Yoshida government. The ideo­ logical polarization among the populace and elites, resulting from the Americaninitiated sociopolitical reforms and the subsequent peace settlement, gave rise to what Japanese political scientist Watanuki Joji called “cultural politics” in post­ war Japan.14 The leftists, who approved the earlier postwar political reforms as a necessary social progression in Japan’s modernization endeavor, were critical of the “reverse course.” As they believed, the US-Japan security treaty was a further betrayal of the pacifist constitution that embodied the progressive political reforms initiated by the occupation authority. Since 1950, the JCP had officially considered “Ameri­ can imperialism” as a more dangerous enemy than their “reactionary government” at home. As the Communists saw it, America had consigned Japan to a state of “semi-colonialism” through the peace settlement and especially the US-Japan se­ curity treaty.15For the Socialists, the peace settlement had contravened all the four principles of peace they advocated. While the Socialists were all vociferously critical of the security treaty, disagreement in the party with regard to the San Francisco peace treaty arose. The right-wing faction showed some flexibility toward the peace treaty, but the left-wing Socialists were tenaciously uncompromising on both the peace treaty and the security treaty. The internal conflict led to a split of the party into the Right Socialist Party and the Left Socialist Party in October 1951.16 The leftists’ opposition to the US-Japan security treaty and Japan’s rearmament helped them to gamer growing popular support and contributed to the steady growth of their strength in the Diet. By the late 1950s, the Socialists controlled more than one-third of seats in both houses, sufficient to block any attempt of constitutional revision in 1949.17 Championing the cause of preserving Japanese tradition, the bulk of conserva­ tives had been bitterly critical of the postwar constitution and saw it as corrupting traditional virtues and worse still a symbol of foreign domination. For them, the peace settlement further deprived Japan of her sovereign rights to self-defense and perpetuated Japan’s subordination to the United States. While the Democratic Party maintained a more flexible attitude toward the separate peace settlement in San Francisco, the majority of members of the Democratic Party particularly objected to the continued stationing of American troops in Japan as stipulated in the USJapan security treaty. The Democratic Party eventually participated in the Japa­ nese delegation to the peace conference in San Francisco, but its representative at the peace conference, Tomabechi Yoshizo, signed only the peace treaty and re­ fused to sign the security treaty.18 In order to consolidate its opposition to the Liberal Party, members of the

82

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

Democratic Party merged with the other opposition forces within the conservative camp and renamed their party the Progressive Party (Kaishinto) in June 1952. The Progressive Party’s position on the peace settlement was epitomized in an inaugural address by Shigemitsu Mamom, president of the Progressive Party, who represented Japan to sign the instrument of surrender in September 1945 as foreign minister and was depurged in the spring of 1952. In the address, Shigemitsu stated that “in order to defend peace and liberty, we must possess armament for our self-defense. This is perfectly obvious. If we entrust the defense of our own soil to other countries, how can we possibly safeguard our national existence? We shall be a fully sovereign and independent nation only when we have both the will and power to defend our own shores.”19 A more fierce challenge to the Yoshida doctrine on the right was mounted from within the Liberal Party by a rival group led by Hatoyama Ichiro and his close associates. Hatoyama was purged in 1946 because of his record of support for Japa­ nese aggression in the Pacific War and also for the suppression of dissent in the 1920s and 1930s.20 Hatoyama was depurged as a result of the reverse course and returned to the Liberal Party after the 1952 election with the expectation that Yoshida would turn over his presidency in the Liberal Party to him. Disenchanted by Yoshida’s refusal to relinquish the Liberal Party leadership, Hatoyama would soon champion the course of political nationalism and seized on the Yoshida doctrine to challenge Yoshida politically. Closely associated with the right-wing nationalist social groups, Hatoyama was bitterly critical of the 1947 constitution as it was seen as being imposed by a foreign country.21 In particular, he viewed Article 9 as an infringe­ ment on Japan’s sovereignty. Moreover, Hatoyama was strongly opposed to Yoshida’s peace settlement and viewed the US-Japan security treaty as a sellout of Japan’s sovereign rights. As early as September 1952, in his first speech following his re­ turn to the Liberal Party, Hatoyama vowed to revise the constitution and Yoshida’s policy program once he became the president of the Liberal Party. He also called for the establishment of Japan’s diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and the revision of the constitution to pave the way for Japan’s rearmament.22 The ideological feud between Hatoyama and Yoshida exacerbated the politi­ cal stability in the conservative camp. Upon returning to the Diet, Hatoyama, and his confidantes K-ono Ichiro and Ishibashi Tanzan, rallied an anti-Yoshida group in the Liberal Party behind them. Hatoyama’s anti-Yoshida cause was greatly aided by another depurgee, Kishi Nobusuke, who was former vice minister of munitions in the Tojo government. Thus, factional struggle in the Liberal Party began to take shape along the fault line between the professional politicians (tojinha) and the bureaucrats-tumed-politicians (kanryo-ha) led by Hatoyama and Yoshida respectively.23 To consolidate the anti-Yoshida forces in the conservative camp, Hatoyama’s supporters in the Liberal Party then bolted the Liberal Party and merged with the Progressive Party to form the Democratic Party (Nihon Minshuto) in late 1954. In his inaugural speech as the president of the Democratic Party, Hatoyama declared that the main goal of the new party was to “achieve complete independence” for Japan. He saw the revision of the constitution and the revision of the security

Normative Sources of American Hegemony in Japan

83

treaty as two indispensable steps to achieve this goal. Hatoyama’s close political ally Ishibashi Tanzan, a liberal-minded editor of Oriental Economist magazine in the prewar period but ardent advocate of Japan’s close relations with China, be­ came one of the leading members of the “National Conference for the Restoration of Diplomatic Relations with China and the Soviet Union.”24 The political nationalism exhibited by the right-conservatives was reminiscent of the ultranationalism in prewar Japan because of their similar emphasis on de­ fending Japan’s traditional virtues that centered around the imperial system, group loyalty, and conformity. Nonetheless, there were profound differences between the two forms of nationalism. While the prewar ultranationalism focused on a national mission of aggrandizement through military expansion and took on an explicit anti-Western tone, the postwar nationalism of right-conservatives was much more moderate in two important respects. First, the right-conservatives stressed rearmament as a necessity for national self-defense, rather than as a means for Japan’s expansion. They learned from Japan’s recent devastating defeat that mili­ tary expansion was no long feasible to achieve national greatness. Moreover, while many right-conservatives were opposed to the US-Japan alliance for perpetuating Japan’s subordination to the United States, they did not necessarily take on an antiWestern tone. In fact, most of them supported Japan’s friendly relations with the United States as long as Japan’s independence was respected.25 The creation of the Democratic Party ushered in a new balance of political power in the Diet dominated by three competing forces, the two conservative groups led by Yoshida and Hatoyama respectively, and the Socialists.26 While the rightconservatives led by Hatoyama and the leftists were bitter ideological enemies and were in conflict over their attitudes toward the postwar constitution and Japan’s rearmament, they shared something important in common. That is, they all showed their abiding concern about Japan’s national independence and strong interest in promoting Japan’s relations with communist countries and Asian neighbors as so­ lutions to reduce Japan’s dependence on the United States. Through collaborating with the Socialists, the Democratic Party introduced a no-confidence vote against Yoshida in the lower house in early December 1954 and successfully ousted Yoshida. Hatoyama’s succession to Yoshida as the new prime minister thus brought the “Yoshida era” to an end. Hatoyama’s attempt to revise the postwar constitution gradually alarmed the Socialists who posed themselves as the guardians of the pacifist constitution. They believed that the revision of Article 9 would legitimate Japan’s rearmament and pave the way for Japan’s military involvement in the American containment against Asian communism. The Right Socialist Party and the Left Socialist Party moved to reconcile their political differences for the sake of “defending the constitution” and merged to form the Japan Socialist Party (JSP) in October 1955. The merger of the two Socialist parties posed a new political challenge to the fragmented conservatives.27Despite their differences over rearmament and the USJapan security treaty, the centrists and the right-conservatives shared their loathing of communism and their support for capitalism. The Socialist merger impelled the fragmented conservatives to look for a settlement of the conflict between Hatoyama

84

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

and Yoshida in order to strengthen the political power of the conservatives. In November 1955, the two conservative parties merged to form the Liberal Demo­ cratic Party (LDP) despite the protest of the Yoshida faction in the Liberal Party. The merger meant that the conservatives were finally united under the umbrella of the LDP by their common interest in anti-communism. The merger marked the formation of the so-called “ 1955 system.”28 In effect, the Cold War conflict and the US-sponsored San Francisco peace settlement had led to the restructuring of post­ war Japanese politics along ideological fault lines. Subsequent partisan politics and intraparty factional politics had all revolved around the focus of the Cold War ideological conflict.29 The 1955 system would continue until 1993 when the LDP lost its status as the permanent ruling party. Nonetheless, the merger did not bring an end to the political polarization within the conservative camp. The ideological conflicts between the Hatoyama-led professional politician groups (tojin-ha) and the Yoshida-led ex-bureaucratic groups (kantyo-ha), reinforced by old factional schisms, were carried into their successor factions after the merger. As soon as Hatoyama became prime minister, he lost no time in proceeding with the revision of the Yoshida doctrine. Hatoyama created the Cabinet Commis­ sion on the Constitution to draft the new constitution. The merger of the LDP provided more momentum for the revisionist agenda evident in Hatoyama’s initia­ tion of negotiations with the Soviet Union on diplomatic normalization and a peace treaty. Yet Hatoyama’s revisionist agenda was hamstrung by the continued resis­ tance of Yoshida’s supporters in the LDP and a strengthened Socialist Party, which had swollen in size to 156 seats in the lower house as a result of the merger in 1955. Hatoyama succeeded in Japan’s diplomatic normalization with the Soviet Union in October 1956 after staking out his political fortune on the issue. None­ theless, he failed in his efforts to conclude a peace treaty with the Soviet Union.30 Moreover, Hatoyama’s attempt to revise the constitution was thwarted by tactical cooperation between Yoshida’s followers and the JSP. The collaboration between the JSP and Yoshida’s followers in the upper house successfully blocked Hatoyama’s proposal to reform electoral districts which was seen as a precursor to scrap the pacifist clause in the constitution. In effect, the JSP became an unlikely ally of Yoshida’s followers in defense of the Yoshida doctrine. The de facto alliance be­ tween the JSP and Yqshida’s followers augured badly for the fate of Hatoyama’s revisionist program.31 The ideological polarization in the political world and among the mass public culminated in the security treaty crisis of 1960, which laid an important basis for the fundamental shifts of Japanese attitudes toward the US-Japan security treaty and the pacifist constitution. Hatoyama’s revisionist agenda was taken up by Kishi Nobusuke who succeeded Ishibashi as prime minister in late 1956. Kishi shared Hatoyama’s intense nationalist sentiments and some of Hatoyama’s revisionist program. Like Hatoyama, Kishi had also been closely associated with the rightwing nationalist groups.32 Nonetheless, Kishi was more pro-American and anti­ communist than Hatoyama, and supported Japan’s military alliance with the United States as the only realistic way to restore Japan’s military strength and reclaim her national pride.33Rather than asserting Japanese diplomatic independence from the

Normative Sources of American Hegemony in Japan

85

United States, Kishi sought to realize his nationalist aims through revising the USJapan security treaty and making Japan a more equal partner to the United States.34 The 1960 crisis was precipitated by the Kishi government’s renewal of the USJapan security treaty despite the leftist-inspired public opposition to the renewal. The renewal of the security treaty triggered large-scale public protests that resulted in Kishi’s political downfall.35 The security treaty crisis of 1960 taught every Japanese a valuable lesson about the importance of ideological compromise for the sake of maintaining political stability. To the ordinary Japanese, who were mostly concerned with bread and butter issues, the crisis made it plain that however noble the opposition parties’ ideals were, they could not offer a viable alternative to the US-Japan security arrangement. The conservatives from different factions learned the political danger of trying to ignore public opinion and the demands of the opposition parties despite their political strength. The Socialists and their sympathizers also learned from the crisis of the importance of toning down their political radicalism and the need to return to parliamentarism as the only feasible means to resolve the political conflict.36 Subsequent governmental policies, coupled with cumulative changes of do­ mestic economic conditions and international environments, provided the critical mass for the Yoshida doctrine to be accepted by the majority o f the Japanese population. The lessons of the 1960 security treaty crisis injected new life into the Yoshida doctrine as Japanese across the political spectrum embarked on a search for con­ sensual national purpose. Following the resignation of Kishi Nobusuke, Ikeda Hayato took over the premiership and set out to suppress the ideological divide driven by political nationalism.37 The return of the centrists led by Ikeda to the center stage of Japanese politics laid the political foundation for forging a new policy consensus revolving around the Yoshida doctrine.38 As a longtime political confidant of Yoshida, Ikeda shared Yoshida’s pragmatic worldview and the cen­ trist policy program. Like Yoshida, he was a high-ranking bureaucrat before enter­ ing politics.39 Upon being nominated as prime minister, Ikeda declared that “In order to regain the confidence of the people, I promise to cooperate with my friends, the members of the opposition parties, and concentrate all my efforts on protecting the principles of parliamentary democracy.” He then made “patience and forbear­ ance” the motto of the LDP. Domestically, Ikeda adopted the famous “income doubling” plan which set the stage for Japan’s rapid economic growth. In the words of Ikeda’s personal secretary Ito Masaya, the income-doubling policy was like “a ray of sunshine into the darkened hearts of the people, who had suffered through the confusions created by the anti-security-treaty demonstrations.”40 Externally, the Ikeda government sought to cultivate an atmosphere of good will in US-Japan relations. Under the rubric of the US-Japan partnership, Ikeda sought to expand bilateral economic cooperation and established the US-Japan Ministerial Confer­ ence on Trade and Economic Affairs, which served as a forum to maintain an annual bilateral economic dialogue at the cabinet level. Moreover, to placate both the right-conservatives and the leftists, Ikeda also adopted the principle of separat­ ing economics from politics (seikei bunri) in dealing with China (which served to

86

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

promote Japan’s trade relations with China without changing its non-recognition policy), and kept a low profile (tei shisei) for Japan’s foreign affairs in order to minimize its military involvement in the world.41 The escalation of the Vietnam War posed a new challenge to the Yoshida doc­ trine as the Kennedy and Johnson administrations put increasing pressure on the Sato government, which succeeded the Ikeda government in late 1964, to take an active part in containing the advance of communism in the region and in the Viet­ nam War. It reinvigorated the domestic opposition to the US-Japan security treaty and further strengthened domestic support for the pacifist constitution. The major­ ity of the Japanese public as well as politicians across the political spectrum shared the misgivings about the American war in Vietnam and feared that Japan’s partici­ pation in the Vietnam War might drag Japan into an unwanted military conflict with China.42 The Vietnam War also heightened Japanese sensitivity to the entry of American nuclear weapons into Japan as part of military operations in Vietnam. The war triggered large-scale anti-war and anti-nuclear protests.43 Sato Eisaku was another longtime confidant of Yoshida and shared Yoshida’s pragmatic worldview. Like Yoshida and Ikeda, Sato was a high-ranking bureau­ crat before entering politics in the late 1940s and threw in his lot with Yoshida’s Liberal Party.44 In response to public protests, the Sato government moved to insti­ tutionalize the Yoshida doctrine. On the one hand, Sato put forth three non-nuclear principles in 1967: that Japan would not produce and possess nuclear weapons, nor would Japan allow the introduction of nuclear weapons into Japanese territory. Subsequently, Sato extended the Yoshida doctrine to Japan’s arms transfer policy, which stipulated that Japan would not export arms to communist countries, to countries covered by UN arms embargo, and to countries involved in armed con­ flicts. These principles helped to assuage the pacifist fear that Japan would be entangled in international conflicts.45 On the other hand, in order to dampen public opposition to the US-Japan security treaty and Japanese political nationalism, Sato persuaded Washington to open negotiations on the reversion to Japan of Ogasawara and Okinawa, which were still under American administrative control.46 In the meantime, Ikeda’s “income-doubling” policy gradually bore economic fruit for the ordinary Japanese. Beginning in the mid-1960s, it resulted in double­ digit economic growth.and rising living standards for ordinary citizens, thus further transforming Japanese attitudes toward the US-Japan alignment. Since the mid1960s, 90 percent of the Japanese populace has considered themselves members of the middle class.47 The rapid industrialization gave rise to increasing economic pragmatism. Whereas in the 1950s the Japanese populace was preoccupied with military security and ideological issues, the rapid economic growth transformed Japan into a m ature m aterialistic society “increasingly preoccupied with consumerism,” to use the words of John Dower, and thus convinced the Japanese populace of the benefits of Japan’s close association with the United States.48 Furthermore, a series of cumulative international events after the late 1960s further transformed the public’s attitude toward peace and alignment. The growing disarray in the international socialist camp exemplified by the Sino-Soviet split, the Cultural Revolution in China, and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia,

Normative Sources of American Hegemony in Japan

87

Table 5.1.1 Changes in Japanese Attitude toward the Constitution

% of those who said the constitution is good

1955

1965

1982

1987

21%

41%

55%

58%

Source: Except for 1965, all these figutes are adapted from A sa h i N e n k a n . The figure for 1965 is adapted from the Prime Minister’s Office, S eiro n C hosa N e n k a n , 1966.

undermined the leftist policy program.49Another important event, the reversion of Okinawa to Japan in early 1970s, greatly dampened Japanese nationalism.50 Finally, the increasingly stable international environment exemplified in the winding down of the Vietnam War and the onset of detente in the 1970s further alleviated the Japanese populace’s concern about being dragged into conflict with the Soviet Union through the US-Japan security treaty. In the words o f the emi­ nent Harvard historian Edwin Reischauer, this new environment caused the debate on the US-Japan security treaty “to lose its central place in Japanese politics in the 1970s and the 1980s.”5' These dramatic changes in Japanese attitudes toward democracy, peace, and alignment were evident in Japanese polls. The change in Japanese attitudes to­ ward democracy was best reflected in the change in Japanese attitudes toward the constitution. As Table 5.1.1 shows, increasingly more and more Japanese believed that the constitution was good and did not need revision o f any kind. The growing acceptance o f pacifism by the Japanese was reflected in the in­ creasing Japanese opposition toward the revision o f Article 9 of the constitution. According to Asahi Shimbun surveys, in 1955, 42 percent o f Japanese opposed the revision. By 1984, the percentage o f Japanese who opposed the revision rose to 78 percent (Table 5.1.2). Moreover, polls also indicated major shifts in Japanese attitudes toward the United States in general (Table 5.2) and the US-Japan security treaty in particular. According to Asahi Shimbun surveys, only 36 percent of Japanese believed in the usefulness of the security treaty for Japan in 1960. But by 1978, 49 percent of Japanese believed in the usefulness of the security treaty. Surveys conducted by the Prime Minister’s Office indicated that an overwhelming majority of Japanese supported the security treaty after 1984 (Table 5.3.1 and Table 5.3.2; also Tables 5.4.1, 5.4.2, and 5.5). In the meantime, Japanese attitudes toward the Soviet Union and communism in general in the postwar period underwent similar changes. While the Japanese have traditionally disliked Russians because of a tradition of unfriendly relations, the anti-Soviet feeling among the Japanese public was not particularly prevalent. In an Asahi Shimbun poll conducted in April 1956, more than 55 percent of

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

88

Table 5.1.2 Changes in Japanese Attitudes toward the Revision of Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution 1955

1962

1968

1970

1978

1984

Support for revision

37%

26%

19%

27%

15%

12%

Opposing revision

42

61

64

55

71

78

No opinion

21

13

17

18

14

10

Source'.

Adapted from A sa h i N e n ka n .

Table 5.2 Japanese Attitudes toward the United States (Question: Do you like the United States?) 1967

1991

Like

26%

59%

Dislike

19%

32%

No opinion

55%

9%

S o u rc e : A s a h i N e n k a n ,

various issues.

respondents supported the Hatoyama government’s efforts to normalize Japan’s diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, while only 20 percent of respondents opposed the policy.52 Likewise, a 1966 national poll revealed that only 6 percent of Japanese believed the Soviet Union posed a military threat to Japan.53Nonetheless, beginning in the early 1970s, the Japanese negative feelings toward the Soviet Union grew as a result of the increasing Japanese-Soviet animosity over the disputes of the “Northern Territories” and the tremendous Soviet naval buildup in Northeast Asia.54 A 1980 national poll indicated that 75 percent of Japanese perceived the Soviet Union as the most serious military threat to Japan, while only 11 percent believed the United States posed a military threat to Japan (Table 5.6).55 The end of the Cold War has not led to any major change in the new security culture in Japan. Nowhere has the Japanese allergy to military and war been more vividly demonstrated than during the Gulf Crisis when the overwhelming

Normative Sources of American Hegemony in Japan

89

Table 5.3.1 Japanese Attitudes toward the Usefulness of the US-Japan Security Treaty ( A s a h i S h im b u n surveys) Year

60

69

71

74

78

81

86

88

91

93

Useful

36%

37%

34%

34%

49%

55%

48%

53%

50%

52%

Not Useful

24

34

20

18

13

13

18

18

23

21

Others & no opinion

40

29

46

30

38

32

17

18

27

27

Source:

Adapted from various issues of A sa h i N e n ka n and A sa h i S h im b u n , May 29, 1990, p. 3.

All these surveys were conducted by Asahi Shimbunsha. Respondents were asked the same question throughout. Question: Is the US-Japan security treaty useful for Japan?

N ote:

Table 5.3.2 Japanese Attitudes toward the Usefulness of the US-Japan Security Treaty 1984

1991

1994

Useful

71.4%

63.5%

68.3%

Not useful

10.4

18.2

14.5

Others & no opinion

18.2

18.3

17.2

Source:

Prime Minister’s Office, Seiron C h o sa N e n k a n , various issues.

majority of the Japanese opposed Japan’s participation in military operation under the UN banner.56 In short, the Japanese mass public’s and elites’ socialization with American hegemonic ideas was a direct result of American material power and ideological persuasion. While random events may have had an impact on the shift in Japanese culture, it was the deliberate American and Japanese policies and the external events caused intentionally or unintentionally by the United States such as the occupation o f Japan, the 1960 security treaty crisis, the institutionalization of the Yoshida doctrine, American trade markets, Japan’s rapid economic growth, the reversion of Okinawa, and the detente o f the 1970s, that played the most important

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

90

Table 5.4.1 Japanese Attitudes toward Japan’s Security Strategy (surveys conducted by A s a h i S h im b u n )

1960

1965

1969

1970

1981

1986

US-Japan Alliance

14%

27%

40%

48%

48%

59%

Armed Neutrality

24

24

28

22

14

11

Unarmed Neutrality

35

12

20

15

30

21

Others or no opinion

29

37

12

15

8

9

S ource:

Adapted from Asahi Shimbunsha, A sa h i N e n k a n (Asahi Yearbook), various issues.

Table 5.4.2 Japanese Attitudes toward Japan’s Security Strategy (surveys conducted by the Prime Minister’ Office) 1982

1984

1988

1991

1995

64.6%

69.2%

67.4%

62.4%

6 8 .8 %

Armed Neutrality

6.1

5.0

5.9

7.3

4.3

Unarmed Neutrality

7.6

6.8

7.2

10.5

7.0

Others or no opinion

21.7

19.0

19.6

19.7

19.9

US-Japan Alliance

S ource:

Prime Minister’s Office, S eiro n C h o sa N e n k a n (Public Opinion Survey Yearbook), various

issues.

roles in inducing the transformation of the Japanese security culture.57The cultural changes meant the embeddedness o f American conceptions o f regional order, postwar Japan’s state identity, and their underlying ideologies in the new Japanese security culture.

Normative Sources of American Hegemony in Japan

91

Table 5.5 Japanese Attitudes toward US Military Presence 1953

1968

1969

1971

Support for US military presence

17.9%

28%

41%

56%

Opposing US military presence

37.2%

56%

45%

33%

No opinion

44.9%

16%

14%

11%

S o u rc e : Various

issues of A sa h i N e n ka n .

Table 5.6 Changes in Japanese Attitudes toward the Soviet Union

% of Japanese who saw the USSR as a threat

1966

1980

6%

75%

S o u rc e : The

1966 figure is adapted from Hideo Wada, “Consciousness of Peace and National Secu­ rity,” in Hiroshi Itoh, ed., J a p a n e s e P o litic s— A n In sid e View: R e a d in g s fr o m J a p a n (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1973), pp. 224-25. The 1980 figure draws on the Prime Minister’s Office, S eiro n C h o sa N e n ka , 1981, pp. 534-35.

TRANSFORMATION OF THE POLITICAL PROCESS The Coming Dominance of the Centrists in the LDP Recent Western studies on factional politics inside the LDP have focused on the structural change of LDP factionalism, namely the disappearance o f small factions and the expansion of remaining factions in size. When the LDP was cre­ ated as a result of the merger between the Democratic Party and the Liberal Party, it was not more than the amalgamation of many small factions formed within both parties before the merger. At one point in the 1960s, the number of factions in the LDP had reached as high as twelve. But the number went down to nine by 1975 as small factions were either absorbed by the larger ones or became extinct. By 1985, the number dropped to five (the Tanaka faction, the Suzuki faction, the Abe faction, the Nakasone faction, and the Komoto faction). These changes have mainly been attributed to structural causes such as multiple-seat electoral districts in Japan.58 Nonetheless, the structural change in the LDP masked an important change,

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

92

Table 5.7 The Distribution of Lower House Seats Controlled by Conservative Parties Prior to 1955 Y oshida Liberals

Neutral Liberals

Hatoyama Liberals

Progressives

Total

Aug. 1952

140

26

93

69

322

Oct. 1952

73

99

68

85

325

April 1953

199

0

35

76

310

Dates

Feb. 1955

Liberal Party

Democratic Party

Total

112

185

297

Masumi Junnosuke, S e n g o Seiji, 1 9 4 5 -1 9 5 5 N e n (Postwar Politics: 1945-1955) (Tokyo: To­ kyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1983), chapter 4.

Source:

namely the ideological change, in LDP factionalism, which has been under­ emphasized. As a result of their ideological triumph over right-conservatives in the party and the growing acceptance of the Yoshida doctrine by the Japanese populace, the centrists in the LDP have gradually established their political hegemony within their party. Hatoyama’s return to the Liberal Party in 1952 triggered an internecine warfare within the Liberal Party and started to undermine the political dominance of the centrists in the conservative camp centering around Yoshida Shigeru. In the gen­ eral election of the lower house held in April 1953, the Liberal Party was split into the Yoshida Liberal Party and the Hatoyama Liberal Party. The Yoshida faction was still in overwhelming dominance with 199 seats in the lower house, whereas the Hatoyama Liberal Party only obtained thirty-five seats in the lower house. Together with seventy-six seats held by the Progressives, the right-conservatives controlled only 111 seats in the lower house. Nonetheless, riding on the upsurge of political nationalism in the Japanese populace, the right-conservatives were quick to build up their political strength and overshadow the centrists. The dominance of the right-conservatives culminated in the February 1955 general election when the new Democratic Party led by Hatoyama, which was founded on the merger of the Hatoyama group and the Progressive Party, polled 37 percent o f votes and gar­ nered 185 seats in the lower house. In comparison, the Liberal Party got only 27 percent of votes and received 113 seats in the lower house. By the time the LDP was formed, it was dominated by the right-conservative members of the former Democratic Party led by Hatoyama (see Table 5.7). Between 1955 and 1960, the LDP was deeply divided ideologically between the professional politicians who advocated a nationalistic foreign policy line and

Normative Sources of American Hegemony in Japan

93

the ex-bureaucrats who supported Yoshida’s centrist foreign policy program. The ideological struggles were manifested in the intense factional struggles between professional politicians and ex-bureaucrats. By late 1956, the centrist forces had further weakened with the split of the Yoshida faction into two groups headed respectively by Ikeda Hayato and Sato Eisaku, two political confidants o f Yoshida. The Hatoyama government was founded on his coalition with two other rightconservative factions led by Kishi and Ono Bamboku. Ono had developed a close personal relationship with Hatoyama dating back to the prewar period and shared much of Hatoyama’s ultra-conservative worldview.59 Hatoyama’s retirement from politics shortly after and the ensuing internal dissension triggered a steady decline of the revisionist forces and paved the way for the resurgence of the centrists. Hatoyama passed the mantle of leadership for his faction to Kono Ichiro, who accepted much of Hatoyama’s nationalist agenda and shared Hatoyama’s close connections with right-wing groups.60The factional coalition among the three rightconservative factions led respectively by Kono, Ono, and Kishi formed the main political bases for the Kishi government and thus kept alive the right-conservative cam p’s nationalist agenda. Nonetheless, Kishi gradually alienated his rightconservative allies and moved closer to the centrist factions in the LDP because of his support for close US-Japan security cooperation on a more equal footing. After Kishi’s resignation in June 1960 following the ratification of the revised US-Japan security treaty, Kishi split dramatically with the right-conservatives by endorsing Ikeda Hayato’s bid for the LDP presidency. Kishi’s defection almost split his faction as it upset Kawashima Shojiro, who led a group of professional politicians within the Kishi faction that had pledged their support for Ono.61 While the LDP once again polarized along the divide between centrists and right-conservatives, the Kishi faction’s joining of forces with the Ikeda faction decidedly turned the political tide to the favor of the centrists and led to the creation of the Ikeda government. The establishment of the Ikeda government marked the beginning o f the resurgence of the centrists and their subsequent dominance. The Ikeda government’s return to the Yoshida doctrine and the successful implementation of the “income­ doubling” policy had gradually won increasing domestic political support as well as American support, ultimately contributing to the gradual political entrenchment of the centrists in the LDP. The turning point for the centrist dominance came in November 1964 when Sato Eisaku rallied the centrist factions around him and became the new prime minister. Sato’s political victory resulted from his outmaneuvering o f the right-conservative challenge rallied behind Fujiyama Aiichiro. As a close confidant of Kishi Nobusuke and foreign minister under the Kishi government, Fujiyama shared much of Kishi’s intense nationalism and was closely associated with right-wing groups.62 But he differed from Kishi in his opposition to Japan’s subordination to the United States through the security treaty and his advocacy of Japan’s close relations with Asian neighbors, or pan-Asianism, as the path to restore Japanese national pride. After Kishi’s resignation, Fujiyama left the Kishi faction and formed a small faction of his own.63 Subsequently, Sato managed to stay in power and became the longest serving prime minister in recent Japanese history. Sato’s political opponents in the LDP once again turned to

94

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

nationalism as a political weapon to challenge Sato in three consecutive presidential elections in the LDP. But unlike the 1950s, Sato would successfully fend off ideological challenges mounted by right-conservatives in the LDP presidential elections. These three LDP presidential elections closely reflected the ideological contests between the centrist and the right-conservative camps, which was intensified by the onset of the Vietnam War. In 1966, Fujiyama ran the presidential election against Sato on the platform of relaxing the government’s rigid stance on China policy. But Sato defeated him on December 1, 1966, in the first ballot. In November 1968, Sato was challenged by another right-conservative onslaught rallied behind Miki Takeo. As a liberal pacifist, Miki was receptive to Western democracy and capitalism. But he shared with many right-conservatives the opposition to Japan’s military alliance with the United States and the advocacy of Japan’s close relations with communist countries and Asian neighbors.64 Disenchanted with Sato’s subordination of Japan-China relations to Washington’s policy objectives, Miki split with Sato in their factional coalition and joined forces with the anti-Sato right-conservative camp to press for Japan’s diplomatic autonomy. Miki then ran on the policy platform of “dialogue and mutual trust, rapprochement and coexistence.” But Sato defeated him easily. In late October 1970, four months after the automatic renewal of the US-Japan security treaty, Sato once again defeated his sole challenger, Miki Takeo, and won his bid for the fourth-term LDP presidency.65 Through these elections, the pro-American foreign policy line embodied in the Yoshida doctrine was contested in the LDP but ultimately triumphed. Sato’s victories were not just personal victories for him, rather they symbolized the centrists’ permanent dominance within the LDP, or in the words of one Japanese commentator, the “blooming” (kaika) of the centrists in the intraparty ideological struggles.66 The gradual political dominance of the centrists in the LDP was confirmed by opinion polls, which showed a major change in the attitudes of LDP Diet members toward the US-Japan alliance between the 1950s and the 1960s. A survey published in 1958 indicated that a slight majority (52 percent) of LDP Diet members was in favor of Japan’s neutrality in the Cold War. Only 37 percent was opposed to Japan’s neutrality in the Cold War and favored Japan’s close asso­ ciation with the United States. In comparison, a 1968 poll conducted by Yomiuri Shimbun revealed that 87 percent of LDP Diet members favored the continuation of the US-Japan security treaty.67 The reasons for the emergence of the centrist dominance are complicated and there might be many causes. There is no question that structural causes such as the multiple-seat electoral system played a part. Furthermore, generational change inside the LDP might have also contributed to it. The sudden death of Kono Ichiro and Ono Bamboku in the mid-1960s meant that none of the younger generation of factional leaders on the right could mount an effective political struggle to chal­ lenge Sato.68 Nonetheless, an equally, if not more, important cause for the emerging centrist dominance in the LDP had to do with the cultural transformation in Japan toward economic pragmatism which took place as a result o f the country’s rapid

Normative Sources of American Hegemony in Japan

95

industrialization. The cultural transformation in Japan forced many rightconservative LDP Diet members to make the hard choice of either softening their opposition to the Yoshida doctrine or to be thrown out of politics by the electorate.69 Consequently, the rise and fall of factional fortunes was closely related with the expansion of the centrists in the LDP. In fact, the factions that were offshoots of the Yoshida faction and led by centrist factional leaders not only survived but expanded most rapidly. These were the cases of the Sato faction, the Ikeda faction, the Fukuda faction, and their respective successor factions, which comprised the so-called mainstream conservatives (Hoshuhonryu), because of their close identi­ fication with Yoshida’s centrist foreign policy program.70 The factions led by op­ ponents of the US-Japan security treaty who were willing to soften their ideology survived and even expanded modestly (e.g., the Nakasone faction, and the Komoto faction, which succeeded the Miki faction). The factions that were led by diehard right-conservatives gradually disappeared from the political scene (e.g., the Fujiyama faction, and the Matsumura faction led by the conservative elder politi­ cian and staunch pan-Asianist Matsumura Kenzo).71 In short, the cultural change in Japan evident in the increasing popular acceptance of the Yoshida doctrine led to the transformation of the political process within the LDP and made it possible for the centrist conservatives to establish their hegemony inside the LDP. The transformation of Nakasone Yasuhiro’s political ideology epitomized some right-conservatives’ gradual embrace of the Yoshida doctrine and the moderation of postwar political nationalism. Nakasone had been very critical o f the Yoshida doctrine when he was a young Diet member in the early 1950s. He gravitated to the Hatoyama faction and took an active part in the revisionist movement led by Hatoyama in the 1950s. After his takeover of the Kono faction in 1965, he continued to espouse Japan’s independence from the United States and supported Japan’s rearmament. Nonetheless, Nakasone’s ideology underwent some considerable change over the years. The Nakasone government’s policy program was tinged with distinct nationalist coloring. After coming to office in late 1982, Nakasone argued that being an early postwar product, the Yoshida doctrine no longer fit into the new international circumstances now that Japan had grown into a full-fledged international economic power, and vowed to “settle all accounts of the postwar political issues” (sengo seiji no sokessan). In his grand design for Japan’s national purpose, he envisaged that Japan would become a world leader capable of playing an active international role commensurate with its economic clout. Nonetheless, N a k aso n e’s grand design for Japan was to be p red icated on Jap a n ’s “internationalization” and the maintenance of the US-Japan alliance.72 In other words, while the political nationalism of the 1950s championed by Ashida and Hatoyama was predicated on Japan’s large-scale rearmament and the rejection of the US-Japan alliance, the political nationalism of the 1980s personified in Nakasone was based on the embrace of the US-Japan alliance. Moreover, the political nationalism of the 1980s also differed from the political nationalism of the 1950s in its treatment of Japan’s rearmament. While Hatoyama was determined to reclaim Japan’s status as a great power through revising the pacifist constitution and rearming Japan on a large scale, Nakasone came to hail the pacifist constitution

96

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

and the US-Japan alliance as contributing to Japan’s remarkable economic success by the late 1960s. Nakasone settled on a more moderate goal for Japan’s rearmament. That is, a normal state, and at most a middle-rank power, capable of defending herself, rather than a military superpower. Political opportunism certainly played a part in Nakasone’s ideological volte-face.73

The Emergence of the LDP as the Permanent Ruling Party As the centrists and right-conservatives drew the ideological battle line within the conservative camp, the Socialists also waged their ideological battle with the centrists over Yoshida’s policy program at the interparty level. Buoyed by Japan’s rapid economic growth and the growing Japanese pragmatism, the centrists aggres­ sively expanded the LDP’s political power through the cooptation of an increasing number of urban supporters. By the late 1970s, the centrist-dominated LDP had emerged triumphantly as the permanent ruling party in the Japanese political sys­ tem, with the JSP relegated to a permanent minority party. The rapid economic growth in Japan brought about by the revival of the Yoshida policy line in the 1960s gave rise to important changes in the Japanese political landscape in the coming years. While Japanese politics in the late 1950s was domi­ nated by the ideological competition between the two major parties, the LDP and the JSP, the pattern of Japanese politics took a very different shape after the late 1960s, characterized by multi-party competition under LDP dominance. The emer­ gence of the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP), which resulted from the split of the JSP in 1960, marked the first sign of change in the Japanese political landscape. The split of the JSP was due to the irreconcilable conflict within the party over the revision of the US-Japan security treaty. The right wing, which then formed the basis of the DSP, endorsed the revision of the treaty and wanted to adapt to in­ creasing Japanese pragmatism by moving closer to the centrist platform, yet the left wing remained virulently critical of the treaty. The creation of the Clean Gov­ ernment Party (Komeito, or the CGP), by a Buddhist sect, Soka Gakkai, in 1964 further facilitated the transition from the two-party system to multi-party competi­ tion under one-party dominance. The CGP was very appealing to non-union work­ ers and the lower-middle class who were left out by the recent Japanese economic progress. Ideologically, the CGP identified with leftist policy platforms. It advo­ cated Japanese pacifism and opposed Japanese rearmament and the US-Japan alli­ ance. The CGP gained a share of 5.4 percent of the popular vote in the 1967 na­ tional election and clinched twenty-five seats in the lower house of the Diet (see Table 5.8). Its share of the popular vote soared to 10.9 percent in the election held in 1972.74 Surprisingly, the arrival of the two new parties did not affect the LDP notably. The LDP maintained control of a majority o f seats in both houses of the Diet throughout the 1960s and the early part of the 1970s. Its popularity rating was on the rise during the same period. It was not until the mid-1970s that the LDP expe­ rienced a discernible decline. The economic recessions and the Lockheed scandal of the mid-1970s took a

Normative Sources of American Hegemony in Japan

97

Table 5.8 Changes in the Strengths of the Major Parties in the Lower House of the Diet Year

58

60

63

67

69

72

76

79

80

83

86

90

LDP

287

296

283

277

288

271

249

248

284

250

300

275

JSP

166

145

144

140

90

118

123

107

107

112

85

136

DSP

-

17

23

30

31

19

29

35

32

38

26

14

CGP

-

-

-

25

47

29

55

57

33

58

56

45

JCP

1

3

5

5

14

38

17

39

29

26

26

16

467

467

467

486

486

491

511

511

511

511

512

512

Total

Gerald Curtis, The J a p a n e s e Way o f P o litics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988), Appendix.

Source:

toll on the LDP as a group of LDP Diet members bolted the party and formed the New Liberal Club. The LDP’s share of the popular vote in the lower house dropped to 41.8 percent in the 1976 election from 57.8 percent in the 1958 election. While the LDP managed to maintain a simple majority in the lower house of the Diet after the election, it appeared that the LDP was on the verge of surrendering its political power to the opposition parties. To the surprise of many, the LDP bounced back politically after Japan recovered from the economic recessions in the late 1970s. In the 1980 election, the LDP secured 286 seats in the lower house of the Diet and its share of the popular vote went up to 47 percent. In the 1986 election, the LDP garnered three hundred seats in the lower house, an all-time high in the history of the LDP (see Table 5.8). Its popularity rating in 1988 soared to 56 per­ cent (see Table 5.9). Contrarily, the emergence of the DSP and especially of the CGP in national politics took a heavy toll on the JSP politically. The JSP lost considerable political support as a result of increasing competition from the two new parties. Its popular­ ity rating slid to 24 percent in 1976 from 33 percent in 1956 (see Table 5.9). Its share of the popular vote dropped to 20.7 percent in the 1976 election from the peak level of 32.8 percent in the 1958 election. The JSP’s decline proved to be a permanent phenomenon. Unlike other opposi­ tion parties, the JSP did not profit from the temporary decline of the LDP in the late 1970s. Its political bases in the 1980s continued to slip away. The JSP’s popu­ larity rating slid to the record low of 19 percent in 1984 (see Table 5.9). The de­ cline of the JSP had a lot to do with its ideological rigidities in the face of changing domestic and international environments and its inability to face up to the chal­ lenge of the LDP. The JSP was plagued by intraparty ideological conflicts and

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

98

Table 5.9 Changes in the Popularity Rating of the Major Parties (percentage) 1956

1960

1964

1968

1972

1976

1980

1984

1988

1991

LDP

46%

46%

51%

47%

51%

45%

46%

53%

56%

63%

JSP

33

32

27

26

25

24

21

19

20

18

5

7

6

5

7

5

5

2

3

4

6

6

4

4

3

2

6

4

5

5

6

5

DSP JCP

1

CGP

1

4

S o u rc e : A sa h i N e n ka n .

factionalism since the late 1940s, evident in the 1952 split and the 1960 split. Subsequently, JSP leaders continued to hold on to their rigid Marxist ideology and refused to moderate its opposition to the US-Japan security treaty and the creation of the Self-Defense Forces.75As the LDP moved quickly to incorporate many policy issues originally associated with the JSP into its agenda, the JSP lost its appeal to a large segment of the working class and a large number of well-educated young voters in the urban areas, the main political base for the JSP, in the absence of viable policy alternatives.76 With the continued decline of the JSP as a major political force and none of the four other opposition parties (the DSP, the CGP, the NLC, and the JCP) capable of challenging the LDP effectively (none of them received more than 10 percent of the popular vote), it became apparent by the late 1970s that the LDP’s political dominance was to remain indefinitely.77 The LDP’s political resurgence and its transformation into a permanent ruling party is a complicated matter and has been attributed to many causes.78Washington’s secret tunneling of political funds to pro-American LDP Diet members through the Central Intelligence Agency might have played a part in maintaining the LDP’s electoral strengths over opposition parties.79 Nonetheless, there appear to be three more important reasons to account for the LDP’s perpetual dominance. First, the LDP was quite effective in mobilizing political support through the use of social networks, and especially the personal support organizations known as koenkai. Koenkai are individually based political organizations for Japanese politicians to mobilize political support through building close personal relation­ ships between individual politicians and voters in local communities. It performs the roles and functions that are carried out by local party organizations in other countries.80There is.no question that personal ties and exchange of favors through koenkai play a certain role in mobilizing political support for individual LDP poli­ ticians. Nonetheless, the role of koenkai should not be exaggerated and it alone

Normative Sources of American Hegemony in Japan

99

Table 5.10 The Proportion of the Japanese Who Are Satisfied with Their Living Standard (in percentages) 1972

1974

1976

1977

1979

1980

1983

1986

1989

1990

1992

65%

54%

61%

62%

64%

66%

69%

70%

70%

71%

74%

Tanaka Aiji, “K o k u m in Ish ik i N io k e ru G o ju g o n en n o H e n y o u to H o u k a i" (The Changes and the Collapse of the 1955 System in the Minds of Japanese Citizens), N e n p o S e ijig a k u (Annals of Political Science), 1996, p. 37.

Source'.

cannot explain the LDP’s success. Like those in other Western democracies, LDP politicians increasingly rely on delivering pork barrel projects to mobilize politi­ cal support as Japanese voters have become more pragmatic and their awareness of political issues has increased.81 This brings us to the next important reason to account for the LDP’s electoral success, the phenomenal economic growth and its translation into concrete mate­ rial gains for ordinary Japanese for which the LDP deserves enormous credit. The rapid industrialization in Japan has not only transformed Japan into an economic powerhouse but also raised the Japanese living standard considerably.82Moreover, except for the brief period in the mid-1970s, the proportion of Japanese who were satisfied with their living standards was on a steady rise between 1972 and 1992 (see Table 5.10). The increasing Japanese satisfaction with their living standards appeared to translate into enduring political support for the LDP since the LDP was given the credit for the economic success. Quantitative studies have shown that there is a close correlation between Japanese voters’ continued support for the LDP and the public’s contentment with their living standard in the 1970s. This contentment explained why the public did not desert the LDP when Japan was beset by the prolonged economic recessions of the 1970s and also explained the resurgence o f the LDP when the economy recovered after the 1970s.83 Furthermore, the economic growth also made it possible for the LDP to skillfully adopt public policy to cater to specific political constituencies. Japanese farmers were the most important political constituency for the LDP since close to half of the Japanese population lived in the countryside prior to the 1960s. Throughout the postwar period, the LDP used agricultural subsidies as an important instrument to secure the LDP’s political bases in the countryside. Japanese farm subsidies as a share of total public expenditure were one of the highest among the industrialized countries.84 As more and more farmers migrated to the cities as a result of rapid industrialization, the LDP increasingly focused its attention on the social needs of the growing urban population. Rapid industrialization had made city dwellers more concerned with pragmatic issues such as environmental pollution, health care services, and pension systems, rather than with ideological issues. The LDP leaders quickly discerned the changing mood of the Japanese urbanites and catered to

100

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

their needs by increasing governmental spending on environmental protection and other social services. The introduction of stringent pollution control laws, the upgraded social pension system, and other social welfare services under the Tanaka government exemplified the LDP’s redistributive policies aimed at expanding its political bases in the cities.85 Needless to say, Japan’s rapid economic growth was an important prerequisite for the increase of governmental spending on social welfare programs.86 The last and perhaps most important reason was cultural change in Japan as a result of the rapid postwar economic growth. The political reforms initiated by the occupation authority gave rise to political polarization along the cultural divide between the modernizers and the defenders of Japanese tradition in the early post­ war period. The intense ideological conflicts between the leftists and the conserva­ tives and among the conservatives themselves were symptomatic o f the “cultural politics.” The Yoshida doctrine could be seen as an attempt by the centrist conser­ vatives to present a middle-of-the-road alternative to ideological extremes. To put it differently, the Yoshida doctrine represented a synthesis between the important aspects of Japanese tradition and Japan’s modernization. It struck a balance be­ tween preserving the imperial system and democratization, between rearmament and pacifism, and between neutrality and alignment. As the Yoshida doctrine proved to be a successful policy program for postwar Japan, the mass public’s attitude toward the centrist program changed more favorably and their support for the LDP increased. More specifically, the rapid economic growth and Japan’s rising inter­ national status not only persuaded the LDP’s traditional supporters to continue their support for the LDP, but also convinced many of the left-leaning voters in the urban areas to switch their political allegiance to the LDP. An increasing majority of the Japanese appear to have realized that Japanese economic growth and the preservation of Japanese economic prosperity could not be separated from Japan’s close association with the United States and the pacifism that was embodied in the Yoshida doctrine. The socialization of the Japanese mass public and elites with the Yoshida doctrine led to the disappearance of “cultural politics,” with the Yoshida doctrine serving as a bridge between the conservative-progressive ideological di­ vide. In short, the Japanese cultural change revolving around the Yoshida doctrine led to the rise of the LDP as the perpetual mling party in Japan. In the words of Gerald Curtis, “this [change] amounts to a fundamental change in Japan’s political culture, one that is at the heart of the disintegration of the progressive camp and the new surge in support for the LDP.”87 Several studies have shown that the US-Japan security treaty and Japan’s paci­ fist military policy figured prominently as the most important policy issues that are correlated with Japanese voters’ support for the LDP.88 As Table 5.11 also indicates, foreign policy was an important reason for voters’ support for the LDP. The overwhelming majority of voters who voted for the LDP also supported the LDP’s centrist foreign policy program. Moreover, an increasing number of JSP supporters came to support the LDP’s centrist foreign policy. The percentage of JSP supporters favoring Japan’s integration into the West increased from 35 percent in 1964 to 54 percent in 1989. These figures clearly suggest that

Normative Sources of American Hegemony in Japan

101

Table 5.11 The Political Attitudes of Party Supporters in Japan 64

70

71

72

73

74

75

86

87

88

89

90

favor Japan’s integration into the West

83

82

78

77

76

80

84

88

86

87

89

90

like US

66

50

31

39

34

34

37

57

53

53

53

55

favor Japan’s integration & like US

65

48

42

38

33

31

33

50

47

49

51

51

favor Japan’s neutrality

62

69

68

67

68

67

60

49

51

49

45

43

favor Japan’s integration into the West

35

27

26

26

24

27

35

49

48

48

54

43

like US

37

18

13

17

13

16

20

35

34

35

41

41

dislike US

9

23

15

23

25

19

17

13

13

11

6

9

neutrality but like US

37

23

19

18

14

15

18

32

32

33

37

36

neutrality but dislike US

6

16

17

18

20

16

14

11

12

11

8

9

Year LDP supporters...

JSP supporters...

Source: Adapted from Miyake Ichiro, “Ic h ito Yui S e ito se i n o Tenkai to G aiko K ih o n R o se n n i K a n su ru Ish ik i P a ta n " (The Development of the One-Party Dominant System and the Changes of Voters’ Atti­

tudes toward Parties and Policies), N e n p o S eijig a k u (Annals of Political Science), 1994, p. 186.

the LDP’s permanent political dominance was highly correlated to the Japanese popular approval for the LDP’s foreign policy line.89 The growing Japanese pragmatism evident in the increasing acceptance of the Yoshida doctrine forced opposition parties to moderate their radical foreign policy platforms by identifying more closely with the Yoshida doctrine in order to maintain

102

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

their political bases. Keenly aware of growing Japanese pragmatism, the CGP moderated its opposition to the Japanese Self-Defense Force and the US-Japan alliance and moved toward the centrist foreign policy line since the late 1970s. It also indicated a willingness to form a coalition government with the LDP. In 1981, the CGP formally endorsed the US-Japan security treaty and Japan’s Self-Defense Force. By the late 1980s, the Japan Socialist Party showed a modest degree of political pragmatism as its leaders realized that its opposition to the US-Japan alliance could no longer appeal to Japanese voters. The 1988 Recruit scandal damaged the LDP’s image and offered some hope for the JSP to capture power from the LDP by forming a coalition government among the opposition parties. In the midst of political campaigns for the upper house election in the summer of 1990, JSP leaders softened their opposition to the US-Japan security treaty and the Japanese Self-Defense Force and suggested that they would not abolish the SelfDefense Force if they came to power. Nonetheless, the JSP’s ideological moderation was too little and too late to reverse its sagging political fortune.90 In short, the economic growth and the resultant cultural change in Japan mainly explain the perpetual dominance of the LDP in postwar Japanese politics. The LDP dominance continued after the end of the Cold War. After the brief interrup­ tion in 1993-95, the LDP returned to Japanese politics as the dominant political force once again. The 1996 lower house election in Japan marked the complete demise of the Japan Socialist Party as a viable opposition party and the continua­ tion of LDP dominance in the foreseeable future. To sum up, the above analysis suggests that American hegemonic ideas such as pacifism, anti-communism, and Japan’s state identity as a member of the Western alliance as contained in the Yoshida doctrine were internalized by the majority of the Japanese elites and the populace by the 1970s and were embedded in postwar Japan’s security culture. Furthermore, the transformation of Japanese security culture as a result of the mass public’s socialization with the Yoshida doctrine then translated into a new political process characterized by the political triumph of the centrists within the LDP and the rise of the LDP as the perpetual ruling party. This new political process may have formed the new consensual national basis on which Japanese national interests are defined and foreign policy is formulated. In other words, the cultural transformation may have created a domestic political process in Japan that links Japan’s support for American hegemony with the domestic legitimacy of Japanese political leaders. Those Japanese leaders who define Japanese national interests and formulate foreign policy on the basis of pacifism, anti­ communism, and the new state identity may be rewarded politically by capturing and maintaining political support and power. Those who depart from the Yoshida doctrine as a basis of Japanese national interest would be penalized by losing political support and power. In short, the American-induced cultural transformation in Japan may have created a political process in Japan that privileges Japan’s support for American foreign policy in ways that may have prolonged American hegemony despite the decline Of American material power and even without the influence of American policy makers.

Normative Sources of American Hegemony in Japan

103

NOTES 1. Kent E. Calder, Crisis and Compensation: Public Policy and Political Stability (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. 77-86. 2. Gerald Curtis, The Japanese Way of Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), p. 229. The term “progressive” hereby can be equated with the term “leftist.” This is because the leftists in Japan claimed to represent a progressive trend. It should not be con­ fused with the Progressive Party. 3. 1.1. Morris, Nationalism and the Right Wing in Japan: A Study of Postwar Trends (London: Oxford University Press, 1960), pp. 2-3. 4. Meirion and Susie Harries, Sheathing the Sword: The Demilitarization o f Japan (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1987), chapter 7. 5. Cited in Morris, Nationalism and the Right Wing in Japan, pp. 5-6. Also see Harries and Harries, Sheathing the Sword, chapter 7. 6. Harries and Harries, Sheathing the Sword, chapter 7. 7. Michael Schaller, The American Occupation o f Japan: The Origins o f the Cold War in Asia (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), pp. 69-70. 8. This argument can be found in Robert Ward, “Conclusion,” in Ward and Sakamoto Yoshikazu, eds., Democratizing Japan: The Allied Occupation (Honolulu, Hawaii: Univer­ sity of Hawaii Press, 1987), pp. 412-14. For a similar argument, see John W. Dower, “Re­ form and Reconsolidation,” in Harry Wray and Hilary Conroy, eds., Japan Reexamined: Perspectives on Modern Japanese History (Honolulu, Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press, 1983), pp. 348-49. 9. For more detailed discussion on the origins of the Yoshida doctrine, see Kenneth Pyle, The Japanese Question: Power and Purpose in a New Era (Washington, D.C.: The AEI Press, 1992), p. 25. 10. For General MacArthur’s influence on Yoshida, see John Dower, Empire and Aftermath: Yoshida Shigeru and the Japanese Experience, 1878-1954 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1979), pp. 398-99. 11. For debates on American ideological influence on postwar Japan, see Edwin O. Reischauer, “Allied Occupation: Catalyst Not Creator,” In Wray and Conroy, Japan Reex­ amined-, and Dower, “Reform and Reconsolidation.” 12. Dower, Empire and Aftermath, p. 371. 13. Nippon Times, March 27, 1952. 14. Watanuki Joji, Nihon no Seiji Shakai (Japanese Political Society) (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1967); and Politics in Postwar Japanese Society (Tokyo: University ofTokyo, 1977), pp. 77-100. 15. Morris, Nationalism and the Right Wing in Japan, pp. 398-99. 16. Masumi Junnosuke, Postwar Politics in Japan (Berkeley, Calif.: University of Cali­ fornia, 1985), p. 218; and Masumi Junnosuke, Sengo Seiji (Politics in Postwar Japan) (To­ kyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1983), pp. 387-90. 17. The JSP garnered 166 seats in the lower house in the April 1958 election, account­ ing for 35 percent of the total seats in the lower house. 18. See Masumi, Postwar Politics in Japan, pp. 215-16. 19. Nippon Times, June 14, 1952, p. 8; and June 15, 1952, p. 4. 20. John Dower, “Peace and Democracy in Two Systems: External Policy and Internal Conflict,” in Andrew Gordon, ed., Postwar Japan as History (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1993), p. 15. 21. In particular, Hatoyama was closely associated with a famous ultranationalist and an A-class war criminal Kodama Yoshio, who founded various organizations to promote

104

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

ultranationalist causes during the prewar and postwar periods. For more details, see Morris, Nationalism and the Right Wing in Japan, p. 443. 22. Masumi, Sengo Seiji, pp. 445-48. 23. For a more detailed account of the Hatoyama-Yoshida feud, see Fukui Haruhiro, Party in Power: The Japanese Liberal Democrats and Policy Making (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1970), pp. 44-53. 24. Masumi, Sengo Seiji, pp. 445-48; Wakamiya Yoshibumi, Sengo Hoshu no Ajia Kan (Postwar Japanese Conservatives’ Perception of Asia) (Tokyo: Asahi Shimbunsha, 1995), pp. 101-105; and Donald Hellmann, Japanese Foreign Policy and Domestic Politics: The Peace Agreement with the Soviet Union (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1969), pp. 484-9. 25. Morris, Nationalism and the Right Wing in Japan, pp. 392-402. 26. For the eclipse of Shigemitsu and his Progressive Party, see Ito Takashi, “Shigemitsu Mamoru and the 1955 System,” in Kataoka Tetsuya, ed., Creating Single-Party Democ­ racy: Japan s Postwar Political System (Stanford, Calif.: Hoover Institution Press, 1992), pp. 105, 114-15. 27. See Allan Cole, George O. Totten and Cecil H. Uyehara, Socialist Parties in Post­ war Japan,pp. 120-38, 199-220. 28. Tsutsui Kiyotada, “Toward the Liberal Democratic Party Merger: Conservative Poli­ cies and Politics,” and Kataoka Tetsuya, “The 1955 System: The Origin of Japan’s Postwar Politics,” both in Kataoka, Creating a Single-Party Democracy. 29. For this argument, see Masumi Junnosuke, “1955-Nen no Seiji Taisei” (The Politi­ cal System of the Year 1955), Shiso (June 1964), pp. 55-72. Also see Masumi Junnosuke, Gendai Seiji (Contemporary Japanese Politics) (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1985) and “The 1955 System: Origin and Transformation,” in Kataoka, Creating Single-Party Democracy, pp. 34—54. 30. For details about Hatoyama’s negotiations with the Soviet Union for diplomatic normalization and the peace treaty, see Hellmann, Japanese Foreign Policy and Domestic Politics. 31. Kataoka Tetsuya, “The 1955 System: The Origin of Japan’s Postwar Politics,” in Kataoka, Creating Single-Party Democracy, pp. 164-65. 32. Kishi was closely associated with a prominent ultranationalist group known as the Japan Defence Society in the mid-1950s, which advocated Japan’s large-scale rearmament and stressed the importance of patriotic spirit in strengthening national defense. See Morris, Nationalism and the Right-Wing in Japan, pp. 241—42. 33. John Welfield, An Empire in Eclipse: Japan in the Postwar American Alliance Sys­ tem (London: The Athlone Press, 1988), pp. 121-22. 34. For details about the revisionist movement for rewriting the constitution, see Fukui, Party in Power, pp. 198-222. 35. George Packard, Protest in Tokyo: The Security Crisis o f 1960 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966); also see Kataoka, “The 1955 System,” pp. 166-67. 36. Kosaka Masataka, 100 Million Japanese: The Postwar Experience (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1972), pp. 199-201. 37. Kosaka, 100 Million Japanese, p. 201. 38. For details on this point, see Hiwatari Yumi, Sengo Seiji to Nichibei Kankei (Post­ war Politics and US-Japanese Relations) (Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 1990), chap­ ter 3 and pp. 271-73. 39. Ikeda was' vice minister of finance in 1947 and entered the Diet following the Janu­ ary 1949 election. He was then appointed by Yoshida as finance minister in the third Yoshida cabinet and thus owed his political allegiance to Yoshida. See Wakamiya, Sengo Hoshu no

Normative Sources of American Hegemony in Japan

105

Ajia Kan, pp. 136-39. Also Welfield, An Empire in Eclipse, pp. 127-30. 40. Cited in Kosaka, 100 Million Japanese, pp. 201-2. 41. For Ikeda’s policy, see Giffard, Sydney Gifford, Japan among the Powers: 18901990 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1994), pp. 162-63; and Hiwatari, Sengo Seiji to Nichibei Kankei, pp. 194-224. For the Socialists’ compromise with the Ikeda gov­ ernment, see Cole, Totten and Uyehara, Socialist Parties in Postwar Japan, p. 130; and Kataoka, “Introduction,” in Kataoka, Creating a One-Party Democracy, p. 32. 42. Dower, “Peace and Democracy in Two Systems,” p. 23. Also see Welfield, The Eclipse o f an Empire p. 221; and Thomas Havens, Fire across the Sea (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988), p. 48. 43. Edwin O. Reischauer, The Japanese Today: Change and Continuity (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988), pp. 354-55. 44. Sato was a high-ranking official in the Ministry of Transport shortly after the end of World War II and chief cabinet secretary under the second Yoshida cabinet in October 1948 before gaining a Diet seat in the 1949 lower house election. See Welfield, An Empire in Eclipse, pp. 127-30. 45. This part draws on Pyle, The Japanese Question, pp. 32-34. 46. For the Sato government’s official statement on Japan’s policy in Vietnam, see Ha­ vens, Fire across the Sea, p. 44. 47. Takashi Inoguchi, “The Political Economy of Conservative Resurgence under Re­ cession: Public Policies and Political Support in Japan, 1977-1983,” in T. J. Pempel, ed., Uncommon Democracies: The One-Party Dominant Regimes (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Uni­ versity Press, 1990), pp. 195-96. 48. Dower, “Peace and Democracy in Two Systems,” p. 26. 49. Ibid., p. 27. 50. Reischauer, The Japanese Today, p. 360. 51. Ibid., p. 361. 52. See Asahi Shimbun, August 15,1950, and Asahi Nenkan, 1951, p. 275. For the polls conducted in 1953 and 1956, see Douglas H. Mendle, Jr., The Japanese People and Foreign Policy (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1961), pp. 200-205. 53. Hideo Wada, “Consciousness of Peace and National Security,” in Hiroshi Itoh, ed., Japanese Politics—An Inside View: Readings from Japan (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1973), pp. 224-25. 54. Reischauer, The Japanese Today, pp. 364—65. 55. Prime Minister’s Office, 1981,534—35. 56. Aurelia George, “Japan’s Participation in U.N. Peacekeeping Operations,” Asian Survey 33, 6 (June 1993), pp. 564—65. 57. Peter J. Katzenstein and Thomas U. Berger have done pioneering works on how cultural norms shape Japanese foreign policy. My analysis of the Japanese security culture necessarily bears the marks of their influence. Nonetheless, my analysis differs from their studies in important aspects. It differs from Katzenstein’s study in that Katzenstein tends to focus on the Japanese pacifist culture and its effects on Japanese security policy without linking the pacifist culture with postwar Japan’s pro-US identity. Moreover, this analysis emphasizes the external origins of postwar Japan’s anti-military culture, whereas Katzenstein’s links the origins of the anti-military culture to internal sources such as traditional social and legal norms. Furthermore, while the notion of Japan’s new security culture as developed in this study bears some resemblance to Berger’s study on cultural shifts in postwar Japan, this analysis differs from Berger’s study on the causes of cultural shifts in two important re­ spects. First, this analysis stresses American material power and ideas and deliberate American policy as the main source of the cultural shift in Japan and as responsible for the direction of

106

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

cultural change. Berger, however, attributed the emergence of this new culture primarily to random events and chance. Moreover, Berger views domestic political alignment in Japan as static and a cause for the new culture, but this analysis emphasizes that Japanese political process and structure are dynamic and an effect of the changing political culture, rather than a cause of the new culture. For Katzenstein’s study on Japanese cultural norms, see Peter J. Katzenstein and Nobuo Okawara, Japan's National Security: Structures, Norms and Policy Responses in a Changing World (Ithaca, N. Y.: East Asia Program, Cornell University, 1993), pp. 101-38; and Katzenstein, Cultural Norm and National Security: Police and Military in Postwar Japan (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996). For the notion of politicalmilitary culture in Japan, see Thomas U. Berger, “From Sword to Chrysanthemum: Japan’s Culture of Anti-Militarism,” International Security 17, 4 (1993), pp. 137-39; and “Norms, Identity and National Security in Germany and Japan,” in Katzenstein, ed., The Culture o f National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), pp. 329—45. For a similar characterization of Berger’s conceptualization of political-military culture, see Kowert and Legro, “Norms, Identity, and Their Limits,” also in Katzenstein, The Culture o f National Security, p. 473. 58. Masaru Kohno, Japan s Postwar Party Politics (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton Univer­ sity Press, 1997), pp. 107-9. 59. Welfield, An Empire in Eclipse, pp. 130-31. 60. Like Hatoyama, Kono also maintained a close personal relationship with the ultra­ nationalist Kodama Yoshio. See Morris, Nationalism and the Right Wing in Japan, p. 443. 61. For the disputes between Kishi and Kawashima, see Uchida Kenzo, Habatsu (Fac­ tions) (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1983), p. 53. 62. Like Kishi, Fujiyama was closely associated with the ultranationalist group Japan Defence Society while he was president of the Japan Chamber of Commerce and subse­ quently foreign minister. See Morris, Nationalism and the Right Wing in Japan, pp. 241— 42. 63. Wakamiya, Sengo Hoshu no Ajia Kan, pp. 132-33. Welfield, An Empire in Eclipse, pp. 124-25. 64. Welfield, An Empire in Eclipse, pp. 133-34. 65. For details about these elections and their implications, see Masumi, Gendai Seiji, chapter 3. Also Yamada Eizo, Seiden Sato Eisaku (Biography of Sato Eisaku) (Tokyo: Shincho-sha, 1988), pp. 254-62. 66. Tomimori Eiji, Sengo Hoshutoshi (Postwar History of the Conservative Parties) (Tokyo: Nihon Hyoronsha, 1977), p. 143. 67. The 1958 figures are based on Lloyd A. Free, Six Allies and a Neutral (Glencoe, 111.: The Free Press, 1959), pp. 42 and 51. The 1968 figures are based on a survey conducted by Yomiuri Shimbun, May 15,1968, which was cited in Frank Langdon, “Japanese Liberal Demo­ cratic Factional Discord on China Policy,” Pacific Affairs 41,3 (Fall 1968), pp. 411-12. 68. Masami, Gendai Seiji, p. 149. 69. For more details about this argument, see Hiwatari, Sengo Seiji to Nichibei Kankei, pp. 271-73. 70. The Fukuda faction was a successor to the Kishi faction after the split of the Kishi faction in the early 1960s. Despite their close personal relationship, Fukuda disagreed with Kishi’s advocacy of Japan’s large-scale rearmament. Fukuda entered postwar politics as an ex-bureaucrat from the Ministry of Finance and hence his ideological orientation was closer to those of other key centrist leaders such as Ikeda and Sato who shared similar experiences. Moreover, the Fukuda faction absorbed a group of former members of the Sato faction when Tanaka Kakuei took the reins of the Sato faction in the spring of 1972. Hence the Fukuda faction was considered to have inherited the Yoshida legacies. For more details about the factional changes, see Ito Masaya, Jiminto Sengokushi (Tokyo: Asahi Sonorama,

Normative Sources of American Hegemony in Japan

107

1983), chapter 1. For the ideological differences between Kishi and Fukuda, see Welfield, An Empire in Eclipse, p. 122. 71. Matsumura Kenzo was a well respected conservative elder who had been active in Japanese national politics since the late 1920s. Bom into the family of a herbal medicine dealer, Matsumura had long been a defender of East Asian tradition and believed in the historical unity of Japan and China. As a strong critic of the US-Japan security treaty, he viewed pan-Asianism (i.e., Japan’s close relations with Asian neighbors) as an important way to assert Japan’s independence from the United States. He worked diligently to press for Japan’s normalization with China and was one of the first conservative politicians to travel to China in the 1950s. For more details about Matsumura’s worldviews, see Wakamiya, Sengo Hoshu no Ajia Kan, pp. 124-29; and Welfield, An Empire in Eclipse, p. 134. 72. Pyle, The Japanese Question, p. 89. 73. For Hatoyama’s ideology, see Masami, Sengo Seiji, pp. 445-48; and Kiyotada, “To­ ward the Liberal Democratic Party Merger: Conservative Policies and Politics,” p. 123. For Nakasone’s ideological change, see Otake Hideo, Nihon no Boei to Kokunai Seiji (Japan’s Defense Policy and Domestic Politics) (Tokyo: Sanichi Shobo, 1983), pp. 39-46; and Pyle, The Japanese Question, pp. 62-63. It is necessary to note that Nakasone, along with Fujiyama and Matsumura, had once been characterized as leaning toward the left (the so-called “new right” in the LDP) by some Japanese and American analysts because of their opposition to Japan’s military involvement in the Vietnam War and their support for Japan’s normaliza­ tion with China in the 1960s. This characterization is misleading because these analysts failed to see that these right-conservatives’ opposition to Japan’s military involvement in Vietnam and Japan’s recognition of Taiwan instead of China was driven by their political nationalism, or their strong desire to restore Japan’s independence, which they believed had been compromised by Japan’s alliance with the United States. The drive for nationalism did not change these conservatives’ loathing of communism and desire to preserve the essence of Japanese tradition. For this characterization, see Frank C. Langdon, “Japanese Liberal Democratic Factional Discord on China Policy,” Pacific Affairs 61,3 (Fall 1968), pp. 40911; and Douglas H. Mendel, Jr., “Japanese Views of Sato’s Foreign Policy: The Credibility Gap,” Asian Survey 7, 7 (July 1967), p. 445. 74. Curtis, The Japanese Way of Politics, pp. 18—27. 75. Otake Hideo, “Defense Controversies and One-Party Dominance: The Opposition in Japan and West Germany,” in T. J. Pempel, ed., Uncommon Democracies: The OneParty Dominant Regimes (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990), pp. 128-61. 76. Sugimori Koji and Yamaguchi Asao, Roso Giin ga Shakaito wo koroshita (Union Diet Members Killed the JSP) (Tokyo: Nisshin Hodo, 1980); also see Tani Satomi, “The Japan Socialist Party before the Mid-1960s: An Analysis of Its Stagnation,” in Kataoka, Creating Single-Party Democracy, pp. 79-99. 77. Curtis, The Japanese Way of Politics, p. 21. 78. Many theories have been advanced to explain Japanese voting behaviors and the permanent dominance of the LDP in Japanese politics. For a good summary of these vari­ ous theories, see Inoguchi Takashi, “Explaining and Predicting Japanese General Elections, 1960-1980,” The Journal o f Japanese Studies, vol. 7, no. 2 (Summer 1981); and Bradley M. Richardson, “Japanese Voting Behaviors in Comparative Perspective,” in Scott C. Flanagan, et al., eds., The Japanese Voter (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1991), pp. 3^18. 79. For the revelation of Washington’s secret funnelling of political funds to the LDP through the CIA, see Tim Weiner, “CIA Spent Millions to Support Japanese Right in 50’s and 60’s,” The New York Times, October 9, 1994; also Walter LaFeber, The Clash: U.S.Japanese Relations throughout History (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997), pp.

108

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

326-27, 337; and Michael Schaller, Altered States: The United States and Japan since the Occupation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 165. 80. Inoguchi, “Explaining and Predicting Japanese General Elections, 1960-1980,” pp. 309-14; and Scott C. Flanagan, “Value Cleavages, Contextual Influences, and the Vote,” in Flanagan, etal., The Japanese Voter, pp. 124-42. 81. Curtis, The Japanese Way of Politics, pp. 221-23. 82. Takashi Inoguchi, “The Political Economy of Conservative Resurgence under Re­ cession: Public Policies and Political Support in Japan, 1977-1983,” in T. J. Pempel, Un­ common Democracies, pp. 195-96. 83. Ibid., pp. 195-96. 84. Calder, Crisis and Compensation, pp. 234-35. 85. Curtis, Japanese Way o f Politics, chapter 2; and Calder, Crisis and Compensation, pp. 156-230. 86. Dower, “Peace and Democracy in Two Systems,” p. 21. 87. Curtis, The Japanese Way o f Politics, p. 232. 88. Inoguchi, “Explaining and Predicting Japanese General Elections, 1960-1980,” pp. 303-6. And Shinsaku Kohei, Ichiro Miyake, and Joji Watanuki, “Issues and Voting Behav­ ior,” in Flanagan, et al., The Japanese Voter, pp. 267-96. 89. For more details about this study, see Miyake Ichiro, “Itto Yui Seitosei no Tenkai to Gaiko Kihon Rosen ni Kansuru Ishiki Patan” (The Development of One-Party Dominant System and the Changes of Voters’ Attitude toward Parties and Policies), Nenpo Seijigaku (Annals of Political Science), 1994, pp. 173-93. 90. For the CGP’s changing policy platforms, see Asahi Shimbun, April 17, 1990, p. 2; and Curtis, The Japanese Way of Politics, p. 26. For the JSP’s moderate gesture, see Asahi Shimbun, July 18, 1989, p. 1; and The Japan Times, July 15, 1989, p. 1.

Ill

Evidence of Japan ’s Hegemonic Cooperation with the United States

6 The Yoshida Letter and the Origins of Postwar Japan’s China Policy Japan’s China policy was entangled with US-Japanese negotiations on the San Francisco peace settlement. While the Yoshida government and American policy makers shared a convergent vision about Japanese national purpose in the post­ independent period, the China issue was a source of intense conflict in US-Japanese relations. The bone of contention was whether Japan should recognize the communist government in mainland China. The issue arose mainly because of the Chinese communist victory over the Chinese Nationalist Party (Guomindang), led by Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) in the civil war. On October 1,1949, the Chinese Communists led by Mao Zedong formally established the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in mainland China. The government of the Republic of China (ROC) led by the Nationalists then went into exile in Taiwan. Because of Japan’s economic dependence on China in the prewar period, Japanese across the political spectrum all highly valued Japan’s economic ties with mainland China for Japan’s postwar economic reconstruction. In particular, the Yoshida government viewed the Cold War tensions in Asia as transient and were not convinced that Japan’s close association with the United States could substitute Japan’s economic relations with mainland China. Yet from the American perspective, Japan’s formal recognition of communist China, the bitter enemy of the United States in the Korean War, would undermine Washington’s anti-communist containment framework in Asia. In light of the intense conflict of interests over China, Washington had to resort to coercion in order to bring Japan’s China policy in line with that of the United States. In the face of strong American pressure, the Yoshida government realistically calculated that Japan’s compliance with America’s China policy objectives was a price it had to pay to regain Japan’s sovereignty and rebuild its war-tom economy. A few months after the San Francisco peace conference, in a letter to American special envoy John F. Dulles, Yoshida committed Tokyoto signing^adjilateral peace treaty with the Nationalist government in Taiwan, rather than the communist government on the mainland! This so-called “Yoshida Letter” marked the beginning of the subordination of Japan’s China policy to Washington’s containment policy in Asia for the next four decades.

112

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

The Yoshida Letter provoked political controversy in Japanese politics and gal­ vanized the conflict between the Yoshida-led Liberal Party on the one hand and opposition parties both on the right and the left. Moreover, the Yoshida Letter also alienated a large segment of the society as well as the business world, which val­ ued Japan’s close relations with China. (For the sake of convenience, the term “China” will hereafter be used interchangeably with “mainland China” and “PRC”.)

AMERICAN POLICY PLANNING FOR JAPAN’S ECONOMIC RELATIONS WITH CHINA AND JAPAN’S TRADE REORIENTATION The issue of Japan’s economic relations with China cropped up in American policy planning for Japan as Japan assumed new strategic importance in American containment strategy in Asia in late 1948. Japan had depended heavily on China both for raw material imports and export markets during the war. Before 1941, China, Korea, Formosa, and Sakhalin supplied 35 percent of Japan’s total imports (much of them raw materials) and absorbed 40 percent of its exports.' Trade be­ tween Japan and China amounted to around 250 million dollars during the 1930s and grew to 600 million dollars during the war years.2An important part of Japa­ nese economic dependence on China lay in the energy sector. Prewar Japan relied on coal and hydroelectricity as main energy sources, much of which were im­ ported from China.3Naturally, China was the pivotal Asian trade partner for Japan. The Japanese surrender and the Chinese civil war took a heavy toll on bilateral trade relations. Annual Sino-Japanese trade volume during this period dipped to a small fraction of its prewar levels, ranging between 7 and 20 million dollars.4 In­ stead, American foreign aid played a large role in propping up the war-devastated Japanese economy. While viewing trade expansion as essential for Japanese economic recovery, Americans were determined to forestall the restoration of Japan’s traditional trade relations with China as they feared that Japan’s economic dependence on China would make Japan vulnerable to communist China’s pressure and increase the risk of Japan’s succumbing to communism. Instead, American policy planners sought to look for alternative Japanese trade outlets in Southeast Asia which had also been integrated into the Japanese economic empire during the war. The rein­ tegration of Japanese-Southeast Asian trade would ease Japanese reliance on Ameri­ can foreign aid while avoiding Japanese trade dependence on China. This line of thinking was reflected in NSC 13/2 as well as the Dodge Plan, which placed a high priority on the promotion of Japanese exports as the key to speeding up the economic recovery.5 Nonetheless, the Truman administration did recognize “a natural and historic interdependence” between China and Japan, which could not be artificially sev­ ered without being detrimental to Japan’s economic recovery. Moreover, a total prohibition of Japan’s trade with China would lead to an influx of Japanese ex­ ports into American markets, which could outcompete American goods because of cheap Japanese labor. After much heated debate in the National Security Council, Truman finally decided in March 1949 that restrictions would be imposed on Japan’s

The Yoshida Letter and the Origins of Postwar Japan’s China Policy

113

trade with China only in strategic goods but every effort should be made “to de­ velop alternative sources on an economic basis.”6 This view was soon reflected in the public statements of Truman administra­ tion officials. On September 2, 1949, General MacArthur made a public state­ ment which dismayed many Japanese business leaders who were eager to reenter the Chinese markets. [Under communism], deterioration proceeds until . . . with the incentive completely lost, the human energy and individual initiatives in production, give way to indolence and de­ spair. In such an unhealthy climate industry and commerce cannot thrive and realism warns that the potentialities of trade with any people under the strictures of a collectivist system must be discounted accordingly. For the time being, therefore, and for some time to come, Japan must look elsewhere [than China] for the sources of her needed imports and the markets for her manufacture.7 In October 1949, a few days after the communist victory in China, George Kennan told a Round Table Conference in the State Department attended by influ­ ential diplomats and private sector leaders that Japanese economic recovery would be impeded by the fall of China unless “they [the Japanese] again reopen some sort of empire to the South. Clearly we have got, if we are going to retain any hope of healthy civilization in Japan in the coming period, to achieve opening up of trade possibilities, commercial possibilities for Japan on a scale very far greater than anything Japan knew before.” Kennan then stressed the need to devise a mecha­ nism to keep Japan in the American orbit after the end of American occupation. His recommendation was to make Japan both economically and politically depen­ dent on the United States. In Kennan’s words, the crux of the problem was to devise “controls, foolproof enough and cleverly enough exercised really to have power over what Japan imports in the way of oil and other things.” Through a strategic economic leash, the United States “could have veto power over what she [Japan] does.”8 This line of argument continued to be echoed by Secretary of State Dean Acheson in early 1950 as he was poised to recognize the People’s Republic of China. In a testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in January 1950, Acheson continued to stress the danger of Japan’s economic dependence on China and the need to find alternative trade markets for Japan in Southeast Asia.9 „The outbreak of the Korean War and the subsequent Chinese intervention for­ mally ruled out the option of the American recognition of China and heightened the urgency of binding Japan to the free world. From the American perspective, the nature of China’s threat to Japan as well as American security interests in East Asia was no longer confined to political and economic terms. The State Depart­ ment perceived a potential Chinese military threat to Japan. It argued in the wake of the Chinese intervention that “it is probable that a principal objective [of Chi­ nese action] was Japan.”10In a position paper prepared for the secretary of state in November 1950, which reflected the State Department’s increasingly dominant view on communist China’s potential threat to Japan and American security inter­ ests there, the State Department’s Special Advisor John F. Dulles wrote:

114

Hegemonic Cooperation and Conflict

Developments in Asia confirm that there is a comprehensive program, in which the Soviet and Chinese communists are cooperating, designed as a present phase to eliminate all West­ ern influence on the Asiatic mainland, and probably also in relation to the islands of Japan, Formosa, the Philippines, and Indonesia. It would be reckless not to assume that such a program has been carefully worked out and that steps are being prepared to implement all its various aspects." In an attempt to strengthen Japan’s ties with the free world and forestall its accommodation to China, the SCAP decided to seal off Japan’s trade relations with China. In December 1950, following Washington’s imposition of a trade embargo against China two months earlier, the SCAP issued a directive to impose a total ban on Japan’s trade with China, with which the Yoshida government reluc­ tantly complied.12 As an alternative, the Truman administration sought to reorient Japanese trade relations with the introduction of the so-called “economic cooperation” program in Japan. The economic cooperation program took the form of integrating JapanSoutheast Asian trade by tying American aid to Southeast Asia with the purchase of Japanese manufactured goods. A more important component of the economic cooperation program took the form of a large amount o f American military procurements in Japan for the execution o f the Korean War. American war procurements were seen as a .substitute for foreign aid but it had the advantage of eschewing the fiscally conservative Congress’s pressure to cut foreign aid. They were designed to serv