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January 8, 2012

[SSJ: 7083] Re: 7024] IR Theory and the Japan's Alliance Choices

From: Paul Midford
Date: 2012/01/08

As always, Rick Katz asks incisive questions.

"First of all, in regard to "balance of threats,"
whatever domineering postures Washington has exhibited toward Japan, I believe--and I suspect most Japanese policymakers believe--that China would likely be a far less benevolent hegemon than the US."

I hate to sound like a broken record, but again my posts have not been based upon a description of stated Japanese elite perceptions, except to note that in general Japanese elites suffer from a shocking lack of self-confidence and to note that there hasn't been much discussion on this beyond a few hysterical claims (e.g.
China would reduce Japan to the status of Tibet).

"It would seem to me that Japan and other Asian nations would rather "bring the US back to Asia" and seek reassurance from the US than rely on the benevolence of Beijing."

The psychological dependence of many Japanese elites on the US is not at all comparable with what we find in other East Asian countries. Others, most notably ASEAN, and even South Korea, are more willing to navigate between the US and China, playing the two off each other for their own advantage, rather than proclaiming total dependence on one or the other.
Strikingly, some of the ASEAN elites I interviewed recently dismissed Tokyo as a regional power precisely because it was too dependent on the US. I often heard:
Why go to Tokyo, when you can find out Japan's position more clearly by going to Washington? So the question is how to navigate between the two powers, as no East Asian nation should want to find itself in the unenviable position of relying solely on Beijing's or Washington's benevolence. This is a false choice that need not be made, although some Japanese elites seem determined to make it nonetheless.

I also think it is a false perception to talk about "bringing the US back to Asia," as the US never really left, and indeed as a regional power, cannot leave East Asia. That said, US attention and presence obviously waxes and wanes, and there is an important caveat to note about Obama's (sensible in my view) strategy of turning US strategic attention to East Asia: this strategic priority faces a very strong competitor that stands a good chance of preventing this shift: Iran.
If the US ends up at war with Iran the East Asia strategic shift will go out the window for years to come, just as the War on Terrorism and the Iraq invasion dashed the George W. Bush administration's plan to initial focus on East Asia. The only difference is that a war with Iran, given its power, will likely be all the more consuming and draining.
Just as China was the main winner of the War on Terrorism it would again be so in a US-Iran war.

"The rare earth embargo--or unilateral claims to ownership of the South China Sea up backed up by clashes using fishing boats backed by naval vessels--are not exactly an enticing invitations."

China made a number of diplomatic blunders in 2009-2010 that did have this effect, although it is striking how quickly they switched course this year. Notice how Vietnam, who was spearheading the counter-China coalition last year was pealed away from that coalition by Beijing when it made important concessions to Hanoi's territorial claims in the South China Sea. By the way, we should be careful about the "facts"
surrounding the rare earth "embargo." As Linus Hagstrom argued at EAJS in August, the rare earth "embargo" or whatever it was started a month before the Senkaku/Diaoyutai flare-up, so characterizing it as an embargo related to the islands may be more of a Japanese construction than an empirical reality.

"I suspect a Sino-Japanese alliance would be even more of an "unequal partnership" than what Hatoyama et. al.
have decried in the Japan-US relationship."

What has been lacking in Japan is any real discussion of this. This lack. Along with the the dependence I mentioned above undercuts the hard bargaining that Hatoyama attempted (albeit in a thoroughly incompetent way), and which ironically is needed for the long-term health of the alliance. As for how unequal a Sino-Japanese alliance would be, as I said, we can identify several ways in which it would likely be less
unequal: China would be very unlikely to demand the right to station its troops on Japanese soil, or to demand that Japanese troops be dispatched overseas for combat operations as its US ally does. John Mearsheimer argues that a China dominant in Northeast Asia would attempt to impose behavioral constraints on its neighbors. What would those constraints be?
Certainly, Beijing would want Japan, the ROK, etc., to agree to not allow foreign (esp. US) bases on their soil, or allow foreign military forces to transit their territory (although probably not including good will port calls by ships, perhaps search and rescue exercises, etc.). They might also pressure Japan and the ROK to respect PRC export controls of militarily relevant technology in ways that might destabilize international peace and security (i.e. to the US). In other words, they would put many of the same behavioral constraints on Japan that the US currently imposes.
One can speculate about additional and more unpalatable demands, such more pressure to take control of the Senkaku/Diaoyutai islands. On the other hand, if we look at China's relationship with states that are very weak and dependent on it, e.g. North Korea and Burma, we do not see any indication that these states make territorial concessions, or even that Beijing exercises a great deal of control over them. If Beijing cannot even exercise much control over the likes of Burma and North Korea what prospect would they have against a far stronger and further away power like Japan? Again, this is different than saying that Japan would be better off in alliance with China, or even as non-aligned, as Rajon Menon proposes (non-alignment would be more likely than a Sino-Japanese alliance), but there are reasons to doubt that such an alliance would be dramatically more unequal, much less the tales of horror that are sometimes trotted out.

"Are you projecting that China will be successful in its apparent effort to eliminate or diminish US aircraft carrier ability the Sea of Japan (or the whole area West of what China calls the "First Island chain"?
Or simply that there will be some sort of co-existence between a rising China and the US? More importantly, how do Japanese policymakers assess the prospects for US dominance in this region?"

Again, as I wrote in my last message, none of us on this Forum can predict the future, but we should be able to analyze a number of the most likely future scenarios rather than trying to negate one by predicting that another is more likely. That said it is a quite likely scenario that the US military dominance will attenuate in East Asia, and indeed that it already is to a limited degree. Of course, absent a war to test dominance this largely depends on perceptions. Perceptually it is attenuating, and even in reality, compared with 10 or 15 years ago I believe there is some attenuation happening, although that is different from saying the US has lost regional military dominance, it has not.

The question about whether the US and China can coexist is a good one: the literature on power shifts tells us that rising powers often end up at war with established powers because the latter are unwilling to adjust to the rising power. Would the US see China's approach to regional military dominance as a causus belli in and of itself, or would it accept this development with equanimity? A similar question can be asked of Japan:
would it be so pessimistic about Chinese regional military dominance that Tokyo would consider a preventive war to be a rational option? This is another reason why clear-headed thinking about the implications of China's rise is needed. Regarding the perceptions of Japanese elites toward US power, two defense policy review panels in the run-up to the new 2010 New Defense Policy Outline pointed to the need to take account of relative US decline. Even the Yomiuri Shimbun has started writing about this, so the perception of relative US decline is there, although so I see no open and serious discussion of the US losing military dominance in East Asia per se; again, perhaps there is a fear of doing so.

"But, in a choice of lesser evils, one could imagine a very different response to that situation than a Sino-Japanese alliance."

Yes, again, Japan would have a number of options, including strengthening the US alliance and various forms of non-alignment, including loose balancing with various major powers including the US, Russia, and India.

"I have had conversations with some senior Foreign Ministry offcicials who expressed the same skepticism.
"Would the US really sacrifice Los Angeles to save Osaka?" is a formualation I have heard more than once.
To me, this is a very dangerous perception. My layman's view is that the entire US posture--to be able to deter war by showing one can win it--relies on the credibiilty of the security umbrella."

I really appreciate Rick for bringing up this example, as it well puts into perspective the abandonment concern that some Japanese elites have. War, especially nuclear war, is not only about winning or losing, but about imposing and absorbing costs. Many Americans might consider a war in which the US sacrifices LA to save Taiwan a Pyrrhic victory (and "winning" in Iraq is different from saying it was worth it). So the question is how much is the US willing to sacrifice to defend Japan. I would argue that this depends on whether defending Japan is vital to American national security. Given America's growing dependence on Japan for its security I would answer in the affirmative. But this is the real standard. There is a pervasive and in my opinion wrong "ningen kankei"
view of the alliance in Japan that says that Japan has to please the US on deploying troops to Iraq or the Futenma base relocation or else the US will be offended and will abandon Japan in a crisis, totally ignoring the supreme national interests that compel the US to defend Japan. In fact, the issue of abandonment comes down much more to what Japan "is" rather than what it "does." Japan is not a great military power but possesses the sinews of a great power. If these fully came into China's possession and were denied to Washington that would be the end of US military hegemony. By contrast, Japanese behavior on Iraq or Futenma is trivial. If the US decides in the future it can no longer afford global military hegemony, it may well abandon Japan, but nothing Japan did or did not do, or could conceivably do, will make any difference at all. When considering whether to sacrifice LA to save Tokyo these behavioral issues disappear into triviality.


PM wrote:

>if Japan really saw China as a threat, like it does
North Korea or did
>with the Soviet Union in the past, it would not trade
with them for
>fear of building up a military threat, not to mention
the dangers of
>becoming dependent.
>
"If memory serves, prior to WWI, Britain and Germany were each other's largest trading partners (or at least one of their largest trading
partners) and Kaiser Bill was a grandson of Queen Victoria. This mistakenly led some to forecast that such interdependence made war extremely unlikely."

Yes, Britain-Germany in the early 20th century (or Britain-US in the late 19th century), is a good comparison. Neither saw the other as a confirmed threat and enemy, merely as a potential threat and rival.

"I would make the opposite argument from yours.
Precisely because China is a potential threat, economic interchange becomes even more necessary.
I think the conventional wisdom is the following: since war with China is not permissible, China needs to be changed from a potential threat into a partner over the long haul through what the Chinese damn as a strategy of "peaceful evolution." I.e. the hope that economic development and interdependence will slowly bring to power the more cosmopolitan, less ideological factions within the Chinese Communist party, and over a few decades lead to a more liberal, pluralistic and perhaps even democratic, regime. The transition will, however, be dicey."

I don't think this argument opposes mine, although as Mike Green and Benjamin Self noted already in the mid 1990s, China began to puncture Japan's developmentalist optimism that economic development would inevitably bring peace and stability. In other words, I don't see so much optimism on this score from Japan's political elites, although business people and Japanese who live in China seem to me to be more optimistic. On the other hand, I think you can argue that China has already moved in this direct to a very significant extent, especially compared with 30 to 40 years ago. I think Shigeru Yoshida's idea from the 1950s that China could be weaned away from Communism with trade has already been realized to a significant extent.

"BTW a question for anyone who knows: Filipinos have started using the term "West Philippines Sea" instead of "South China Sea" to undermine Chinese claims to the Sea right up the waters of the Philippines.
Hillary Clinton used the term during her visit to Manilla. Does anyone know if she or other senior US officials have used this term--or stopped using the term "South China Sea"--anywhere else?"

I can't directly answer your question, but when I was interviewing Vietnamese foreign policy elites last month they repeatedly referred to the South China Sea as the "East Sea," apparently borrowing from the ROK's practice of trying to rename the Sea of Japan as the East Sea. So competitive sea-naming seems to be another growth industry in East Asia!
This also shows that even relatively weak powers like the Philippines and Vietnam have the self-confidence to stick it to Beijing to defend their national interests.

Paul Midford

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