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Internationalism and Asianism in Japanese Strategic Thought from Meiji to Heisei

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2008

GILBERT ROZMAN
GILBERT ROZMAN*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544grozman@princeton.edu
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Abstract

Around 1907, 1987, and 2007 Japan faced a crossroads in defining internationalism and Asianism, determining their relative priorities, and assessing their relevance for national identity. Similarities can be found in the far-reaching changes occurring in Japan's external environment in the three periods and in the importance of setting a new direction for strategic thinking. Misjudgments in the first two periods are reviewed in order to draw lessons for responding to today's challenges. A distorted outlook on internationalism led to rejection of shifts in US thinking welcomed elsewhere in the global community. Now as attention focuses on debates over the Six-Party Talks as a test of internationalization and over the East Asian Community and regionalism as a test of Asianism, it is possible that the riveting impact of the ‘abductions’ issue, as with the ‘Northern Territories’ issue 20 years earlier, will remain a symbol that trumps a strategic approach toward Asia at a moment of far-reaching regional reorganization. Shortcomings in dealing with the concepts internationalism and Asianism are connected; at the very time the Japanese struggle with one, they are also at an impasse over the other. The same set of factors may be at work: an absence of agreed principles on which to anchor foreign policy; fragmented strategic thinking that loses sight of interconnections and the big picture; and national identity that excessively separates Japan from global forces that transform politics and society and that narrowly compartmentalize the historical developments that shaped relations with Asian countries without capturing the fundamental regional dynamics.

Type
Research Article
Information
Japanese Journal of Political Science , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , August 2008 , pp. 209 - 232
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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