The Geopolitical Context of “Redefined” Security:
4. Japanese Popular Consciousness over Security Issues
As mentioned above, the Japan-U.S. security arrangements have not undergone dramatic changes since the end of the Cold War. However, Japanese popular consciousness over security issues in the 1990s seems to have experienced significant changes towards a more defensive position. Unlike the period during the Cold War, increasing regional conflicts seem to have affected the Japanese public perception of Japan’s security. Using the results of public opinion surveys conducted by the Cabinet Office, let us examine the changes in Japanese public opinion on security issues.
The results of the surveys reveal several interesting tendencies among the respondents concerning the SDF and defense issues (Naikakufu daijin-kanbo seifu kohositsu 2003, Figures 5 to 10). Respondents’ interest in these issues has been increasing (Figure 5). The recent three surveys (1997, 2000, and 2003) indicate that more and more respondents are becoming interested in these issues since the issues concern Japan’s peace and independence (Figure 6). Incidents such as the invasion of North Korean ships into Japanese waters, North Korea’s launching of missiles in the late 1990s, and 911 may have contributed to the increase in such responses.
For the Japanese public, the primary role of the SDF has been disaster relief. However, national security (i.e. prevention of foreign invasion) is becoming another major role, while it is expected to play other roles such as making an international contribution (Figure 7). On the other hand, in the 1990s more and more Japanese came to believe that the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty was useful for maintaining Japan’s peace and security (Figure 8). The number of Japanese who support the Japan-U.S. security arrangements and the SDF as a means to maintain Japan’s security has been increasing over time (Figure 9). Opinions rejecting the security arrangements and/or the SDF have been in the minority. From this it can be concluded that the Japanese public has increasingly supported the current security arrangements. Figure 10 shows that the number of respondents believing that Japan may be involved in war has increased drastically in recent years.
Many respondents are worried that current international tensions and conflicts may put Japan in danger.15
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
2003 2000 1997
Year
Japan's peace and independence Measures for emergency such as disaster Security for the intl. society Topics in the media
The use of tax The useless of the SDF
Others Do not know
Japan's pease and independence Measures for emergency Security for the intl. society
Because these issuese are related to:
The number of respondents concerned about the situation in the Korean Peninsula and the Middle East is also increasing.16 In sum, as international tensions and conflicts, especially those in East Asia, increased in the post-Cold War era, more and more Japanese became concerned about Japan’s security and began to support the security status quo.
As the Japan-U.S. security arrangements were redefined and rearranged to cope with the new geopolitical context in the post-Cold War era, Japanese popular consciousness over security issues has transformed accordingly. What is noteworthy in these trends is that, while the institutional arrangements for Japan’s security were not dramatically changed, the Japanese popular consciousness transformed to cope with the uncertainties of the post-Cold War world. It seems that Japanese postwar pacifism or anti-war sentiment is disappearing among the Japanese public.
Figure 5. Interest in the SDF and Defense Issues
Figure 6. Reasons For Interest in the SDF and Defense Issues
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
1978 1981 1984 1988 1991 1994 1997 2000 2003 Year
%
Interested Not interested
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
1997 2000 2003 Year
%
Disaster relief National security International contribution Internal security Civic support
Figure 7. Future Roles of the SDF (Multiple answers)
Figure 8. The Japan-U.S. Security Treaty
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
1978 1981 1984 1988 1991 1994 1997 2000 2003 Year
%
Useful/Rather useful Not useful/Rather not useful
Figure 9. Measures to Maintain Japan’s Security
Figure 10. Danger That Japan Will Be Involved in War
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
1969 1972 1975 1978 1981 1984 1988 1991 1994 1997 2000 2003 Year
%
The SDF only The Japan-U.S. security arrangements and the SDF
Neither the Japan-U.S. security arrangements nor the SDF
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
1969 1975 1978 1981 1984 1988 1991 1994 1997 2000 2003 Year
%
Danger exists. Not that no danger sxists. No danger exists.
5. Conclusions
Since 911, the Koizumi Cabinet has become very active in increasing Japan’s contribution to the global military operations initiated by the U.S. Unlike during the Gulf War, Japan swiftly dispatched Maritime SDF vessels to the Indian Ocean to support the U.S. military campaign against Afghanistan in 2001, and sent the SDF to Iraq for its postwar rehabilitation in 2004. In addition, the Japanese Diet passed bills for emergency defense laws in 2003. Japan’s security policy has thus transformed dramatically in the past few years.
In light of the U.S.’s new strategic framework focusing on four critical areas and the redefined Japan-U.S. security arrangements, Japan is/will be actively involved in the U.S.’s international military operations in order to support its forward deployment. In this sense, Japanese popular concern that Japan may be involved in war is an ‘accurate’ perception of the current situation. However, the Japanese public shows its preference for depending on the existing Japan-U.S. security arrangements and the SDF, which means dependence on the same security arrangements that may simultaneously create security threats to Japan. In other words, Japan needs to be ‘prepared’ for war because it has decided to maintain the Japan-U.S. security arrangements through which the U.S. can exercise its hegemonic power over East Asia as well as the Asia-Pacific region. One can ask whether this is the best way to relieve tensions and solve conflicts in the region, and why Japan needs to maintain a security relationship only with the U.S.
With regard to the Japanese popular consciousness over security issues, unlike the public response during the Gulf War,17 the Japanese public seems to become more ‘realistic’ or tolerant of the Japan-U.S.
security arrangements in the face of concrete threats from outside Japan. Since 75% of the area of the U.S.
bases in Japan is concentrated in Okinawa (Figure 2), mainland Japanese do/will not have to carry the burden for this option.18 Feeling uneasy about such a situation, the author will now offer his view on the prospects for the existing anti-war peace movements.
For popular movements against militarism, the above-mentioned situation is not at all favorable, and in this new context it is not an easy task to reconstruct the movements and make them effective. At the same time, anti-U.S. base movements in Japan, especially in Okinawa, tend to be localized and weakened.
Although a series of protest movements, which were caused by the rape of an Okinawan girl by U.S.
servicemen in 1995, spread across the prefecture in 1996, these came to an end in 1998 when Okinawa voters refused to elect leftist Governor Ota for a third time. Responding to the protests, the Japanese government decided to reduce the U.S. bases. However, the removal of the Futenma Air Station to Nago City was refused by local Okinawans through the city referendum in 1997, but accepted by Mayor Higa in exchange for his resignation, which resulted in the election of a candidate (Kishimoto) who stated that he might accept the new station. The protest against the removal also became localized as a local affair at Henoko, which was designated as the destination of the new station.19 On the other hand, Japanese popular consciousness is being transformed so that the gap between the popular consciousness and Japan’s security policy is narrowing. Although the Japanese Constitution, particularly its Preface and Article 9, assumes the construction of peace through strict regulation against the use of military forces and has been an ideological basis for Japanese anti-war peace movements, it seems that this ideal finally lead to a public consciousness that cannot help but accept the Japan-U.S. security arrangements. Given this picture, a completely new strategy for the movements will need to be created in order to overcome such localization and weakness, and mobilize the public against increasing militarism as a solution to international disputes.
The prospect for such a new movement is not necessarily commanding, but the development of new information technology, for instance, will enable people to construct a transnational network useful for the exchange of opinions and creative ideas and to accumulate knowledge and resources for an effective new movement. In the early 20th century, modern geography established geopolitics to serve state military policies. Serious reflection on the outcomes of this would suggest it is necessary to develop non-state
sources of information and knowledge and establish a ‘new geopolitics’20 that is an empirical and critical discipline able to question militarism. This new geopolitics could serve in practice to actively problematize the subject of state security in research and education, and vitalize the public consciousness that would otherwise tend to maintain the status quo. I hope that more geographers can be involved in this process along with activists and other researchers.
Notes
1 This paper is a modified translation of Yamazaki (2005a).
2 By “East Asia,” this chapter refers to the area from the Russian Far East through Japan to Southeast Asia.
3 The disputes typically concern the Spratly Islands. China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, and Brunei claim territorial rights over the whole or part of the islands, and this has been thought to be one of the most likely causes of military conflicts in Southeast Asia.
4 The contents of the redefinition were included in the Japan-U.S. Joint Declaration on Security published on April 17, 1996 after the meeting between Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto and President Bill Clinton.
5 In particular, China and South Korea have been critical of Japan’s militarily aggressive policy because of the historical relationships between Japan and these countries.
6 East Asian countries (that is, their governments) have not made a clear objection to the SDF’s participation in the ‘war on terror’
and seem, if not willingly, to have accepted a series of their overseas activities. For example, see the reactions of participant countries to Japan at the ASEAN+3 (Japan, China, and South Korea) summit on November 5, 2001 (Asahi Shimbun 2001).
7 Article 9 states, “Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, 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. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained.
The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized;” cited from K. Inoue (1991: 275).
8 Giddens (1987: 11) coined the term ‘power container’ to express one of the fundamental functions of the modern state as a nation-state, which is to be a territorially bounded administrative unity and generate power first and foremost through the concentration of allocative and administrative resources within it.
9 The results of the public opinion surveys mentioned in Section 4 indicate that the Japanese public does not necessarily regard the role of the SDF as maintaining state (territorial) security, and that they tend to believe that the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty has been useful. However, Japanese conservative intellectuals and media have repeatedly criticized the public lack of interest in, and the Japanese government’s attitude toward, territorial issues over the Northern Territories, Takeshima Island, or the Senkaku Islands (see Takubo 1999; Sankei Shimbun 5/18-7/12/97). As a recent example, despite the repeated claims by the victims’ families, the abduction of Japanese citizens by North Korea neither became an important political agenda nor a matter of national interest (Nishioka 2002: 5-23).
10 The complementary relationship between the Japanese Constitution and the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty was constructed by the third Yoshida Cabinet (1949-1952). In order to conclude the Peace Treaty as soon as possible, Prime Minister Yoshida took advantage of the U.S. military force for Japan’s security, neither rearming Japan substantially nor questioning the constitutional grounds for such a policy (Tanaka 1997: 68-69).
11 The Japan-U.S. Security Treaty was revised in 1960.
12 The measures taken by the partner countries to support the U.S. military forces deployed overseas.
13 These approaches employ non-conventional means of attacking the weaknesses of enemies, such as through the use of weapons of mass destruction (nuclear and bio-chemical weapons), ballistic missiles, terrorism, cyber-attacks, and other means (Japan Defense Agency 2002: 72 note 2)
14 ‘Theater’ means the areas where the U.S. military forces are strategically deployed and stationed. The U.S. military forces posit three (Europe, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific) theaters.
15 Of the respondents believing that Japan may be involved in war, 73.9% in 2000 and 79.5% in 2003 believe so due to the existence of international tensions and conflicts.
16 The recent changes in the proportion of such respondents are as follows: the situation on the Korean Peninsula changed from 56.7% in 2000 to 74.4% in 2003; the situation in the Middle East from 14.8% in 2000 to 33.9% in 2003.
17 As Figure 9 shows, the number of respondents supporting the Japan-U.S. security arrangements and the SDF slightly decreased during the Gulf War in 1991. Figure 5 also shows a drastic increase in popular interest in the SDF and defense issues in the same year. Umebayashi (2002: 19-24) argues that these facts prove the obvious existence of an anti-war sentiment among the Japanese public. However, the results of the 2003 survey following 911 do not clearly show the effect of such a sentiment.
18 The proportions of the respondents supporting the removal of part of the U.S. bases in Okinawa to Japan proper were 42.2% in 1997, 36.8% in 2000, and 34.6% in 2003.
19 For a detailed discussion about these political processes, see Yamazaki 2004a, 2004b, and 2005b.
20 “New geopolitics” refers to political geographic studies that critically reconstruct classical geopolitics which attempted to contribute to state military and foreign policy, and that critically and empirically examine the dynamics of international relations.
This field of research appeared after the revitalization of Anglophone political geography in the 1980s. New geopolitics currently constitutes one of the major research subjects in Anglophone political geography. Yamazaki (2001) explains its significance for the history of the sub-discipline. See also the author’s academic and educational attempts to construct new geopolitics in the Japanese context at: www.lit.osaka-cu.ac.jp/~yamataka/home.htm
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