CHAPTER XIII

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Japan: Power and Problems

JAPAN is the only wholly non-Western country to have become a major industrial power through the process of economic and technological transformation usually known as modernization. As in the case of other industrialized countries, this transformation, which began in the nineteenth century and has accelerated since the Second World War, has increased material wealth, but at a high social and biological cost, and has conferred greater influence, but also higher risks and greater vulnerability, in international affairs. Impressive achievements are soured to some extent by continuing acute frustrations that cast serious doubt on the prediction sometimes heard that Japan will be the “superstate of the twenty-first century.”

The Coming Superstate?

This prediction is based mainly on the fact that the Japanese economy is now the third largest in the world and for about a decade has been the fastest growing of all (at times in the neighborhood of 15 percent per year). But it is not plausible that this high growth will continue; the high Soviet growth rate of the late 1950s fell off in the early 1960s. The Japanese economy is almost entirely dependent on foreign sources for its fossil fuels (especially oil) and industrial raw materials, a fact that in a still unstable international environment creates a serious vulnerability.

The goal of maximum economic growth under an essentially private enterprise system has been pursued with such vigor, partly as insurance against another lapse into depression and militarism, that social justice and social investments have been badly neglected. Urban planning, public transportation, the housing fund, and the educational system are generally in a bad state. The Japanese government has been even less successful than others, in relation to the size and dynamism of the economy, in coping with those twin scourges of industrialized countries, inflation and pollution; the latter, in particular, has reached almost intolerable levels. These conditions have soured many of the less prosperous elements of the urban population on the governing Liberal Democratic Party, the bureaucracy, and the business community (sometimes known collectively as Japan, Inc.), and together with strong European intellectual and cultural influences (including Marxism) have alienated many professionals (especially academics and journalists) from the Establishment. Prosperity, in short, has not prevented, and in fact has to some extent augmented, a high level of social discontent, especially in the cities, even though the discontent has not yet assumed revolutionary proportions. Almost no one doubts that future Japanese governments will have to place less emphasis on encouraging economic growth and more on attacking the sources of this discontent through greatly increased social investment.

This shift of priorities, combined with the vulnerability to Arab pressures on the oil supply demonstrated in late 1973 and other constraints to be discussed later, make it very unlikely that Japan will try to play an international role appropriate to a “superstate.” Even if it did try, it would probably not succeed. Both of the existing superstates and most of the Asian countries have fairly vivid memories of Japanese aggression, and an unduly high level of international activity on Japan’s part, even if it were primarily economic rather than military, would almost certainly call countervailing pressures into being and create serious risks and costs of various kinds for Japan. Essentially for these reasons Japan is likely to remain a unique middle power, smaller economically than the Common Market countries as a whole although larger than any one of them, and inferior in both conventional and nuclear military capabilities, and probably in political influence as well, to the People’s Republic of China. There is virtually no chance that Japan’s economic and military strength and political influence combined will ever equal those of either the United States or the Soviet Union.

The Politics of Factionalism and Frustration

As already indicated, Japan has been governed since the end of the Second World War by a conservative coalition consisting essentially of the liberal Democratic Party, the bureaucracy, and the business community. Of these three it is the politician, logically enough, who wields the greatest influence on politics. He usually does so, however, in a way that is aptly described by the Japanese expression low posture, since the Japanese political style favors decision by committee and rule by indirection. High posture leaders have been exceptional and usually have gotten into serious political trouble. One such was Premier Shigeru Yoshida (1946-47, 1948-54), whose great influence and long tenure were due not so much to his Churchillian personality as to the unprece-dentedly fluid situation created by Japan’s defeat and occupation at the hands of the United States. Another was Premier Nobusuke Kishi (1957-60), who was forced to resign by a storm of protest over his high-handed conduct of affairs, and in particular his handling of the renewal of the American-Japanese security treaty. A third was Premier Eisaku Sato (1964-72), Kishi’s half brother, who tied his political fortunes mainly to external issues, notably the normalization of relations with South Korea (in 1965) and the recovery of jurisdiction over Okinawa from the United States. By the early 1970s, Sato had become widely unpopular at home as too old, too conservative, and too high posture, and he was regarded by left-wing critics, including the leadership in Peking, which refused to deal with him, as too pro-American and too pro-Chinese Nationalist; his prestige also suffered from the “Nixon shocks” of 1971.

Since Yoshida’s day the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, and in particular its members in the Diet (parliament), has been largely divided into factions each of which is loyal, on the basis of personal allegiance rather than of support for particular policies, to a leading figure in the party. The factional leaders vie with each other for the party presidency, which carries with it the premiership as long as the party is strong enough in the Diet (or more accurately the lower house, the House of Representatives) to be able to control the government. There is a tendency accordingly for the premiership to rotate among the factional leaders, although a decreasing respect for age has prevented former premiers from resuming office as sometimes happened before the Second World War. Factionalism also affects the largest opposition party, the Japan Socialist Party, but its basis is less personal and more ideological than in the case of the Liberal Democrats. The Socialists are divided essentially into a left wing, whose views on domestic politics and foreign policy differ little from those of the Communists but which is more doctrinaire than the latter and lacks their tight organization, and a right wing, which is more moderate but no better organized. The Communists themselves are relatively well led and organized and have been increasing their popular and electoral appeal fairly rapidly by stressing the bread and butter issues on which the Liberal Democrats are vulnerable and by asserting their Japaneseness through a posture that is independent and in fact critical of both Moscow and Peking. The Komeito, a party originally based on the neo-Buddhist Soka Gakkai movement and attempting to combine a revivalist faith with nationalism and tight discipline, grew rapidly during the 1960s but has since found itself on a plateau. The three major opposition parties have begun to cooperate electorally against the Liberal Democrats to some extent, but the other two are wary of the Communist Party’s dynamism and tight organization and afraid that it is trying to dominate them. The Liberal Democrats are much more afraid of the Communists than of the other opposition parties.

Sato regarded the reversion of Okinawa to Japanese jurisdiction, which occurred formally on May 15, 1972, as the culmination of his political career. He resigned the following month, and during the ensuing factional jockeying failed for some reason to give effective support to his preferred successor, the conservative Takeo Fukuda. The premiership went instead in July to the seemingly dynamic Kakuei Tanaka, because he favored energetic attention to Japan’s domestic problems, appeared likely to be good for the Liberal Democrats in future Diet elections, favored a foreign policy more independent of the United States than Sato’s had been, and was known to be acceptable to Peking. In fact, he was promptly invited to Peking by Chou En-lai, and his visit, which took place in late September 1972, did something to improve his own political position and that of his party. Nevertheless, the Communists registered gains in Diet elections held in December 1972, and the result was an unusual felt need for unity among the factional leaders of the Liberal Democratic Party. In particular, Fukuda was given a major cabinet post, that of Minister of Finance, in which capacity he killed Tanaka’s ambitious and unworkable plan for the redevelopment of the country through the building of new industrial towns and made himself unpopular by advocating high taxes and the stabilization of incomes as an anti-inflation measure.

A sense of stagnation and frustration pervaded the Liberal Democratic Party and its leadership as they lost popularity on account of serious domestic problems and the opposition parties, especially the Communist Party, tended to benefit correspondingly. One of the Liberal Democrats’ problems was the fact that the electoral system, a form of proportional representation in which each district elects several representatives, the seats being divided in proportion to the number of votes received by the various parties, tends to favor the opposition. In the spring of 1973, accordingly, Tanaka tried to push a reform plan calling for a single member district system through the Diet but failed. This was merely the most serious of a number of setbacks sustained by Tanaka and the Liberal Democratic Party in 1973.

The immobilisme and factionalism of the Liberal Democratic leadership, the gradual decline of its popularity, and the considerably faster decline of Tanaka’s have led to the recent emergence of a number of new groups of younger party members eager for a change. The most interesting and important of these is the Seirankai. Like the prewar Japanese nationalists, it is conservative and demands a higher level of public morality and responsiveness (although within a more or less authoritarian framework) to social needs. It objects to Tanaka’s diplomatic break with Taiwan and his recognition of Peking, which in fact were widely unpopular within the Liberal Democratic Party and were supported mainly by the business community, fascinated by the lure of the supposedly vast market on the mainland.

In an election for the House of Councillors (the upper house of the Diet) held in July 1974, the Liberal Democrats’ bloc of seats was eroded to a bare majority. On the other hand, the main losers were members of factions other than that of Premier Tanaka, who accordingly appears to have strengthened his position within the party somewhat. One result was the resignation of several important cabinet members, notably Finance Minister Fukuda, probably in preparation for the lower house elections and a contest for the premiership in 1975.

The Economics of a Vulnerable Giant

The Japanese economy has been one of the wonders of the postwar world. Probably the main causes of its extraordinary growth have been: the supply of skills inherited from the prewar period, social stability, a high rate of savings, a high educational level, high labor discipline and productivity (especially in relation to wages), able management, high levels of investment, the large-scale borrowing under license and adaptation of foreign technology and a resulting low budget for research and development, government support for economic growth and export expansion, low defense and welfare budgets, the postponement of much social investment in the interest of rapid economic growth, a shortage (until 1973) of artificial obstacles to access to foreign level resources and industrial raw materials, the undervaluation of the yen (until 1973) and resulting low prices for Japanese exports, generally good economic and political relations with the United States until 1971 (including large amounts of American offshore procurement of supplies in Japan in connection with the Korean and Vietnam Wars), and a great demand in much of the world for Japanese capital and goods.

Like other good things, this impressive list of assets has not been immune to erosion. Japanese labor costs have risen and are now high by Asian standards. The work ethic has declined considerably, especially among the younger age groups. The neglect of the environment and of social needs by the ruling establishment has become a major political issue. There have been powerful American pressures on the Japanese government since 1971 to revalue the yen (upward) and take measures to wipe out the large Japanese payments surplus with the United States. The oil crisis of late 1973 dramatized Japan’s risky dependence for 80 percent of its petroleum imports (which total about 200 million tons per year) on the volatile countries of the Middle East. As a result of two revaluations of the yen (1971, 1973) and a substantial liberalization of tariffs and of controls on foreign investment in Japan in 1973, all under American pressure, Japan not only ceased to run a payments surplus in 1973 but incurred a $9 billion deficit. The outlook is for further trouble, since Japan like other petroleum importers will have to pay higher prices for its oil, not only from the Middle East but from other areas as well (Indonesia, for example). There is a faint hope, but no more, that substantial amounts of oil will be available at reasonable prices from the Soviet Union or the People’s Republic of China, or both.

After the outbreak of war in the Middle East on October 6, 1973, the Arab countries demanded that Japan cut off trade with Israel, break diplomatic relations with it, and sell arms to them. The Japanese government was very reluctant to comply, partly because it feared that compliance would seriously harm its relations with the United States. The latter argument was weakened by a lack of interest on the part of the United States government in Japan’s predicament, however, and the need to protect Japan as far as possible from cuts in oil shipments from the Arab countries seemed urgent. Accordingly, late in November, Tokyo publicly urged that Israel withdraw to its pre-1967 frontiers, a step that fell far short of meeting the Arabs’ demands and yet constituted a striking departure from the postwar Japanese practice of avoiding like the plague controversial issues in international politics. The Arabs soon shifted their demands on Japan to a more significant and realizable one that Japan help them with its technology in return for assurances that its imports of Arab oil would not be seriously affected. A number of large contracts for industrial projects in the oil-producing Middle Eastern countries accordingly began to be negotiated and signed by Japanese interests at the beginning of 1974. As a result of this prompt capitulation, or virtual capitulation, Japan’s actual oil imports were not seriously affected, although prices of course went up and a panic psychology prevailed for a time. Japan’s normal imports were disrupted for a few weeks, then resumed at higher prices.

It is possible that Japan will agree to sell arms to Middle Eastern countries. Another possibility is that Japan may try to interest the latter in using some of their huge foreign exchange reserves to finance a long-discussed canal across the Kra Isthmus (in southern Thailand). This would enable Japanese tankers to avoid the Straits of Malacca, which are claimed by Indonesia and Malaysia as their territorial waters and in any case are too shallow for supertankers, and the Lombok Strait (between Bali and Lombok), which is deep but out of the way. On the other hand, the Kra Canal would be difficult to construct unless nuclear explosives were used, with possibly devastating effects on the environment, and would also be unable to accommodate supertankers. A depressing concluding note on Japan’s economic and social future: in 1923 there was a catastrophic earthquake in the Tokyo-Yokohama area. The facts of geology make it very likely that there will be another, whose effects may be buffered somewhat by modern construction techniques but may still be disastrous.

The Search for a Foreign and Security Policy

The shock of defeat and occupation reduced Japanese foreign policy to virtual nonexistence, and even now no real consensus have developed as to what Japan’s role in the world should be.

The alliance with the United States, and the presence of American bases in Japan and Okinawa, have been unpopular with the left, which would greatly prefer neutrality and friendlier relations with the Communist powers, but the ruling establishment regards the American connection as essential for the purpose of deterring possible Soviet attack and as helpful in maintaining its own political and economic position at home. Down to the mid-1960s, the establishment considered it unnecessary and even undesirable to go much beyond following the American lead on major international questions such as China policy. At that time Premier Sato chose to normalize relations with South Korea and begin pressing for the reversion of Okinawa, but these were not steps likely to put a serious strain on the tie with the United States.

Unaccustomed as it was to major initiatives in foreign affairs, the Japanese establishment made only a hesitant response to the Nixon administration’s pressures on it, beginning in 1969, to increase its level of armaments somewhat and play a more active role in Asian security to help compensate for American disengagement from the region under the Nixon Doctrine. To be sure, the Fourth Five-Year Defense Build-up Plan, announced in the spring of 1970, proclaimed a “self-reliant” defense posture and projected a modest increase in the defense budget to slightly over one percent of the gross national product (still a very low figure in percentage terms, but a respectable one in absolute terms in view of the size of the Japanese economy). Meanwhile, in the Nixon-Sato communique (November 1969), the Japanese government had agreed to allow the United States to use its bases in Japan and Okinawa for the defense of South Korea and Taiwan (the actual wording achieved this effect by asserting a Japanese interest in the security of those areas), in exchange for an American pledge to return civil jurisdiction over Okinawa to Japan.

The “Nixon shocks” of 1971 greatly increased Japanese uncertainties about the reliability of the United States as an economic partner and ally, although the establishment for the most part remained eager to preserve the relationship. The Japanese government became less willing to follow the American lead where Japan’s security was not directly involved, especially in China policy. Sato began to make overtures to Peking but was rebuffed. As we have seen, it was his successor Tanaka who managed to establish diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China.

Tanaka’s Foreign Minister Ohira and some of his subordinates advocated, at least for a time, a policy of “equidistance” for Japan with respect to the three major powers (the United States, the Soviet Union, and the People’s Republic of China), an idea that would involve the abrogation of the security treaty with the United States in favor of treaties of friendship with all three, as well as closer ties with Western Europe independently of the United States. Recently, however, this idea seems to have lost ground, partly because of continuing difficulties in Japan’s relations with the Soviet Union and China. The American tie remains the centerpiece of Japanese foreign policy, even though a seemingly less reliable one than many Japanese would like.

Japan’s Self-Defense Forces, although small, are well armed for conventional warfare in the home islands, while lacking nuclear weapons and any significant offensive capability against foreign countries. Japan makes some of its military equipment under license from American manufacturers, but it also produces some very good items entirely of its own design, a fighter bomber and a heavy tank, for example. For political reasons, there is no conscription, and the Self-Defense Forces are manned entirely by volunteers. Apart from maintaining internal security in the unlikely although possible event of insurgency (presumably leftist, although conceivably rightist), their function is essentially to hold out for a few days in the event of a major Soviet attack (which is considered unlikely) and act as a tripwire for the anticipated American response, military or otherwise. If there were no American response, they would probably surrender. Unlike Israel or Switzerland, Japan has no plans for involving the population in defense of the homeland; the reasons are partly political but relate primarily to the heavily urban character of contemporary Japanese society. There appear to be no plans for naval action to protect Japan’s shipping routes, which are vulnerable to Soviet submarines, except perhaps for some antisubmarine operations in case of actual war.

It is obviously possible that Japanese democracy might collapse in favor of some authoritarian alternative, for example in the event that a leftist electoral victory were met with a coup from the side of the establishment, but this does not appear likely in the near future. It is also obviously possible that Japan might decide to rearm massively and even “go nuclear,” either under the present political system or some other. But here again, the likelihood is not very great. Japanese public opinion is growing more nationalistic but is not turning to militarism, partly because of memories of the past experiment in militarism and partly because of a realization that such a step would set up serious domestic political strains and create serious external risks from the direction of major powers whose military might Japan could not hope to match, as well as exacerbating Japan’s political relations with many other countries. This would apply particularly to a decision to acquire nuclear weapons. Japan’s “nuclear allergy,” inherited from 1945, is still operative, although curiously enough public opinion polls show a high percentage of the respondents expecting the eventual acquisition of nuclear weapons while not actually favoring it. Japan is “keeping its options open” on this score by not ratifying the Non-proliferation Treaty, which it signed in 1970, allegedly because of fear that a discriminatory (as compared with the Western European countries) system of inspection of Japan’s peaceful nuclear program would be imposed. There is of course no doubt that Japan has the economic and technical capacity to “go nuclear” in short order if it ever took the decision to do so, but it would probably have to base its nuclear weapons at sea on account of its high population density.

Japan and the United States

The Year of Europe in American foreign policy, 1973, saw an American effort to bring about trilateral economic cooperation among the United States, Japan, and Western Europe, to a large extent in order to improve the American balance of payments situation. There was a good deal of talk in the United States, among academics as well as others, about a Japanese-American-West European triangle, paralleling in the economic sphere the Sino-Soviet-American triangle in the political and military spheres. But both the Japanese and the West Europeans have been rather suspicious of American intentions and of each other; on the whole, they prefer to deal with each other independently of the United States. Furthermore, there is very little substance to the idea of a Japanese-American-West European triangle. What is actually involved is three bilateral relationships, not particularly dependent on one another, whereas the Sino-Soviet-American relationship is a true triangle in which a major change in the relations of any pair of the three directly affects the other two relationships.

Since the period of the “shocks,” Japanese-American relations have begun to be set on a somewhat more even keel. A possible additional “shock” was prevented, for example, when the United States raised the level of its soybean exports to Japan. On the other hand, the giant American oil companies, from which Japan buys much of its oil, have been unwilling to ship the large quantities desired by the Japanese at the frozen price that the Japanese government is willing to pay; the price has had to rise.

The “shocks” have been understandably traumatic for the Japanese and especially for the establishment in view of its sense of commitment to the American connection. Some Japanese appear to fear that the official American obsession with détente with the Soviet Union may have rendered the American security guarantee worthless. Perhaps in an effort to breathe more life into the Japanese-American security relationship, some Japanese claim to believe in the continued effectiveness of the Sino-Soviet alliance, as a counter to which the Japanese-American security agreement was originally concluded.

The oil crisis of late 1973 drove many Japanese, confronted with their country’s virtual helplessness in the face of the Arab bloc, to think of Japan as a virtual satellite of the United States to a greater extent than had been true for some years. Some hoped, to no·avail as yet, that the United States would make itself responsible for Japan’s access to foreign sources of energy, as it had for Japan’s external security.

Japan and the Soviet Union

The Japanese and the Russians are highly culture-bound peoples cordially disliked by most of their neighbors, including one another. It would be hard to name any pair of peoples less well suited by temperament and culture to get along with each other. On the Soviet side there are memories of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-05), the Japanese military intervention in the Soviet Far East and Eastern Siberia (1918-22), and occasional aggressive acts by the Imperial Japanese Army in the 1930s. On the Japanese side, there are memories of the Soviet attack in August 1945. The Soviet Union regularly ranks in Japanese public opinion polls as the most disliked of foreign countries. It has been regarded by Japanese since 1945 as the only serious external threat to their country’s security.

The Soviet Union refused to sign the San Francisco peace treaty in 1951 and has not yet negotiated one of its own with Japan, although diplomatic relations were established in 1956. Having seized some territory from Japan in 1945 (southern Sakhalin and the Kurile Islands) and held Japanese prisoners of war without a proper accounting, the Soviet Union has been fairly consistent since then in treating Japan with a heavyhandedness that is unusual even for Moscow. Soviet military aircraft overfly Japanese islands, and Japanese fishing vessels alleged to have intruded into the rich fishing grounds in Soviet Far Eastern waters are often seized. It is little wonder that the Japan Communist Party has found it advisable to cultivate an image of independence from Moscow, as well as from Peking.

On the other hand, Japan has benefited somewhat from the Sino-Soviet dispute, and in particular the growing Soviet perception of China as a threat, as well as from Soviet concern that American military disengagement from the Far East might create tempting opportunities for Peking. In 1966 Moscow began to encourage the participation of Japanese credits and technology in the development of the resources of Siberia and the Soviet Far East, especially oil and gas. The biggest project envisaged has been to build a pipeline from Irkutsk to Nakhodka on the Pacific to carry oil from the Tiumen fields in western Siberia. So far this project is almost entirely in the talking stage, mainly because of Japanese unhappiness over Chinese objections to the project (on the ground that some of the oil would be used by Soviet forces facing China) and over Soviet reluctance to provide enough technical data or give firm assurances about quantities and prices of oil to be made available to Japan, in addition to a Japanese preference for seeing American interests also involved in the project.

An even more serious issue arises from the fact that Japanese opinion is virtually unanimous in demanding the return of the “northern territories,” which consist of what Moscow regards as the four southernmost islands of the Kurile chain. Even though this issue is a less emotional one for the Japanese than the demand for the reversion of Okinawa was, the Japanese government has gone on record as being unwilling to sign a peace treaty with the Soviet Union unless the four islands are returned. Occasional tentative conciliatory statements on this question notwithstanding, Moscow has adopted a basically uncompromising stand. It is afraid that even a small breach in the territorial settlement of 1945, of which it is the major beneficiary, might open up much larger breaches to the benefit of China and possibly even some of the East European countries.

The Soviet Union has been considerably irritated by what it interprets as Premier Tanaka’s pro-Chinese attitude. When he visited Moscow in October 1973—partly for domestic political effect, as had been the case when he visited Peking a year earlier-he got no visible concessions on the “northern territories” or the Tiumen pipeline project. The latter appears to be in suspense.

Moscow’s proposal for a “collective security” system in Asia, which it has been promoting since 1969 and in particular since 1971 (as a counter to the Sino-American detente), includes a call for the abrogation of the Japanese-American security treaty. This idea, as well as the obvious anti-Chinese overtones of the proposal and its vagueness from several points of view, has led Tokyo to refuse to take part in any such arrangement unless Peking also participates. Of that there is very little likelihood.

Japan and China

Japan and China are involved in a unique love-hate relationship. Most of the love is on the Japanese side; most of the hatred is on the Chinese side. The Japanese feel a profound admiration for and indebtedness to Chinese culture, a burden of guilt for past aggression, no real fear even though China has nuclear weapons, and a patronizing sense of superiority in the departments of economic growth and technological sophistication. The Chinese remember and resent Japanese aggression, are aware in private that it was not they who beat the Japanese, lack the comforting certainty that they could beat them in the future that the Soviets feel with respect to the Germans, fear that Japan might rearm and relapse into aggression, dislike Japan’s conservative and essentially pro-American orientation, and are uneasily awed by Japan’s phenomenal economic resurgence.

Japan’s relations with the People’s Republic of China, which originally regarded it as an American satellite, were predominantly hostile until Peking’s virtual economic break with the Soviet Union in 1960 led it sharply to increase its trade with Japan. Peking tried to use this trade in a variety of ways to put pressure on the Japanese government to cut its diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and ideally its security ties with the United States. Seeing that it would be the object of great resentment on the part of Japanese firms if Chinese annoyance at Tokyo’s policies were allowed to disrupt trade, the Japanese government allowed the (private) Japanese trade negotiators to sign any statements Peking wanted, no matter how critical. Trade was not in fact disrupted, but the Chinese side increased its psychological ascendancy in this strange relationship. This ascendancy was enhanced by the pro-Peking attitude of the major Japanese newspapers, which reflected not only the leftist tendencies of some of the editors but also the fact—revealed later by some of their correspondents who had served in Peking—that in 1964 and 1968 they made secret agreements with the Chinese to keep their coverage favorable, as the price for being allowed to retain bureaus in Peking.

A violent anti-Japanese propaganda campaign got under way in the spring of 1970 and raged until the autumn of 1971, when it began to taper off. Japan was accused not merely of intending to rearm but of actually rearming and engaging in expansionist activity. To some extent the emotion expressed was probably genuine and reflected concern over the Japanese Fourth Five-Year Defense Build-up Plan, as well as a warning to Japan not to take over responsibility for Asian security as the United States disengaged. But the campaign was also partly for effect, to acquire leverage over the Japanese political situation and to rationalize in China the initiation of détente with the United States, to which Lin Piao and some others were evidently opposed; Chou En-lai’s argument, expressed in rather esoteric terms, was essentially that Japan being China’s main enemy, it was good strategy to split it from China’s secondary enemy, the United States, at a time when Japanese-American relations were tense in any case, by improving relations with the United States. It can hardly be a coincidence that the anti-Japanese campaign began to subside almost immediately after Lin’s fall in September 1971.

An important part of the anti-Japanese campaign was a dispute over some small islands known to the Chinese as the Tiao Yü T’ai and to the Japanese as the Senkaku. They lie on the edge of the continental shelf about one hundred miles northeast of Taiwan, in an area where there are believed to be large oil deposits. Furthermore, control of them would give Japan a foothold on the continental shelf as a whole, which may be very rich in oil. Peking became enraged in December 1970 because South Korea, the Republic of China (Taiwan), and Japan had been granting concessions to American firms to prospect for oil on various areas of the continental shelf. Peking asserted its own claim to the resources of the entire continental shelf, a claim for which there is some basis in international law. In the interests of the emerging détente with Peking, the State Department directed the American firms to cease and desist. Peking thereupon unleashed a propaganda offensive asserting its own claim to the islands and attacking Japan, the Chinese Nationalists, and the relationship between them. The campaign was used skillfully to foster support for Peking as the guardian of China’s national interests among Chinese and Taiwanese students overseas, especially in the United States and Canada. By the spring of 1972, however, Peking’s general anti-Japanese offensive was fading away in any case, and in mid-May the reversion of Okinawa to Japanese jurisdiction brought the Self-Defense Forces into the vicinity of the Tiao Yü T’ai (or Senkaku). Peking accordingly dropped the issue as suddenly as it had taken it up.

In mid-1971, Chou En-lai announced “three principles” that must be accepted by Japan if Sino-Japanese relations were to be normalized. They were to the effect that the government of the People’s Republic of China was the sole legitimate government of China, that Taiwan was an integral part of China, and that the peace treaty between Japan and the Republic of China was illegal and must be abrogated. Although it was not clear whether acceptance of these was regarded as a prerequisite for the beginning of negotiations on normalization, the effect was to enhance Chinese leverage on Japanese politics and foreign policy; in this and other ways, Peking acquired a virtual veto over the selection of the next Japanese premier in succession to Sato.

The Japanese establishment, and still more the opposition, was rendered increasingly receptive to Peking’s rough wooing by the “Nixon shocks” of 1971, to which injury insult was added when the United States insisted that Japan cosponsor a resolution proposing that the United Nations General Assembly admit the People’s Republic of China while retaining the Republic of China (unless expelled by a two-thirds vote). When Peking was admitted and Taipei expelled instead, on October 25, Tokyo took this development as a sign that the time had come to alter its China policy. Since Sato was persona non grata in Peking, it was left to his successor to make the change. Tanaka, as we have seen, was in a mood to do so, and Peking was in a mood to reciprocate because Chou En-lai did not want to wait any longer to bring Japan into the essentially anti-Soviet network of relationships that he was in the process of creating.

Tanaka’s visit to China, which occurred at the end of September 1972, resulted in a joint communique that had virtually been agreed on in advance as a result of pressure on Tanaka to be conciliatory from the Japanese left and the business community. In the communiqué, the Japanese side expressed its “understanding” of Chou’s “three principles,” recognized Peking as the sole legal government of China, stated that it “understands and respects” (only just short of “accepts”) Peking’s claim that Taiwan is part of the People’s Republic of China (not simply China, as stated in the Chou-Nixon or Shanghai Communique), and declared that it “deeply reproaches” itself for the aggression of the past. Tokyo had accepted the first of Chou’s “three principles” in full and the second in part, and Ohira in a separate statement said that Tokyo regarded the Japanese treaty with the Republic of China as no longer valid. The Chinese side renounced its demand for reparations, which had never been serious in any case. The two sides announced that the “abnormal state of affairs” (i. e., undeclared war) between them was terminated, agreed to establish diplomatic relations, pledged mutual friendship, denied that this friendship would be directed against any third party and that either side aimed at hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region, and agreed to hold negotiations on such matters as a peace treaty and trade expansion.

This seemingly spectacular turn in Sino-Japanese relations evoked great expectations on the part of some Japanese and some foreign observers. Writing early in 1973, the able American journalist Selig Harrison concluded that the Japanese establishment, out of concern to avoid a destructive rivalry with China in Asia, was making major concessions to Peking. Those were said to be recognition that Peking would eventually control Taiwan, termination of Japanese financial support for the Taiwanese independence movement, a tendency to clear with Peking in advance any major proposed new investments in Taiwan in the hope of salvaging the Japanese economic position there after Peking assumed control, plans for extensive cooperation with Peking in the economic development of the China mainland and in exploitation of the resources of the continental shelf, toleration of a moderate amount of Chinese revolutionary activity in Asia apart from Japan, cooperation with overseas Chinese firms in Southeast Asia, and the leaving to Peking of the Asian market for light industrial goods. Peking for its part hoped, by dealing with Japan more or less along these lines, to increase its leverage on Taiwan, exploit the tensions in Japanese-American relations, keep Japan away from the Soviet Union, and discourage Japanese rearmament. It appears that there are substantial elements of exaggeration in this analysis, which was written while the honeymoon atmosphere created by the Tanaka visit to Peking still lingered.

Peking having achieved much of the effect that it desired, namely the creation of a major incentive for Japan to prefer a Chinese to a Soviet orientation, simply by the fact of the visit, the honeymoon tended to evaporate in early 1973. To be sure, Tokyo’s relations with Taipei were reduced to the level of a semiofficial trading office, Japanese firms hesitated to invest in Taiwan, and Japan’s trade with the China mainland continued to expand. Tokyo made it clear that it would not consent to the use of American bases in Japan (including Okinawa) for the defense of Taiwan. Some fairly small sales of Chinese oil to Japan occurred. A 55-man Chinese “friendship” delegation visited Japan in the spring of 1973, mainly in order to familiarize its members with the Japanese scene and make contact with all major sectors of Japanese opinion (except the Communist Party). On the other hand, there was no noticeable progress toward a peace treaty, and some aspects of the commercial negotiations proved difficult. Peking tried to use them as a lever for gaining full Japanese recognition of Taiwan as a part of the People’s Republic of China. Peking demanded that the profitable flights by Japan Air Lines and China Air Lines (the Nationalist air line) between Japan and Taiwan be terminated as the price of Japan Air Line’s being allowed to make much less profitable flights to the mainland, partly in order to avoid the embarrassing possibility that aircraft from both the Communist and Nationalist Chinese airlines might find themselves using the same facilities in Japan.

After the middle of 1973, however, the atmosphere improved somewhat. Peking was probably disturbed over the apparent improvement in Soviet-American relations symbolized by Brezhnev’s trip to the United States, by the disenchantment in Japan over the dissipation of the honeymoon atmosphere in Sino-Japanese relations, and by Premier Tanaka’s approaching visit to the Soviet Union. Chou En-lai took care to make it clear, although not for the first time, that he had no serious objection to the Japanese-American security treaty (presumably because it minimized the chances of massive rearmament or a turn toward the Soviet Union by Japan) or a modest level of Japanese rearmament; neither of these things, as a matter of fact, had been criticized by the Chinese side in the Chou-Tanaka communique. Chinese attacks on the Siberian pipeline project stopped. In January 1974 a formal intergovernmental trade agreement was signed, and in April one was signed on air line rights essentially on Chinese terms.

The logic of the situation seems to suggest that the Sino-Japanese relationship is not likely to take the form either of open enmity, from which both would have too much to lose, or close cooperation, to which there are too many obstacles, but is likely rather to oscillate near the middle of the scale. It could be pushed toward enmity by another bout of Japanese militarism, but that seems unlikely. It could move toward closer cooperation if large oil reserves are actually found on the continental shelf and if Peking and Tokyo decide to exploit them jointly for the common benefit, that of the oil-hungry Japanese economy in particular.

Japan and Asia

The Japanese have generally felt a sense of contemptuous superiority to other Asians, apart from the Chinese. This feeling does not seem to have been much affected by the fact that Asia, again apart from China, is less important to them than it once was. This is true partly because Japan was defeated in its bid to establish what it called a Coprosperity Sphere in Asia, nominally for the benefit of others but actually for its own, but even more because it is now an industrial giant investing and trading worldwide, not primarily in Asia. Furthermore, whereas it was obviously the strongest power in Asia between the two World Wars, it is now outclassed politically and militarily by three others.

But even though non-Chinese Asia is no longer of prime importance to Japan, the converse does not hold; Japan is still very important to the rest of Asia as the largest single foreign investor and trading partner for the region as a whole. Although Japan’s lack of military “reach” and of an active foreign policy toward the region has limited its political influence to a level considerably lower than that of the other three major powers, its enormous economic role has intensified the lingering resentments, especially in the Philippines, over the brutality of Japanese conquest and occupation in 1942. Japanese businessmen, who manage somehow to be both aloof and abrasive in their contacts with Asians, are sometimes called “yellow Yankees.” They look for fast profits regardless of almost everything else. Their extractive operations (iron in the Philippines, oil in Indonesia, etc.) are conducted in a way reminiscent of strip mining; the terrain is left looking like the mountains of the moon. Japanese economic activity, whether formally classified as reparations payments (for the Second World War), aid, credits, or investment, is essentially and obviously export promotion and has little developmental effect. Japan runs large favorable balances with the Asian countries. Japan has been reluctant to become deeply committed to multilateral agencies such as the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East or the World Bank’s International Development Agency and has emphasized the Asian Development Bank, which is essentially Japanese-controlled. To an even greater extent than their American counterparts, Japanese official and commercial activities in Asia tend to bolster the political status quo as a means toward stability and profits. Thus, Japanese contacts, which include occasional corrupt ones, are useful to the Asian establishments, including even the Communist ones but especially the right-wing ones, which, like authoritarian regimes elsewhere, often promote economic development as a means of distracting public attention from the shortage of political freedom. These connections are widely disliked by students, intellectuals, opposition politicians, local businessmen, and some of the ordinary people. The United States, which used to encourage Japan to increase its economic activity in Asia, does not do so any more.

For obvious geographic and historical reasons, Korea occupies a special place in Japan’s Asian concerns, even though the Japanese look down on the Koreans even more than on most other Asians. Although the old feeling that Korea is a “dagger point at the heart of Japan” has somewhat subsided, the Japanese elite apart from the extreme left prefers to see the peninsula divided and the southern half under a more or less friendly government and under American protection, as the best situation from the standpoint of Japanese security. The satisfaction stemming from the large and profitable Japanese stake in South Korea is somewhat impaired by embarrassment caused by the highly authoritarian character of the South Korean government. This was particularly acute when the South Korean Central Intelligence Agency kidnapped opposition leader Kim Dae Jung in Japan in 1973 and brought him secretly back to Korea. Japan has a slowly growing economic relationship with North Korea, but no diplomatic relations.

The Japanese establishment tended to approve of the American intervention in Vietnam after 1965, at least initially, both because it seemed likely to promote stability and hold back Communism in Asia as a whole and because it resulted in huge Japanese profits from “offshore procurement.” The opposition, especially intellectuals and the left-wing parties, were of course strongly opposed to it. The establishment resents the fact that the United States has excluded Japan from the Vietnam settlement—the Paris conference and the ICCS, specifically—at the same time that it was inviting Japanese contributions to the reconstruction of both halves of Vietnam.

In January 1974, Premier Tanaka took what turned out to be a memorable trip to Manila, Bangkok, Singapore, and Jakarta. For reasons already indicated, he was well received by the governments and establishments but denounced by some other elements. Students staged demonstrations in Manila and Bangkok (where they had organized a brief boycott of Japanese goods in late 1972), and a serious riot in Jakarta. In the latter case, however, the students were obviously venting their general frustrations on a variety of targets, including their own government and overseas Chinese merchants. Wholly owned Japanese firms were the objects of a great deal of hostility during the Tanaka visit, but this was much less true of enterprises owned jointly by Japanese and local firms. Tanaka and many of his thoughtful countrymen were shaken by these expressions of resentment. There was a general feeling that Japan and Japanese businessmen must try to adopt a lower posture in Southeast Asia and conduct their activities in ways less offensive to local feeling, but of course not withdraw from the region. What would actually be done was not clear.