評：Shinzo Abe’s Nationalist Strategy○The Diplomat（2014.02.13）

【Comment】

Kosuke Takahashi, a Tokyo based journalist, wrote an article for the Diplomat explaining what Abe might be going to do next, or what his grand strategy might be, and why Abe is wrong.

Takahashi defined at the beginning that people have to review history before scheming strategy.  He detailed Abe’s doings, such as proactive Pacifism, National Security Council, National Security Strategy, National Defense Programme Guidelines, the concept of Dynamic Joint Defense Force etc.; however, Takahashi concluded that Abe should not depart from the post-war regime, in the name of history.  The author, in fact, showed a typical tautology error.

Takahashi’s was blind to history when he blamed Japan for its “hostility” toward China and South Korea “when all countries need to be working cooperatively to resolve the problems with North Korea and its nuclear program.”  He talked as if NK were one lone party in the Six-Party Talks, while all the other five were grouped as NK’s rival. 

Moreover, China’s opposition to prosecuting NK's top leaders in the International Criminal Court, according to the latest report of UN DPR Korea human rights, gave conflicting evidence to Takahashi’s claim.

On the same web page of the article, the Diplomat interviewed Michael Green, senior vice president for Asia and Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).  In explaining objectively the dangerous escalation between China and Japan, Green referred to Chinese doings since mid-90s from the opaque military buildups to unilateral ADIZ on East China Sea lately, and meanwhile mentioned Abe’s Yasukuni visit.

In all, it is imperative to do a thorough review to understand how and why the situation over East Asia has changed so quickly and dramatically.  Since 1989 the US encouraged Japan to take more regional responsibility and revive the right of collective self-defense.  However, Yasukuni’s visit that challenged WWII mainstream view suddenly pushed the US to stand behind China.  Yet it is Beijing, not Japan, that has challenged the regional status quo, most intensely in the past four years.  

Will such an abrupt dramatic alteration happen to Taiwan too?    Rewritten at 1335

本文作者 Kosuke Takahashi 認為安倍靖國參拜的呈現其為最日本史上保守的首相，且為歷史修正主義者，懷念戰爭期的日本，從而鼓動愛國心、民族主義心。

作者問：然後呢？安倍想做什麼？大戰略是什麼？

作者從遠東軍事法庭講起──這就又回到北京的「確保反法西斯戰爭的成果」，並認為：安倍先改變「被動和平主義」(passive Pacifism) 為「積極和平主義」(proactive Pacifism) ──對國際和平貢獻更多。然後設立「國家安全會議」 (NSC)，發佈《國家安全保障戰略》 (NSS)與年度《防衛計劃大綱》 (NDPG)，並發展「統合機動防衛力」 (a Dynamic Joint Defense Force) 概念，而注重西南方的防禦。並在美國壓力下通過《特定秘密保護法》而引起爭議。安倍接著要修憲以承認集體自衛權、武器出口原則、修改教科書綱要、更換NHK委員。最後修改憲法第九條。

作者認為要制定戰略必須檢視歷史，而安倍的靖國參拜則說明了其目標。

有趣的是作者引述《紐約時報》，提及當各國要齊心協力對抗朝鮮時，日本卻對中韓展現敵意。 (An editorial in The New York Times titled “Japan’s Unnecessary Nationalism” was critical: “…it seems especially foolhardy for Japan to inflame hostilities with China and South Korea when all countries need to be working cooperatively to resolve the problems with North Korea and its nuclear program.”)

原來在作者眼中：六方會談的朝鮮是一方，而其餘五國是另一方。作者無視於中國與朝鮮的軍事同盟，及中國的作為：「中國反對因人權紀錄將北韓領導人訴諸國際法庭。…報告也點名中國將脫北者遣返，導致脫北者面對被虐待或處決的慘況，等於是協助及教唆反人道的罪行。」作者的國際觀居然如此，令人傻眼。

相對的，Michael Green 接受 The Diplomat的訪問，在前言中即提出平衡的呈現中日的行為乃典型的挑釁升級，較為平實。 (China-Japan relations have deteriorated rapidly in the wake of China’s newly announced Air Defense Identification Zone and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine.  The Diplomat‘s Shannon Tiezzi talks with Michael Green, Senior Vice President for Asia at CSIS and a professor at Georgetown University, about the root cause of the tensions, the possibility for conflict, and strategies for repairing relations.)

總之，2014年以前情勢原本是北京挑戰「現狀」（東海與南海），怎瞬間變成東京挑戰「二戰」（靖國與慰安）？轉折在哪裡？也因發生此一轉折，所以從1989年起美國鼓勵日本承擔更大責任的戰略，在美國評論者眼中瞬間轉為日本單方面的擴軍。

要警覺的是：這外部轉折也一樣會發生在台灣。

Shinzo Abe’s Nationalist Strategy○The Diplomat（2014.02.13）http://thediplomat.com/2014/02/shinzo-abes-nationalist-strategy/

With his overt nationalism and his historical revisionism, Shinzo Abe has a plan for Japan.

By Kosuke Takahashi

The world is now beginning to realize Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s true intentions.  With his controversial visit to the Yasukuni shrine, which memorializes war dead, including Class A war criminals such as Hideki Tojo, he is no longer hesitant to reveal his true nature: without question, the most conservative leader in Japan’s postwar history.  And he is a historical revisionist, notably with respect to wartime Japan.  By encouraging a spirit of nationalism, Abe is hoping to engender self-confidence and patriotism among the Japanese public.

But what exactly is his future agenda?  To understand Abe’s political ambitions, you need to understand their take on modern Japan.

For mainstream Japanese conservatives such as the Abe family, Tokyo has been shackled since it accepted the judgments of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, known as the Tokyo Trials.  For one thing, as a defeated nation Japan has always been forced to take a servile position— militarily and diplomatically—toward the U.S., the World War II victor.  And Japan has had to repeatedly bow its head to its neighbors, such as China and South Korea, to apologize for its conduct during the war.

Willingly or not, Japan embraced these two international restraints when it signed the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1951, hoping to return to the fold of the international community as an independent nation.

More than 60 years later, though, the Abe administration wants to free Japan from these perceived shackles.  In his own words, he is seeking a “departure from the postwar regime” by “bringing back Japan.”  Although Abe has never said from “what” he will bring back the nation, many Japanese believe what he meant is to bring back a militarily, diplomatically and economically strong Japan from the political and economic abyss of the past decades, and perhaps in the long term from the U.S. itself.

Although Abe’s popularity has recently tapered somewhat from the heady days early in this, his second stint as prime minister, many Japanese still support his nationalistic program, because they feel that Japan lacks strength and needs to stand on its own feet, amid mounting nationalism in East Asia and a rising China.

So, to return to the question: What is Abe’s grand strategy?  In fact, Abe has a three-year plan to accomplish his ultimate goal of having Japan “depart from the postwar regime.”

Abe’s Three-Year Plan

During the first year of his second term in office 2013, Abe proposed a move from “passive pacifism” to a “proactive pacifism” that encourages Japan to contribute more proactively to world peace and international cooperation.  He then established a Japanese National Security Council (NSC).  He also announced the first National Security Strategy (NSS) and the National Defense Programme Guidelines (NDPG) that introduced the concept of “a Dynamic Joint Defense Force.”  This new concept emphasizes the Self-Defense Forces’ (SDF) joint operations and interoperability capability at sea, in the air and on land, and bolster the nation’s defensive posture in the southwest—in particular the Nansei island chain that includes Okinawa and the disputed Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea.

Over the last year, Abe’s government has also enacted a controversial secrecy law to prevent leaks of state secrets, after it was pressured by the U.S. to tighten the confidentiality of their shared intelligence on security.

Now, in his second year, Abe is trying to reinterpret the constitution to allow for the exercise of the right of collective self-defense.  Abe will also formally abolish Japan’s decades-old ban on weapons exports this year.  In January, his administration revised textbook screening guidelines to give Japanese children a more patriotic take on modern Japanese history and to better reflect the government’s view on territorial issues such as on Senkaku Islands.  Abe has also succeeded in placing four conservative intellectuals with whom he has very close ties on Japan’s public television NHK’s management board. Some of their comments have already stirred considerable controversy.

In this third year, 2015, Abe plans to change Article 9 of the U.S.-imposed pacifist constitution, accomplishing his final goal of escaping from the postwar regime.

This three-year plan seeks to boost national security and could lead to Japanese involvement in conflicts abroad in the future.

Shinichi Kitaoka, a former Japanese ambassador to the United Nations and a key Abe adviser, remarked recently that all of these steps are simply trying to bring Japan closer to a “normal country.”  Kitaoka is now deputy chairman of Abe’s Advisory Panel on Reconstruction of the Legal Basis for Security, which is expected to recommend reinterpreting Japan’s war-renouncing Constitution to lift the self-imposed ban on the right to exercise collective self-defense in April.

Abe’s Historical Perspective

An attempt at bringing Japan out of the postwar regime in terms of national security issues will inevitably require the country to address the issue of its historical view, sparking a national debate on modern history.

In this context, Abe’s visit to the Yasukuni Shrine is a manifest of his determination to accomplish his final goal.  He needs to unite at least his conservative allies and supporters within Japanese political circles amid domestic and foreign opposition.

The most important question to come out of his visit to the shrine is whether Abe really thinks that Japan’s wartime leaders, such as Hideki Tojo and Abe’s own grandfather Nobusuke Kishi, a Class A war crimes suspect by order of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, did the wrong thing or not during the war.

It is apparent that Abe believes they were innocent.  His book Towards a Beautiful Country: My Vision For Japan, published in 2006, is revealing on this and other aspects of the prime minister’s thinking.

In the book, he says that Japanese war-time leaders bore the greatest share of responsibility, but pointed out that the majority of the public also supported the military strongly.  He cited as an example of this strong public support, major newspapers that fed the war frenzy with front-page headlines like “(We) Should Fight Adamantly.”  He also notes that Class A war criminals were brought before the Tokyo Trials on charges of “crimes against peace” and “crimes against humanity,” based on concepts formed after the war, questioning the legitimacy of the trials.  He goes on to note that Japanese domestic laws do not deal with Tojo et al as criminals; indeed, the government continued to pay their pensions after the war.

In this book, Abe quotes Father Bruno Bitter, representative of the Roman Curia, who, when asked by the supreme commander of the U.S. occupying force how to deal with Yasukuni Shrine, said, “Any nation has the right and obligation to pay tributes to the warriors who died for the nation.”  Abe also makes theArlington cemetery comparison, as he has done recently.

Of course, Abe is on record repeatedly defending Japan’s conduct before and during World War II. On April 23 last year, Abe even told the Diet that he does not believe Japan’s occupation of other Asian countries during the war can be considered “invasions.”  According to Abe, that’s because there are no set international or academic definitions of the word “invasion.”  He claimed, “It depends on the point of view of individual countries.”  He later retracted his remark after his hawkish stance was criticized by China and South Korea, saying “I never say Japan did not invade.” An editorial in The New York Times titled “Japan’s Unnecessary Nationalism” was critical: “…it seems especially foolhardy for Japan to inflame hostilities with China and South Korea when all countries need to be working cooperatively to resolve the problems with North Korea and its nuclear program.”

Abe’s historical revisionism, combined with Japan’s military buildup, will continue to cause needless friction with China and South Korea.  However, Russia and the U.S. may also grow worried that Abe’s approach will further shake the foundations of the postwar order.  Russia’s concerns likely center on the disputed islands, called the Southern Kurils by the Russians and the Northern Territories by the Japanese, which it claims it acquired legitimately as a result of the war.

U.S.-Japan Relations

What kind of relations does Abe want with the U.S., Japan’s closest ally?  Here, his views are very shaped by his grandfather Nobusuke Kishi.

Although this is not widely known outside Japan, Kishi sought an independent approach when it came to relations with the U.S., especially around the time the two nations revised the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty in 1960.  Ukeru Magosaki, Japan’s former ambassador to Iran and Uzbekistan, told The Diplomat that Kishi was a politician who sought diplomatic independence, rather than one willing to accept diplomatic subservience to Washington.

Abe praised Kishi’s approach in his book Towards a Beautiful Country, saying “Grandfather at that time tried to fulfill the requirements of an independent nation by changing this unilateral treaty into a more equal one.  Looking back, [Kishi] took a very realistic approach of strengthening U.S.-Japan ties to realize Japan’s independence.”

Now Abe is trying to do the same.  He wants to enhance Japan’s role in the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty by authorizing the use of the right to collective self-defense so as to contribute to U.S. global strategy.  He believes that by assuming a greater role in U.S.-Japan security cooperation and by placing the U.S.-Japan relationship on a more equal footing, Japan can better stand up to the U.S., such as on the issue of U.S. military bases in Okinawa. Again, his book provides evidence of this.

But his nationalistic behavior has ratcheted up already strained tensions with China and South Korean, particularly over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands dispute.  The U.S. surely doesn’t want to get involved in unnecessary military conflicts with a powerful and intractable rising China, its security treaty with Japan notwithstanding.  As a consequence, more and more U.S. officials may rate Abe a security risk if he continues down his current path.  That could very quickly force Abe to return his emphasis to continuity, rather than his departure from the postwar order.

Kosuke Takahashi is a Tokyo-based journalist. His work has appeared in the Asahi Shimbun,Bloomberg, Asia Times, NK News and Jane’s Defence Weekly, among other publications. You can follow him on Twitter @TakahashiKosuke