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East Asian International Politics

Purpose and meaning of the project

The project focuses on the exploration of political choices on security in East Asia, an environment currently undergoing rapid changes. It assumes the pivotal role of both Japan and the United States for regional security, and will be developed in cooperation with officials and researchers throughout East Asia.

The project comprises two areas of interest. Firstly, it intends to develop an analysis of international politics in East Asia against the background for a global power shift and in the context of increasing economic integration. Secondly, it explores the importance of détente and disarmament, and the ways in which the reduction of nuclear weapons can affect security and political stability.

East Asia International Politics and the Search for Innovative Approaches

While several theories of international politics indicate that interdependence and liberalization of political regimes may accelerate the stability of a region, a question worth exploring is in fact the identification of those factors which make the instability of this region increase. This is therefore a question concerning the relation between economy and security. The search for possible answers requires however the development of innovative methodological approaches. It would indeed be difficult to grasp this relation from an exclusively economic analysis, or one entirely focusing on security, or on the way in which international politics is influenced by domestic dynamics, especially proceeding with a state-by-state casuistic or keeping the various fields separated. The most significant feature of this process lies therefore in the simultaneous discussion of all those aspects by combining research cutting across the disciplinary boundaries of economics, security studies, cultural studies, and so on.

East Asia is a region where the causes of conflict are difficult to identify by means of theoretical approaches with insufficient stress on the historical conditions leading to the rise of international disputes. Being aware of such methodological aspects, this project intends to recapture the East Asian international environment from a middle and long term perspective, and to explore what kinds of implications can be drawn for the diplomacy of Japan and the Japan-U.S. alliance, whose aims are peaceful prosperity and regional stability. The research project mainly addresses two symptoms that most countries in East Asia are showing: entrenched discourses of distrust towards other countries in domestic politics, and their spill-over effects on international politics. In this context, even the deepening economic interdependence may not result in such a strong safeguard of peace and in the maintenance of prosperity. East Asian nations’ policies also appear overwhelmingly preoccupied with security rather than with the creation of a more stable international environment, based on a re-elaboration of mutual perceptions.

Since US President Richard Nixon visited the People's Republic of China in 1972, thus opening the way for China's return to the international society, the relationship between Japan and the U.S., and the regional network of international relations in East Asia, did not undergo major changes for about 40 years. However, this regional stability has been recently lost. On the one hand, China's foreign policy is leaning towards henceforth unprecedented aggressiveness. On the other, the expansion of trade has increased the interdependence between states in East Asia. Authoritarian, heavy-handed political rule is decreasing and the role of domestic public opinion is growing not only in South Korea and in South East Asian states, but also in Mainland China.

It is also important to comprehend an analysis of domestic politics within the study of international politics. Although intergovernmental conflict is too often considered self-evident, little discussions have been developed on antagonism, prejudice, or opposition between societies at large. In the modern politics, however, preferences expressed by domestic public opinion may heavily influence decisions of policy makers even in authoritarian regimes. The current situation in East Asia shows that extremist public opinion in each nation has a strong influence.

Alongside with these considerations, a more contextual analysis of the Japan-US alliance needs to be developed by going beyond the sheer study of their bilateral relations, of the presence or absence of tensions, as the alliance can no longer be considered alone. Abandoning an issue-based framework, this project considers Japan-U.S. relations in the setting of a changing international environment by investigating destabilizing factors in the East Asian region. This project therefore intends to mark a clear departure from previous theoretical and methodological approaches to the Japan-U.S. relations, either as an academic research or a policy proposal.

Détente and Disarmament

The second topic area concerned by this project focuses on the role of détente produced by arms reduction (or disarmament), whereby the reduction of nuclear weapons is conceived as one possible means to achieve the easing of international tensions. The project also intends to increase the public recognition of this issue by organizing international joint research and dissemination of relevant information.

The perspective from which this project relates to nuclear disarmament is therefore linked to the previously explained goal of changing reciprocal perceptions in the East Asian region not only among ruling élites but also between the public in different countries, for the purpose of strengthening peace. The project also aims at illustrating to the broader public nuclear reduction initiatives from Japanese diplomacy both inside and outside of Japan.

Indeed, over the decades, Japanese diplomacy has played an important role in promoting the reduction of nuclear weapons and in nuclear disarmament. Japan's action towards the reduction of nuclear weapons or disarmament is recognized and valued internationally, thus reflecting its unique international position as the only country in the world to have endured atomic bombings and consequently speaking from a position of high moral authority for the preservation of peace.

However, the apparent opportunity for the reduction of nuclear weapons after the end of the Cold War has not been fully exploited and is currently stagnating. “The Toyo Forum for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament” proposed by Prime Minister Ryūtarō Hashimoto in 1998-99 and suggesting that nuclear weapons should be abolished through gradual reduction, has not been implemented.

Of course, there have been some new developments. In January 2007 the former US Secretary of Defence William Perry and the former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger have proposed a world without nuclear weapons in a “Wall Street Journal” article, two years prior to the expiration of the START I Treaty. US President Barack Obama has called for the abolition of nuclear weapons during a visit in Prague in April 2009. The International Committee on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Nuclear Disarmament, initiated by the Japanese and Australian governments has published its first report in December of the same year. Under these circumstances, the US and Russia have conducted several negotiations and finally reached a general agreement of New START Treaty in order to set the upper limit of deployed strategic nuclear warheads to 1550 units.

However, a number of questions are still outstanding. First of all, efforts to reduce nuclear power are practically limited to the US and Russia alone, with no involvement of other nuclear powers. This situation may be considered the logical result of the two countries overwhelming large nuclear arsenals, but it limits nuclear reduction initiatives by creating a de facto hierarchy of nuclear-armed nations, with the US and Russia isolated at the top followed by Britain, France, and China. The perception of this hierarchy has not changed and it perpetuates a framework for nuclear reduction which normalises the exclusion of other nuclear powers from reduction efforts.

In the meantime, concerns over the proliferation of nuclear weapons have expanded as a consequence of India and Pakistan's acquisition of those weapons in 1998, followed by the North Korea, while apparently some Middle Easters countries, such as Iran and Syria, as well as non-state actors, like terrorist groups, seem to strive for the possession of nuclear weapons and/or nuclear technologies. Even though the amount of nuclear warheads hold by states with fragile political regime or implicated in a conflict-ridden region is small, the possibility of nuclear weapons being used in practice cannot be ignored. The NPT system is still fragile and the danger of nuclear proliferation is high. New nuclear powers such as India and Pakistan are not involved in negotiations on nuclear armaments, and efforts to disarm North Korea by means of the six-party talks has not borne fruit yet.

Against this complex background and faced with this complex and multifaceted international landscape, appeals for the abolition of nuclear weapons issued by Japan have focused on stressing its historical experience of atomic bombing and the moral imperative that this should never happen again. Those efforts are precious, but it is also undeniable, reviewing the present condition of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, that Japan needs another vision and a more nuanced political message as alongside witnessing its experience as victim of atomic bombing.