foreign policy

Japan

is, for Japanese, minimalist, or a kind of 'coping', meaning it proceeds by opportunistically assessing the international situation carefully, methodically weighing and sorting out each alternative, waiting for the dust to settle on contentious issues, achieving domestic consensus and adapting to the existing situation with the fewest risks.

Like Calder, Michael Blaker denies the importance of strategic considerations in Japanese foreign policy when he describes this policy as minimalist or coping (he actually argues that Japan is trying to cope but unsuccessfully) (Blaker 1993: 1-42). By 'coping' he means that Japan is carefully assessing the international situation, methodically weighing and sorting out each alternative, waiting for the dust to settle on contentious issues, achieving domestic consensus and adapting to the existing situation with the fewest risks. In short, he sees Japanese foreign policy as being highly opportunistic. He is right in that Japan's diplomacy was minimalist until recently, particularly in the security area. It seems also true that Japan's diplomacy was not (perhaps still is not) very sophisticated tactically, which can be attributed to its deferring to the US in many political and security issues, thus sometimes failing to achieve sufficient objectives or missing opportunities to enhance national interests in some individual cases, as illustrated by his two case studies on Japan's policies towards the third United Nations Law of the Sea Conference in the 1970s and the GulfWar in the early 1990s. However, many would disagree that this tactical inability of Japan's diplomacy suggests a lack of strategy in Japanese foreign policy as a whole.

Michael BlakerThinkers

Michael Blaker