End of the merchant era?
Yamatani, Chikau
JAPAN'S ISOLATIONISM & NEUTRALISM End of the merchant era CHIKAU YAMATANI FROM THE WAR of Independence until its participation in World War I, the U.S. could remain an isolationist country,...
...Many consider diplomats as striped-pants, weak-kneed, pretentious party-goers...
...For example, in one recent editorial Asahi criticized U.S.Japan military cooperation from the neutralist viewpoint: ' 'Every nation should progress toward detente...
...In this article, he described Japan as a "merchant...
...and Japan and to dampen the self-deceptive isolationism...
...The British fleet guaranteed the safe passage of American merchant ships in high seas, and many Americans who were unaware of this protection felt themselves morally superior to the Europeans who were forced to play what were, in their eyes, unpalatable, amoral power games...
...Japan is rich, Japan can wield great economic power, but politically and militarily, Japan is a dwarf...
...The hope exists that someday we human beings will achieve such a peaceful global governing system on the earth, although uncertainty remains that we can achieve such a goal by the end of next century...
...But the intelligence gathering and analysis of the Foreign Ministry is, if compared with that of Japan's Defense Agency, still "significant...
...West Germany: 6,100...
...SDECE (France): 6,000...
...Many intellectuals think that the eye-for-eye, tit-for-tat mentality is a miserable denial of human dignity , and that even if all other countries indulge in this revengeful "mutual-degeneration," the Japanese should remain exceptional as the incorruptible Noah did...
...Interestingly enough, the same sort of thing has happened to the postwar Japanese...
...But at the beginning of this year Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone decided to offer Japanese technology, because "It is our responsibility to contribute to our ally...
...Kissinger remarked: "The typical Japanese leader is impelled by his culture to avoid explicitness in dealing with foreign counterparts...
...Last year, he published his memoirs...
...This kind of military cooperation between the U.S...
...Consequently, if a great irreversible disruption in today's world systems should occur, or if other countries should exert unbearable pressure upon Japan, those whose mentalities are close to isolationism/neutralism may convert to nationalism/chauvinism rather than to alliancism...
...Its subsequent editorial reprimanded Mr...
...Amaya is one of the best and the brightest bureaucrats of MITI, and has participated in much of the important national industrial planning of the postwar Japanese economy...
...In 1956, Hamilton Fish Armstrong, then the chief editor of Foreign Affairs wrote: "Like others caught in the Cold War, the Japanese wish they could escape into some magic heaven of calm...
...Nowadays, Mr...
...Consequently, Japan's self-definition of her role in international politics has been ambiguous, insecure, and unconvincing...
...Amaya does not talk about the "Merchant Country'' theory any more...
...Japan is an island country...
...This creates an almost impenetrable cultural barrier in diplomacy...
...Concerning Japan's politico-military powerlessness, Mr...
...The idealist Mr...
...Japan's intelligence organization which specializes in military information has a staff of only 600...
...British Foreign Ministry has some 10,100...
...The Pax Americana era was born...
...wanted to keep Japan unarmed and in the chikau YAMATANI, a University of Tokyo graduate and former business consultant, is a reporter at the Nippon Broadcasting Company...
...The subsequent inability to use power politics has caused, at least from the realpolitik viewpoint, some strange anomalies in Japanese foreign policy...
...Among the Japanese, generally speaking, fear of foreign military invasion and the tension caused by international power games have been low...
...Whether conscious or unconscious, the basic psychology of Japan's isolationism/neutralism is the belief that Japan is a special country...
...Wilson curtly snubbed this "radical" idea as preposterous...
...It is nationalism, it is chauvinism, it is jingoism...
...Perhaps one of the most interesting cases of such a recent "conversion" is that of Mr...
...The isolationists/neutralists, on the other hand, like to think that Japan is "the one and only" Japan is and always should be special...
...Article 9 says: "The Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or the use of force as a means of settling international disputes...
...In this book, he called Japan a "Paradise for Spies," not only because Japan did not have anti-espionage law but also because Japanese people and organizations did not show enough sensitivity and circumspection concerning the importance of intelligence...
...Japan, the imitative over-achiever, the "honorary white" country, feels uneasy both in white assemblies and non-white gatherings...
...During the Pax Britannica era, it was in the national interest of the British Empire to keep the U.S...
...From the beginning of her history around the third century until the 1850s, Japan had had no need to construct her own foreign policy and defense policy...
...He merely described its characteristics as a given reality of postwar Japan...
...For them, foreign policy without power politics methods is an unthinkable stance and an impossible option...
...Amaya's cherubic face, relatively small figure, and soft-speaking attitude do not betray his essence: He is an indefatigable worker, a man of sharp intelligence, and a hard-headed unselfish patriot...
...The Japanese delegation withdrew into silence with quiet anger and bitterness...
...It is idealistic because it requires a thorough negation of "dirty power politics" and urges the Japanese to trust the sincerity, good will, fairness and peace-mindedness of all nations, including the Soviet Union...
...Japanese leaders were very conscious of this fact...
...The disruption of the balance of power in distant areas of the world can cause grave impact upon Japan's national interests...
...Isolated Japanese society has been uniquely, singularly homogeneous...
...MIS (Great Britain): 5,000...
...More than two thousand years ago, they already had several theoretical schools of international relations...
...This unique position has created a difficult superiority-inferiority complex for the Japanese...
...However, this tendency to regard Japan as an exception to the military bipolar structure neutralism has been very strong, especially in the mass media...
...Now, he shows no hesitation in talking as an alliancist (a person who positively supports the U.S.-Japan alliance), and he acknowledges the fact that Japan should shoulder a reasonable amount of the politico-military burden in order to maintain the peace and order of the global free-trade system...
...The idea of Japan as the Merchant Country gave them a plausible rationalization of the role of their country in current international relations and offered low-risk, low-cost self-protection guidance...
...Had there been an anti-British alliance of the U.S...
...Since World War II, both the U.S...
...It is considered by many to be the most sophisticated newspaper in the country...
...Those of the isolationist/neutralist mentality (and of the nationalist/chauvinist mentality, potentially) are far more numerous in Japan than those of the alliancist mentality...
...Under it, the U.S...
...And several times he criticized the Japanese mass media, stating: "Because of the newspapers, the Japanese people have acquired a distorted image of the reality of the world...
...would surely offend neutralist Japanese newspapers and magazines...
...The diffident former Prime Minister Zenko Suzuki (who was nicknamed "Mr...
...Thus the British Empire and its fleet made it possible for the U.S...
...Since they have been surrounded by more than ten different races, and by different tribes, some of them very powerful and belligerent, the Chinese have been very keen about conceptualizations and strategic choices...
...This excep-tionalism is idealistic, somewhat futuristic, and somewhat irresponsible...
...And he pointed out Japan's lack of intelligence-gathering capacity and analytical ability...
...THE CONSTITUTIONAL ban on power-politics thinking has done more: It has encouraged, with Japan's sui generis isolationist mentality, Japanese exceptionalism...
...and Japan...
...It is against our Peace Constitution and peace principle...
...BND (West Germany): 10,000...
...And until the end of the Pacific war, freedom of opinion and freedom of expression had been severely restricted both in public and private life...
...More than a quarter century after Mr...
...of Japanese teenagers is eleven points higher than that of American teenagers...
...Secondly, there is the Japanese lack of training in debate and self-expression...
...Amaya recognized the current situation of Japan in international relations, which is quite similar to that of the merchant during the Shogun era...
...There is, first of all, the lack of conceptualization about international relations...
...Knowledgeable Japanese who were perceptive of international politics understood the reality of American protection, but many Japanese gradually forgot this fact and naively felt that they were morally superior to the U.S...
...Japanese exceptionalism is more or less irresponsible...
...This isolation from international power politics was comfortable and profitable for the Americans...
...Most people everywhere think of neutrality as signifying peace...
...In 1980, Army Major General Miyanaga was arrested while passing military secrets to Russian Colonel Kozlov...
...They are pro-alliance, but they are not necessarily pro-American civilization...
...Japan's history of militaristic misrule, her frightful war losses and her experience with atomic bombing do give her more title to be irrationally pacifist than many others...
...In 1979, a former Soviet spy, Stanislav A. Levchenko (who had been a spy in Tokyo for many years), defected to the U.S...
...Compromise' ') dodged this request because he knew such supply of the advanced technology to the U.S...
...All other parties are anti-amendment, virtually at any cost...
...Unlike other Asian and European countries, Japan has experienced neither invasion of foreign ground forces nor the merciless repression of a foreign government...
...But the Pax Americana is not the sole cause of Japan's isolationism...
...There is no consensus among our citizens about the role of Japan's Self-Defense Forces...
...and the USSR actually used their forces dispatched them and/or engaged in battles more than two hundred times...
...Now, there is no legal restriction of expression except for some "explicit" photos and films...
...Whether Japan likes the military bipolar structure or not, it cannot remain removed from it...
...The alliancists tend to think that Japan is' 'one of many" Japan is merely one member of world society, and Japan should always cooperate and compromise with other countries...
...Armstrong's article, we can find similar aspirations for neutrality in the leading Japanese newspapers...
...Unfortunately, American politicians and the U.S...
...At international conferences, the chief Japanese delegate rarely speaks...
...They felt a great necessity to cope with the outer environment but they still held negative views about Japan's politico-military role in world society...
...Thus in the May 1983 edition of the magazine Bunshun, Mr...
...Most of today's Japanese neutralist newspapers were stridently chauvinistic before World War II...
...Generally, domestic bureaucrats and politicians do not listen attentively to the advice and analysis of foreign service officials...
...Under heterogeneous circumstances, on the contrary, the necessity of conceptualization is great...
...Department of State has some 13,600 foreign service personnel...
...The highest caste was the samurai, followed by the farmer, the artisan, and the merchant class, which was the lowest...
...The Japanese are also proud of their diligence, discipline, and intelligence (according to research done by American scholars, the average I.Q...
...mass media also have shown themselves to be one-sided or ill-informed on these matters from time to time, and this helps not at all...
...In the exclusive international power club, Japan has been not only a nouveau riche but also the sole non-white, non-Western nation...
...They should understand that (for foreigners) this kind of unrealistic argument looks merely egoistic...
...with France, Germany , Russia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and/or other big powers, it would have been clearly detrimental to British national interests...
...There have been two incidents which indicated Japan's "constitutional negligence" about military information...
...This military cooperation will provoke the Soviet leaders...
...A typical Japanese tends to think that if Japan does not threaten foreign countries, no country will cause great harm to Japan...
...They say that there must not be war on the earth, and that military expenditures are irrational...
...neutral and isolationist...
...Until the Meiji Restoration of 1868, it was forbidden by law for three or more of the common people farmers, artisans, merchants to come together and discuss public affairs...
...He explained the imperativeness of maintaining accurate perceptions about the world situation and the domestic politics of foreign countries for the survival of Japan's economy...
...Even though both are Orientals, the Chinese are radically different from the Japanese...
...With such a small staff, it is incapable of doing any meaningful analysis on its own...
...He thought that the "Merchant Country" style was the postwar Japanese way of life...
...It will harm the peaceful coexistence between the Soviet Union and Japan...
...For example, the Japanese government has not been serious about intelligence gathering and analysis...
...government and the American forces which occupied and governed Japan enforced Japan's total disarmament and the thorough pacifist indoctrination of the Japanese people by education and strict media censorship...
...They accept the necessity of the U.S.-Japan security treaty without vain self-important nationalism...
...But despite the total legality of freedom of opinion, many Japanese still regard those who love debate and self-expression as churlish, obtrusive upstarts, or intractable outsiders...
...Amaya's "Merchant Country" theory and "Art of Self-Protection" thesis were quite persuasive for many Japanese...
...IN THE LAST four or five years, despite the strong neutralism of a large part of the Japanese media, gradually a less Utopian, more pragmatic, more pro-Western opinion has gained influence among the Japanese...
...and Japan will make Japan a pawn being used in the American global strategy...
...The Japanese newspapers are incapable of recognizing and correcting this perception gap...
...This "Art of Self-Protection" did not mean military protection but meant alert, flexible, skillful protection of Japanese national interests...
...These three cultural anthropological elements the lack of conceptualization about international relations, the reluctance to self-expression and debate, awkwardness about Japan's international position have created a passive isolationist mentality among many Japanese despite Japan's positive, adoptive, pragmatic competitiveness...
...Because of Article 9 and its comprehensive denial of any possibility of power politics, the Japanese government has been obliged to execute its foreign policy without any recourse to such methods since the defeat of World War II...
...Since the U.S...
...From childhood, the Japanese are not encouraged sometimes bluntly discouraged to debate and to express themselves...
...Except for several small challenges Ukiyoye (Japanese printing), Zen culture, etc...
...Asahi is perhaps the most influential daily newspaper in Japan...
...There is always some tincture of embarrassment, diffidence, and phonyness in Japan's attitude toward "our Western partners" and "our Asian brothers...
...But there is another contributing factor: Japan's cultural/anthropological idiosyncrasy which consists of three elements...
...He is gifted not only as an industrial strategist but also as a writer...
...Therefore, the maximum punishment for espionage or treason was one-year imprisonment and a fine of approximately $200...
...American forces occupied Japan after the Pacific War, but this would not have happened if Japan had not attacked the U.S...
...Arguments are beginning to be heard whether Japan might not find neutrality a possible role...
...Its budget is not ample, and it is the second smallest among the twelve governmental ministries of Japan...
...And among the five other big daily newspapers Asahi has been the most vocal opponent of the pro-America stance of the Japanese government...
...But he failed to recognize that such neutralism clearly looked irresponsible to the U.S...
...Amendment of the Peace Constitution has been, until now, impossible, because any amendment requires at least a two-thirds affirmative vote in both the upper and lower houses of the Diet...
...Japanese politicians cannot discuss strategic problems except severely restricted minimum level self-defense methods and resistance methods in the Diet, because most discussions of strategic scenarios and strategic options are considered unconstitutional...
...THE peace constitution was drafted by the legal staff of General Mac Arthur and promulgated on May 3, 1947...
...Henry Kissinger writes in his memoirs: "The Japanese are not as conceptually adept as, say, the Chinese, or as articulate as most Europeans...
...But Japan has an extensive vested-interests network virtually all over the world...
...However, only the samurai could hold weapons and train themselves militarily, and political prerogatives belonged exclusively to the samurai...
...They feel very proud of their rapid development since the Meiji restoration, of the miraculous resurrection of Japan from the total destruction incurred by the Pacific war, and of Japan's current economic competitiveness...
...America also had a monopoly on nuclear weapons...
...Even though today's world structure has become economically multipolar, it is still bipolar militarily...
...to be isolationist, and the adoption of the American globalist-interventionist posture (the willingness to play the role of the world's policeman at every corner of the earth in order to prevent the spread of left-wing totalitarianism) has made it possible for Japan to enjoy her quasi-isolationism...
...Without adequate conceptualizations about other peoples', other groups', other nations', values, methods, ways of reasoning, inclinations, and historical records, one cannot make effective strategic judgments and decisions...
...Its morning edition has 7.4 million circulation, and its evening edition has 4.5 million...
...The Japanese are exactly opposite...
...In Japan, the word "merchant" has special implications...
...The other three powers similarly paid no attention...
...But the Japanese are not always content with their restless industrial life, the noisy, shallow commercial civilization, the lack of real innovative-ness, and the lack of individualism...
...Many of them prefer Japanese (and/or European) culture to American culture...
...The Foreign Ministry's influence has been far weaker than that of the Finance Ministry and the Ministry of International Trade and Industry...
...It has contributed to the aforementioned "constitutional negligence," and it is inclined to make little of the U.S.-Japan mutual security treaty...
...which in their view fought two "imperialist wars" on the Asian continent...
...The reason that it could remain aloof from power politics games was not so much as a result of its political moralism and idealism as of the effectiveness of the dominant British Royal Navy...
...World society always has been very heterogeneous, with many races, many tribes, many languages, religions and cultures...
...He has learned that it is impossible for Japan to remain an apolitical' 'merchant...
...Amaya spoke harshly of his countrymen, saying: ' 'Japanese politicians and people are irresponsible about the security of the Western world...
...Although the Mongols were formidable horsemen, they were wretched sailors who could not negotiate the rough waves of the East China Sea...
...Considering Japan's large GNP and its extensive (and problematic) trade activity, the scale of Japan's Foreign Ministry is excessively small...
...Because of their long, well-nigh isolated history, the Japanese have not been required to conceptualize the international situation by themselves...
...Ironically, the merchants were the richest people and despite their formal lowliness, they could wield great economic power informally...
...GENERALLY speaking, the alliancists are well-educated, well-informed, pragmatic people...
...Professor Junichi Kyogoku, who teaches political science at the University of Tokyo, commented about this adoptive-isolationist mentality: "There does not exist in Japan a real feeling that the Japanese contribute to the civilization of others...
...It is an important task of Japanese politicians and the mass media to strengthen the influence of alliancism while trying to eliminate the great perception gap between the U.S...
...Japan had been the only non-white country which was not colonized or semi-colonized by the white countries before World War II...
...Even now, Japan is still the only non-white nation to attend the annual summit conferences and finance ministers' meetings of the Western industrial countries...
...For the Japanese, it is a constitutional mandate...
...The third factor about Japan which must be taken into account is this: There has long been a great deal of awkwardness and psychological insecurity among the Japanese about the nature of their position in international organizations, international conferences, and in various international cultural/political relations...
...The Japanese delegation made a proposal to enunciate a "Declaration of the Equality of Races" as a resolution of the conference...
...Long ago, in 1274 and again in 1281, Mongolian forces tried to invade Japan, but failed...
...The number of officials in the Foreign Ministry is only about 3,500...
...Nakasone, stating: "Our technology should not be used by the U.S...
...By that I mean a lack of methodical orderly thinking, the understanding of a situation through the use of concepts, categories, frameworks, and structures...
...And it goes on: "In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as the other war potential, will never be maintained...
...In order to survive as the "Merchant Country," he exhorted the Japanese to acquire the "Art of Self-Protection...
...He did not say that that style was either desirable or undesirable...
...defense industry with Japan's advanced technology (microelectronics, optics, and lasers...
...He knew well the isolationist mentality of the Japanese masses, and he accepted the nation's neutralist tendency simply because Japan lacked the forces and the will to be involved in international political unrest...
...Deputy Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci asked the Japanese government to supply the U.S...
...From the beginning of the seventeenth century to 1868 the so-called "Shogun era" of three hundred years merchants were classified as the lowest caste in Japanese society...
...But the alliancists accept the reality of the military bipolar structure in the current world without wishful thinking...
...At least until now, Japan has been solely responsive and absorptive in her interactions...
...The CIA employs some 25,000 people...
...Three years ago, Mr...
...Japan's geographic situation historically enabled her to remain disengaged from realpolitik machinations...
...first...
...Since there was no anti-espionage law, punishment for Gen...
...The antithesis of Japan's isolationism/neutralism is not alliancism...
...He thought that Japan could remain the apolitical "Merchant Country" for a while because of her exceptionality...
...This decision miffed Asahi...
...Arnold J. Toynbee explained the interaction of various civilizations with the term "Challenge and Response...
...During the 1919 Paris Peace Conference Japan was one of the five big powers which would determine the new order and arrangement of the postwar world, the other four being the U.S., Britain, France, and Italy...
...The Liberal Democratic party (the name of which does not convey anything about its feudalistic provincialism) has been unable to acquire such a special majority...
...The Japanese prefer to convey their intentions and emotions calmly, implicitly, using as few words as possible...
...In return, diplomats deplore the myopic nationalism and insensitivity of Japanese leaders...
...Naohiro Amaya, a Councilor of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, a former Director-General of the Energy and Resources Agency...
...and the NATO countries...
...The U.S...
...Thus in Japan the word "merchant" implies a rich man without any significant politico-military strength...
...This is why several Western countries have been unwilling to share important information with Japan's Foreign Ministry and Defense Agency...
...Amaya has found that even though Japan's exceptionalism/neutralism sincerely makes sense for the Japanese, it sounds like mere sophistry for foreign governments...
...France: 6,800...
...Miyanaga was equal to that for an ordinary domestic bureaucrat who revealed official secrets to, for example, a newspaper writer...
...The world has been a 'given' surrounding for Japan, and the world makes a real impact on Japan, but the world cannot be modified by the efforts of the Japanese...
...Article 9 is a sweeping denial of power-politics thinking, because power politics depends to a large extent upon the use of force, the threat of force, and the explicit military buildup which can show the capacity for punishment or retaliation to potential enemies...
...Some Japanese have an inferiority complex about Japan, because it cannot convey distinctly original messages of any consequence to foreign countries...
...Most Japanese possess similar value systems, similar aspirations, similar sensibilities, and similar social norms...
...Immediately after World War II, America had fifty percent of the world's total foreign reserves, represented fifty percent of the world's total military expenditure, and produced sixty-five percent of the world's total GNP...
...Japanese exceptionalism is also somewhat futuristic because it has a tendency to engender the belief that Japan's Peace Constitution is a harbinger of the peaceful future world where each nation will abolish its national military forces and trust in a world government and world police force...
...Amaya did not make any value judgment about this...
...American sphere of influence, it offered military protection for Japan's territory and for Japan's commercial activities in the global free market...
...In this singularly homogeneous situation, the necessity of conceptualization classification, categorization, struc-turalization, and systematization concerning human behavior and the interaction of various social entities has not been pronounced...
...Professor Michio Morishima of London University, one of the most distinguished Japanese economists, and Professor Yoshikazu Sakamoto of the University of Tokyo, popular among Japanese leftists, have advised the Japanese people to adopt a totally non-violent policy even in the event of a massive Russian invasion...
...Small, lightweight, developing countries can assert their non-alignment bravely, since they do not have much vested-interest either in the socialist world or in the capitalist world...
...could remain an isolationist country, staying disengaged from the power politics games played by the European nations...
...In October 1981, U.S...
...So the Pax Americana and Japan's geographical situation helped to engender Japan's isolationism...
...forces, should not be 'militarized' in the international arms production structure...
...The Chinese are not very competent in economic management, while in diplomacy they can show consummate virtuosity...
...They are quite adept in economic management, but their grasp of world politics has been, sometimes, very simplistic...
...Italy: 5,200...
...Amaya wrote an article called: "Japan: the Merchant Country'' in the Japanese magazine Bun-shun...
...Amaya's attitude of three years ago was a rather resigned one...
...Japan has left no lasting impact on other civilizations, simply because the Japanese never intended to claim the universality of their values, principles, and methods over others from the beginning...
...There is a very great perception gap between the U.S...
Vol. 110 • October 1983 • No. 18
