The US-Japan defense guidelines, long the
cornerstone of peace and stability in Asia,
appear alive and well after both nations agreed
to step up the current level of cooperation.
After more than a year and a half of deliberations, Japan and the United States finally reached the long-awaited revision of their 1978 defense cooperation guidelines. Announced in New York on September 23, 1997, the new guidelines contained few surprises and pulled even fewer punches. Everyone was fairly certain what the outcome was going to be, following the June 1997 publication of the Interim Report on the Review of the Guidelines. Aside from agreeing to step up the current level of co-operation and identifying more than forty things that Japan could be expected to do to help the United States during an emergency, the only contentious issue to come out of the announcement was that from now on Japan would not only concentrate its attention on defending the Japanese archipelago, it would also be allowed to engage in military activities in cooperation with the United States in areas surrounding Japan.
Japan's neighbors, who traditionally flinch at anything that could be construed as a revival of Japanese militarism, were not amused. The People's Republic of China (PRC) was particularly put out, claiming even before the guidelines had been issued that they were a return to Cold War thinking, except with China in place of the Soviet Union. Comments by the former Japanese Cabinet Spokesman Seiroku Kajiyama, in the days before publication, that Taiwan would be included in the area of cooperation only served to make the situation worse.
In an attempt to douse the diplomatic fires, Ryutaro Hashimoto, the Japanese Prime Minister, visited Beijing in September to assure his Chinese counterparts that the US-Japan security alliance was not aimed at any specific country, but rather at coping with instability in the region as a whole. However, he refused to state categorically that Taiwan did not fall within the scope of the treaty.
The controversy highlighted the complicated nature of the relations between the three countries. More importantly, it served as a timely reminder of just how sensitive the issue of Taiwan is, when it comes to ties between China and Japan.
The history of relations between the three has always been complex, and frequently tumultuous. Following the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, Japan recognized the Nationalist government, which had moved to Taiwan, as the legitimate government of China. But from the early 1950s onwards, Tokyo pursued closer economic relations with mainland China, and by the 1960s became its largest trading partner.
In September 1972, Tokyo established diplomatic relations with mainland China. The two countries signed the Japan-China Joint Communiqué, in which Japan took the position that Taiwan was "an indivisible part of the People's Republic of China." Japan has maintained this stance since then. And in August 1997, in a major speech on Japanese foreign policy toward China, Prime Minister Hashimoto made it clear that the country "will firmly maintain this stance in the future as well." He also stated his desire to see "a peaceful solution to this issue...through dialogue between the parties on either side of the Taiwan Strait." Despite this diplomatic turnaround, however, links between Japan and Taiwan remain strong and, within the context of the 1972 communique, they have grown stronger.
In essence, the relationship is grounded in long-standing historical and cultural links. Taiwan was a Japanese colony from 1895 to 1945, but unlike other East Asian nations, it benefited from its decades under Japanese control. Japan helped develop the island's industrial base and, between 1897-1945, started to naturalize Taiwanese residents as Japanese citizens. As a result, the Japanese occupation is remembered more fondly on the island than in the rest of the region. Taiwan's current president, Lee Teng-hui, was educated in Japan and speaks fluent Japanese. To this day, there are a large number of Japanese businesspeople, their families, and other Japanese citizens living on the island. According to ROC statistics some 1.52 million visitors traveled between Japan and Taiwan in 1996 alone.
The two countries have built on their traditional ties by expanding mutual trade and non-governmental relations. Major import items from Japan include machinery, electrical and electronic equipment, auto parts, and chemicals. One source of friction is that Taiwan's exports to Japan are growing much more slowly than its imports from the country. In the past fifteen years, Taiwan's large trade deficit with Japan has tripled.
Moreover, Japan is the largest foreign investor in Taiwan, supplying about US$5.29 billion, more than 30 percent of all aggregate foreign investment approved by the ROC government since 1952. No less important, Japanese investors have continued to establish manufacturing facilities in Taiwan to produce a variety of goods for export.
These economic links have fostered a steady expansion of informal relations between Tokyo and Taipei. Taiwan's large and persistent trade deficit with Japan, for example, has resulted in an ongoing series of bilateral economic and trade talks. At the same time, officials from the ROC's Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) and other ministries are working hard to promote technology transfers from Japan to help upgrade local industries.
In recent years, Japan has also raised the level of official visits to the island. In addition, the long-standing links between the ruling Kuomintang (KMT) in Taiwan and Japan's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has traditionally been divided on the decision to switch relations from the ROC to the PRC, and with the Social Democratic Party (SDP) remain as close as ever. For its part, Taiwan has expanded its presence in Japan: there are now four Taiwan representative offices in the country (under the name Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Japan).
Perhaps less talked about is Taiwan's strategic importance to Japan because of its location alongside major international sealanes. Japan imports 77 percent of its coal, 98 percent of its oil and gas, and 90 percent of its mineral requirements. Of these, 53 percent pass through the Bashi Channel (the strait between Taiwan and the northernmost island of the Philippines and one of the gateways from the South China Sea); the Taiwan Strait, which is one of the major routes for tankers, dry bulk carriers, and container vessels sailing from Singapore and Hong Kong to Shanghai, South Korea, and the eastern Japanese ports; and the sealanes that lead from Australia, through Indonesia, and past the northern tip of the Philippines. Conversely, a significant portion of Japan's exports go by the same sealanes. In addition, Taiwan is also very close to the Japanese island of Okinawa; according to some estimates, there are huge supplies of seabed oil and gas reserves in this area. Altogether, the security of Taiwan and its surrounding maritime environment is tantamount to Japan's security.
China's reaction to Japan's relationship with Taiwan has ebbed and flowed as the broader-picture relations between the two have changed. Japan's decision to recognize the ROC in 1949 obviously upset China. Relations between the two were further complicated by memories of the Japanese Imperial Army's behavior on the mainland in the 1930s and 1940s.
After the signing of the 1972 Japan-China Joint Communiqué, however, relations warmed significantly. Central to this was Tokyo's determination (following a decision by Washington in 1972 to start adjusting its relations with Beijing) to embark on a policy of improving its relations with China, based on a common desire for increased economic ties and a shared fear of the Soviet Union. This relationship was further strengthened after Washington switched diplomatic relations from Taiwan to China in 1979.
China was pleased with the arrangement. Despite its deep-rooted fears about a resurgence of Japanese militarism, Beijing tolerated the growing defense and security relationship between Japan and the United States, viewing it as necessary to contain the growing threat from the Soviet Union. They also saw it as a way to ensure that Japan stuck to the letter of its pacifist constitution, imposed on it by the United States after the war. Following Deng Xiaoping's decision in 1979 to open up the economy, China was also keen to encourage Japanese investment. So much so, that by 1994, China had received nearly $8.73 billion of Japanese direct investment. As a result, the Taiwan issue moved away from the center of gravity as far as diplomatic relations between the two were concerned.
Since the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, the strategic consensus that bound together Japan, the United States, and China has started to crumble. Following the Tiananmen Square massacre of June 1989, ties between the United States and China have blown hot and cold--and the heat has often been fanned by the Taiwan issue. For instance, China was particularly irked by Washington's decision to allow President Lee Teng-hui to visit Cornell University in 1995, and its dispatch of two US aircraft carrier battle groups to Taiwan during the island's presidential elections in March 1996.
Things have steadied a bit since President Jiang Zemin's visit to the United States in December 1997, when the two countries appeared to put aside their differences over issues such as human rights and Taiwan, and concentrated instead on improving their commercial, political, and military relationship. In a significant move, the United States also agreed to authorize the sale of nuclear technology to China, after President Clinton had won assurances that this would not then be transferred to countries such as Iran and Pakistan.
The relationship between China and Japan has changed as well. Japan is concerned about China's apparent desire to become a regional power, including the growing importance Beijing places on its territorial claims in the South China Sea. No less worrisome for Tokyo are China's recent increases in defense spending and its purchase of various high-tech weapons and delivery systems from Russia.
Unlike the past, Japan's politicians are increasingly willing to hold China to account for its actions. This includes the so-called Taiwan issue. Recently, some of the more wayward members of the LDP have even suggested recognition of an independent Taiwan. More importantly, following China's decision to fire missiles into the Taiwan Strait in early 1996, Prime Minister Hashimoto urged China in uncharacteristically strong language--not once but three times--to exercise restraint.
Relations between the US and Japan are also changing. In the early 1990s, ties between the two were characterized by a period of drift, dominated by spats over trade issues. Disagreements over Japan's relationship with Burma and Iran, the rape of a Japanese schoolgirl by US troops on the island of Okinawa and the subsequent public outrage, and a growing perception in the United States that Japan was not carrying its weight as far as their defense relationship was concerned, also gave the impression that the US-Japan alliance, for so long the cornerstone of peace and stability in Asia, was crumbling at the edges.
In April 1996, however, the countries decided to make their alliance more relevant to the changing strategic situation in East Asia, when President Clinton and Prime Minister Hashimoto issued the US-Japan Joint Declaration on Security, promising to further enrich the alliance to meet the new security challenges after the Cold War. Officials from both sides immediately started looking at ways to revise the 1978 US-Japan Guidelines for Defense Cooperation. The interim report followed in June 1997; the final revision was made public in September.
Considering the contemporary international relations environment in Northeast Asia, as well as Japan's long-term ties with and interests in Taiwan, Taiwan's inclusion under the terms of the revised 1978 US-Japan Guidelines is not beyond comprehension, especially if one accepts the assumption that Taiwan has always been implicitly covered by the terms of the original 1951 US-Japan security treaty anyway.
This inclusion not as far-fetched as it may sound. Despite Japan's pacifist constitution, the terms of the US-Japan treaty nevertheless allow the United States to use Japan as a base for guaranteeing security in the Asia-Pacific region. Because the position of Taiwan in international law is ambiguous, it is unlikely that the island itself falls within the scope of the treaty--but the Taiwan Strait does, because it is an international sealane. Recently, Japan has taken on the responsibility of defending its sealanes up to 1,000 nautical miles from Tokyo Bay, while the 1994 revision of Japan's Self-Defense Law allows units of the Air Self-Defense Force, Japan's airforce, to conduct evacuations from abroad.
Therefore, all the newly revised guidelines seem to achieve is to add a little more clarity to the current situation by underlining exactly the kind of things that Japan might be expected to do if a serious crisis erupted in a place such as the Taiwan Strait or the Korean peninsula. For example, in response to a serious Chinese blockade of Taiwan, or an all-out assault on the island, Japan could theoretically allow its bases, including those in Okinawa, to be used by US military forces, and it could also provide rear area support to those forces. Units from the Self-Defense Forces may also be expected to engage in intelligence gathering, surveillance, minesweeping, and search-and-rescue activities, as well as the evacuation of Japanese citizens overseas.
It would be dangerous for Taiwan, and for peace and stability in East Asia as a whole, to clarify these guidelines any further. Japan is wary about placing Taiwan clearly within the context of the US-Japan relationship, because China would obviously object. And given the coalition politics in Japan, such an announcement would most likely create political turmoil, because of the pacifism embraced by so much of the Japanese public.
There is also some concern among US defense planners about whether Japan could be relied upon if asked for help with operations in the Taiwan Strait. If Japan failed to provide help to the United States when requested, that could result in friction between Tokyo and Washington. A major consequence of that could be a decision by the United States to scale back its forces in Japan. In the current security climate, a reduction of US forces in the country would at best result in a slow reassessment of the current state of relations between China and Japan, and at worst end in Japan embarking on a major conventional military (and perhaps nuclear) build-up in order to compensate for the withdrawal of US power. Obviously, this would have ramifications for the whole Asia-Pacific region, including Taiwan.
The opposite scenario is just as bad. If Japan did offer support to the United States, China would not only object that this was concrete evidence of a Japanese-US plot to "contain" it, but also result in Beijing questioning Japan's commitment to the idea of a "one-China" policy. Tensions between Japan and Chinawidely seen as one of the most dangerous geopolitical fault lines in East Asia todaywould certainly increase as a result. That is in no one's interests. What is desirable, of course, is a sound trilateral relationship embracing China, Japan, and the United States.
The revised US-Japan guidelines do not make it more likely that Japan will get involved should a conflict arise in the Taiwan Strait (despite the readings of a few over-zealous sages), nor do they add greater clarity about US-Japan options in such a situation. What is important for Taiwan--and the region, for that matter, is that the US-Japan alliance, for so long the cornerstone of peace and stability in East Asia, is still alive and well. In fact, if anything is going to stop China from engaging in any future military adventures in the Taiwan Strait, this is likely to be it.
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Damon Bristow is Head of the Asia Programme at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies in Whitehall, London.
Copyright 1998 by Damon Bristow.