Japan: Postwar International Relations

Postwar International Relations

As the world's second largest national economy, Japan has struggled to define its international role. Its postwar foreign policy was aimed at the maintenance and expansion of foreign markets, and the United States became its chief ally and trade partner. In the early 1970s, however, U.S.-Japanese relations became strained after the United States pressured Japan to revalue the yen, and again when it began talks with Communist China without prior consultation with Japan. Partly in response, the Tanaka government established (1972) diplomatic relations with Communist China and announced plans for negotiation of a peace treaty. Relations also became strained with South Korea and Taiwan. Japan did not sign a peace treaty with the USSR because of a dispute over territory in the Kuril Islands formerly held by Japan but occupied by the USSR after the war. The two countries did, however, sign (1956) a peace declaration and establish fishing and trading agreements. The unresolved issue of the Kuril Islands remained a source of friction in Japan-Russia relations into the 21st cent.

Beginning in late 1973, when Arab nations initiated a cutback in oil exports, Japan faced a grave economic situation that threatened to reduce power and industrial production. In addition, a high annual inflation rate (19% in 1973), a price freeze, and the instability of the yen on the international money markets slowed Japan's economy; in the late 1970s, however, the continued growth of foreign markets brought Japan out of its slump.

In the 1980s many Japanese firms invested heavily in other countries, and Japan had a surplus with virtually every nation with which it traded. The high level of government involvement in banking and industry led many other countries to accuse Japan of protectionism. The United States in particular sought to reduce its huge trade deficit with Japan. Japan also had to deal with growing economic competition within its own region from such countries as South Korea, Taiwan, and (beginning in the 1990s) China. Japan's emphasis on exports also caused it to neglect its domestic markets.

In addition to these economic pressures, great political pressure was put on Japan to assume a larger role in world affairs. Although its constitution forbids the maintenance of armed forces, Japan has a sizable military capability for defensive warfare. The United States has increasingly pressed Japan to assume a larger share of responsibility for the defense of its region. The first Persian Gulf War caused great dissension in Japan. The government, which felt tremendous pressure to contribute to the UN effort in accordance with its economic power, also had to address the decidedly antimilitaristic bias of the Japanese people. In 2001, Japan provided refueling support in the Indian Ocean to U.S. naval forces involved in the invasion of Afghanistan. After the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Japan also contributed (2004–6) forces to reconstruction efforts. That deployment was opposed by most Japanese, despite its noncombat nature.

Meanwhile, by 2003 concern over North Korea's pursuit of nuclear weapons and missiles and over China's growing power led to the removal of some legal restrictions on the government's ability to respond militarily to an attack, and the Liberal Democrats proposed amending the constitution's limits on its defense forces. Late in 2004 relations with North Korea became especially strained when Japan suspended food aid to it after the remains it returned to Japan of a woman who had been kidnapped by Korea turned out to be not hers. The issues of North Korean missile development and the abduction of Japanese citizens increasingly worsened bilateral relations into 2006.

Relations with South Korea and China soured in the spring of 2005. Both nations were upset by school history textbooks that minimized aspects of Japan's role in World War II. In addition, South Koreans objected to the reassertion of Japanese claims to the Liancourt Rocks, which Korea occupies, while Chinese demonstrated against a plan that called for giving Japan a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and both nations contested the ownership of an exclusive economic zone in the East China Sea. The annual visits of the Prime Minister Koizumi to the Tokyo shrine honoring Japan's war dead also strained relations with South Korea and China, as did Prime Minister Abe's remarks (early 2007) denying that Japan's military had forced Asian women to serve in its brothels during World War II. Abe nonetheless managed to improve relations with China, in part by not visiting the Tokyo shrine.

North Korea's announcement of a nuclear weapons test in Oct., 2006, brought a quick and strong response from Japan, which imposed new, much tighter sanctions on North Korea. All trade with North Korea was banned, and most travel from the North was was as well. Japan also pushed for strong UN sanctions to be imposed on the North. Although Japan supported the Jan., 2007, six-party agreement that called for closure of North Korea's reactor, it maintained a harder line in its bilateral relations with the North, concerned over unresolved abduction issues and North Korean missiles (which led to the installation of ballistic missile interceptors in 2007). Relations with North Korea remained difficult in subsequent years.

When DPJ came to power in 2009, it adopted a more assertive relationship with the United States, especially with respect to U.S. bases in Japan, and sought to improve relations with South Korea and China. The new government reviewed the proposed realignment of U.S. forces on Okinawa, which was opposed by elements within the DPJ-led government and on Okinawa that preferred to see U.S. forces there reduced even further, but in May, 2010, the government announced it would honor the 2006 relocation agreement. That decision catalyzed the resignation of Prime Minister Hatoyama. Japan also ended its naval refueling mission in support of U.S. forces in the Indian Ocean.

In Sept., 2010, relations with China were strained after a Chinese trawler collided with Japanese patrol boats near the Senkaku Islands, an island group controlled by Japan but claimed by China. Japan accused the captain of intentionally crashing into the Japanese vessels, and when he was not released when his ship and crew was, China demanded his release, canceled high-level intergovernmental meetings with Japan, and was reported to have halted the export of industrially important rare earths to Japan. The captain subsequently was released, but the events undermined public support for the Japanese government, and frictions between the two nations remained. A revised agreement on the realignment of U.S. forces on Okinawa was reached in Apr., 2012; it did not change the number of U.S. forces that would remain after the realignment. Tensions over the Senkaku Islands, with both China and Taiwan, flared up again in the second half of 2012 and continued into 2013, and affected sales of Japanese products in China. The Liancourt Rocks have continued to be a source of difficulty in relations with South Korea.

In July, 2014, the Japanese cabinet adopted an interpretation of the self-defense clause in the constitution that would allow its military to engage in collective self-defense, such as might be involved in protecting an ally, and it secured the passage of laws in support of that in 2015 despite significant opposition among the public. Increased missile and nuclear weapons development and testing by North Korea under Kim Jong Un, especially since 2016, has led to tensions and contributed to Japanese interest in strengthening its miliary. In 2019 increasing tensions between Japan and South Korea, sparked when South Korea's supreme court ordered Japanese companies to compensate Koreans who were forced to work for Japanese companies during World War II (an issue Japan considered resolved by a 1965 treaty), resulted in a trade war that began in July when Japan placed export restrictions on chemicals important to South Korea's semiconductor. Both nations subsequently revoked each other's trusted trading nation status.

Sections in this article:

Introduction
Postwar International Relations
Postwar Japan
Surrender and Occupation
Militarism and War
Industrial and Military Expansion
The Tokugawa Shoguns and the Meiji Restoration
Early History to the Ashikaga Shoguns
Government and Politics
Economy
Japanese Society
Land

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