Abe's neo-statism

This week Prime Minister Abe Shinzō criticized right-wing demonstrations in Koreatowns in Tokyo and Osaka, stating, “The Japanese way of thinking is to behave politely and to be generous and modest at any time.” While it is, of course, good that Abe made a point of criticizing hate speech, it's important to recognize that Abe is pursuing a different program than some of the cruder conservative revisionists in his own party, the conservative media, or the right-wing demonstrators who terrorize the ears of Tokyoites with their sound trucks. The problem with the word "nationalist" is that it obscures more than it reveals.

In an astute article about Abe's program, the FT's David Pilling notes Abe's agenda can rightly be summarized using the Meiji slogan, Fukoku-kyohei (rich nation, strong army). What I wonder, though, is whether it is best to think of Abe as a nationalist or whether it is more appropriate to think of him as a statist, not unlike his Meiji forebears. The distinction is important. The right-wing demonstrators criticized by Abe are little more than chauvinistic ethnic nationalists, intent on showing the superiority of the Japanese people. Abe is interested in the survival of the Japanese nation in international competition, with the state as a kind of avatar of the Japanese people. His way of thinking is steeped in Hobbesian and social Darwinist conceptions of the state, in which the state and people exist in a sort of organic solidarity and in which the state is focused largely on protecting lives and property from enemies foreign and domestic. To compete with other nation-states, the state must be capable of organizing and drawing upon the country's resources and the people's energy in order to compete.

Accordingly, when Abe talks of breaking free of the postwar regime or creating a normal nation, it is with this idea in mind. Nationalism is a means to the end of strengthening the state. Encouraging national pride is useful to the extent that it makes Japanese citizens more amenable to constitution revision, more supportive of an assertive Japanese military, and more eager to stand up to provocation by China or North Korea, just as revitalizing Japan's economy is useful to the extent that it improves the state's fiscal position, swells its coffers, and bolsters national confidence.

The question is whether Abe's neo-statism poses risks to peace and security in East Asia. On the one hand, China arguably views the world along similarly social Darwinist lines, and one can therefore make the case that national survival for Japan depends on embracing a similar way of thinking, making Japan less vulnerable to bullying by China. However, the danger of Japan's embracing a social Darwinist conception of international competition is that it would make every problem between Japan and its neighbors harder to resolve, because every issue would become a question of status in the international hierarchy. When combined with fewer restraints on the use of force by Japan, the risk of outright war would surely increase.

There are still a number of hurdles Abe must overcome before he can remake Japan according to his neo-statist vision — and he must still convince the Japanese people of its wisdom, especially as far as constitution revision goes. But it is important to understand just what kind of nationalist Abe is, and to be aware that whatever short-term tactical concessions he makes, he has a long-term vision of where he wants to take his country.

General Tamogami refuses to fade away

Is Tamogami Toshio a millstone around Aso Taro's neck?

The now former chief of staff of the Air Self-Defense Forces (ASDF) appeared before the House of Councillors foreign and defense affairs committee and continued his determined campaign to dispel the postwar consensus on Japan's wartime past.

In his remarks, General Tamogami appeared to play dumb. Asked about the Murayama statement, in which then-Prime Minister Murayama Tomiichi made a sincere apology for Japan's wartime behavior (and argued that "Japan must eliminate self-righteous nationalism"), the general hid behind his and his fellow airmen's right to freedom of speech. He noted that his essay said nothing about the Murayama statement and asserted that even JSDF members have the right to freedom of speech.

The essence of civilian control is that the prime minister is the commander-in-chief of the JSDF and the Diet is responsible for "basic administration." While it is true that General Tamogami did not use the phrase "Murayama statement" in his essay, only a fool would be satisfied with that answer; General Tamogami's essay was all about the Murayama statement and the worldview that produced it and has sustained it in the thirteen years since it was promulgated. The general certainly knew what he was doing. Say what you will about Japan's revisionists, but they are not fools (as in the case of the Nanjing massacre: most don't deny that something happened in Nanjing, but many turn it into a matter of numbers, shifting the discussion from the enormity of what the Imperial Army did in Nanjing to China's purported manipulation of the figures to make Japan look bad).

Of course, now that he is out of the service General Tamogami did not hesitate to criticize the Murayama statement, describing it as "an instrument for the supression of one's opinions." But questioning the fact that ninety-seven members of the JSDF submitted essays to a revisionist essay contest is not the suppression of the freedom of speech — it is the reassertion of civilian control. The SDF ethos encourages SDF personnel to "refrain from taking part in political activities." While the APA essay contest may not have technically been a "political activity," the submission of essays by JSDF personnel was effectively political. By questioning the civilian government's official position on Japan's wartime history (Mr. Aso reaffirmed the Murayama statement in Diet interpellations in early October, although there are now questions as to whether Mr. Aso has accepted the Murayama statement), General Tamogami was deliberately insubordinate to his commander-in-chief, and given that his essay had the potential to undermine the government's efforts to build closer relations with China and South Korea, it is hard to see this affair as anything but interference by a senior JSDF officer in political matters. Merely asking the general to surrender his pension is mild, considering that he had been openly calling for historical revisionism for years before this incident.

On balance, I'm not sure whether this hearing was a good thing. I certainly think that it's better that these views are out in the open, but it seems that all the hearing accomplished was assisting General Tamogami in his transition from ASDF general to right-wing pundit. It won't be long now before he is a regular contributor to Voice and Will. He is already being treated as a matyr for the cause by his fellow revisionists; for example, Hiranuma Takeo, former LDP member and adviser to Nakagawa Shoichi's "True Conservative Policy Research Group," has criticized the defense minister's request that the general gave up his pension. It may have been better off to let General Tamogami fade away, as another loudmouth general disrespectful of his civilian masters once said of old soldiers. (The general played up his matyrdom, saying, "I think the world is full of examples of dismissal for saying that one's own country is a bad country, but I don't think there's a single example of dismal for saying that one's own country is a good country.")

Meanwhile General Tamogami has probably hurt Mr. Aso. In the short term Mr. Aso has won a small victory, for as a quid-pro-quo for the general's appearance the opposition parties have agreed to bring the bill extending the MSDF refueling mission to a vote in the upper house foreign and defense affairs committee on Tuesday and the whole house on Wednesday, freeing the lower house to pass the bill again on next Thursday. But in the meantime General Tamogami has reinserted history onto the public agenda, which will undoubtedly lead to new questions regarding just what Mr. Aso thinks of these matters. Mr. Aso has categorically rejected the general's putting his freedom of speech before civilian control, but I suspect for better or worse that Mr. Aso's comments will not be the last of this issue.

The history issue will not make or break Mr. Aso's government at home, but it does little to help the prime minister and does serve to distract his government from the gathering economic gloom. (Will the foreign press ask Mr. Aso about this while he visits Washington?) I have yet to see any public opinion polls pertaining to General Tamogami's remarks, but I expect that the public is generally not sympathetic to this perspective.

I want to conclude with a word about the general's perspective. In his remarks on Tuesday, General Tamogami raised an argument that has been made in comments on this blog and elsewhere, namely, that Japan has been unfairly singled out for wrongdoing during the war. He further suggested that talk of Japan as a bad country damages JSDF morale.

I have no idea how General Tamogami can prove the latter argument, but I am not totally unsympathetic to his former argument. However, as I argued here, simple moral equivalency between Japan and the European empires does not work. It is a lazy assertion, and when making a legal argument, as the general attempted to do in his essay, it is a baseless assertion. I understand and sympathize with the desire to see one's country as good, but whitewashing the past, pretending that the sorry moments of history were either not sorry or did not happen is no way to glorify one's nation. As noted previously, many American suffer from a similar problem, failing to see history through the eyes of other and failing to appreciate the harm caused by Americans in the name of high ideals. I can understand General Tamogami's frustration. But the answer is not reinventing a glorious past that better serves what the general sees as the needs of the present.

Revisionist America?

At 空, Ken Tanaka responds to yesterday's post about Japanese revisionism by citing Stephen Walt regarding American "historical amnesia."

I definitely take his (and Walt's) point about America's historical amnesia, particularly in regard to Japan. Few Americans appreciate the extent of the damage inflicted upon the Japanese people, or if they do, their appreciation stops at the atomic bombings; in some way the indiscriminate bombing of cities with "conventional" weaponry was far worse. Czeslaw Milosz captured the failure of Americans to understand just how complicated, just how relative reality is in the second chapter of The Captive Mind.

"The man of the east [referring to the eastern bloc]," he wrote, "cannot take Americans seriously because they have never undergone the experiences that teach men how relative their judgments and thinking habits are.

"Their resultant lack of imagination is appalling. Because they were born and raised in a given social order and in a given system of values, they believe that any other order must be 'unnatural,' and that it cannot last because it is incompatible with human nature. But even they may one day know fire, hunger, and the sword. In all probability this is what will occur; for it is hard to believe that when one half of the world is living through terrible disasters, the other half can continue a nineteenth-century mode of life, learning about the distress of its distant fellow-men only from movies and newspapers." (29)

I hardly need to point out that Milosz's observation remains relevant to the present day, 9/11 notwithstanding. (If anything 9/11 reinforced the tendency described by Milosz.)

But historical amnesia is not the same as historical revisionism.

Historical revisionism is, as I have argued, an ideology that is as much about the present and the future as it is about the past. It is an active process. And it involves the conscious and willful denial of generally accepted facts of history. Indeed, in the process of claiming to only be presenting "the facts," the revisionists deny the very existence of facts as commonly understood. For them, the measure of whether something is truthful or not is that it serves political ends. They reject the idea of falsifiability or alternative explanations for events: look at the confidence with which General Tamogami asserted, with merely a whiff of evidence, that the Comintern was behind both the Second Sino-Japanese war and the Pacific war. Revisionists seem to care little about the credibility of the messenger or the method by which the message is produced — only the message matters. Stephen Colbert could have been describing the revisionists when he coined the term "truthiness."



This differs greatly from "historical amnesia," or the natural difference in historical interpretations between history's winners and losers. Granted, Americans have a problem seeing history through the eyes of its "losers." But that is considerably different from the revisionist project, which is a wide-reaching program that seeks to determine how Japanese citizens learn history (by infiltrating the national curriculum, which, unlike in the US, is determined by the central government), how Japanese citizens think about their own country, how Japan conducts its security policy, and how Japan conducts its foreign relations. The analogy to the US fails. Conservative hawks may downplay some of the uglier moments in American history and emphasize the triumphs, particularly international victories, but they are hard pressed to deny those moments and periods outright.

Again, Japanese revisionism is not only or even mainly about the past. By revising how Japanese looks at the war, they also want to revise how Japanese look at the postwar period. If the former was a period marked by glorious sacrifices for emperor and nation, the latter has been marked by selfishness, wanton prosperity, decadence, decay, and "Americanization." The revisionists hope to reclaim the wartime and prewar periods as sources of value for contemporary Japan.

Of course, by working so hard to correct the historical consensus on Japan's wartime behavior, the revisionists merely serve to call attention to the enormity of Japan's behavior — and alarm Japan's neighbors, who remember only too well what Japan did during the war. Revisionism amounts to calling those who suffered at Japan's hands as prisoners of war, slave laborers, comfort women, or unwilling imperial subjects liars.

Revisionism is a problem for the region. It is a mistake to pretend otherwise. Sincere advocates of a more active Japanese security role should doing everything in their power not only to distance themselves from the revisionists, but categorically denounce their brazen denial of history.

Japan's revisionist problem

In my critique of Tamogami Toshio's essay, I asked, "Just how widespread are these views in the JSDF?"

Jun Okumura quickly provided some sort of answer: more than fifty SDF members submitted essays in the contest won by General Tamogami. Sankei reports that the number of ASDF members who submitted essays is actually seventy-eight by the ministry of defense's reckoning. Asahi notes that this constitutes nearly one-third of the contest's 235 entries. Asahi also breaks down the submissions by rank and finds that of those seventy-eight, none except General Tamogami were flag officers, ten were field officers, sixty-four were company-level officers, and four were cadets. Asahi also found that sixty-two had served under General Tamogami when he served as commander of Komatsu base, which Roy Berman of Mutantfrog found plays a central role in the story of the APA essay contest. (Berman did yeoman's work teasing out the various links between the actors of this saga; it's a must-read.) The contents of the Asahi article suggest that it's possible that the ASDF officers who submitted did so after having been "encouraged" by their commander rather than out of conviction.

But that said, it's possible that despite its efforts to project a warm and fuzzy image (cf. Prince Pickles), the JSDF attracts a disportionate number of people who look longingly to Japan's past as a military power and subscribe to the conservative nationalist interpretation of Japan's wartime past.

Does it matter what the members of Japan's armed forces think about Japan's wartime past? Does historical revisionism conflict with the SDF's ethos of ensuring "the continued existence and security of a Japan that stands on the premise of democracy by protecting its peace and independence?" And if so, what can the government do about it?

I would argue that historical revisionism — as it exists in Japan — is incompatible with the SDF's current mission and Japan's security policy. Revisionism is not merely a matter of "historical understanding;" it is an ideology concerning Japan as it is today and how it should be. Go back and read General Tamogami's essay. The problem for him isn't just that the Japanese people don't know the facts (revisionists love that word) of the war. They've been brainwashed for sixty years into believing that Japan's wartime behavior was dishonorable, and this belief in turn has handcuffed the SDF and made Japan dependent on the US for its security. In short, General Tamogami and other revisionists are openly contempuous of Japanese democracy, because they view Japanese citizens as little better than sheep who have been systematically manipulated by Nikkyoso-dominated schools and the Japanese media. Does General Tamogami actually believe that he was serving Japanese democracy, whose institutions and officials have decided, with the support of the public, to constrain the SDF? Why does he think that the path to a more active security policy leads through greater appreciation of World War II? Arguably a stronger case for an active Japanese international security role would be premised on an appreciation of the folly of Japan's war, of the criminality of Japan's war, of a recognition that the acts committed during the war should never be allowed to happen again? This argument, grounded in the preamble of the constitution, has animated Ozawa Ichiro's case for a "normal" Japanese security policy.

The key point here is, as William Faulkner wrote, "the past is never dead. It's not even past." It is not accidental that the historical revisionists are also the most enthusiastic supporters of various schemes for a more active Japanese security policy, why they are the most vocal defenders of the US-Japan alliance (even as they curse the US for abandoning Japan in favor of China) and the most vocal advocates for Japanese participation in all possible foreign deployments. Reclaiming the past is their means of reclaiming the present and future — and perhaps reclaiming the present by "normalizing" the SDF is their way of making the public more sympathetic to their view of the wartime past.

The problem is that their view of the world is not of the twenty-first century. The conservative-revisionist view of international politics derives much from nineteenth-century Social Darwinism, viewing the world as a brutal, relentless struggle among nations, for which nations must steel their spirits if they are to survive. It's not enough for nations to be prosperous materially. They must be spiritually, morally, and culturally sound. Part of this spiritual soundness is appreciating the struggles of the nation's heroes. While the revisionists claim to be striving for objective truth, the value of history for them is that it's instructive, strengthening Japan for international competition. This view also leaves little room for meaningful cooperation with one's rivals.

As I've argued before, this ideology is actually abnormal in the twenty-first century and no less dangerous than Social Darwinism was in the late nineteenth, as it risks leading Japan and Asia down a path of confrontation, strife, and war. I am not suggesting that revisionists are prepared to go down the path of imperial conquest again. But I am suggesting that the mindset that produced that Japanese empire is alive and well. And don't think that China or South Korea won't mention the general's essay the next time the Japanese government talks tough on a regional dispute (a fight over a disputed island, for example).

Japan is not unique in having elites prone to this view of the world. What sets them apart is that historical revisionism is part and parcel of their case for a new Japan.

Which makes it difficult to imagine what the government can do to correct for the politically incorrect (in the sense that the Murayama statement defines what is correct) views of JSDF officers. The government can prohibit publication, of course, or implement a system of vetting the public statements of officers. Defense Minister Hamada Yasukazu suggested that more education is needed for officers. But are education — or bottling up politically unacceptable opinions — satisfactory answers? Not for me. Revisionism exists because the history problem has effectively been swept under the rug since the war ended, left to metatastize into a worldview that seeks to redefine Japanese identity by dismissing the postwar period as aberrant and harkening back to an earlier, purer time.

The government can impose all the safeguards it wants, but there is no safeguard or sanction that can change an individual's ideas. With luck General Tamogami will get the debate he wants. But in the end it will just be another battle in the culture war that has raged since the end of the war.

The Tamogami affair

The Times (of London) reports that Aso Taro may face an upper house censure motion over now-retired General Tamogami Toshio's revisionist essay on Japan's activities on mainland Asia in the 1930s.

I think this would be a mistake — as Jun Okumura noted, Mr. Aso did the right thing. General Tamogami was sacked immediately. Unless it comes out that Mr. Aso somehow vetted the essay in advance, General Tamogami's firing should be the end of Mr. Aso's role in this sordid affair.

But it is worth looking at the general's essay.

Here is my summary of the general's theses.

(1) Japan did not fight a war of aggression: it was a legitimate act of self-defense because Japan's position in Korea and Manchuria was legally recognized.

(2) The Pacific war was effectively the product of Communist manipulation: The Comintern manipulated the Guomindong into provoking Japan so that the two would fight each other. The Comintern also manipulated Franklin Roosevelt into waging war on Japan, because Roosevelt "was not aware of the terrible nature of communism" and was thus easily duped by the Communists into supporting Chiang Kai-shek.

(3) Imperial Japan as humanitarian: Japan was kind to its colonies Korea and Taiwan, and even tried to incorporate them into metropolitan Japan, unlike the European powers. Japan was also the great friend of the peoples of Asia, fighting on their behalf at Versailles and hastening the end of the European empires.

(4) "The US-Japan alliance is great, but...": The alliance is great, but if the alliance continues Japan as we know it will be destroyed. And by the way, if we hadn't fought the war we might even have become "a white nation's colony." Oh, and our Self-Defense Forces, a branch of which I command? They cannot even defend Japan.

Let me start with the obvious contradiction in his argument in thesis (1).

At the start of the essay, General Tamogami dismisses claims that Japan was an aggressor by suggesting that critics simply don't realize that Japan was in Manchuria and Korea on the basis of treaties. Later he suggests that other great powers were aggressors too. Without providing any examples, I will be charitable and assume that he is referring to the presence of the European empires in Asia as opposed to Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, which don't help his case.

How is the legality of the European empires any different than the legality of Japan's colonies in Northeast Asia? If anything, the European empires were more secure in their rights in their colonies than Japan was in its colonies, seeing as how it acquired both by coercing the governments of China and Korea. The Dutch had ruled the Dutch East Indies directly for more than two centuries. India had been directly ruled by the British empire for nearly a century at the time of the war. The French had ruled Indochina directly for nearly as long as the British ruled India. In short, international law didn't apply; a Japanese attack on these colonies was legally indistinguishible from an attack on the French or British homelands. And one may recall that Japan did in fact attack these colonies, a fact unmentioned in connection with this argument, meaning ipso facto Japan was an aggressor in the war.

Meanwhile, it is worth recalling that Japan had a reason for using international law to take control of Korea, Taiwan, and portions of mainland China. Japan made a point of conducting its imperial affairs according to international law, as part of a project of showing its neighbors, especially China, that Japan was the most civilized nation in the neighborhood. The peace "negotiations" at Shimonoseki in 1895, when Japan humiliated the Chinese envoys for being unversed in Western international law, was the signature moment in Japan's project to unseat China as the center of Asian civilization; Japan demonstrated to China that Asian affairs would now be conducted by a new standard of civilization, imported into Asia from Europe by Japan. Japan did the same with Korea, when it forced an unequal treaty on Korea in 1876. Finally, to assert that the Japanese annexation of Korea was a legal transfer of authority from the Korean kingdom to Japan — that the Korean government was signing its own death warrant of its own volition — makes a mockery of history. It may be unfair to Japan to make this comparison, seeing as how the European empires were able to acquire their Asian colonies by virtue of their denying Asian nations civilized status and with it the protection of international law, but if General Tamogami wants to make an argument based on international law, he must accept the body of international law, not just the laws that support his argument.

But there is a larger problem with the general's first thesis. Namely he completely ignores Japan's invasion of China proper (i.e., the parts of China where it did not have treaty rights), the Philippines (a commonwealth of the US), French Indochina, the Dutch East Indies, Malaya, Burma, and other territories that were legally part of the American, French, Dutch, and British empires as well as the Republic of China. How is it possible to claim that Japan was not an aggressor when it invaded and occupied these territories? General Tamogami attempts a defense of Japan's actions in China by claiming Chinese Communist and Nationalist provocation; he even uses the "T" word, claiming that Japanese forces were subject to acts of terrorism, comparing these acts as equivalent to acts of violence against US forces and civilians based in Japan. (Does he really want to make that comparison?)

But General Tamogami apparently doesn't even believe his own argument, because after explaining why Japan wasn't an aggressor, he concludes, "If you say that Japan was the aggressor nation, then I would like to ask what country among the great powers of that time was not an aggressor. That is not to say that because other countries were doing so it was all right for Japan to do so well, but rather that there is no reason to single out Japan as an aggressor nation." As I've made clear above, there is a reason for singling Japan out as an aggressor, namely because Japan had made a point of conducting its affairs according to international law only to ignore international law when it interfered with Japan's imperial designs.

Turning to thesis (2) about the communist conspiracy that produced the war, General Tamogami's argument is that the US "ensnared" Japan. But not only that, the US — specifically President Roosevelt — had in turn been ensnared by the Soviet Union. The basis for this claim is the US National Security Agency's release of the Venona decryptions, which according to General Tamogami reveal that Roosevelt was under the thumb of Moscow due to the influence of Harry Dexter White at Treasury.

The Venona decryptions reveal no such thing. (They're available online here.)

The Soviet Union had agents in the US, true. Harry Dexter White was one, also true. But to leap from there to "Roosevelt went to war with Japan because he was manipulated by communists" is ludicrous. The US decision to support China and risk war with Japan was, if anything, overdetermined. It cannot be reduced to a simple communist conspiracy. Roosevelt's reasons for war could include a sentimental attachment to China, a growing recognition of the need to halt aggression in Europe and Asia, alarm at humanitarian situation in China, and so on.

This is simply groundless revisionist history that rests more on the perfervid imagination of Japanese conservatives than on empirical fact.

The same applies to General Tamogami's account of the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese war, which, as noted above, blames the war on "terrorist" acts by KMT and Communist forces. He claims that the "Comintern theory" of the war's beginning is gaining credence, citing as evidence the controversial Chang-Halliday biography of Mao and a book by conservative hack (i.e., not a historian) Sakurai Yoshiko. He dismisses out of hand the idea that the Kwantung army and the Imperial Army bear any responsibility for actions taken in the lead up to the war.

Moving on to thesis (3), General Tamogami praises Japan for its "very moderate" colonial rule in comparison to other empires. He also singles out Imperial Japan for praise because "among the major powers at that time, Japan was the only nation that tried to incorporate its colonies within the nation itself." It is beyond me why this should be considered a good thing. Is General Tamogami really so ignorant as to believe that Japan's subject peoples — starting with the Koreans and the Chinese — were eager to be incorporated into Japan proper, eager to be made into Japanese, bearing Japanese names, speaking the Japanese language? The general suggests that Japanese rule in Korea and Manchuria were quite peaceful, that Japan brought order and civilization to its colonies. It would be a lie to deny that Japanese imperialism brought some benefits to the colonies, just as it would be a lie to deny that British or French or Dutch empires had any positive impact on their respective colonies. The only appropriate response to all of these empires is, "Yes, but at what cost?" That General Tamogami does not even consider that subject peoples might view the Japanese empire with something other than feelings of gratitude may be the most offensive piece of this essay. The general cites a number of trivial examples illustrating how Chinese and Korean "citizens" displayed their loyalty to the empire. He shows that the Japanese imperial family permitted the last crown prince of Korea's Yi dynasty to marry a Japanese noble woman. What he doesn't mention is that Japanese settlers in Asian colonies were instruct not to mingle with native peoples. As John Dower writes, "Concerning overseas Japanese, admonitions against racial intermarriage were a standard part of policy documents, and the 1943 report spelled out the rationale for this: intermarriage would destroy the 'national spirit' of the Yamato race" (War Without Mercy, 277). Dower goes on to demonstrate just how farcical General Tamogami's claims about "harmony between the five tribes, laying out a vision for the tribes – the Yamato (Japanese), Koreans, Chinese, Manchurians, and Mongols;" Japan's plan for its Asian empire envisioned the economic, cultural, and social domination of subject peoples by Japan. As Dower writes, "The record of the Japanese as colonial or neocolonial administrators in Formosa, Korea, Manchukuo, and occupied China varied depending on the place and circumstances but the basic assumption of Japanese superiority was invariable" (285).

The general also makes an absurdly ahistorical claim that were it not for Japan's conquests, it would have taken one or two centuries "before we could have experienced the world of racial equality that we have today." While it is impossible to say for certain, it is extremely unlikely that the European empires in Asia would have survived another century, let alone two. Japan's war may have shortened the empires by a decade or so, but as it happened the European powers struggled to resurrect their empires after the war thanks in large part to the havoc the European war wreaked on their economies. So again, the question regarding Japan's role in decolonization is, "Yes, but at what cost?"

Finally we come to thesis (4), which is the most confusing of them all, although the confusion itself is extremely revealing. The general concludes his essay by looking at the security policy of contemporary Japan. He claims that the Tokyo trials are to blame for "misleading the Japanese people sixty-three years after the war." Apparently the Japanese people have been duped into not trusting the JSDF to defend Japan or undertake missions abroad. To General Tamogami the restrictions on Japanese security policy are sustained only because of public pacifism (presumably the result of a program of brainwashing carried out by the left-wing Japanese media and the teachers' union). The decisions made by Yoshida Shigeru and his successors to restrict Japan's military activities, to use the constitution as a weapon against US requests for rearmament, have apparently played no role whatsoever in Japan's security policy. If only the Japanese people learn to have pride again, the JSDF can be released from its restraints.

Meanwhile, his attitude towards the US is frankly schizophrenic, which is typical of the Japanese right wing. He asserts that "good relations between Japan and the United States are essential to the stability of the Asian region" — standard alliance boilerplate. But he also says that as a result of the aforementioned restraints on the JSDF, Japan has no choice but to be defended by America. But at what cost to Japan? "Japan’s economy, its finances, its business practices, its employment system, its judicial system will all converge with the American system. Our country’s traditional culture will be destroyed by the parade of reforms. Japan is undergoing a cultural revolution, is it not? But are the citizens Japan living in greater ease now or twenty years ago? Is Japan becoming a better country?" Apparently the alliance is also a Trojan horse for the dreaded American way of life. In short, the alliance is a fine vehicle for helping Japan become normal again, but Japan must keep America at arm's length. (Interestingly, the forces within Japan arguing for economic and financial convergence with the US are often the same people who share General Tamogami's position on national defense.) This argument is hardly new, and shows that America is a convenient scapegoat for conservatives who do not want to believe that the forces reshaping Japanese society are largely endogenous, perhaps largely the product of the postwar miracle.

I don't disagree with General Tamogami's argument that Japan needs to be better able to defend itself and less reliant on the US. But he has made this argument in the worst possible way, by reminding readers of just how dreadful the war was — and how egregious the arguments of Japan's historical revisionists are (the same people who want to revise Japan's security policy).

General Tamogami concludes his essay with an appeal against revisionism:

There is absolutely no need for lies and fabrications. If you look at individual events, there were probably some that would be called misdeeds. That is the same as saying that there is violence and murder occurring today even in advanced nations.

We must take back the glorious history of Japan. A nation that denies its own history is destined to pursue a path of decline.

If only the general could appreciate the irony of the last line of his essay.

The point is that this essay is atrocious, both intellectually and aesthetically.

But that being said, better that General Tamogami decided to share his opinions with the world (although I imagine he probably didn't expect that the world would be paying attention to the APA essay contest). The world needs to know that these ideas are alive and well in elite Japanese circles. Having read this essay, I'm now especially curious about Mr. Aso's book purchase on Saturday. How can Mr. Aso fire a general for espousing these beliefs — which he continues to espouse now that he's been sacked — and then go into a bookstore and purchase a book that makes similar arguments about Japan's history?

I hope that a journalist will pose this inconvenient question to the prime minister.

I also hope that there is a full inquiry into the circumstances surrounding General Tamogami's essay. Did anyone see it in advance? Who knew what when? More importantly, just how widespread are these views in the JSDF? And, as Ozawa Ichiro asked, why was there no outrage in response to a previously published essay by the general that made essentially the same argument? To reiterate, unless it somehow turns out that Mr. Aso was aware of this essay beforehand, this is not an incident worthy of censure. But it does merit an inquiry into the state of affairs in the JSDF. I would prefer full exposure over the swift punishment called for by the prime minister for those involved.

Aso's beautiful country

MTC has a must-read post on a New York Times editorial rebuking Aso Taro for his "pugnacious" nationalism.

Mr. Aso, MTC argues, differs from his fellow conservatives in his patriotism. Aso, he writes, "is infatuated with Japan, with what it is, whatever it might become. His is not the defensive possessiveness of an insecure man. He wants to share with everyone his enthusiasm. He hopes that everyone in the world can come to see his country the way he sees it: as flawed, yes, but for the most part wonderful, kind, quirky, appealing and charming. Like a lover, he underplays the faults of the object of his desire."

This is an absolutely critical point in understanding Japan's new prime minister.

He is not merely the ideological twin of Abe Shinzo.

Recall that Mr. Abe's book is entitled Towards a beautiful country. That "towards," in Japanese a simple へ, carries decades worth of baggage. Mr. Abe does not particularly like Japan as it exists today. Why else would he be so eager to cast off the postwar system, as he promised over and over again? His love is for the Japan that could be if only the country would follow his ideas. In some way the postwar system is a cul-de-sac for Mr. Abe, an extended detour from the path Japan ought to follow. Mr. Abe's nationalism is about reclaiming the past to provide a guide to the future. [It's possible that the へ in the title is "To," as in a dedication "To a beautiful country," but I think that in light of Mr. Abe's slogan "building a beautiful country" and various statements over the course of his government, "towards" is accurate.]

By contrast, Mr. Aso freely embraces the products of the postwar system. Indeed, Mr. Aso thinks that the products of the postwar system make Japan one of the best countries in the world. In his 2006 book Aso Taro no genten - Yoshida Shigeru no ryugi (Aso Taro's origin — the way of Yoshida Shigeru), he is full of praise for Mr. Abe's "postwar system." He praises Japan and its citizens for mottainai, energy conservation, the education system, cleaniness, industriousness, health, middle-class consciousness, and non-ideological thinking (this last is slightly ironic). This is the essence of Mr. Aso's (and Mr. Yoshida's) use of the phrase "latent power": the essential qualities of the Japanese people — some examples he gives are an aethestic sense and sensitivity — are a source of strength, and by implication, if only the government can use its power to ease the insecurities of the people and enable them to tap this latent power, Japan will once again retake its rightful position as a world leader. He does not appear to accept the argument made by various conservatives that the virtues of the Japanese people have been corroded by peace, prosperity, and the influence of American culture. His is not a cowering conservatism with a worldview full of bogeymen, whether the United States, China, or the Japanese left (Nakayama Nariaki's sneering at Nikkyoso, the left-wing Japanese teachers' union, is an example of this last point). As such, pride is different for Mr. Aso. He is proud of Japan as it is. Not Japan as a platonic ideal that the Japanese people can reach if only they listen to their (conservative) leaders. Not Japan as it was. Japan as it is today.

The result is, as MTC observes, a certain lightness in Mr. Aso's treatment of history. Unlike his comrades, he is not obsessed with the past. He respects the contributions made by Japan's war dead (as he makes clear in this speech on Yasukuni) but he appears more interested in reclaiming what one might call the Japanese dream than in refighting Japan's culture war.

Back in the Abe days, I linked to a review of Nicholas Sarkozy's Testimony by Bernard-Henri Levy, in which BHL speaks of M. Sarkozy's desire to overlook the blackest moments of the French twentieth century and look to a brighter, more glorious future. I suggested that M. Sarkozy shared this desire with Mr. Abe. But I may have been mistaken — Mr. Abe is obsessed with the blackest moments of Japan's twentieth century, if only to cast them in a different light, relativize them, or otherwise make them seem not quite as black. Mr. Aso is less interested in revising than in moving on, much like President Sarkozy. Now, as I wrote in the aforementioned post, I disagree with this desire to move on, but it must be said, as MTC notes, that there is a big difference between wanting to move on and wanting to revise the past.

I have plenty of areas of disagreement with Mr. Aso — notably absent from his list of Japan's accomplishments is its peacefulness (at least in part a product of his grandfather's and successors' decisions to institutionalize Japan's free- or cheap-riding on the US) — but I will not criticize him for his nationalism, which is at least rooted in Japan as it is.

Meanwhile I wonder if the differences between Mr. Aso's nationalism and Mr. Abe's nationalism are a result of the legacies of their prime minister grandfathers. Yoshida Shigeru virtually built the postwar system that Mr. Abe so despises. He laid the foundation for Japan's becoming the country of which Mr. Aso is so proud. Kishi Nobusuke raged against the Yoshida regime and the constitution that undergirded it (although he made his own contributions to the postwar system).

Mr. Aso may ultimately represent an attempt to merge these two traditions, an unabashed constitutional revisionist who is also unambiguously proud of the postwar system.

On Japanese nationalisms

Robert Dujarric of Temple University Japan had an op-ed in the Japan Times Wednesday in which he argued, "Japanese society may have problems but nationalism is not one of them."

He argues:

Regardless of the metric used, Japan scores very low on nationalism. Its investment in its armed forces as a percentage of national income is small, especially for a country living in close range of two potential war zones (the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan).

Moreover, in the past two decades the offensive capabilities of North Korea against Japan, namely its ballistic missiles and nuclear program, have grown significantly.

China, another potential adversary for Japan, clearly has a much stronger military than 20 years ago. But Japan continues to keep its military investment at around 1 percent of national income (perhaps a little more if other expenses are included).

The phenomenal waste in Japanese procurement programs also shows that the military budget is as much a funding mechanism for Japanese businesses as a tool to build up a strong military.

Moreover, when it comes to dealing with the outside world, Japanese diplomats are as unlikely as those of the Holy See to resort to threats of force. There are no John Boltons in the Japanese Foreign Ministry. This peaceful, low profile reflects a basic fact often ignored by outsiders: Japanese voters favor candidates who care about bread and butter issues over those whose concern is Japan's greatness and military might.

He attributes this lack of nationalism to an absence of a sense of victimization — as in South Korea and China — and a lack of universal values, a "messianic urge" that lends itself to a desire to seek regional or global domination. It also lacks the need to use nationalism to distract citizens from domestic problems or to promote unity in the presence of social cleavages.

Granted, Japan lacks these factors. But are these the only causes of nationalism? And are the only manifestations of nationalism more expansive defense budgets and a more robust foreign policy? With that phrase "regardless of the metric used," M. Dujarric manages to duck this question of just what is nationalism.

I would argue that the Japanese people on the whole are quite nationalistic. I think that the Japanese people on the whole are proud of Japan and of being Japanese, if not to the same extent as their neighbors or Americans.

As Yomiuri found in an opinion poll in January of this year, a record number of respondents (1650 out of 1780, 92.7%) said that they felt some or a lot of pride, with a record portion (55%) saying that they felt a lot of pride. That pride, however, did not translate into support for a policy of remilitarization or normalization. Asked what they think about contemporary Japan — i.e., the country of which they are proud — 59.7% saw it as a "peace-loving nation," followed by 35.9% who saw it as an economic great power, 27.2% who saw it as a country with a high level of culture, and 25.2% who saw it as a democratic nation. Only 2% saw it as a military great power, fewer than those who saw it as an "insular nation." (Respondents were free to choose as many answers as they desired from a list that also included "nation with a high level of welfare protection," "nation that is trusted by other countries," and "independent nation." Obviously this does not necessarily suggest that this is how the respondents want to be, but it is reasonable to infer that the 1780 respondents to this poll are actually quite proud of Japan's achievements culturally and economically — and they are proud of Japan's postwar record of abjuring from the use of force to resolve disputes.

In other words, a Japanese citizen can be nationalistic without sounding like Abe Shinzo. A Japanese can be proud — should be proud — of the Japan that exists, not the beautiful Japan that exists if only the constitution were revised.

Accordingly, it is inappropriate to discuss Japanese nationalism only in terms dictated by nineteenth-century nationalism, the kind of nationalism that helps the state unite the people behind common goals (often involving besting foreign rivals), the kind of nationalism that can be measured by M. Dujarric's metrics. (Interestingly, both South Korea and China used conscription, that great tool of nineteenth-century nationalism, as a means to tap national power.) Japan obviously has nationalists of the nineteenth-century variety, but they are far from the most numerous variety. They may, however, be the most influential, given their concentration among Japan's political and media elites. Thanks to the media, they certainly have influence far greater than their numbers.

M. Dujarric suggests that Japanese voters care about bread-and-butter issues, meaning that there is little support for the agenda pushed by hyper-nationalist conservatives, whose nationalism may well be driven by the same sense of victimhood and manifest destiny cited by M. Dujarric as factors in Chinese and South Korean nationalism. But that doesn't mean that the Japanese people are actively opposed to the hyper-nationalist agenda. They are opposed to governments that neglect bread-and-butter domestic issues — and as Mr. Abe learned, they are willing to punish said governments — but if a government satisfies those needs, the public is willing to give some leeway to the government on foreign and defense policy, leaving a strong nationalist prime minister the freedom with which to pursue the kind of nationalist agenda M. Dujarric claims isn't an issue in Japan.

Furthermore, as I argue in the current issue of the Far Eastern Economic Review, even Japanese citizens who do not support remilitarization or a cold war with China want their government to be more assertive in dealing with Beijing, especially in the case of China's transnational pollution and tainted products, which have consequences for Japanese households.

The picture is considerably more complicated than that provided by M. Dujarric. Yes, the Japanese public exhibits little of the nineteenth-century nationalism of conservative elites and Japan's neighbors, but that is quite different from saying that "nationalism isn't an issue" or relevant when considering how Japanese think about their country's place in the world.

"Pride" is not just the property of the LDP

In this post earlier this month, I discussed the importance of "pride" — hokori (誇り) — in the thinking of the Japanese right.

In this vein, Younghusband at Coming Anarchy writes of a dispute between the DPJ and The Economist over the recent cover that featured the pun "Japain."

Iwakuni Tetsundo, head of the DPJ's international bureau, wrote to complain about the cover:

...I strenuously object to the title on the cover of your Asia edition, 'Japain'. Japan is the official name of our nation, registered and acknowledged by the United Nations and other international bodies. It is completely outrageous that you combined the word for our nation with 'pain'. You made fun of our respected nation's name on a cover that is sold on newsstands all over the region. This conduct is equal to burning a national flag, which is base and inconsiderate. No nation's name should be treated like this.

I disapprove of the utter lack of humor on the part of Mr. Iwakuni, and, presumably, the DPJ, since Mr. Iwakuni seems to have written in an official capacity. Please take a deep breath: this is nothing like the burning of a national flag, and this stance makes the DPJ look silly and irrationally nativist.

This episode goes to show that a national pride that occasionally borders on chauvinism is not the unique property of the LDP and conservatives like Nakagawa Shoichi. This is a reality of Japanese politics today. I suspect Japanese politicians — and the Japanese people — may have a bit of a chip on their shoulder as a result of the slights and put downs the country endured during the lost decade. (Of course, the Japanese establishment engaged in ongoing self-criticism throughout the 1990s.) This suggests that nationalism and related-foreign policy issues will not be the basis for a new cleavage in a realigned political system. A certain degree of nationalism — if not loyalty to the nationalist agenda proposed by the LDP's conservatives — may be common to most Diet members.

This episode may also reflect a certain powerlessness on the part of the Japanese establishment, prompting officials and businessmen to lash out like this: it is difficult, after all, for Mr. Iwakuni to take issue with the substance of The Economist article, although he attempts to refute the magazine's criticism of the DPJ. Japan is mired in intractable social and economic problems that have diminished the country's international profile. As such, the DPJ and the establishment as a whole should not vent its frustrations at foreign critics, who for the most part have Japan's interests at heart.

What Fukuda has to look forward to

The LDP presidential campaign is proceeding apace, with substance occasionally intruding into the discussion.

Mr. Fukuda's remarks on North Korea policy — discussed here — have apparently triggered rumbling on the right, if Sankei's editorial today is any indication. Mr. Fukuda is obviously not a favor of Japan's right wing, not being one of their number and apparently not owing them anything. Labeling him as a proponent of the "dialogue line," Sankei calls Mr. Fukuda out on the abductions issue, asking him to provide concrete policies that he intends to pursue. The editorial then quotes some past Fukuda quotes on North Korea to show its readers just how soft Mr. Fukuda would be as prime minister. For example: "It is important that we come to embrace a flexible discussion approach." And: "It is natural that we face a changing international environment. It is likely that tactics will change." Both these lines sound good to me, but I guess the average Sankei reader — or perhaps just the average Sankei editor — is outraged by such unabashed pragmatism. (Sankei depends to know what Mr. Fukuda means by "changing international situation" and "tactics.")

Meanwhile, I wonder what Sankei will make of the prospects of better relations with Japan's Asian neighbors under a likely Fukuda administration. Kim Dae Jung, former South Korean president, has said while on a visit to Washington, DC that a Fukuda cabinet will probably mean a reinvigoration of Japan's relations in Asia. (I can't imagine that Sankei is all that pleased about Mr. Ozawa's December trip to China either. Mr. Ozawa will apparently be taking three charter planes full of DPJ Diet members [fifty in total] and supporters to meet with Hu Jintao.)

The Sankei's — and Yomiuri's — comments on Mr. Fukuda's approach to North Korea are a good reminder of what Mr. Fukuda will have to deal with both within and outside the LDP should he be elected party president. He is set to become the moderate, dovish head of a party of unruly hawks who want nothing more than to see Japan slap around North Korea until Kim Jong Il relents. (I think it's fair to describe Mr. Aso's North Korea policy as the "slap around" approach.) For the moment, the desire for unity and calm within the LDP is outweighing any concerns about Mr. Fukuda's ideas, but how long will his honeymoon last should he become prime minister?

Sympathy for the devils?

A common trope among the Japanese right's apologists, revisionists, and other outright deniers of Japan's wartime crimes is that Japanese imperialism was little different from the European imperialism that had divided up Asia over the centuries — indeed, Japanese imperialism was superior because it had the effect (intended or not) of liberating Asians from the European empires.

This may have been the case in the early years of the Japanese empire, when the Meiji oligarchs who conducted Japanese foreign policy were following lessons learned from the imperial powers. But Japan's imperialism from the 1930s onward (with roots in the immediate aftermath of the Russo-Japanese war) was arguably a different matter entirely. (Perhaps this difference is best illustrated in the differing legacies of Japanese imperialism in Taiwan and Korea.)

Why? In The War of the World, Niall Ferguson provides one explanation:

The new empires of the twentieth century were not content with the somewhat haphazard administrative arrangements that had characterized the old — the messy mixtures of imperial and local law, the delegation of powers as well as status to certain indigenous groups. They inherited from the nineteenth-century nation-builders an insatiable appetite for uniformity; in that sense, they were more like 'empire-states' than empires in the old sense. The new empires repudiated traditional religious and legal constraints on the use of force. They insisted on the creation of new hierarchies in place of existing social structures. They delighted in sweeping away old political institutions. Above all, they made a virtue of ruthlessness. In pursuit of their objectives, they were willing to make war on whole categories of people, at home and abroad, rather than on merely the armed and trained representatives of an identified enemy state. It was entirely typical of the new generation of would-be emperors that Hitler could accuse the British of excessive softness in their treatment of the Indian nationalists.

"Introduction," lxvi

I am not suggesting that I buy this argument entirely, but it's worth keeping in mind the next time a Japanese hyper-nationalist rolls out the argument that Japan was just doing what Britain, France, and Holland were doing.

Sankei pays tribute to the war dead by calling for a more activist Japan

In honor of the day of memorial for the end of the war on August 15, each of Japan's dailies has published an editorial marking the occasion.

They are, in general, fairly innocuous: Yomiuri's discusses history and Yasukuni Shrine, Asahi's looks at relations with Asian neighbors. Sankei's editorial, however, single-handedly illustrates the fundamental incoherence of the Japanese right, which is torn between reverence for the past, recognition of the importance of the US-Japan alliance and the need for Japan to contribute more internationally, and fear that everyone in East Asia is prepared to gang up on Japan — the sum of the "psychic whiplash" that Japan suffered in the rapid shift from total war to total defeat, occupation, and alliance with the victorious with the US (and now, on top of all this, China becoming a world-beating superpower).

After an opening section that talks of the sacrifices made by Japan's war dead for the Japanese people, Sankei launches into the following bizarre rant:

The US-Japan relationship, whose deepening is desired

It is deplorable that although Japan's international environment is becoming rather intense, foreign and security policy issues did not become a point of contention whatsoever in the latest House of Councillors election.

North Korea, which is chasing the two hares of recognition as a nuclear power and the acquisition of aid; China, which is feverishly following the path of a military and economic great power and neglecting the environment and food security; and Russia, which is pushing forward with energy imperialism in the background based on petroleum power: This is, without exaggeration, the appearance of our neighboring countries.

For this reason and more, the US-Japan relationship, which must be strengthened, is also increasingly creaky.

In regard to the six-party talks and America's giving in to the North without limit, it is naturally felt in Japan as an act of betrayal. As for the successive inappropriate incidents of former Defense Minister Kyuma Fumio's the atomic bombings "couldn't be helped" statement and the US Congress's adoption of the comfort women resolution, they have, as a result, given rise to deep distrust and disappointment in the US in the hearts of many Japanese, who have consequently perceived the inner workings of the relationship.

On the other hand, the fate of the anti-terror special measures law, because of the opposition's taking control of a majority in the Upper House, has become opaque in a stroke.

The MSDF's activities in the Indian Ocean being conducted for eleven countries is not simply "cooperation with the US," much less "following the US." It's international cooperation. If this law is buried, the separation between the international community, which is continuing the war on terrorism, and Japan will widen, and the loss of confidence will be immeasurable.

Japan, even while contributing $13 billion during the Gulf War, was not thanked — "too little, too late" — and thus must not commit the same foolish diplomatic mistake.

August 15 sixty-two years ago was a historical turning point for Japan equal to the Meiji Restoration. Japan followed the rare progression from America's enemy to its ally. Of course this began by way of the coercion of the occupation, and henceforth there was also tension and friction in economics, security, and other aspects of the relationship.

深化させたい日米関係

　日本の国際環境はむしろ厳しさを増しているのに、今回の参院選で外交・安全保障がほとんど争点にならなかったのは残念なことだった。

　核保有の既成事実化と支援獲得の二兎（にと）を追う北朝鮮、環境や食の安全を放置して軍事・経済大国路線をひた走る中国、そして石油パワーを背景に資源帝国主義を突き進むロシア。わが近隣諸国の掛け値なしの姿である。

　だからこそ一層、深化させねばならない日米関係にもきしみが走る。

　 ６カ国協議における米国の北への際限ない妥協は、日本には背信行為も同然に映る。下院本会議での慰安婦決議採択と久間章生前防衛相の原爆投下「しょうがな い」発言という相次ぐ不適切な出来事は、機微に触れるがゆえに、結果的に多くの日本人の心の奥深くに米国への失望と不信を生んだ。

　一方、対テロ特別措置法の命運は、野党が参議院で過半数を制したことにより一気に不透明になった。

　インド洋での海上自衛隊の活動は１１カ国に対して行われており、単なる「対米協力」ではない。ましてや「対米追随」ではない。国際協力なのだ。もし同法が葬られれば、テロとの戦いをつづける国際社会と日本の乖離（かいり）は広がり、信頼の損失は計り知れない。

　日本は、１３０億ドルを拠出しながら「少なすぎて遅すぎる」と感謝すらされなかった、湾岸戦争の外交的失敗を繰り返す愚を犯してはならない。

　６２年前の８月１５日は日本にとって明治維新にも匹敵する歴史の転換点だった。日本は米国を「敵」から「同盟」の相手とする稀有（けう）な歩みをつづけた。もちろんそれは占領という強制により始まり、その後も経済や防衛など数々の局面で摩擦や緊張はあった。

What can we learn from Sankei's publishing this on the anniversary of Japan's surrender to the allied powers? Japanese (ultra)nationalists, while recognizing that the alliance with the US is essential for Japan's exercising influence internationally, also chafe at perceived American slights against the Japan and apparently continue to suffer from the shock of Japan's rapid shift at war's end sixty years later.

Now, I am sympathetic to the idea that Japan has yet to heal fully from the wounds inflicted from moving from total war with the US to total dependence on the US, and I think it's an important factor in explaining the underlying tension in the relationship that continues to the present day.

What I reject is the cynicism (and the lack of humility). To me, this editorial's argument seems to say little more than "We cannot trust the Americans — and don't particularly like them — but we have no choice but to stay close to them if we're going to be able to deal with our nasty neighbors." Sankei is wholly unapologetic and not the least bit humbled by the defeat of Japanese imperialism that August 15th signifies. Sure, they take care to emphasize that Japan is engaged in international cooperation, but there is no question that Sankei is far more concerned about North Korea and China when it looks at contemporary Japanese security policy. It is ready for Japan to reenter the East Asian balance of power in a big way. Sankei has learned nothing from the war, perhaps except for the lesson that Japan should be more prepared this time around.

Meanwhile, while the editorial asserts that the US-Japan alliance "must" be strengthened, there is little to suggest what exactly that means (although I would guess it starts with abstaining from any criticism of Japan's wartime past and taking care to follow Japan's instructions in the six-party talks). The nationalists like those at Sankei — and, dare I say, at the Kantei — will ride the US train as long as it has locomotive power, but does anyone anticipate that Japan will value the alliance when the US is bruised, battered, and seemingly down for the count? (Such arguments have been cropping up ever more frequently in the pages of Japan's newspapers and journals.) Again, this need not be a problem — no alliance is permanent. But that makes the embrace of shared, universal values on the part of the Abes and Asos disingenuous and more than a little tawdry.

This is, I fear, the face of the men who govern Japan today. Free of humility, free of sorrow, free of regret, they see "uncertainty" — that ubiquitous word — in Asia and are immediately prepared to send Japan into battle again. Japan, of course, is by no means going to resurrect its co-prosperity sphere, and the practical consequences of this position, short of dangerously aggravating tension in the US-Japan relationship, will likely be small, but the persistence of this manner of thinking will in the long run make it harder for Japan to play a constructive role in upholding the global order, if only because every step taken by these nationalists will prompt a backlash at home and among Japan's neighbors (more specifically, the Korean and Chinese peoples).

The reality is that Japan will not be able to act in the world free of the shadow of the past until the leaders making the strategic decisions are sufficiently apologetic and humbled by their country's past. There is no way around it. There are no shortcuts. Repeating the same apology, word for word, over and over again, does not constitute atonement. Until that changes, otherwise innocuous gestures like refueling coalition vessels in the Indian Ocean will be tarnished (fairly or not) in the eyes of Japan's Northeast Asian neighbors and many Japanese citizens as indicative of the first steps in the grand designs of the ultranationalists.

Let the hyperbole begin

Congress has passed House Resolution 121, the "comfort women resolution," by unanimous consent — there were no nays voiced, and there was no roll call vote. According to one of my trusted correspondents, Congressman Tom Lantos, a Holocaust survivor, introduced the legislation by suggesting that there is no statute of limitations on apologies for these crimes and that asking for this apology is not asking too much of Japan, a friend and ally. Said Lantos: "The true strength of a nation is tested when it is forced to confront the darkest chapters in its history. Will it have the courage to face up to the truth of its past, or will it hide from those truths in the desperate and foolish hope they will fade with time?"

H.Res. 121 is an exceedingly modest piece of legislation. Non-binding, it does not request that the administration take steps to pressure Japan by linking the issue up with another bilateral issue; it appeals to Japan's good conscience to do the right thing by history, to do its duty to ensure that its children are fully aware of their country's bloody past, a burden that must be carried by every country (as discussed in this post).

I have already documented some of the extreme rhetoric emanating from Japan's ultra-nationalists in advance of the resolution's passage, and that rhetoric will undoubtedly intensify in the coming days and weeks.

Non-Japanese critics of the resolution are vulnerable to the same rhetorical excesses as Japanese critics. Take this post by Matt at Liberal Japan, in which he asks, "Are we all Fascists these days? Imperialists?" Hyperbolic fulminations along these lines have devalued terms like Fascism and Imperialism to the point of being analytically useless; they are now little more than slurs.

Imperialism, Matt? Really? The US isn't occupying the Diet until the government apologizes. It isn't threatening to stop defending Japan, abandoning it to its fate, or slapping economic sanctions on Japan. The US Congress is making an appeal out of good conscience, from one democracy to another, for Japan to strive harder to ensure that the truth of Japan's past is not revised, relativized, or ignored — to ensure that Japanese children have a full appreciation of their country's wartime past. The time for debate about the hypocrisy of the US or whether it is within the duties of the Congress to pass such legislation is past; the resolution is on the books. H.Res. 121 is not the equivalent of the invasion of Iraq, Matt, but a simple piece of non-binding legislation that seeks historical justice, both because it's the right thing to do and because it will make Japan a better US ally.

This resolution's passage ought to mean the end of hysterical rhetoric about how the US Congress is bullying poor Japan. It won't, but it should. Instead, H.Res. 121 will no doubt find a prominent place on the list of wounds inflicted on Japan's precious self-esteem by the US.

For a review of this whole process and the resolution's implications, including its connection with US Asia policy, I strongly recommend this post by Mindy Kotler at The Washington Note.

Another sign of lingering Japanese war guilt

Following yesterday's finding that a plurality of respondents indicated that Japan still needs to apologize for its actions during the war, I have found, thanks to a tip from a trusted correspondent, a survey conducted by Fuji TV'sHodo 2001" program in April that suggests that the Japanese people are far from defiant when it comes to making amends for Japan's wartime crimes.

If readers go to the Hodo 2001 site's public opinion survey archive and scroll down to the poll from 8 April, they will find an opinion poll that shows that the Japanese people are not exactly rallying behind The Facts brigade (and let's not forget the honorary representative from the English-language blogosphere).

The third question in the survey asked, "Regarding the comfort women issue, do you think that Japan has apologized sufficiently?" 43.8% answered no, 37.2% answered yes. (Beyond that, a majority answered "no" to the question asking whether Prime Minister Abe should pray at Yasukuni.)

At the same time, the survey found that 59% of respondents "cannot understand" the repeated criticism by Chinese and South Korean leaders of the various statements made by Japanese politicians about history problems, which goes to show, I think, that historical reconciliation begins at home; there is a limit to what efforts to improve acceptance of past crimes emanating from outside Japan can achieve, which is not to say that others should abstain from good-faith criticism of the revisionists, relativists, and deniers, but it must be done with the knowledge that ultimately the Japanese people have to do the job themselves.

Missing the point on Japan's normalization

Using the occasion of Japanese Air Self-Defense Force pilots participating in live-bombing exercises with the US in the Marianas, Norimitsu Onishi of the New York Times has a prominently featured article in today's edition (also on the front page, top of the fold of today's IHT) on Japan's shedding "military restraints."

The NYT website also features a short documentary called Rearming Japan.

In general, Onishi's article provides a fair summary of the contours of the debate, taking care to note, for example, that Japan, while ranking high on annual league tables of defense expenditures, has actually been letting its defense budget stagnate over the past decade.

And yet there are a few things that bear noting about this article.

First, Onishi premises the problematic nature of Japanese normalization on its "rattling nerves throughout northeast Asia." And yet the only example Onishi provides to support this is South Korea's recent launching of its first Aegis cruiser and President Roh's comments about an arms race in the region. It seems that if concerns about Japanese normalization are so prevalent, Onishi might have been able to muster a few more examples to show it. (Devin Stewart at Fairer Globalization notes that if Onishi had talked to Southeast Asians, he would have found them more supportive of a more active Japanese security policy.)

Second, and this is a far more substantial problem, Onishi's article and the companion video are lacking in context, both in terms of history and Japanese politics. Regarding the former, Japanese militarism was a product of political developments in Japan occurring at a given moment in history, when colonization and aggression were the hallmarks of great-power status. Just because Japan's ultra-nationalists make this argument does not make it untrue (but it also does not excuse what Japan did). The idea that Japan is going to invade China again, mentioned by one of the interview subjects in the film, is ludicrous and divorced from the facts. With its stagnant defense budget that increasingly emphasizes high-technology air and sea platforms over the GSDF, which according to recent planning documents is set to see its numbers fall, the JSDF may have a hard time helping at the Snow Festival in Hokkaido, let alone invading China.

In terms of the domestic political context, while Onishi gets the change within the LDP right, thanks to an assist from Richard Samuels, he misses the far more significant domestic political change: the ousting of the Socialists from their position as the leading opposition party, the destruction of the Japanese left more generally, and the rise of the Democratic Party of Japan. He quotes DPJ Secretary-General Hatoyama Yukio criticizing the government for violating the constitution in its activities in Iraq, but he misleadingly fails to mention that Hatoyama and his party are less concerned about Japan's playing a more active role than they are concerned about Japan's becoming to close to the US, which they feel has become dangerously aggressive. The DPJ's critique, in general, is not a pacifist one by any means, although former Socialists in its ranks still stand by that position. Rather, the DPJ rejects the argument made by former JDA chief Ishiba Shigeru in this article: "I think the Japan-U.S. security relationship should be as unified as possible, and our different roles need to be made clear."

The DPJ, perhaps because opposition affords it the luxury of taking positions that could be more difficult to adopt in government, has emphasized Japan's need for more independence from the US (I discussed one particularly articulate discussion of this here).

In other words, the debate is far more interesting than Onishi notes — it is by no means simply a matter of pacifists versus nationalists.

This raises the larger question, addressed by Samuels and J. Patrick Boyd in the monograph discussed in this post, of why Japan tied its own hands in security policy in the first place. As they argue convincingly, it was a matter of the political balance within the LDP, with the pragmatic mainstreamers, who favored the Yoshida line, receiving assistance from the political opposition and public opinion in their fight against the LDP's revisionists. But they sought limits not out of pacifism, but because it made good strategic sense. In other words, to adapt a Marxist concept, Japan's postwar pacifism may well have been the superstructure that served as a more presentable face for the substructure, Japan's assessment of its postwar interests as enshrined in the Yoshida doctrine.

With Japan's interests changing as the balance of power in East Asia shifts, it is to be expected that Japan would reconsider its interests in the new era and adjust its grand strategy and defense priorities accordingly. The rise of the nationalist revisionists is one aspect of that, but their rise has been accompanied by the collapse of the left and the emergence of a political opposition that is also interested in seeing Japan's grand strategy change. It may be useful to think of the situation once again as a matter of superstructure and substructure. Today, the superstructure of Japanese normalization is provided by Japan's ultra-nationalists, who never cease cranking out material that leads Japan's neighbors (and ally) to question normalization. The substructure, meanwhile, is once again shaped by a realistic assessments of Japan's interests, threats, and opportunities. Having talked with enough officials in MOFA and the Japanese Ministry of Defense, as well as members of the Diet from both the LDP and the DPJ, it is clear that there are enough important policy makers in Tokyo who don't buy the rhetoric of the ultra-nationalists even as they acknowledge that Japan needs a new doctrine that reflects contemporary realities and may require Japan's acting as a security provider.

In light of these considerations, one has to ask why the NYT thinks this article is so important as to merit page-one coverage.

Is Japan really poised to threaten its neighbors anytime soon, if ever? Is Japan truly ready to follow the US into combat in the "arc of instability" (and refueling in the Indian Ocean, as important a mission as its been, does not count)? Is Japan really even close to possessing even a conventional deterrent in its showdown with North Korea? These are the questions one must keep in mind while reading this article. As unnerving as Japan's ultra-nationalists are, for the moment they are still more of a menace, if that, to the Japanese polity than to Japan's neighbors (see earlier posts on Abe here and here, and Sakurai Yoshiko and the ultra-nationalists more generally here).

A journey to the center of Mr. Abe

I mentioned earlier that I was in the process of reading Prime Minister Abe's Utsukushii Kuni e [Towards a beautiful country], the book he published in advance of last autumn's LDP presidential election and that was a popular seller after his inauguration as the Japanese people tried to figure out just who their new prime minister is.

Well, I've finished my slog through it, and I cannot deny that for all the interminably boring bits — and there were plenty — it was an incredibly useful book to read.

This books reads like the prime minister's stream-of-consciousness. He jumps from topic to topic, draws on memories at random, and refers to recent Hollywood movies (Terminal, Million Dollar Baby) and American and British politicians and political events (Margaret Thatcher, Winston Churchill, Arthur Greenwood, Ronald Reagan, the Iran hostage crisis, among others) to make his points. There are chapter and section headings, but they tend to be of a general nature, giving Mr. Abe's mind plenty of room to wander. One might argue that referencing Hollywood movies was an attempt by the prime minister to seem more a man of the people, but the references (and plot summaries) are labored and don't add anything to the text — they certainly struck me as strange. All of this makes for a bizarre book, certainly not the kind of book one would expect from a man on the brink of being chosen as the leader of a world power (the same probably goes for Foreign Minister Aso's new book).

Having said that, I want to make a couple more serious points about the content of the book, to add to those I've made on previous occasions.

First, Abe's view of the state is deeply unsettling. He references Hobbes's Leviathan to make the case for a strong state that is capable of securing the lives and property of its citizens. But aside from a offhand remark about Kant to dismiss his ideas, his view of the state stops with Hobbes. It's almost as if he was in a class on political theory, paid close attention at the start ("this Hobbes guy is great"), missed a couple weeks, poked his nose in for Kant, didn't like him, and decided to cut the rest of the semester. No Locke, nothing about the American founders except to praise them for building a strong state via the constitution and note the importance of the Declaration of Independence to Americans, no Rousseau, no French Revolution, no Mill — you get the idea.

It's one thing to not bother paying tribute to Western political theory, but to cherry pick from the Western political tradition, borrowing from a seventeenth century thinker whose society was actually in dire need of a leviathan around the time he was writing, is revealing. To Abe, the state's duty to protect its citizens is all-important. To him, the central dilemma of modern Western political philosophy — the search for a balance between liberty and security — does not exist. What matters is security. And so there is no compromising over North Korea's abductions of Japanese citizens. And there is little tolerance for dissenting opinions. Abe seems to have little tolerance or understanding for those who view the world differently than him (and his grandfather), castigating journalists and liberal academics at one point or another for their views. While he claims that to defend Japan is to defend "liberty and democracy," he does not spend all that much time talking about what those mean to him and to Japan.

In all honesty, Abe would probably fit right in at the Bush-Cheney White House.

Take this line, for example: "The state and the people should not have a conflictual relationship, they should have a complementary relationship." I find this line revealing not only concerning Abe's political views (he takes the idea of the emperor as the symbol of this relationship seriously), but also concerning the political development of Japan. This idea strikes my American ears as unusual, and I think it would find a mixed reception throughout the West, even in relatively more statist continental Europe. While the US probably goes too far in the direction of anti-statism, the basic idea of the state and its agents and representatives serving the people and being held accountable by the people (necessarily conflictual, no?) is fundamental to American (and liberal) political thought.

Abe rejects that, however. The divide is not a divide — not governed and government, but state and people living in dynamic unity. There is nothing about how democracy squares with this vision of the state, but I can imagine based on what Abe has said and done since becoming prime minister. Just yesterday LDP Secretary-General Nakagawa Hidenao provided the perfect expression to illustrate Abe's political thought:

President Ozawa says, "We will bring about the reversal of government and opposition parties and a two-major-party system, and establish democracy in Japan." Whichever country, whatever era is he talking about? He probably bears a grudge to the LDP. The goal of politics is not the reversal of government and opposition parties and a two-major-party system. What kind of Japan to build is most important. Democracy is not established? Democracy is established in Japan.

I wrote back in January, after the prime minister's speech to open the new Diet session, that Prime Minister Abe fancies himself some kind of twenty-first century genro, a statesman rising above low, democratic politics and plotting the course of the ship of state for the next 50 to 100 years. There is nothing in his book to dispel that impression.

Meanwhile something he wrote about the LDP caught my eye, because it pertains to Japan's alliance with the US. He suggests that the two reasons for the union between the Liberal and Democratic parties to form the LDP, a union engineered by his grandfather, were to achieve high economic growth rates and to restore Japan's independence, with revising the occupation-era constitution and education law being key aims for the restoration of Japan's independence. To Prime Minister Abe, Japan is only de jure independent because it still is governed by a constitution drafted by foreign, by American hands. In other words, the occupation never ended.

He later gets around to dedicating a whole chapter to the "Composition of the US-Japan alliance," but spends a good chunk of it talking about the drafting of the constitution by SCAP, and then talking about how Japan should be able to act more assertively abroad — but not necessarily in cooperation with the US. Here's what the prime minister has to see about his country's relationship with the US:

While it goes without saying that the utmost self-help effort for the security of the homeland, the fight to "defend one's own country oneself," is essential, if one thinks about nuclear deterrence and the stability of the Far Eastern region, the alliance with the US is indispensable, and if one takes into account US influence in international society, its economic power, and its unsurpassed military power, the US-Japan alliance is the best choice.

Moreover, I must clarify the point that today, the US and Japan share the basic viewpoint of liberty and democracy, human rights, the rule of law, and freely competitive market economics. This is a common understanding among the world's liberal countries.

While that statement seems fairly innocuous as rhetoric about the US-Japan alliance goes, it needs to be unpacked, because what seems like a fairly confident statement of support of the alliance with the US is actually quite brittle. The key is the idea of the alliance as a "choice." Obviously in mundane legal terms, the alliance is the product of the 1960 treaty, approved by both countries' legislatures without coercion, whatever the controversy in Japan surrounding the treaty. But in practical terms, it is not often that one hears Japanese or American statesmen speak about the alliance as a "choice," subject to prevailing conditions — if those conditions change, a different choice could be made. One wonders what would happen if the US no longer appears to be the best choice, as it may already be becoming (see Nakanishi Terumasa in the July issue of Voice). What happens if the US can no longer be relied upon the provide nuclear deterrence and/or stability in the Far East (note that stability is a flexible term that could mean very different things to Washington and Tokyo)?

The second paragraph, meanwhile, contradicts the first in a way. If the alliance is a choice — the product of US predominance that makes alliance profitable for Japan — then why even bother talking about shared values? The first paragraph makes clear that the alliance is not, in fact, indispensable; it is indispensable only in prevailing conditions. Talking about shared values suggests something enduring, like, say, the US-UK relationship, which, whatever the vacillations from administration to administration and cabinet to cabinet, is about as enduring a feature of international relations as one can find. A British prime minister might discuss his government's priorities (Brussels vs. Washington), but to talk about the alliance with the US as a "choice" suited to the circumstances would sound ridiculous.

No, Abe's clarification about shared values of "liberty and democracy" — a phrase that Abe seems to use frequently in lists without ever bothering to define, as if the definitions of these concepts are crystal clear — seems to me more like window dressing than a new basis for the alliance, as the subsequent paragraph makes clear:

Then, what should we defend? It goes without saying, the independence of the state, namely the sovereignty of the state and the peace that we enjoy. Practically speaking, our lives and property, and our liberty and human rights. Of course, the culture, tradition, and history of we Japanese can be included among these things that should be protected...

At no point in this paragraph is it clear that he is talking about "we" as the US and Japan. The first "we" could be the alliance, the second just "we Japanese," — or else both could be applying to "we Japanese," with the second used for emphasis. Whatever the case, it strikes me as ambiguous, and this list of security interests does not necessarily seem dependent on the alliance, depending on who or what is threatening a given interest.

Now, mind you, I have no problem with Japan acting more independently to secure its interests, within the alliance if possible, without if absolutely necessary. What I reject is achieving more independence by subterfuge and deception. Instead of pretending to be the good ally while using closer alliance ties as a way to prep Japan for a more independent role, the Japanese government, if it in fact desires a new arrangement, ought to be more forthright about it.

Those are my most important responses to Mr. Abe's little book. If you have the time and the inclination, it's worth a read, even with his premiership on the ropes. (Indeed, the prime minister might not be in power by the time the English translation appears in the fall.)

The white-hot rage of the ultra-nationalists

From the blog of Sakurai Yoshiko, newscaster and lady of the right, comes the text of her article in the 7 July issue of Shukan Daiyamondo concerning the comfort women resolution.

Hers is another contribution to the fury of Japanese ultra-nationalists that is spilled across the pages of Japan's weeklies and monthlies as the congressional resolution nears passage, but it is worth considering, because it illustrates the rage that is bubbling up to the surface. Perhaps this is what Ambassador Kato was referring to? Whatever the case may be, I wonder if Congress is aware of the fury it has sparked in certain corners of public opinion here, and whether Congress particularly cares.

In any event, after reiterating the "fact" of the US military setting up its own comfort women system during the occupation of Japan, which was included in the now infamous Washington Post ad to which Sakurai was a signatory, Sakurai wonders what is to be done about this resolution. Allow me to translate:

...What should Japan do to deal with this kind of trend in the US of ongoing political criticism of Japan under the flags of "human rights" and "women?" Many people say that it is good to be silent and let it pass, since there is no possibility of refutation.

But in the event of taking criticism contrary to the facts, isn't the foundation for mutual understanding making a rebuttal with accurate facts? Silence is acquiescence in the face of baseless attacks on the truth, and to not speak will continue to bring dishonor to all Japanese.

I must predict that if the comfort women resolution passes, this issue will not thereupon die, but rather give birth to a more serious state of affairs...

そのような米国で進行中の“人権”“女性”を掲げた日本批判の政治の潮流に、日本はどう対処すべきか。反論してもムダであるから、黙ってやり過ごすのがよいと多くの人が言う。

だが、事実に反する非難を受けた場合、正確な事実をもって反論するのが相互理解の基本ではないのか。沈黙は、根拠なき非難を事実として認めるものであり、日本人全員に、いわれなき汚名を着せ続けることだ。

慰安婦決議が成立すれば、問題はそこで終わるのではなく、さらに深刻な状況が生まれることも予測しなければならないだろう。

This is actually relatively polite, as far as responses to the comfort women resolution from Japan's ultra-nationalists go. But all the tell-tale signs are there. The certainty that if they just keep repeating their "facts" over and over again, the wool will be lifted from the eyes of those who have been misled; the posturing that leads Sakurai to claim to speak on behalf of all Japanese, who will be dishonored if this tiny non-binding resolution isn't crushed; the questioning of the motives of the US (see the scare quotes around human rights and women): these are standard tropes in the gallons of ink spilled against this resolution of which I'm certain not even one percent of Americans are aware. This is the ugly side of America's Japanese ally. The airing of arguments such as these do not invalidate the alliance by any means (yet). I certainly don't think that Sakurai and company speak for the Japanese people. But they're out there, in positions of importance, and there is not nearly enough opposition to them in Japan's marketplace of ideas.

Their success is a testament to the unresolved historical issues between Japan and the US, issues left untouched during the cold war for strategic reasons but which have metastasized into a comprehensive world view for these ultra-nationalists who are convinced that Japan has done its penance — for crimes it did not even commit! — and any suggestion to the contrary besmirches the honor of the Japanese people and must be answered with righteous rage.

For my part, I tend to be highly skeptical of people who are as insistent as Sakurai Yoshiko and her compatriots that they have The Facts and everyone else is ignorant or malicious, because it is a world view that leaves no room for even the slightest possibility of those Facts might be wrong and that those who disagree might be doing so simply out of devotion to the truth, not devotion to an ideology.

Do I think, as Steve Clemons does, that the prominence of these ultra-nationalists in Japan is a sign of a return to the 1930s for Japan? No, not at all. I don't think the Japanese people have a sustained, programmatic interest in these conservative grudges, if the fate of constitution revision as the central focus of the Upper House elections is any indication. Rather, the danger they pose is to the alliance with the US, because enough of these tantrums and the US government may eventually tire of relying heavily on Japan as a partner in East Asia and look to alternative arrangements as a means of defending its interests in the region (engendering no small amount of instability).

Meanwhile, if you really want to see an example of the frustrated, dare I say impotent outrage of the ultra-nationalists, you would do well to read Takayama Masayuki's essay "Master" in the 19 July issue of Shukan Shincho (I am indebted to a trusted correspondent for sending along a translation of this essay).