It is well known that Japanese on the left of the political spectrum do not favour their country’s present close alignment with the United States. But they are a small minority who are not likely to prevail in the foreseeable future. As far as we can see into the future, Japan will continue to see itself, and behave as if it is, a full member of the western community.
It is possible, that Soviet policymakers have reached the same conclusion and that this is one reason why they have dug in their toes on the question of the four Kurile islands which they had seized from Japan towards the end of World War II. At one stage they had indicated their willingness to give up two of these islands.
The general view, of course, is that the Soviet Union cannot afford to give up these territorial gains from its victory in World War II lest it should strengthen other similar demands on it; it took over chunks of Polish, Rumanian and Bulgarian territories at the end of the war. Yet in spite of this undoubtedly powerful consideration, the men in the Kremlin might have tried to find a compromise solution if they had felt reasonably sure that they could thereby bring about a significant change in Japan’s overall approach.
There was a time some years ago when some western scholars would have challenged this proposition regarding the firmness of the Japanese commitment to the west. One leading commentator had in fact gone so far as to assert that the Japanese were a highly race-conscious people and that they would one day wish to make common cause with the one billion Chinese armed with nuclear weapons in an attempt to upturn the existing west-dominated world order and establish a new one. Today hardly anyone in the west would care to recall this prognosis.
The Japanese officials are much louder in claiming to belong to the western community than their western counterparts are in accepting Japan as one of them. In fact, the latter hardly bring up the subject in these terms, their current obsession being Japan’s huge trade surpluses year after year with both the United States and western Europe. This is understandable for after all, it is the Japanese who wish to see themselves as members of the powerful western grouping and not the other way about. The Japanese loud protestations of membership of, not just loyalty to, the west might, however, also be an indication that the Americans and the west Europeans have managed to put them on the defensive. One tends to protest a little too loudly in such a situation.
Trade Surpluses
The Japanese of course, strongly deny that they feel guilty on account of their trade surpluses; indeed they contest that they have any surpluses at all. They claim that after their aid and investments abroad are taken into account, they are in the red. They also argue that all bilateral trade accounts cannot be, and should not be sought to be, balanced; that the proper solution to the present problem is to stimulate world trade as a whole; and that, among other things, this requires changes in US policy and improvement in the productivity of US industry. Even so, it does seem to me that the Japanese are on the defensive in their dealings with the Americans and the west Europeans. They recognise that they have little choice but “voluntarily” to reduce their exports in certain key sectors like cars which they have already done to some extent, making it possible for all three US car manufacturers to make a profit. Chrysler, it may be recalled, had to be rescued from going bankrupt last year by the Reagan administration.
In spite of occasional irritation in the case of car exports or President Reagan’s peremptory orders to withhold equipment for the Soviet gas pipeline, or even shocks as in the case of Mr. Kissinger’s secret visit to China in 1971 without so much as a hint to them that a total reversal of America’s China policy was in the works, the Japanese find their relations with the Americans useful and comforting. Indeed, it is perhaps because they have got so used to these cozy ties that they found themselves so unprepared for the change in America’s China policy. What a contrast to our assertiveness towards the United States despite our economic weakness!
It does not follow that the Japanese are willing to subordinate themselves to the Americans on every important issue. They are not. Their defence expenditure is a case in point. They have raised it gradually – it is placed at $ 10.8 billion for the next financial year – but not dramatically as the Americans would have liked them to do in the sixties and seventies.
This is however, a far more complex issue than most outsiders, especially the Americans and the west Europeans, have seen it to be. The foreigners have argued that Japan has been anxious to keep down its defence budget primarily because it does not wish to divert its resources to unproductive purposes, especially since its security is adequately guaranteed by the treaty with the United States.
Peace Perception
This is true. But the Japanese have also a perception of themselves which is relevant. They see themselves as a peaceable people and their 50-year history (from the end of the 19th century to 1945) of militarism, wars, conquest and finally defeat as an aberration. There is enough in their history to justify this self-image. More importantly, it shows that today they have no appetite for military glory. The rest of us may find this low profile in world affairs incongruous against the background of their economic achievement and prowess. But they do not. They just want to produce and prosper. If some other thoughts stir behind this benign surface, it is very difficult to detect them. I for one see even their attempt to rewrite the history of their aggression in China as part of this desire to see themselves as a peaceable people.
Viewed in this context, the debate in the seventies on the need for revising the constitution and expanding the armed forces and even to go in for nuclear weapons was bound to prove phoney. And it has. The advocates of strong defence forces have faded into the background and so incidentally has the US pressure. The Americans, too, have come to realise that a rearmed Japan would be an unsettling factor in east and south-east Asia.
But issues like defence spending apart, the Japanese like to keep in line with US policy. It is, for example, difficult to accept that they regard themselves as being threatened by the Soviet Union. But they would talk as if they do, though some of them are willing to admit that despite the expansion and superiority in number of the Soviet navy in the Pacific, it is no match to the US navy and is not likely to be one in the foreseeable future.
Vietnam provides an even more telling illustration. Japan, it may be recalled, had decided to extend economic assistance to Vietnam in the seventies not only with a view to helping Hanoi rebuild its war-ravaged economy but also with a view to persuading it to adopt a reasonable stance towards other south-east Asian countries and to keep Soviet influence to the minimum. But once the United States decided not to deal with the Hanoi regime in order to be able to draw close to China, the Japanese quickly fell in line.
Ties With Hanoi
During a recent meeting with the Japanese foreign minister, Mr. Yoshio Sakurauchi, in Tokyo, I put it to him that friendly ties with Hanoi would be the best way to induce it to pull out of Kampuchea. He made no straight reply. But he made it a point to tell that he was president of the Japan-Vietnam Friendship Committee in the Diet (Japanese parliament), leaving me in little doubt that the Japanese had reservations regarding the validity of the current US-ASEAN approach toward Vietnam. But no Japanese leader or official is likely to spell these out.
This reservation, if true, would be particularly interesting in view of the fact that unlike the Americans, the Japanese are ready to go to great lengths to suppress doubts regarding China. While any number of China scholars and others in America are willing to admit that Mr. Deng Xiaoping may not be able to prevail in the long run, that his modernisation programme might either be jettisoned or fail, and that Beijing might make up with Moscow, the Japanese allow themselves no such misgivings and remain, despite the cancellation of many orders by the Chinese, anxious to help it build its economy.
To avoid misunderstanding, it may be necessary for me to emphasise that I do not think that the US-Japanese relationships are wholly stable. They cannot be, in view of the growing friction over a variety of economic issues. And if they find themselves in good company, as they did in the case of the Soviet gas pipeline and contributions to the IDA, the World Bank’s soft-lending agency, the Japanese are ready to defy the Americans. But, on the whole, the Japanese wish to remain one of America’s loyal allies.
It is difficult to say what the implications of this Japanese approach are for us. But it seems to me that they will be more forthcoming in terms of investing in India if they feel that the Americans are well disposed towards us and wish to step up economic cooperation with us.
I was told in the US last month that the Japanese have an even less flattering view of India’s economic prospects than the Americans. Japanese officials in Tokyo studiously denied that this was so. I cannot possibly say who was telling the truth. But after Mrs. Gandhi’s fence-mending mission to the US the Japanese may be looking for opportunities in our country and it may be worth our while to test them by offering them terms and conditions which are comparable to those available to them elsewhere.
The Times of India, 18 August 1982