Week 4 Seminar

Japan’s Political Relations with the United States

Course structure…

14th March

11-11.50 Lecture 6

12-12.50 Okinawa debate

1-1.50 Seminar 6

All students need to attend both the Okinawa debate and the seminar at the above times!

Okinawa DebateDebate event – Should US military bases be removed from Okinawa?• Role play format• In the next few days you will be assigned the role of a

domestic actor. For example: PM Shinzo Abe, SDF representative/advisor to MOD and PM, Yukio Hatayama (DPJ), Hirokazu Nakaima (Governor of Okinawa), protestor, journalist etc.

• You will need to research their agenda and think about how they would act and argue the situation

• We will be placing this in the context of what is happening *now*, but you will need to be aware of the history too

Previous key terms and concepts:bilateral relations, trilateral relations, multilateral relations, proactive, reactive, structure, agency, norms, bilateralism, asianism, trilateralism, internationalism, anti-militarism, developmentalism, economism.

This week’s key terms and concepts:

• Bipolarity

• Multipolarity

• Axis powers

• Allied powers

• Beiatsu

This week’s seminar questions:

Q1. What is the role of structure, agency and norms in explaining Japan’s political relationship with the United States?

Q2. How has Japan instrumentalized its political relationship with the United States in different periods? What changes have occurred, if any? What accounts for these changes?

Q3. Why has Japan developed the bilateral political relationship with the United States for about seventy years? Has it been successful? If so, why? If not, why not? Who gains and who loses as a result?

Q4. What examples can you give of Japan’s proactive policy vis a visthe United States? What about reactive policy? What accounts for the difference?

Q1. What is the role of structure, agency and norms in explaining Japan’s political relationship with the United States?

Q2. How has Japan instrumentalized its political relationship with the United States in different periods? What changes have occurred, if any? What accounts for these changes?

Q3. Why has Japan developed the bilateral political relationship with the United States for about seventy years? Has it been successful? If so, why? If not, why not? Who gains and who loses as a result?

1. Overviews:- The role of structure, agency and norms in explaining

Japan’s political relationship with the United States- The US-Japan relationship

2. Discuss Q2 and Q3 in groups and feedback

What is the role of structure, agency and norms in explaining Japan’s political relationship with the United States?

• The utility of structure, agency and norms as explanatory variables may differ

• Combining them helps us to understand the nature of Japan’s political relations with the US

• Structure: As a concept it alerts us to how external pressure, particularly US pressure, can be important

• Agency: Alerts us to the need to examine the role of the tripartite elite and other actors in the policy-making process, paying attention to the temporal dimension, issue area, and whether the policy is controversial or not

• Norms: Alert us to the need to examine the norms on the popular and political level that inform behaviour in support for or opposition against a policy

The US-Japan RelationshipUS Occupation

US and other allies restructured the domestic order so as to realize two quite different goals.

1. Making sure that Japan never again became a threat to the international and regional orders established by the early-starters of the West

• SCAP’s transformation of Japan’s domestic political economy under the banners of demilitarization and democratization onus of extirpating the seeds of militarism

• Article 9 and Article 66 of the 1947 Constitution

• Bicameral house of elected political representatives and enfranchisement of all citizens to vote (over aged 20)

2. Making Japan a bastion against communism in East Asia

• Greater pressure from SCAP and more generally the US to integrate into the western camp politically, economically, and militarily

• Vulnerable to US pressure post-war the weaker ally in a system based on US dominance in East Asia onus on the norm of bilateralism

• Intensification of bipolar confrontation ‘reverse course’ inside Japan

The US-Japan RelationshipCold War

• The intensification of the Cold War in the late 1940s and early 1950s influenced the nature of the post-war settlement and the future direction of Japan’s IR

• The consolidation of the bipolar structure of the international system during the Occupation and shortly after it meant that Japan’s international relations were tightly linked to the US

• Under the Yoshida Doctrine, close political ties were forged between the political elites and policy-makers of both countries. The Yoshida Doctrine has continued to influence Japan’s political relations with the US in the intervening years

– Focus on economic recovery

– Then economic growth

– Alongside close political and security relations with the US.

The US-Japan RelationshipPost-9/11

• The close identification with the US politically was demonstrated after 9/11 where PM Koizumi soon offered his political support to President Bush

– Visited the US and offered financial support in the fight against terrorism

– Japan later joined the ‘coalition of the willing’ by sending SDF to support the war in Afghanistan and to contribute to humanitarian and reconstruction in Iraq.

– This is despite opinion polls suggested that the Japanese populace largely distrusted US-led wars

• However, there were signs that Japan was re-evaluating its relationship with the US under the DPJ administration led by Hatoyama Yukio in 2009

– Move towards a focus on regionalism

– PM’s effort and failure to resolve the Okinawan base relocation issue.

– Reassertion of bilateral ties under PM Kan and PM Noda. And now LDP Abe

• Within the public sphere, poll data demonstrated that c.82% (an all-time-high) of the Japanese populace feel an affinity with the US due to the US’s “Operation Tomodachi” following 3-11

• Q2. How has Japan instrumentalized its political relationship with the United States in different periods? What changes have occurred, if any? What accounts for these changes?

• Q3. Why has Japan developed the bilateral political relationship with the United States for about seventy years? Has it been successful? If so, why? If not, why not? Who gains and who loses as a result?

Q4. What examples can you give of Japan’s proactive policy vis a vis the United States? What about reactive policy? What accounts for the difference?