Abstract
Japan hopes that the UK and the EU will maintain as close a relationship as possible after Brexit. The Japanese government has successfully reached an outline agreement on a free trade deal with the EU and is striving to maintain its military alliance with the US. Yet with the rise of China, it has become increasingly reluctant to participate in the process of regional integration in East Asia. This suggests that the Japanese government still prefers to see itself as one of the three pillars of the Western Alliance alongside the US and Europe, rather than as a truly equal partner with its Asian neighbours. Meanwhile, Japanese has so far witnessed only a limited rise in populism despite the economic malaise during the last two decades.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
‘Obama Says U.S. Will No Longer Be the World’s Policeman’, Foreign Policy, 28 May 2014.
- 2.
For an overview of EU-Japan relationship, see Paul Bacon, Hartmut Mayer and Hidetoshi Nakamura (eds.), The European Union and Japan: A New Chapter in Civilian Power Cooperation? (Surrey: Ashgate, 2015).
- 3.
LSE Commission on the Future of Britain in Europe, Britain as a Global Actor after Brexit (2016).
- 4.
John Nilsson-Wright and Kiichi Fujiwara, Brexit and Its Consequences: Anglo-Japanese Relations in a Post-EU Referendum World (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2016).
- 5.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, ‘Japan’s Message to the United Kingdom and the European Union’, 2. http://www.mofa.go.jp/files/000185466.pdf (accessed on 22 November 2016).
- 6.
China ranks as the EU’s second trading partner in 2015. Japan is only the seventh.
- 7.
The Guardian, 28 November 2015. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/nov/29/australia-slams-japans-decision-to-resume-antarctic-whaling (accessed on 22 November 2016).
- 8.
JETRO, direct investment statistics. https://www.jetro.go.jp/world/japan/stats/fdi/ (accessed on 19 January 2017).
- 9.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, ‘Japan’s Message’.
- 10.
BBC news, 7 July 2016. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-36723220 (accessed on 19 January 2017).
- 11.
This was confirmed to the author of this article by a Japanese diplomat. See also Daily Telegraph, 5 September 2016. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/09/05/japans-demand-for-seamless-brexit-is-a-timely-warning-against-hu/ (accesses on 22 November 2016).
- 12.
For example, Sky news described the Japanese memorandum as an ‘unprecedented warning’. http://news.sky.com/story/japans-unprecedented-warning-to-uk-over-brexit-10564585 (accessed on 19 January 2017).
- 13.
Financial Times, 19 August 2016. https://www.ft.com/content/5cebe746-655a-11e6-8310-ecf0bddad227 (accessed on 19 January 2017).
- 14.
Deloitte Tohmatsu Consulting, ‘Report on the Prospects of Japan-UK and Japan-EU Relationships after Brexit’, March 2017. https://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/files/000243120.pdf (accessed on 14 September 2017).
- 15.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, ‘Japan’s Message’.
- 16.
- 17.
The GDP share of manufacturing is 19% for Japan and 10% for the UK in 2014. The data is from the World Bank. http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NV.IND.MANF.ZS (accessed on 19 January 2017).
- 18.
BBC news, 24 June 2016. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-36616028 (accessed on 19 January 2017).
- 19.
BBC news, 8 November 2013. http://www.bbc.com/news/business-24859486 (accessed on 19 January 2017).
- 20.
BBC news, 30 October 2016. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-37815864?SThisFB (accessed on 22 November 2016).
- 21.
Scott Lavery, Adam Barber, Sean McDaniel and Davide Schmid, ‘Frankfurt, Paris and Dublin: Post-Brexit Rivals to the City of London?’ (SPERI Global Political Economy Brief No. 6, 2017).
- 22.
John Curtice, ‘Brexit: Behind the Referendum’, Political Insight, September 2016, 4–7.
- 23.
Satoshi Oyane and Yutaka Onishi (eds.), The Politics of FTAs and the TPP: Securitization of Trade Policy? (Tokyo: Yuhikaku, 2016, in Japanese).
- 24.
Frederik Ponjaert, ‘The Political and Institutional Significance of an EU-Japan Trade and Partnership Agreement’, in Bacon, Mayer and Nakamura (eds.), The European Union and Japan, 85–114.
- 25.
BBC news, 6 July 2017. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40520218 (accessed on 14 September 2017).
- 26.
Mie Oba, Asia as a Multi-layered Region: In Search for Co-existence in Conflicts (Tokyo: Yuhikaku, 2014, in Japanese). See also Mie Oba, ‘Sino-Japanese Competition over Regional Institutions in Asia’, in Jeffrey Reeves, Jeffrey Hornung, and Kerry Lynn Nankivell (eds.), Chinese-Japanese Competition and the East-Asian Security Complex: Vying for Influence (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017), chapter 3.
- 27.
Both East Asia and Asia-Pacific are a socially constructed concept, and the exact scope of each region is hotly contested. In this chapter, Asia-Pacific refers to a region which is larger than East Asia and includes countries such as the US and Russia.
- 28.
Oba, Asia as a Multi-layered Region, 162–3, 239.
- 29.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, ‘Japan’s View on the Construction of an East Asian Community’ (2006). http://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/area/eas/pdfs/eas_02.pdf (accessed on 16 January 2017).
- 30.
ABC news, 8 April 2014. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-07/australia-japan-free-trade-deal/5372242 (accessed on 19 January 2017).
- 31.
It is worth noting that, from a historical perspective, Japan’s position in Asia is somewhat similar to that of the UK in Europe. Both are island nations and separated from the continent. Arguably, they were confined to the periphery of the civilizations they belonged to. However, both countries achieved industrialization and modernization more rapidly than their neighbours, which allowed them to build the empires, and acquire a sense of superiority – or individuality – in the process. Perhaps these past experiences make it difficult for both countries to participate in a framework of regional integration on an equal footing with other members. Compare Linda Colley, Acts of Union and Disunion: What has held the UK together and what is dividing it? (London: Profile Books, 2014) with Glenn Hook, ‘Japan and the Construction of Asia-Pacific’, in Andrew Gamble and Anthony Paine (eds.), Regionalism and World Order (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996), 170–1.
- 32.
Taizo Miyagi, Japanese Diplomacy since the End of the Cold War (Tokyo: Chuko Shinsho, 2016, in Japanese).
- 33.
Susumu Yamakage, ‘Japan’s View on Regionalism and the Rise of China’, in Mie Oba (ed.), The Making of East Asia: Order, Integration and Stakeholders (Tokyo: Chikura Shobo, 2016, in Japanese), chapter 7.
- 34.
Yukio Hatoyama, ‘A New Path for Japan’, New York Times, 26 August 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/opinion/27iht-edhatoyama.html (accessed on 16 January 2017).
- 35.
New York Times, 22 September 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/23/business/global/23rare.html (accessed on 19 January 2017).
- 36.
Miyagi, Japanese Diplomacy, 214–5.
- 37.
BBC news, 24 January 2017. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38721056 (accessed on 14 September 2017).
- 38.
Reuter’s news, 13 January 2017. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-trade-adviser-idUSKBN14X1X8 (accessed on 19 January 2017).
- 39.
Branco Milanovic, Global Inequality: A New Approach for the Age of Globalization (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2016).
- 40.
Robert Ford and Matthew Goodwin, Revolt on the Right: Explaining Support for the Radical Right in Britain (London: Routledge, 2014).
- 41.
Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, Comprehensive Survey of Living Conditions, 2014.
- 42.
The data from the website of the OECD. https://data.oecd.org/japan.htm (accessed on 17 January 2017).
- 43.
Jan-Werner Müller, What is Populism? (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016). See also Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, Populism: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).
- 44.
The Word Press Freedom Index is published every year by Reporters without Borders. https://rsf.org/en/ranking (accessed on 19 January 2017).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ikemoto, D. (2018). Is the Western Alliance Crumbling? A Japanese Perspective on Brexit. In: Huang, D., Reilly, M. (eds) The Implications of Brexit for East Asia. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0185-8_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0185-8_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-13-0184-1
Online ISBN: 978-981-13-0185-8
eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceEconomics and Finance (R0)