On Japanese nationalisms

Robert Dujarric of Temple University Japan had an op-ed in the Japan Times Wednesday in which he argued, "Japanese society may have problems but nationalism is not one of them."

He argues:

Regardless of the metric used, Japan scores very low on nationalism. Its investment in its armed forces as a percentage of national income is small, especially for a country living in close range of two potential war zones (the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan).

Moreover, in the past two decades the offensive capabilities of North Korea against Japan, namely its ballistic missiles and nuclear program, have grown significantly.

China, another potential adversary for Japan, clearly has a much stronger military than 20 years ago. But Japan continues to keep its military investment at around 1 percent of national income (perhaps a little more if other expenses are included).

The phenomenal waste in Japanese procurement programs also shows that the military budget is as much a funding mechanism for Japanese businesses as a tool to build up a strong military.

Moreover, when it comes to dealing with the outside world, Japanese diplomats are as unlikely as those of the Holy See to resort to threats of force. There are no John Boltons in the Japanese Foreign Ministry. This peaceful, low profile reflects a basic fact often ignored by outsiders: Japanese voters favor candidates who care about bread and butter issues over those whose concern is Japan's greatness and military might.

He attributes this lack of nationalism to an absence of a sense of victimization — as in South Korea and China — and a lack of universal values, a "messianic urge" that lends itself to a desire to seek regional or global domination. It also lacks the need to use nationalism to distract citizens from domestic problems or to promote unity in the presence of social cleavages.

Granted, Japan lacks these factors. But are these the only causes of nationalism? And are the only manifestations of nationalism more expansive defense budgets and a more robust foreign policy? With that phrase "regardless of the metric used," M. Dujarric manages to duck this question of just what is nationalism.

I would argue that the Japanese people on the whole are quite nationalistic. I think that the Japanese people on the whole are proud of Japan and of being Japanese, if not to the same extent as their neighbors or Americans.

As Yomiuri found in an opinion poll in January of this year, a record number of respondents (1650 out of 1780, 92.7%) said that they felt some or a lot of pride, with a record portion (55%) saying that they felt a lot of pride. That pride, however, did not translate into support for a policy of remilitarization or normalization. Asked what they think about contemporary Japan — i.e., the country of which they are proud — 59.7% saw it as a "peace-loving nation," followed by 35.9% who saw it as an economic great power, 27.2% who saw it as a country with a high level of culture, and 25.2% who saw it as a democratic nation. Only 2% saw it as a military great power, fewer than those who saw it as an "insular nation." (Respondents were free to choose as many answers as they desired from a list that also included "nation with a high level of welfare protection," "nation that is trusted by other countries," and "independent nation." Obviously this does not necessarily suggest that this is how the respondents want to be, but it is reasonable to infer that the 1780 respondents to this poll are actually quite proud of Japan's achievements culturally and economically — and they are proud of Japan's postwar record of abjuring from the use of force to resolve disputes.

In other words, a Japanese citizen can be nationalistic without sounding like Abe Shinzo. A Japanese can be proud — should be proud — of the Japan that exists, not the beautiful Japan that exists if only the constitution were revised.

Accordingly, it is inappropriate to discuss Japanese nationalism only in terms dictated by nineteenth-century nationalism, the kind of nationalism that helps the state unite the people behind common goals (often involving besting foreign rivals), the kind of nationalism that can be measured by M. Dujarric's metrics. (Interestingly, both South Korea and China used conscription, that great tool of nineteenth-century nationalism, as a means to tap national power.) Japan obviously has nationalists of the nineteenth-century variety, but they are far from the most numerous variety. They may, however, be the most influential, given their concentration among Japan's political and media elites. Thanks to the media, they certainly have influence far greater than their numbers.

M. Dujarric suggests that Japanese voters care about bread-and-butter issues, meaning that there is little support for the agenda pushed by hyper-nationalist conservatives, whose nationalism may well be driven by the same sense of victimhood and manifest destiny cited by M. Dujarric as factors in Chinese and South Korean nationalism. But that doesn't mean that the Japanese people are actively opposed to the hyper-nationalist agenda. They are opposed to governments that neglect bread-and-butter domestic issues — and as Mr. Abe learned, they are willing to punish said governments — but if a government satisfies those needs, the public is willing to give some leeway to the government on foreign and defense policy, leaving a strong nationalist prime minister the freedom with which to pursue the kind of nationalist agenda M. Dujarric claims isn't an issue in Japan.

Furthermore, as I argue in the current issue of the Far Eastern Economic Review, even Japanese citizens who do not support remilitarization or a cold war with China want their government to be more assertive in dealing with Beijing, especially in the case of China's transnational pollution and tainted products, which have consequences for Japanese households.

The picture is considerably more complicated than that provided by M. Dujarric. Yes, the Japanese public exhibits little of the nineteenth-century nationalism of conservative elites and Japan's neighbors, but that is quite different from saying that "nationalism isn't an issue" or relevant when considering how Japanese think about their country's place in the world.

"Pride" is not just the property of the LDP

In this post earlier this month, I discussed the importance of "pride" — hokori (誇り) — in the thinking of the Japanese right.

In this vein, Younghusband at Coming Anarchy writes of a dispute between the DPJ and The Economist over the recent cover that featured the pun "Japain."

Iwakuni Tetsundo, head of the DPJ's international bureau, wrote to complain about the cover:

...I strenuously object to the title on the cover of your Asia edition, 'Japain'. Japan is the official name of our nation, registered and acknowledged by the United Nations and other international bodies. It is completely outrageous that you combined the word for our nation with 'pain'. You made fun of our respected nation's name on a cover that is sold on newsstands all over the region. This conduct is equal to burning a national flag, which is base and inconsiderate. No nation's name should be treated like this.

I disapprove of the utter lack of humor on the part of Mr. Iwakuni, and, presumably, the DPJ, since Mr. Iwakuni seems to have written in an official capacity. Please take a deep breath: this is nothing like the burning of a national flag, and this stance makes the DPJ look silly and irrationally nativist.

This episode goes to show that a national pride that occasionally borders on chauvinism is not the unique property of the LDP and conservatives like Nakagawa Shoichi. This is a reality of Japanese politics today. I suspect Japanese politicians — and the Japanese people — may have a bit of a chip on their shoulder as a result of the slights and put downs the country endured during the lost decade. (Of course, the Japanese establishment engaged in ongoing self-criticism throughout the 1990s.) This suggests that nationalism and related-foreign policy issues will not be the basis for a new cleavage in a realigned political system. A certain degree of nationalism — if not loyalty to the nationalist agenda proposed by the LDP's conservatives — may be common to most Diet members.

This episode may also reflect a certain powerlessness on the part of the Japanese establishment, prompting officials and businessmen to lash out like this: it is difficult, after all, for Mr. Iwakuni to take issue with the substance of The Economist article, although he attempts to refute the magazine's criticism of the DPJ. Japan is mired in intractable social and economic problems that have diminished the country's international profile. As such, the DPJ and the establishment as a whole should not vent its frustrations at foreign critics, who for the most part have Japan's interests at heart.

What Fukuda has to look forward to

The LDP presidential campaign is proceeding apace, with substance occasionally intruding into the discussion.

Mr. Fukuda's remarks on North Korea policy — discussed here — have apparently triggered rumbling on the right, if Sankei's editorial today is any indication. Mr. Fukuda is obviously not a favor of Japan's right wing, not being one of their number and apparently not owing them anything. Labeling him as a proponent of the "dialogue line," Sankei calls Mr. Fukuda out on the abductions issue, asking him to provide concrete policies that he intends to pursue. The editorial then quotes some past Fukuda quotes on North Korea to show its readers just how soft Mr. Fukuda would be as prime minister. For example: "It is important that we come to embrace a flexible discussion approach." And: "It is natural that we face a changing international environment. It is likely that tactics will change." Both these lines sound good to me, but I guess the average Sankei reader — or perhaps just the average Sankei editor — is outraged by such unabashed pragmatism. (Sankei depends to know what Mr. Fukuda means by "changing international situation" and "tactics.")

Meanwhile, I wonder what Sankei will make of the prospects of better relations with Japan's Asian neighbors under a likely Fukuda administration. Kim Dae Jung, former South Korean president, has said while on a visit to Washington, DC that a Fukuda cabinet will probably mean a reinvigoration of Japan's relations in Asia. (I can't imagine that Sankei is all that pleased about Mr. Ozawa's December trip to China either. Mr. Ozawa will apparently be taking three charter planes full of DPJ Diet members [fifty in total] and supporters to meet with Hu Jintao.)

The Sankei's — and Yomiuri's — comments on Mr. Fukuda's approach to North Korea are a good reminder of what Mr. Fukuda will have to deal with both within and outside the LDP should he be elected party president. He is set to become the moderate, dovish head of a party of unruly hawks who want nothing more than to see Japan slap around North Korea until Kim Jong Il relents. (I think it's fair to describe Mr. Aso's North Korea policy as the "slap around" approach.) For the moment, the desire for unity and calm within the LDP is outweighing any concerns about Mr. Fukuda's ideas, but how long will his honeymoon last should he become prime minister?

Sympathy for the devils?

A common trope among the Japanese right's apologists, revisionists, and other outright deniers of Japan's wartime crimes is that Japanese imperialism was little different from the European imperialism that had divided up Asia over the centuries — indeed, Japanese imperialism was superior because it had the effect (intended or not) of liberating Asians from the European empires.

This may have been the case in the early years of the Japanese empire, when the Meiji oligarchs who conducted Japanese foreign policy were following lessons learned from the imperial powers. But Japan's imperialism from the 1930s onward (with roots in the immediate aftermath of the Russo-Japanese war) was arguably a different matter entirely. (Perhaps this difference is best illustrated in the differing legacies of Japanese imperialism in Taiwan and Korea.)

Why? In The War of the World, Niall Ferguson provides one explanation:

The new empires of the twentieth century were not content with the somewhat haphazard administrative arrangements that had characterized the old — the messy mixtures of imperial and local law, the delegation of powers as well as status to certain indigenous groups. They inherited from the nineteenth-century nation-builders an insatiable appetite for uniformity; in that sense, they were more like 'empire-states' than empires in the old sense. The new empires repudiated traditional religious and legal constraints on the use of force. They insisted on the creation of new hierarchies in place of existing social structures. They delighted in sweeping away old political institutions. Above all, they made a virtue of ruthlessness. In pursuit of their objectives, they were willing to make war on whole categories of people, at home and abroad, rather than on merely the armed and trained representatives of an identified enemy state. It was entirely typical of the new generation of would-be emperors that Hitler could accuse the British of excessive softness in their treatment of the Indian nationalists.

"Introduction," lxvi

I am not suggesting that I buy this argument entirely, but it's worth keeping in mind the next time a Japanese hyper-nationalist rolls out the argument that Japan was just doing what Britain, France, and Holland were doing.

Sankei pays tribute to the war dead by calling for a more activist Japan

In honor of the day of memorial for the end of the war on August 15, each of Japan's dailies has published an editorial marking the occasion.

They are, in general, fairly innocuous: Yomiuri's discusses history and Yasukuni Shrine, Asahi's looks at relations with Asian neighbors. Sankei's editorial, however, single-handedly illustrates the fundamental incoherence of the Japanese right, which is torn between reverence for the past, recognition of the importance of the US-Japan alliance and the need for Japan to contribute more internationally, and fear that everyone in East Asia is prepared to gang up on Japan — the sum of the "psychic whiplash" that Japan suffered in the rapid shift from total war to total defeat, occupation, and alliance with the victorious with the US (and now, on top of all this, China becoming a world-beating superpower).

After an opening section that talks of the sacrifices made by Japan's war dead for the Japanese people, Sankei launches into the following bizarre rant:

The US-Japan relationship, whose deepening is desired

It is deplorable that although Japan's international environment is becoming rather intense, foreign and security policy issues did not become a point of contention whatsoever in the latest House of Councillors election.

North Korea, which is chasing the two hares of recognition as a nuclear power and the acquisition of aid; China, which is feverishly following the path of a military and economic great power and neglecting the environment and food security; and Russia, which is pushing forward with energy imperialism in the background based on petroleum power: This is, without exaggeration, the appearance of our neighboring countries.

For this reason and more, the US-Japan relationship, which must be strengthened, is also increasingly creaky.

In regard to the six-party talks and America's giving in to the North without limit, it is naturally felt in Japan as an act of betrayal. As for the successive inappropriate incidents of former Defense Minister Kyuma Fumio's the atomic bombings "couldn't be helped" statement and the US Congress's adoption of the comfort women resolution, they have, as a result, given rise to deep distrust and disappointment in the US in the hearts of many Japanese, who have consequently perceived the inner workings of the relationship.

On the other hand, the fate of the anti-terror special measures law, because of the opposition's taking control of a majority in the Upper House, has become opaque in a stroke.

The MSDF's activities in the Indian Ocean being conducted for eleven countries is not simply "cooperation with the US," much less "following the US." It's international cooperation. If this law is buried, the separation between the international community, which is continuing the war on terrorism, and Japan will widen, and the loss of confidence will be immeasurable.

Japan, even while contributing $13 billion during the Gulf War, was not thanked — "too little, too late" — and thus must not commit the same foolish diplomatic mistake.

August 15 sixty-two years ago was a historical turning point for Japan equal to the Meiji Restoration. Japan followed the rare progression from America's enemy to its ally. Of course this began by way of the coercion of the occupation, and henceforth there was also tension and friction in economics, security, and other aspects of the relationship.

深化させたい日米関係

　日本の国際環境はむしろ厳しさを増しているのに、今回の参院選で外交・安全保障がほとんど争点にならなかったのは残念なことだった。

　核保有の既成事実化と支援獲得の二兎（にと）を追う北朝鮮、環境や食の安全を放置して軍事・経済大国路線をひた走る中国、そして石油パワーを背景に資源帝国主義を突き進むロシア。わが近隣諸国の掛け値なしの姿である。

　だからこそ一層、深化させねばならない日米関係にもきしみが走る。

　 ６カ国協議における米国の北への際限ない妥協は、日本には背信行為も同然に映る。下院本会議での慰安婦決議採択と久間章生前防衛相の原爆投下「しょうがな い」発言という相次ぐ不適切な出来事は、機微に触れるがゆえに、結果的に多くの日本人の心の奥深くに米国への失望と不信を生んだ。

　一方、対テロ特別措置法の命運は、野党が参議院で過半数を制したことにより一気に不透明になった。

　インド洋での海上自衛隊の活動は１１カ国に対して行われており、単なる「対米協力」ではない。ましてや「対米追随」ではない。国際協力なのだ。もし同法が葬られれば、テロとの戦いをつづける国際社会と日本の乖離（かいり）は広がり、信頼の損失は計り知れない。

　日本は、１３０億ドルを拠出しながら「少なすぎて遅すぎる」と感謝すらされなかった、湾岸戦争の外交的失敗を繰り返す愚を犯してはならない。

　６２年前の８月１５日は日本にとって明治維新にも匹敵する歴史の転換点だった。日本は米国を「敵」から「同盟」の相手とする稀有（けう）な歩みをつづけた。もちろんそれは占領という強制により始まり、その後も経済や防衛など数々の局面で摩擦や緊張はあった。

What can we learn from Sankei's publishing this on the anniversary of Japan's surrender to the allied powers? Japanese (ultra)nationalists, while recognizing that the alliance with the US is essential for Japan's exercising influence internationally, also chafe at perceived American slights against the Japan and apparently continue to suffer from the shock of Japan's rapid shift at war's end sixty years later.

Now, I am sympathetic to the idea that Japan has yet to heal fully from the wounds inflicted from moving from total war with the US to total dependence on the US, and I think it's an important factor in explaining the underlying tension in the relationship that continues to the present day.

What I reject is the cynicism (and the lack of humility). To me, this editorial's argument seems to say little more than "We cannot trust the Americans — and don't particularly like them — but we have no choice but to stay close to them if we're going to be able to deal with our nasty neighbors." Sankei is wholly unapologetic and not the least bit humbled by the defeat of Japanese imperialism that August 15th signifies. Sure, they take care to emphasize that Japan is engaged in international cooperation, but there is no question that Sankei is far more concerned about North Korea and China when it looks at contemporary Japanese security policy. It is ready for Japan to reenter the East Asian balance of power in a big way. Sankei has learned nothing from the war, perhaps except for the lesson that Japan should be more prepared this time around.

Meanwhile, while the editorial asserts that the US-Japan alliance "must" be strengthened, there is little to suggest what exactly that means (although I would guess it starts with abstaining from any criticism of Japan's wartime past and taking care to follow Japan's instructions in the six-party talks). The nationalists like those at Sankei — and, dare I say, at the Kantei — will ride the US train as long as it has locomotive power, but does anyone anticipate that Japan will value the alliance when the US is bruised, battered, and seemingly down for the count? (Such arguments have been cropping up ever more frequently in the pages of Japan's newspapers and journals.) Again, this need not be a problem — no alliance is permanent. But that makes the embrace of shared, universal values on the part of the Abes and Asos disingenuous and more than a little tawdry.

This is, I fear, the face of the men who govern Japan today. Free of humility, free of sorrow, free of regret, they see "uncertainty" — that ubiquitous word — in Asia and are immediately prepared to send Japan into battle again. Japan, of course, is by no means going to resurrect its co-prosperity sphere, and the practical consequences of this position, short of dangerously aggravating tension in the US-Japan relationship, will likely be small, but the persistence of this manner of thinking will in the long run make it harder for Japan to play a constructive role in upholding the global order, if only because every step taken by these nationalists will prompt a backlash at home and among Japan's neighbors (more specifically, the Korean and Chinese peoples).

The reality is that Japan will not be able to act in the world free of the shadow of the past until the leaders making the strategic decisions are sufficiently apologetic and humbled by their country's past. There is no way around it. There are no shortcuts. Repeating the same apology, word for word, over and over again, does not constitute atonement. Until that changes, otherwise innocuous gestures like refueling coalition vessels in the Indian Ocean will be tarnished (fairly or not) in the eyes of Japan's Northeast Asian neighbors and many Japanese citizens as indicative of the first steps in the grand designs of the ultranationalists.

Let the hyperbole begin

Congress has passed House Resolution 121, the "comfort women resolution," by unanimous consent — there were no nays voiced, and there was no roll call vote. According to one of my trusted correspondents, Congressman Tom Lantos, a Holocaust survivor, introduced the legislation by suggesting that there is no statute of limitations on apologies for these crimes and that asking for this apology is not asking too much of Japan, a friend and ally. Said Lantos: "The true strength of a nation is tested when it is forced to confront the darkest chapters in its history. Will it have the courage to face up to the truth of its past, or will it hide from those truths in the desperate and foolish hope they will fade with time?"

H.Res. 121 is an exceedingly modest piece of legislation. Non-binding, it does not request that the administration take steps to pressure Japan by linking the issue up with another bilateral issue; it appeals to Japan's good conscience to do the right thing by history, to do its duty to ensure that its children are fully aware of their country's bloody past, a burden that must be carried by every country (as discussed in this post).

I have already documented some of the extreme rhetoric emanating from Japan's ultra-nationalists in advance of the resolution's passage, and that rhetoric will undoubtedly intensify in the coming days and weeks.

Non-Japanese critics of the resolution are vulnerable to the same rhetorical excesses as Japanese critics. Take this post by Matt at Liberal Japan, in which he asks, "Are we all Fascists these days? Imperialists?" Hyperbolic fulminations along these lines have devalued terms like Fascism and Imperialism to the point of being analytically useless; they are now little more than slurs.

Imperialism, Matt? Really? The US isn't occupying the Diet until the government apologizes. It isn't threatening to stop defending Japan, abandoning it to its fate, or slapping economic sanctions on Japan. The US Congress is making an appeal out of good conscience, from one democracy to another, for Japan to strive harder to ensure that the truth of Japan's past is not revised, relativized, or ignored — to ensure that Japanese children have a full appreciation of their country's wartime past. The time for debate about the hypocrisy of the US or whether it is within the duties of the Congress to pass such legislation is past; the resolution is on the books. H.Res. 121 is not the equivalent of the invasion of Iraq, Matt, but a simple piece of non-binding legislation that seeks historical justice, both because it's the right thing to do and because it will make Japan a better US ally.

This resolution's passage ought to mean the end of hysterical rhetoric about how the US Congress is bullying poor Japan. It won't, but it should. Instead, H.Res. 121 will no doubt find a prominent place on the list of wounds inflicted on Japan's precious self-esteem by the US.

For a review of this whole process and the resolution's implications, including its connection with US Asia policy, I strongly recommend this post by Mindy Kotler at The Washington Note.

Another sign of lingering Japanese war guilt

Following yesterday's finding that a plurality of respondents indicated that Japan still needs to apologize for its actions during the war, I have found, thanks to a tip from a trusted correspondent, a survey conducted by Fuji TV'sHodo 2001" program in April that suggests that the Japanese people are far from defiant when it comes to making amends for Japan's wartime crimes.

If readers go to the Hodo 2001 site's public opinion survey archive and scroll down to the poll from 8 April, they will find an opinion poll that shows that the Japanese people are not exactly rallying behind The Facts brigade (and let's not forget the honorary representative from the English-language blogosphere).

The third question in the survey asked, "Regarding the comfort women issue, do you think that Japan has apologized sufficiently?" 43.8% answered no, 37.2% answered yes. (Beyond that, a majority answered "no" to the question asking whether Prime Minister Abe should pray at Yasukuni.)

At the same time, the survey found that 59% of respondents "cannot understand" the repeated criticism by Chinese and South Korean leaders of the various statements made by Japanese politicians about history problems, which goes to show, I think, that historical reconciliation begins at home; there is a limit to what efforts to improve acceptance of past crimes emanating from outside Japan can achieve, which is not to say that others should abstain from good-faith criticism of the revisionists, relativists, and deniers, but it must be done with the knowledge that ultimately the Japanese people have to do the job themselves.

Missing the point on Japan's normalization

Using the occasion of Japanese Air Self-Defense Force pilots participating in live-bombing exercises with the US in the Marianas, Norimitsu Onishi of the New York Times has a prominently featured article in today's edition (also on the front page, top of the fold of today's IHT) on Japan's shedding "military restraints."

The NYT website also features a short documentary called Rearming Japan.

In general, Onishi's article provides a fair summary of the contours of the debate, taking care to note, for example, that Japan, while ranking high on annual league tables of defense expenditures, has actually been letting its defense budget stagnate over the past decade.

And yet there are a few things that bear noting about this article.

First, Onishi premises the problematic nature of Japanese normalization on its "rattling nerves throughout northeast Asia." And yet the only example Onishi provides to support this is South Korea's recent launching of its first Aegis cruiser and President Roh's comments about an arms race in the region. It seems that if concerns about Japanese normalization are so prevalent, Onishi might have been able to muster a few more examples to show it. (Devin Stewart at Fairer Globalization notes that if Onishi had talked to Southeast Asians, he would have found them more supportive of a more active Japanese security policy.)

Second, and this is a far more substantial problem, Onishi's article and the companion video are lacking in context, both in terms of history and Japanese politics. Regarding the former, Japanese militarism was a product of political developments in Japan occurring at a given moment in history, when colonization and aggression were the hallmarks of great-power status. Just because Japan's ultra-nationalists make this argument does not make it untrue (but it also does not excuse what Japan did). The idea that Japan is going to invade China again, mentioned by one of the interview subjects in the film, is ludicrous and divorced from the facts. With its stagnant defense budget that increasingly emphasizes high-technology air and sea platforms over the GSDF, which according to recent planning documents is set to see its numbers fall, the JSDF may have a hard time helping at the Snow Festival in Hokkaido, let alone invading China.

In terms of the domestic political context, while Onishi gets the change within the LDP right, thanks to an assist from Richard Samuels, he misses the far more significant domestic political change: the ousting of the Socialists from their position as the leading opposition party, the destruction of the Japanese left more generally, and the rise of the Democratic Party of Japan. He quotes DPJ Secretary-General Hatoyama Yukio criticizing the government for violating the constitution in its activities in Iraq, but he misleadingly fails to mention that Hatoyama and his party are less concerned about Japan's playing a more active role than they are concerned about Japan's becoming to close to the US, which they feel has become dangerously aggressive. The DPJ's critique, in general, is not a pacifist one by any means, although former Socialists in its ranks still stand by that position. Rather, the DPJ rejects the argument made by former JDA chief Ishiba Shigeru in this article: "I think the Japan-U.S. security relationship should be as unified as possible, and our different roles need to be made clear."

The DPJ, perhaps because opposition affords it the luxury of taking positions that could be more difficult to adopt in government, has emphasized Japan's need for more independence from the US (I discussed one particularly articulate discussion of this here).

In other words, the debate is far more interesting than Onishi notes — it is by no means simply a matter of pacifists versus nationalists.

This raises the larger question, addressed by Samuels and J. Patrick Boyd in the monograph discussed in this post, of why Japan tied its own hands in security policy in the first place. As they argue convincingly, it was a matter of the political balance within the LDP, with the pragmatic mainstreamers, who favored the Yoshida line, receiving assistance from the political opposition and public opinion in their fight against the LDP's revisionists. But they sought limits not out of pacifism, but because it made good strategic sense. In other words, to adapt a Marxist concept, Japan's postwar pacifism may well have been the superstructure that served as a more presentable face for the substructure, Japan's assessment of its postwar interests as enshrined in the Yoshida doctrine.

With Japan's interests changing as the balance of power in East Asia shifts, it is to be expected that Japan would reconsider its interests in the new era and adjust its grand strategy and defense priorities accordingly. The rise of the nationalist revisionists is one aspect of that, but their rise has been accompanied by the collapse of the left and the emergence of a political opposition that is also interested in seeing Japan's grand strategy change. It may be useful to think of the situation once again as a matter of superstructure and substructure. Today, the superstructure of Japanese normalization is provided by Japan's ultra-nationalists, who never cease cranking out material that leads Japan's neighbors (and ally) to question normalization. The substructure, meanwhile, is once again shaped by a realistic assessments of Japan's interests, threats, and opportunities. Having talked with enough officials in MOFA and the Japanese Ministry of Defense, as well as members of the Diet from both the LDP and the DPJ, it is clear that there are enough important policy makers in Tokyo who don't buy the rhetoric of the ultra-nationalists even as they acknowledge that Japan needs a new doctrine that reflects contemporary realities and may require Japan's acting as a security provider.

In light of these considerations, one has to ask why the NYT thinks this article is so important as to merit page-one coverage.

Is Japan really poised to threaten its neighbors anytime soon, if ever? Is Japan truly ready to follow the US into combat in the "arc of instability" (and refueling in the Indian Ocean, as important a mission as its been, does not count)? Is Japan really even close to possessing even a conventional deterrent in its showdown with North Korea? These are the questions one must keep in mind while reading this article. As unnerving as Japan's ultra-nationalists are, for the moment they are still more of a menace, if that, to the Japanese polity than to Japan's neighbors (see earlier posts on Abe here and here, and Sakurai Yoshiko and the ultra-nationalists more generally here).

A journey to the center of Mr. Abe

I mentioned earlier that I was in the process of reading Prime Minister Abe's Utsukushii Kuni e [Towards a beautiful country], the book he published in advance of last autumn's LDP presidential election and that was a popular seller after his inauguration as the Japanese people tried to figure out just who their new prime minister is.

Well, I've finished my slog through it, and I cannot deny that for all the interminably boring bits — and there were plenty — it was an incredibly useful book to read.

This books reads like the prime minister's stream-of-consciousness. He jumps from topic to topic, draws on memories at random, and refers to recent Hollywood movies (Terminal, Million Dollar Baby) and American and British politicians and political events (Margaret Thatcher, Winston Churchill, Arthur Greenwood, Ronald Reagan, the Iran hostage crisis, among others) to make his points. There are chapter and section headings, but they tend to be of a general nature, giving Mr. Abe's mind plenty of room to wander. One might argue that referencing Hollywood movies was an attempt by the prime minister to seem more a man of the people, but the references (and plot summaries) are labored and don't add anything to the text — they certainly struck me as strange. All of this makes for a bizarre book, certainly not the kind of book one would expect from a man on the brink of being chosen as the leader of a world power (the same probably goes for Foreign Minister Aso's new book).

Having said that, I want to make a couple more serious points about the content of the book, to add to those I've made on previous occasions.

First, Abe's view of the state is deeply unsettling. He references Hobbes's Leviathan to make the case for a strong state that is capable of securing the lives and property of its citizens. But aside from a offhand remark about Kant to dismiss his ideas, his view of the state stops with Hobbes. It's almost as if he was in a class on political theory, paid close attention at the start ("this Hobbes guy is great"), missed a couple weeks, poked his nose in for Kant, didn't like him, and decided to cut the rest of the semester. No Locke, nothing about the American founders except to praise them for building a strong state via the constitution and note the importance of the Declaration of Independence to Americans, no Rousseau, no French Revolution, no Mill — you get the idea.

It's one thing to not bother paying tribute to Western political theory, but to cherry pick from the Western political tradition, borrowing from a seventeenth century thinker whose society was actually in dire need of a leviathan around the time he was writing, is revealing. To Abe, the state's duty to protect its citizens is all-important. To him, the central dilemma of modern Western political philosophy — the search for a balance between liberty and security — does not exist. What matters is security. And so there is no compromising over North Korea's abductions of Japanese citizens. And there is little tolerance for dissenting opinions. Abe seems to have little tolerance or understanding for those who view the world differently than him (and his grandfather), castigating journalists and liberal academics at one point or another for their views. While he claims that to defend Japan is to defend "liberty and democracy," he does not spend all that much time talking about what those mean to him and to Japan.

In all honesty, Abe would probably fit right in at the Bush-Cheney White House.

Take this line, for example: "The state and the people should not have a conflictual relationship, they should have a complementary relationship." I find this line revealing not only concerning Abe's political views (he takes the idea of the emperor as the symbol of this relationship seriously), but also concerning the political development of Japan. This idea strikes my American ears as unusual, and I think it would find a mixed reception throughout the West, even in relatively more statist continental Europe. While the US probably goes too far in the direction of anti-statism, the basic idea of the state and its agents and representatives serving the people and being held accountable by the people (necessarily conflictual, no?) is fundamental to American (and liberal) political thought.

Abe rejects that, however. The divide is not a divide — not governed and government, but state and people living in dynamic unity. There is nothing about how democracy squares with this vision of the state, but I can imagine based on what Abe has said and done since becoming prime minister. Just yesterday LDP Secretary-General Nakagawa Hidenao provided the perfect expression to illustrate Abe's political thought:

President Ozawa says, "We will bring about the reversal of government and opposition parties and a two-major-party system, and establish democracy in Japan." Whichever country, whatever era is he talking about? He probably bears a grudge to the LDP. The goal of politics is not the reversal of government and opposition parties and a two-major-party system. What kind of Japan to build is most important. Democracy is not established? Democracy is established in Japan.

I wrote back in January, after the prime minister's speech to open the new Diet session, that Prime Minister Abe fancies himself some kind of twenty-first century genro, a statesman rising above low, democratic politics and plotting the course of the ship of state for the next 50 to 100 years. There is nothing in his book to dispel that impression.

Meanwhile something he wrote about the LDP caught my eye, because it pertains to Japan's alliance with the US. He suggests that the two reasons for the union between the Liberal and Democratic parties to form the LDP, a union engineered by his grandfather, were to achieve high economic growth rates and to restore Japan's independence, with revising the occupation-era constitution and education law being key aims for the restoration of Japan's independence. To Prime Minister Abe, Japan is only de jure independent because it still is governed by a constitution drafted by foreign, by American hands. In other words, the occupation never ended.

He later gets around to dedicating a whole chapter to the "Composition of the US-Japan alliance," but spends a good chunk of it talking about the drafting of the constitution by SCAP, and then talking about how Japan should be able to act more assertively abroad — but not necessarily in cooperation with the US. Here's what the prime minister has to see about his country's relationship with the US:

While it goes without saying that the utmost self-help effort for the security of the homeland, the fight to "defend one's own country oneself," is essential, if one thinks about nuclear deterrence and the stability of the Far Eastern region, the alliance with the US is indispensable, and if one takes into account US influence in international society, its economic power, and its unsurpassed military power, the US-Japan alliance is the best choice.

Moreover, I must clarify the point that today, the US and Japan share the basic viewpoint of liberty and democracy, human rights, the rule of law, and freely competitive market economics. This is a common understanding among the world's liberal countries.

While that statement seems fairly innocuous as rhetoric about the US-Japan alliance goes, it needs to be unpacked, because what seems like a fairly confident statement of support of the alliance with the US is actually quite brittle. The key is the idea of the alliance as a "choice." Obviously in mundane legal terms, the alliance is the product of the 1960 treaty, approved by both countries' legislatures without coercion, whatever the controversy in Japan surrounding the treaty. But in practical terms, it is not often that one hears Japanese or American statesmen speak about the alliance as a "choice," subject to prevailing conditions — if those conditions change, a different choice could be made. One wonders what would happen if the US no longer appears to be the best choice, as it may already be becoming (see Nakanishi Terumasa in the July issue of Voice). What happens if the US can no longer be relied upon the provide nuclear deterrence and/or stability in the Far East (note that stability is a flexible term that could mean very different things to Washington and Tokyo)?

The second paragraph, meanwhile, contradicts the first in a way. If the alliance is a choice — the product of US predominance that makes alliance profitable for Japan — then why even bother talking about shared values? The first paragraph makes clear that the alliance is not, in fact, indispensable; it is indispensable only in prevailing conditions. Talking about shared values suggests something enduring, like, say, the US-UK relationship, which, whatever the vacillations from administration to administration and cabinet to cabinet, is about as enduring a feature of international relations as one can find. A British prime minister might discuss his government's priorities (Brussels vs. Washington), but to talk about the alliance with the US as a "choice" suited to the circumstances would sound ridiculous.

No, Abe's clarification about shared values of "liberty and democracy" — a phrase that Abe seems to use frequently in lists without ever bothering to define, as if the definitions of these concepts are crystal clear — seems to me more like window dressing than a new basis for the alliance, as the subsequent paragraph makes clear:

Then, what should we defend? It goes without saying, the independence of the state, namely the sovereignty of the state and the peace that we enjoy. Practically speaking, our lives and property, and our liberty and human rights. Of course, the culture, tradition, and history of we Japanese can be included among these things that should be protected...

At no point in this paragraph is it clear that he is talking about "we" as the US and Japan. The first "we" could be the alliance, the second just "we Japanese," — or else both could be applying to "we Japanese," with the second used for emphasis. Whatever the case, it strikes me as ambiguous, and this list of security interests does not necessarily seem dependent on the alliance, depending on who or what is threatening a given interest.

Now, mind you, I have no problem with Japan acting more independently to secure its interests, within the alliance if possible, without if absolutely necessary. What I reject is achieving more independence by subterfuge and deception. Instead of pretending to be the good ally while using closer alliance ties as a way to prep Japan for a more independent role, the Japanese government, if it in fact desires a new arrangement, ought to be more forthright about it.

Those are my most important responses to Mr. Abe's little book. If you have the time and the inclination, it's worth a read, even with his premiership on the ropes. (Indeed, the prime minister might not be in power by the time the English translation appears in the fall.)

The white-hot rage of the ultra-nationalists

From the blog of Sakurai Yoshiko, newscaster and lady of the right, comes the text of her article in the 7 July issue of Shukan Daiyamondo concerning the comfort women resolution.

Hers is another contribution to the fury of Japanese ultra-nationalists that is spilled across the pages of Japan's weeklies and monthlies as the congressional resolution nears passage, but it is worth considering, because it illustrates the rage that is bubbling up to the surface. Perhaps this is what Ambassador Kato was referring to? Whatever the case may be, I wonder if Congress is aware of the fury it has sparked in certain corners of public opinion here, and whether Congress particularly cares.

In any event, after reiterating the "fact" of the US military setting up its own comfort women system during the occupation of Japan, which was included in the now infamous Washington Post ad to which Sakurai was a signatory, Sakurai wonders what is to be done about this resolution. Allow me to translate:

...What should Japan do to deal with this kind of trend in the US of ongoing political criticism of Japan under the flags of "human rights" and "women?" Many people say that it is good to be silent and let it pass, since there is no possibility of refutation.

But in the event of taking criticism contrary to the facts, isn't the foundation for mutual understanding making a rebuttal with accurate facts? Silence is acquiescence in the face of baseless attacks on the truth, and to not speak will continue to bring dishonor to all Japanese.

I must predict that if the comfort women resolution passes, this issue will not thereupon die, but rather give birth to a more serious state of affairs...

そのような米国で進行中の“人権”“女性”を掲げた日本批判の政治の潮流に、日本はどう対処すべきか。反論してもムダであるから、黙ってやり過ごすのがよいと多くの人が言う。

だが、事実に反する非難を受けた場合、正確な事実をもって反論するのが相互理解の基本ではないのか。沈黙は、根拠なき非難を事実として認めるものであり、日本人全員に、いわれなき汚名を着せ続けることだ。

慰安婦決議が成立すれば、問題はそこで終わるのではなく、さらに深刻な状況が生まれることも予測しなければならないだろう。

This is actually relatively polite, as far as responses to the comfort women resolution from Japan's ultra-nationalists go. But all the tell-tale signs are there. The certainty that if they just keep repeating their "facts" over and over again, the wool will be lifted from the eyes of those who have been misled; the posturing that leads Sakurai to claim to speak on behalf of all Japanese, who will be dishonored if this tiny non-binding resolution isn't crushed; the questioning of the motives of the US (see the scare quotes around human rights and women): these are standard tropes in the gallons of ink spilled against this resolution of which I'm certain not even one percent of Americans are aware. This is the ugly side of America's Japanese ally. The airing of arguments such as these do not invalidate the alliance by any means (yet). I certainly don't think that Sakurai and company speak for the Japanese people. But they're out there, in positions of importance, and there is not nearly enough opposition to them in Japan's marketplace of ideas.

Their success is a testament to the unresolved historical issues between Japan and the US, issues left untouched during the cold war for strategic reasons but which have metastasized into a comprehensive world view for these ultra-nationalists who are convinced that Japan has done its penance — for crimes it did not even commit! — and any suggestion to the contrary besmirches the honor of the Japanese people and must be answered with righteous rage.

For my part, I tend to be highly skeptical of people who are as insistent as Sakurai Yoshiko and her compatriots that they have The Facts and everyone else is ignorant or malicious, because it is a world view that leaves no room for even the slightest possibility of those Facts might be wrong and that those who disagree might be doing so simply out of devotion to the truth, not devotion to an ideology.

Do I think, as Steve Clemons does, that the prominence of these ultra-nationalists in Japan is a sign of a return to the 1930s for Japan? No, not at all. I don't think the Japanese people have a sustained, programmatic interest in these conservative grudges, if the fate of constitution revision as the central focus of the Upper House elections is any indication. Rather, the danger they pose is to the alliance with the US, because enough of these tantrums and the US government may eventually tire of relying heavily on Japan as a partner in East Asia and look to alternative arrangements as a means of defending its interests in the region (engendering no small amount of instability).

Meanwhile, if you really want to see an example of the frustrated, dare I say impotent outrage of the ultra-nationalists, you would do well to read Takayama Masayuki's essay "Master" in the 19 July issue of Shukan Shincho (I am indebted to a trusted correspondent for sending along a translation of this essay).

Learning to be self-reliant?

If I could draw, I would have drawn something exactly like this cartoon in today's Yomiuri:


The caption on this cartoon reads, "Troubles at home, worries in America," Abe's dual American "worries" being the looming comfort women resolution and Christopher Hill's nuclear bargaining.

It didn't need to be this way, did it? As I wrote last week, the confluence of the North Korea nuclear question and the comfort women issue is largely a product of the blundering of the Japanese government, which has failed to appreciate how the mood in Washington has changed and act accordingly. Instead, at every juncture Shinzo has relied upon his buddy George's promises, without asking what those promises are worth when Foggy Bottom is running North Korea policy and the Congress — riled by Japanese revisionism on comfort women — does not share the president's sanguine views of Abe's empathy (and I'm sure it doesn't appreciate being called a tool of China).

The Abe government is right that the practical impact of this resolution will be limited; the foundation of the relationship is sound, and, as noted Tuesday, both the American public and American elites are content with the relationship. It's nothing short of amazing that even with a report emanating from the Bank of International Settlements noting that the yen's decline is "anomalous," Congress is more concerned about comfort women, and on monetary matters has directed its ire at China.

The importance of this episode is, rather, in the intangible impact on thinking in Japan. Relations between states, like relations between people, is a learning process. States learn what to expect from others, especially allies, and begin to build upon these expectations. Japan has come to expect a US that will refrain from criticizing its most important partner "bar none." It has relied upon a network of friends to ensure that this understanding remained in place, particularly after Japan was subject to all manner of American criticism in the early 1990s. (Robert Angel's 1996 introduction to the Japan lobby remains especially useful in illustrating how this works.) But now, with Congress's digging into Japan's past and the administration bereft of friends, the old understanding seems to be under threat.

How will Japan respond? Defensively, with alarm that it is being betrayed and abandoned by its supposed "ally"? That is how Amaki Naoto views recent events in US-Japan relations. He connects the comfort women resolution, Christopher Hill's recent statement about a peaceful framework among four countries, Japan excluded, and — citing a question asked by my boss in the Upper House foreign relations committee — Admiral Keating's remarks about aircraft carriers while in China in May to suggest that the US is not Japan's ally. He writes: "As the above-mentioned sequence of events makes clear, the US will never see Japan as an equal ally...Conservatives, nationalists, left-wing ideologues, and pacifists, as well as the people as a whole, are beginning to find further subordination to the US unfavorable. The problem is that after achieving autonomy and independence from the US, how will Japan ensure its security?"

The question is the extent to which this kind of thinking has taken hold among Japanese elites and the Japanese people — and the extent to which it could take hold in the midst of the aforementioned "betrayals." I cannot answer that, but I suspect it is more prevalent than perhaps Washington realizes.

So here we are: because Japan is incapable of dealing with criticism, and because the US does not particularly care that Japan is incapable of dealing with criticism, the future of the US-Japan relationship is murky, and will only get murkier as Japanese elites begin to assume that the US is not especially concerned about Japan's interests.

The nationalism question, revisited yet again

Although the comfort women resolution appears to be on hold until after Japan holds Upper House elections next month, the waters have been roiled by a full-page advert in the Washington Post taken out by a bipartisan group of Japanese legislators, as well as journalists and commentators (including Abe confidante Okazaki Hisahiko) laying out "The Facts" on the comfort women issue. (The ad is available here, courtesy of Occidentalism.)

At the same time, a group of legislators led by former LDP member (and postal rebel) Hiranuma Takeo, who also signed the Wapo ad, has protested to China that it should remove photos from war museums that distort the past and defame Japan.

Ampontan has addressed both these acts of "assertiveness," arguing that the comfort women issue reflects worse on Japan's neighbors and the US Congress than on Japan, and that Japan is rightfully standing up to China in demanding changes to China's war museums.

I have written about my unease about the US Congress demanding an apology on this issue from Japan before, but that should not be taken as an endorsement of the position that Japan has apologized enough and we should all start paying attention to China's wrongs, instead of Japan's. As I have written before, Japanese governments may have apologized before, but the contemporary Japanese right — the political and in some cases familial descendants of the figures who led Japan to war — has never apologized for the war. Through various indiscreet comments made by Japanese conservatives, including the current prime minister in his younger days, it is clear that to them the worst thing about the war was that Japan lost. How that is consistent with former Prime Minister Murayama's apology is beyond me. The leaders who apologized before were those who thought that Japan was right to lose the war and were proud of Japan's unique pacifist identity (or were otherwise insincerely repeating what their predecessors had said).

It does not take much effort to see why Chinese, Koreans, and certain sections of the public in Australia and the US might have a problem with a Japanese prime minister who has never properly expressed remorse for Japan's colossal historical crimes and yet at the same time talks about abandoning Article 9 and the postwar regime built around it — abandoning the constitutional provision that has served as a mark of Cain, showing the world (and reminding Japan) of its bloody past.

The question is not a matter of resurgent militarism; as Benedict Anderson, author of Imagined Communities, said in an interview in the July issue of Ronza (my translation), "During the first phase of globalization, in the first half of the twentieth century, Japan's response to globalization was to commence invasions, starting with Taiwan, the Korean Peninsula, and Manchuria, and finally annexing the various countries of Asia. However, this kind of thing will likely not happen again. In theory, one can imagine war between Japan and China. However, now the act of a victorious country's seizing a defeated country is nonsense. Until the Second World War, the two countries had mutual, violent animosity that could be expressed in war, but now that does not apply."

Rather, it is a question of historical justice. Regardless of the questionable legitimacy of the Tokyo trials, regardless of what Japan suffered, regardless of what the other imperial powers did or did not do, Japan committed egregious acts of violence against its neighbors. It is not up to Japan to dictate when the wounds it inflicted upon its neighbors and their citizens have healed. And denying or relativizing Japan's actions only rubs salt into the open wounds of its victims.

Yes, China has historical issues of its own with which to grapple. Mao's crimes were monstrous, and that his visage can still be found all over China is deeply unsettling. But guess what? Mao's crimes were against the Chinese people. The Chinese people will one day have a serious reckoning with their country's history during the twentieth century, but that is a matter for the Chinese. And so with the Koreans. Between Japan, Korea, and China, it seems to me that only one has launched a massive war of aggression against the whole region in the past century — and has the responsibility to show sincere remorse for its crimes and to not make excuses for what happened.

The question of Japan's making a proper account and atoning for its wartime behavior has nothing to do with placating the Chinese and Korean governments, who for reasons of their own will not be placated by Japanese apologies. Nationalism and the attendant historical sensitivities will be a part of the landscape of Northeast Asia for decades to come, because vigorous, rising powers shape their histories to flatter their contemporary aspirations. No bilateral or trilateral panel of historians is going to overcome the urge to present history in a light that flatters oneself and makes one's rivals look bad.

No, Japan's historical reckoning is for its own sake, to clean out its wartime closet once and for all.

So what Ampontan sees as Japan's standing up for itself, I see a country for which pride and the redemption of honor take priority over historical justice — and I see a country that is, as of yet, unfit for the global leadership after which it lusts.

Checking premises

In questioning the Associated Press's use of the term "nationalist" to describe Prime Minister Abe, Ampontan, in this post, asks, "What is it they mean by calling Mr. Abe a 'nationalist'? And because they so frequently insist on using that term to describe him, they must think he demonstrates more of those characteristics than other political leaders elsewhere. This naturally leads one to wonder, the prime minister is nationalistic…compared to whom?"

A worthwhile question, indeed. Is Abe Shinzo a nationalist?

In answering this question, though, I think Ampontan makes the mistake of looking abroad for points of reference. He looks at Jacques Chirac's farewell address from this past week, in which Chirac used the kind of language a French president is expected to use. All French presidents since De Gaulle, whether of the left or of the right, have been expected to appeal to French greatness, and France arguably remains the most nationalistic country in Western Europe.

But French nationalism means something entirely different from American nationalism or British nationalism or Japanese nationalism, because France is not the US is not Britain is not Japan. It reflects France's unique history, and thus any comparison between nationalisms can only be analogous. There is no absolute, global scale of nationalism.

For the same reason, I find, at least in the Japanese context, that it's difficult to use words like left and right, conservative and liberal — given that without considerable explanation, the terms are meaningless in and of themselves (and having to explain further defeats the purpose of a label in the first place).

After dancing around these issues, and slandering writers who dare to suggest that Abe Shinzo maybe, just maybe, is a nationalist, Ampontan gives a few points to argue that he is not, in fact, a nationalist:

Calling Mr. Abe a “hawkish nationalist” sails even closer to the edge of delusion. The prime minister is working to amend the Japanese Constitution to allow the use of the military for both individual and collective self-defense. That is hardly in the same class as colonizing the Korean Peninsula.

...

Japan claims the islets of Takeshima, now illegally occupied by South Korea, and four islands near Hokkaido, seized by the Soviet Union after Japan’s surrender in World War II. Were Mr. Abe a “hawkish nationalist”, would it not stand to reason that somewhere in his career he would have suggested using military force to reclaim that territory? Yet not a hint of that is to be found in any of his public utterances.

...

Prime Minister Abe’s ideas about Japan and its place in the world are not significantly different than most of his predecessors in the Liberal-Democratic Party—including his immediate predecessor Junichiro Koizumi, who, after all, paid annual visits to Yasukuni Shrine.

I think Ampontan's problem is that he assumes that nationalism is a dirty word. I suppose it is often used as one, which is unfortunate, since it can be quite useful for describing what someone actually believes.

But what is nationalism? Ampontan throws out a few examples — resistance to colonial rule, love of country, the belief in the superiority of one's country — but he ultimately never gets around to describing what nationalism actually is. A glance at Wikipedia's thorough entry on nationalism shows you just how complicated a question this is. Not only does nationalism differ from country to country, but nationalism can be expressed in manifold ways. It is not always or even primarily about expressions of state power, often being expressed linguistically or culturally (this was the nationalism that emerged in the multi-ethnic Austro-Hungarian empire during the nineteenth century, for example).

So what does nationalism mean in a Japanese context? (An essential question that Ampotman does not even begin to address.) Arguably, in some ways the Japanese are innately nationalistic, a sentiment often expressed through the casual use of nihonjinron arguments. While Japan may not be as homogeneous as the Japanese believe, this belief has fed into an understanding of the Japanese as a single nation, with ancient roots. It entails a certain pride in the cultural achievements of the Japanese people and the qualities that make the Japanese distinct from other nations.

But what does this mean politically? I do not think Japanese nationalism in the twenty-first century has anything to do with a lust for conquest. Japanese imperialism was as much (or more) a product of prevailing international norms about how great powers should exercise their power as it was a product of something innate to the Japanese people. Seeing as how international norms have changed, fears of Japan's trying to conquer anything are laughable.

This, my friends, is a straw man: Abe has not said anything about conquering Japan's neighbors or even little Takeshima, ergo he must not be a nationalist.

What makes Abe a nationalist has little if anything to do with his ideas about Japan's place in the world and more to do with his vision of Japanese society. In short, Abe and his allies in the LDP want to use the state to recreate a more unified Japan as a means of coping with the problems Japan will face in the twenty-first century. What makes Abe a nationalist is his desire to forge (or re-forge) a kind of dynamic unity among the Japanese people, under the rule of the emperor, of course. As he said in his debate with Ozawa Ichiro this week, "If Japan's long history, traditions and cultures can be likened to a tapestry that the Japanese people have been weaving, the emperor is the warp."

Abe's speech to open the current session of the Diet is a case in point. In the speech, available in English here, Abe explicitly aims to remake the Japanese nation for a new age: "In order to realize 'a beautiful country, Japan,' my mission is none other than to draw a new vision of a nation which can withstand the raging waves for the next 50 to 100 years to come." His terms, his aims are designed to shape Japan as a nation. He speaks as if Japan is a homogeneous whole, and not a developed democracy in which there are tremendous differences from region to region, from city to city, from person to person.

A similar kind of thinking can be found in the education bills passed by the Lower House of the Diet on Friday, one of which — the School Education Law — mandates teaching the love of country as a means of solving Japan's nagging social problems. As Abe said in his January speech, "We believe we have, until now, neglected values such as public service, self-discipline, morals and attachment to and affection for the community and country where we have been born and raised. We believe it is absolutely essential for Japan's future to instill these values in our children."

One can disagree as to whether teaching patriotism is right or not, but I do not think that there is any question that teaching these values in schools is nationalistic.

Look also at Abe's political compatriots. Asahi wrote yesterday of the formation by forty-three LDP members of a group to support Abe's foreign policy that is, in Asahi's words a "de facto Abe faction" and "cheering group" for the prime minister. The article notes that not only do the members support Abe's "proactive diplomacy," but they are also opposed to legal changes that undermine traditional Japanese society, a hallmark of nationalist thinking. (This is the same kind of thinking that produced, in early LDP drafts of a revised constitution, clauses that made certain civil rights conditional, just like in the 1889 Meiji Constitution.)

One is free to agree or disagree with the thinking of Abe and his fellow nationalists in the LDP, but it is a disservice to debate to deny outright that the prime minister's thinking is nationalist.

The search for a more unified Japanese nation less tainted by individualism at home and more independent abroad: that is Abe Shinzo's nationalism. And in East Asia in the early twenty-first century, Abe is hardly alone.