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Japan after September 11th
(War in Times of Peace, Sanaa, 2nd and 3d November 2002)


Masato Iizuka

Abstract

For a long time, Japanese foreign policy was formed with two major objectives: keeping good relationship with U.S., the biggest customer of Japanese products, and building friendly relations with Muslim countries to secure a supply of oil. Since these two objectives sometimes led counter each other, Japan took the different line from the U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, such as her consistent support for Palestinians and maintaining her diplomatic relationship with Iran even after the Islamic revolution.

However, September 11th obliged Japan, even if temporally, to give up this relatively independent policy. As a matter of fact, without any consideration of Muslim countries, Japanese government immediately decided to join the US-led “global war against terrorism”. And to justify this decision, hot discussion in Japanese media was completely neglected. The government adopted the US understanding of September 11th as her own, that is, attacks against “freedom and democracy”. Furthermore, to get the support of public opinion, she suddenly began to condemn the Taliban government for its infringement upon human rights, and promised of her own initiative to contribute financially the reconstruction of Afghanistan after the defeat of it.

In my paper, I will present first the hot debates in Japan after September 11th and its unexpected results. Then I will move to analyze why Japan, though not being directly targeted by Al Qaeda, participated in “anti-terrorist war” so quickly. In addition to the consideration of U.S. economic importance, there were several reasons for Japan's decision. For example, Japanese government seemed very afraid that U.S. retreats from East Asia as a result of Japanese hesitation to join the war. Unlike NATO in Europe, East Asia has failed to establish any security institution so far. Therefore Japanese government thinks the U.S. presence in this region is more important than elsewhere.




Texte intégral

I For a long time, Japanese government has pursued a two-track foreign policy: one track was to keep good relationship with U.S., the one and only military ally of Japan and biggest customer of her products, and another track was to build friendly relations with Muslim countries mainly to secure the necessary oil supply. When those two objectives could not be kept in harmony, Japan took the different line from the U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, for example, her consistent support for Palestinians and maintaining diplomatic relationship with Iran even after the Islamic revolution.

However in East Asia, at least until the end of the Cold War, there was no difference of policies between Japan and U.S. They shared common ground on the issue of regional security and took their own advantages each other. Owing to the security pact concluded in 1951, Japan almost entrusted her security to U.S. armed forces stationed in Japan, and escaped from the big burden to defend herself from the potential enemies. Meanwhile, it was very convenient for U.S. to make use of Japanese islands as its major armed base facing with its possible enemies, such as the former Soviet Union, China and Vietnam. Actually the priority of U.S. demands for Japan was to secure the military base in Japan, and Japan provided it, so it never criticised Japan as a “free-rider”, though it was evident that Japan-U.S. pact was one-sided; Japan had no obligation to make any military assistance toward U.S., even when the latter was attacked.

The end of the Cold War and outbreak of the Gulf War dramatically changed such a tolerant U.S. attitude toward Japan. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, U.S. concern changed. Now they are more concerned about East Asia and the Middle East, the main areas where the wars or international disputes might take place. As they see an anxiety still existent in East Asia, U.S. could not abandon its armed bases in Japan, and need to get the Japanese support not only financially but also military. It was under these conditions that U.S. began to try to strengthen the US-Japan security alliance on 1994.

However it was not so easy even for U.S. to persuade the Japanese government to offer her military cooperation. As article 9 of Japanese constitution, which was enacted during the period of U.S. occupation after the Second World War, says "the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes", Japanese government coherently denies her military cooperation with any countries, even if she has what we call “Self-Defence Forces”, one of the best-armed military forces in the world. Maintaining the article 9 of her constitution, Japan was so tough in the bilateral negotiation that Clinton government almost gave up the strengthening of U.S.-Japan security alliance.

However when George Bush Jr. was elected as president, U.S. demands became more clear than ever. He appointed some pro-Japanese bureaucrats as the persons in charge of Asian policy-making of the Department of State, and increased the pressure on Japan. They made big efforts to persuade the Japanese political leaders, saying that the main target of U.S. was China because of its possible invasion on Taiwan, and when U.S. relationship with Japan became worse, East Asia would be de-stabilized. Moreover, Bush administration proposed, on unofficially level, to revise the constitution, and asked, if it was impossible to change the constitution, to change her official interpretation of the article 9 at least, for the capability of sending her Self-Defence Forces out of the self-defence zone, especially in the Middle East. For U.S., Japan was strongly expected be one of the strongest military allies like U.K., in spite of the article 9 of her constitution. Of course, Japanese government could hardly accept such a request: changing the constitution, the very basic framework of the country was too much a demand. It was at the peak of that tough bilateral negotiations between U.S. and Japan when the incident of 11 09 happened.

II Although everyone was shocked by 11 09, Japanese people was shocked in a little bit different way from other nations. First of all, the way of the terrorists' attack reminded Americans of what is called “Kamikaze” attack by Japanese fighter-pilots during the Second World War. Meanwhile, in the Arab world, the false report that the criminals of 11 09 were members of the Japanese Red Army, reminded Arabs of its suicide terrorist attack against Israel in early 1970s. In addition, Japan was the mother country of religious cult terrorism, Aum Shinrikyo, a cult group who spread the chemically lethal gas named “sarin” in the Tokyo subway train so to kill innocent passengers in 1995. That was the first terrorist attack using the lethal gas in public, and that is the reason why Japan was refereed so frequently in the world media news related to 11 09. In other words, after 11 09 Japanese people suddenly found themselves frequently referred to as the proceeding examples of terrorists' attack of 11 09. Moreover, Japanese soft reaction to terrorism had been criticised quite often and severely by foreign countries.

Hence, the first task of Japanese government after 11 09 was not only to offer her condolence to the victims, but also to make clear that, ordinary Japanese people are nothing to do with such a kind of terror-destined mind control. But they were not sure if they can stop the world media to consider Japan in relation to the original cases of terrorism, Japanese policy makers thought it was better to join the “global war against terrorism” as soon as possible. Namely, because what happened was not the war but the terrorist attack, Japan felt obliged to cooperate with Western countries not only for fighting against terrorism but also making proof that her nation had no special mentality inclined toward terrorism.

Thus under the shock of 11 09, the majority of Japanese supported for alliance with U.S. Even her doves almost gave up their opposition to the US attack against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, since they knew that U.S. would not take any anti-war voices into consideration, and that US should have felt so insulted that they can't remain calm. But the large support for the alliance with the US did not mean the absence of the discussions to inquire into the cause of such a disastrous terrorist attack.

On that point, we find a sharp split among Japanese opinions. Like many countries, both leftists and liberals criticised that U.S. was primarily, or at least partly, responsible for the attacks. Something interesting that 11 09 incident caused, was the split in Japanese right-wing. The background of Japanese right-wing was a negative reaction after the end of the Cold War to the China-Korean criticism against the visit plan of Japanese prime ministers to a shrine for Japan's war dead. The right wings were occupied with and struggling for the justification of the modern history of Japan, especially her imperialistic action before and during the Second World War. Their main target being China and Korea, they did not have the common ground for what stance to take with the U.S. They agreed that as an ally, Japan should follow U.S., but in regards to the U.S. responsibility for the attack, they were divided into two groups. One group did not recognise the U.S. responsibility for the attack, saying that terrorists were so fanatic and they might have an ambition to rule all over the world. The other group thought the U.S. was responsible, because 11 09 had to be seen as a reaction of U.S. policies in the Middle East and her global economic and cultural domination.

As a matter of fact, the split was due to the different understandings of the motives of the terrorists. Some Japanese, who asserted that U.S. was not responsible, regarded that terrorism equivalent to Aum Shinrikyo, finding an ambition in them to dominate the world. Their ignorance and misunderstanding of Islamic thought, especially the concept of “jihad” are reflected in their view to take the 11 09 incident and the Aum group the same. Some Japanese intellectuals even maintained that Muslims had an obligation to continue an offensive war permanently through revelation and always hoping to be martyrs(shuhada') because if they were killed in the path of jihad, they would enter the paradise immediately. In other words, they persisted that even now Muslims are most dangerous for non-Muslims for their ambition to conquer the whole world.

Looking at those odd understandings of the Islamic creed, we, Japanese researchers on Islamic religion and the Middle Eastern politics, could not keep silence. In the purpose of clearing away the possible prejudice and hate against Muslims, we did explain, for example, the details of modern theory of jihad, which most of the contemporary Islamists including Osama bin Laden followed. According to that theory, while Muslims could not begin any offensive war without the order of Caliph, who remained absent since 1924, they had to do the defensive war, when armed infidels invaded the land of Muslims (dar al-Islam). That is why al-Qaeda waged war against the former Soviet union, Israel, Serbia, Russia, India, China, the Philipines and the U.S.

But we could not become fully persuasive because one point was not clear for us. We were not sure whether Osama was sincere to the theory of defensive jihad or he used it only as his pretext. Actually Japanese intellectuals, who regarded Muslims as terrorist-minded fanatics, criticised us on this point.

In my opinion, we had better distinguish the leaders of al-Qaeda network from the countless young volunteer soldiers who joined it. As for leaders, we are not sure whether they were sincere to the flag of the defensive jihad or not. Meanwhile, without any doubt, the young volunteers joined them from the sympathy for that flag. From an academic point of view, we are still doubtful whether they can be defined as Islamists, in a strict sense. I agree to the Newsweek magazine report published right after 11 09, explaining that usually those youngsters were inspired only by images of the attacks and massacre on Muslims all over the world and came to Peshawar to join al-Qaeda. Therefore, we insisted that if U.S. seriously wanted to stop the terrorists' attack against it, most effective way would be to change its policy toward Muslim countries, and to show that “America” would no more massacre their Muslim brothers.

In addition, Japanese scholars criticised the framework of perception such as “terrorists” and “Islamic fundamentalists”, as we find those terminology the useful labels to justify killing a lot of innocent Muslims. For example, during the Bosnian civil war, Serbian militia sometimes killed ordinary Muslims as dangerous “Islamic Fundamentalists”. And even now, Russian president Mr. Putin and Prime Minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon alleges that all Chechens are terrorists, all Palestinians are terrorists and so on.

The efforts of Japanese Middle Eastern researchers finally gained predominance. Eventually, one of the leaders of opposition parties made a question to the prime minister during a fierce debate in the diet: “How do you think about the definition of terrorism ? Are Palestinians terrorists by fighting with arms against the occupation of Israel ? ” Prime Minister Junichiro KOIZUMI did not give a proper answer to the question, though his administration rushed to join U.S.-led “global war against terrorism”. In other words, Japanese government joined the war without any definition of the enemy, completely neglecting the hot debate in Japanese media. It adopted the US understanding of 11 09 as her own, that is, attacks against “freedom and democracy”. Furthermore, to get the support of public opinion, the government side suddenly began to condemn the Taliban government for its infringement upon human rights, and promised of Japan's own initiative to contribute financially the reconstruction of Afghanistan after the defeat.

III There were several reasons why Japan, though not being directly targeted by al-Qaeda, decided to participate “anti-terrorist war” so quickly. I mentioned two of them: it was the turning point of the U.S. military demand for Japan, and the Japan's unique experiences in terrorist measures. In military and diplomatic respects, two more reasons are to be pointed out: (1) trauma of the Japanese high-post bureaucrats related to the Gulf War, and (2) the fear of U.S. retreat from East Asia.

For the Japanese high-post diplomats the Gulf War was a traumatic experience. Just after the Iraqi invasion upon Kuwait in 1990, U.S. Secretary of State, James Baker 3rd visited Japan and sought big amount of financial support for the multi-national forces. Then Japanese administration made strenuous efforts to persuade the opposition parties so as to contribute about 13 billion U.S. dollars as a sign of her support. However, when the war ended, U.S. suddenly turned to criticise Japan as “just a money provider” and her contribution was “too little and too late".

This bitter memory revived after one decade. Asked to offer the military support for U.S., several high-post diplomats, who never like to be criticised that the contribution of billions of dollars after the democratic process is “too little and too late", rushed to enable the Self-Defence Forces to work in Indian Ocean in a timely fashion. Prime minister KOIZUMI, though he had been one of the strongest opponent to send the Self-Defence Forces abroad, agreed with them and hastened to enact the new law allowing it to work abroad. Thus for the first time in its 47-year history, Japanese Self-Defence Forces was sent to abroad for the sake of collective security. Japan's providing vessels still now helps the refuelling of U.S. and British military ships in the Northern Arabian Sea. Without any doubt, it was a direct result of U.S. pressure and the trauma of Japanese Foreign Ministry.

IV The last and most important reason for Japanese decision, however, appear to be the fear that the U.S. could retreat from East Asia. Unlike NATO in Europe, East Asia has no cooperative security institution so far. For Japanese government, the U.S. presence in East Asia is more important than elsewhere. In reality, North Korea has hundreds of nuclear-capable missiles aimed at Japan. Moreover in August 1998, it sparked outrage by testing a missile that flew over Japanese territory. Japan cannot lose the U.S. for her own security.

But the situation in East Asia became worse and more complicated, after Japanese participation to the anti-terrorist war. At the beginning of this year, Mr. Bush condemned North Korea with Iraq and Iran as “axis of evil”. Meanwhile North Korea suddenly recognized their nuclear weapon programme just one month ago. In such a complicated circumstance, asked to join a U.S.-led war on Iraq, now Japan is completely bewildered about her response. Although the Japanese side emphasised the importance of a peaceful, political solution about Iraqi problem, it appears highly unlikely that U.S. would respect that suggestion. Knowing well that all Muslim countries oppose anti-Iraqi war and most of the Japanese people oppose to join it, Japanese government cannot ignore the U.S. request. Therefore, she will be obliged to play a political game on the tight rope ­ one for both domestic and Muslim audience and one for U.S. audience.

However, in my opinion, it becomes clear now that Japan should take slightly a different policy from U.S. in the course of “global war against terrorism”. The worst scenario for Japan is after the defeat of Saddam Husein's regime, some terrorists group would start a counter-attack again in the U.S. mainland, giving more serious damage than 11 09. Then it will be highly possible that U.S. would attack North Korea because of its suspicion as a supporter for terrorists. The U.S. could launch a military offensive without any proof. But it would carry a risk of provoking unhelpful reactions from the targeted country. The results could be hazardous especially for Japan. Therefore we cannot leave the difficult task to U.S. of forcing North Korea to exclude itself from the U.S. recognition of the “axis of evil”. Thus Japan is at present struggling to carry on the diplomatic normalisation talks with North Korea. In addition, Japan should make efforts to stop the anti-Iraqi war, and when found it impossible to stop, she must do her best that the war should be postponed. Those efforts are indispensable not only for global peace, but also for Japanese own security.


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