Author's Response: The Primacy of Foreign Policy in Modern Japan

[ 208 ] asia policy military exchanges have also resumed. Perhaps Abe will be Japan’s Goldilocks. Or, to stick with the theme of Northern European children’s stories, perhaps Abe will more closely resemble the wolf in sheep’s clothing; he certainly appeared in that guise when fumbling for an explanation in the case of the comfort women issue. The challenge for China is how to become socialized into a world order with rules and norms valuing democracy and human rights. Beijing’s test earlier this year of an anti-satellite weapon was not a step in the right direction. For the rest of us—particularly the United States—the challenge is to socialize ourselves to an emerging new order that makes room not only for Japanese sovereignty, but also for Chinese power—even in terms of moral authority.  Author’s Response: The Primacy of Foreign Policy in Modern Japan Kenneth B. Pyle Iam honored to have this group of leading political scientists commenting on my book and to have it paired with the valuable new work of Dick Samuels, one of our preeminent interpreters of Japanese politics. My intention in writing this book was not to “apply a political science theory,” as Mike Mochizuki suggested in his thoughtful commentary—although I found the international relations literature immensely suggestive. Rather, as T. J. Pempel observed, my approach was that of an historian working inductively from study of the evidence provided by the Meiji, prewar, and postwar eras where I have done my research. My interest was in what has motivated the Japanese in their foreign policy. What were the sources of Japan’s international conduct? Were there recurrent patterns or characteristics? Does Japan have a distinctive Kenneth B. Pyle is the Henry M. Jackson Professor of History and Asian Studies at the University of Washington, Co-Chairman of the Asia Policy Editorial Board, and Founding President of The National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR). He is also founding editor of the Journal of Japanese Studies, a founding member of the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation (1981–88), and from 1992 to 1995 was Chairman of the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission. In 1999 he was decorated by the Emperor of Japan with the Order of the Rising Sun. [ 209 ] book review roundtable • japan rising & securing japan style? Above all, I wanted to understand what are “the profound forces” that have shaped modern Japan. I found that, owing in great part to its extraordinary staying power over this entire history, the conservative elite was the source of Japan’s distinctive style and strategy in dealing with the external order. Having deep roots in Japanese culture and history, this style and strategy manifested itself in a cluster of characteristics, especially in an extraordinary attentiveness to the configuration of power in the international system and its implications for Japan’s interests. So vulnerable was Japan as a backward and resource poor state that foreign policy had to take priority. Each time the international order changed, Japan’s pragmatic and opportunistic elite ensured that the nation would organize itself internally to succeed externally. Each of the major changes in Japanese strategy has been an adaptation to the new configuration of power in the world. Each however has been different—a variation on the theme of the primacy of foreign affairs in shaping a strategy and its supporting institutions. With the end of the Cold War system, the Yoshida Doctrine, the most brilliant and complex of all the modern adaptations to the external order, has been steadily unraveling. Seven of the eight self-binding restrictions that had been adopted to preclude entanglement in foreign commitments are being incrementally modified. These restrictions which were the essence of this grand strategy are the Eight No’s: no dispatch of JSDF abroad, no collective defense arrangements, no power projection ability, no more than 1% of GNP for defense, no nuclear arms, no sharing of military technology, no exporting of arms, no military use of space. Only the nuclear weapons restriction remains untouched (although now openly discussed). Because these restrictions were self-imposed, Japan has been able to calibrate the pace of change, as its leaders assess developments in the...