Japan's Peace-building Diplomacy in Asia: Seeking a More Active Political Role (review)

This is a must-read book for anyone seeking a comprehensive understanding of Japan's foreign and security policies. It contains surprises even for experts well versed in Japanese foreign policy. I suspect many other specialists will at best be only dimly aware of Japan's activism in peace and human security promotion in Mindanao, Sri Lanka, and Aceh, or of Japan's continuing support for East Timor and Cambodia, before picking up Lam's book. This work could have at least two additional subtitles. One would be "The Fukuda Doctrine and Japan's Relationship with Southeast Asia." The other would be "The Role of Domestic Politics." In short, Lam brings a bird's-eye view from his perch in Singapore to understanding Japan's relationship with Southeast Asia while using his expertise in Japanese domestic politics to show how this influences foreign policy.

Although shedding light on a significant but hitherto obscure aspect of Japanese foreign policy, Lam's book nevertheless engages the main academic debate in the field today, namely, whether Japan is "normalizing" into a great power that uses military force as an instrument to promote national objectives abroad. Looking at this issue from his unique angle, Lam is fully convincing when he argues that Japan has found its niche in international security: non-combat-related peace building. Lam is similarly persuasive in arguing that those promoting the idea of Japan "normalizing" into a military great power have overlooked this development: "In their accounts of the trajectory of Japan's role, purpose and identity in the world, Pyle, Samuels and Green have missed out an important direction in the nation's foreign policy since the end of the Cold War—the quest to end civil wars and begin post-conflict reconstruction" (p. 4). One might add to Lam's list of leading "normalizing" literature Christopher W. Hughes's Japan's Remilitarisation.¹ On the other hand, Lam's volume joins a growing literature challenging the normal-nation thesis.²

Lam is also convincing when he asserts that his study of five cases of Japanese peace building reveals that "claims that Tokyo's peace-building is reactive, ad hoc and essentially driven by Washington" are "off the mark" (p. 6). Indeed, there is little indication that the United States has ever pushed participation by the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) in UN peacekeeping missions, any more than it has seriously promoted UN peacekeeping itself. Finally, Lam insightfully observes that "Tokyo's dispatch of the SDF to East Timor . . . did not attract any disquiet or misgivings from its Asian neighbors as had earlier been the case with Cambodia, when there was the perception that deploying the SDF abroad was merely a prelude to Japan seeking to become a great military power again" (p. 41). The demonstration effect of Tokyo's peaceful and beneficial dispatch of the SDF to Cambodia thus reassured Asian nations, suggesting that peace building can empower Japan to "forge an identity as an active and positive 'peace-loving' country acceptable to its citizens and Asian neighbors" (p. 5).

Less convincing is Lam's contention that the Fukuda Doctrine is not an extension of the Yoshida Doctrine as many observers claim but a radical departure from it, because the former calls for Japan to play a political role while the latter, in Lam's eyes, calls for avoiding any external political role. One may question Lam's understanding of the Yoshida Doctrine, but he at least notes the disagreement. More dubious is his insinuation that the two are equivalent if not competing doctrines (p. 19), when in fact the Yoshida Doctrine is a grand strategy, however implicit, while the Fukuda Doctrine, despite its explicit articulation, is a regional diplomatic strategy. The Fukuda Doctrine is silent on most important aspects of Japan's security, such as the U.S.-Japan alliance and potential threats.

Most doubtful is Lam's claim that the...