Australia and Japan in the same boat

After being criticized at home (and, supposedly, in Tokyo) for failing to visit Japan on a swing through Asia in March, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will be in Tokyo this week for meetings with Prime Minister Fukuda.

Andrew Shearer, a fellow at Australia's Lowy Institute for International Policy, has an excellent op-ed in The Australian (H/T to JG) putting Mr. Rudd's visit in perspective and proposing a framework for Australian foreign policy that balances relations with China and Japan.

Without denying the importance of the Sino-Australian relationship, Shearer argues that a strong relationship with Japan — Australia's largest export market — is an indispensable asset for Australian foreign policy. He gets at the important point that Australia and Japan share concerns. Both have deepening economic ties with China, but at the same time they fear China's growing heft and want the US — each country's most important ally — to remain engaged in the region. But "engaged" is not a code word for containing China. As Shearer argues, "It doesn't mean Australia and the US should not pursue realistic, constructive relations with China. Calm dealings between Washington and Beijing, in particular, are important for Japan's deep relationship with China and for vital Australian strategic and economic interests."

The challenge for not only Japan and Australia but for India, South Korea, and China's neighbors in Southeast Asia is balancing their ever more important economic relationships with China with their security relationships with the US, a US that is unfortunately prone to militarized overreaction that could undermine economic relationships with China. (To be fair, US bluster is matched by a China that is rapidly modernizing its military and looking to bolster its power projection capabilities). The countries on China's periphery, especially Australia and Japan, clearly value the US hedge against a belligerent China. The challenge for all of these countries clustered between the US and China is to moderate the behavior of both powers; these mid-sized players must ensure that the US is around and engaged but not overly aggressive or prone to crusading, and that China is a "responsible stakeholder" and force for stability in the region.

Accordingly, the value of cooperation between India, Australia, and Japan is not as a democratic ring around China but as a force for restraint acting on both China and the US.

In light of Mr. Fukuda's recent remarks on Japanese foreign policy, I think that the prime minister would be sympathetic to this vision of the region. Is Mr. Rudd capable of achieving this balance in Australian foreign policy?

I'm optimistic that he will. The need to balance the economic relationship with China and the security relationship with the US is bound to push Canberra in the direction of closer relations with other countries in the region that share this predicament.

Forging a Fukuda consensus

Following his first salvo in the creation of a new Fukuda Doctrine, Sankei reports that Prime Minister Fukuda is preparing to launch the next salvo, which will be aimed at remaking Japan's foreign and defense policymaking process, namely by intensifying the Kantei's leadership in foreign policy.

Mr. Fukuda's approach is markedly different from Abe Shinzo's, the former prime minister who wanted to create a US-style National Security Council, an independent national security staff at the Kantei that would presumably be independent from the ministries of foreign affairs and defense. Undoubtedly Mr. Abe and other conservatives saw this as a way to bring their hawkish allies into government and further diminish the power of the hated Foreign Ministry.

Prime Minister Fukuda, however, appears to want to bolster existing arrangements and enhance coordination within and between ministries. He intends to preserve the existing Security Council of Japan that brings together the prime minister, chief cabinet secretary, the ministers of foreign affairs, defense, finance, transport, economy and industry, internal affairs, and the chairman of the national public safety commission. Under the security council, the prime minister intends to create a committee — headed by the assistant chief cabinet secretary responsible for national security and crisis management — on the maintenance of defense capabilities that will facilitate cooperation between the JSDF ground, air, and maritime staff, especially on medium- and long-term planning. The prime minister also envisions a new committee at the cabinet secretariat, chaired by the prime minister's aide responsible for foreign and defense policy and composed of the director of cabinet intelligence, the directors of MOFA's foreign policy bureau and MOD's defense policy bureau, and the aforementioned assistant chief cabinet secretary. This committee would be responsible for synthesizing foreign and defense policies.

Conservatives in both the US and Japan love to hate their countries' foreign ministries (and foreign policy establishments more broadly) as being effete and inclined to "sell out" the country to the enemies of the nation. But this loathing is not without consequences — look at how the OSD policy shop, led by Douglas Feith, effectively diminished the role played by both the State Department and the CIA in planning for the Iraq war and its aftermath. (The sad fate of the State Department's Future of Iraq project is telling, although it bears mentioning that, as noted by Charles Patterson, a participant in the project, "More planning was needed than the Future of Iraq Project, even had the plans been heeded.")

As such, rather than creating new organizations to do end runs around ministries responsible for foreign policy, Japan will be better served by better coordination among existing agencies. But more important than institutional arrangements, what Japan needs is a vision for its foreign and defense policy that has been lacking since the end of the cold war. If MOFA and MOD have been working at cross purposes, it has not simply been a matter of broken institutional arrangements: the responsibility lies with the prime minister (and the ruling LDP) for failing to articulate a coherent foreign policy for Japan. As I noted yesterday, Mr. Fukuda's new doctrine has considerable value, but if it is not institutionalized — whether in the form of international agreements or government planning documents — and instilled in the minds of Japanese citizens, then it can easily be ignored by future governments.

In short, Mr. Fukuda needs to find a way to make his doctrine the successor for the crumbling Yoshida Doctrine, a Fukuda consensus to guide Japan in the early decades of the twenty-first century. As the endurance of the Yoshida consensus illustrates, institutions are secondary to the ideas of a foreign policy consensus.

The new Fukuda doctrine

On Thursday of last week, Prime Minister Fukuda gave a keynote foreign policy address at the fourteenth annual International Conference on the Future of Asia, hosted by Nikkei in Tokyo.

Not for the first time Mr. Fukuda gave me reason to lament his political troubles at home, as he gave a speech that was stunning in the breadth of his vision, his clear assessment of the challenges and opportunities facing Japan today, and his recognition that Japan needs to make serious changes if it is to retain power and influence in Asia.

After expressing his sadness over lives lost in the Szechuan earthquake and the Burmese cyclone, the prime minister opened by citing his father's "Fukuda Doctrine," articulated in 1977, and pointing to the changes that have occurred in Asia in the three decades since, pointing in particular to the prosperity and development achieved by ASEAN members and other Asian countries. (In a plug for this week's TICAD in Yokohama, Mr. Fukuda suggested that Africa can learn from Asia's experience and achieve a similar economic miracle.)

In a rare citation of Fernand Braudel by a head of government, Mr. Fukuda appealed to the attendees to work over the next thirty years to make the Pacific Ocean an "inland sea" that is the center of global order, the same role played by the Mediterranean — as documented by Braudel in his work on the Mediterranean world — in pre-modern and early modern European history. He emphasized liberalization and diversity in the Asia-Pacific, which will enable all involved to pursue "unlimited possibilities."

This regional vision is a bit too flighty for me, although interestingly, Mr. Fukuda does not mention APEC once in this speech, surprising considering that APEC includes countries from all sides of the Asia-Pacific (but excludes India, an increasingly important player in the East Asian balance) and is the primary institution dedicated to liberalization in the Asia-Pacific. As an APEC skeptic, I'm not disappointed, but this concept of "Pacific as inland sea" seems more poetic than practical.

The interesting portion of the speech is the section after Mr. Fukuda's discourse on Braudel. In this section — which includes five promises for concrete action necessary to create an Asia-Pacific network community — Mr. Fukuda casts Japanese foreign policy, including the US-Japan relationship, in a new light and suggests how Japan will be able to preserve its influence despite domestic limitations.

The key for Mr. Fukuda is reassessing Japan's relationships. He spoke at some length about forging a new relationship with a Russia looking to develop the Russian Far East and East Siberia and play a greater role in East Asia. Mr. Fukuda expressed his hopes for a Russo-Japanese peace treaty and his belief that Russia can make a contribution to the peace and stability of the Asia-Pacific. He called attention to Japan's contributions to development in South Asia, especially in India, contributions that will undoubtedly intensify in coming decades.

Moving on to his five promises, Mr. Fukuda first spoke at length about the importance of ASEAN, promising to deepen cooperation with the organization by promoting a special ambassador to ASEAN and creating a full diplomatic mission in the near future. He emphasized the importance of the Japan-ASEAN comprehensive economic partnership agreement currently under negotiation and pledged that Japan will work with ASEAN to combat economic inequality and cooperate to promote food and energy security.

His second promise concerned the United States. Compared to the eight paragraphs he spent discussing ASEAN, Mr. Fukuda talked about Japan's relationship with the US in a mere two.

Point number two, Japan promises to reinforce public goods in the Asia-Pacific in its alliance with the US.

It goes without saying that the US is the single most important member of the Asia-Pacific region. I always say that 'If the US-Japan alliance is strengthened, it will resonate in Asia diplomacy.' In Asia unstable, uncertain factors like the North Korea problem still remain. The resolution of the Korean peninsula question is indispensable for the stable development of all of Northeast Asia. Today, the US-Japan alliance, more than being a device for the security of Japan, has taken on the role of a mechanism for the stability of the Asia-Pacific. Accordingly, the future outlook for Asia is of a peaceful place — in other words, a low-risk, secure place, a place in which trade and cultural exchanges can continue to expand. And so I think that this is a cornerstone of a prosperous Asia.

This is consistent with the vision of the alliance outlined by Mr. Fukuda during his visit to Washington in November 2007, a vision with which I am deeply sympathetic. The US will remain an important player in Asia, but its role will be less transformative and more about providing public goods, as the prime minister said. The US has long done this, but it will increasingly become the crux of the US role in Asia and the raison d'etre of the US-Japan alliance. Not merely an alliance for the defense of Japan, not a global alliance that is a mile wide but an inch deep, not an alliance dedicated to promoting democracy or dragon-slaying, but an alliance that recognizes the importance of stability in East Asia and in which Washington and Tokyo use all the tools at their disposal — and work with all potential partners — to pursue regional stability. Whether Washington embraces this vision will depend on the next president.

Relatedly, Mr. Fukuda reiterated his promise to make Japan a "peace cooperation state." "Peace cooperation" includes a role for Japan's self-defense forces, as the prime minister emphasized the need to work together to patrol the straits of Malacca, clearing them of pirates and terrorists. (Presumably the Japanese coast guard would also be involved.) It also includes peacekeeping and state-building activities in countries like Cambodia and East Timor and disaster prevention and relief, both of which will entail more cooperation with ASEAN. To this end, Mr. Fukuda wants to create an "Asian disaster and disease prevention network."

His fourth promise involves the promotion of more intellectual and cultural exchanges in the region, especially among youth. His fifth concerns combating climate change, consistent with Mr. Fukuda's goals for the G8 summit and domestic plans to promote a low-carbon emissions society.

He concluded his speech by acknowledging that this vision may seem optimistic in light of the gloomy mood abroad in the world, but suggests that the only way forward is together. He further acknowledges that Japan must make changes at home even as it works with its Asian neighbors to solve collective problems. His short list of challenges for Japan — which he has previously discussed — include promote greater equality between men and women, opening up Japan specifically to foreign investment and to foreign influences more broadly, and overcoming the problems of a shrinking, low-birth rate society.

As before, I am deeply impressed by Mr. Fukuda's vision for Japan and its place in the world in the twenty-first century. It is worth noting that in his vision for Japanese foreign policy, there is no need for constitution revision or reinterpretation. If anything, he argues implicitly that Japan needs to be less concerned about its military capabilities and more concerned about its diplomatic assets, namely its relationships with other countries in the region. The US-Japan alliance (and, mutatis mutandis, armed force), while important, cannot be Japan's only tool for solving problems in the region. Moreover, he recognizes that if Japan is going to play an important role in the region, it cannot afford to neglect its relationships with its neighbors and other regional powers. (And, presumably, it cannot afford to allow those relationships to be dragged down by bits of barren rock.)

How unfortunate that Mr. Fukuda was elected in September 2007 instead of September 2006, when he would have had enough support with which to make substantial progress in reconfiguring Japan's foreign policy and tackling the domestic problems that threaten to limit its influence. As of now, it is unclear whether this new Fukuda doctrine will survive its progenitor's government.