Japan's changing conception of the ASEAN Regional Forum: from an optimistic liberal to a pessimistic realist perspective

Abstract

This article explores changes in Japan's conception of and policy toward security multilateralism ¹ in the Asia-Pacific region after the end of the Cold War with special reference to the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF). It makes the observation that notwithstanding Japan's active role behind the establishment of the ARF in the early 1990s and continuing public expression of strong support for Asia-Pacific security multilateralism since that time, in actuality, Japan's enthusiasm for it has dwindled from the late 1990s onwards. This article argues that this has been due primarily to Japan's disappointing experiences in the ARF, evinced by its abortive efforts to promote meaningful cooperative security measures and the failings of multilateral security diplomacy in addressing its security concerns. Consequently, Japan's conception of regional security multilateralism has shifted from an optimistic liberal to a more pessimistic realist perspective from which the ARF can, at best, be seen as a venue contributing only to a minimal level of confidence building among regional countries or, to put it more cynically, ‘a talking shop’. This has made Japan's ARF policy more tentative and less energetic. Japan's enthusiasm has also been diluted by a number of internal and external constraints on ARF policy, including US misgivings about Japan's tilt toward regional security multilateralism, its domestic organizational limitations, growing dissent within the Japanese government over the value of security multilateralism, the lack of political support for bureaucratic initiatives and the unexpected frictions between bilateral and multilateral security approaches in Japan's overall security policy.

Keywords:

• Japan
• ASEAN Regional Forum
• multi lateralism
• institution-building
• security policy.

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Tsuyoshi Kawasaki and two anonymous reviewers for their comments. I would also like to express my gratitude to the many academics in Japan as well as the many government officials, both current and retired, who spared their time to discuss my research.

Takeshi Yuzawa has recently completed his PhD in International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is currently working on a book manuscript based on his PhD thesis analysing Japan's policy towards security multilateralism in the Asia-Pacific region since the end of the Cold War.

Notes

1. In the mainstream of IR, multilateralism is defined as ‘an institutional form that coordinates relations among three or more states in accordance with generalized principles of conduct: that is, principles that specify appropriate conduct for class actions’. Such principles include non-discrimination, an indivisibility among the members of an institution in terms of appropriate behaviour, and diffuse reciprocity indicating the arrangement where members can yield roughly equal benefits over time (Ruggie 1993: 11–12). This definition corresponds with Robert Keohane's interpretation of an institution that has ‘persistent and connected sets of rules (formal or informal) that prescribe behavioural roles, constrain activity, and shape expectations’ (Keohane 1989). Using these definitions, promoting security multilateralism can be described as an undertaking to establish a security institution that coordinates the policies of states belonging to it, based on generalized principles of conduct or rules. These definitions also allow us to see the ARF as a security institution despite its highly imperfect institutionalized form because, at least in principle, it is premised on non-discrimination, diffuse reciprocity and indivisibility.

2. This paper equates Japan's view of the ARF with that of Asia-Pacific security multilateralism because the ARF is the region-wide security institution (or the only form of Asia-Pacific security multilateralism) in the Asia-Pacific region at the government level and actually represents the country's effort to promote Asia-Pacific security multilateralism. Hence, it is almost inevitable that Japan's disappointed experience in the ARF has negatively influenced its view of Asia-Pacific security multilateralism.

3. These, for instance, include the 1992 Liberal Democratic Party's special commission on security Affairs, Prime Minister Miyazawa's 1992 ‘Advisory Committee for the Asia-Pacific and Japan in the 21st Century’ and Prime Minister Hosokawa's 1994 ‘Special Advisory Committee on Defence Issues’. Miyazawa's advisory group was set up in May 1992 to consider Japan's post-Cold War policy towards the Asia-Pacific region. The committee's report strongly suggested that the Japanese government make a more concerted effort to establish a region-wide security forum in order to advance military transparency, disarmament and arms control issues, and it served as the basis of Miyazawa's policy speech in Bangkok in January 1993 (Yomiuri Shinbun, 25 December 1992, p. 2. evening edition). Hosokawa's advisory committee was established in 1994 to consider the direction of Japan's security policy appropriate to a post-Cold War era and to offer input to the new National Defence Policy Outline (NDPO). The committee's report put a special emphasis on the importance of Japan's active participation in UN PKOs and its greater efforts for strengthening the ARF and the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP) (Boei Mondai Kondankai 1994).

4. For example, in 1994, JDA set up an Asia-Pacific security seminar, gathering middle-ranked uniformed officers from eighteen regional countries, in order to enhance mutual understanding among the participating countries. Moreover, since 1996, JDA initiated an annual Forum for Defence Authorities in the Asia-Pacific Region in order to facilitate defence exchanges among the ARF countries. In addition, like MOFA, JDA also restructured its organization and set up an International Policy Planning Division in the Bureau of Defence Policy to strengthen its multilateral security initiative (JDA 1997: 78–80).

5. There was a tremendous increase in the array of regional efforts to promote Track 2 forums for security dialogue and cooperation in this period. The most prominent was the CSCAP, which was established in 1993. It was composed of committees made up of academics, security specialists and former and current foreign ministry and defence officials in their private capacities, drawn from a set of member countries largely identical to the ARF. Moreover, a number of sub-regional forums for security dialogue, such as the North East Asia Cooperation Dialogue (NEACD) and the Trilateral Forum on North Pacific Security issues, were also established during this period. For details, see Fukushima (1999) and Okawara and Katzenstein (2001).

6. Cooperative security is basically understood as an approach to security that attempts to reduce tensions and the possibility of conflicts among states through non-military and non-coercive means, such as the promotion of international norms, codes of conduct, confidence building and preventive diplomacy measures. It works on the principle of inclusive membership and thus seeks to engage non-like minded countries rather than isolating them. In Japan, the term began to appear in policy papers, such as the report of Prime Minister Hosokawa's advisory group on defence issues, as well as academic literature from the early 1990s, and many Japanese scholars saw the Organization for Security and Cooperation of Europe (OSCE) as a practical application of the concept of cooperative security. See, inter alia, Ueda (1992), Yamamoto (1995) and Yanai (1995).

7. The primary aim of the Nakayama proposal was to promote a political dialogue process focusing mainly on the foreign policy aspect of security, such as the question of the reduction of the US forward deployments in East Asia and the future direction of Japan's security policy rather than the military aspect of security problems. The Nakayama proposal even deliberately avoided using the term ‘confidence building’ and instead presented an alternative concept, namely ‘mutual reassurance’, as MOFA well recognized that that one of main reasons for the US as well as ASEAN rejections of earlier Australian and Canadian proposals for establishing a region-wide security institution similar to CSCE was their concern about the introduction of European type CBMs to the region. While the United States feared that the application of European type CBMs to the Asia-Pacific region would lead to naval arms control, ASEAN was reluctant to accept any legalistic measure that would conflict with its own approach to security, stressing informal dialogue and consultation.

8. For Japan, the main focus of such confidence building efforts was China. [0] Japan began to press China for military transparency from the early 1990s. For instance, in December 1992, Japan urged China to participate in the United Nation Register of Conventional Arms (UNRCA), which Japan in collaboration with some EU countries took the initiative to establish (Yomiuri Shinbun, 3 December 1992, p. 1, evening edition). Moreover, in the bilateral ministerial meeting between Japan and China in May 1993, Japan's Foreign Minister, Kabun Muto, proposed to convene a bilateral security forum [0] with the aim of exchanging information on their own defence policies and disclosure of basic military information (Asahi Shinbun, 26 May 1993, p. 1). [0]

9. Some MOFA officials even began to argue both publicly and privately about the possibility of establishing Asian version of the Conference on Security Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) in the long-term (interviews, Tokyo, 5 March: no. 2, 7 March, 4 April and 22 April 2003). For instance, Yuji Miyamoto (1993), a MOFA official, suggested in Gaiko Forum that Asia-Pacific countries create a multilateral security framework in the region by drawing on CSCE experiences. He argued that in order to cope with a new regional security environment, regional countries should promote regular political and security dialogues, codes of conduct, conflict resolution mechanisms and military transparency measures, all of which the CSCE had developed. A similar expectation for the role of a region-wide security framework for addressing specific regional security disputes was also expressed by the report presented by Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa's Advisory Committee in 1992. The report suggested that regional countries establish a multilateral security framework, which could play a conflict resolution role (Yomiuri Shinbun, 25 November 1992, p. 2).

10. Kawasaki (1997) examines Japan's conception of the ARF by utilizing three theoretical perspectives on multilateralism, namely critical theory, realism and neo-liberal institutionalism. Kawasaki argues that there existed three major perspectives on the ARF in Japan in its inception years (1991–5). For instance, idealists have seen the ARF as a first step on the road to achieving the long-term objective of replacing the traditional bilateral alliance system in the region with a new regional security system that might grow to become a security community. On the contrary, realists have regarded the ARF as a policy instrument for practicing balance-of-power politics with China. Finally, liberals as represented by MOFA have seen the ARF as a vehicle to decrease the level of distrust and suspicion among regional countries and thus as a complement to the existing balance of power in the region. Kawasaki concludes that this liberal conception of the ARF constituted the ideational backbone of Japan's official policy toward the Forum in the years of its inception.

11. For instance, Shunji Yanai (1995), the then Director General of the Foreign Policy Bureau argued in Gaiko Forum that Japan's post-Cold War regional security policy would pursue the following three major approaches (1) enhancing Japan–US security cooperation, (2) building sub-regional frameworks for security cooperation among Northeast Asian countries and for addressing the South China dispute and (3) developing the ARF as a region-wide forum for dialogue and cooperation. In the article, Yanai stressed that strengthening these three approaches, which represented a bilateral and multilateral security approach, respectively, was critically important for enhancing Japan's national and regional security because the Asia-Pacific security order was gradually being shaped by ‘the mutual coexistence of a bilateral and multilateral security arrangement’. From his perspective, these two approaches would function in tandem. Multilateral security arrangements, such as the ARF, would supplement the Japan–US alliance by providing measures to reduce the possibility of regional conflicts and aggression through confidence building and preventive diplomacy, while the bilateral alliance would provide reliable insurance should circumstances arise in which conflict could not be avoided. In short, Japan's overall regional security policy, intending to pursue simultaneously both bilateral and multilateral security approaches, indicated Japan's long-term expectations of constructing a new regional security order consisting of two separate security arrangements that would mutually reinforce each other by providing complementary functions; namely the Japan–US security alliance and multilateral security arrangements, most notably the ARF.

12. Japan's CBM proposals included the publication of defence White Papers, the promotion of the UNRCA and cooperation on non-proliferation, high-level contacts and exchanges between defence officials and cooperation in Peace-Keeping Operations (PKOs). MOFA developed these proposals with China and ASEAN very much in mind. MOFA believed that at the initial stage, proposals for CBMs should be less ambitious and more moderate on the grounds that pushing for the rapid promotion of CBMs might prove counter-productive, making reluctant countries more hesitant to move in the direction of achieving concrete progress. That is to say, Japan's modest proposals for CBMs aimed to balance China and ASEAN's extremely cautious approach to the multilateral process and the Western approach. For details of Japan's view of CBMs, see MOFA (1994).

13. By 2002, Beijing had published three defence White Papers, but the level of transparency was still low compared with those submitted by ASEAN countries such as Singapore and Thailand. The Japanese government publicly expressed dissatisfaction with China's defence White Papers; see Boeicho (2003: 61–2).

14. See, for instance, ARF (1998). The publication of defence White Papers was implemented regularly by only a handful of countries, among them Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

15. China has actively involved itself in the CBM process since the late 1990s. By 2004 China had co-chaired the ISG on CBMs twice, first in 1997 and then in 2003. Moreover, China has proposed various non-military CBMs, such as a symposium on tropical hygiene and prevention and treatment of tropical infections diseases and the establishment of the Regional Maritime Information Centre. However, China has still remained ambivalent in its attitude towards confidence building through greater military transparency in the ARF as its highly unrevealing defence White Papers indicate.

16. Japan's activism in promoting the PD agenda in the ARF in part reflected Japanese apprehensions about the stagnation of the ARF process, which would further reduce the US interest in the ARF. Progress towards CBM began to show signs of stagnation from the Third ARF onwards, due mainly to the difficulty of ensuring the proper implementation of agreed CBMs. This fuelled concern among MOFA officials that the ARF would not be able to sustain its momentum without setting a new agenda, and they thus began to seek new possibilities for concrete security cooperation. It was therefore expected that initiating discussion on PD in the ARF would help revitalize its momentum.

17. For example, Japan's proposals to give the chair authority to issue a chairman statement ‘at its discretion’ and to provide early warning by taking up and drawing attention to potential regional disputes and conflicts were excluded from the final paper. Moreover, contrary to Japan's original proposal, the chair's right to convene an emergence meeting of ARF members became subject to the ‘consent of states involved in disputes and the consensus of all ARF members’ (interviews, Tokyo, 19 December 2002, 30 May 2003).

18. For instance, in the Ninth ARF, MOFA presented the idea of producing the ARF dossier on counter terrorism measures, aiming to facilitate the exchange of information on terrorists among participating countries. It also organized a Second ARF Workshop on Counter-Terrorism held in Tokyo in October 2002, which drew upon experiences gained from anti-terrorism efforts during the 2002 Japan–South Korea World Cup soccer tournament (interview, Tokyo, 19 December 2002; Mizukoshi 2002: 165–6).

19. For discussions on the ASEAN way, see Acharya (1997) and Narine (1997).

20. For instance, agreed CBMs in the 2003–4 intersession year included a seminar on alternative development and on non-traditional security cooperation (ARF 2003d).

21. Track 2 forums such as CSCAP have also failed to discuss the issue of the Taiwan Strait and of the South China Sea because of Chinese opposition. Japanese representatives have been increasingly frustrated with the tactics of Chinese participants, who ‘are in general reluctant to take part in discussions except to block them whenever they veer towards sensitive security issues’ (Katzenstein and Okawara 2001/2: 174–5; interviews, Tokyo, 8 and 21 April 2003).

22. The United States and Japan have obviously lost their interest in using the ARF for addressing their security concerns although lesser powers have endeavoured to increase its relevance to major security issues in the region. For instance, the United States and Japan did not express strong support for ASEAN's recent proposal to mediate the North Korean nuclear issue at an ad hoc meeting involving North Korea, China, Russia, Thailand and Malaysia within the framework of the ARF (Mainichi Shinbun, 5 March 2003; ‘US cool to Cambodian mediation offer in North Korean dispute’, Agence France Presse, 20 February 2003, interview, Tokyo, 30 May 2003). Instead, Washington and Tokyo pushed for six-party talks between Japan, the United States, South Korea, China, Russia and North Korea outside the ARF while using the Tenth ARF meeting as an occasion for their policy coordination on the issue.

23. Realists generally claim that multilateral security institutions have basically no significant effect on either state behaviour or the prospects for international stability because ‘institutions are based on self interested calculation of the major powers and the cause of war and peace are a function of the balance of power’ (Mearsheimer 1994/5: 13). For realists, institutions at best remain arenas for power politics. Accordingly, realist-oriented scholars studying Asia-Pacific security are highly sceptical of the ARF's capacity to shape regional order. For them, the validity of the ARF as well as regional stability depends almost exclusively on the stable balance of power in the region, underpinned by the US military presence. Among others, Michael Leifer represents this realist pessimistic balance of power interpretation of the future prospect of the ARF, arguing that multilateral mechanisms such as the ARF can make only a modest contribution to the regional balance of power by providing an additional point of diplomatic contact for regional major powers. For details, see Leifer (1996: 57–9).

24. For details of American reaction to the Higuchi report, see Cronin and Green (1994), Funabashi (1997) and Akiyama (2002: 44–56).

25. These misgivings became one of major catalysts for the two countries' collaborative initiatives for revitalising the bilateral alliance. For instance, in February 1995, the Pentagon released the East Asian Strategic Review (EASR), which confirmed the US commitment to the Japan–US Security Treaty as well as its intention to maintain 100,000 troops in East Asia, thus reassuring Japan about the US commitment to East Asian security. In response to this, in November 1995, the Japanese government delivered the new NDPO, which emphasized the importance of the Japan–US alliance much more clearly than ever before, mentioning the alliance thirteen times while the 1976 NDPO did so only twice. At the same time, a reference to multilateral security, explicitly made by the Higuchi report, was diluted significantly in the NDPO. This bilateral collaboration resulted eventually in the issue of the Japan–US Joint Declaration on Security in 1996 and the new guidelines of the Japan–US defence cooperation in 1997. See Funabashi (1997: 277–99).

26. The term ‘conflict-resolution mechanisms’ was actually replaced with ‘elaboration of approaches to conflict’ because of Chinese concerns that the development of such mechanisms might give the ARF a mandate to interfere in China's internal problems.

27. In the light of the rigid civilian control system in Japan, MOFA holds greater power in overall security policymaking than the JDA, let alone the SDF, although the JDA's policymaking role has dramatically increased since the mid-1990s, when JDA officials played critical roles in the reaffirmation process of the Japan – US alliance. See Green (2001: 62–4).

28. The same also applies to the JDA. While policy regarding the Japan–US security alliance is handled exclusively by the Defence Policy Division, which is the most powerful division in the Agency, multilateral security activities are dealt by the International Planning Division, which holds relatively a weak position in JDA in the light of budget and human resources (interview, Tokyo 5 March (no. 1), 17 March 2003).

29. The Foreign Policy Bureau was established in 1993 in response to heavy criticism levelled against MOFA for its poor diplomatic response to the Gulf Crisis. It was placed over other bureaus, including the powerful North American Bureau, to control Japan's overall foreign and security policy and to diminish the influence of the US factor in foreign policy decision making (Green 2001: 59).

30. Speech by Prime Minister of Japan Junichiro Koizumi: ‘Japan and ASEAN in East Asia – A Sincere and Open Partnership’, Singapore, 14 January 2002, available at: http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/asia-paci/pmv0201/speech.html