Abstract
The peace that has characterized the East Asian region since the 1980s came about as the cumulative effect of a number of political priority shifts, setting economic growth as the main national goal. First out was Japan. This chapter argues that Japan, with its peace constitution and Yoshida doctrine, was the pioneer of the East Asian Peace, serving as model and inspiration for the other regional states when they, at different junctures, opted out of war in order to grow their economies. The regional peace remains fragile, however, and the ongoing attempts to reinterpret or revise Japan’s peace constitution and allow Japan to take part in so-called “collective defence” contributes to that fragility.
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Notes
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Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru never issued any formal doctrine. The concept “Yoshida line” was introduced in 1964 by the political scientist Kōsaka Masataka, and would later be referred to as the “Yoshida doctrine.” I would like to thank Paul Midford for this information, as well as for his many helpful comments on a draft version of this chapter. I am of course alone responsible for any remaining errors or misunderstandings.
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- 3.
It was discovered later that in 1964, after China had exploded its first nuclear device, Sato had hinted to the United States that Japan might need to have its own nuclear weapons too. He also ordered an internal study to be made. Fitzpatrick, 2016, pp. 67–73.
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Tønnesson, S. (2018). Japan’s Article 9 in the East Asian Peace. In: Clements, K. (eds) Identity, Trust, and Reconciliation in East Asia. Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54897-5_11
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