JAPAN SOCIETY OF NORTHERN
CALIFORNIA TEACHERS' PROGRAMS 2003-4
Co-sponsors:
Bay Area Global Education Program at the World Affairs
Council of Northern California and ORIAS.
Recent
Changes in Japanese Security Policy
A panel of experts met with K-12 teachers at the
World Affairs Council, November 17, 2003.
Panelists
| Panel Summary |
Bibliography
Japan's
Civil Society and Globalization (flyer)
A
panel of experts met with K-12 teachers at the World Affairs Council,
May 11, 2004.
Panelists | Comparing
mechanisms of social change in Japan and the United States |
Bibliography
Recent Changes in Japanese Security Policy
Professor Akiko Fukushima, Tokyo University
Professor Mattake Kamiya, Japanese Defense Academy
Professor Yoshihide Soeya, Keio University
Discussant: Ken Haig, Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley
Panelists responded to questions raised by teachers on recent changes in Japan's foreign and security policies and discussed perspectives on Japan's post-WWII history and its changing role in global politics. Ken Haig provides a summary of major points raised during the evening:
- The impact of history, the context of Japan's post-WWII taboos: In the years immediately following World War II any discussion of sending Japanese troops abroad was taboo-condemned both at home by a Japanese public that was weary from decades of Japanese militarism, and overseas, especially by Japan's former colonies. Article 9 of the postwar constitution, the renunciation-of-war clause written by the occupying American forces, was hardly challenged. The Liberal Democratic Party-Japan's dominant political party for most of the postwar period until now-later used Cold War developments as a justification for fielding a Self-Defense Force (SDF), but throughout most of the postwar era Japan relied mainly on American military protection under the U.S.-Japan security arrangement. Whether the SDF is legally allowed under a strict reading of Article 9 is a sticky issue even today. Most policymaking in this area has been done quietly, with the tacit understanding on the part of politicians and the public alike that whatever happened with the SDF for defensive purposes, Japan would take seriously its vow to never again use force in settling international disputes.
- Changing values today, especially in light of the end of the Cold War: Today, attitudes among politicians and the public are changing somewhat. There seems to be a more open willingness to discuss the future role of Japan's SDF. Part of this is due to practical international considerations. The end of Cold War has changed the U.S. strategic outlook such that many Japanese now feel that they may no longer depend entirely on the U.S. for military security. Threats posed recently by North Korea, domestic terrorism in the form of Aum Shinrikyo's Sarin gas attack on Tokyo's subway system in 1995, and recent threats made against Japan by al Qaeda have all led to an unease not felt during the more predictably bi-polar environment of the Cold War. The strict pacifism of the postwar period is also changing in a more subtle way in the domestic context. Last week's panelists all cited a rise in "healthy" Japanese nationalism-the sense that a successful Japan should be an international contributor in more than just the economic sense, and that it is good and natural for Japan to develop its own national security policy. They all see more open debate in Japan as a welcome change. The breakdown of strict taboos on the topic means that-like everyone else-ultra-nationalists are becoming more vocal, but even if their voices are getting louder this does not mean that they are becoming more popular. Media accounts portray Japan as turning more to the right, but in reality Japan remains solidly centrist.
- Turning point: Shock of first Gulf War experience. All three panelists mentioned the collective slap in the face that Japan felt when its $13 billion contribution ($100 for every man, woman and child in Japan) to the 1991 Gulf War effort went unappreciated (an example of this is the fact that Japan was not mentioned in the list of countries that Kuwait thanked publicly in Western publications after the war). Similar frustration is felt by many Japanese with regard to the U.N., where Japan is the second-largest donor yet sits on few influential committees or councils. This led to an overall sense that a foreign policy that relies on "checkbook diplomacy" is not enough, that as a full-fledged member of the G-8 Japan needs to play a more proactive role in international affairs. Frustration with the post-Gulf War events led to the passing of the 1992 International Peacekeeping Cooperation Law, which authorized the use of the SDF abroad for the first time-but only in U.N.-backed peacekeeping missions. Until 1992 Japan could not even send medical units of the SDF overseas. Since 1992, the SDF has been dispatched to Golan Heights, Rwanda, Cambodia, and East Timor. The political promise made by the LDP in 1992 was that the SDF would be sent only to places where troops would "shed sweat, not blood".
- The proposed dispatching of SDF troops to a peacekeeping mission in Iraq has thus sparked serious debate in Japan because it violates two major premises of the 1992 law: 1) the occupation of Iraq is a U.S.-backed initiative, not one supported by the U.N.; 2) the experience of U.S., British, Italian, and Polish troops in Iraq so far has shown that it is likely that Japanese troops will come under attack, that there would likely be casualties (Japan's first since WWII).
- Watch for constitutional change in Japan, but how will it happen? The legislation which specifies how to go about making changes to Japan's constitution has yet to be created, but it is seen as an eventually inevitability. The Diet already has a multi-party constitutional review commission working on the issue (due to submit its proposals by 2005), and the LDP is conducting its own review. The success of the LDP and Democratic Party of Japan in the November 9th election (both of which support the continued use of SDF forces in peacekeeping missions overseas, though the DPJ specifies only in the context of U.N.-mandated missions) adds to the momentum. But changing the constitution will be an immensely difficult process. Changing Article 9 opens up other parts of the constitution to change that many are wary of opening up debate over, such as the role of the emperor, Japan's renunciation of nuclear weapons, a more decentralized, federalist state structure, women's and minority rights, etc. Moreover, changes to the constitution will be difficult to justify to Japan's neighbors, with whom Japan's relations have been marred by lingering resentment of Japan's wartime atrocities, recent rows over a revisionist government-approved history textbook, ongoing problems with Japanese sex tourism, and the recent discovery of caches of Japanese chemical weapons in China leftover from WWII (among other issues).
Japan's
Civil Society and Globalization
A panel of experts met with K-12 teachers at the
World Affairs Council, May 11, 2004.
Panelists | Ken
Haig's table for comparing mechanisms of social change |
Bibliography
Panelists:
Machiko Osawa is a Professor in the Economics Department at Japan Women's
University. She has published widely on various aspects of Japan’s
labor market and the repercussions of current demographic changes. She
has served as an advisor to the Japanese government on many issues related
to industrial and labor policy, gender equality as well as pension reform.
Kaori Kuroda is Co-Director of the Civil Society Organizations Network Japan (CSONJ). She is the author of numerous articles on Japanese NGOs and social change. An expert on civil society development, she has worked as a researcher and consultant for various governmental and nongovernmental organizations in Tokyo and London.
Chieko Numata is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Temple University Japan. Her research focuses on the Japanese electoral system. She previously taught Japanese politics at various US universities, including Bowdoin College and Colby College.
Jeffrey Kingston is Professor of History and Director of Asian Studies at Temple University Japan. He is the author of Japan's Quiet Transformation: Social Change and Civil Society in the 21st Century (forthcoming). He received his Ph.D. in History from Columbia University.
Our discussant, Ken Haig, set the framework for the panel discussion with this outline:
Comparing mechanisms of social change in the
U.S. and Japan
(Print as pdf file)
Generally in Japan (as in the U.S.) it is easier to change law/policy than it is to change public opinion. The chart below compares the "avenues of access" to policymaking and legal channels used by Japanese and American groups working for change.
[Note: Significant examples of recent legal/policy changes in Japan include:]
- The Information Disclosure Act: Japan's equivalent of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act; support for this measure didn't really gather momentum until the 1990s, when citizens' groups pushed for a way to expose government spending excesses and close ties with business interests
- The NPO Law: a legal revision which made the legal incorporation of non-profit/non-governmental organizations easier and less a matter of bureaucratic discretion
- Judicial Reform: Japan is in the process of increasing its number
of lawyers and judges, and making the judicial system itself a more
independent institution; one of the most important among these measures
is the removal of legal training from government control and the establishment
of private law schools
| UNITED STATES | JAPAN | ||
| Legislative | political parties | two main parties, relatively frequent change | one main party, almost no change since WWII |
| Executive | bureaucracy | influential offices appointed | career track bureaucrats, more insulated from elected politics |
| local vs. national govt | decentralized, strong belief in states' rights | recent trend toward decentralization, but local govts still cannot raise much of their own taxes (therefore defer to natl govt on most issues) | |
| administrative/ policy making control | more state autonomy | strong degree of central ministry control over education, taxes, social policy, economic policy, etc. | |
| Judicial | court cases | commonly used, sometimes threat of legal proceedings is enough | a few noted cases; generally less common but increasing; courts sympathetic, legal reform underway |
| Civil society | status, types of orgs | highly developed and diversified civil society; policy think tanks, advocacy organizations in addition to service-oriented orgs | developing, but less diverse (mostly service-oriented orgs, few advocacy orgs), less accepted by the public in general |
| winning coalitions | enough diversity and public support of civil society that broad societal coalitions are often enough: minority/civil rights groups, faith-based groups, environmental groups, women's rights groups, etc. | in order for policy reforms to pass, generally need broad political support of established groups such as Japan Business Federation (Keidanren), unions, and professional organizations | |
| tactics, attitudes | protesting, demonstrations common | protesting alone doesn't work (can create public antagonism), have to work through established channels | |
| the media | used heavily, more network television coverage | used heavily, more newspaper readers (most of the public gets their TV news from the Japanese equivalent of PBS) | |
There have been comparatively few widespread social movements in Japan-that
is, movements that have gone so far as to change public opinion in addition
to public policy. Some of the most notable examples of these appear in
the textbook. (Linda K. Menton, ed. The Rise of Modern Japan.)
- Environmental movements: these have ranged from general opposition
to industrial pollution (such as in the case of the Minamata disaster),
to more localized "not in my backyard" (NIMBY) movements opposing
the development of nuclear power plants, military bases, garbage dumps,
etc.
- Social welfare reform: started as a series of grassroots movements
at the local level in the 1970s.
- Anti-war movements: though always strong in local settings such as
Hiroshima, anti-war sentiment went nation-wide in the form of mass students
movements in the 1960s, and has appeared again recently in opposition
to the dispatch of Japanese Self-Defense Forces (SDF) overseas.
- Women's movements: though rarely resulting in overt public demonstrations,
public attitudes and policymakers' positions have been changed through
some degree of public pressure throughout Japan over the past fifty
years.
- Consumers' rights movements: often organized by housewives' organizations, high-profile efforts have been made throughout Japan on a number of occasions to push for more corporate accountability.
John W. Dower. Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II.
W.W. Norton & Company (June 2000). Winner of the 1999 National Book
Award for Non-Fiction.
Peter Duus. Modern Japan. Houghton Mifflin Co; 2nd edition (September
1998).
Andre Gordon, ed. Postwar Japan As History. University of California Press; (August 1993).
Donald Keene. Modern Japanese Literature: An Anthology. Grove Press; (December 1989).
Linda K. Menton (Editor), Noren W. Lush, Eileen H. Tamura, Chance Gusukuma.
The Rise of Modern Japan. University of Hawai'i (2003)
Richard H. Minear, (Leon E. Clark, ed.). Through Japanese Eyes.
A CITE Book (3rd ed 1994).
CITE stands for Center for International
Training and Education, a program of the Council of International and
Public Affairs. This is a collection of primary sources
and commentary for the purposes of teaching about Japan.
Websites:
Japan Information Network has a
Kid's Japan site as well as a good Virtual Museum and a comprehensive
page for Statistics.
http://www.jinjapan.org
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) posts current articles addressing issues of international and national security. http://csis.org/programs/issues.htm
Notes from Tricia Martin:
East Asia Curriculum Project at Columbia University has great resources
for teaching about China and Japan: http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/
Japan Society of Northern California has lots of information about Japan: http://www.usajapan.org/
The World Affairs Council regularly offers expert speakers about Asia and other regions - just let me know if you'd ever like to attend. The schedule is available at www.itsyourworld.org. We also have a free lending library of teaching resources at http://www.itsyourworld.org/schools/library.php
Professor Kamiya mentioned one of his articles is available through the Arms Control Association website at: http://www.armscontrol.org/
wCONTACTS:
Michele Delattre, ORIAS: orias@uclink4.berkeley.edu
(510.643.0868)
BAGEP: schools@wacsf.org
(415.293.4650)
Ken Haig, Political Science Department, U. C. Berkeley:
khaig@socrates.Berkeley.EDU
ORIAS
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