Abstract
There is a basic puzzle with regard to multilateral security and the U.S.-Japan alliance. Both the United States and Japan generally agree on the tenets of multilateralism in Asia. They agree that multilateral security should be inclusive rather than exclusive. They agree that such institutions and practices should be seen as a complement to, and not a replacement of, the bilateral alliance (or for that matter global multilateral institutions).1 They also value the basic norms of multilateralism (e.g., preservation of national sovereignty).2 This general convergence of views should provide the permissive conditions for multilateralism to thrive in the region; however, the empirical record shows otherwise, raising a host of unanswered questions. Why is it that has multilateral and/or regional security been relatively ineffective in East Asia? Why is it that in spite of general agreement on multilateral principles and norms, the participation in such institutions remain problematic for the alliance. Why do some see multilateral institutions as a threat to the alliance? Why do others see multilateralism as impeded by the alliance? And why do yet others see it as irrelevant to the alliance?
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Notes
These are: the preservation of national sovereignty; the principle of noninterference in domestic affairs; pursuit of prosperity through markets; economic interdependence to enhance security; peaceful resolution of disputes; and adherence to global multilateralism. See Stuart Harris, “Asian Multilateral Institutions and Their Response to the Asian Economic Crisis,” Pacific Review 13.3 (2000), p. 502.
The Southeast Asian Treaty Organization was established at the Manila Conference of 1954 largely on the model of NATO, but failed because members found internal subversion rather than compelling external threats to be their primary security concerns. The Australia-New Zealand-U.S. Pact formed in 1951 as an extension of the U.S.-Australia treaty (the U.S.-New Zealand axis dissolved in 1986). The Five Power Defense Arrangement was established in 1971 among Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, and Singapore. Its function was consultative based on historical legacies of the Commonwealth rather than any overt security purpose; see Leszek Buszynski, SEATO: The Failure of an Alliance Strategy (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 1983); Chin Kin Wah, “The Five Power Defence Arrangement: Twenty Years After,” Pacific Review 4.3 (1991); and
Michael Yahuda, International Politics in the Asia-Pacific (London: Routledge, 1996).
For example, the Vietnam War Allies Conference met regularly in Saigon in the late 1960s and early 1970s providing a ready venue for multilateral security discussions on larger Cold War issues and strategy beyond Indochina, but nothing came of this. The Asia and Pacific Council (ASPAC) was established in 1966 as a forum for cooperation among Asian states on cultural and economic issues. Members included Australia, Taiwan, South Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Thailand, South Vietnam, and Japan. Proposals in the early 1970s were floated by various countries (e.g., South Korea in 1970) to devise a new ASPAC charter based on collective self-defense with region-wide membership (including Laos, Indonesia, and Singapore), but these failed in part because of lack of support for a active Japanese leadership role in the group. For other studies of Northeast Asian regionalism focusing more on economics and the Russian Far East, see Gilbert Rozman, “Flawed Regionalism: Reconceptualizing Northeast Asia in the 1990s,” The Pacific Review 11.1 (1998), pp. 1–27.
G. John Ikenberry, After Victory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), chapter 6.
The region’s relative peace in spite of the levels of historical enmity and armaments is often a factor overlooked in many IR analyses foreboding of Asia’s impending conflicts. In the former vein, see e.g. Kurt Campbell, “The Challenges Ahead for US Policy in Asia,” presentation at the FPRI Asia Study Group, March 30, 2001. In the latter vein, see Aaron Friedberg, “Ripe for Rivalry,” International Security (Winter 1993/94); Richard Betts, “Wealth, Power and Instability,” International Security (Winter 1993/94); Kent Calder, Pacific Defense (New York: Murrow, 1996);
Paul Bracken, Fire in the East (New York: HarperCollins, 1999); and Michael Klare, “The Next Great Arms Race,” Foreign Affairs 72.3 (Summer 1993).
Cited in Paul Midford, “Japan’s Leadership Role in East Asian Security Multilateralism,” Pacific Review 13.3 (2000), p. 372.
See James Baker, “America in Asia: Emerging Architecture for a Pacific Community,” Foreign Affairs 70.5 (1991/92); and Baker in New York Times July 25, 1991.
See John Welfield, An Empire in Eclipse (London: Athlone, 1988).
For example, see Miles Kahler, “Institution Building in the Pacific,” in Pacific Cooperation ed. Andrew Mack and John Ravenhill (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1995).
For the argument, see Yoichi Funabashi, Asia-Pacific Fusion: Japan’s Role in APEC (Washington DC: IIE, 1995), esp. pp. 192–195; and
Ellis Krauss, “Japan, the US, and the Emergence of Multilateralism in Asia,” Pacific Review 13.3 (2000), pp. 473–494. Both argue that Australian Premier Bob Hawke’s ideas on an East Asian financial grouping was based on thinking and ideas that came out of MITI and the Reagan-Takeshita summit in 1988.
See Robert Jervis, “From Balance to Concert,” World Politics 38.1 (October 1985); Charles Kupchan and C. Kupchan, “Concerts, Collective Security, and the Future of Europe,” International Security 16.1 (Summer 1991); and Mira Sucharov and Victor Cha, “Collective Security Systems,” in Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace and Conflict (Academic Press, 1999), pp. 343–353.
See William Carpenter and David Wiencek eds., Asian Security Handbook (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2000), esp. the contributions in part II; Tetsuya Nishimoto, “Problems in Managing the Japan-US Security Treaty After the Guidelines,” unpublished paper presented at the Atlantic Council meeting on the U.S.-Japan alliance, Tokyo, Japan March 2001; and
Bonnie Jenkins, “Prospects for a Conventional Arms Reduction Treaty and Confidence-Building Measures in Northeast Asia,” INSS Occasional Paper 34, August 2000 (USAF Institute for National Security Studies, Colorado).
See Masaharu Kohno, “In Search of Proactive Diplomacy: Increasing Japan’s International Role in the 1990s (with Cambodia and the ASEAN Regional Forum as Case Studies),” CNAPS Working Paper, Fall 1999 (Brookings Institution).
For example, see East Asian Institute, Columbia University and Japan Institute of International Affairs, Strengthening the United Nations’ Capability for Ensuring Human Rights and Environmental Protection (May 2000).
For example, revision of the U.S.-Japan Defense Guidelines in 1996 added further clarity to Japan’s role and responsibilities in the event of a Korean contingency. Objectively speaking, this had a positive impact on South Korean security and U.S.-Japan-South Korea policy coordination, yet the popular reaction, expressed through the voicebox of history, was highly negative, accusing Japan of renewed militarization (see Ilpyong J. Kim, “Koreas Relations with China and Japan in the Post-Cold War Era,” International Journal of Korean Studies 2.1 (Fall/Winter 1998), pp. 27–44.
For example, one of the reasons Shintaro Ishihara won the election as governor was not necessarily because the public agreed with his views, but because he was seen as someone who could shake things up. The point is that the potential for adverse directions are real in Japan and (as discussed later), multilateralism provides a means of closing off such negative paths. For the classic “pendulum” statement on Japan’s foreign policy, see Robert Scalapino, ed., The Foreign Policy of Modern Japan (Berkeley: University of California, 1977).
See Samuel Huntington, “The Lonely Superpower,” Foreign Affairs 78.2 (March/April 1999), p. 42; also see Funabashi, “Tokyo’s Temperance,” pp. 135–144.
See Kurt Campbell, “The Challenges Ahead for US Policy in Asia,” March 30, 2001, FPRI fpri@fpri.org.
On the amplification effects of institutions, see Ikenberry, “Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Persistence of American Postwar Order,” International Security, Vol. 23, No. 3 (Winter 1998/99), pp. 1–35.
For similar observations, see John Ikenberry, “Getting Hegemony Right,” The National Interest 63 (Spring 2001), p. 124.
A full discussion of missile defense is beyond the scope of this chapter. For an excellent overview, see Michael Green and Toby Dalton, Asian Reactions to US Missile Defense NBR Analysis 11.3 (November 2000).
For additional observations on the political “cascade effects” of missile defense, see Victor Cha, “Title: ‘Second Nuclear Age: Proliferation Pessimists versus sober optimism in South Asia and East Asia’ Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 24, No. 4, 2001, pp. 79–120.”
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© 2003 G. John Ikenberry and Takashi Inoguchi
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Cha, V.D. (2003). Multilateral Security in Asia and the U.S.-Japan Alliance. In: Ikenberry, G.J., Inoguchi, T. (eds) Reinventing the Alliance: U.S.-Japan Security Partnership in an Era of Change. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403980199_7
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