Moment of Truth for Japan’s Foreign Policy
The year 2012 shows every sign of being a turbulent year in which changes of leadership are expected in some of the most important nations of the world, including the US, South Korea, China, and Russia. Amid expectations for drastic geopolitical changes, Japan - faced, among other issues, with a new and potentially dangerous regime in North Korea - is at one of the most crucial crossroads in its modern history. What foreign policy should Japan pursue as it faces this rapidly changing world? Journalist Yoshiko Sakurai offers a timely and incisive analysis.
International politics has always been significantly influenced by the caliber of world leaders. Elected US president in 1981, Ronald Reagan for one grappled squarely with - and defeated - the Soviet Union and its socialist system. He was vigorously backed by British Conservative Party leader Margaret Thatcher, who became prime minister in 1979, and Yasuhiro Nakasone, president of the then ruling Liberal Democratic Party, who became prime minister in 1982.
Left in the wake of the Cold War victory by those advocating freedom and democracy were five Eurasian socialist or communist nations subjected to one-party rule - China, North Korea, Viet Nam, Myanmar, and Laos.
Some 20 years after the end of the Cold War, the world is again seeing the advent of a new era that promises to usher in revolutionary changes in international politics. Especially intense is the democratic world’s ongoing struggle against China and North Korea - two nations whose one-party dictatorships continue to threaten the peace and security of the world. This can also be viewed as a clash whose results will determine whether history will progress or regress - whether transparent government based on freedom, ﾂ黴democracy, and the rule of law will further advance, or if those forces which suppress the voices of the people through one-party dictatorship and military might will come to the fore.
Playing the most significant part in this struggle will be the leaders of the various nations, but this year there is a possibility a number of the leaders of major Asia-Pacific and European nations will be replaced.
In North Korea, already a new leadership has come to power under Kim Jong-un, the third-generation successor to President Kim Il-song. The effect of this change, as will be explained later, may be to aggravate the friction between the US and China, risking an armed conflict between them in the worst case. The possibility of a confrontation between China and Japan, the US, and South Korea already is becoming quite clear;at this juncture, the Japanese government is faced with a critical phase in which it is strongly advised to prepare itself and be ready for the worst-case scenario.
In Taiwan, as of this writing, presidential elections will be held next weekend, on January 14 to be exact. Will Ma Ying-jeou, head of the incumbent Beijing-friendly Kuomintang Party, be re-elected? Or, will Tsai Ing-wen triumph as head of the Democratic Progressive Party, the leading opposition party and advocate of status-quo for Taiwan? The results will be extremely important, as they will determine whether or not China will be further enticed to move closer towards annexing Taiwan as well as advancing more vigorously into the South China Sea, the East China Sea, and the Indian Ocean. Depending on the results, nations such as Japan, members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the US, India, and Australia can be forced into a serious confrontation with China.
March 4 is set as the date for the presidential elections in Russia. While the people have voiced strong criticism against the power politics conducted by Premier Vladimir Putin, his comeback as president is viewed as a certainty at this stage.
However, the waves of the Mid-East “Jasmine Revolution,” originating in Tunisia in late 2010 and bringing down dictatorships in countries like Egypt and Libya, have reached the shores of Putin’s Russia. There really cannot be anything more fear-engendering to Russia and China than these democratization movements. Obsessed with fear, Russia and China are forging ahead with suppression and tough measures both at home and abroad. People in Japan should never forget that Russia and China’s very weaknesses are actually Japan’s strengths.
April 11 is the date for the general elections in South Korea. In the Seoul mayoral election last October, Park Won-soon, a liberal lawyer called “a leftist to the core,” came out victorious, demonstrating the extent of infiltration into the South of left-wing forces. It is easy now to predict a loss for the ruling “Hannara” Grand National Party and a win for the opposition parties, including the No. 1 opposition Democratic Party, in the April general elections and the December presidential elections.
Sometime after April, presidential elections in France and general elections in Greece, the epicenter of the European Union’s credit crisis, are expected.
In October, China will have a new president — Xi Jin-ping, who will replace Hu Jin-tao. The change in Chinese leadership will be followed closely by the US presidential election slated for November, which will be followed by the South Korean presidential elections a month later, as explained previously.
It would not be totally unthinkable if, in the meantime, general elections were held in Japan as well. At this juncture, whether Yoshihiko Noda survives 2012 as prime minister can hardly be predicted under the present circumstances.
Viewed in this light, election results are predictable in only those countries with one-party rule - or something near it. Those countries would be China and Russia - and North Korea, if it and its hereditary leadership is included. Predicting election results correctly is a tough nut to crack in nations like Japan, the US, South Korea, Taiwan, and Europe - nations advocating freedom and democracy - largely because people can vote as they wish. Also, as the case of the US exemplifies and will later be explained, policies cannot be implemented as easily as their advocates wish because financial discipline often takes precedence even in situations where security risks are obvious.
Kim Jong-un:New Leader Lacking Experience
The biggest threat faced by the nations which have chosen democracy despite its flaws, such as the difficulty of predicting election results and the time-consuming democratic process, is China with its one-party dictatorship incessantly seeking hegemony. In the South China Sea, the East China Sea, and the Indian Ocean, China’s abnormal military build-up and expansion has generated serious friction with its neighbors. The death of Kim Jong-il and the birth of the Kim Jong-un regime increase the danger of aggravating the friction into a full-scale confrontation between the US and China - possibly even a military confrontation. The worst-case scenario would be China against Japan, the US, and South Korea, as was mentioned earlier. Unsophisticated diplomacy pursued by the top echelon of the Kim Jong-un regime could very well become a direct trigger for a disaster.
A new year’s joint editorial, compiled under the new Kim Jong-un regime by major North Korean newspapers, including Rodong Sinmun, the official organ of the North Korean Workers’ Party, declared:“It is the steadfast determination of our Party that we will not make the slightest vacillation or concession in implementing the instructions and policies he (Kim Jong-il) laid out in his lifetime, and that we will allow no change in this process.”
North Korea’s determination to tenaciously preserve the old line to the hilt should be viewed as directed particularly at China. With this editorial, North Korea was obviously trying to deliver a warning to China that under no circumstances would it ever adopt open-door policies or abandon nuclear weapons as China has kept insisting, reminding Beijing to not ever think of it.
Kim Jong-il had an established reputation of disliking China. The December 30 ban on the use of foreign currency in markets ordered by his third son and successor most likely was a decision by Kim Jong-un to unabashedly put his late father’s anti-Chinese sentiments into practice. The foreign currency in question was clearly neither the yen nor the US dollar, but definitely the Chinese renminbi. Without doubt, Kim’s order must have reflected his strong sense of rejection of China. And yet, to survive, North Korea will still have to rely economically on her powerful neighbor.
Trade between North Korea and China in 2010 increased approximately 30 percent over 2009, standing at US$3.46 billion, which can hardly be compared with the total North Korea-Russia trade volume of slightly more than US$100 million. About 80 percent of food and daily goods consumed in North Korea are imported from China. However, no viable economic countermeasures are visible in the wake of the foreign currency ban.
Weapons exports, one of Pyongyang’s major means of foreign exchange acquisition, are impossible without China’s acquiescence. The 2010-11 annual report on North Korea’s smuggling of weapons compiled by the United Nations Security Council specifies that four out of ten cases exposed involved smuggling by sea via Chinese ports.
The report also revealed that the following ships had been caught as North Korea attempted to smuggle out weapons and related goods via the Chinese ports of Dalian or Shanghai in 2009:
・A freighter en route to Syria (September), with a load of
reagents used to develop chemical weapons as well as
14,000 suits of chemical protective clothing;
・A container ship bound for the Republic of Congo (November),
with a full load of tank parts;and,
・Another container ship bound for Iran (month unspecified), with
a load of 120,000 rocket fuses and 11,000 warheads.
China has effectively supported the economic foundation of the Kim Jong-il administration by tacitly approving North Korea’s proliferation of arms and equipment, as well as chemical and biological weapons. It can credibly be said that without China’s acquiescence, North Korea would never have been able to become the world’s third largest producer of chemical weapons after the US and Russia, nor earn much of its desperately needed foreign exchange. North Korea already has been trapped as China’s prisoner to that extent.
The only reason China recognized Kim Jong-un’s hereditary succession of power despite its official opposition is simply because it wanted to continue to steadily put North Korean under its influence and ultimately incorporate the entire Korean Peninsula into its own sphere of influence.
It has recently become quite evident that the new North Korean leadership requested food aid from the US on December 28, about the time of the funeral of General Secretary Kim Jong-il, in a desperate effort to avoid being further entangled in China’s web.
I consider it quite natural for the US government to reject this request by the new North Korean leadership. After all, Pyongyang declared it will never abandon nuclear weapons as it honors the will of the deceased general secretary;it harshly criticized Japan for not expressing condolences over Kim Jong-il’s death, declaring “the North Korean people and army will never forgive Japan”;it heaped abuse on the South Korean government, declaring Pyongyang will “never deal with the south Korean government”;and it ordered any North Korean citizen trying to flee the country be shot dead. Enough reason why an early collapse of the Kim Jong-un regime is predicted, as it lacks experience and pushes ahead with a “get-tough” line.
Now that the situation in the Korean Peninsula is shaking to its foundation, with a clash of grand strategies involving the US and China developing before our very eyes, it is high time for Japan to assemble its best minds in an earnest effort to select the way for a stable and viable future.
“China’s Seas”
Now is the time for Japan to speak up and take appropriate action, promoting unification of Korean Peninsula under South Korean leadership while preventing the birth of another abnormal dictatorship in North Korea by blocking Chinese intervention. The common objective shared by Japan, the US, and South Korea as regards the future of the Korean Peninsula should be to make an all-out effort together to end the history of the North-South division of the peninsula once and for all, and help implement reunification on behalf of the peoples of the two Koreas, with South Korea playing the leadership role as a freedom-loving nation. If Japan can help support South Korea in its effort to exercise leadership in overcoming the crisis befalling the Korean Peninsula, the negative aspects of the history of its relations with the two Koreas can be ameliorated significantly. Japan today stands on the threshold of genuinely transcending its past history involving Korea and building the foundation of a new relationship. The Japanese government should promptly announce as Japan’s national policy its determination to make every effort to help a peaceful reunification of the Korean Peninsula under South Korean leadership while simultaneously preventing Chinese intervention.
Obviously, China thinks quite differently. US Under Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, who visited Tokyo January 6 after covering Beijing and Seoul, told the press the Chinese government had refused to share information on the Kim Jong-un regime. China has a special relationship with North Korea, having maintained a bilateral military agreement since 1961, more than half a century. Given that this background has induced Beijing to claim it is more qualified than any other nation to intervene in matters relating to North Korea, one should regard it unlikely that China would want to work closely with Japan, the US, and South Korea as regards North Korean affairs.
Like other nations, China foresees the “reject China” policy pursued by the inexperienced Kim Jong-un will reach a dead end sooner or later, and is trying to determine the right timing to step in.
Because he himself suspects such Chinese intentions, Kim Jong-un set up a special internal security unit (the Korean People’s Internal Security Forces) within the Korean People’s Army last year, giving it the prerogative to investigate and supervise the State Security Department (secret police), as well as the Ministry of People’s Security which controls the ordinary police. Kim has thus attempted to intensify his politics of terror.
Still, Kim Jong-un’s regume is bound to collapse. China is dead set to contain North Korea on the economic and military front, aiming at establishing a de-facto system of control while going all out to eliminate US and South Korean influence. Such Chinese action clearly is designed to effectively bring North Korea back to the tributary system, which characterized China-North Korea relations until the early 20th century - a blatant case of historical regression if materialized.
Beyond its policy towards North Korea, China quite naturally should be viewed as attempting to increase its influence over South Korea with the ultimate aim firmly in mind of securing the prerogative to rule over the South - as long as China’s very existence continues to constitute historical regression in itself.
China has already secured a 60-year lease of the North Korean port of Rajin, the northernmost port in the Sea of Japan, making it possible for its North Sea Fleet, headquartered in Quingdao, to access Rajin through the Tsushima Straits. In full view of Chinese warships sailing out of Rajin are Sado Island and the rest of Niigata Prefecture. China has been eagerly taking measures towards creating strongholds in both Sado City and Niigata City, the prefectural capital, such as by attempting to acquire vast pieces of real estate.
A Chinese fleet leaving Rajin can sail straight across the Tsugaru Straights, continuing to cruise north for the Arctic Ocean. In Iceland, China has made efforts to purchase expansive plots of privately-owned land. However, the areas China showed interest in were so vast that an alarmed government of Iceland intervened, managing to return the purchase plan to the drawing-board. But China’s ambition was evident from the outset.
The US government has somewhat belatedly taken countermeasures against these Chinese actions. The Defense Department published a report on security in the Arctic Ocean, disclosing plans for closer military cooperation with Canada as well as its intention to put together a study by the end of 2012 of required resources for possible US operations in the region, with action plans completed by 2014.
In other words, China has been - and still is - advancing to all of the major seas of the world with a speed and scale that far exceeds the projections of the international community. China’s marked advance into the East China Sea and the Sea of Japan under such circumstances, coupled with the new developments in North Korea, is steadily moving towards an encirclement of South Korea. Simultaneously, China is turning the Sea of Japan into “the Sea of China” to a degree far larger than the Japanese can imagine.
Justice Rests on Japan’s Side
Against such a backdrop, not only Japan but also Taiwan, South Korea, India, Australia, and the member nations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) saddled with the disputes involving China over the South China Sea, cannot afford to turn their eyes away from the reality of their reliance on US military power.
On January 5, President Barack Obama announced a new US military strategy, declaring the US will forsake its two-front “win-win strategy” and switches focus to the Asia-Pacific. Obama’s announcement has been given different interpretations in many quarters, such as it should be viewed as a great source of comfort when it comes to security in the Asia-Pacific, reflecting the declaration the US made in 2011 to commit itself to the region as a “Pacific nation.” However, a closer look at the real situation reveals this will be no easy matter for those countries heavily reliant on US military protection.
In a January 6 editorial, The Wall Street Journal pointed out the US government last year settled with Congress on US$450 billion in military budget cuts for the 10-year period through 2021, noting that the government had earlier slashed US$350 billion in weapons program. The editorial harshly questioned if US security policies would remain sustainable under such circumstances, noting that the Pentagon faces yet another US$500 billion in possible defense expenditure cuts through 2021 unless Congress reaches agreement on a further deficit reduction.
The paper warned that, as a result of this series of budget cuts, the US defense expenditure would likely shrink from last year’s 4.5% (of GDP) to 2.7% by 2021, putting US outlays at 1940 levels.
After all, dressing up these cuts as a “strategic shift” rather than calling a spade a space appears to be nothing but a mere excuse.
President Obama stressed that the US “is going to maintain our military superiority with armed forces that are agile, flexible, and ready for the full range of contingencies and threats” even when the US military becomes leaner. This simply means an era is steadily approaching in which it will be difficult for US allies to expect US forces to deploy as effectively as before in the wake of budgetary reductions - unless the allies, including Japan, are ready and willing to cooperate with the US more positively.
Security for the US itself probably will not be too significantly affected no matter how much military power it may end up reducing. But its negative effects on security matters involving nations dependent on the US, especially in terms of Japan’s security, will be deadly. In this vein, Japan is faced with a situation in which, for the first time since the end of World War II, it must defend itself. For that purpose, Japan must make as much haste as possible in strengthening its military power in every respect. Japan’s fight is about coping effectively with the nations imposing one-party dictatorships;justice clearly is on Japan’s side in light of the universal values of the 21st century.
Now is the time for Japan to fundamentally change its meek postwar geopolitical posture and genuinely make contributions to the 21st century international community.
(Translated from “Renaissance Japan” column no. 493 in the January 19, 2012 issue of The Weekly Shincho.)
