This book evaluates the impact of the 2001 central government reforms on effective foreign policy making in Japan. It puts a special focus on the evolution of the domestic institutional factors and decision-making processes behind Japan’s foreign policy, while also analyzing the development of Japan’s external relations with various other countries, such as the US, China and North Korea. Adhering to the neoclassical realist approach, the authors show that, thanks to a more independent Kantei-based form of diplomacy, Japan’s prime ministers were able to strategically respond to international developments, and to pursue their own diplomatic endeavors more boldly. At the same time, they demonstrate that the effectiveness of this proactive posture was still heavily dependent on the decision-makers’ ability to form cohesive coalitions and select suitable institutional tools, which enabled them to influence domestic and international affairs.

" In the mid-1950s, as part of Tokyo’s goal of reinstating Japan as a full member of the international community, Japan sought and gained admittance to the United Nations. Since then, it has been a proactive member and a generous financial contributor to the organization. This study focuses on postwar Japan’s foreign policy making in the political and security areas, the core UN missions. It analyzes these two policy arenas from three perspectives--international political structure, domestic political organization, and the psychology of policymakers. The intent is to illustrate how policy goals forged by national security concerns, domestic politics, and psychological needs gave shape to Japan’s complicated and sometimes incongruous policy toward the UN since World War II. In contrast to the usual emphasis on the role of the foreign-policy bureaucracy, however, the author argues that we must view the bureaucracy as functioning within a larger framework of party politics and interactions among government agencies, political parties, and other actors associated with these parties. The last part of the book addresses the psychological aspect of Japan’s UN policymaking in an effort to elucidate the role of national prestige in generating Japanese policy toward the UN. "

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1977.

"In this diverse survey, leading experts from Japan, Europe and the USA explore recent developments in Japanese foreign policy, focusing on Japan's position in and towards the fast-changing Asia-Pacific region." "The authors assess the process and practice of foreign policy in the light of Japan's historical legacy in Asia, the huge imbalance between its economic and military power, and its dependence on the US-Japan Security Alliance. The study includes analysis of the formal and informal institutions of policy-making, the impact of public opinion, and relations with the USA, Northeast and Southeast Asia."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

This comprehensive, up-to-date analysis of Japanese policy between the two world wars utilizes both English and Japanese sources to present Japan as an independent agent, not a state whose policy was determined by the actions of other countries. Beginning with Japan's disappointment with the Versailles Peace Treaty in 1919, Nish examines the roots of Japanese discontent and feelings that ambitions in China were being unreasonably restrained. He explains British and American policies in the region as reactive, but concludes that their responses helped to determine which factions would dominate Japan's political arena. This non-partisan account is even-handed in apportioning responsibility for the events leading to the Second World War. While some Japanese politicians in the 1920s tried to follow the international path, there were others who tended to side with the army in establishing Japan's position, first in Manchuria and later in North and Central China in the 1930s. Conscious of the nation's unpopularity in the western world, Japan allied itself with Germany and Italy in the Anti-Comintern Pact of 1936 and the Tripartite Alliance of 1940. To pursue its own national objectives, Japan joined her allies in making war on the United States and the colonial empires of Britain, France, and the Netherlands. Its forces succeeded in overrunning many colonial territories; and, with a view to easing the problems of occupying them, Japan liberalized its harsh military policies, granting independence to Burma and the Philippines and welcoming Asian leaders to Tokyo for the Greater East Asian Conference of November 1943.

The post–World War II paradigm that ensured security and prosperity for the Japanese people has lost much of its effectiveness. The current generation has become increasingly resentful of the prolonged economic stagnation and feels a sense of drift and uncertainty about the future of Japan's foreign policy. In J apanese Foreign Policy at the Crossroads, Yutaka Kawashima clarifies some of the defining parameters of Japan's past foreign policy and examines the challenges it currently faces, including the quagmire on the Korean Peninsula, the future of the U.S.-Japan alliance, the management of Japan-China relations, and Japan's relation with Southeast Asia. Kawashima—who, as vice minister of foreign affairs, was Japan's highest-ranking foreign service official—cautions Japan against attempts to ensure its own security and well-being outside of an international framework. He believes it is crucial that Japan work with as many like-minded countries as possible to construct a regional and international order based on shared interests and shared values. In an era of globalization, he cautions, such efforts will be crucial to maintaining global world order and ensuring civilized interaction among all states.

This book evaluates the impact of the 2001 central government reforms on effective foreign policy making in Japan. It puts a special focus on the evolution of the domestic institutional factors and decision-making processes behind Japan’s foreign policy, while also analyzing the development of Japan’s external relations with various other countries, such as the US, China and North Korea. Adhering to the neoclassical realist approach, the authors show that, thanks to a more independent Kantei-based form of diplomacy, Japan’s prime ministers were able to strategically respond to international developments, and to pursue their own diplomatic endeavors more boldly. At the same time, they demonstrate that the effectiveness of this proactive posture was still heavily dependent on the decision-makers’ ability to form cohesive coalitions and select suitable institutional tools, which enabled them to influence domestic and international affairs.