Japan’s Abe Administration: Steering a Course between Pragmatism and Extremism (original) (raw)
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Survival, 2007
To rear a tiger is to invite disaster….' (Sima Tan, Records of the Grand Scribe, China, 2 nd Century BC) 'Those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger usually ended up inside it' (John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, January 1961) New Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe has only been in office since late September, but already the outlines of his administration are becoming clearer, both in expected and unexpected directions. Abe's administration is proving to be conservative and revisionist, and even more so than that of his predecessor Junichirō Koizumi. Abe has certainly moved to improve ties with China and South Korea-Beijing and Seoul the October destinations for his first overseas visits within two weeks of taking power-and thereby to limit the damage wrought by Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni Shrine and bilateral wrangling over Japan's colonial history. However, the general thrust of Abe's diplomacy is built upon much of the legacy left by Koizumi, and is attempting to shift it on to a yet more pro-active and assertive path. The harder edge of Abe's self-proclaimed 'battling diplomacy' (tatakau gaikō) has already been revealed with Japan's swift imposition of financial and shipping sanctions on North Korea in reaction to its October nuclear test. Abe is also following Koizumi in seeking to strengthen bilateral security ties with the US, going beyond 1 anything Koizumi had sought to achieve. The Japanese government at the start of Abe's administration even mulled plans for the application of the US-Japan Guidelines for Defence Cooperation to enable Japan to support the US to interdict North Korean shipping. 1 Abe's foreign and security agenda, and attempts to place it on a more proactive footing, further include attempts to pick up and push forward on constitutional revision, a debate first opened up by Koizumi. Article 9 of the so-called 1947 'peace constitution', has been interpreted by the Japanese government as permitting the maintenance of the Japan Self Defence Forces (JSDF) only for the purposes of individual self-defence and as prohibiting the exercise of the right of collective self-defence in support of the US. Koizumi and now Abe have argued that Japan should consider breaching this self-imposed ban on collective self-defence under certain conditions in order to speed Japan's trajectory to becoming a more 'normal' state prepared in certain contingencies to fight alongside its US ally. 2 Abe has also indicated that Japan should enact a permanent law on 'international peace cooperation' that replaces the current piecemeal and time-bound legislation permitting the overseas dispatch of the JSDF, and thus enables more routine dispatch to support UN Peacekeeping Operations (UNPKO), US-led 'coalitions of the willing', and even, as hinted at in Abe's visit to Europe in January 2007, NATO missions. 3 Abe has presided over the final elevation of the Japan Defence Agency (JDA) to full ministerial status as the Japan Ministry of Defence (MOD) in January 2007, and initiated plans for the
Japan’s Security Policy in ‘the Abe Era’: Radical Transformation or Evolutionary Shift?
Texas National Security Review, 2018
Widely considered Japan’s most powerful prime minister in decades, Shinzo Abe has responded to a changing security environment in the Asia-Pacific — including an increasingly powerful and assertive China and growing North Korean nuclear threat — by pursuing ambitious and controversial reforms. These have been aimed at strengthening executive control over foreign policy decision-making and bolstering deterrence through an expansion of the Japan Self-Defense Forces’ roles, missions, and capabilities within and beyond the U.S.-Japan alliance. Those reforms that his administration has achieved have invited claims that Abe is taking Japan on a radical path away from its postwar “pacifism.” However, a systematic analysis of both change and continuity during the Abe administration reveals that many of these reforms build on longer-term evolutionary trends that predate Abe and have attracted support from moderates within and outside his conservative Liberal Democratic Party. Just as importantly, several core pillars of Japan’s remarkably self-restrained defense posture remain in place, while Abe has pulled back from some of the more ambitious reforms he has championed in the past. Both points have important implications for Japan’s strategic trajectory, international relations in East Asia, and the U.S.-Japan alliance. Barring major external or domestic political structural change, Japan’s evolutionary reform trajectory is likely to continue. Yet the failure, so far, of Abe’s government to achieve its long-coveted, most ambitious reforms also indicates the persistent headwinds future prime ministers can expect to face.
This year-in-review essay highlights the Abe administration's attempts at defining its "Free and Open Indo-Pacific" grand strategic vision with like-minded parties. It assesses Japan's engagement with states that have demonstrated active interest in the concept: the United States, Australia, India, France and the United Kingdom. The essay underscores the tension between Trump's extortionist and transactional instincts and the need for the US to engage multilaterally in the region, but also suggests that China has softened its stance towards Japan in light of a more confrontational US China policy. The essay will open with an assessment of Japanese domestic politics and the Abe administration's economic agenda, because domestic stability has allowed Abe's signature foreign policy initiatives. Abe consolidated power as he secured his third term as LDP president, despite a string of political scandals. Along with his aspirations for a powerful and prosperous Japan, he implemented structural reforms of the labour market including new caps on overtime work and a new immigration law that potentially opened Japan's doors to low-and high-skilled workers. In the year under review, and in line with his administration's Free and Open Indo-Pacific vision, Abe issued new defence guidelines that have set Japan further on track towards an active military role. The guidelines outline measures to enhance Japan's capabilities in «cross-domain operations» in cyber, space and electromagnetic warfare and a comprehensive modernization of conventional defence equipment which includes new missile systems, advanced fighter jets and aircraft carrier capabilities in direct response to China's military rise. Finally, Abe confirmed his determination to revise Japan's war-renouncing constitution, however unlikely the attainment of that goal is, at least in the near future and in the face of persistent popular opposition.
Since 2012 Japan’s security policy toward China has changed when compared to Shinzo Abe’s first tenure in 2006. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s charismatic leadership is an important factor explaining this change. Abe faltered in his first term because he failed to win public trust due to poor leadership. When he returned to power in 2012, Abe strengthened his political authority by utilizing dynamic international and domestic situations more fruitfully. Abe effectively used the conditions of changing international order, especially China’s rise that created public concerns and defense budget reduction of the United States to normalize Japan’s military power. Abe also achieved equal footing with the United States. Domestically, while Abe appointed politicians with similar views, he included several non-LDP politicians to avoid the stigma of having a “cabinet of friends.” The LDP-CGP coalition’s expanded decisional latitude combined with the Abe-centered cabinet contributed to achieving Shinzo Abe’s political aims.
How Abe is losing the narrative on Japan’s new security laws
Japan's new security laws, which were passed on 19 September and allow for limited forms of collective self-defence, have been described as a 'move away from pacifism', the opening of a 'Pandora's box' and the 'unsheathing of a new Japanese sword'. But considering the bill's extreme limitations and significant domestic constraints -including a greying and shrinking population, mounting domestic debt and deeply embedded pacifist norms -one wonders how and why this narrative has taken root so deeply.
Asia Maior, 2024
On the basis of a wide range of critically assessed and triangulated secondary and primary sources, including elite interviews and official documentation often in the original language, this article suggests that Japan’s domestic politics, and also its foreign and security policies, displayed a remarkable degree of continuity with the path set by the late Abe Shinzō, and thus carry his imprint. Notable exceptions are Kishida’s initiatives in the energy, economic, and fiscal realms. Amid major scandals and internal readjustments in the majority party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), Japan’s domestic politics appear to be dominated by a single party maintaining its edge over possible adversaries in a fundamentally non-competitive democratic system. This trend has been further reinforced by growing political disaffection. Public trust in the government in 2023 was at a minimum, while surveys show that more than 40% of the Japanese electorate did not support any specific political party. Against this backdrop, however, the Kishida administration was successful in ending a long-lasting period of deflation in the Japanese economy and coming to terms with the legacy of former PM Abe Shinzō. In fact, the lasting influence of Abe lives on in the LDP’s factional balance, influencing Kishida’s policy stance. Especially in the realm of Japan’s security policy and international relations, 2023 testified to Abe’s legacy. Japan’s changes in its military doctrine and its force posture, together with its strategic outreaches to its east Asian neighbours and European and Pacific players, mirror US grand strategy. In fact, Japan also worked in lockstep with US-led minilateral diplomacy aimed at purposeful multi-layered security ententes, often on an ad hoc basis, to balance China militarily, counter the expansion of its regional diplomatic and economic influence and maintain the status quo along the first island chain. The seeds sown by the second Abe administration bore fruit in Japan’s security embrace of Taiwan, an embrace which capitalised on Abe’s poorly understood 2015 legislative and strategic revolutions. With a focus on the geopolitics of the first island chain, the article then looks at Japan’s burgeoning security cooperation with South Korea and European states. It does so to argue that while Kishida’s Japan is seemingly reactive to US grand strategy, it acts in broad continuity of the course set by the two Abe administrations. After all, under Abe, Japan expanded its strategic partnerships to include European players and NATO. Moreover, while Kishida is not a revisionist nationalist, unlike Abe, Japan’s reset of its relations with Seoul is a by-product of the new Yoon administration’s ability to compromise rather than a result of the Japanese government’s concessions. After analysing the burgeoning Japan-NATO relations, the article concludes with a discussion of Japan’s successful G7 presidency, the apex of minilateral diplomacy in 2023.