Japan in Asia: Post-cold-war diplomacy

Japan in Asia: post-cold-war diplomacy is a newly published English version of Akihiko Tanaka’s Aji no naka no Nihon from 2007. Through the book’s 11 accessibly written chapters Tanaka targets a wide audience and offers a glimpse into Japan’s diplomatic efforts and ambitions as he guides the reader through the most prominent political and economic turn of events in East Asia from the Cold War until today. Starting with the fall of Saigon in 1975 and Japan’s immediate provision of development assistance to a unified Vietnam, the somewhat reluctantly critical reaction to the Tiananmen Square incident, and onwards to the on-and-off relationships with its immediate neighbors – China, North and South Korea – the book tells a tale of a country trying to find its place in international politics by building bridges – literally through foreign aid, and figuratively through promoting regionalism in Asia. While the book links Japanese diplomatic and political dealings with allies and adversaries, actions and reactions to events of contemporary Asian history, it also paints a picture of a country trying to find its place in the world and live up to the demands of the international community, a nation struggling in its pursuit of identity, and one which in the eyes of other Asian nations like China and South Korea is failing to properly address and deal with its war-time past.

The book’s main argument, although not explicitly provided as such, is that years of Japanese contacts with the rest of Asia – from the policies of the Fukuda administration in 1977, which would come to attach increased importance to the need for ‘heart-to-heart understandings’ between Japan and the Southeast Asian nations – has finally started to pay dividends and generated an overall positive view of Japan among its Asian neighbors, many of which experienced Japanese war-time aggression and occupation. Between the lines, it is clear that these ‘contacts’ have more often than not been spelled ODA (Official Development Assistance, or simply foreign aid). And although the incumbent Shinzo Abe administration is given its own chapter, astonishingly little attention is being directed toward the contemporary use of ODA in Southeast Asia, and its potential new meanings: since Abe’s return to power, the National Security Strategy as well as the Development Cooperation Charter has highlighted how ODA will be utilized even more strategically in the future, and used for Japan’s own security (e.g., Yamamoto, 2017). Here, given that Tanaka has served as the president of JICA (the Japanese International Cooperation Agency) and as such presumably has been able to acquire extensive insights into the dealings with the higher echelons of governments, the book does not really problematize the use of Japanese aid in the region with regard to Japan’s own strategic interests – particularly vis-á-vis a burgeoning aid power like China.

Empirically, and given the broad span of the book – from North Korea’s nuclear weapons program to the issue of Comfort Women and Abenomics – the book provides interesting historical nuggets regarding diplomatic, behind-the-scenes encounters, secret meetings and deals that are struck, both with regard to Japanese contacts with its Asian counterparts as well as with its American ally, but also diplomatic gaffes and their ramifications for regional politics and diplomacy. And this is where the book excels. Through myriad detailed descriptions of diplomatic meetings between Japanese officials and counterparts in Southeast and Northeast Asia, Tanaka’s book will surely surprise with bits and pieces of interesting and sometimes trivial information, even for those well-versed in East Asian politics. The broad span of the book, however, is also its weakness, at least for those with an academic inclination as well as experts on topics covered, as it does not allow for, and as such stops short of, in-depth analyses or theoretically anchored discussions with regard to international relations or politics in Asia. The ‘history problem’ (Japan’s invasion and occupation of large parts of East Asia during the Asia-Pacific War) through memory and identity are key concepts interlinked with the events and issues dealt with throughout the book, and as these issues play such a prominent part of the book, Tanaka could have pleased a more academically oriented audience as well as the broader public by engaging more with existing research on memory politics and identity in Sino-Japanese relations (e.g. Gustafsson, 2014, 2015; Hagström, 2015).

Regrettably, the book does not so much deal with larger questions of how and why regarding issues deemed as having had major ramifications for Japan and its relationships with Asian neighbors as it does with when and who. For example, why was visiting Yasukuni Shrine so important to Prime Minister Koizumi that he was willing to forgo relations with China and Korea at such a critical point in time? Or, why is Prime Minister Abe, some 40 years after the introduction of the Fukuda doctrine, able to forge ‘heart-to heart’ relationships where others have failed, and how is that possible given Abe’s penchant for ridding Japan of a masochistic interpretation of history? Even though the book ostensibly tries to strike a balance between highlighting positive Japanese contributions and ambitions around Asia and the less successful political or diplomatic endeavors, one is hard pressed not to read the book as a vindication of Japan’s post-cold-war diplomacy and particularly that of incumbent Prime Minister Abe. Toward the end the book, homage is payed to Abe and his political actions, which according to Tanaka, have created a domestic political foundation more solid than ever before while also succeeding in normalizing relations with both China and South Korea after years of political turbulence.

Nonetheless, by highlighting the third wave of democracy in Asia, the rise of China and power politics in the East China Sea, the crisis on the Korean peninsula, and the institutionalization of East Asian regionalism, the book draws attention to events that are as pertinent today as they were10, 15 or even 20 years ago in East Asia. For a broad audience of non-academic and non-expert readers, this book will surely be a good contribution to the understandings of the region. As most of the covered issues and events have been written about at length previously, and since the book is not really engaging in existing research or comprehensive political analyses, the book offers few academic insights, indeed particularly theoretically, and will not likely be the first choice for scholars interested in the field of international relations and politics of East Asia; though that was likely never Tanaka’s intentions to begin with when writing this book. Nicely assorted, mostly chronological assembled, the book is a smorgasbord of key issues and events relating to the power dynamics of East Asia.

As the world moves toward an Asian century, and the interest of regional events are on the rise among western audiences, this is a timely contribution, and for someone with an (newfound) interest in contemporary Asian history and diplomacy and with a penchant for details, Tanaka offers an easily accessible introduction to and overview of East Asia politics and diplomacy.