foreign policy

Japan

is, for Japanese, not so much passive as strategically responsive. External stimuli may provide the initial push, but Japanese then incorporates the stimuli into its own policy objectives and fashions a policy that may or may not respond directly to the intent or wishes of that stimuli.

Dennis Yasutomo also opposes the idea that the Japanese government is paralysed by policy immobilism and only reacts to external pressures purposelessly, neglecting its national interest (Yasutomo 1995). He accepts that Japanese policy is in a sense as reactive as othe1 governments are, and 'so much of Japan's foreign policy is tailored to responding, either in anticipation or after-the-fact, to the expectations, hopes, and fears of foreign actors, both nation-state and non-nation-state' (Yasutomo 1995: 188). However, he argues that his case studies about Japan's multilateral bank policies and aid policies do not show that Japan is like a billiard ball, bouncing off the movement of others, and that Japan's behaviour reveals a Japanese agenda, often pursued against the wishes of others. In short, what he stresses is that external stimuli provide the initial push, but 'Japan then incorporates the stimuli into its own policy objectives and fashions a policy that may or may not respond directly to the intent or wishes of that stimuli' (Yasutomo 1995: 188).

Dennis YasumotoThinkers

Dennis Yasumoto