Japan in Asia: Post-Cold-War Diplomacy by Tanaka Akihiko (review)

The pace of change in Asian regional politics is relentless, with significant developments emerging month to month, not to mention year to year. Given this reality, readers could be forgiven for assuming that Tanaka Akihiko's Japan in Asia, which was first published in Japanese in 2007, is now seriously outdated.¹ Even in the English edition, which adds two new chapters, the narrative only takes us as far as the end of 2015, a time when Tsai Ing-wen had yet to take office in Taiwan, Park Geun-hye remained South Korean president, and the prospects of Donald Trump becoming US president still appeared remote. And yet, while this book inevitably cannot cover more recent subjects such as Japan's Free and Open Indo-Pacific vision, the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar, and Trump's historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in June 2018, it does nonetheless have lasting value. Specifically, by surveying Japan's relations with East Asia from the end of the Cold War until just several years ago, this text serves as a useful guide to the recent history of the region's political problems and reminds readers that what may appear a new development is often just the latest turn in a long-revolving diplomatic cycle.

Tanaka, who served as president of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) from 2012–2015, begins the book in an upbeat fashion, writing in the preface that "Asia is becoming one" and that "'Asia,' which includes 'East Asia,' is headed toward integration" (p. xi). Elsewhere, he welcomes the spread of globalization and democratization and celebrates the enduring peace that now prevails in the region. Given recent fears about conflict on the Korean Peninsula and the revival of nationalism worldwide, these passages make the book seem like a relic from the 1990s. However, these themes do not dominate the text, which focuses not on big ideas but on the task of providing a detailed summary of the defining events of post–Cold War Asian politics and the role that Japan has played in them.

Chapter 1 establishes the historical context by describing Asia before the end of the Cold War. It includes a helpful reminder of the difference between the bipolar confrontation that characterized Europe and the complex strategic interactions that played out in Asia between the United States, China, and the Soviet Union. Tanaka also highlights the fact that "most countries that belonged to the American camp were not all that liberal or democratic, nor were the countries in the Soviet camp that professed to be socialist" true in all respects to "Soviet-style socialism" (p. 2). Additionally, this chapter provides a short introduction to the Cambodian civil war, in which Japan found itself "in the utterly incomprehensible position of continuing to support the Khmer Rouge, who had committed mass atrocities" (p. 6). Similar summaries are given of the democracy movements in the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, and Burma (Myanmar).

With the scene thus set, chapter 2 concentrates on Northeast Asia at the end of the Cold War, giving most of its attention to Japan's response to the Tiananmen Square incident of June 1989. Tanaka highlights the Japanese government's initial reluctance to take action following the Chinese authorities' bloody suppression of the student protests. In particular, Prime Minister Uno Sōsuke is quoted as telling the Diet, "The imposition of sanctions would be discourteous to our neighbor. … I will not make any protest" (p. 38). Moreover, even when international pressure did cause Tokyo to introduce some punitive measures, Japan's priority remained to prevent the diplomatic isolation of China. Students of more recent Japanese foreign policy may note a comparison with the Abe administration's soft stance toward Russia following the annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Chapter 3 turns from Northeast Asia to Southeast Asia. Its main contribution is to describe how the Cambodian peace process served as a...