Japan

is more a trading company than a nationstate, that is, it is a nation whose factional party politics leaves it without a foreign policy and with decision-making institutions pursuing only reactive policies regarding major political issues in foreign affairs.

Donald Hellmann points out the contrast in policy across issue areas, arguing that Japan's record on political-strategic decisions is as bad as its record on international economic policy is good, and 'decision-making institutions have produced reactive, not active policies, regarding major political issues in foreign affairs' (Hellmann 1988: 369). To him Japan is 'more a trading company than a nationstate, a nation without a foreign policy in the usual sense of the word' (Hellmann 1988: 358), and he attributes this limitation largely to Japan's party politics, characterized by factional struggles, which gives Japanese prime ministers only limited power, together with relatively weak domestic institutions, like the National Defense Council (now the National Security Council) and the Japanese Defense Agency. Although Hellmann accepts the successful record of Japanese policy in the economic area, he does not entirely agree with analyses that credit that record exclusively to Japan's domestic political economy, stressing the importance of the US-made international 'greenhouse' that allowed Japan to pursue its ' neo-mercantiIist' policy. By arguing this, he, to a degree, downplays the strategic orientation of Japanese foreign policy even in the economic area.

Donald HellmanThinkers

Donald Hellman