Pan-Asianism All Over Again

For the academic with tenure: the long essay comparing the tone of 1920s and 1930s Japanese Pan-Asianist writings with very kind, well-meaning predictions like this:

Asia will develop a greater sense of regional awareness and cohesion. The region is still compartmentalised into Northeast, Southeast, South, Central and West Asia. But the region’s current collaborative efforts — such as the ASEAN-Plus formula, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation — will gradually lead it towards a greater level of pan-Asian cooperation.

(Link)

Eeek! I certainly hope not. I have seen this movie before and the ending is a downer.

Dr. Yang must be negotiating complex  intellectual mine fields. It must be exhausting to try to at once offer a positive message and stay within the boundaries of what is acceptable to the Beijing regime and its self-proclaimed defenders. The essay must be understood in those terms, as a chip tossed into an ocean of loaded code words and approvable poses, rather that just a justification for Chinese disruption of international institutions and norms behind a false front of making the global commons more fair and reflective of cultural difference.

Perhaps forgiveness can be extended in two directions: to Chinese intellectuals in this era of expansion who labor under the thumb of capricious, self-serving authoritarianism and to Japanese intellectuals of the pre-defeat era who faced a parallel situation.

That Cabinet Office Opinion Poll

I have expressed exasperation at the writings of Hannah Beech* of TIME magazine. As a journalist whose beat is not Japan, she has had a habit of overstating her case , chasing after mirages and crashing into mirrors whenever she casts her gaze upon this blessed land.

Which is why I must link to Ms. Beech's most recent post on TIME's website. The writing is a bit too assured but the facts are all there -- and facts redeem. (Link)

The only sentence with which I can take issue is one regarding Japanese attitudes toward China -- and to be fair the sentence may not even of Ms. Beech's composition:

Last year's triple disaster of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis was supposed to shake the country out of its paralyzing placidity. But little has happened since besides a flurry of civil-society activity and some well-attended antinuclear protests. If the Japanese seem uniformly passionate about anything, it's antipathy toward a rising neighbor to the west. More than 80% of Japanese say they harbor unfriendly sentiments about China, up nearly 10% from last year, according to a survey by Japan’s Cabinet Office. "Ten years ago, I was considered an ultra-nationalist," says Yoshiko Sakurai, a former TV anchor who has written books with titles like he Determination to Stand Up to China. "But now these are ordinary thoughts in Japan."

Now this number is a favorite of journalists, both domestic and non-Japanese. However, is the quotation accurate?

The Cabinet Office's annual Survey on Foreign Relations (Gaiko ni kan suru yoronchosa) is a treasure trove of data points for any journalist, polemicist or annoying blogger. As a long-term time series, it provides a foundation for any argument about major shifts in public attitudes.

The survey (the latest edition, released on November 26 - Link - J), in its section on China, does start out with a question about the emotional aspect of Sino-Japanese relations. However, the question is not "Do you like/not like China?" It is "Do you feel a sense of closeness (shitashimi) with China?" -- to which the responses are:

I feel a sense of closeness 3.9%

If I have to choose one or the other, I feel it 14.1%

I don't know** 1.4%

If I have to choose one or the other, I do not feel it 31.2%

I do not feel a sense of closeness 49.5%

(Link - J)

The combination of the last two figures are what produces the aforementioned 80%.

Though the spectrum of Japanese emotions and the ability of Japanese to express emotions are idiosyncratic, can one really equate a lack of a feeling of closeness with antipathy -- except in the most philological of interpretations?

The Survey, in addition to asking about the degree of affinity respondents feel, asks respondents for their objective view of the Sino-Japanese relationship. The results are quite bleak:

I think the relationship is friendly 0.6%

I guess it is friendly 4.2%

I can't say 1.1%

I don't know 1.3%

It doesn't seem friendly 28.9%

I don't think it is friendly 63.8%

(Link - J)

When 93% of respondents do not think the relationship is going well, they are 1) informed as regards the current state of the relationship and 2) ready for changes in international behavior.

For those wishing to bolster a Japan is becoming more nationalist/militarist/isolationist argument, the Survey will likely disappoint. To the question, "What role should Japan fulfill in international affairs?" the percentages of respondents agreeing with a particular role are [with percentages from the 2011 Survey in ( )]:


Humanitarian relief and peacekeeping 60.7% (61.7%)

Environment and climate change 52.5% (56.0%)

Disarmament and nonproliferation 42.5% (41.0%)

Development in underdeveloped nations 38.4% (36.9%)

Help for refugees and stateless persons 38.2% (38.0%)

Healthy global economic growth 35.7% (39.8%)

Efforts to promote freedom and human rights 35.7% (33.3%)

Development in science and technology 33.6% (34.5%)

International cultural heritage preservation and cultural exchange 24.6% (26.6%)

Other 0.3% (0.3%)

Nothing in particular 1.8% (1.0%)

Don't know 3.3% (4.6%)

(Link - J)


First, note the lack of dramatic year-on-year shifts. Either the Cabinet Office is asking the same folks for their opinions year after year, or views of Japan's role in international affairs are shared by a broad swath of the populace with stability in perceptions over the near- and medium-term.

Second, note the support for Japan taking an active, expansive role in making the world a more peaceful and more humane place.

Third, note the low numbers for cooperation in the spread of democracy and human right or of international advancement in science and technology. Not great news for those who want Japan as an ally in a values-based diplomacy or those wanting to portray Japan as a nation of tech enthusiasts.

Fourth, imagine running the above list past a random selection of citizens of the United States. Yes, I am laughing too.


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* No tittering about her thumbnail image (Link). We all try to put our best foot forward. Look at my thumbnail, for Amaterasu's sake.

** This should probably be "I have no opinion either way" rather than "Don't know." A person who does not know his or her own feelings is pitiable.

On the G20 Cannes Meeting - Two Classical Civilizations Meet At Last

We live in a world where the question of whether or not the global economy tumbles into depression depends on whether or not the savings of Chinese peasants can be mustered to bail out Greek pensioners and civil servants.

Sometimes it is worthwhile to be on the sidelines -- as the Japanese government is laboring mightily to do -- and watch the circus parade go by.

A Frequent Correspondent...

...has reminded me that Temple University will be hosting a presentation by U.S. POWs of Japan on Monday the 17th at 18:00.

What makes the visit special in terms of U.S.-Japan relations is that is the first arranged by the Government of Japan as part of a program of visits by former POWs and their families. Prior to this, the Government of Japan visit program was restricted to U.K. and Netherlands POWs, for reasons no one could reasonably explain -- though unreasonably, it likely had something to do with the presence of U.S. bases in Japan and the absence of commensurate U.K. and Dutch bases.

Anyway, these men are very, very mature. If you want to hear their stories, you will likely not have another chance.

These are not on the whole angry men. However, they still have issues with Japanese institutions, even after the quiet and very limited apology made by Ambassador Fujisaki Ichiro in 2009. They are still demanding the back wages they are owed by the companies who employed them during their imprisonment. Neither the GOJ nor the U.S. government are supporting these claims, though the amounts, due to inflation, are now trifling.

So if you are free next Monday eve, there is a probably last chance to see some folks who lived history, rather than watched it pass by.

The Temple page on the event can be found at:

https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=289113247781368

Tentative Notes Upon the Hatoyama Government's Statement on Non-Interference in U.S. Strategic Planning

Dr. Jeffrey Lewis of Arms Control Wonk passes on some good news: the Government of Japan is not in favor of the U.S. military’s retention of the TLAM-N nuclear-armed cruise missile and the development of the RNEP earth penetrator. At the Ministry of Foreign Affairs press conference of January 22 of this year, it was revealed that Foreign Minister Okada Katsuya sent letters to both U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates on December 24 of last year. In the letters FM Okada declares that the Government of Japan has no opinion as to the retention or abolition of these two systems, or any other systems for that matter. The letter to Secretaries ask only that the U.S. consult with Japan regarding the cancellation or development of systems, explaining how U.S. actions will affect deterrence.

In his post on the Okada Statement, Dr. Lewis shows confusion over Foreign Minister Okada’s dismissal of an inconvenient truth: Japanese diplomats did actually lobby the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States for the retention of these weapons systems.

Dr. Lewis sees a “non-denial denial” going on:

"It was reported in some sections of the Japanese media that, during the production of the report of the “Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States” released in May this year, Japanese officials of the responsible diplomatic section lobbied your government not to reduce the number of its nuclear weapons, or, more specifically, opposed the retirement of the United States’ Tomahawk Land Attack Missile – Nuclear (TLAM/N) and requested that the United States maintain a Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP).

However, the Japanese Government is not in a position to judge whether it is necessary or desirable for your government to possess particular [weapons] systems. Hence, although the discussions were held under the previous Cabinet, it is my understanding that, in the course of exchanges between our countries, including the deliberations of the above mentioned Commission, the Japanese Government has expressed no view concerning whether or not your government should possess particular [weapons] systems such as TLAM/N and RNEP. If, hypothetically, such a view was expressed, it would clearly be at variance with my views, which are in favor of nuclear disarmament.

Nevertheless, if TLAM/N is retired, we hope to receive ongoing explanations of your government’s extended deterrence policy, including any impact this might have on extended deterrence for Japan and how this could be supplemented."

“Some sections of the Japanese media” almost certainly refers to Masa Ota’s excellent story, Japan lobbied for robust nuclear umbrella before power shift, in Kyodo News(November 24, 2009). Ota reported that senior Japanese diplomats told the Commission that the United States should retain the TLAM-N and develop low-yield nuclear options.

Although Okada seems to deny that Japan lobbied the Commission, it looks to be the classic non-denial denial. (It would be helpful to parse the original Japanese, but Okada admits to the exchanges, which in any event are listed at the back of the Posture Commission Report, denying only the expression of a “view concerning whether or not [the US] should possess particular [weapons] systems.”)

In any event, everyone in Washington knows that Mr. Akiba and Mr. Kanai expressed precisely such a view, even if it would be inconvenient, not to mention career-ending, for them to admit it now...

Looking at the original Japanese letter to Secretary Clinton, it seems that the source of the confusion is an imprecise translation. On the whole, the translation provided by the Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center is fluid and correct. However, the translation of the face-saving pair of sentences beginning "Hence, although the discussions...” and ending ”...which are in favor of nuclear disarmament" contain what seem to be two significant errors in translation.

First, in the translated version, "the Japanese Government" is the subject of the subordinate clause in the first sentence. In the Japanese original, the subordinate clause has no subject due to the use of "the government of our country as itself" (Wagakuni seifu to shite) as a subordinate clause topic identifier and the sly replacement of the normal robust construction nobeta koto ga nai with the more diffuse nobeta koto wa nai. Under normal circumstance switching “wa” for “ga” would be a style matter, an affectation. Here, however, the writer seems to be intentionally choosing the smudgy nobeta koto wa nai construction. He/She is very careful to switch back to the robust "ga" form in the next sentence (“nobeta koto ga atta") when talking about the reality that Japanese diplomats did indeed make such requests.

Second, the words moshi and kari ni are translated “if, hypothetically…” I am not sure to what extent the most popular online dictionary’s translation of the phrase “moshi kari ni” as “hypothetically” has affected the word choice here. As there is a comma in between moshi and kari ni these are separate clauses, the moshi indicating the introducation of a hypothetical and kari ni indicating the idea of “temporarily” or “tentatively” -- this rather than a repetition of the hypothetical established by moshi.

Introducing these ideas, the sentences read something more like:

"Hence, although the discussions were held under the previous Cabinet, it is my understanding that, in the course of exchanges between our countries, including the deliberations of the above mentioned Commission, it was never the case that views were expressed as being those of our government concerning whether or not your government should possess particular [weapons] systems such as TLAM/N and RNEP. If, in some tentative way such a view was expressed, it would clearly be at variance with my views, which are in favor of nuclear disarmament."

I think that this clears up the problem of attribution Dr. Lewis identifies.

I of course invite readers to show me I am talking out of my hat.

Later - The FAS Strategic Security blog has more on the Okada letters.

Later still - Fixed the broken link to the original MOFA document.

This Land, This Earth, These Words Unspoken

"Hatoyama-san. I am sorry. I come without a fixed plan to reduce America's carbon emissions, thus abdicating my country's natural role as the leader in the fight against anthropogenic climate change, the greatest threat facing us all. I have no plan to free our countries from petroleum dependency, thus guaranteeing that we will continue to bankroll the petroleum tyrannies which have grown in number over the last decade, swallowing up once-promising elected democracies.

I come asking for your help in regards Iran and Afghanistan whilst saying in nothing in public about America's role in the creation of the problems posed by these states. I will not openly recognize the unfairness of pressing allies to help out in reining in Iran when it was the CIA that overthrew the elected government of Iran, installing a puppet monarch -- or in pacifying Afghanistan, when it was the U.S. that armed and arranged for the training of the anti-Soviet forces that were to transmogrify into Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

I am not going to apologize, of course, for my country's having seemingly learned nothing from Japan's real estate/equity markets bubble. I certainly will not apologize for Americans having harangued the Japanese government for failing to to prevent the Bubble or for not responding with proper speed and sufficient scale to stop an overall economic collapse. I will also not pay tribute to the Japanese policy makers who managed to keep unemployment in Japan low during the worst parts of the so-called Lost Decade when I and my team have allowed unemployment to soar past 10% in just one year.

I am also sorry that I will be making oblique, negative references to your proposition that Japan needs to relocate its central foreign policy axis to a point in between China and the United States without ever mentioning the shadow cast on U.S.-China relations by the immense store of U.S. Treasuries and other dollar assets China has piled up over the last six years, effectively bankrolling America's wars, tax cuts and fiscal profligacy.

As a Pacific islander, I should express a greater sympathy for the burdens placed by both your government and mine on the people of Okinawa. I will not say anything, however, that could annoy my military commanders or interfere with their schedules. "

"Dear Obama-san. I too am sorry.

I came into power without actually having thought through what my goals are. I do have a long list of things-to-do in my party's manifesto, much of which I have a real chance of enacting due to the immense parliamentary majority I enjoy. However, if you ask me what the five main goals are for my tenure, I would respond with a quintet of platitudes.

My country has a crashing birth rate, is deeply in debt and faces a rapidly growing army of retirees. I have no idea how to respond to these worsening problems. Enacting the policies listed my party's manifesto will likely exacerbate my country's already staggering fiscal crisis.

I will promise you all kinds of international economic contributions in lieu of sending Japanese into harm's way. There is no realistic means, however, for me to finance all of my pledges to you and keep my promises to my voters. You do not need to guess who it is I will shortchange.

As the father myself and in honor of your two young daughters, I should pledge that Japan will do its utmost to join with the international community in wiping out the twin scourges of child pornography and child abduction. I will offer vague promises of action, maybe.

You have come so far and I have nothing of substance to give you. I wish that I could tell you that will be around for a long time, so you can rely on me to make up later for having nothing for you now. However, I hired an idiot as the accountant for my political funding organization, who then engaged in activities that I have, in Diet session, said look criminal to me. Given Japanese law I am likely to lose my premiership and might even be forced to give up my Diet seat."

"We should apologize to both our peoples for pretending that there is much of anything we can do about the threat posed by North Korea except engaging in humiliating and pointless on-off negotiations, continuously refining missile defense and maintaining the threat of a nuclear attack on North Korea, should the least thing happen to Japan."

"We should. But we won't, will we?"

"No, because saying so would expose the inconsistency between our stated faith in dialogue, our wishes for a world free of nuclear weapons and our peoples' desires for closure -- and the dogged presence in North Korea of a dirt-poor regime insensitive to anything but the threat of ultimate annihilation."

"But surely the people of our countries can understand the necessity of being inconsistent?"

"Yours probably can but not mine."

Image: Kohauchiwa kaede (Acer sieboldianum) and kuromatsu (Pinus thunbergii) on Mutsuishiyama, Okutama Township, Tokyo Metropolitan District. November 3, 2007. Image credit: MTC.

Nor anything that is thy neighbors

Let us say you are well-off, pink-hued, native-English speaking citizen of a Security Council P5 country, a country whose mottled history has left its Latin name often prefaced by the word "perfidious." Is there not something a little unseemly about trash talking in a lingua franca publication about Japan's invisibility on the international level?*

Japan goes missing: invisible host at the summit
Financial Times

By Philip Stephens - July 3 2008 19:18 - I have a question. Where is Japan? The world leaders and accompanying media hordes heading this weekend for the shores of Lake Toya need not turn to their atlases. The question is one of psychology rather than geography. Japan is still the world’s second most powerful economy. Politically, it is all but invisible.

(...)

This is all of a piece with its barely visible profile in the global arena. I spend a fair part of my life on the international conference circuit. Never before have governments – of rising as well as mature powers – devoted as much time to peering into their crystal balls in search of a new geopolitical landscape. By and large – I can think of one recent exception – Japan is absent from such events. What is more, Japan's place in the new order rarely merits mention by its peers.

(..)

Scroll back to the late 1980s. Japan was the rising power. Academics and journalists fell over themselves in the rush to predict that its economic might was destined to eclipse that of the US. When foreign policy experts declared that the 21st century would belong to Asia, they were not thinking about China and India.

Politicians in Washington fulminated as Japanese companies snapped up such American icons as New York’s Rockefeller Center and Hollywood's Columbia Pictures. US motorists swapped their Fords and Chevrolets for Toyotas.

And now? Well, western consumers still buy Toyotas; and Sony and Toshiba continue to produce all manner of electronic wizardry. But Japan has become an afterthought in the discourse about the fast-shifting balance of global power. The Asian century is about China and India...

What a wonderful thing it must be to be on the international conference circuit, on expenses-paid junkets from one hotel suite to the next, bumping into individuals as well-coiffed as oneself and, oddly, also on expenses-paid junkets; everyone milling about in hotel lobbies and banquet halls, reading from Powerpoint slides and thinking the big thoughts--never once feeling shame at the hard-earned money of citizens and end consumers supporting all this largesse being shoveled over to persons already rich!

Fie on you parasites! And blwklwdtmp on your thoughts!

First, as a point of rhetoric, can we quit it with the "Japan was a monster in the 1980s" comparative? It has been twenty years since the superwealth of the 1980s was exposed as a mirage, the result of some rather creative accounting by companies and dumb policy moves by the Bank of Japan and the Ministry of Finance. How can a columnist in the world's premier economics daily hearken back to the 1980s as if they were the salad days of Japanese dominance? (Oh, I know he caveats later in the text--but why bring it up at all if it it was mostly a sham?)

As for Japan's political invisibility and its being "an afterthought in the discourse about the fast-shifting balance of global power" - consider this: Japan did the stomping-all-about-the-globe-my-civilization-is-ahead-of-yours-so-I-know-what-is-good-for-you thing -- and lost.

Having lost the war, and finding itself in a neighborhood where everybody not only hated Japan but also had a different political system, democratic Japan learned to keep its head above water and its nose out of other people's business.

So Japan is not an active player the new imperium game, engaging itself in "the discourse about the fast-shifting balance of global power." So it prefers to stay on the sidelines as the new great powers clash.

This is bad?

So many on the international cocktail conference circuit seem to have bought into the rhetoric flashed by a tiny circle of English-language speaking imperial restoration wingers -- because it interlocked so well with their own plans :

"Oh, I know they say naughty things about the Chinese people and the War sometimes but to their credit they understand the world as it really is--the noontime buffet is being sponsored by EADS? Oh, BP. They're doing good stuff with solar, aren't they? Boy, the Russians giving them a time, eh? So EADS is tomorrow. Good. Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yes, they know that the world is nasty, brutish and on the edge of chaos, demanding our attention, munificence and strong will."

The revisionists promised the conference circuit moochers veterans an upswelling of popular support for their realignment of Japan's habits and thoughts, making the Japanese people "proud" again, able to seize their "rightful place" in the international community and shoulder the burdens of an advanced nation.

But no.

Meiji is dead.

The covetousness--the horrible, gnawing desire "to have what other countries have" or just take for oneself, no matter the consequences -- the desire to acquire the trappings of power that drove both the early Meiji consensus and the later Great East Asian Co-prosperity consensuses -- that covetousness is restricted today to a hollow-eyed, empty-pupiled minority whose dreams of power and status are judged by decent folk to be unseemly.

Few in the Land of the Rising Sun dream of power and status as their ancestors did. Many if not most have found their own version of the Tenth Commandment, desiring only to get along. The limits of their purportedly ignoble existence are narrow: Study, Graduate, Work, Marry, Grow Old, Receive a Pension and Die in Bed.

Little point is there in clawing and scratching down down the road to glory.

Indeed, to even want to do so is a sin.

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* If you have something nasty to say about another country, make sure it is translated into the language of the people you are dumping on.