Power across the Pacific: A Diplomatic History of American Relations with Japan

448 Pages·1996·24.55 MB·English

by  William R. Nester (auth.)

POWER ACROSS THE PACIFIC
Also by William R. Nester
AMERICAN POWER, THE NEW WORLD ORDER AND THE
JAPANESE CHALLENGE
THE FOUNDATION OF JAPANESE POWER
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
JAPAN AND THE THIRD WORLD
JAPANESE INDUSTRIAL TARGETING
JAPAN'S GROWING POWER OVER EAST ASIA AND THE
WORLD ECONOMY
Power across the Pacific
A Diplomatic History of American
Relations with Japan
WILLIAM R. NESTER
Associate Professor
Department of Government
Sf John's University
New York
© William R. Nester 1996
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No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced. copied or
transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with
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or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying
issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. 90 Tottenham Court
Road. London WIP 9HE.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this
publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil
claims for damages.
First published 1996 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills. Basingstoke. Hampshire RG21 6XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
ISBN 978-0-333-64955-8 ISBN 978-0-230-37875-9 (eBook)
DOl 10.1057/9780230378759
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I
05 04 03 02 01 00 99 98 97 96
Contents
Introduction: Power, Perceptions, and Policy
PART I FROM GEOPOLITICAL PROTEGE TO RIVAL
Pacific Patron, 1853-94 13
2 Pacific Rival, 1894-1930 59
3 The Road to War, 1931-41 105
4 The Road to Peace, 1942-5 143
PART II THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION OF JAPAN
5 Demilitarization and Democratization, 1945-7 191
6 The Reverse Course, 1947-52 224
PART III FROM GEOECONOMIC PROTEGE TO RIVAL
7 America Triumphant: The Eisenhower, Kennedy, and
Johnson Era, 1953-69 263
8 America and Japan Neck and Neck: The Nixon, Ford, and
Carter Era, 1969-81 292
9 Japan Triumphant: The Reagan and Bush Era,
1981-93 332
10 Into the Twenty-first Century: Clinton and Beyond,
1993-Future 364
Notes 400
Bibliography 423
Index 440
v
To Andrea
with deepest love
May we always be ...
neck and neck!
Introduction: Power,
Perceptions, and Policy
CYCLES OF HISTORY
America's relationship with Japan recently passed its 140th-year annivers
ary. Over those years, hundreds of books and thousands of articles have
explored different issues or periods of the relationship. Yet within that vast
library no book has analyzed the entire relationship from beginning to
present.
The void can perhaps be explained by the relationship's complexity
and changes over time. Two great cycles of initial partnership and even
tual rivalry have shaped American-Japanese relations, one geopolitical
(1853-1945) and the other geoeconomic (1945 to the present).
In 1853-4, American gunboats forced open an isolationist Japan to bilat
eral trade and diplomatic relations. Then, for the rest of the nineteenth cen
tury, the United States served as Japan's patron in its drive to modernize
its society and expand within the global political economy. But from the
twentieth century's dawn, as both the United States and Japan seized colon
ies in the Far East, their national power and interests diverged and increas
ingly clashed. American perceptions of Japan as protege correspondingly
withered and that of Japan as geopolitical rival swelled. Where once the
White House had encouraged Japanese expansion, it now tried to contain
it. Then, from 1931 to 1941, America's latent fears of Japan were realized as
Tokyo embarked on its brutal conquest of first China and then the entire Far
East and western Pacific. Pearl Harbor brought the United States and Japan
into a "war without mercy" which ended with Hiroshima and Nagasaki
three and a half years later.
A geoeconomic version of this cycle has characterized the relationship
since 1945. During the American Occupation (1945-52), the United States
instituted revolutionary economic, political, and social changes that laid the
foundations for Japan's subsequent rise into a political economic super
power. Cold War realities rather than altruism shaped these policies - the
success of America's Far East containment policy depended on building
Japan into the region's "workshop" and "aircraft carrier." In September
1951, Washington and Tokyo signed security and peace treaties which impli
citly contained a grand bargain - in return for American bases in Japan
and a bilateral alliance, the United States would tolerate Japan's industrial,
2 Power, Perceptions, and Policy
trade, and technology policies that, among other elements, included closed
home markets and economic expansion overseas, while America's vast mar
ket would be kept open to Japanese exports and investments. It also meant
integrating Japan into global markets. During the 1950s and 1960s, Wash
ington sponsored Tokyo's membership into the GAIT and OECD, often in
the face of harsh objections of other members who feared Japan's export
machine.
But as Japan's geoeconomic power grew, once complementary national
interests clashed ever more bitterly. As Japan has enjoyed increasingly
larger trade and investment surpluses from the mid 1960s through today,
a broader range of American businessmen have screamed for relief from
Japanese dumping and closed markets. They have been joined by an ever
more vociferous body of American political and intellectual leaders who
have criticized the grand bargain of bases for markets as obsolete and
detrimental to American power and interests. Japan was no longer a weak,
struggling economy that needed coddling, they argued, but had become an
economic superpower with which the United States should insist on recip
rocal economic and military relations. This perspective, however, remains
subordinate to that of other influential Americans that the alliance must still
take precedence, the bilateral deficits do not matter, and, finally, liberalism
rather than neomercantilism shapes Japan's policies. Although the old rela
tionship of America as patron and Japan as protege continues, it is becom
ing increasingly fragile as the underlying geoeconomic power balance shifts
in Tokyo's favor.
Up to now, Washington and Tokyo have been able to manage a grow
ing number of trade, investment, and technology conflicts. Both sides have
become adept at playing a game of economic brinkmanship while avoiding
a full-scale economic war. As in the Cold War, the potentially disastrous res
ults of going over the brink tempers the actions of both sides. With the two
countries' combined economies accounting for over 40 per cent of global
GNP, a trade war between Washington and Tokyo might well scuttle the
world economy. Most analysts argue that the possibility of a bilateral trade
collapse is unlikely, and a global economic meltdown remoter still. Yet,
the possibility still haunts the governments and citizens of both nations.
THE MAKING OF POLICY
While the relationship'S broad patterns are easily defined, what shapes the
handling of specific issues? The making and implementation of American
policy toward Japan differs little from that towards any other country.
Power. Perceptions. and Policy 3
In America's diplomatic history, the startling foreign policy initiatives
of a Wilson or Truman are the exception. Continuity rather than change
characterizes both domestic and foreign policy. Presidents and congresses
largely carry on the work of their predecessors. Revisions of existing pol
icies are rare; complete shifts in policy rarer still. Change, when it occurs,
is mostly incremental.
Foreign policy making is a complex process that varies from one issue
and time to the next. and can be shaped by key political and admin
istrative leaders, bureaucratic politics, public opinion, and the impact of
international events. Sometimes the bargaining over an issue is sharper
within rather than between governments; the time, effort, and differences
to be overcome among government institutions over policy may be greater
than asserting that policy with another government. Much policy comes
from the complex bureaucratic procedures and adjustment of conflicting
interests over years rather than specific, decisive decisions. Policy be
comes the sum of countless and often conflicting minor decisions or
non-decisions throughout interested bureaucracies. The policy process is
"decentralized and policy outcomes are subjective and often unstructured.
No one is really in control ... the bureaucracy [is] ... a kind of automatic
pilot [which manages routine issues] while the president ... takes the control
at critical junctures.,,1
The responsibilities and powers for foreign policy have shifted over
time. Before World War II, foreign policy was made largely by the White
House and State Department, with inputs from other affected bureaucracies.
congressional committees, and interest groups. But throughout the postwar
era, as the range of international issues proliferated, foreign policy making
powers diffused among other ever more numerous and powerful players; the
ability of relatively obscure bureaucrats, congressmen, and interest groups
to impede or promote policy has accelerated.
Given these constraints, policy debates between presidential candidates
have been largely over means rather than ends. Even presidents who come
to power with the promise of abandoning existing policies and embarking
on new ones usually end up tinkering with a few specifics. Political realities
at home and abroad reined in Carter's human rights concerns and Reagan's
military build-up, for example.
To further complicate matters, as with any other country, America's pol
icy toward Japan is thoroughly entangled in the processes and decisions of
Japan's policy toward the United States. In Japan too, policymaking is a
multi-stranded tug of war among ever more diverse interests, many of which
hold veto power. As power diffuses within Japan, gridlock is increasingly
prevalent. Within broad policy guidelines there is enormous debate. Neo
mercantilism is to Japan's postwar foreign policy what containment was to