(Page 9 of 22) - Paradigms and Fallacies: Rethinking Northeast Asian Security and Its Implications for Korea authored by Park, Hun.

leadership for the post-Cold War era, its right wing elements have ushered in dramatic
changes in Japan’s foreign policy stance.

At the heart of the controversial changes lies the revision of Article 9 of the

Japanese Constitution, which renounces “war as a sovereign right of the nation and the
threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes.” While the provision
does not recognize Japan’s right of belligerency, through gradual loosening of the
official interpretation of it, Japan’s right-wing politicians have been bringing about an
incremental rollback. The Peace-Keeping Organization Law in 1992, for instance,
allowed Japan’s Self Defense Forces (SDF) to undertake peace-keeping missions, and
the 1998 revision of the 1978 U.S.-Japan Defense Guidelines deepened bilateral
cooperation and extended it to “areas surrounding Japan,” areas to be defined in
situational terms. The cooperation further intensified after September 11, 2001. In
October 2001, Japan under Prime Minister Koizumi adopted a Terror Special Measures
law and provided substantial logistical support to America’s anti-terror war in
Afghanistan. Moreover, despite the United States’ failure to attain United Nations
sanctions for the 2003 war in Iraq, Japan sent its armed SDF forces—for the first time
since the end of World War II—to Iraq, albeit in a subordinate and non-combat role.
Further, Japan’s revised National Defense Program Outline of December 2004 described
China and North Korea as potential sources of threat to Japan. In a February 2005 joint
statement on security cooperation, the United States and Japan named Taiwan as a
matter of joint concern in a formal statement for the first time. Departing from its
traditional strategic ambiguity, Japan deliberately made its position on Taiwan clearer
by declaring that Taiwan is a mutual security concern. In making such policy changes
and attaining a closer integration with America’s global anti-terror alliance, Japan’s
right-wing politicians resorted to the principle of fait accompli, exploiting and feeding
the nationalist paranoia about the rise of China and the North Korean nuclear and
missile threats.

To be sure, China has also become more assertive in foreign policy, feeding a

negative feedback loop and engendering a heightened Sino-Japanese rivalry and
conflict. China’s 1995 nuclear weapons tests, its 1996 bracketing of Taiwan with
ballistic missiles, and its emotional dispute over the Diaoyu (or what the Japanese call
Senkaku) Islands represent cases in point. Particularly with respect to Taiwan, China
asserts that reunification with the mainland is the only solution. China stresses that it
will explore peaceful means first, but as demonstrated in the adoption of the anti-
secession law in early 2005, which provides a quasi-legal basis for use of force, China’s
state power holders refuse to rule out the military option on the Taiwan question. From