Asia Pacific Security - Values and Identity (Routledgecurzon Security in Asia Series, 2)

Asia Paciﬁc Security – Values and Identity The main theme of this book is that security is not just about defence from...

Author: L. Buszynski

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Asia Paciﬁc Security – Values and Identity

The main theme of this book is that security is not just about defence from external attack, but embraces the protection of values and identity which cultures regard as worth ﬁghting for. The book examines Asia Paciﬁc security from the perspective of the values and identities of the major actors – China, Japan, the two Koreas and the US. It highlights the importance of the centralised state for the Chinese identity and political culture and identiﬁes the impact upon Taiwan. It surveys Japanese paciﬁst values which are at odds with the American effort to prod Japan to assume a greater security role in the region. It analyses the clashing value systems of the two Koreas, the South pressing for engagement and the North bound by the logic of its existence to resist it. The book also examines American values as a basis for policy towards the other actors, values which are not as universal as Americans like to think. The book argues that the development of Asia Paciﬁc regionalism has been deeply affected by a clash of values between the US and Asia, that the values and identities of the Asian actors have been misunderstood by the West, and that there will be no true security in the Asia Paciﬁc region unless those values and identities will be accommodated. Leszek Buszynski is Professor of International Relations at the Graduate School of International Relations, the International University of Japan. He was previously with the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University, Canberra, Australia and with the Department of Political Science at the National University of Singapore. He has published extensively on Asia Paciﬁc security issues.

RoutledgeCurzon Security in Asia Series

Taiwan’s Security and Air Power Taiwan’s defense against the air threat from Mainland China Edited by Martin Edmonds and Michael M. Tsai Asia Paciﬁc Security – Values and Identity Leszek Buszynski

Asia Paciﬁc Security – Values and Identity

Leszek Buszynski

First published 2004 by RoutledgeCurzon 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by RoutledgeCurzon 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 RoutledgeCurzon is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004. © 2004 Leszek Buszynski All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-47633-6 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-34099-X (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0–415–30671–X (Print Edition)

Contents

Preface List of abbreviations

vii ix

1

Values and identities

1

2

Values and identity and the signiﬁcance of Taiwan to China

22

3

Values, identity and Japanese security

55

4

The Korean peninsula

84

5

Values, identity and US Asia Paciﬁc policy

111

6

Values, identity and Asia Paciﬁc regionalism

136

7

Values, identity and Asia Paciﬁc security

164

Notes Bibliography Index

170 201 209

Preface

Culture is important in international relations even when the discipline tries to deny it. Why was it that the idealist tradition of international relations developed in pre-war Britain? Why were Americans so naïve as to believe that war could be outlawed by treaty in 1928? Why do Americans believe today that democracy will prevent war, and that its promotion by war is an obligation? Why was it that realism came from the German tradition and why in English do we use the word realpolitik? Why did Hans J. Morgenthau, who taught the verities of power politics to earlier generations of American students, hail from Germany? Who was this Nietzsche who wrote of the will to power, the sublimation of cruelty and contempt for the weak, all of which seems so shocking to the AngloAmerican mind? And why was Machiavelli an Italian and not English? Why was the idealistic Nehru an Indian and not a Chinese leader, and why do the Japanese have no real leaders? The origins of this book and the thoughts that have shaped it are a product of over twenty years of teaching international relations courses in various universities in the Asia Paciﬁc region during which questions like those above were extensively discussed with students and colleagues. The book emphasises the relationship between ideas and culture and the signiﬁcance of values and identity for Asia Paciﬁc security. It regards political culture as a “seed bed” for ideas and it strives to demonstrate that issues of identity and values cannot always be reduced to rationalist theories as a product of some reductionist exercise. It adopts the perspective of the political cultures of the key Asian actors in the region and deliberately avoids a Western-centric security approach. It disclaims any postmodernist intentions and avoids the confusion of philosophic or moral relativity, which is characteristic of this movement though it admits of experiential or contextual differences. There are numerous colleagues from Beijing to Bangkok whom I would like to thank for their very frank views on the theme of encounter with the West and the idea of Asia. Sometimes that dialogue has been heavy with moral accusations, on other occasions cynical and realist, or philosophical and idealist, but always fascinating and vibrant. These colleagues are not

viii

Preface

all from the universities of the region, and indeed some of the most stimulating discussions have been with foreign ministry and security personnel, journalists, and business people of all countries who have felt motivated to give their views. To them indeed I am deeply indebted. In particular I would like to thank Professor Hosoya Chihiro of the International University of Japan for allowing me to tap his vast knowledge of Japanese diplomacy, Professor Song Xinning of Renmin University for inviting me to various conferences during which Chinese foreign policy was discussed, and Professor Yang Seung-ham of Yonsei University, as well as Dr Lee Hong-pyo for insights on Korea. I am grateful to the International University of Japan for its generous research funding and for an academic environment where culture is regularly discussed. The International University has students from all cultures who intermingle in a Japanese setting where the issue of values and identity becomes a living one, right before one’s eyes. This book is dedicated to the International University’s ideal of intercultural understanding. In deference to convention, Japanese names have been given with their family names ﬁrst; this is also the case for Chinese and Korean names, although the rule presents fewer problems than is the case with Japanese names. This rule has been observed throughout unless the author concerned has insisted on the Western custom of reversing the order.

Abbreviations

AMM APEC ARF ASEAN ASEM ASW AWACS BM CBMs CIS CMC CNN CPP CUA DMZ DPJ DPP DSM EAEC EEZ EPG EVSL FDI FTA GATT GNP IAEA IAP ICBM JCP JSP KMT LDP

Annual Ministerial Meeting Asia Paciﬁc Economic Cooperation ASEAN Regional Forum Association of South-East Asian Nations Asia–Europe Meeting Anti Submarine Warfare Airborne Warning and Control Systems Ballistic Missile Conﬁdence-Building Measures Commonwealth of Independent States Central military Commission Cable News Network Communist Party of China Concerted Unilateral Action Demilitarised Zone Democratic Party of Japan Democratic Progressive Party Dispute Settlement Mechanism East Asia Economic Caucus Exclusive Economic Zone Eminent Persons Group Early Voluntary Sectoral Liberalisation Foreign Direct Investment Free Trade Agreement General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade Grand National Party International Atomic Energy Agency Individual Action Plan Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile Japanese Communist Party Japanese Socialist Party National People’s Party Liberal Democratic Party

x

Abbreviations

METI MFN MITI MOFA MW NGO NIE NLD NPT NSC ODA OECD PAFTAD PECC PFP PKO PLA PMC PRC ROC SDF SDP SLORC SOM TMD TSU UNCLOS UNDHR VFA WMD WTO

Ministry of Economics, Trade and Industry Most Favoured Nation Ministry of International Trade and Industry Ministry of Foreign Affairs Megawatt Non-Governmental Organisation New Industrialised Economy National League for Democracy Non-Proliferation Treaty National Security Council Ofﬁcial Development Assistance Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development Paciﬁc Free Trade and Development Paciﬁc Economic Cooperation Council People’s First Party Peacekeeping Operations People’s Liberation Army Post-Ministerial Conference People’s Republic of China Republic of China Self-Defence Forces Social Democratic Party State Law and Order Council Senior Ofﬁcials Meeting Theatre Missile Defence Taiwan Solidarity Union United Nations Convention Law of the Sea United Nations Declaration of Human Rights Visiting Forces Agreement Weapons of Mass Destruction World Trade Organisation

1

Values and identities

This book examines Asia Paciﬁc security in terms of the values and identities of the major actors: China, Japan, Korea and the US. The main theme is that ultimately security is about protection of identity, and that identity constitutes the irreducible core of a country’s security policy which cannot be compromised, negotiated or traded. Threatened identity arouses the deepest passions, it is the source of conﬂict and the justiﬁcation for war. Over certain issues in international relations there comes a point when reason disappears, when compromise and accommodation are replaced by intransigence, and when the language becomes sharp. These issues touch upon identity or the self-understanding of the actors concerned. Each of the actors considered in the book have strong identities that have developed from long cultural traditions or powerful ideologies which have shaped their histories. For these major actors identity can be demonstrated historically or culturally as a source of foreign policy and security values and as a basis for interaction in the Asia Paciﬁc region. The irreducible core of identity acts to shape and inﬂuence all around it, policies are drafted with the purpose of protecting it even when the language may suggest otherwise. Leaders are obligated to give expression to its values in foreign policy, they invoke its symbols to gain support for their policies and actions and they will manipulate it to discredit political rivals. Those that fail to respect it for reasons related to political insensitivity or intellectual pride do not last in politics, they are quickly outmanoeuvred, they lose elections by large margins and become critics on the sidelines. Until we understand the deeper core of politics, that element of identity to which the political leaders refer their actions, we will be simply examining the surface chatter of a country in a superﬁcial study. Values and identity matter in international relations – no more so than in the Asia Paciﬁc Region which is home to deeply distinctive and proud cultures. To ignore the imprint of Chinese civilisation upon Beijing’s foreign or security policy would be unforgivable, to dismiss the impact of Korea’s colonial past upon present day decision-makers would be myopic, and to trivialise the importance of Japan’s imperial past and wartime expansion for present-day security and foreign policy would be an

2

Values and identities

egregious error. In collectivist Asian cultures, with their strong emphasis upon group cohesion the memory of the past shapes group identity. Leaders and decision-makers in these systems are strongly inﬂuenced by the traditionalism and conservatism of their national culture. They reach their positions because of their ability to represent or give expression to its values, to support them when required and to defend them when threatened. Particularly in these Asian societies leaders are, amongst all their other functions, the chief representatives of national culture and important instruments of its preservation and continuity. In American society leaders are socialised by an egalitarianism and openness that contrasts markedly with the values of the Asian leaders with whom they interact. They are expected to promote universal values of democracy and human rights, and to articulate the vision of a greater economic future in terms of open markets and equal access, which has been the cause of much tension with Asia. The Asia Paciﬁc has been a region of interaction between Asian and the West over the terms and conditions of security, and where interaction occurs an awareness of cultural differences is stimulated. Values and identities are given sharp relief, particularly in situations of interaction, but their study has been made difﬁcult by the problem of their deﬁnition. Various concepts have been adopted in the effort to analyse them and none has been more durable than political culture.

Political culture Much maligned for vagueness and excessive generalisation the idea of political culture has rebounded with renewed vitality. Max Weber, in his study of the role of Protestantism in the rise of capitalism, identiﬁed the importance of group values and behaviour known as culture.1 The term “political culture” was devised by Gabriel Almond in 1956 and was understood as “subjective orientations towards politics.” Almond stressed that “every political system is embedded in a set of meanings and purposes” which shape cognition, preference, and evaluation or choice.2 More recent work has emphasised political culture as a “system of semiotics” which reﬂects meaningful symbols, signs and referents and that downplaying its importance results in the attribution of excessive rationality to politics.3 Political culture may be regarded as the source of values and motivation for policy to which it gives expression in concrete and speciﬁc situations.4 The instrumentalist approach uses the concept of political culture to explain political and economic development in the way pioneered by Weber. The 1963 Almond and Verba study entitled Civic Culture attempted to establish a relationship between political culture, political structure and democratic institutions.5 This theme has received recent attention in Robert Putnam’s 1993 study entitled Making Democracy Work, which identiﬁed the civic traditions of Italy as a base for democratic development.6 In a similar vein Lucien Pye in his 1985 study of Asian

Values and identities 3 Power and Politics attempted to identify the role of Asian culture in development.7 Ronald Inglehart’s work has examined the role of culture in economic development in his 1990 study Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Countries.8 A second approach is that of the cultural relativists who study culture in its own right as a distinct entity. The anthropologist Franz Boas, considered the father of the cultural relativist school in the 1930s, opened the door to an appreciation of disparate cultural values that has shaped attitudes towards non-Western cultures today. His student Ruth Benedict inﬂuenced generational attitudes towards Japan in her 1946 depiction of Japanese culture in the Chrysanthemum and the Sword.9 The Japanese Buddhist scholar Takeshi Umehara identiﬁed the cultural distinctiveness of Japan and the similarities with the post-modernist movement.10 More controversial was the Samuel Huntington revival of the Arnold Toynbee and the Fernand Braudel theme of the study of civilisations. Huntington’s views were expressed in his work The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (1996) in which he claimed that culture and cultural identities were shaping patterns of cohesion, disintegration, and conﬂict in the post-cold war era. For Huntington civilisations were the basic units of global politics deﬁned in terms of the “broadest level of cultural identity.”11 The cultural relativists are criticised for subjective if not idiosyncratic interpretations and unsupported assertions. Huntington’s focus on civilisation diverted attention from other more important factors such as state structures, institutions and economies and his study of culture or civilisation resulted in unconvincing grand generalisation. Nonetheless, the study of culture will not go away and it resurfaces with each generation of scholars in different form. This is despite the already demonstrated fact that it will not lend itself to rigorous scientiﬁc scrutiny and analysis. For generations people have been fascinated by the behaviour, characteristics and teleology of different cultures and the grand theme of civilisations has exerted a strong hold over erudite and imaginative minds. That fascination is strengthened by close contact with different cultures, and the practical experience of dealing with them in a business or professional capacity. Cultures are pervasive, they bind people through education, language and emotional ties, and even when individuals proclaim their liberation from all such bondage they are replacing the culture of their upbringing with another. Sociologists regard culture as the “speciﬁc properties of a society’s system of meaningfully organised repertories of social action” or the “attribution of a set of social behavioural and representative properties to a given population.”12 Culture is an ideational phenomenon and refers to beliefs, behaviour and symbols that are meaningful within a particular group. Culture offers people a sense of identity and belonging, guiding them in their social relations and enabling individuals to relate to the wider community. Identity is an understanding of self and one’s place in

4

Values and identities

this world relative to others; it is a group’s image of itself in relation to the external world providing its members with a sense of relatedness.13 It is the name given by parents which links a person with forefathers and ancestors; it involves the customs and traditions within which that person was raised and links them with friends and neighbours. It is the religion which gives that person belief which sustains him or her in tribulation, and it can be the education which shapes that person’s ideas and thoughts. An identity is an anchor offering the psychological security of a reassuring relationship with the supporting collectivity without which an individual faces the despair of his or her own alienation and atomisation. Identity is what people ﬁght for and defend against outsiders and, when challenged, arouses the greatest passions in politics; it relates to the individual’s most fundamental urge for security. An identity is to know one’s origins and place in the community; it is to have the assurance that your children will similarly understand that theirs will provide a sense of security and social stability. Identity is formulated in the symbols and language of culture endowing the individual with an orientation in time, a memory of the past, and an identiﬁcation with a geographic locality. Culture transmits strong images through folk lore, family, collective memory and education fostering a strong sense of identiﬁcation to group norms which involves a sharp differentiation from, and even rivalry with, other groups. Cultures relate to groups and how group norms shape individual behaviour, and individuals may proclaim themselves free of its inﬂuence while unconsciously conforming to its values. Cultures are stable, long lasting and persist in changed external conditions, and though they may be subject to various pressures for adjustment they are durable factors in international affairs. One of the major difﬁculties is identifying culture as the inﬂuencing agent more accurately. Cultures are vague and amorphous entities and include various local and regional inﬂuences or subcultures based on dialects or ethnicity that may differ considerably from the general form. Cultures are also evolving entities and are constantly adjusting to contact with the external world, which results in the creation of competing interpretations amongst the traditionalists, the modernisers and radical reformers. Traditionalist or collectivist cultures such as those of China, Korea and Japan are deeply rooted historically and are vertically integrated with a clear sense of hierarchy that places the numerous subcultures in a position of subordination to the orthodox and dominant culture. These cultures have a very strong identity which resists external inﬂuences, they demand the individual’s total commitment and are somewhat intolerant of deviant beliefs and apostasy. These collectivist cultures have created dominant state structures whose role is the protection of ethnic or communal identity in which case the strong relationship between national culture and the role of the state is noted. Collectivist cultures are not disposed towards the liberalism of the West nor are they particularly accommodating of minorities. The individualist cultures of the US, Canada and

Values and identities 5 Australia are tolerant, accommodating, less cohesive and horizontally integrated, allowing various subcultures to develop and proliferate. They absorb external inﬂuences readily and accept deviant behaviour and apostasy as an individual right.14 Foreign policy is the exclusive preserve of elites in both collectivist and individualist cultures who keep the confusions of mass culture at a distance. Foreign policy elites formulate and deﬁne certain operating preferences embodied in traditions of foreign policy according to belief systems drawn from their cultures. Nonetheless, in the individualist cultures of the West the impact of mass culture upon foreign policy through the media and political parties is much more in evidence. The second difﬁculty is the relationship between political culture and policy. For many the focus on culture is disappointing and unscientiﬁc. Rational choice critics have derided the concept of political culture for its vagueness and for the absence of explanatory power. Decisions may be related to a variety of causes but not necessarily culture, which may justify various, even opposing, courses of action. Many foreign or security policy decisions relate to technical or functional issues which can be understood in terms of instrumental choices, which do not require political culture as an explanation. Nonetheless, political culture inﬂuences foreign policy behaviour in three ways. In a broad sense culture shapes perceptions of the external world and attitudes towards events as to what is considered important. Political culture establishes the parameters of decision-making encompassing the discourses and values from which the logic of action is drawn. It may also point to certain speciﬁc goals and objectives which are consistent with common values and which are shared by the group. Political culture may inﬂuence the means adopted to achieve the objective in cases where group values incline towards particular forms of appropriate behaviour. Culture shapes action through the organisation of meaning in deciding what is important, by creating a system of value preferences according to which courses of action will be selected. It may also provide identiﬁable codes of action and templates of behaviour which can be applied to new situations.15 Attempts have been made to identify the causal connection between culture and decision-making though the operation of operational codes. The way operational codes inﬂuence policy may be identiﬁed in the “process tracing” of the decision-making steps, which unfortunately imposes an onerous data requirement. An alternative is to compare belief systems with decisions in “congruence procedure” which reduces the data requirement but allows for unsatisfactory multiple explanations of the same phenomena.16 Establishing congruence between beliefs and policy is the most practical way of applying the concept of political culture in the absence of full data. In this sense political culture may identify and explain why certain policies have been adopted in preference to others, and in some cases where deviation from the logical requires explanation the impact of political culture

6

Values and identities

may become clearer. Political culture has been used to explain why Germany has not rearmed since 1990, despite popular expectations of a change of attitude after reuniﬁcation. Germany has continued with the post-war policy of cooperation and multilateralism within the framework of the European Union which has limited the potential for unilateral aggressive behaviour.17 The relationship between policy and political culture is closer and more intimate in Asian collectivist cultures in a way that may not be appreciated by rationalist theories. For these cultures the overriding aim is the preservation and perpetuation of their identity for which they have developed elaborate practices and mechanisms. Sociologists note the importance of interdependent social relations within these collectivist cultures with their strong deﬁnition of identity and the demand for conformity to group norms and values. These cultures impose intricate obligations upon their members and engender a pervasive fear of ostracism that ensures compliance. They function according to unwritten codes of behaviour in which the key obligations and duties are understood but not deﬁned in any legal sense such that cultural obligations will often override legality. They are characterised by a clear differentiation from others inculcated through traditional customs and education to ensure group solidarity. The consequence is that these cultures retain a powerful memory of the past and images of out-groups that are transmitted from generation to generation. These cultures are capable of impressive cohesion and unity in time of crisis but the negative consequence is that feuds, prejudices, and distorted beliefs may persist down the generations, sometimes in deﬁance of logic.18

Collective and public memory Collective or shared memory plays a key role in ensuring group cohesion and cultural continuity. The idea of collective memory was developed by the French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs who argued that no memory is possible outside of social frameworks, and that the collective memory binds personal remembrances.19 Memory is indeed a collective phenomenon which is reconstructed through language and symbols creating myths which sustain personal identities and support foreign policy.20 Shared images and interpretations of past events which are of great signiﬁcance for the collectivity are reinforced through education, the popular media, oral and folk traditions, and are carried down the generations. Collective memory is a source of group identity, a record of the past; it provides members with a sense of direction and orientation in the world, identifying allies, friends, enemies and threats. The social mechanisms of collective memory creation assist in the perpetuation of the grand historical narratives that explain the origins of the group, its development over time and its present location.21 Collective memory is no doubt selective and highlights the achievements and triumphs of the group as a source of pride,

Values and identities 7 while it may become obsessed with the injustices and wrongs perpetrated against it by enemies. Collective memory may encourage the victim syndrome by constant reiteration of past injustices as a means to strengthen group cohesion. It may also stress past achievement to inculcate a sense of pride to boost morale and to justify a sense of superiority. The selective recollection of the past and its dissemination amongst members of the collective or group is essential to the idea of collective memory, but there are alternative forms of memory that should be distinguished. Collective, public, shared, historical, national and social memory are general terms that identify all that is recollected by the group – contrary and clashing images as well. National memory is elite-approved understanding of the past jealously guarded by the custodians of public orthodoxy and the historians of the establishment. There is also public, shared, and popular memory which may refer to recollections of the past in the popular mind, or amongst particular sub-groups, which may not be approved by the group elite and may be promoted by heterodox historians or dissenters within the collectivity. In any collectivity there are various sub-group popular memories that call for attention and, in some cases, rectiﬁcation of perceived injustices. There also may be a generational memory which refers to the traumatic experiences of a particular generation which may not be shared with later generations because of their irregularity, or because of conﬂict with the wider group memory. As part of the mosaic of collective memory there are also family and institutional memories which may contribute to the recollections of the whole. Collective memory cannot be adequately deﬁned at any given time and therein lies its deﬁciency for analysis. It is known by its effects which at different times can be unpredictable, explosive or subversive. Memory is a matter of social psychology and the factors relevant to its formation are only dimly understood, though sometimes intuitively exploited by politicians. There are various levels of memory as the most visible and prominent level of recorded history may overlay a deeper or dormant memory of unrecorded events that relate to the distant formation of the collectivity. Making sense of memory requires an understanding of the psychological as well as the power of myth and legend. In this sense memory is the source of the image-building power that cultures demonstrate when complicated issues of international relations are made comprehensible to mass audiences. Images of international actors or events are created from past recollections and serve to mobilise support for or against particular policies or governments, and may contradict what is considered to be rational behaviour.22 All too often images and symbols rather than cold logic and analysis are the currency of international relations. The role of images in international relations has been explored by Robert Jervis who stresses their importance in identifying and predicting actor behaviour. Jervis examined the projection of images in terms of signals and indices which are decoupled from their usual meanings and then coupled with new

8

Values and identities

meanings.23 Images arise from history, geography and culture, and may give particular meanings to events that are understood by the collectivity. From images spring perceptions, which Jervis examined in terms of a psychological process of interaction involving cognitive consistency and dissonance. The process of communicating with other actors goes through the stage of image formation, projection and reception where each image is interpreted by others in terms of their cultural experience. The construction of images is a process peculiar to each culture and how and why actors react is a matter of conjecture. Beyond a certain point, when survival is called into question, image interpretation may converge in a negative chain reaction which Jervis called the “spiral model” of behaviour which is stimulated by uncontrollably hostile perceptions.24 Collective memory may create certain belief systems or core values which directly guide policy formation. Decision-makers draw upon belief systems which may be regarded as basic assumptions and values in foreign and security policy. Belief systems operate between collective memory and images and arise from an earlier process of interaction with the external world. Belief systems identify what is important in foreign policy and offer a criterion for the selection of policy goals and the deﬁnition of particular interests. They shape assumptions about international politics and history, decide the images of neighbouring states, their allies and enemies, stimulating the formation of operational codes of behaviour to give effect to these assumptions. Core beliefs establish the broad outlines of foreign policy while the actual implementation of policy depends upon opportunities and available possibilities.25 US foreign policy has been analysed in terms of particular themes based on identiﬁable “core values” based on the perennial tension between isolationism and internationalism.26 Other notable themes in US foreign policy have been ascribed to patriotism, moral traditionalism ideology, and religiosity.27 The historian Akira Iriye has emphasised that images and “lessons” from the past are an important part of the language of international affairs, based on his study of the interaction between the US, China and Japan.28 The way collective memory has been created and invoked in the form of images becomes signiﬁcant for the study of Asia Paciﬁc relations for this reason. Asian collectivist cultures have strong collective memories and mechanisms for disseminating shared beliefs to ensure conformity. The role of history and the historian becomes an important point of comparison between collectivist and the individualist cultures of the West. The Western concept of history and historiography draws on philosophical and liberal social traditions that posit the idea of an objective truth that is to be discovered and made public. National and collective memory may be subject to a contentious and agonising process of challenge, correction or reinterpretation. The methodology of historical research is one of the instruments utilised by liberal societies to avoid subjection to spurious or distorted claims of national or collective memory, which could entrap

Values and identities 9 them in false images of international affairs. False images may result in unwanted or erroneous action or inactivity and explain some of history’s great disasters. Asian collectivist cultures, by contrast, have revealed a different conception of history in which the imperative of maintaining the existing order has predominated over the concept of objectivity. Neo-Confucian inﬂuence in Korea and Japan has had the effect of emphasising public orthodoxy and correct behaviour in which deviant versions of history are suppressed or condemned. Individuals may contest the correct version of the past in the form of national memory, but without sympathy or widespread support in their conformist cultures. In mainland China history has had the blatant purpose of serving the regime and justifying its position, policies and values. Contested versions of the past may be devised by individuals but their public expression awaits a more favourable political climate and regime change. One important result is the tendency in these collectivist cultures to be more strongly bound to national memory than Western individualist cultures. The process of memory renewal in collectivist cultures is much more difﬁcult as orthodoxy monopolises conceptions of truth and where the necessary mechanism of change is underdeveloped. These cultures are capable of generating relatively ﬁxed memories about international affairs which may continue to motivate and justify policy well after the need has passed.

Strategic culture The term “strategic culture” has gained popularity to depict the ways in which different cultures would use military force and in that sense may have some relevance to Asia Paciﬁc relations. The term was coined by Jack Snyder in 1977 referring to the sum of all ideals, conditioned emotional responses and the patterns of habitual behaviour of the members of a national strategic community over nuclear strategy.29 Alastair Johnston found confusion in the concept and paraphrased Clifford Geertz in mischievously deﬁning strategic culture as a system of symbols, language, analogies, metaphors which “establish pervasive and long standing strategic preferences” and which clothe “these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that the strategic preferences seem uniquely realistic and efﬁcacious.”30 Colin Gray was roused to defend the term and adopted a broad view of it in which strategic behaviour is a product of social construction rather than professional defence issues and concepts. Gray quoted Bernard Brodie and linked strategy with anthropology, sociology and culture, which he described as the context of all decision-making – decisions he asserted cannot go against culture. Strategic culture he deﬁned as persisting “socially transmitted ideas, attitudes, habits of mind, and preferred methods of operation” speciﬁc to a particular security community.31 According to other conceptions strategic culture is the interface between

10

Values and identities

domestic culture and military defence in explaining particular cultural ways of war. Strategic culture then was deﬁned as “a distinctive and lasting set of beliefs, values and habits regarding the threat or the use of force, which have their roots in such fundamental inﬂuences as geopolitical setting, history, political culture.” These lasting beliefs and values then exert inﬂuence over the formation and execution of strategy.32 The term is bedevilled by difﬁculties. The broad deﬁnitions adopted expand the meaning of strategic culture to the point where it becomes synonymous with political culture; it then adds little to our understanding about security and strategy. Moreover, originally a product of the cold war, the term assumes a coherence and tradition that may be found only within a few states. It may apply to major powers with well-deﬁned cultures and traditions, with long-established military institutions, and with accumulated experience of the use of force under various conditions. The use of the term may make sense within former empire builders with proud military traditions where public respect for the military is unquestioned, or amongst the present supporters of international order who have assumed responsibility for the use of military power to ensure global or regional stability. In this respect the US, Britain and France stand out. Where cultures are diffuse, however, where military traditions are non-existent and where concepts of strategy are absent, the use of the term becomes problematic. When it is speciﬁcally applied to particular developing countries with no deﬁnable strategic tradition and, in some cases, weak military capability, considerable distortion is the result. Strategic culture then becomes a description of the ways and means in which internal security is maintained.33 The term has been prised loose from its original cold-war moorings and then applied outside its original context to countries which have not displayed the necessary prerequisites. It was intended to provide security scholars with an all-embracing explanation for the disparate ways of waging war, from grand strategy, operational strategy to the tactical level. Everything came to be included in strategic culture, but the connection with the military dimension was tenuous and implied in many cases. Strategic culture became a synonym for political culture in general, with the same insights and methodological deﬁciencies. The term “culture” has been applied in other ways in the security and defence ﬁeld, which illustrates the continuing search for an appropriate explanation for group behaviour. Military culture has also been used to explain the particular ethos of the armed services and the impact upon policy.34 Organisational culture has been applied to subcultures within larger domestic actors – like the separate services, each may have their own ethos with different inputs into decision-making.35

Construing constructivism Political culture languished in the academic discipline of international relations as it was assailed by the new rationalist theories and methodologies

Values and identities 11 that had developed in the 1970s and 1980s. The constructivist movement arose in 1989 to respond to the challenge of the rationalist theories by reinstating the role of political culture in international relations through the idea of agency. The constructivist paradigm ﬁrst appeared in Nicholas Onuf’s work entitled World of Our Making (1989), which explained that individuals constructed their societies on the basis of reﬂexivity, that ideas represented particular social contexts.36 Onuf drew upon sociology – in particular Anthony Giddens’s structuration theory which posited the idea that the external world should not be conceived of as a structure external to human actors but one creatively structured by human ideational activity.37 What does the act of construction mean? In its philosophical sense reality is a constructed phenomenon which entails the projection of the selfhood so that the projection becomes a perceived object. Construction is a product of mind as the agent which then confronts its own emanations, describing them as external world. Metaphysical constructivism posits only the eternal agent or mankind, which then faces the results of its activity in time and space as external structure. Mankind then constructs the notions of sovereignty, the state and the rules of interstate interaction as one way of organising international affairs. In its social and political sense, however, construction entails something less as a dualism between agent and structure develops.38 Individual political actors cannot create their own world but are compelled to interact within an external world created by the projections of agents similarly engaged in the act of construction. Their interaction over time and in space creates an interactive pattern or external reality which is perceived as structure. The products of past interactions which are created from the expectations and actions of actors establish a framework for present and future interaction. Individual actors are required to work within the framework of past and present interaction which appears to them as structure. They may respond according to their own values to reshape and inﬂuence the pattern of interaction or structure, which impacts upon the values of other actors in an ongoing process. The constructivist movement exposes spurious universalism and destroys the basis of ideational hegemony by referring ideas to their social and political context. For example, political realism abstracts from a world of competing actors and elevates the practices of competition into universal rules and precepts, valid for all time. Hans J. Morgenthau constructed a universal theory around political realism on the basis that politics is “governed by objective laws that have their roots in human nature.”39 The legitimisation of theory and the authority of the rules and precepts so derived requires the demonstration of universality, which compels proponents to resort to scientiﬁc or empirical testing of assumptions. The act of universalisation, indeed, is inherent in theory building to give authority to empirical observations that may serve as rules and precepts that would govern political relations. Constructivism disarms realism as a universal

12

Values and identities

theory by reducing it to its social and political context, in which case socalled universal laws become contingent in time and space. Realism is referred to its original social and political conditions, in which case it may be regarded as the product of a threatening external environment where separate actors compete for survival and struggle for power. The great theorists of realism from E.H. Carr, Georg Schwarzenberger, Reinhold Niebuhr, as well as Morgenthau, derived their conclusions from a period when Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union threatened international order. Inherent in their empirical observations was the desire to instruct others as to how to behave according to rules and precepts which required the endorsement of the universal. Contingent behaviour, which was a result of a particular and perhaps unusual period of history, was elevated to the universal and attained the status of a theory. Without this elevation to the universal realism may have remained a description of diplomatic and political practice adopted by states when threatened by aggression, or when preparing for expansion or territorial aggrandisement. As universal theory, however, realism fell short of its claims and Vasquez has emphasized its inability to satisfy “the criterion of scientiﬁc importance.”40 The claims of the neo-realist or structural realist school presented a different claim to universality and a challenge to political culture. The neorealism of Kenneth Waltz or Robert Gilpin claimed that state behaviour was conditioned by two factors: the structure of the international system which was the distribution of military power amongst the major powers, and anarchy which was understood as the absence of a central government. Formulated during the cold-war years when the prevailing pattern of interaction was determined by US-Soviet relations, neo-realism had the attraction of simplicity in reducing the complex factors behind state behaviour to systemic causes. Domestic factors and political culture could be ignored by neo-realism, which considerably simpliﬁed the study of international relations and made possible grand prediction based upon structural considerations. The basic assumptions of neo-realism are that states are the major actors in international politics, that security is the highest end, and that the disposition of military capabilities creates a structure in international politics which compels states to behave in similar ways. Either they respond militarily to a threat, or they ally with other states in a balance of power, or they bandwagon with the threat. States will maximise relative beneﬁts for themselves rather than absolute gains for the general good, in which case notions of interstate cooperation and interdependence are rendered dubious and fragile.41 Neo-realism posited the idea of a system with interacting parts which, as Waltz stressed, drew inspiration from the analogy of the market.42 Waltz observed that the assumption of rationality is essential to the theoretical claims of neo-realism according to which structure is capable of producing outcomes.43 Actors would respond to anarchy in much the same way as consumers to the market, and the choices before them could be

Values and identities 13 enumerated rationally. The dismissal of political culture weighs heavily upon neo-realism and provided its critics with much ammunition. The unquantiﬁable and intangible factors that frequently motivate decisionmakers cannot be accommodated by this theory. Neo-realism ignores the variety of inﬂuences upon decision-makers that arise from the social and cultural context of a state and imposes predetermined responses upon states according to their objective position in the system and their capabilities.44 States of similar positions and capabilities may respond to situations in diametrically opposite ways, but neo-realism fails to make the necessary distinctions based upon functional differences between states.45 Its two basic premises cannot survive empirical testing. Anarchy is not the basic condition of international relations where states observe the norms of interaction most of the time and where collective regulation has signiﬁcantly reduced the disorder.46 Collective regulation without a central government can be seen in state cooperation within global and regional institutions, in the observance of international law, the rules of diplomacy, and the international customs and conventions which regulate day-to-day state behaviour.47 Neo-realism says nothing about the historical origins of the second premise or structure which is a feature of the international system requiring no further explanation – suddenly it is here with us. Neorealism fails to explain the factors that gave rise to the disposition of military capabilities known as structure, why some states are involved in that disposition and not others, and how they reached that position. This conception of external structure neglects the human agency that was involved in its creation. A structure is somehow formed and then alienated from its human creators and reiﬁed as an external constraint or mechanism weighing down on all. Structure is more appropriately regarded as a product of historical processes involving past human agents or as the overhang from the past which faces the actors of the present.48 The recognition of human agency eliminates the sense of alienation and accommodates the possibility of change. What was made by humans can also be changed by humans. Neo-realism drew upon several basic operative ideas from the cold war years which ensured it of much inﬂuence amongst scholars in international relations. The theory claimed scientiﬁc status yet failed miserably in meeting the accepted criteria for veriﬁcation; still, it retained its hold over the academic community. The history of neo-realism tells us less about the so-called verities of international relations than about the expectations and needs of the academic community that gave birth to it. Even in the cold-war years neo-realism could not explain deviations from structural expectations that were conceived in ideational terms by actors who refused to follow the rules of the game. Structure could not explain de Gaulle’s policies which demonstrated that culturally derived conceptions of an independent great power role for France posed alternatives within the framework of the Western alliance. Similarly, the non-aligned movement held out a collective alternative to developing world states which

14

Values and identities

sought to resist the blandishments of the superpowers. Subsequently, neorealism could not explain the termination of the cold war and the reuniﬁcation of Germany after the transformation of the Soviet Union under Gorbachev, events which lay outside its logical framework.49 Neo-realism may be understood as the construction of a particular academic community in the US in response to an intense period of military polarisation between the US and the Soviet Union over the period 1968–1985. Then it seemed that structure conceived in terms of the military and nuclear capabilities of the superpowers determined international politics and reduced the responses of actors to those outlined by neo-realism. In terms of nuclear capability, structure signiﬁed the alienation of the actors and the danger of their subjection to a mechanism well beyond their control. The observations from this period were then systematically arranged and universalised into a theory that would explain international relations. Ultimately it could not pass the test of veriﬁability required of universal laws which did not destroy its popularity, this was determined by its simplicity and its ability to provide basic explanations for behaviour in a threatening and uncertain environment. The ﬁrst contribution of the constructivist movement lies in the intellectual safeguards it provides to the action of universalisation, the easy abstraction from the contingent and the impatient desire to replicate the certainty of the natural sciences in international relations. Concepts of the universal, foreign policy positions and particular policy responses are referred to the social and cultural contexts within which they were formulated and regarded as constructions of political culture and actor identity. Constructivism cannot be more speciﬁc about how social and cultural groups engage in the process of construction, and whether all cultural groups construct the external world in similar ways. Nor does it deﬁne the groups participating in the act of construction more clearly. The major groups and institutions within a society, the foreign policy elite, the political parties, the media and the universities together may act in a way outlined by Michel Foucault to deﬁne truth in which case reality is a product of the power relations of a particular society. Or does the process of construction entail the consensual formulation of values which involves all social sections in a society, and not just the power elites and their supporting institutions? The construction of reality cannot be static for all time, but when is it renewed? Does it change with shifts in public opinion and with the election of new governments? If constructivism says that the values of a society must be taken in their entirety to understand foreign and security policy then it simply replicates the concept of political culture. If it wants to be more speciﬁc about which values will impact on which policies and how cultures may act in particular situations it does not provide a methodology. A related criticism of constructivism is the degeneration into relativity, which is the result of the epistemological tautology inherent in the application of the principle of reﬂexivity. Universal laws may be repudi-

Values and identities 15 ated by their referral to their social and cultural contexts, in which case everything becomes contingent in space and time. If constructivism is pursued to its logical conclusion and treated like a consistent theory it results in self-contradiction in the morass of relativity. There can be no universals, and even constructivist interpretations may be similarly situated in social conditions creating the meaninglessness of the mirror image effect. A second contribution of constructivism is the reintroduction of human agency into international relations through identities which are clusters of meaning expressed in political cultures. It has allowed for the integration of human agency into theory and the legitimisation of ideational factors that may depart from the strictly rational. Without the constructivist movement international relations theory would have discarded the important factor of human consciousness, and all its contradictory elements, and may have courted redundancy.50 Constructivism stresses that identities may explain troubling deviations from rationalist expectations and impact upon international relations through the norms and values which they propagate and the expectations they instil in people.51 It emphasises that identities deﬁne interests or preferences in relation to choices of action in particular areas and with respect to particular actors.52 Despite the importance of the concept the attempt to deﬁne an identity in any given situation is fraught with imprecision and vagueness revealing the limitations of the constructivist approach. Identity may draw on past traditions, culture and religious values, or as Gellner stressed it may be the product of centrally directed educational policies.53 In the Western world educated individuals may proclaim multiple identities according to education, culture and occupation. Constructivism may highlight the importance of identity but cannot offer any guidelines which would enable their clearer deﬁnition. Moreover, constructivism cannot explain the relationship between identity and policy in terms of a causal connection which would satisfy the test of scientiﬁc veriﬁcation.54 In practice constructivism relies on a narrative or interpretive explanation where compatibility with identity is inferred through behaviour.55 Its proponents admit to an absence of a new methodology or to “methodical conventionalism” in identifying this causal connection and in the construction of state identity.56 The vaulting claims of constructivism arise from the false analogy between the social and political worlds and the metaphysical. An analogy is made with metaphysical constructivism where the act of construction is an assumed quality of pure being. It is supposed that social and political agents are able to engage in a similar act of construction which is spurious. Rather than construct external realities social and political agents are limited by the actions of others and react to the external world, or they interpret it according to their own values. Even then, social and political construction has a dual meaning. It may refer to the continuous projection of values with the intention of changing the pattern of actor interaction

16

Values and identities

according to ideational preferences. Or it may mean adaptation and adjustment to the external world. Hegemonic states such as the US have been able to inﬂuence the external world according to their value systems as a conscious policy. America’s post-cold war conﬁdence has allowed it to promote democracy and human rights but few actors have had a similar sense of mission and the supporting economic and military power to act in a comparable way. Most states are compelled to respond and adapt to the actions of others without the ability to promote their value systems. This is the lot of most actors in international relations. They are buffered about by international forces they cannot control and respond according to their particular preferences. On this basis it has been argued that material factors may transcend culture, that external material circumstances shape norms, ideas, and culture, and that the choices for states are restricted accordingly.57 Nonetheless, threat may elicit different reactions from similar states which would require an explanation in terms of values. Even small actors in international relations have surprised others by their unpredicted responses according to changes in government and shifting coalitions – New Zealand’s anti-nuclear policies and the obstacles imposed on defence cooperation with the US are a case in point. At this level constructivism assumes a modest role in terms of interpretation of events and the identiﬁcation of the impact of preferences upon policy. In consequence, social and political constructivism has added little to the concept of political culture or the methodology of foreign policy analysis, nor has it advanced our understanding of how identities impact on policy. Constructivism has ambitiously reformulated the ideas of political culture in a new jargon which justiﬁes the common criticism that progress in the theory of international relations has been a matter of semantics. In its social and political sense constructivism cannot be regarded as a theory offering consistency and predictability, it is simply a useful corrective device in international relations. Problems arise when social and political constructivism borrows from the philosophical foundation of metaphysical constructivism and makes confusing claims for universality which it cannot justify or adequately explain. Nonetheless, constructivism has performed the service of reinstating the importance of culture, identity, norms and values in international relations against the scepticism of the rationalist theories. It has renewed interest in the symbols and meanings that underlie politics and allows for interpreted explanations of behaviour that would otherwise remain unexplained.58

Value and identity interaction and change Political cultures and their identities are not ﬁxed and static in international relations but respond to adjust to external stimuli. Any effort to examine the role of identity in politics would be meaningless without identiﬁcation of the process and direction of identity change. The earlier

Values and identities 17 schools of political culture could identify the characteristics of a particular culture, and highlight the collective memories and the particular images circulating within that culture, but without a concept of change. Political culture is essentially a static concept and its observations draw upon the situation in a culture at a given time. The construction of identity, however, is an ongoing process in which domestic norms and values are formed and reformed by contact with the external world. How cultures adapt and reshape their values is an issue for social psychology in which prediction and general rule formulation is laden with difﬁculty. What makes Japanese culture so adaptive on the one hand and yet so defensive of certain core values on the other has not been fully explained. Certain cultures embody a principle of change and are receptive to external norms, for others the preservation of an essentially static condition or return to some past condition is a core value demanding resistance to external inﬂuences. The distinction between norms and values becomes signiﬁcant in the process of identity change as the adoption of external norms may result in a value change. A norm is a rule or an authoritative standard of behaviour, which is consistent and predictable and is subject to rational calculation by decision-makers.59 A norm may be regarded as a cultural expectation about proper behaviour in a given situation. There are constitutive norms which are recognised by others as belonging to a particular identity; they create expectations that identity will be associated with particular behaviour and will specify actions accordingly. There are regulative norms which operate as standards of behaviour for the identity in question and generate pressure for conformity.60 While norms are regulative and involve expectations about correct behaviour the term “value” is a wider concept which embraces emotional attachments ranging from basic nationalism through to the highest principles. Values refer to the beliefs, customs and principles which are important for an identity. Certain situations may stimulate strong emotional responses if core values relating to identity such as lifestyle and communal and religious beliefs are under threat. Such values may strongly motivate decision-makers but do not constitute norms by strict deﬁnition. The transformation of identity as a result of shock or defeat has been studied in a number of well-documented cases. Defeat in war has made certain cultures receptive to new norms and rules, resulting in a change in values and an identity transformation. Both Germany and Japan experienced identity transformation as a result of defeat in the Second World War which turned these two countries, previously noted for their militarism and aggressive behaviour, into paciﬁst and norm-abiding cultures.61 The transformation of Soviet political culture resulted in the termination of the cold war and an end to the prospect of nuclear confrontation and the division of Europe. Gorbachev’s espousal of new norms in “new political thinking” brought about a remarkable value change in elite Russian political culture, which had previously been noted for its strong suspicion

18

Values and identities

of the external world, its belief in the efﬁcacy of military power and its willingness to resort to force. Gorbachev was unusually receptive to Western norms in relation to nuclear arms control and common security that had been disseminated by transnational scientiﬁc communities linked to the Western arms control community.62 The change was all the more remarkable considering that Gorbachev had little prior contact with the West and had been promoted by conservative ﬁgures in the Brezhnev politburo to maintain the Soviet system and its values. The above three examples relate to cases of deep transformation as a consequence of defeat or near disaster when rigid domestic structures collapsed and totalitarian controls were removed. The political cultures concerned became receptive to norms of multilateralism and cooperation largely imported from the West and marking a clear break with their past.63 Identity should be not be understood only according to an unchanging concept of traditional political culture, but also in terms of the norms that exposure to the West and to economic interdependence may have stimulated. A conﬂict between traditional values and modern norms may be observable in all Asian societies to a greater or lesser degree. This conﬂict reaches into foreign and security policy and inﬂuences the ability of these societies to respond to international norms of institutionalism and multilateralism. Their promotion in the Asian context does not result in immediate change or conversion of the political leadership, as the proponents of institutionalism may rationally predict, for the domestic constraints may be too strong. External pressure may intensify conﬂict within the political system prompting competing domestic groups to assess their positions and shift their loyalties. Polarisation emerges with the formation of two broad groups representing competing values and ways of meeting the external world. Identity becomes contested and the subject of prolonged rivalry and political competition between these groups. The ﬁrst group represents those that defend traditional notions of identity invoking collective and national memories and the symbols of nationalism to strengthen cohesion. This group seeks strength in territorial sovereignty and domestic security and regards international norms as a Western imposition upon traditional ways which undermine the domestic order. Conservative political parties, the security establishment, and the intellectual custodians of public orthodoxy may seek to enforce the standard collective memory of the past in the national narrative, which stresses past injury or victimisation at the hands of foreigners and the external world. They point to the loss of identity that the international norms would bring and predict uncertainty and instability as a result of their adoption. A traditional sense of identity offers certainty and familiarity but no direction in the confusion of globalisation and interdependence. A second group comprises Western-educated professionals or those with exposure to the external world who actively promote interdependence and the adoption of international norms. They see security in inter-

Values and identities 19 national and regional institutions, in multilateralism, and in offering reassurance of predictable behaviour to external actors. As believers in international norms of state behaviour, such as the rule of law and transparency, they may be at war with their own cultures and dismissive of traditional notions of identity. They may be found in the economic ministries, in business and ﬁnance, the academic community, the media and in Western-supported NGOs. Members of this group may formulate a counter-narrative of collective memory which challenges the orthodox or public version, and which entails a revision of history pointing out the false interpretations or random selection inherent in myth-making. The counter-narrative may focus upon the injustices that are omitted in the traditional collective memory which were perpetrated upon underprivileged groups, minorities, women, or weaker neighbours in a complete effort to devise a modern identity. This group may seek international norms, regionalism and global institutions as support for domestic social change. Their counter-narrative offers a sense of direction in a confusing world, but little certainty or comfort in terms of group cohesion and solidarity of the past. As challenger norms are developed conﬂict over identity will emerge between these two groups, which will intensify political polarisation creating hybrid groups that will seek to reinterpret tradition to accommodate some changes. Conﬂict over identity may indeed become pronounced as conservative groups invoke traditional identity symbols that offer unity and cohesion in a time of destabilising social change. There may be a backlash and reinforcement of tradition in which case governments facing issues of sovereignty would ﬁnd themselves constrained and hamstrung in international negotiations. Political culture is an evolving concept and should be understood in terms of both traditional values and the challenger norms that arise from contact with the external environment. Values and identity are revealed long-term trends where the impact of collective memory and belief systems are observable in deﬁning what may be regarded as foundational issues, or those which are considered most important for the culture concerned. These issues then set the parameters for other policies. Concordance between stated values and actual behaviour may be recorded over time, and the development of particular challenger norms may be examined which could in time presage a value change. Political culture and identity are intimately associated with security, which is the preservation of group identity, the defence of core values, religious beliefs, community cohesion and language. Security is the sense of national and social belonging that goes beyond the notion of physical threat and which has to be understood within its cultural context. Identity is linked with state security, particularly so for Asian collectivist cultures where security is formulated in terms of cultural and identity protection and where the role of the state is paramount.64 For these reasons any study of Asia Paciﬁc security that ignores identity and relies exclusively upon

20

Values and identities

logical deduction from the rationalist theories of international relations will be ﬂawed. One lamentable result of this simplistic reductionism is the excessive attention that is given to the military instruments of power and the assumption of the coherent integration of military power within neorealist analytical frameworks. As a consequence there is a tendency in the West to attribute a coherent military strategy to Asian states, integrating the complex process of escalation from tactics to grand strategy, when the decision-makers concerned may have no such intention. In the Western conception the use of power is closely tied to military capabilities and the resort to force in an integrated strategy is taken for granted. Asian cultures, however, have demonstrated that power may be expressed in different ways; that there are various alternatives to force in which semiotics, rhetoric and political displays play a major role. Power is indeed mediated by particular cultural forms of expression.65 The importance of identity for major Asia Paciﬁc actors makes its examination as a basis for foreign and security policy imperative. For these actors security policies are underpinned by particular belief systems and world-views that are drawn from notions of identity. They are inherited and passed on to future generations of decision-makers and preserved by organisations, ministries and research institutes which may have different views of how to go about applying values to particular situations but nevertheless maintain continuity. For established political systems and traditional cultures there are deeply ingrained principles and guidelines that form part of the historical memory of the generations, and which are preserved by institutions and public bodies. In some cases there may be a strategic vision which guides security policy which is inherited from the past and which is fostered by security related bodies and organisations. Into this tradition the highest and most important decision-makers are initiated, as in the case of the US and to a lesser extent China. In other cases this strategy may not be articulated or formulated in doctrines but there may be unwritten codes to which foreign policy and security activity may be traced and which may be revealed through the statements and actions of key decisions makers. This is the case of Japan which has experienced a severe rupture in its strategic policy. For others which have suffered traumatic change there may be competitive ideas and much public conﬂict, debate and considerable confusion as the country goes about the difﬁcult process of formulating its security policy. This is the case of Korea. Particularly for Asian actors interaction with the West has prompted efforts to redeﬁne traditional notions of identity in a complicated process of change and adjustment. The key issues of Asian Paciﬁc foreign and security policy reﬂect this conﬂict in which the familiarity of the past is being challenged by the demands of the present. The key issue of identity for China is Taiwan, which affects other areas of policy such as China’s relations with the US, the Korean peninsula and Asia Paciﬁc regionalism. For Japan domestic paciﬁst values play an important role in deﬁning all

Values and identities 21 areas of foreign policy and in constraining Japanese security cooperation with its US ally. Pressure for greater cooperation arises in the framework of the US alliance which challenges its paciﬁst political culture. In the Korean peninsula the issue is the extent to which the North may be inﬂuenced to terminate its ballistic and nuclear threat to the region for the sake of economic support and recognition. So far the North has stiﬂed the development of the challenger norms of reform and cooperation which would make it receptive to the engagement policies of the South, and which would bring an end to the situation of confrontation on the peninsula. For the US the process of interactive adjustment with the Asia Paciﬁc region has resulted in the recognition of limits to the boundless idealism of its leaders and their belief that America can change the world. Interaction with China over Taiwan, with Japan over security policy and with South Korea over the Korean peninsula has reminded America that the external world cannot be constructed simply as a Washington-based project. America’s attempt to transform Asia through the promotion of its values has resulted in a conﬂict over the function and purpose of both economic and security regionalism which was revealed in the development of Asia Paciﬁc regionalism. Through all issues the notion of actor identity runs like a thread and retains coherence in the interaction process. Interaction does not result in a repudiation of the past, a denial of culture and values, and when this is attempted there is revival in new form. Interaction will stimulate a complicated process of breaking down values into their component parts and dividing layers of accumulations from the past. Interaction will separate that which is required from that which will be downplayed or discarded. It will relate desired values to past experiences which will be reinterpreted and uplifted in memory, and will similarly eject those undesirable experiences and remove their memory. In this process there may be a revival of what are regarded as the original values which constitute the national group which serve to justify and legitimise the change. Interaction, indeed, both changes and revives identity.

2

Values and identity and the signiﬁcance of Taiwan to China

China’s concept of the state is derived from its long history and from a culture that has claimed uniqueness and superiority over others. Amongst Chinese there is the belief in the greatness and grandeur of China and its civilisation, which becomes an object of admiration in itself. This civilisation has inculcated values that have been critical for the traditional conception of the Chinese identity and include a belief in the centralised state, the acceptance of power to establish and maintain order, a strong sense of conformity to the hierarchically arranged centralised order, and a sense of morality which governs the exercise of power.1 Above all there is the strong belief in the preservation of the unity of Chinese civilisation, and that culture and civilisation are inseparable from the centralised state that has ruled for millennia. In the context of these values the loss of Taiwan would be unthinkable and tantamount to betrayal, a feeling that often hinders discussion of the subject in Beijing. For China, Taiwan is an issue of the territorial integrity of the modern state, while another territorial problem, the South China Sea, relates to the consolidation of the borders of that state. China’s economic transformation and its adaptation to the international economy, however, has prompted the development of challenger norms of multilateralism and institutionalism in foreign policy which may reshape domestic values and the traditional concept of identity in China. If these territorial issues were resolved on the basis of cooperative norms the Asia Paciﬁc region would be reassured of China’s role and behaviour.

Foreign policy themes Realism has been regarded as a traditional feature of Chinese culture, which is related to the fear of chaos and the obsession with order. China’s “culture of realism” has created an “ideationally based hard realpolitik” in Chinese history which, according to Johnston, does not differ radically from the Western realpolitik tradition.2 The Chinese have been described as “supreme realists,” with a vivid sense of opportunity and an ability to adjust to circumstances with exceptional ﬂexibility.3 This tradition of

Values, identity and the signiﬁcance of Taiwan to China

23

realism has been strengthened by the value placed on state patriotism or loyalty to the centralised state that has been the characteristic of Chinese intellectuals.4 The Western conception of idealist values, either inspired by religion or philosophy which exist above the secular order and against which it could be judged, has been absent in Chinese culture. State patriotism which demands service to the state as the highest value has justiﬁed the use of force in Chinese history internally. The last occasion was at Tiananmen square in June 1989 when the killings were ofﬁcially defended as necessary for internal order. Chinese realism has various origins. Historically, the Chinese resorted to force along the peripheries of the empire to prevent concentrations of power emerging which would threaten the empire. Security in the Chinese heartland demanded extended control over the peripheries to reinforce the authority of the regime, to eliminate existing or potential threats to Chinese frontiers and trade routes, and to intimidate peripheral peoples into accepting Chinese suzerainty and the Chinese world-view.5 The role of realism in China’s foreign policy has been reinforced by the collective memory of weakness in modern times in which China is regarded as a victim of the predatory imperialist powers in the nineteenth century. Chinese ofﬁcial representatives often reveal the “victim syndrome” in that China was trampled on and humiliated in the past and has a right to seek respect in the future. China has an obsession with catching up with the advanced powers and attaining great power status, a conception which is at the core of China’s concept of national identity.6 China must stand above others and should receive the deference and respect which is due to the oldest continuous civilisation, or as some Chinese like to think, the oldest civilisation. The regaining of great power status, which was lost during the “century of humiliation,” is considered natural for a country of China’s size, its civilisation and culture and its sense of uniqueness. The achievement of great power status has been regarded as a central goal of the PRC since its foundation in 1949, and one widely shared by both the political leadership and the Chinese public.7 All the appurtenances of that status have become objectives in their own right, including a modernised economy matched by a powerful military that would command respect in Asia and the world. The second traditional theme derives from a conception of morality based on Confucianism, and despite all attempts at eradication by the Communist regime certain Confucian values in terms of respect for authority and education remain ingrained in Chinese political culture. Chinese culture has exhibited a strong concern with the moral behaviour of leaders, such that authority assumes the characteristics of omnipotence provided it acts according to the accepted moral code.8 Chinese foreign policy has demonstrated the Confucian search for moral hierarchy and a genuine interest in maintaining the country’s image of “moral superiority.”9 As the historian Jacques Gernet has surmised, political power in

24

Values, identity and the signiﬁcance of Taiwan to China

China was the “principle that gave life and order” and was always accompanied by the idea of moral correction. Morality was not just a pretext or an alibi for autocracy or tyranny but the expression of a particular mode of power and, in essence, power and morality sprung from the same source.10 Traditionally, the Chinese could not conceive of power as an object of attainment on its own in the classical realist sense as explained by Morgenthau or Western practitioners of realpolitik. Power entirely divorced from morality would be inconceivable in the Chinese experience, though not unacceptable in Western realpolitik. For the Chinese power has been strongly associated with morality and Chinese national interests have been deﬁned not in terms of military power but in relation to political, economic and cultural status. The result is an “obsession with the appearance of being correct,” in which foreign policy is expressed in the language of high principle and moral purity.11 The stress upon the morality of action results in behaviour that differs from Western realism despite the similarities which might be apparent. Where Western realists would regard power as the ultimate security, China’s ﬁrst concern is to uphold governing principles and a moral regime as a more durable basis for security in a constantly changing world. For the Chinese power is expressed in terms of moral order, and moral convictions are dramatised by strong rhetorical statements, to demonstrate China’s “principled stand.”12 Because of these convictions China’s resort to force entails moral correction and an effort to chastise others into accepting the moral order which governs the regime. In the case of India in 1962 and Vietnam in 1979 China engaged in limited attacks across borders after which it withdrew unilaterally to ensure a quick victory and to allow the opponent to save face.13 Protecting China’s moral integrity becomes an end in itself, in which case China’s leaders may not consider some of the more forceful measures available to them. In the Western experience morality and power are separated and the former refers to an ideal world from which criteria are drawn to assess the crass world of political power. Westerners habitually judge the exercise of political power according to ideal standards of human rights and democracy, but for the Chinese morality is conceived in terms of regime orthodoxy and expressed in practical principles. In the Chinese experience morality gives direction and guidance for the use of power and limitations upon its employment. The preoccupation with correct behaviour has shaped the language of politics for the Chinese in a way very different from the West. Statements have to be understood not as literal intentions but as morale-boosting demonstrations of loyalty to regime orthodoxy or public morality where exaggerated display and panache are required. Inherent in these displays is an unbounded optimism and the avoidance of critical evaluation which would be regarded as traitorous. When Chinese speak of China emerging as a great power, or the restoration of Chinese civilisation to its rightful place, they do not explain how they will reach

Values, identity and the signiﬁcance of Taiwan to China

25

their goals, nor do they examine the problems that would be encountered along the way – there is just the bright and sunny future to which no one could possibly object. Serious problems may arise when others outside of China, particularly in the US, take morale, boosting declarations at face value. Since the 1980s reformist norms have developed within China which present an alternative to the traditional values described above.14 China’s remarkable economic transformation has triggered a process of internal value change and the formation of social groups that promote challenger norms within the framework of interdependence and integration with the external world. Economic growth has created the new business class that is in evidence in China today, and has strengthened the position of the Western-trained intellectuals in the economic ministries and the universities who are expected to readapt China’s value system. Since Deng Xiaoping inaugurated the open door policy in 1978 China’s leaders have promoted a policy of pragmatism and accommodation to accompany the process of closer integration with the international economy.15 Foreign policy has been adjusted as China has sought to reduce tensions with the outside world and to create a conducive external environment for economic development. China’s leaders have stressed that domestic economic modernisation requires a stable external environment and the avoidance of tensions and conﬂicts which would disrupt economic growth. While China obtains the beneﬁts of high growth rates (the annual average was 7.8 per cent over the period 1997–2002) and increasing levels of FDI (the annual average was $43 billion over the same period), pragmatism and accommodation can be expected to govern China’s external relations. Traditional assumptions may be remoulded and foreign policy may progressively lose its realist character as China relies upon multilateralist and institutionalist diplomatic strategies to manage relations with the external world.16 The resort to institutionalism would demand an acceptance of the status quo and the surrender of territorial claims. State identity, however, is critical for Beijing’s rulers – in which case the sacriﬁce of sovereignty for the sake of the beneﬁts of engagement may become unacceptable. Western academic circles tend to assume that interdependence and institutionalism are opposed to realism as contradictory ideas, but the reality is more complicated. In China’s case interdependence can strengthen the economic base without weakening or impairing the tradition of realism. Indeed, the Chinese see interdependence as promoting their economic power and resist the surrender of independence that it demands; national autonomy should be preserved even while China becomes interdependent.17 China has effectively played the “market card” according to which the world must come to China to be ensured of proﬁts from investment and to take advantage of its emerging domestic market, which gives it increasing bargaining power.18 This sense of importance to the international economy enhances the conﬁdence of China’s leadership

26

Values, identity and the signiﬁcance of Taiwan to China

and diminishes the predictive value of interdependence theory in assessing China’s future. Even if China resorts to force to maintain its sovereignty and territorial integrity its size and special position in the international economy may forestall any punitive measures or sanctions. For the leadership the issue is the extent to which China can integrate into the international community while maintaining its traditional and familiar sense of identity, its centralised system of government, and its values and territorial integrity. That traditional conception of identity demands recognition of China’s status and the correction of past humiliations, including Taiwan’s reuniﬁcation, equality with the US and a sphere of inﬂuence in East Asia recognised by the US and the international community. As Joseph Nye opined, “left to itself, China would probably like to force the return of Taiwan, ensure dominance over the South China Sea, and be recognised as the primary state in East Asia.”19 As an expanding economy, however, China will be subject to global constraints and limitations which will reduce its freedom of action in attempting to achieve its great power objectives. Theorists may argue that the quest for great power status would be made irrelevant by international economic integration, but the direction of modern Chinese history and the values espoused by the leadership point to a struggle to maintain traditional identity within interdependence. The result has been an effort to pursue Taiwan policy and integration within the international economy simultaneously, with the conﬁdence that the reversion of Taiwan to the mainland could be realised without destroying China’s interdependent relations with the external world. Moreover, gradual integration into the international economy has been accompanied by the strengthening of China’s military power to ensure the respect which China so craves. In July 1992 the Secretary-General of the Central Military Commission (CMC) Yang Baibing declared that China sought a military beﬁtting its status and that only with a strong military could China take its rightful place on the international stage.20 According to China’s collective memory the humiliations and tribulations of the nineteenth century were made possible by military weakness, which should never be repeated. Defence Minister Chi Haotian stressed the need for a strong army to safeguard territorial integrity, national unity and China’s modernisation drive. According to Chi, without national defence the Chinese people would be subject to “bullying” and “humiliation.”21 In 1995 Jiang Zemin called for a powerful military to achieve the reuniﬁcation of Taiwan and to safeguard what were called “China’s ocean rights and interests.” From this time on the leadership began to give direction to military modernisation in terms of a power projection ability to achieve reuniﬁcation and the defence of territory.22 The concern with great power status has been accompanied by the rise of a new nationalism which has become much more evident amongst Chinese intellectuals and government ofﬁcials.23 The new social groups and professional classes that have

Values, identity and the signiﬁcance of Taiwan to China

27

emerged in China as a result of economic modernisation display an assertiveness and self-interest that clashes with traditional concepts of loyalty.24 These new social groups are being assimilated into China’s collective memory of grandeur and past humiliation and the result is a new nationalism or a “virulent patriotism” which appropriates the traditional longing for power and the desire for greatness, but without the accompanying moral constraints.25 The urge for power is divorced from morality in this new nationalism, in which case there may a greater temptation for its use. Chinese nationalism has been promoted by the CPP as a new force for unity, as a basis for party legitimacy and to mobilise support for modernisation. Nationalism is a dangerous force for the CPP as it represents uncontrollable emotions within the masses which if quickly connected with other political movements demanding democracy, religious freedom or the end of corruption could destroy the party.26 Strong political constraints prevent the full expression of nationalism in China which in limited and controllable form has been directed towards external powers, the US in particular. Chinese nationalism has been described as “defensive” or “pragmatic” in that it seeks respect and status for China rather than aggressive expansion.27 The demonstrative effort to promote reuniﬁcation with Taiwan, and the assertion of so-called sovereign rights in the South China Sea, brings with it, however, the prospect of instability. America supports a regional order that is perceived as preventing China’s rise to greatness, particularly over the Taiwan issue. The party’s post-cold war ideology posited a multipolarity in which the US was seen as a declining power; this ideological expectation accompanies the Chinese belief that China will rise to pre-eminence. The expectation was that a declining US would be compelled to offer concessions to Beijing over Taiwan and other issues to ensure China’s cooperation and access to its huge market.28 Rather than the predicted multipolarity a US unipolarity emerged which heightened American conﬁdence in dealing with Beijing. The Chinese had not expected that the US would strengthen support for Taiwan while professing adherence to the one China policy which has become a stimulus for Chinese anger. President George Bush’s announcement on 3 September 1992 to sell 150 F-16s to Taiwan was made on the campaign trail in Texas in which General Dynamics was located; it was the trigger for renewed Chinese hostility towards the US.29 Beijing accused the US of contradicting the second Shanghai communiqué reached with the Reagan administration on 17 August 1982 according to which arms shipments to Taiwan would be gradually phased out. Thereafter, the Chinese military’s perception of the US became increasingly hostile as conspiratorial theories of American intentions abounded. In 1993 the General ofﬁce of the Central Committee issued a document, prepared by the propaganda department for the party committees of all provinces entitled “Concerning the US antagonistic program against China.” This

28

Values, identity and the signiﬁcance of Taiwan to China

document explained US motives in intervening into China’s internal affairs in terms of a malignant intention to contain China through a network of alliances. The US was accused of seeking an enemy after the collapse of the Soviet Union and targeting China as a substitute. The intention was to develop an alliance against China, including Vietnam, Japan and South Korea, to support Taiwan’s military development and to promote separatism in Tibet.30 The party cannot adequately explain American support for Taiwan for it contradicts basic realism according to which Beijing should be more important to the US than Taiwan because of size, international status and economic power. To explain America’s commitment to Taiwan in terms of democracy and values would be an open admission of Taiwan’s democratic achievement and would challenge the legitimacy of the party on the mainland. An explanation within the party’s value framework has it that the US intention is to separate Taiwan permanently from the mainland to keep China weak and dismembered.31 Sophisticated Chinese scholars who know the US well are compelled to explain the US commitment in terms of successful Taiwanese lobbying in Congress and the incompetence of PRC lobbying efforts.32 The US rouses complex feelings amongst Chinese, as the country they most admire is held responsible for the continuing division of China. These complex feelings are related to the US military presence in the Asia Paciﬁc which is regarded as stabilising in terms of forestalling Japan’s rearmament and ensuring the security of the sea lanes, but also threatening as it prevents Taiwan’s reuniﬁcation. At the ASEAN Annual Ministerial Meeting in August 1995, Foreign Minister Qian Qichen declared that the US should cease viewing itself as the “saviour of Asia,” and that China does not recognise the US as a power which maintains the peace and security in the region.33 Similarly, at the height of the 1996 Taiwan crisis Qian Qichen declared that Taiwan was not a “US protectorate.”34 Japan, however, stirs deeper nationalist emotions in China. China’s rise to great power status will reopen the complicated issue of China’s relationship with Japan which involves questions of precedence and status that are important to both. Both China and Japan are strongly hierarchical collectivist cultures with clear notions of status and rank. Amongst the Chinese there are strong expectations that Japan, which has imported Chinese culture and uses Chinese written script, should conform to the Chinese world order, like Korea and Vietnam. The Chinese complain that the Japanese refuse to apologise for the atrocities committed during the occupation of China from 1937–1945, pointing out that Germany had apologised to its neighbours for the past and that Japan should do the same. Some of the most vociferous Chinese critics of Japan have been democracy movement activists, which demonstrates an ominous linkage between democracy and nationalism in China.35 The Japanese insist that China sees Japan in its own image, refuses to understand the autonomy of Japanese culture and ignores Japan’s modern achievements. The Chinese

Values, identity and the signiﬁcance of Taiwan to China

29

complain about Japan’s defence spending, Japanese defence cooperation with the US and the revival of Japanese “militarism” in general.36 The textbook disputes of 1982 and 2001 and visits by Japanese prime ministers to the Yasukuni Shrine continue to bedevil relations.37 The issue of the Diaoyu/Sengaku islands, which was shelved by Deng Xiaoping in 1978, may be stimulated by China’s new nationalism in the future. The issue came to a head when on 14 July 1995 the right-wing Japan Youth Federation built a temporary lighthouse on one of the islands and returned in September to repair it. Hong Kong and Taiwanese activists attempted to reach the islands to protest but were blocked by the Japanese coast guard.38 Of greatest concern to the Chinese has been Japan’s alleged role in fostering separatism in Taiwan through the pro Taiwan lobby group in the Japanese Diet and politicians with strong links with Taiwan. Since the signing of the revised defence guidelines with the US in 1997 the Chinese have perceived a Japanese intention to cooperate with the US in the support of Taiwan. The convolutions of Japanese decision-making are unclear to outsiders and this absence of clarity reinforces Chinese suspicions of the worst in Japanese intentions.

Values, identity and the lost territories Taiwan’s reuniﬁcation is top on China’s agenda for reasons that go to the core of China’s sense of identity as a modern state. The consolidation of China’s borders is part of the deﬁnition of a modern state, which includes the incorporation of territories that may have been only loosely connected with the centre in the past. Pre-modern empire systems and states had loosely deﬁned borders and various degrees of inﬂuence over territory along their peripheries. They competed with other states in these territories where their inﬂuence could not be exclusive. Pre-modern states like dynastic China operated on the basis of concentric circles or gradations of inﬂuence which included a Han Chinese heartland area or a Manchurian heartland under the Ch’in; an outer area of related or conquered ethnic groups which had been absorbed into the state or empire; peripheral areas whose security is important and over which inﬂuence was maintained; ﬁnally, there were distant areas and states with which diplomacy was conducted according to strict protocol. Since the nineteenth century China, which had deﬁned itself as a culture and a dynasty, has been compelled to adapt to the modern age and redeﬁne itself as a modern state with deﬁned borders organised according to the modern concept of sovereignty. Taiwan is regarded as a lost part of the heartland and a critical issue of identity. Certain territories that were loosely linked to the centre were lost to the Russians in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including the Manchu homeland, Sakhalin, and related areas. China has acted to ensure that other peripheral areas such as South China Sea will not suffer a similar fate. From the beginning of the 1990s the recovery of China’s lost

30

Values, identity and the signiﬁcance of Taiwan to China

territories was a theme in Chinese thinking that placed Taiwan and the South China Sea on a similar level in Chinese thinking; only later were they differentiated. China moved gradually into the South China Sea, taking advantage of opportunities which were absent in Taiwan’s case while it remained under American protection. China used force against Vietnam twice in the South China Sea; the ﬁrst was over 18–19 January 1974 when the South Vietnamese were ejected from the Western Paracels, and in March 1988 when Chinese naval vessels clashed with Vietnamese near Johnson Reef resulting in the sinking of one Vietnamese freighter and the death of 74 sailors.39 In the late 1980s China’s interest in the area expanded and the South China Sea appeared as a major theme in terms of lost territory and resources. The role of Liu Huaqing was important in developing an enhanced power projection capability by transforming the navy from a coastal defence force to an offshore ﬂeet capable of defending China’s territorial waters and the South China Sea in particular. Liu was navy commander from 1982 and then ﬁrst vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission in 1992 until he was eased out by Jiang Zemin in 1997. According to Liu’s vision the South China Sea was the main territorial priority which was a step to the long-term goal of establishing China as a regional naval power.40 While he was in charge of the navy new category vessels such as the Luhu, and the Jiangwei class frigate were produced. Soon after the 1988 clashes with Vietnam in March 1989, the PRC navy formed the South China Sea frontline HQ. The deputy commander of Chinese navy, Zhang Xusen, announced that the navy will move to offshore defence, to protect territorial sovereignty and “ocean rights.” The naval commanders afﬁrmed that the intention was to build a small crack force with the ability to ﬁght localised wars.41 Vice-admiral Zhang Lianzhing also identiﬁed the need to protect China’s territorial waters and stated that the ﬁght for “ocean rights” would become more intense in the future. China had to secure its sea trading lanes, oil deposits and ﬁshing rights.42 There were also serious discussions about the purchase or construction of an aircraft carrier to provide air support on location in the South China Sea. The then President Yang Shangkun, in a meeting with PLA general staff on 27 September 1992, declared that the Central Committee had decided to purchase an aircraft carrier for use speciﬁcally in the South China Sea. Yang referred to “hostile forces in the international arena” and warned Vietnam that if it did not accept Chinese claims by 1997 the issue would be decided by military means.43 By 2000 reports indicated that China’s military was divided over the purchase of an aircraft carrier, with one group preferring the development of nuclear submarines instead.44 China’s fascination for the carrier has not ended, either in terms of air support for South China Sea operations or for the symbolic value. China’s sovereign claim over the South China Sea was given legal deﬁnition in the territorial law of 25 February 1992, which was passed by the

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31

Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. This law, entitled “Law of the People’s Republic of China on its territorial waters and their contiguous areas,” presents several problems of interpretation. Article 2 states that that the South China Sea is part of China’s territorial waters, which restricts the maritime rights of the international community. Article 8 permits China to adopt all necessary measures to prevent and stop the harmful passage of vessels through its territorial waters. Under Article 10 China’s navy is allowed to order the immediate eviction of foreign military vessels which violate Chinese laws as they pass through the South China Sea. Article 14 gives the PRC the right of hot pursuit of foreign military vessels to the high seas or to their countries’ territorial waters. The law gave China the right to control civil aviation, air services, and tanker trafﬁc in the area; all naval vessels would also be excluded and all offshore drilling would require China’s permission.45 Foreign Minister Qian Qichen at the ASEAN PMC in Manila in July 1992 said that the law simply reafﬁrmed China’s position and was no change in policy.46 On 9 February 1995 China was discovered to have occupied Mischief or Panganiban reef in the Philippine claim area. The Philippines released photographs showing Chinese-built structures on the reef including, four octagonal buildings standing on submerged reefs, guard posts with satellite dishes and a helipad; the Philippine navy destroyed Chinese markers and captured 62 Chinese ﬁshermen who had ventured into the area.47 After 1995 the Chinese strengthened their presence and in April 1996 the Philippine navy discovered the addition of two rectangular ﬁshing quarters at Mischief reef, which were extended in 1998 and completed in February 1999. Similar structures were built on Meiji and Johnson reefs as well. The Chinese had upgraded their presence at Fiery Cross reef which now served as a HQ, command centre and oceanographic observation post for activities in the area. Previously Fiery Cross reef had four satellite dishes, but in 1999 it had six; a pier capable of handling 4,000-ton vessels was also constructed.48 These constructions served a variety of purposes, including ﬁshing, oil exploration and the monitoring of shipping and naval activities of other claimants. They could also serve as bases for further expansion, but China’s weakness was insufﬁcient air support. The other claimants, except the Philippines, could call upon ground-based air support which would hinder Chinese moves beyond the Philippine claim area. ASEAN foreign ministries have stressed the bargaining strategy approach, the assumption being that China will eventually compromise with the region over a secondary issue. According to this approach China’s real interest is in the oil and gas reserves of the South China Sea and sovereignty is used as part of an elaborate bargaining strategy to gain the lion’s share of the area’s resources before they are exploited by contiguous states. China’s oil needs have dramatically risen as a result of China’s economic growth, and in 1993 it became a net importer of oil; by 2010 China is projected to import around 30–40 per cent of its needs.49 Despite these

32

Values, identity and the signiﬁcance of Taiwan to China

hopes China has shown little interest in negotiating the issue and has continued to insist on exclusive sovereignty over the area, which is inconsistent with its call for joint development of resources.50 Beijing has come no closer to deﬁning what joint development may mean, and despite numerous proposals from the ASEAN side none has been accepted by China. The then Deputy Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan claimed that there was no relationship between Taiwan and the South China Sea as one was a domestic issue and the other is an international dispute; but this was misleading.51 Claims to the South China Sea were raised at the same time as China became concerned about the Taiwan issue, the two issues became conﬂated as the so-called lost territories. China cannot consider negotiations over the South China Sea while it is still deeply engaged in the Taiwan issue. China’s claim to the South China Sea has been to some extent sustained by the Taiwan problem, and without the nationalist concern for territorial unity Beijing may have been more disposed towards compromise and the adjustment of claims. Negotiations may be possible but not while the Taiwan issue is unresolved. Taiwan poses a direct challenge to China’s traditional identity in terms of the concept of the state, and the Chinese deﬁnition of themselves as a nation. The weight of 5,000 years of recorded history reinforces a conception of the state that is unitary and centralised, and a conception of nationhood uniﬁed by a common script, literary traditions and education. Socialisation in the traditional concept of identity evokes strong emotions and state patriotism, in which case the idea of the separation of Taiwan is anathema. Taiwanese authorities stress that the island was ruled by the mainland only from 1945 to 1949, from 1895 until 1945 it was a colony of Japan and from 1949 has been autonomous. Taiwan has not shared the common experience of the mainland, its siniﬁcation in terms of the above identity has been incomplete, and its development has taken a different path. Indeed, separation facilitated the formation of a quasi-nationhood within Taiwan – one based on localism and language and which has been reinforced by the educational system. Separation has the effect of strengthening localism and of creating a national consciousness from local practices based on local history and language. Most signiﬁcant, separation allowed Taiwan to develop democratically, which stands in contrast to the authoritarianism of the mainland. Taiwan’s progressive democratisation has strengthened its separation and has given its people a reason to reject immediate uniﬁcation. Dramatisation of the issue of sovereignty over Taiwan allowed China’s military to assume an inﬂuential position over the party leadership. The issue provoked open declarations of support and commitment to sovereignty and territorial integrity in what became a power struggle between the party leadership and the military. In this struggle the PLA claimed the status of guardian of China’s sovereignty and nationalism.52 In April 1993 116 high-ranking PLA ofﬁcers called for an enlarged politburo meeting

Values, identity and the signiﬁcance of Taiwan to China

33

demanding a more assertive policy in reaction to Bush’s decision to sell 150 F-16s to Taiwan. Then in June 1993 there was another petition by PLA ofﬁcers to Deng over the Taiwan issue.53 In August 1993 the party leadership issued a conciliatory White Paper on Taiwan which afﬁrmed that Taiwan would be a special administrative region with a high degree of autonomy, it would retain its own military forces and the mainland would not dispatch troops or administrative personnel to the island, provided it accepted the one-China principle.54 As concerns about Taiwan’s separatism developed a seven-day conference on Taiwan was held in August 1994, which included the Central Committee, the State Council, the Central Military Commission (CMC) and other bodies, which was intended to build a consensus over the issue.55 In December 1994, a PLA strategy conference on Taiwan was held which included CMC ViceChairman Zhang Zhen, Chief of the General Staff Chi Haotian, and CMC member Zhang Wannian, together with retired generals such as Hong Xuezhi and Zhang Aiping. Chi Haotian declared that the Taiwanese plan to pursue “independence” described as “one China, one Taiwan” or “two Chinas” was equivalent to an “open declaration of war.” The Beijing leadership was advised to use “military means to resolve the issue,” preferably between the end of the century and 2005.56 Military pressure on the civilian leadership has been exercised through the state CMC which directs the armed forces, and maintains operational control over the military, discusses and ratiﬁes long-term defence plans, the defence budget, and other key aspects of defence policy.57 The CMC has been chaired by President Jiang Zemin since November 1989, with two vice-chairmen of military background, increased to four in October 1995 and reduced to three in 2002, and with a total membership of 8–9. The PLA reportedly has little inﬂuence over general foreign policy, but its demands over defence spending, force structure and deployments can have a crucial impact upon policy. Reports of conﬂict with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) over these issues have been rife as senior PLA ofﬁcers have been known to protest directly to the party leadership against MOFA handling of territorial issues such as Taiwan and the South China Sea. The party leadership has constructed an elaborate framework to manage foreign policy decision-making which sidelines the PLA and ensures civilian control. As Premier until 1997, Li Peng directed general foreign policy including the activities of MOFA, and coordinated the various ministries active in the area. The Premier was head of FALSG, or the Central Committee’s Foreign Affairs Leading Small Group, but Jiang Zemin was head of the TALSG, or the Taiwan Affairs Leading Small Group which came to assume a greater role in cross-straits relations.58 At the end of 1994 two trends were observable. The military was pushing for a resolution over the Taiwan issue and had criticised the party’s conciliatory approach as encouraging separatism. The party leadership attempted to impose greater control over the PLA, as senior ofﬁcers

34

Values, identity and the signiﬁcance of Taiwan to China

owed their appointments to the patriarch Deng and had proved difﬁcult to control. Jiang Zemin moved to secure the allegiance of the PLA through promotions. In July 1994 25 ofﬁcers were promoted to generals, over the 1992–1994 period some 400 senior ofﬁcers were promoted by him in an attempt to balance different factions within the PLA.59 In December 1994 Jiang held a series of meetings with the party committees of three PLA units and seven military regions to obtain the allegiance of the regional commanders. He reportedly strengthened his control over promotions within the military in a move against his opponents. In particular his concerns were at that stage Liu Huaqing, then aged 78, and Zhang Zhen, aged 80; both were CMC vice-chairmen and had been appointed by Deng during the 14th Party Congress in 1992.60 By 1994 Beijing had become disturbed by Taiwan President Lee Tenghui’s separatist policies and his desire for international recognition. The mainlander KMT regime imposed its rule upon the majority Taiwanese through an authoritarian system under a state of emergency that was not lifted until July 1987. The democratisation of Taiwan strengthened its separation from the mainland as the native Taiwanese majority came to power and broke with the mainlanders. Chiang Kai-shek’s son, the mainlander Chiang Ching-kuo, initiated the process of Taiwanisation and democratisation that was to have far-reaching repercussions subsequently. As Premier while his father still ruled in 1972, Chiang increased Taiwanese representation in the Cabinet and appointed the native Taiwanese Lee Teng-hui as minister without portfolio and vice-president in 1984.61 President Chiang came under pressure from the Reagan administration to democratise to save the regime, and on 23 September 1986 he allowed the formation of the native Taiwanese political party, the Democratic Progressive party (DPP) which participated in the by-elections for the legislature in December 1996.62 After Chiang’s death on 13 January 1988 Lee Tenghui emerged as the ﬁrst Taiwanese president and leader of the mainlander National People’s Party (KMT). He seized upon democratisation as the instrument of separation from the mainland. Once the Taiwanisation of government had started, moves to express a new identity and to redeﬁne Taiwan’s relationship with the mainland could be expected. The KMT had competed with the PRC for the right to represent China, and for Taiwan’s mainlanders this identiﬁcation with the mainland was basic to their own sense of identity as displaced Chinese. For the native Taiwanese, however, autonomy, independence and promotion of their local culture were desired, all which in their view had been suppressed by minority mainlander rule. Tensions and conﬂicts erupted between the two groups as the Taiwanese began to gain political power and gave expression to their conception of Taiwan. When the DPP drafted its political platform in October 1991 it included the demand for a “sovereign and independent Republic of Taiwan,” which does not belong to the PRC. The platform stated that the sovereignty of Taiwan does not extend

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35

to mainland China, which reﬂects “historical realities as well as the present situation.”63 The demand for a plebiscite to determine Taiwan’s future according to the principle of self-determination was adopted by the DPP at its 5th Congress in October 1991. Under Lee Teng-hui the KMT renounced the claim to China in 1991, which was endorsed by the 14th Party Congress in 1993. The DPP started to campaign on the basis of “one China one Taiwan,” and in Taiwan’s ﬁrst fully democratic legislative elections in December 1992 emerged as a serious competitor to the ruling KMT. The DPP won one-third of the seats and 31.9 per cent of the vote but had avoided the issue of independence which had cost votes in the 1991 elections. It campaigned on local issues such as graft and corruption which had tarnished the reputation of the KMT.64 Localism indeed gave the DPP an undoubted advantage over the KMT. Lee Teng-hui began to act as though Taiwan were already separate from the mainland, but he was still careful about its public deﬁnition. In early 1994 he was accused of harbouring a two-China doctrine, which he denied and consistently afﬁrmed that uniﬁcation was the ultimate goal.65 In 1991 the DDP announced a policy of joining the UN as a separate entity and by 1993 the notion was being promoted by government. The application was made to the UN in 1994 and was then sent to the UN Agenda Committee where it was opposed by Beijing. Lee announced a “Go South” policy in February 1994 according to which Taiwan would expand trade and investment relations with South-East Asia while banning direct trade and investment with China. The intention was to avoid excessive dependence upon China and to use trade and commercial relations to obtain South-East Asian political recognition of Taiwan as a separate entity. President Lee himself embarked on a South-East Asian tour in February 1994 where he visited Singapore, and met Philippine President Ramos at Subic Bay, and then spent ﬁve days in Bali where he met Indonesian President Suharto.66 On 5 July Taiwan released a White Paper which outlined the concept of two political entities within China, each with jurisdiction over a different part of China. According to this concept Taiwan would not compete with Beijing for the right to represent China and neither side would press for sovereignty over the other.67 By 1995 Lee began to use the term “Republic of China on Taiwan” instead of the familiar “Republic of China”; its ﬁrst use in a formal occasion was in the national day ceremony in October 1995.68 Democratisation and Taiwanisation presented a challenge to Beijing’s party leadership. Jiang Zemin revealed a ﬂexible disposition in relation to Taiwan indicating a willingness to go beyond the KMT and to accept the DPP in negotiations at some stage.69 He moved to impose control over Taiwan policy through his eight-point speech of 30 January 1995 in which he declared that the one-China principle was the basis of negotiation, that “Chinese will not attack Chinese,” that Beijing stood for peaceful reuniﬁcation but would not exclude force if Taiwan moved towards

36

Values, identity and the signiﬁcance of Taiwan to China

independence. He stressed that this was an internal issue and that China would not tolerate any foreign interference. Jiang also repeated the proposal contained in Beijing’s August 1993 White Paper according to which Taiwan would be allowed a high degree of autonomy and allowed to manage its own affairs.70 Lee Teng-hui responded with his six principles of 8 April 1995 where he insisted on China’s uniﬁcation on the basis of the reality that separate governments exist on both sides of the straits; the two shores are separately governed he declared.71 The Taiwanese unleashed a high proﬁle campaign for international recognition the main events being Lee Teng-hui’s visit to his Alma Mater Cornell University from 7–12 June 1995, and Taiwanese Premier Lien Chan’s visits to Austria and the Czech Republic from 15 to 22 June, which was the ﬁrst visit to Europe by a highranking Taiwanese leader. How the US Congress overruled the State Department, which had assured Beijing that Lee’s visit to the US would not be allowed, has been discussed elsewhere.72 Secretary of State Warren Christopher told the Chinese in April 1995 that Lee would not receive a visa, and on 2 and 9 May respectively the House and Senate approved a concurrent resolution in support of the Taiwanese president. On 9 June, at Cornell, Lee declared that he was ready to demand the impossible and seek diplomatic recognition for Taiwan. He reiterated that Taiwan is not part of the PRC, but that mutual respect and democracy would gradually lead to peaceful reuniﬁcation with the mainland.73 Lee used the term “Republic of China on Taiwan” on several occasions during this visit, which expressed his intention for separation from the mainland. Beijing’s reaction came quickly as cross-straits talks which had been initiated in 1992 were suspended on 16 June; on 17 June both China and the US recalled their respective ambassadors. Beijing resorted to a campaign of intimidation against Taiwan to discredit Lee with the Taiwanese population and to bring about his isolation. The campaign followed the pattern of behaviour associated with defenders of traditional Chinese identity, thunderous moral outrage, public castigation of the Taiwanese, and the proclamation of severe corrective action.74 Above all, the belief in the effectiveness of military deterrence in preventing Taiwan from declaring independence has been characteristic of the traditional approach. Beijing scholars and ofﬁcials insist that a government has the sovereign right to resort to military means to ensure state unity, and from that position they cannot publicly deviate. Beijing’s actions have, however, strengthened separatist sentiment within Taiwan and had the opposite effects from those intended. Persecution creates a mythology of victimisation and an awareness of separation, a potent factor in the creation of new nations.75 Examples abound where central governments resorted to force to suppress ethnic or national separatism and to stimulate a new national consciousness (Bangladesh in 1971 and Eritrea in 1993 are just two). Persecution and intimidation strengthen the feeling of alienation which makes for greater group bonding and identiﬁcation,

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creating a common experience where none may have existed before. Existing linguistic and cultural differences which previously may have been regarded as local variations are raised into major distinguishing characteristics and become the basis for a national mythology. Each individual act of intimidation becomes a component of the new mythology and a self-evident justiﬁcation of separation. It stimulates a strong search for a linguistic or cultural justiﬁcation for separation as an explanation for the persecution and it creates a new collective memory that becomes the basis of an emerging nationalism. It brings forward leaders who give expression to the emerging national self-consciousness that then seeks national selfdetermination. The Beijing party leadership moved to a hard-line policy which seemed vindicated by Lee’s response to the eight-point declaration of January 1995. Intimidation began over 21–28 July 1995 when four M-9 missiles and two DF-21 missiles were ﬁred into the sea 150 km north of Taiwan. These tests were part of a military exercise held off the coast of the mainland that began in late June. A second series of missile ﬁrings was held over 15–22 August, and new military exercises were conducted over 15–23 August 1995. Beijing’s sea and air exercises simulated a blockade as the navy performed manoeuvres to seal off the approaches to Taiwan, and to intercept possible US intervention.76 The hard-line policy allowed the PLA unwelcome inﬂuence over the party leadership, it criticised Jiang Zemin and the Foreign Ministry for failing to prevent Lee’s visit to the US.77 Reports indicate that Jiang Zemin allowed PLA Chief of Staff Zhang Wannian to organise the military manoeuvres and the missile ﬁrings against Taiwan with minimum supervision by the politburo.78 The party leadership was prompted to impose control over the military and in October 1995 Jiang Zemin strengthened his hold over the CMC by increasing the number of deputy chairmen from two to four. He introduced two new members, expanding the total membership to nine. Zhang Wannian and Defence Minister Chi Haotian were appointed deputy chairmen, which signiﬁed a move by Jiang to use allies to balance his critics within the CMC, Liu Huaqing and Zhang Zhen.79 Zhang Zhen was reported to have criticised Jiang’s eight-point proposal and deﬁed his authority in other ways.80 It was predicted that the CMC would be given more power over diplomacy and domestic affairs and would become an organ enabling the party leadership to exercise greater control over Taiwan policy. A civilian secretary-general was to be appointed to the CMC, a position which was created in 1987 and abolished in 1992.81 These changes did not take place and there was no change in Taiwan policy; another round of intimidation against Taiwan was conducted in March 1996. In this situation it would be inaccurate to portray the situation as one in which the party leadership was captive of the military hardliners, as did the Hong Kong press. Events showed that party leadership and the military may have had different views about how to approach Taiwan in early 1995, but after Lee’s visit to the US the party

38

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leadership appropriated the military approach as its own. Jiang, however, did not really establish his control over the military until after the 15th Party Congress in September 1997 when he obtained the retirement of Liu Huaqing and Zhang Zhen. Through this calculated military intimidation Beijing had intended to inﬂuence Taiwanese voter sentiment in the legislative elections, which were scheduled for December, and in the presidential elections in March 1996. During the missile launches the Taiwan stock market plunged and there was the panic selling of Taiwanese currency, while President Lee’s popularity dropped as indicated by a poll conducted at this time.82 A similar poll conducted in September revealed that 54.8 per cent of Taiwanese approached said that they would not vote for a presidential candidate advocating independence; some 60.7 per cent wanted the status quo to continue.83 The message seemed to be that Lee Teng-hui’s policy of challenging Beijing was not popular with voters, who valued stability but who also had revealed little interest in reuniﬁcation. Lee judiciously avoided any reference to independence but stressed that Beijing must respect Taiwan’s democracy as a “precondition” for uniﬁcation, and that Beijing had to recognise Taiwan as a “separate political entity” before negotiations could begin.84 On a later occasion he declared that Taiwan was seeking “international diplomatic living space” and “international stature for the survival of the nation, and the dignity of our people. This cannot be changed by threats or coercion.”85 Lee also stressed that uniﬁcation must guarantee democracy for all Chinese people and again declared that Taiwan was not a province of China.86 Premier Lien Chan similarly voiced opposition to Beijing’s “one country two systems” formula which would reduce Taiwan to the status of a local government. Taiwanese legislative elections were held on 2 December 1995 and witnessed the growing strength of the DPP and the corresponding steady decline of the KMT. DPP seats increased from 50 to 54, its share of the vote increased from 31.03 per cent to 33.17 per cent. The KMT decline from 96 to 85 seats was accompanied by the rise of the pro-uniﬁcation New Party which saw its representation increase from 7 to 21 seats; this could be seen as success for Beijing. Domestic issues such as KMT corruption ﬁgured prominently in these elections in which the issue of independence was downplayed. The DPP beneﬁted in broadening its base of appeal to go beyond the issue of independence and to attract support over local issues.87 After the elections on 16 December the US carrier Nimitz travelled through the Taiwan Straits indicating US support for the Taiwanese. The March 1996 presidential elections were a test of Lee Teng-hui’s reputation. A constitutional amendment of 1994 permitted direct elections for the presidency for the ﬁrst time, a major step for Taiwan’s democratisation. Beijing prepared for a massive campaign of intimidation and reportedly planned for the occupation of the offshore islands, as well as a naval blockade of Taiwan which was to be accompanied by missile attacks.

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The reports from the Hong Kong press were that Beijing planned to blockade Taiwan before the US would have the time to respond, thereby imposing a settlement upon Taiwan and perhaps forcing Lee Teng-hui to resign.88 The reports claimed that the PLA wanted to push ahead with plans to invade Taiwan, and that Jiang Zemin had become hostage to the PLA hawks who demanded action against Taiwan once and for all before Taiwan obtained sophisticated weapons. Action was demanded before the DPP movement became stronger, and the PLA lobby claimed that the US would not intervene in an election year.89 Beijing resorted to various channels to convey an ominous sense of threat hanging over Taiwan, but the absence of a capability to give effect to its threats rendered them unconvincing. Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff John Shakashvili declared publicly in February 1996 that China did not have the capability to invade Taiwan, or the ability to conduct amphibious operations.90 Beijing could at least resort to missile launchings once again. Over 8–15 March 1996, 4 M-9s with dummy warheads were launched, a military exercise in the Taiwan Straits was conducted from 18–25 March 1996 to simulate an invasion of the island, and over 12–20 March a sea- and air-exercise was held. President Clinton ordered two carrier groups to anchor outside the Taiwan Straits – the Nimitz proceeded from the Persian Gulf to join the Independence and both were in place before the elections. In the presidential elections of 23 March 1996 Lee attempted to defuse the issue of independence and stated repeatedly that he would seek reuniﬁcation with China; President Lee won 54 per cent of the vote, and Peng Min-min of the DPP 21.1 per cent. The KMT split in 1995 over Lee’s actions between those who supported him for another term and those who wanted him to resign and to make way for the next generation of leaders. His two challengers in the KMT broke with the party and campaigned under different labels; Chen Lian, head of the administrative body called the Control Yuan, campaigned as an independent and won 10 per cent of the votes; Lin Yang-ken, KMT party vice-chairman, was most critical of Lee claiming that promoting independence would damage Taiwan and that direct links with the mainland were required. Lin campaigned with the New Party and won 14.9 per cent of the votes.91 The results indicated a personal success for Lee who was elected president in Taiwan’s ﬁrst fully democratic presidential elections. Despite Beijing’s efforts to discredit him and to associate him with chaos he was returned with more than the expected votes (according to KMT Secretary General Hsu Shui-the Lee expected only 51 per cent); moreover, Beijing’s threats aroused anger in Taiwan and actually strengthened Lee’s position, while the US military presence offered comfort to Taiwanese voters.92 Nonetheless, the message of the elections was that Taiwanese voters wanted the status quo to continue, not independence. The vote against independence, plus the votes for the two opposition candidates, was 24.8 per cent – greater than the vote for the DPP or the independence vote.93 DPP supporters claimed that

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President Lee had appropriated their policies and that many had crossed over to vote for him in the face of Beijing’s attacks. On the mainland, there was the belated realisation that Lee had beneﬁted from the campaign of intimidation in which Beijing’s actions were perceived as not just directed against separation but against democracy.94 Could Beijing have behaved in another way? Beijing had various alternative options available to it to prevent it from being perceived as an enemy of democracy. It could have launched the missiles in 1995 and could have stayed silent before the elections in March, letting the elections take their natural course. If Beijing had desisted from this action perhaps DPP voters would not have shifted to Lee and his vote may have been reduced. Certainly there would not have been any need for US carrier deployments, the situation would not have escalated and the ire of America’s conservative Republican right would not have been provoked. Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew commented on Chinese decisionmaking at this juncture, pointing to the traditional response in which a demonstration of power is required in the face of a challenge. As Lee’s own management of Singapore politics shows, even trivial dissent can become a challenge to Chinese authority where harmony and conformity to the wishes of the leadership are demanded. The leadership must save face and such challenges are dealt with summarily by all available means to warn others of what they may expect if they dare oppose the leadership. Lee Kuan Yew wrote that he met Li Peng in Beijing in October 1995, the latter explaining the basis of Beijing’s anger. They had studied a video of his speech at Cornell and had noted that there was no mention of reuniﬁcation.95 Lee Kuan Yew also asked Jiang Zemin why the mainland could not absorb Taiwan gradually and have the beneﬁt of its economy and technology. Jiang answered that China did not see it that way.96 Beijing could not see it any other way because of culturally shaped patterns of behaviour in which saving face was a most important consideration. There was an inability to appreciate the signiﬁcance of democratisation, characteristic of authoritarian rulers, and perceptible alarm at the threat to identity posed by Taiwan’s separatism. Beijing scholars claimed that without the display of power over 1995–1996 Lee Teng-hui would have declared independence.97 Beijing feared that Taiwan was on the verge of declaring independence – a trend had been developing for the past decade – and if nothing were done it would quickly acquire international support and legitimacy. Premier Li Peng said the same in Paris in April 1996 when he declared that the independence movement had been successfully curbed by military deterrence.98 Lee Teng-hui was supposedly pushed into a friendlier position after the elections which, according to Beijing, prevented him from receiving support within East Asia.99 Lee Teng-hui was in no position to declare independence in any case. He knew that any such declaration would have then provoked a hostile reaction from Beijing, with the risk of losing US

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and Japanese support. Through this act he would have broken his relationship with the US and would have been compelled to face Beijing’s wrath alone. Moreover, Taiwanese political divisions would have worked to Beijing’s advantage. The party of independence, the DPP, was heavily faction ridden and split between the minority pro-independence New Tide faction, estimated to be 15–20 per cent of the party, and the moderate majority in the Formosa faction. The DPP had discovered during the December 1991 legislative elections that the independence platform cost votes and so subsequently downplayed the issue and campaigned on local issues.100 The Formosa faction later wanted to amend the political programme to eliminate the commitment to independence or to substitute it with a plebiscite clause. This was attempted at the Party Congress in March 1999, but was strongly opposed by the New Tide fundamentalists.101 The demand for independence, even within the DPP, was contentious and support in Taiwanese politics was lacking. Lee Teng-hui carefully avoided the notion of independence. Beijing’s actions had emboldened him and assured him of American support, but still he was careful not to take the ﬁnal provocative step. In his inauguration speech of May 1996 he declared that Taiwan had always been a sovereign state and that “it is totally unnecessary or impossible to adopt the so-called course of Taiwan independence.” Again he used the term “Republic of China on Taiwan.” He would seek “enough room for existence and development” as well as the respect and treatment that Taiwan deserves in the international arena.102 In an interview with the Washington Post he repeatedly called Taiwan an “independent and sovereign country” and stressed that “Taiwan is a symbol of American idealism.”103 Perhaps the summit of Lee’s separatist aspirations was reached in July 1999 with the promulgation of the so-called “two-states theory” according to which dialogue with the mainland can only be conducted on a special state-tostate basis. On 9 July President Lee told Deutsche Welle radio that “the relations between China and Taiwan is one between countries, instead of one between a legitimate government, or a central government against a local one.”104 The declaration was Lee’s own contribution and it is doubtful whether he was supported by the government as a whole. Lee claimed that the theory was a product of a year-long study by a committee of advisers, but the reality is otherwise. Lee apparently did not consult with the cabinet, and when it met on 13 July ministers had little idea of the new theory. Neither the Standing Committee of the KMT Central Committee nor the National Reuniﬁcation Council was consulted in the process, yet they were expected to be involved in such matters. It seems that the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) was consulted, and it devised a softer and less challenging formula called “two states, one nation” which was rejected by Lee.105 In a Rotary club speech on 13 July Lee softened his position somewhat by avoided mention of two states: “our dealings with China must be conducted on an equal basis in equal attitude. We will push for dialogue

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and negotiations between the two sides on an equal footing.”106 Lee suggested that the Taiwan constitution might be changed to reﬂect this new reality, a proposal supported by the DPP but opposed by the KMT, which had a clear majority in the legislative Yuan. Over this issue Lee was acting in a personal capacity and did not reﬂect views in government. Beijing had dismissed Lee as a “troublemaker,” regarded the DPP as a threat and hoped to return to the days of KMT rule. There was much wishful thinking in Beijing’s attitude, and the hope was that through threats and intimidation it could shape the course of Taiwanese politics to its own liking, and reverse the trend towards democracy. With democratisation, however, it could be expected that the DPP would come to power eventually, that KMT fortunes would correspondingly decline, and that threat and intimidation would facilitate the process. Beijing had not understood that Lee Teng-hui was drawing upon strong separatist sentiment from his community and that he could not be simply isolated through the intimidation of Taiwanese voters. As the Taiwanese presidential elections approached in March 2000 Beijing was faced with the prospect of a DPP president as Lee was limited by the constitution to one term of ofﬁce. Some hard-line Beijing ofﬁcials expressed their frustration by intimating to the US that the mainland would invade Taiwan if the DPP candidate Chen Shui-bian won the elections and declared independence.107 Beijing’s efforts to deal with the coming elections revealed deep divisions and disagreements that prevented the development of an integrated policy. VicePremier Qian Qichen assumed a more prominent role in Taiwan policy, an indication of caution. Nonetheless, in January 2000 Qian declared that Taiwanese voters would be playing with ﬁre if they elected a DPP president, and that this could only mean war.108 Chen Shui-bian moved to defuse tensions with Beijing and made it clear that he would not act like Lee Teng-hui, that he would not include the “two-states theory” in the constitution, and would not declare independence unless Beijing invaded Taiwan. Subsequently Qian adopted a conciliatory approach reﬂecting more restrained opinion in Beijing. He announced that anything could be negotiated with Taiwan, including its future political status provided that the “one-China” principle were accepted as a foundation. He stressed that Beijing was willing to discuss the issue of international space for Taiwan’s economic, cultural and social activities, and to allow it more autonomy than Hong Kong or Macau.109 Qian’s conciliatory address was timed for the ﬁfth anniversary of Jiang Zemin’s eight-point proposal and represented a moderate line which reopened the old wounds with the hardliner groups. On 21 February 2000 Beijing announced its second White Paper on Taiwan which incorporated a new condition in relation to Taiwan. Previously, Beijing stated that it would use force if Taiwan declared independence or if foreign powers occupied Taiwan. Now it was stated that the right to force could be exercised if Taiwan delayed reuniﬁcation for too

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long, but there was no deadline or timetable attached.110 The White Paper was indeed evidence of prolonged conﬂict between various groups over Taiwan policy as both Qian Qichen and Premier Zhu Rongji downplayed the White Paper. Qian claimed that Deng Xiaoping in October 1984 had made a similar warning not to delay reuniﬁcation, and that it was nothing new.111 Others reportedly wanted the White Paper promulgated after the Taiwanese elections to avoid the appearance of attempting to inﬂuence them.112 According to one report the White Paper was issued without consulting the Foreign Ministry, which received a copy six hours after Xinhua released the contents.113 The paper was reportedly praised by deputy CMC Chairman Zhang Wannian and the PLA Army Daily and was regarded as a product of PLA inﬂuence over policy.114 The absence of a deadline indicated that a compromise had been reached as there were reports that the military had pressed for a ﬁxed timetable at the expiration of which Beijing would resort to military action. Former Chengdu military commander Li Jiulong echoed the demand for a ﬁxed deadline, and Commander of the 16th Army Corps Fang Changlong claimed that the warning in the White Paper reﬂected the view of the PLA.115 Joffe claimed that the Chinese military had acquired an “unprecedented potential for political inﬂuence,” and that the military had deﬁned the consensus over the Taiwan issue which the party leadership was obliged to follow.116 Other reports indicated that the consensus was shaped by a wider group than the military, and the idea of a strong warning to Taiwan had much support within government.117 The 18 March 2000 Taiwanese elections resulted in a DPP victory, and Chen Shui-bian was elected president and successor to Lee Tengi-hui with 39 per cent of the vote; independent candidate James Soong received 37 per cent, and KMT candidate Lien Chan received 23 per cent. Lee had split the KMT vote, since as KMT party leader he had in 1997 designated the DPP candidate Chen, who was more in sympathy with his views, as his successor. He drew support away from the KMT to the DPP, contributing to its victory and prompting Soong’s resignation from the KMT where he had supported a pro-reuniﬁcation position. The elections could not be regarded as a vote for independence as the opposition candidates Lien Chan and Soong together won 60 per cent of the vote. The results also signalled that reuniﬁcation with Beijing had become unpopular with Taiwanese voters; both opposition candidates had downplayed reuniﬁcation as an issue during the campaign anticipating greater support for the DPP. The KMT candidate Lien Chan declared that reuniﬁcation was out of the question while mainland China was under communist rule, while the mainlander James Soong rejected Beijing’s “one country two systems” formula.118 Once again, Beijing miscalculated the effects of its actions on Taiwanese voters. If the intention of the White Paper and the related warnings was to prevent the election of the DPP candidate it was an admission that Beijing had little inﬂuence over politics in Taiwan.

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Despite Beijing’s fears the DPP president pursued a circumspect strategy of balancing his role as party leader and his position as Taiwan’s head of state. As party leader he was obliged to express the idea of independence for Taiwan, which he was required to downplay as head of state who is ultimately responsible for the conduct of Taiwan’s relations with Beijing. He stressed that he would distinguish between party and state interests in his policies, would develop a cross party coalition within Taiwan to deal with Beijing, and proposed a “goodwill” visit to Beijing before his inauguration on 20 May.119 Chen also suggested that the independence clause in the DPP charter may be revised, promised that Taiwan would not hold a plebiscite on its future as adopted by the DPP in 1991, and that the name of the country would not be altered to the “Republic of Taiwan.” President Chen judiciously avoided talk of independence, though he was pressed in this direction by his presidential adviser Yao Jia-wen and by his national policy advisers Kao Jun-ming, and Huang Chao-tang.120 The one occasion when he let his position as party chairman interfere with his position as president was during his video conference of 3 August 2002 for Taiwanese living in Japan. Then he referred to the “two-states theory” saying that “each side is a country. This needs to be clear.” He also called for legislation to allow a referendum which as president he had renounced in his inauguration speech of 20 May 2000.121 Chen faced the backlash from Beijing accordingly and criticism from the Americans who feared an attempt to bind the US to a policy of independence for Taiwan.122 Beijing had insisted that it would not deal with the DPP as long as it retained the independence clause in its charter. It had invited KMT ViceChairman Wu Po-hsiung in November 2000 as the highest-ranking KMT leader to visit the mainland since 1949, the objective being to encourage the KMT in Taiwanese politics and to give it a stronger hand against the DPP as the party that could bring stability in cross-straits relations and improved business contacts with the mainland.123 In the legislative elections of 1 December 2001, however, the DPP emerged as the largest party in parliament and the KMT lost control. The KMT was torn asunder by conﬂict between mainlanders and locals and its representation in the legislature dropped from 123 seats in 1998 to 68 in 2001, with its share of the vote dropping from 46 per cent to 28 per cent; the DPP went from 66 seats in 1998 to 87 in 2001, with its share of the vote increasing from 29.56 per cent to 36.57 per cent. The pro-reuniﬁcation New Party fell from eight seats to one and was almost eliminated. KMT supporters switched to the new People’s First Party (PFP) under James Soong, which had split from the KMT in 2000 and won 46 seats; Lee Teng-hui broke from the KMT before the elections and created his own pro-independence Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) which won 13 seats.124 Premier Chang Chun-hsiung announced that the results were a rejection of the “one country two systems” formula and hoped that Beijing would come to understand

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Taiwan’s political development. The editorial of the Taipei Times was triumphant; the elections were a “slap in the face of China” and that “Beijing’s leadership should understand that they must deal with a united people.”125 Chen and the DPP had greater conﬁdence than ever, which was reﬂected in the mainlander James Soong’s shift of position. In deference to public opinion Soong called for a “one China two seats” or “one roof, two seats, three links” formula, and appealed to Beijing to respect Taiwan’s development space. He also called on Beijing to allow Taiwan to participate in non-political international organisations and to give up the threat of force against Taiwan.126 Does Taiwan qualify for the status of a nation to justify the demand for self-determination? Most authorities stress the subjective component of nationhood and, like Walker Connor, regard the phenomenon as a matter of emotional self-identiﬁcation.127 Nationhood implies a “psychological bond” that unites people and distinguishes them from others; it is a sense of group belonging or a belief in the group’s “separate origin and evolution” which does not require shared ethnicity. Nationhood is a self-deﬁned phenomenon which is distinguished from the objective term “ethnos” deﬁned in terms of common language, culture and related factors.128 Smith notes that a modern nation embraces the subjective factor, or selfidentiﬁcation in a historical–cultural community, as well as the objective factor in the idea of a legal political community, bound to a particular territory which is regarded as its homeland.129 Gellner stresses that neither self-identiﬁcation nor shared culture is sufﬁcient for nationhood and that there has to be a nationalism and the desire for self-government in a separate state. Gellner identiﬁes nation creation as a product of nationalism, which involves the organisation of human groups into “centrally educated, culturally homogeneous units.”130 According to Gellner nationalism invokes a high culture, deﬁned as a written language, literature, religion or philosophy, and imposes this upon society through centrally directed education. High cultures are identiﬁed with the world’s universal religions or cultural traditions; they absorb and displace low cultures which are derived from local traditions and cults. High cultures allow uniﬁcation into wider groups associated with civilisations and are sustained through education and literacy. Nations may be created as a product of the rejection of an alien high culture, or the elevation of a local or low culture into a substitute high culture which gives it expression in a written language and situates it in terms of historical tradition.131 Taiwan’s separateness is a result of victimisation which goes back to the imposition of mainlander rule at the end of the Chinese civil war. As the mainlanders retreated to the island they brought a contempt for locals which provoked open revolt in the 28 February 1947 uprising, which was suppressed with a death toll of up to 8,000. Chang Yen-hsien claimed in 1988 that “this incident was the single event after World War II that inﬂuenced Taiwan in the most concrete, profound and enduring way. Until the

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present numerous political and social problems in Taiwan still go back to that incident.”132 After the uprising the KMT imposed martial law on the island and repressed local political expression in periodic sweeps – called the “white terror” by the Taiwanese. The result was the creation of an independence movement amongst the Taiwan exiles in the US and Japan which culminated in the establishment of the DPP in 1986. When the Hakka Lee Teng-hui became president he apologised for the February 1947 massacre and in 1993 cabinet approved compensation for the surviving victims and relatives. President Lee unveiled a monument to this uprising and decreed that 28 February was to be a national holiday in Taiwan. Beijing’s traditional response towards separatism and regime challenges has been the unabashed resort to force and the suppression of the prodemocracy movement at Tiananmen Square of 4 June 1989, and the missile attacks of 1995–1996 were part of this pattern. The impact upon Taiwan was to justify Lee Teng-hui’s claims for separatism, to make him a more popular ﬁgure amongst his supporters and to portray Beijing as a dangerous enemy of Taiwan’s democratisation. To the existing collective memory of suppression at the hands of mainlander rule was added the new fear of centralised rule at the hands of Beijing. Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council has claimed that support for independence grows with Beijing’s threats. It was highest after Beijing threatened Taiwan after the promulgation of the “two-states theory” in 1999, and then dropped as Beijing softened its position in 2001.133 Under Lee Teng-hui a process of nation creation on the back of a longawaited process of democratisation was initiated in Taiwan to support the claim for separation. The Taiwanese government sought to utilise the collective memory of the above experience to establish a national mythology which would distinguish Taiwan from the mainland. In June 1993 there was the establishment of the Preparatory Ofﬁce of the Institute of Taiwan History whose purpose was the study of Taiwan history, as distinct from that of mainland China. Taiwanese school text books were changed to reﬂect this new emphasis, placing the study of Taiwan history before Chinese. To support the claim for separation Taiwanese history stressed that the Treaty of Shimonoseki, according to which China ceded Taiwan to Japan on 17 April 1895, allowed the Taiwanese to declare the Republic of Taiwan as Asia’s ﬁrst independent republic.134 The government now promotes Fukien, Hakka, Hoklo and aboriginal languages in schools as a move against “mandarin chauvinism.” Identity cards, which used to have a small box to note one’s village on the mainland or in Taiwan, were altered in 1992 to remove this link with the past. Government promoted a concept of nationhood modelled on the idea of the “new Taiwanese” as a basis for common values which embraced all languages and ethnic groups.135 The high–local culture distinction is important, however, as this is not a case where nationalists seek to throw off an alien high culture and to substitute their own. The Taiwanese share the written language, literary and

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47

Confucian traditions of Chinese high culture with the Beijing leadership, which prevents the creation of a distinct national movement. The Taiwanese search for an identity within Chinese high culture that will allow them to express their localism with its folk traditions, local languages and customs.136 Under the inﬂuence of Lee Teng-hui more people have deﬁned themselves as Taiwanese, with a corresponding decrease in people calling themselves Chinese. This shift in opinion has inﬂuenced the political parties contributing to the demise of the New Party, and the shift towards the Taiwanese position on the part of the KMT.137 Nonetheless, the Taiwanese are not willing to jettison their identity as Chinese with its association with Chinese high culture, and most regard themselves as both Taiwanese and Chinese. Polls conducted by the Trendgo Survey Research Company in March 1999 have revealed that 35.9 per cent of those polled called themselves Taiwanese, 11.4 per cent regarded themselves as exclusively Chinese, while 49.1 per cent regarded themselves as both Taiwanese and Chinese. In a similar vein the Mainland Affairs Council’s polls of October 1998 noted that only 7 per cent called for independence, and 2.4 per cent for reuniﬁcation, while the vast majority wanted a continuation of the status quo.138 Taiwanese speak of a “Taiwanese nationalism” and seek to distinguish between the cultural and the political dimensions of being Chinese.139 They claim that the concept of China is cultural or civilisational and point to Singapore or Malaysia where the local Chinese have been organised into separate sovereign states which Beijing recognises. The Taiwanese have exhibited certain characteristics of an emergent nationalism as they grope for a separate identity, but they strongly identify with Chinese high culture and there is no agreement or consensus on a Taiwanese nation or self-determination.140 The unity required to justify the claim for Taiwanese nationhood is absent. Indeed, one of the consequences of DPP electoral success has been an exacerbation of existing divisions between the native Taiwanese and those of mainlander origin who identify themselves as Chinese ﬁrst.141 The polarisation of opinion also involves the business community, which seeks closer ties with the mainland and whose ethnic identiﬁcation cuts across these divisions.142 Rather than a united nationalism the Taiwanese experience has been regarded as a “defensive nativism” against the mainland, and against all whose grandparents were not born in Taiwan.143 Others have regarded native Taiwanese claims in terms of “false ethnicity,” which has been promoted to the level of nationalism by DPP supporters.144 Taiwan is a case of perceived unjust treatment by central authorities which has created a movement for secession without the cultural or ethnic basis for separation. In Taiwan pronounced localism has been embellished into a nationalism as a consequence of democratisation and perceived victimisation at the hands of those representing the mainland. The Taiwanese have attempted to foster the development of a corresponding sense of nationhood by cultivating a collective memory through

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education, the media, and the construction of public monuments which acclaim their separation from the mainland. Beijing’s threats have conveniently added to the strength of this movement and have demonstrated the value of the democratisation achieved, in stark contrast to the mainland. Nonetheless, the nationalism remains limited, conﬁned and increasingly frustrated, being unable to consummate its purpose in the formation of a nation. Taiwan remains a country divided over the signiﬁcance of localism and its relation to Chinese high culture of which it is a part. It cannot repudiate that high culture, nor can it renounce the ethnic links and the historical ties that still bind it to the mainland. By the late 1990s there was a noticeable adjustment in Beijing’s approach to both Taiwan and the South China Sea. In the early 1990s the theme of the lost territories was especially promoted by the military in terms of the overriding importance of reuniﬁcation and China’s maritime rights. The party leadership had been pushed to adopt a confrontational approach over Taiwan with the result that the US was involved and the American commitment to Taiwan reafﬁrmed. Beijing could not shape the course of Taiwanese politics through military intimidation while Taiwan was assured of American protection, and its attempt to do so strengthened support for Lee Teng-hui and Taiwanese separatism. Beijing had misunderstood the nature of Taiwan’s position and the American commitment and had too readily assumed that the Clinton administration would avoid risking conﬂict over this issue. The Clinton administration similarly became involved in the South China Sea when the Philippines signed a Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) with the US on 10 February 1998 which allowed US forces to visit Philippine facilities and to conduct joint exercises. The result was that the US had emerged as a counter-balancer to Beijing in both cases, which induced its leaders to move from strategies of confrontation and all their attendant risks to diplomatic approaches. Beijing had not surrendered its position over Taiwan but had adopted less confrontational approaches that mixed ﬁrmness with sufﬁcient ﬂexibility to stimulate interest in negotiations. Over the South China Sea Beijing moved to a holding position to avoid conﬂict and to preserve existing gains until the resolution of the issue in the future. In both cases the adoption of more accommodating diplomatic tactics was noticeable, which did not necessarily indicate a change in strategy and objectives. The immediate result of VFA was the resumption of regular military exercises, called Balikatan, between the Philippines and the US beginning in February 2000 off Palawan. Beyond military exercises the VFA, however, was a result of an upgraded US interest in the South China Sea because of events in the Taiwan straits. For the US there was a deﬁnite link between Taiwan and the South China Sea as assertive Chinese action in relation to Taiwan could result in further expansion in the South China Sea and a threat to vital sea lanes. The concern about Chinese hegemony over the South China Sea was intensiﬁed after the Mischief reef/Taiwan

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49

straits events of 1995–1996 and induced the US to assume a more immediate stabilising role. In August 1999 two US aircraft carriers, USS Kitty Hawk and the Constellation moved into the South China Sea, which was reportedly a response to tension in the Taiwan straits at the time of Lee Teng-hui’s announcement of the two-states theory. In August 2001 this exercise was repeated when the Carl Vinson and Constellation, with 13 escort vessels, staged manoeuvres in the area as a response to Beijing’s war games and simulation of an attack upon Taiwan.145 China had consistently warned ASEAN against involving the US in the South China Sea dispute, but its actions had blocked off alternative options for the Philippines. The US role has not been accepted by all within ASEAN as Malaysia’s Mahathir has endorsed the Chinese position that only claimant countries should be involved. Moreover, the US role would not prevent minor clashes involving Chinese ﬁshing vessels, which indeed continue.146 A major move by China against the other claimants in the way once thought possible would be most unlikely while the US retains an interest in the area. According to the ASEAN diplomatic community China has become more interested in and receptive to dialogue, a change which is directly attributed to the American role.147 Within Beijing there are efforts to separate the two claims based on the distinction between homeland and peripheral territory. Chinese ofﬁcials with the State Oceanic Administration (SOA) say that China’s historic right does not translate into sovereignty and is limited to resource beneﬁts only. These ofﬁcials suggested that China may take the lead to negotiate the issue multilaterally, and that there would be no resolution of the issue without China taking the initiative.148 China has an incentive to avoid aggressive action in the South China Sea which would push the ASEAN countries into a closer security relationship with the US. China’s interests with ASEAN include diplomatic alignments and economic agreements such as the proposed Free Trade Agreement (FTA), all which could be destroyed by rash action in the South China Sea. In relation to Taiwan, Beijing’s hope is that the rapid development of trade and commercial links with the mainland will create the conditions for reuniﬁcation. Jiang Zemin declared that Beijing’s strategy was to make Taiwan dependent on the mainland, in which case the Taiwanese business community would be cast in the role of an ally. Beijing has encouraged trade with Taiwan and Taiwanese investment in the mainland in the expectation that economic convergence will bring about political convergence and that Taiwan will be gradually absorbed by the mainland. Economic integration holds out the prospect of reuniﬁcation by stealth as both sides ﬁnd themselves joined together in an economic embrace. Taiwan’s business community strongly criticised Lee Teng-hui, calling for peace with Beijing and for a removal of the restrictions on contacts with the mainland. The Taiwanese government had banned direct travel, trade and postal links with the mainland; trade and investment with the mainland

50

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was routed via Hong Kong and Macau; investment in the mainland was limited to $50 million per project and was banned in the semiconductor and notebook computer industries. Taiwanese companies, however, circumvented this restriction by registering in countries of convenience, such as the Cayman Islands, in order to operate in the mainland. Despite these restrictions 22 per cent of Taiwan’s exports went to the mainland in 1996, and over 1991–1996 a total of $14.9 billion in investment was recorded. Nonetheless, Lee himself came under strong business pressure from business leaders such as Chang Yung-fa of the Evergreen group who publicly criticised the ban on direct trade. Moreover, Premier Lien Chan was a strong advocate of business links with the mainland and declared that commercial interests should take precedence over political interests, a policy which President Lee resisted.149 Lee was responsive to business concerns and in his inaugural speech of 20 May 1996 announced that investment would be allowed in 451 categories of business, such as shipping and supermarkets, that trade restrictions will be eased, and that postal and transport links with the mainland would be permitted in the future.150 Lee also agreed to let Taiwanese ofﬁcials visit the mainland and designated Kaoshiung as an offshore shipping centre for trade with the mainland. Since the eruption of the Asian ﬁnancial crisis over 1997–1998 Taiwan has been thrown into greater dependence upon the mainland for its own economic survival, particularly as the global electronics market contracted. According to statistics issued by the Taiwanese Board of Foreign Trade, by 2001 trade with the mainland reached $31.7 billion or 26 per cent of exports. Taiwanese manufacturers shifted an estimated 30 per cent of computer-related production to China where labour costs were 10 per cent cheaper. The Taiwan investment commission claimed that the cumulative ﬁgure for investment approvals was $13.2 billion or 43 per cent of Taiwan’s overseas investments; Beijing provided a ﬁgure of $21 billion, with other estimates being as high as $70 billion.151 By 2001 some 50,000 Taiwanese companies were operating on the mainland, and according to reports Taiwanese companies accounted for 60 per cent of China’s information technology exports; some 50 per cent of Taiwan’s information technology products were manufactured in the mainland.152 In 2002 there were an estimated 300,000 Taiwanese working in Shanghai, and 200,000 in Suzhou, which was an indication of converging economies. In 2002 the mainland surpassed the US as Taiwan’s largest export market, and in March 2002 Beijing allowed two Taiwanese banks to operate on the mainland, the United World Chinese Commercial Bank and Chang Hwa bank; direct remittances between Taiwan and the mainland were also approved.153 Taiwanese companies had pressed the government for direct shipping and commercial air links with China to avoid the costs and the inconvenience of using Hong Kong and Macau. In January 2001 the ban on direct trade and postal links between the mainland and the offshore

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islands Kinmen, Matsu, Penghu was lifted by Taiwanese parliament; the ban on direct investment was eased gradually and on 7 November 2001 a new policy eased the $50 million cap on investment projects. The ban on non-high technology areas was removed but retained in infrastructure and high technology projects. Beijing adopted a more conciliatory approach towards the DPP after its victory in the legislative elections of December 2001. On 24 January 2002 Qian Qichen said that Beijing would distinguish between the vast majority of DPP supporters and the small number of stubborn independence activists. He issued an invitation to moderate DPP members to visit Beijing; hard core supporters were not invited.154 Taiwanese business pressed for the removal of all limits on investment in China and in August 2002 Taipei’s Ministry of Economic Affairs allowed semiconductor manufacturers to invest in plants in Shanghai subject to certain conditions.155 New regulations that will allow travel between Taiwan and China via Kinmen and Matsu were also announced.156 Most problematic for the Taiwanese leadership was the proposal to restore the “three links” (direct shipping, air and postal ties) with the mainland, which was strongly supported by business. Beijing insisted that negotiations with Taiwan proceed on the basis of the “one-China” principle which struck at the heart of Taiwan’s claim for separation. Under pressure Chen Shui-bian announced on 10 May 2002 that he would allow negotiations over the three links.157 President Chen’s willingness to send a DPP delegation to the mainland to negotiate the “three links” had his DPP supporters concerned, the fear being that business would be held to ransom by Beijing which would then be able to apply pressure at will. Beijing has demonstrated a willingness to use trade for this purpose. In 2000 Lee Bingcai, deputy director of the mainland’s Taiwan Affairs Council, warned that Beijing would not allow Taiwanese business to proﬁt from the mainland while supporting independence at home. Taiwanese companies considered to be supporters of the DPP have been harassed by Beijing and subjected to troublesome audits and safety checks.158 Beijing may hope to utilise Taiwanese business on the mainland as a powerful lobby group against the DPP government in Taipei to nullify and reverse separatist sentiment and to bring about a change in Taiwan politics. Economic integration, however, is a doubleedged sword when used for political purposes and creates corresponding pressures from within the mainland which may constrain policy. Beijing may harass Taiwanese ﬁrms and engage in low-level intimidation, but any action that would rupture economic relations with Taiwan would damage mainland interests as well. While Taiwanese investment has become an important factor in the development of the mainland’s electronics industry any threatening action against Taiwan would have extensive repercussions throughout Fujian and Shanghai where Taiwanese business is located.159 Closer economic integration would beneﬁt Beijing by constraining highproﬁle separatist sentiment of the kind expressed by Lee Teng-hui, and

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encouraging moderation on the part of the DPP. It would also beneﬁt Taiwan as Beijing would be deprived of its ultimate weapon as the resort to force against Taiwan would be self-destructive. Taiwan cannot simply be absorbed and subjected to Beijing’s authority like some lost province through the exercise of force. The idea that the Taiwan issue can be resolved by the restoration of the status quo ante before 1949, which is not uncommon amongst the older generation of China scholars, dismisses the developments that have occurred since then. Taiwan’s autonomous development as encouraged by the US has taken it well beyond the status of a province of the mainland. Any attempt by Beijing to reverse the situation by force would destroy China’s international credibility and its multilateral diplomacy; it would signal a new era of repression internally and renewed confrontation with the US and the international community. Beijing can only deal with the Taiwan issue in the context of multilateralist and cooperative norms, which will demand a change in central government-province relations. Taiwan’s integration with the mainland will require a change in China’s traditional concept of identity and an acceptance of challenger norms, which would allow the restructuring of the Chinese notion of the state. Those norms include pluralism, a less-centralised political system and curbs on the arbitrary power exercised by Beijing’s rulers, and an effort to adopt the rule of law. There are indications of debates and discussions in party circles in Beijing that point in this direction. Beijing has been insistent that Taiwan accept the “one-China” principle as a basis for negotiations, but the Taiwanese habitually referred to a different interpretation of “one China.” The mainland’s understanding of one China as a sovereign nation-state which deprived Taiwan of sovereignty was continually challenged by the Taiwanese conception of China as a culture or civilisation. Both sides had different interpretations of one China during negotiations in Singapore in November 1992, and Beijing announced that “working discussions between the two sides would not touch upon the political meaning of one China.”160 When the DPP leader Chen Shui-bian came to power he invoked the culturalist understanding of China.161 Taiwan’s Vice-President Annette Lu proposed the term “one Chinese” as a substitute. There is some evidence that party leaders in Beijing have attempted a more liberal deﬁnition of “one China” which would facilitate a consensus. Jiang Zemin reportedly referred to the PRC as constituting the “main part of China,” and Taiwan the “remainder of China”; Wang Daohan, head of Beijing’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, once expressed the view that one China is divided and moving towards reuniﬁcation, it is neither the PRC nor Taiwan. This was later dismissed by Qian Qichen who reafﬁrmed the position that PRC represents China. Qian Qichen reportedly suggested that the domestic interpretation of “one China” between China and Taiwan could be ﬂexible but that the international understanding could not, which he later denied.162 Debates within the

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53

party have been conducted over this issue and is not impossible that a ﬂexible formula could be found that would allow economic integration to continue without this issue acting as an obstacle The economic integration of Taiwan with the mainland need not lead to political integration. Examples exist elsewhere of closely linked economies which are separated politically, and President Chen has referred to the EU as a model for cross-straits ties, where each member preserves sovereignty and autonomy.163 Confederation with the mainland was proposed by the Advisory Committee to the Mainland Affairs Council in March 1996, and by Wang Yung-ching, the head of Formosa plastics group, who called for a Chinese confederation with China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The proposal circulated during the Taiwanese elections in March 2000 when KMT candidate Lien Chan’s campaign aides raised it as a possibility and leaked it to the press. In February 2000 Lien Chan referred to a limited version of confederation in the “Kinmen–Matsu–Fujian peace zone.” Within the KMT there has been discussion of confederation as a transitional period before reuniﬁcation.164 Chen Shui-bian similarly referred to confederation as a proposal in April 2000 after his election as president.165 Beijing’s leaders at present cannot publicly accept the confederation model as it entails equality between the central government and a province and a radical departure from the centralised state model that has characterised Chinese history. Ideas such as confederation or federation which have been discussed by Beijing scholars require a legal tradition and the rule of law for the effective division of powers and responsibilities, and legality remains underdeveloped in China. Nonetheless, China may evolve towards the confederation model as a result of economic change and pressures from the external environment, including the WTO which demands respect for norms and regulation. The centralised conception of the Chinese state cannot survive in its current form while the leadership is required to manage the multitudinous demands and pressures unleashed by economic change. The mainland cannot manage the relationship with Taiwan even in terms of its own proposals for reuniﬁcation without a ﬂexible administrative structure that would allow for different levels of development. For this reason, Taiwan’s integration into the mainland’s economy would stimulate the demand for greater administrative freedom from the centre, particularly amongst the coastal provinces where the Taiwanese economic presence has been marked. New governance structures would be required to facilitate that integration in any case. China may be politically reshaped by the economic forces unleashed by modernisation, which would allow Taiwan’s economic but not political integration. China’s full integration into the Asia Paciﬁc region and the global economy will require the overcoming of the Taiwan problem in the way outlined above. Political reform in China may follow economic change, particularly after China’s membership of the WTO in December 2001. The leadership is under international pressure to promote rules, norms and

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greater transparency as a utilitarian measure to ensure continued economic growth. A signiﬁcant step was taken at the 16th Party Congress in November 2002 when Jiang Zemin introduced his “three represents” theory; this allows the party to represent the business class, as well as the peasants and workers.166 The business class may emerge as the agent of political change in China and the advocate of challenger norms which could change Chinese political culture, in which case pluralism, greater freedom of expression and legality may be the result. Business interests have pressed the National People’s Congress of March 2003 for recognition of property rights in a constitutional amendment and for greater legality which would secure their position.167 Moreover, Jiang Zemin has renewed the CMC and replaced six out eleven members, including Defence Minister Chi Haotian and Zhang Wannian.168 Jiang Zemin and the new party General Secretary Hu Jintao will continue as chairman and vice-chairman respectively. Those associated with the hard-line approach towards Taiwan have been retired and the new CMC is more professional and less political than its predecessor. Within this context of domestic change on the mainland the traditional concept of the centralised state may be replaced by a pluralist model in which the differences between Taiwan and the mainland would be reduced and a practical resolution made possible. Nonetheless, political change in China may yet be derailed as conservative party groups may cling onto traditional notions of state identity to safeguard their privileges, and it would be unusual if they simply retired from the political scene. Some have predicted collapse for China based on an analysis of the conﬂicts that have emerged between economic and political interests, or the sheer difﬁculty of managing the economic change.169 Some Chinese scholars argue that China’s vast size requires a powerful centralised state to maintain order, that the traditional concept of the state is appropriate for China, and that once the ﬁrst step towards democratisation is taken the system will slide into chaos. Domestic instability stimulated by unbalanced economic change, corruption or an international recession could trigger recentralisation in China which would provoke the involvement of the military and the revival of powerful conservative groups in the party. Moreover, there is the concern that the new technocrats who have come to power under Jiang Zemin may become more dependent on the military to maintain order, and that the military may become the decisive factor in the resolution of domestic disputes. In this situation the revival of the traditional concept of the centralised state could be expected and the resort to force to deal with Taiwan cannot be excluded. The end result would be conﬂict with the US and the division of the Asia Paciﬁc region between China’s supporters and US allies. China indeed is at the crossroads and the stability of the region depends upon the prospects for political reform there.

3

Values, identity and Japanese security*

The Japanese have rejected the militarism and the martial values of the past and have developed a deeply rooted culture of anti-militarism and paciﬁsm.1 Japanese collective memory retains images of the violence of the pre-war era when political leaders buckled to the demands of the military and Japan’s consensus culture was exploited by the military to demand unstinting support for war. The political leaders who shaped the quasireligious paciﬁst doctrines of Japanese politics and the bureaucrats who constructed the institutions that give them expression have reacted against the powerful images of this collective memory. This revulsion against the past continues to constrain the expression of defence or security interests which even today still carry the stigma of a taboo.2 Paciﬁst values can be seen in the great reverence attached to Article 9 of the 1947 constitution, and in the deference paid to the views disseminated by the Japanese Communist Party (JCP), the Komeito or the Buddhist clean government party, and the Japanese Socialist Party (JSP).3 The socialists have stressed the “spirit of the Japanese constitution” and that “Japan will declare to the world never to use force abroad.” Their platform calls for a “comprehensive security system based on the UN” and for a “global society of peace and mutual assistance through international cooperation.”4 This idealism has guided Japanese international cooperative aid programmes, civil society and NGO activities, particularly towards developing countries. Such sentiment underlies the notion of Japan as a “global civilian power” which has been promoted by Asahi newspaper correspondent Funabashi Yoichi.5 In Japan paciﬁsm can mean many different things. It may refer to a commitment to the spirit of Article 9 and the abhorrence of anything relating to the military in a way characteristic of the older generation. This generation which experienced the war sees the militarist past in any move towards a defence or security role. Paciﬁsm may also refer to peaceful dialogue and the use of non-military means in international relations as advocated by many younger generation intellectuals, opinion leaders and political party ﬁgures. Then again it may refer to the political sentimentalism with which many Japanese regard international politics in which

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complex issues are resolved down to personal feelings. It may also refer to the moral superiority with which younger-generation Japanese view America because it goes to war while Japan retains its moral purity by avoiding all conﬂict. It may also be an excuse for the hedonism and lassitude which characterise many Japanese youth, or the “bubble economy generation,” and which irritate the older generation. Japan’s paciﬁsm has given rise to a variety of subcultural values, some of which are genuinely concerned with the issues of war and peace, while others are parasitical phenomena only remotely related to the spirit of paciﬁsm. Japan’s Asian neighbours are suspicious of Japan’s professed paciﬁsm and often wonder if a clever and gigantic fraud is being perpetrated. Japanese explanations of the discrepancy between economic power and military strength have been based on cultural diplomacy, peace and goodwill which seem unreal to Chinese and Koreans. The inability of Japanese to develop a convincing ideological explanation for this discrepancy in language that Chinese and Koreans could understand has encouraged this disbelief in Japanese intentions.6 Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew was fond of warning the West of the fragility of Japan’s paciﬁst culture and the “chain reaction” effect upon Japanese politics of any small step towards a military role. If Japan was pushed in this direction the result could be a slide towards a major military power.7 Japanese protestations of peace and goodwill and the resort to cultural sentimentalism to relate to neighbours seem strangely at variance with the Japan of the past. What Japan’s Asian neighbours see is a country that has refused to acknowledge its wartime past and which attempts to cover up the atrocities committed by its occupying troops. The past is avoided in Japan and passed over in silence, for the most part, with the result that generations of schoolchildren have not been allowed to learn about this part of their history by their Education Ministry. For Japan’s neighbours the renunciation of militarism has required the assurance of the US alliance to be convincing. Indeed, Japanese paciﬁst norms have ﬂourished in a security environment fostered by the US alliance which has been their major institutional support. The late Maruyama Masao referred to the instability of Japan’s political development since the Meiji restoration in which irresponsibility was encouraged and gave free rein to “anonymous forces.”8 Japan drifted into war because of incomplete political development and required US support in the postwar era to ensure stability. The Yoshida Shigeru strategy of close alliance with the US over 1951–1952 gave the Japanese political system an anchor and security against the factional instability that ravaged the country in the pre-war era. In a situation where weak leadership, fragile democratic institutions and competing factions prevailed stability would be absent. Many Japanese people have regarded the US supported system as an ultimate sanction against the extremism they fear in their own society in the realisation that they can be susceptible and vulnerable to strong pressure. In this respect America has compensated for the deﬁciencies of the Japanese

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decision-making system. Much has been written about the phenomenon of weak leadership and strong subordinates in Japan, the inability to take responsibility and the insistence upon consensus and harmony. All too often leaders in Japan are expected to bow to the consensus as developed by subordinates, to reconcile differences, to preside over ceremonies and to maintain harmony at all times. Strong faction leaders or group members are able to shape the consensus by inﬂuencing or intimidating other subordinates and may push the leaders into decisions they want. The leaders will comply with these strong subordinates because of the fear that public harmony may be ruptured, for which they will be blamed. In this way strong subordinates may dictate the consensus to which the leaders are expected to conform in a phenomenon called gekokujo. For this reason, against his better judgement, Saigo Takamori was pushed by his young supporters to lead the abortive Satsuma samurai revolt against the Meiji government in 1877. Ishiwara Kanji, and Kwangtung army subordinates staged the Mukden incident of September 1931 and pushed the army command into conquering Manchuria in 1931.9 The obsession with public harmony compels leaders to indulge or to pay off strong or obstreperous subordinates who may otherwise withhold cooperation, or become aggressive. This decision-making system gives subordinates in any work group a strong feeling of participation which they jealously defend, and Japanese will insist on their consensus rights to immobilise what they regard as a “dictatorship.” Consensus rights are a notable feature of Japanese society, giving rise to a sense of pride in one’s work and dedication to the task that has made Japanese manufacturing famous. The system is tactically strong but strategically weak as leaders are unable to impose priorities, or ensure coordination when necessary, as decisions are meant to grow out of the organisation. The problem of coordination is particularly marked as the system encourages the development of factional groups around strong personalities – what Maruyama called takotsubo or octopus pots. It has not been unknown for Japanese organisations to make contradictory decisions, or decisions which go against the stated policy, because of pressure from factions. Long-term strategic planning is difﬁcult under such conditions and the absence of coordination has been a characteristic feature of Japanese organisations. The Japanese bottom-up decisionmaking system differs considerably from the top-down structures of China and Korea, giving rise to considerable misunderstanding. Various explanations have been offered for this discrepancy between Japan and its neighbours, and the historical novelist Shiba Ryotaro claimed that the practice derived from the Malay/Polynesian world, not from China. Legalism and bureaucratic proceduralism are important in managing a consensus as they provide assurance that the participatory rights of all are being respected. The two differ in terms of their impact as legalism involves adherence to law with a concern for the justice of the situation.

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Bureaucratic proceduralism requires the observance of rules and regulations to the letter, whatever the justice of the situation, sometimes with absurd results. The rules and regulations may not be grounded in law, or may be the creation of an arbitrary interpretation of law that has become accepted and supported by a consensus. In top-down decision-making systems leaders are allowed the ﬂexibility to prioritise and decide issues, or interpret law within certain deﬁned parameters. In the Japanese consensus decision-making system the sheer burden of obtaining common agreement over most issues will result in delay and procrastination. Over any contentious issue the insistence upon procedures becomes part of the political game of withholding consent, of appealing for support and rallying potential allies. Opposition in a consensus system where public harmony is demanded and where open clashes are avoided is often expressed in terms of an obsession with the trivia of procedures. Decision-makers are drawn into a quagmire of proceduralism which becomes an end in itself, and which would make it impossible for any decision to be made. In this context the role of the US in the development of the post-war Japanese political system has been most important. The US alliance at least assured Japan of stability during the cold war and it is difﬁcult to imagine how an unallied Japan would have met the security challenges of the time with a war-renouncing constitution. In the 1950s the socialists who advocated a neutralist policy clashed with LDP supporters, who called for gradual rearmament; without the US it is conceivable that conﬂict would have erupted between them. Conservative forces grouped around Hatoyama Ichiro, who was in ofﬁce over the 1954–1956 period, pushed for rearmament and for the removal of Article 9 from the constitution; similar tendencies existed in the Kishi Nobusuke government of 1957–1960. Prolonged domestic conﬂict between these groups was subsequently avoided when the Kishi government concluded the 1960 security treaty with the US and then fell from ofﬁce.10 The basic consensus of Japanese politics was established when the US assumed responsibility for Japan’s defence and security and made possible the expression and articulation of paciﬁst values without concern for external security for the ensuing decades. Nonetheless, the US role has been contested in Japan. Mainstream opinion and the ofﬁcial government view has it that the US alliance has been essential for Japanese peace and security and the foundation of Japan’s prosperity. Members of the older generation in particular stress that without the stability provided by the US alliance right-wing extremists would have had much greater inﬂuence in politics. Nonetheless, some Japanese intellectuals argue that domestic paciﬁst values are no longer dependent upon external institutions for support and that they have been sufﬁciently grounded in Japanese society to continue irrespective of the US alliance. Indeed, they argue that the US alliance involves them in conﬂicts with China and Korea, and imposes militarist values on government that prevents it from developing multilateral solutions to diplomatic

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difﬁculties with Asian neighbours. There is also the idea that the US alliance has “smothered” the development of domestic political institutions and has contributed to the “political apathy” of the Japanese people.11

American pressure The discrepancy between Japan’s paciﬁst values and its status as US ally created considerable tensions for the alliance relationship as the Americans demanded Japanese cooperation over regional security. A consistent pattern emerged where the Japanese political leadership mediated between the demands of the American ally and the domestic political environment. Concessions were made to the US to ensure the survival of the alliance while allaying the concerns of domestic opposition groups who rallied to the defence of the constitution. The fear was that if Japan avoided its responsibilities in the alliance the US might ﬁnd alternatives, in which case Japan would face an uncertain regional security environment without the assurance of American protection. Under pressure from the political leadership the direction of value change in Japan was towards greater security awareness and responsibility within the context of the alliance relationship, which placed a considerable strain upon domestic politics. There are many ideas about how Japan should adjust to the demands of the alliance. Some politicians call for a complete break with paciﬁst values, others call for a realistic accommodation, and yet others stress that paciﬁsm represents core Japanese values and resist all change. Japanese political leaders were compelled to make practical compromises with domestic values when they accepted the 1978 defence guidelines with the US, and an expansion of Japan’s sea and air defence capability under the Nakasone government from 1982–1987. Mediation turned into advocacy under Nakasone when the political leadership openly espoused a greater security role for Japan and cooperated with the US in a strategy to interdict Soviet sea and air operations in time of conﬂict. After the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 President Bush requested that Japan despatch minesweepers to the Gulf, which confronted the system with a crisis. The Foreign Ministry and Prime Minister Kaifu Toshiki were both opposed to the US request because of the constitution, but the Watanabe Michio faction within the LDP was supportive. Kaifu agreed to the request when it was pointed out to him that Germany had sent minesweepers to the Gulf – so Japan had no excuse.12 Tokyo despatched ﬁve minesweepers to the Gulf in April, well after the war had ended, which prompted severe criticism from the US. Japan declared a $13 billion support fund for the war but had deﬂected American requests for direct support. Characteristic bureaucratic proceduralism and legalism was invoked to protect paciﬁst values in the debate over the

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1992 peacekeeping law (PKO), which envisaged the involvement of selfdefence forces (SDF) in UN peacekeeping operations. A legitimate activity under UN aegis, peacekeeping was unrelated to the demands of the US alliance, but it touched upon the sensitive issue of the use of Japanese forces abroad which was regarded as prohibited under the constitution. The socialists and the communists vehemently opposed the bill in the Diet and ensured that strict conditions were imposed. During the debate on the bill, the socialists and the Communist Party resorted to “cow walking” tactics for six days, reaching a maximum time of 13 hours at one time to delay its passage. Five conditions were imposed by the opposition, which LDP Secretary General Ozawa Ichiro criticised as falling short of “common sense.”13 The most controversial limitation was on the use of force in self-defence, while the other conditions virtually removed the ability to contribute to peacekeeping operations.14 Under these conditions Japan has since sent eight peacekeeping missions abroad, including to Cambodia, Rwanda, Mozambique, El Salvador, Angola, Bosnia, the Golan Heights and, in 2002, East Timor. Most critical was the role of the Cabinet Legislation Bureau whose function is to examine legislation before submission to cabinet for compatibility to law and the constitution. Headed by a director-general from the bureaucracy, the bureau has assumed a signiﬁcant function in interpreting the constitutionality of security related proposals. The bureau has adopted a traditionally defensive view of peacekeeping, arguing that even logistic support for such operations was prohibited.15 Senior LDP politician Yamasaki Taku has acknowledged that the Cabinet Legislation Bureau is the highest authority in government on the interpretation of the constitution, though ultimate judgement is a matter for the judiciary. Yamasaki stated that the Bureau may be persuaded by the cabinet to alter its interpretation of the constitution, provided the cabinet presents a uniﬁed position over an issue.16 Over controversial legislation that touches upon the constitution cabinet may be hesitant to confront the Bureau, however. The Bureau was initially negative over the PKO bill, claiming that it infringed Article 9, but Foreign Ministry staff obtained Prime Minister Kaifu’s support by showing that neutral Switzerland participated in peacekeeping. The Bureau refused to budge over the use of weapons by Japanese peacekeepers, and the Bureau’s director-general insisted that they could only be used in self-defence. The Foreign Ministry argued that Japanese peacekeepers should be allowed to use weapons to remove obstructions in the performance of their duties if required. The director of the Defence Agency was disappointed and declared that it was impossible to send men into action with this condition.17 Perhaps the greatest crisis in the US–Japan alliance was seen during the North Korean nuclear crisis from 1993–1994 when Pyongyang refused international inspection of its nuclear facilities. Then, Japanese legalism and bureaucratic proceduralism clashed with American demands for

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support, and the prospect of the immobilisation of the alliance arose. The problem was that the Japanese system had not prepared for such events, and US pressure raised legal and procedural issues which threw the Japanese consensus-based system once more into a state of paralysis. Richard Allen, former US NSC adviser under Reagan, conveyed to Japan the need to take effective measures against the North, and to interdict the supply of remittances to the North from Koreans living in Japan.18 The Americans wanted to know at that stage whether Japan would support the imposition of sanctions on North Korea, or if hostilities broke out whether Japan would assist the US. Japan was then ruled by a coalition government, since the LDP lost its majority in the Diet in the June 1993 elections. The problem of developing a workable consensus was made more difﬁcult by the involvement in government of parties with opposing views. After the fall of the LDP government in June 1993 Hosokawa Morihiko formed a seven-party coalition which lasted until April 1994. This coalition included the Socialist Party as the largest member; also included were Ozawa Ichiro’s Japan Renewal Party (Shinseito) and the Komeito. No prompt response to the American demand could be expected under these circumstances while the socialists demanded a UN resolution before agreeing to any action against North Korea.19 Even the opposition LDP was divided over the issue; Watanabe Michio was characteristically belligerent and stressed that Japan should support the US in the event of the imposition of sanctions on the North. He was supported by Ozawa Ichiro, who had deserted the LDP and joined Shinseito, also part of the coalition. LDP President Kono Yohei was cautious and called for a UN resolution ﬁrst. The Defence Agency made plans for the control of shipping and logistics support for the US in case of sanctions, but no consensus resulted.20 If North Korea had openly declared itself a nuclear power a consensus may have been established and Japan may have considered action. In May 1994 the Japanese government at least placed restrictions on the despatch of an estimated $60–200 million in annual remittances to North Korea. The money was funnelled to the North by members of the North Korean community in Japan; they were pachinko parlour operators, real estate agents, or managers of Korean restaurants. The money was remitted by the provincial Ashikaga Bank, or simply taken in suitcases to North Korea by visitors who boarded the ferry from Niigata City to Wonson. The government imposed controls on bank transfers but was most reluctant to interfere with the rights of Korean residents in Japan who took funds to the North personally.21 When the US sought speciﬁc assistance during this crisis the Japanese government lapsed into passivity with the attitude that the problem was an American affair.22 Ishihara Nobuo, who was Cabinet Secretary over the 1993–1994 period during the North Korean crisis, admitted that nothing was done by the Japanese government and that preparation for emergency legislation in the event of necessity was discussed, but then only in terms

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of the role of the defence army in case of a domestic emergency. There was an informal intelligence conference in April 1994 which examined such issues as attacks on nuclear power stations in Japan, and the dangers for Japanese shipping on the high seas.23 Joseph Nye, who was US Assistant Secretary of Defence during the crisis, said afterwards that defence cooperation with the US in the event of a crisis was never properly deﬁned. The US expected Japanese logistic support, the supply of fuel and care for wounded, but no active involvement in combat. Nye warned that if the US went to war in the Korean situation and if Japan refused to assist the US the alliance would be terminated.24 The North Korean crisis was defused with the negotiation of the Agreed Framework on 20 October 1994 according to which the North was to freeze its nuclear programme in return for four light-water reactors and shipments of oil from the US. The experience of Japanese inaction brought home to the Americans the need to adapt the alliance to the new challenges of the post-cold war era in which Japan would play a greater security role. The status quo could not continue. Hosokawa appointed a nine-member Defence Review Committee under Asahi Breweries President Higuchi Hizotaro in October 1993 to examine defence policy, which revealed the extent to which attitudes towards security were changing in Japan. The Committee issued its report on 12 August 1994 and recommended that an effective defence capability be maintained which would allow Japan to respond to emergency situations. It called for a compact and mobile defence army to reﬂect the changing situation, the modernisation of equipment, the upgrading of intelligence and a capability to allow Japan to contribute to Asia Paciﬁc Security. The committee also recommended closer security relations with the US in the Asia Paciﬁc region and stressed cooperation with the UN in terms of “multilateral security” in terms of UN peacekeeping operations and multilateral security dialogue. The problem was the compatibility of these recommendations with the constitution and the paciﬁst spirit of the Socialist Party, which was in ofﬁce when the report was issued. Socialist Prime Minister Murayama Tomiichi received the report reluctantly but said at least that he would preserve it for future reference.25 Since 1976 defence reviews had been just shopping lists of equipment; this report had at least departed from past practice in grappling with policy.26 An important event which contributed to a reshufﬂing of positions over security in Japan was the decline of the socialists. The Socialist Party’s role as core component of the consensus on domestic norms could not be understated. It had mounted strong rearguard action against a security role and had widespread sympathy within Japan for its defence of principles. Nonetheless, upholding principle came at a price as party members felt that conditions were changing after the cold war. In relation to the Gulf War there was the feeling amongst members that despite the execu-

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tive committee’s resolution over the issue the socialists had become outdated, and that the defence of principle over security would isolate it over other issues such as electoral reform.27 The pressure for change was much more noticeable when in June 1994 the socialist leader Murayama assumed the position of prime minister in a coalition government with the LDP and Sakigake, which lasted until January 1996; subsequently the coalition continued under LDP Prime Minister Hashimoto until June 1998. Prime Minister Murayama pressed for a reassessment of the socialist position on security to remove glaring contradictions with the LDP ally and called for an extraordinary party congress. The party’s executive committee thought it necessary to change its policies, which were formulated when the party was in opposition, to allow it to perform the function of a ruling party. This distinction between ruling and opposition party was important in Japanese society as principles are not necessarily conceived in terms of a natural law and therefore applicable in all circumstances; rather, they are related to role and function within the social order. Principles are products of group consensus within a particular context and form part of the tatemae of the group which binds its behaviour. When the group role changes principles are expected to change as well to ensure harmony and the smooth functioning of the social order. The rapidity with which the socialists redeﬁned themselves according to their position as ruling party surprised Western observers who had expected that a socialist prime minister in Japan would implement the party platform in ofﬁce. The extraordinary party congress was held on 3 September 1994 when a new party platform was unveiled which endorsed positions that the party had previously criticised while in opposition. The new party platform accepted the SDF as constitutional and expressed support for the US alliance – a complete change of position. During the congress, Party Secretary Kubo appealed to members, stressing that without these changes there would be a crisis for the Murayama government. There was much animated discussion of the new platform and the party’s left wing threatened to split. Some 30 prefectural ofﬁces, including the Okinawa, Chiba and Shimane ofﬁces, strongly opposed the new platform and proposed a resolution that coalition policy should follow the old and familiar platform. In view of the contentious nature of the changes a vote was conducted on this resolution with the result that it was defeated: 222 voted against and 152 voted in favour.28 Members on the conservative wing felt that cooperation with LDP was now possible and wanted to stay in the coalition to inﬂuence government policy. From the Japanese perspective the differences between the socialists and the LDP had vanished and the role of the Old Socialist Party in post-war Japanese history was over.29 The result was the disintegration of the socialists, the desertion of some conservative members to the newly formed Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), and the renaming of the party as the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in January 1996. The SDP accepted the US alliance but it insisted

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on disarmament to differentiate itself from the LDP and to retain the party faithful.30 The party then began to lose support, and fragmentation was evident before the elections of October 1996. The traditional link between the Socialist Party and the labour unions was undermined as some unions decided to support the DPJ. Faced with these tensions the SDP left the coalition in June 1998 over the issue of political donations from business and corruption in politics. As the socialists lost credibility the balance of opinion within the consensus on norms was reshufﬂed and new ideas on security emerged as taboo subjects came to be discussed. Further external pressure upon Japan came from a Clinton administration which had warned Japan that the alliance risked a breakdown if cooperation were not forthcoming. The Korean nuclear crisis of 1993/94 severely tested US–Japan relations as the Japanese failed to respond to the Clinton administration’s requests for a clear plan of coordinated action in the event of an outbreak of hostilities. Former Defence Agency ViceMinister Akiyama Masahiro explained that the alliance would be meaningless if Japan delayed a response in an emergency, and that the US would seek other options if Japan continued to be evasive.31 This experience of Japanese evasion prompted the Clinton administration to press for expanded defence cooperation, and for a common crisis decisionmaking mechanism that would prevent similar problems in the future. The Pentagon declared the Nye initiative in the form of a report entitled United States Strategy for the East Asia Paciﬁc Region in February 1995, which stressed the retention of forward deployments in the Asia Paciﬁc region for which Japanese cooperation was crucial. When Murayama resigned and Hashimoto Ryutaro emerged as an LDP prime minister on 11 January 1996, greater security cooperation with the US seemed likely. President Clinton travelled to Tokyo to sign a “procedural agreement” on defence cooperation with Hashimoto on 15 April 1996, otherwise known as the Acquisition and Cross Servicing Agreement (ACSA). This agreement was the ﬁrst step in a review of the 27 November 1978 US–Japan defence guidelines which the American side wanted to revise and expand. It listed the duties and obligations of the parties and left further deﬁnition of the commitments to the future.32 At that stage the Japanese side interpreted the agreement in terms of logistical support for US–Japanese military exercises, UN peacekeeping operations and international humanitarian operations. The US side pressed for military collaboration in the event of a regional crisis in the Far East, which would entail joint military operations, naval blockades, minesweeping operations, intelligence-gathering activities, and Japanese provision of goods and services to American forces.33 While the US demanded Japanese support without conditions, particularly after Chinese missile launches over Taiwan in March 1996, the Japanese pointed to the constitutional restriction and the self-imposed prohibition on collective defence. Hashimoto assured the electorate that defence cooperation with the US would not challenge the

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ban on collective defence and that the result would not be a prominent Japanese defence role.34 Indeed, the LDP found itself squeezed between domestic opinion and its US ally which was expecting greater security cooperation. Pro-American activists supported the idea of Japan as an active ally of the US, which would require a level of security preparedness commensurate with its responsibilities in the alliance. Ozawa Ichiro had argued that Japan should become a “normal country,” by which he meant the acquisition of armed forces and a willingness to participate in UN peacekeeping and other internationally legitimate security missions taken for granted by other countries.35 The LDP attempted to identify what could be done within the limits of the constitution to support the US in case of conﬂict in the Far East. Cabinet Secretary Kajiyama Seiroku insisted that Japan should declare in advance how it would react in a regional crisis to dispel Asian fears of Japanese unpredictability. The Defense Agency examined the possibility of intelligence sharing, minesweeping, the rescue of Japanese abroad, and the temporary use of additional facilities in Japan by US forces. What was called “grey zone” assistance was also discussed, which included escort for US naval vessels, logistics support for the US navy, and refuelling, maintenance, transport and medical services on the high seas but not in Japanese waters.36 The geographic area of application of the defence cooperation guidelines was a sensitive issue in view of Japan’s concern over China’s reactions. A bilateral US–Japan subcommittee on defence cooperation was formed and addressed the issue, drafting an interim report. This report identiﬁed ﬁve areas of defence cooperation, including humanitarian operations, the evacuation of non-combatants, rear area support for US forces, joint defence operations and crisis management to prevent conﬂict escalation. Both sides had examined the possibility of defence cooperation, not only in the case of a direct attack on Japan but also in the event of conﬂict in the Far East, which was deﬁned to include Taiwan and South Korea according to Article 6 of the 1960 US–Japan security treaty. It was also proposed that Japan should repudiate the 1981 interpretation of the constitution adopted by the Cabinet Legislation Bureau prohibiting involvement in collective defence. The report was submitted to a Washington meeting on 20 September 1996 which included Secretary of State Warren Christopher, Foreign Minister Ikeda Yukihiko, US Defence Secretary William Perry, and Defence Agency Director Director Usui Hideo.37 Defence cooperation with the US within the general area of the Far East had become acceptable at the committee level but not necessarily by the political parties. The deﬁnition of the area of operation became a topic of debate between the so-called “idealists” and the “traditionalists.” The idealists in the Foreign Ministry sought a broader interpretation of Japan’s role within the alliance that would allow Japan to assume the status of a major ally of

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the US. Their model was Britain according to which Japan would act with the US wherever necessary and with minimum restriction. The “traditionalists,” however, sought to limit Japan’s role under the new guidelines to the “Far East” as deﬁned in the 1960 treaty with the US.38 Idealist views had been expressed during the meetings of the bilateral committee on defence cooperation but the ﬁnal report was traditionalist. The Cabinet Legislation Bureau insisted that the constitution prevented Japan from acting jointly with the US, and that support for military operations was prohibited.39 Moreover, there was the issue of geographic limitation as during the Clinton–Hashimoto meeting of April 1996 none was stipulated, largely because of uncertainty on the Japanese side. Subsequently the traditionalist view gained strength and there was a noticeable insistence upon a geographic limitation. In May 1997 Head of the American Bureau of the Foreign Ministry Takano revealed Foreign Ministry thinking when he told the Diet that events and not geography determined Japan’s response in terms of defence cooperation with the US. To avoid controversy he was removed from his post and the Foreign Ministry moved to the safety of the traditionalist position.40 The text of the bilateral interim defence report was made public on 9 June 1997. It limited Japan’s obligations according to the traditionalist view to “cooperation in situations in areas surrounding Japan that will have an important inﬂuence on Japan’s peace and security.” Elsewhere in the report the words “Asia Paciﬁc Region” were mentioned, which indicated an attempt to place a geographic limit on those obligations. Section 3 Article 1 of the report referred to the “Far East” and stated that the rights and obligations of the parties under the security treaty remained “unchanged.” Japan’s obligations in surrounding areas were listed as allowing US forces the use of additional facilities, rear area support for US forces, logistic support for US naval vessels on the high seas, search and rescue operations at sea, intelligence gathering, surveillance and minesweeping.41 The report was signiﬁcant in that Japanese security duties under the terms of the alliance with the US had expanded from the defence of the homeland to an undeﬁned area surrounding it in the Asia Paciﬁc region. Debate was stimulated over 1997 as to the geographic extent of Japan’s obligations under the defence guidelines. The Diet began debating the issue on 10 June and some members wondered if the term “situations in areas surrounding Japan” would include the Middle East. The discussions were confused as it was unclear whether geographical limitations would apply or whether contingencies would lead Japan into security cooperation well beyond the Far East.42 The most salient issue was whether Taiwan and other areas such as the South China Sea would be included, which might provoke a clash with China. To prevent a wider deﬁnition being adopted the SDP accepted the traditionalist version with its geographic limitation, even though it entailed an expansion of security role.43

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The socialists demanded that Taiwan be clearly excluded, however, and that Japan consider previous agreements and communiqués with Beijing as a basis for policy.44 Prime Minister Hashimoto explained to the LDP that the revisions would cover the Korean peninsula and other potential hotspots, the South China Sea or Taiwan.45 Yamasaki Taku stressed that contingencies and not geography governed Japan’s response in terms of defence cooperation with the US, but Japan would decide on a case-bycase basis if asked by the US to act. Cabinet Secretary Kajiyama Sieroku insisted that the Taiwan straits were covered in the defence guidelines, and that Japan would be obligated to assist the US in the event of a conﬂict with China over Taiwan.46 The Cabinet Secretary by reason of personality and position was indeed an important actor in shaping the consensus within the LDP over this issue. Kajiyama held a press conference to reiterate his position that Taiwan should be included; otherwise, as he said, the alliance with the US would cease to function.47 The debate went beyond the LDP as the party was required to take account of its non-coalition allies the SDP and the Sakigake. In the inter-party committee on the defence guidelines both SDP and Sakigake members reiterated that Taiwan be clearly excluded from the defence guidelines and demanded a deﬁnition of the contingencies which would trigger cooperation with the US.48 Ultimately the LDP got its way over the issue by maintaining a characteristic public ambiguity over the geographic limitation issue while upholding its own interpretation. The guidelines were signed on 23 September 1997 when US Defence Secretary William Cohen and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright visited Tokyo. They were submitted to the Diet and approved almost two years later on 24 May 1999 as the result of a compromise between the LDP, the Liberal Party and the Komeito. The SDP remained opposed and argued that Japan had been inveigled into defence support for American objectives, which were of no concern to itself. The consensus view was that the guidelines related to possible conﬂict areas in East Asia of direct relevance to Japan, and that it would cooperate with the US for its own security.49 There were certain adjustments to the language as the despatch of SDF forces under the guidelines was linked to situations in which the peace and safety of Japan was gravely threatened, and if not addressed would result in a direct military attack upon Japan. The demand for a UN security council resolution before ship inspections could take place was removed; DPJ member Kan Naoto’s demand for prior Diet approval was altered to allow approval after the event in the case of emergencies. Japan had taken a qualiﬁed but tangible step forwards towards a regional security role, which the LDP defence lobby regarded as an indicator of equality with the US. Similar steps would follow.50 The conﬂict between the defenders of Japan’s paciﬁst values and the promoters of a security role in government and the LDP could be seen in the effort to review the constitution. The defence guidelines with the US

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promised to widen the existing gap between constitution and practice, and any attempt to develop Japan’s defence forces to the level of a “normal country” would make it publicly glaring. The government could resort to further reinterpretation of the constitution but from a pragmatic perspective amendment would be preferable, the troubling discrepancy between constitution and reality would be avoided, and respect for the constitution would be preserved. LDP Party Secretary Yamasaki Taku called for revision, arguing that further reinterpretation would be tantamount to constitutional change without public approval.51 Any attempt at amendment, however, would challenge the very symbol of Japan’s paciﬁsm and would arouse public resistance. Inﬂuential LDP politicians Nakasone Yasuhiro and Nakayama Taro have both promoted constitutional review and stressed the need for Japan to participate in UN peacekeeping and collective defence operations with the US.52 Ozawa Ichiro claimed that the constitution proclaimed during the American occupation was no longer effective for an independent country like Japan and declared that he wanted to change Article 9 to allow Japan to use military power for selfdefence.53 Yamasaki claimed that Article 9 was the only section of the constitution not drafted by Japanese.54 Others like LDP member Koyama Takao have argued that the constitution violated international law because when promulgated in 1947 Japan was not a sovereign state. Radical revisionists like Tokyo governor Ishihara Shintaro argued that the entire constitution was an American document imposed upon Japan.55 Others stressed that however Article 9 is formulated it is no longer relevant for a country that needs to participate in collective defence, which is regarded as the accepted right of any country. The position of DPJ leader Hatoyama Yukio was signiﬁcant as his identiﬁcation with liberal views and his distance from the radical revisionists made him an indicator of trends over this issue. In October 1999 Hatoyama called for the introduction of a new clause in the constitution that would allow Japan to maintain armed forces.56 The DPJ was, however, split over the issue. As younger members are elected to the Diet the call for constitutional review becomes stronger, with a group of some 350 Diet members in favour of review being formed; the group included members from the LDP, the DPJ, and the Komeito.57 A constitutional review panel composed of Diet members from both houses was formed by the lower house on 29 July 1999; the lower house committee included 50 members and was chaired by Nakayama Taro, while the upper house committee included 45 members and was headed by Murakami Masakuni.58 Both committees included members from the LDP, the Liberal Party, as well as the Komeito. At ﬁrst the communists and the socialists opposed the formation of the review panel, but later they too decided to join, with the intention of carrying their opposition to the meetings of the review panel.59 The constitutional review process began in January 2000 and has been scheduled to conclude in 2005, and if agreement is reached amend-

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ment would be envisaged by 2008. Progress has been slow and Nakasone has been reportedly frustrated by the low attendance, as well as the slow pace.60 The experience of public criticism induced caution and turned the Komeito members against constitutional revision, and even some LDP members became more reluctant to raise the issue.61 Enthusiasm for the task of drafting a report seemed to be ﬂagging and the gap between supporters and revisionists widened. A mid-term report was issued by the committee in October 2002 which simply listed the views on both sides without a conclusion; 12 pages were given to the pro-change group, and four pages to the status quo group. The communists and socialists even opposed the issuance of the report.62 The impediments to constitutional change are daunting in any case as a two-thirds majority in both houses of the Diet and a majority in a national referendum are required.63 The public resistance to revision has stalled the process and it may eventually be shelved. The government’s attention has shifted from revision to interpretation as the second available option. The defence subcommittee of the LDP Policy Research Council, chaired by upper house member Yoda Tomoharu, recommended that the government remove the self-imposed ban on collective defence.64 Concerns about the external environment have arisen which have undermined the sense of security that Japanese people have taken for granted.65 Ozawa Ichiro at Fukuoka on 6 April 2002 declared that Japan faced one of the most difﬁcult situations in the world having both China and North Korea as neighbours in an unstable region. China he said, was most eager to become a military superpower.66 Japanese harbour complex feelings in relation to China and while there is respect borne from the recognition that China was the source of Japan’s culture the Japanese are irritated by the Chinese assumption of superiority. China, indeed, can provoke a ﬁerce pride amongst the Japanese who are eager to demonstrate their economic and industrial achievements before the Chinese. Guilt and remorse dominated attitudes towards China amongst the older generation, but the younger generation of politicians have no such feelings and react negatively to Chinese lectures on the past.67 Kato Koichi, who is representative of a younger breed of LDP leader, revealed this sentiment when he complained that the Chinese unjustiﬁably regard themselves as “true leaders” of Asia.68 Japanese feelings were provoked when Jiang Zemin visited Tokyo in April 1992; then he warned Prime Minister Miyazawa Kiichi over the peacekeeping bill which was then under discussion. At an LDP senior staff meeting the Japanese expressed their irritation in relation to Jiang’s attitude, particularly while China was exporting weapons to the world. Head of LDP General Affairs Somu Kaicho reportedly told Jiang that the Japanese would not always be so humble in dealing with China.69 A repeat performance took place when Jiang Zemin visited Tokyo in November 1998 when the Chinese side was concerned about the defence guidelines which seemed to target China over the

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Taiwan issue. Jiang was determined not to forgo the opportunity to remind the Japanese of the past; he met Prime Minister Obuchi Keizo on 26 November and lectured him for 25 minutes, demanding an apology for Japan’s wartime atrocities. Obuchi apologised orally but the Japanese would not allow a written apology to be included in the joint statement, which was left unsigned by both leaders. The joint statement did mention Japan’s reﬂection upon the past, however.70 The Japanese side understood that Jiang’s domestic position was much weaker than was Deng’s and that he was compelled to demonstrate toughness towards Japan to prove his nationalist credentials.71 There has been a noticeable change in China’s policy as Beijing has lost the support of the Japanese left whose inﬂuence in Japanese politics has declined. China’s military modernisation and the perceived threat to Taiwan over 1995–1996 made the Japanese more receptive to defence cooperation with the US under the revised guidelines. Even Asahi newspaper correspondent Funabashi Yoichi changed his views, claiming that Japanese national interests would have to be deﬁned more realistically.72 As a result of China’s nuclear tests in May 1995 the normally indulgent Asahi newspaper was turned into a critic of China.73 The Japanese were disturbed by these nuclear tests which occurred immediately after Murayama’s visit to Beijing and after Japan’s decision to extend the NPT permanently. The Japanese have noted China’s expanding list of weapons purchases from Russia, particularly the Sovremenny destroyers, Kiloclass submarines, and SU-30MKK ﬁghter aircraft, which have stimulated the demand for greater Chinese defence transparency.74 Chinese naval activity in Japanese waters over 1998–2000 was also an irritant, and Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan’s explanation that Chinese vessels were simply engaged in oceanographic research was derisively dismissed.75 A meeting of deputy foreign ministers discussed the issue in September 2000 in which the Japanese side called for prior notice from the Chinese.76 Because of these issues LDP members pressed for reductions of ODA to that country against Foreign Ministry resistance. An LDP committee to assess ODA to China met in August 2000 and members asked why Japan should support a country that was modernising its military capability. There was also the issue of the Sengaku/Diaoyu islands, which the Chinese claim as part of Taiwan and therefore have been returned to China after the Japanese occupation of Taiwan ended in 1945. The Japanese argue that these islands were part of the Ryukyu group and separate from Taiwan. The issue was shelved by Deng Xiaoping during his visit to Tokyo in October 1978 when he declared that it should be left to later generations. In September 1996 the Japan Youth Federation (Nippon Seinensha), a group associated with the right wing, repaired a lighthouse that it had constructed on one of the disputed islands and called on Tokyo to recognise the lighthouse ofﬁcially. This act prompted protests from the Chinese Foreign Ministry which

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demanded the removal of the lighthouse, but the Japanese side claimed that it had been built on private land in which case the government could not act.77 In October Hong Kong and Taiwanese activists planted ﬂags on the islands and were confronted by the Japanese coastguard. Negotiations were held at vice-ministerial level on 29 October 1996, which defused immediate tensions but otherwise were inconclusive.78 The issue was sidestepped when Li Peng visited Tokyo in November 1997 and signed a new ﬁsheries agreement over the disputed territory. Japan Youth Federation activities continue on the islands and in May 2000 it was reported that it had constructed a Shinto shrine there. The most serious issue in Japan–China relations is Taiwan in view of the widespread sympathy for the Taiwanese in Japan. Japan switched sides and recognised Beijing when Prime Minister Tanaka Kakuei visited China in September 1972 and declared a strict one-China policy. Nonetheless, Japan has followed a de facto two-China policy which ensured that contacts with Taiwan will be maintained. Japanese feel that the Taiwanese appreciated the beneﬁts of their colonisation under Japan over the 1895–1945 period and feel comfortable with the Taiwanese, who unlike the mainlanders do not excoriate Japan for its past misdeeds. Japan assumed a signiﬁcant role in the development of the DPP as independence activists ﬂocked to Japan to escape the surveillance of the KMT. In 1960 Taiwanese students in Tokyo University launched the Association of Young Taiwanese, which called for independence and published a monthly magazine called Seinen or “Youth.” Japan remained a safe haven for these activists until 1992 when freedom of speech was allowed in Taiwan under the Lee presidency and when independence activists were freed from jail.79 Lee Teng-hui, who graduated from Kyoto Imperial University in 1942, spoke better Japanese than Mandarin and publicly praised Japan for its contribution to Taiwan’s development during the colonial period, contrasting it with the corruption and oppression of mainlander rule after 1949. Lee was highly esteemed within Japanese political circles and a Diet group attended his inauguration in May 1996; Tokyo governor and prominent critic of Beijing Ishihara Shintaro attended Chen Shuibian’s inauguration in May 2000. Within the Japanese Diet there is a strong pro-Taiwanese group which was formed during the Lee presidency. In February 1992 some 65 pro-Taiwanese Diet members formed the Japan–ROC consultative group, or Nikkakon, which was headed by former MITI minister Yamanaka Sadanori of the LDP.79 On 5 February 1997 the Diet Council for Japan–Taiwan Relations was established, headed by Yamanaka Sadanori; the deputy head was Ozawa Tatsuo of Shinshinto, while former Vice Finance Minister Fuji Takao was secretarygeneral. This Council included 300 members, 202 from the LDP, and 86 from Shinshinto.81 The creation of the Council was a result of a visit by a Taiwanese parliamentary delegation to Tokyo when the need for a Japan–Taiwan forum to discuss regional security issues was raised. An

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amendment passed by the Diet allowed the recognition of Taiwanese (Republic of China) passports and facilitates Taiwanese entry into Japan in other ways. Taiwan is a key issue for Japan and one that is independent of the US presence. Japanese paciﬁsts maintain that the US obtains the cooperation of a small group of LDP defence hawks and imposes security cooperation upon a reluctant Japan, which then exacerbates relations with China. Even without the US defence guidelines, however, Taiwan would be an issue for Japan’s relationship with China as pro-Taiwan sentiment has its origins in a past colonial relationship which predates the alliance with the US. In a country where political views are often based upon sentiment, past ties and personal relationships become important factors in shaping attitudes. Some Japanese suggest that Japan’s role should be to persuade Beijing of the “inevitability” of Taiwan’s independence.82 In Japan’s decentralised system, where consensus rights are treated as sacred, government would lack the authority to curtail those ties with Taiwan and to enforce the oneChina policy literally. Pro-Taiwanese groups within government rub shoulders with inﬂuential pro-Beijing groups, particularly within the Foreign Ministry whose concern is to dampen the public expression of support for Taiwan. This was seen when Lee Teng-hui applied for a visa to travel to Japan in April 2001, after he had stepped down as president in March 2000. Foreign Minster Kono Yohei and Cabinet Secretary Fukuda Yasuo were opposed to the visit and the cabinet was divided; ﬁve cabinet ministers pressed for his visit, which was supported by 70 Diet members, and eventually the visa was granted for a short visit as Prime Minister Mori was in full support.83 Certain low-level ties with Taiwan will continue to develop without interruption but they will not be allowed to undermine the relationship with Beijing that is becoming more important for business purposes. Beijing has often criticised Japan for maintaining relations with Taiwan and for “encouraging” Taiwanese independence, but it will be unable to push the Japanese to reduce or interdict that relationship. Attempts on the part of the Chinese in this direction will stimulate that smouldering pride amongst the Japanese which is barely masked by the veneer of elaborate formality and courtesy. China may have to live with the Japanese relationship with Taiwan with the knowledge that it would not be allowed to challenge the relationship with Beijing. The decision-making elite has recognised that the external environment poses certain dangers that will have to be addressed, and that Japan simply cannot retreat into the supine passivity of the past. Within the political parties there has been the demand that ODA to China should be reduced, that Japan should protest China’s continuing defence modernisation, and should press North Korea to terminate its nuclear and ballistic missile programme as a condition for the normalisation of diplomatic relations. The Japanese public, however, continued to hold to its paciﬁst values, and expected the external problems to be addressed within the parameters of

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those fundamental values. The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 11 September 2001 resulted in a change of attitude within the Japanese public and allowed the proponents of a greater security role to press their demands. In Prime Minister Koizumi Japan had an activist and popular leader who was elevated to the top position by grass-roots opinion within the LDP. Elected party leader in April 2001, Koizumi was an outsider, without the backing of the major factions – an unusual event in Japanese politics. In forming his ﬁrst cabinet he departed from the tradition of distributing cabinet posts according to factional strength, nor did he consult with faction leaders about his appointments, expecting that his popularity would support him. The basis of his popularity was his commitment to economic reform and the fact that he was untainted by factional loyalties which would compromise his vision for reform. In Koizumi many Japanese saw an opportunity to break free of the stranglehold of the factional politics which defeated all attempts at reform. Koizumi was also committed to elevating Japan’s role as an ally of the US and had called for the revision of the constitution to allow Japan to participate in collective defence.84 Koizumi saw Japan as America’s major ally in Asia and one that would act beyond the boundaries of the defence guidelines if required. A concern for the future of the alliance compelled Japanese leaders to become more supportive of the US in terms of security cooperation in its various forms. Japan’s inaction during the 1993–1994 Korean nuclear crisis had threatened the alliance, and the Japanese side was determined that the same would not be repeated. For this reason the defence guidelines with the US were signed and Japan was obligated to assist the US, even in the case of a crisis in the Taiwan straits, according to mainstream interpretations. Moreover, the impact of Clinton’s visit to Shanghai in June 1998 was not lost on the Japanese. Clinton went beyond any previous policy statements in declaring the three noes policy, spelling out that the US would not accept two Chinas, or Taiwanese independence, or Taiwan’s entry into government organisations. The stabilisation of the US relationship with China was in Japan’s interest but there was the concern that the US might go further and downgrade Japan’s role in its Asia Paciﬁc strategy for the sake of a US–China condominium.85 Japan had a feeling of being “bypassed” and that its global role was diminishing because of its sluggish economy.86 The Japanese feared that if Japan continued to be uncooperative and frustrated US intentions in the Asia Paciﬁc region the US might strike a deal with China. This possibility could not be dismissed. In Koizumi two trends merged; the move for economic reform, which was resisted by the conservative groups within the LDP, was accompanied by the desire to push Japan into a high-proﬁle security role. Both moves were encouraged by the US and in this respect Koizumi acted as a major channel of external pressure upon Japan. For the Japanese public, however, economic reform may be welcomed and Koizumi’s battles with

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the self-serving factions may be applauded, but there was tangible resistance to his security agenda. Koizumi may have hoped that his overall popularity and public support in terms of economic reform would spill over into support for his security agenda as well. Public support for the security agenda was made more difﬁcult by Koizumi’s campaign pledge in April 2001 to visit the Yasukuni Shrine, where the ashes of 14 class A war criminals are interred, on the anniversary of Japan’s surrender on 15 August. Koizumi sought conservative LDP support for his leadership, but pressure from his coalition partners the Komeito and the New Conservative Party, as well as outrage from Japan’s Asian neighbours, induced him to change the date to 13 August. Most important, Koizumi’s reliance upon his popularity provoked opposition from the factions and interest groups who feared the power of a strong leader, who would then override the resistance to economic reform. For the Japanese opposition the key issue raised by Koizumi was not just the security agenda per se but the attempt to strengthen the role of leadership in Japan, which threatened their consensus rights. Koizumi met President Bush on 25 September when he pledged that Japan would contribute to the US campaign against terrorism by sending the SDF abroad in a logistics support role. Not surprisingly, the terrorist attacks had a considerable impact upon Japanese public opinion which had changed considerably since the debating of the 1992 peacekeeping bill Surveys conducted by the Yomiuri Shinbun over 24–25 September indicated that 24.7 per cent of those polled agreed that Japan should actively cooperate with US, 62.4 per cent said Japan should cooperate with reservations, and 12 per cent said Japan should not cooperate with the US.87 LDP Party Secretary Yamasaki Taku, who was the leader of the boezoku or defence “tribe” group in the Diet, pushed for legislation to give effect to Japan’s desire to cooperate with the US. After much negotiation between the coalition members (LDP, Komeito and the New Conservative Party) two bills were approved by the cabinet on 5 October. These bills were then submitted to the Diet on the same day. Opposition views were comparatively restrained and the stalling tactics that had been used on earlier occasions were absent. Opposition DPJ members claimed that prior permission of the Diet was required before forces could be despatched abroad in support of the US. Koizumi stressed that debate in the Diet itself meant that civilian control over the military was being maintained, and that speciﬁc approval was not required.88 The SDP claimed that the constitution was being ignored in the rush to satisfy US demands for Japanese cooperation. A second objection was that the proposed anti-terrorist legislation did not consider Japan’s neighbours such as China and Korea, a more serious issue.89 The despatch of SDF naval units abroad might have been regarded as a step towards Japanese remilitarisation but for the issue of international terrorism. This issue moderated Chinese and South Korean reactions to Japan’s expanded security role, and at the APEC summit in Shanghai in November 2001

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President Bush made a special effort to obtain an Asia Paciﬁc consensus over international terrorism in which China played an important role. China’s public response to Japanese action in despatching the SDF abroad was noticeably restrained when Koizumi visited China in early October 2000.90 Koizumi then told the Diet on 9 October that he had obtained China’s understanding for the despatch of the SDF. There was, however, discernible apprehension in China that once invoked an expanded Japanese defence role may be turned to other purposes, and that Japan may utilise international terrorism as a justiﬁcation for a strengthened military role which would allow Japan to “interfere militarily” into the Taiwan straits.90 There were other events which provoked strong Chinese criticisms, notably the history textbooks controversy of April 1001 and Koizumi’s visits to the Yasukuni Shrine. For China stable economic relations with Japan were important and after the obligatory diplomatic protests against the above events Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan in December 2001 told the Japanese that relations were back to normal. China had more important issues at stake.92 South Korea has been particularly sensitive to any expansion of a Japanese defence role and criticised Japan’s dispatch of SDF minesweepers to the Gulf in 1991. The South Korean press accused Japan of using terrorism as an excuse to expand its military role and highlighted the danger of a slide into “militarism.”93 Nonetheless, the South Korean government’s reaction to developments in Japan was shaped by its concern over North Korean terrorism, and support for the US-led coalition against international terrorism was a natural result. The South Korean government created the new position of ambassador for antiterrorist affairs and despatched a naval unit to the Indian Ocean in a supporting role for the US for the ﬁrst time since the Vietnam war.94 Medical, logistical and intelligence support was also offered, while C-130 transport aircraft were to ferry supplies to Diego Garcia.95 South Korea’s government was in no position to criticise Japan for doing what it had decided to do and in this respect international terrorism had brought the countries together in a shared response. For these reasons Chinese and South Korean reactions did not emerge as serious obstacles to the Japanese antiterrorist legislation. The three bills were passed on 29 October 2001, a record of three weeks. The Diet took nine months to enact the peacekeeping bill in 1992, and over a year to enact legislation to provide US forces with logistics support under the revised defence guidelines in May 1999. The ﬁrst law passed by the Diet was the Anti-terrorist Act, which would allow the SDF to provide rear area support for US retaliation for terrorist attacks. Under this legislation the SDF could provide material and services to the US and other militaries; these services included search and rescue operations for missing defence personnel and humanitarian relief operations. The US request was for Japanese support in transporting fuel, food and other

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supplies from US bases in Japan to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean; the SDF was not permitted to transport ammunition.96 Article 1 of the law states that Japan would engage in international efforts to eliminate terrorism; under this law SDF personnel could be sent to any region, but not to combat zones and only after prior host-country approval had been obtained.97 Under this legislation, on 9 November 2001, two destroyers and a supply ship were despatched to the Indian Ocean and on 25 November they were followed by a destroyer, a supply ship and a minesweeper. On 16 December 2002 Japan also sent the Aegis destroyer Kirishima to the Indian Ocean, which was strongly criticised. Former Cabinet Secretary Nonaka Hiromu was openly opposed to this decision, as was the coalition partner Komeito which invoked the prohibition on collective defence.98 The second law passed by the Diet was the SDF protection law, which would allow the SDF to use force beyond self-defence to protect its own facilities and those of the US in Japan. Under this legislation the Marine Safety Agency (MSA, or coastguard) was allowed to ﬁre upon suspicious vessels intruding into Japanese waters. As a demonstration of changing attitudes in the Diet the previously united opposition was split over the issue. Surprisingly, Communist Party leader Shii Kazuo supported this legislation, but the SDP leader Doi Takako remained opposed.99 Japanese recalled how in March 1999 two trawlers identiﬁed as North Korean intruded into Japanese waters and were chased by 15 ships and 12 aircraft, which could do nothing but ﬁre warning shots under the law at the time.100 On 22 December 2001, armed with new powers, however, the MSA chased and sunk two trawlers, again identiﬁed as North Korean, in the ﬁrst such action since the War. On 7 December 2001 the Diet also passed a bill amending the 1992 peacekeeping law. Though the full use of weapons was prohibited the SDF could at least protect those “under their control,” including troops from other countries, refugees, UN personnel, etc.101 SDF personnel will now be allowed to participate in the monitoring of ceaseﬁres, the patrolling of demilitarised areas and in weapons collection. The anti terrorist legislation removed geographical restrictions on Japan’s support for the US, but within the Foreign Ministry there was anxiety to avoid open-ended commitments.102 Moreover, respect for the constitution demanded that the Japanese task force be limited to a noncombatant role. In the Japanese Diet rather abstract discussions were conducted as to the distinction between a combatant and non combatant role, which revealed the concern over the risk of escalation. If Japanese vessels gave fuel to US destroyers launching cruise missiles would that be a breach of the above restrictions?102 The constitutional legitimacy of Japanese action rested upon dubious distinctions between combatant and noncombatant roles, which in a crisis would be revealed as meaningless. The issue of legitimacy is critical as Japan has reached the point where Diet law may override the constitution over this issue. The discrepancy between constitution and practice may widen to an absurd extent and

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some Japanese fear that the result will be a disturbing disrespect for the constitution that could affect their liberties in general. Japanese forces were to be taken out of the traditional area of interest in the Western Paciﬁc in a logistics support role according to a need deﬁned by the Americans, with attendant risks of an escalation of role. Since the initial despatch of the naval force Japan’s collaboration with the US has deepened and concerns have arisen that America would deﬁne the role of the naval force. Defence Agency Director Nakatani initially reported that the SDF would act autonomously, but subsequently admitted that Japanese vessels in the Indian Ocean were under US naval command.104 The US pressed Japan to allow the SDF to provide fuel for other navies besides the American, including the UK and Germany, and to include areas off the coast of Somalia as well.105 In the meantime SDF involvement in certain vulnerable points in the Western Paciﬁc will be enhanced, particularly in the Malacca Straits area through which runs Japan’s oil lifeline to the Middle East. Japan has been concerned about instability in Indonesia and the impact upon the security of the sea lanes. In 1998 Yamasaki Taku, then chairman of LDP’s Policy Research Council, warned Indonesia that its defence guidelines with the US would be invoked if civil unrest in Indonesia prevented navigation through the Malacca Straits.106 When pirates hijacked a Japanese ship carrying aluminium ingots in October 2000 Japan proposed the despatch of armed coastguard vessels to participate in joint patrols of the Malacca Straits.107 In May 2000 Japan’s SDF was granted access to facilities in Singapore to evacuate Japanese nationals in a crisis, or to participate in peacekeeping operations – the ﬁrst time Japan has requested such facilities.108 Defence Agency Director Kawara Tsutomu, who negotiated the access agreement with Singapore, also visited Vietnam and discussed search and rescue operations in the South China Sea, as well as regular defence meetings between defence ofﬁcials of both countries.109 Japan has been preparing for an enhanced support security role under the revised defence guidelines with the US by planning for speciﬁc weapons purchases. North Korean naval provocations and missile launchings have also stimulated moves in this direction. A ﬁve-year defence purchase plan was unveiled on 15 December 2000 and approved by cabinet in January 2001. It included four in-ﬂight-refuelling tankers for air defence, long range transport aircraft, helicopter carrying destroyers, an additional two Aegis-capable destroyers, and the formation of an air transportable brigade. Japan also announced that it would develop its own spy satellites by 2002 to monitor North Korea’s ballistic missile programme, for defence surveillance, and to control smuggling.110 Reports also circulate that the SDF is requesting funds for the purchase or manufacture of aircraft carriers. Japan may also develop and manufacture ASW aircraft to replace the existing P-3Cs and a new transport aircraft to replace the C-1s over the next ten years.111 Defence spending was increased in ﬁscal 2000 by 1.5 per

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cent to ¥4.96 trillion, which included a budget for the purchase of the ﬁrst airborne refuelling aircraft.112 On 20 December 2001 the defence budget for ﬁscal 2002 was announced with a marginal increase from ¥4.9553 trillion to ¥4.9959 trillion. Except for social security and education other items of the budget were reduced, including the public works programme which was cut by around 10 per cent. In this context of budget austerity the defence budget was protected.113 Attitudes towards security in Japan had changed and the anti-terrorist campaign altered the nature of the debate. There has been a reshufﬂing of political loyalties whereby younger members of the LDP and the DPJ have formed what is called the “New Right,” which pushes for an independent security role for Japan even without the US alliance. The views of younger politicians such as Aso Taro, head of the LDP Policy Research Council and grandson of Yoshida Shigeru, and DPJ Secretary Kan Naoto are indicative of this trend. The left no longer insists upon paciﬁst isolation and opposition to the US alliance; on the contrary it supports the alliance to balance the inﬂuence of the New Right.114 The old guard within the SDP, including the leader Doi Takako, opposed these trends and declared that the despatch of the SDF abroad violated the constitution, and that the Koizumi government had tarnished the image of Japan as a non-military country, which would increase mistrust of Japan in Asia. Within government the new attitude towards security could be seen in the greater willingness to break old taboos, including the possession of nuclear weapons. Deputy Cabinet Secretary Abe Shinzo in May 2002 at a seminar at Waseda University said that constitutionally Japan could possess nuclear weapons, which was later leaked to the press. Cabinet Secretary Fukuda Yasuo at a press conference on 31 May afﬁrmed that legally Japan could possess nuclear weapons but that the current cabinet had no desire to jettison the three non-nuclear principles.115 Japan was a signatory to the NPT as from February 1970, which it ratiﬁed in June 1976; the possession of nuclear weapons was prohibited by the three nonnuclear principles adopted by the Cabinet Legislative Bureau in 1973. Nonetheless, the issue of the possession of nuclear weapons has arisen on occasion and is not new. During the 1993–1994 North Korean nuclear crisis some LDP members claimed that Japan should have the option of acquiring nuclear weapons.115 Their concern is that the NPT was ineffective in preventing proliferation and that Japan may have to rely upon deterrence if non-proliferation measures fail. Concerns about North Korea’s nuclear programme in 1995 prompted the Defence Agency to conduct a study on the development of nuclear weapons.117 Similar fears were expressed in relation to China, as within government concern over China’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes has been rising. The issue of Japan’s possession of nuclear weapons was discussed in the upper house Foreign Policy and Defence Committee on 6 June 2002. The government view was that Japan had the right to nuclear weapons; if they

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were necessary for minimum defence their possession would not contravene the constitution. DPJ members, however, demanded that the government declare that nuclear weapons were forbidden by the constitution as offensive weapons. Liberal Party leader Ozawa Ichiro also raised the possibility of the possession of nuclear weapons when he criticised China in his Fukuoka speech on 6 April 2002. He declared that Japan could construct several thousand nuclear warheads overnight if it were compelled to do so.118 In Naha, Okinawa, on 7 April, Ozawa repeated the claim, stressing that he was against nuclear weapons, but left open the prospect according to events.119 The central concern was China, which revealed the ongoing dilemma faced by the Japanese governing elite as to how to adjust to a rising nuclear power. The expression of opinion does not immediately translate into implementation, however, and the governing elite may raise such issues as nuclear weapons, but the public at large remains committed to its non-nuclear principles. The Japanese Diet may have been willing to pass the anti-terrorist legislation in record time, as the terrorist attacks had galvanised public opinion. The Diet was less enthusiastic about the emergency legislation introduced by the Koizumi government to deal with enemy attack in which swift government response was required. Nonetheless, the passage of this legislation after 30 years of dithering indicated yet again the extent to which attitudes have changed in the Japanese Diet. Japanese political parties were resistant to any attempt to broaden the basis of Japan’s security involvement which would strengthen the power of the leadership. This indeed was a crucial issue, as preparation for a security role of the kind envisaged by the Koizumi government and the New Right entailed greater powers for the Prime Minister, which Japanese had opposed in the past. Not only was it an issue of consensus and consultative rights, which are so important for the Japanese, but it concerned the economic reform plans that Koizumi had promoted against his own LDP party opposition. The linkage between these made the political parties less willing to accept the emergency legislation, in which case the tendency of Japanese to gang together against strong leadership could be observed. Three bills were introduced into the Diet in March 2002. The ﬁrst entailed greater powers to the prime minister to coordinate government agencies in the event of an emergency. An extraordinary committee will be established in the cabinet to coordinate the reactions of national administrative organisations and local authorities. This committee will have the right to demand quick cooperation from local authorities; if local government leaders oppose the committee’s orders the prime minister will have the power to dismiss them. Also, the US army would have the same rights as the SDF to act in Japan. The second bill would revise legislation to allow the SDF to sequester private land and dismantle structures on that land; the third bill would revise the government security council.120 LDP Party Secretary Yamasaki strongly supported the bills and declared that the boezoku (defence tribe) had been pressing for this legislation for the past 30 years.

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Kan Naoto similarly supported the bills, but the DPJ was divided and many were concerned that the legislation would allow too much power to the government.121 The Hashimoto LDP faction was opposed to the bills, and its leaders told the press that they should be scrapped or redrafted to take into account opposition views.122 The Hashimoto faction included former Cabinet Secretary Nonaka Hiromu who was particularly opposed to Japan’s assumption of a security role. Nonaka argued that the bills would restrict the lives and property of the Japanese people, that they are being promoted by the boezoku and therefore not representative of party opinion.123 Three bills were eventually passed by the Diet on 6 June 2003 after Koizumi agreed to include provisions for respecting human rights into the legislation and Diet overview of the government’s action.124 The most signiﬁcant factor in the change of Japanese attitudes towards security was North Korea, which had been regarded with apprehension by the Japanese. The launching of the Taepodong missile over Japan on 31 August 1998 was critical and was described as a “great threat to Japan’s security.”125 The Japanese were informed by US intelligence of preparations for launching the missile in early August 1998, and despite repeated warnings by Japan North Korea went ahead. Some LDP members were reportedly furious that Japan had to rely on foreign intelligence for an event that concerned its security and demanded that the government should develop its own spy satellites.126 This event prompted the Japanese government to announce the launching of four intelligence satellites to monitor North Korea’s activity and to accept limited participation in the US plan for Theatre Missile Defence (TMD); in March 2003 Japan launched its ﬁrst satellite for this purpose. Concerns about Beijing’s reactions limited Japan to what was called the “research” stage of TMD, but subsequently pressure emerged to declare full participation. Two North Korean trawlers intruded into Japanese waters in March 1999, and may have been engaged in the smuggling of metamphetamines into Japan. A North Korean naval vessel which was sunk by the Japanese navy in China’s EEZ in December 2001 was reportedly involved in drug trafﬁcking and may have used Chinese ports, an allegation swiftly denied by the Japanese Foreign Ministry.127 These incidents attracted much press attention, prompting the Japanese to consider North Korea as a “gangster country.” Japan has attempted to establish diplomatic relations with North Korea but the same obstacles appear on every occasion. The ﬁrst attempt, over January 1991 to December 1992, was stalled by the North Korean demand for compensation for Japan’s colonisation of Korea from 1910 to 1945.128 In April 2000 negotiations resumed in Pyongyang when Japan announced food aid to the North, which had been suspended after the launching of the Taepodong in August 1998. The North insisted on the same demands, while the Japanese side raised the issue of the North’s ballistic missile programme and called for information on the Japanese abducted by North Korean agents; the ofﬁcial number of abductions was

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13 but estimates reach as high as 70.128 The Japanese were willing to extend economic assistance to the North, which Foreign Minister Kono Yohei insisted had nothing to do with the North’s compensation claims, and at that stage negotiations were terminated. According to North Korean defector Hwang Jang-yop the North sought up to $10 billion in “compensation” from Japan. He claimed that Kim Jong-il had ordered the North’s ofﬁcials to be high handed with the Japanese in the belief that they would be easily intimidated by threats and would cave into pressure.130 Koizumi’s visit to Pyongyang in September 2002 was intended to stimulate negotiations. Signiﬁcantly, he rejected the idea of reparations but accepted the notion of economic aid for the North. In any case, negotiations were derailed over the abductions issue. When Kim Jong-Il met Koizumi he admitted and apologised for the abductions in a most unusual gesture and ﬁve abductees were allowed to return to Japan in October; it resulted in an outpouring of grief. Public opinion made it impossible for the Japanese government to negotiate with the North without satisfaction over the abductions issue, as it was decided that the ﬁve abducted Japanese could stay in Japan, and that the North should provide further information on other cases.131 In the meantime the Japanese have become markedly uneasy about the North’s ballistic missile programme and the reported deployment of 45–100 Nodong-1 missiles with a 1,300 km range, placing Japan at risk. Attitudes towards TMD were inﬂuenced accordingly as Defence Agency Director Ishiba Shigeru publicly declared the need to cooperate with the US in the development of missile defence. Ishiba was supported by Kan Naoto and the DPJ and in June 2003 the Japanese government announced plans to deploy missile defence by 2006.132 The Japanese also considered a pre-emptive strike upon the North’s missile sites if there was the danger of an attack upon Japan, Ishiba raiseing the possibility on 24 January and 31 March 2003.133 Immediately after the North tested the Nodong-1 in May 1993 and the Taepodong in August 1998 the Defence Agency examined the feasibility of a strike against the North’s missile bases. The idea went beyond defence circles when Cabinet Secretary Fukuda referred to the option during Diet hearings, and in May 2003 Koizumi himself came out in support.134 Japan lacks the capability in terms of delivery and accurate targeting systems, and the acquisition of the required capability would itself become controversial for Japan. However, the option would only be considered in a case of dire emergency if Japan is threatened with a missile strike. Nonetheless, the public airing of such views points to a change in Japanese thinking about security within ofﬁcial circles.

The future Over the past decade Japan had taken several significant steps towards a security role, under pressure first from the US ally and later by the

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changing security situation in North-East Asia. The defence group within the LDP which has pressed for a greater security role has become more influential and has obtained the cooperation of similar groups in other parties, the DPJ in particular. With the decline of the socialists security attitudes have changed and a younger generation of political leaders is more likely to support a security role and less inclined to tolerate the inert pacifism upheld by their seniors. Nonetheless, the changes in security attitudes have not resulted in a fundamental transformation of the system in a way that would presage the emergence of Japan as a military power. The Japanese will allow a certain limited and practical adaptation to the security demands of their major ally the US, but within the context of constitution and fundamental values. Those values have placed stringent limits on the extent of Japan’s security cooperation with the US and have ensured that it remain confined to logistics and supply. Despite the attempts to revise the constitution the Japanese public has been resistant and would live with a discrepancy between constitution and practice rather than wholesale revision. Pacifist values have not been entirely supplanted and the constitution is unlikely to be revised. The Japanese consensus is capable of maintaining contradictions that would tear open Western political systems, and the logical consistency which concerns Western minds was never a Japanese value. Security necessity, as interpreted by the political leadership, may coexist uneasily with pacifist values in an adaptation to a new external predicament. Certain difficulties arise from the direction of value change in Japan which will require attention in the future. Pacifist values have inculcated a sense of isolationism and complacency that has not prepared Japan for the higher security profile its leaders have promoted. The problem arises because of the concern that Japan’s security cooperation with the US would create tensions with China, particularly over Taiwan, and would deepen divisions with the Asia Pacific region destroying all chance of a successful Asian regionalism. Western observers of Japan have indeed noted the potential conflict between these two priorities in Japanese policy, with the extreme version claiming that Japan and China are on a collision course.135 Those fears might be intensified if Defence Agency proposals for greater defence integration between the US and its allies in the Pacific were adopted.136 Japan’s espousal of a broader multilaterialism to engage China would mitigate and balance the effects of security cooperation with the US.137 Security dialogue with China was agreed when Zhu Rongji visited Tokyo in October 2000, and though it was interrupted over 2001 by Koizumi’s visit to the Yasukuni Shrine, it was resumed again in January 2002 at viceministerial level.138 The Japanese Foreign Ministry has pursued the aim of a Pacific trilateralism which would involve China with the US and China in a security forum, but to some extent the annual APEC

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summits have served that purpose. The Japanese may develop stronger economic ties and corresponding economic institutions as a framework for relations with China, but that would require greater activism and a more purposeful coordination of policy than Japan has hitherto displayed.

4

The Korean peninsula

The Korean peninsula is an environment where state survival has been the major imperative. Survival imparts a rational and predictable quality to foreign policy where instrumental choices are made based on the logic of realism. Survival is indeed the great leveller, reducing countries to the same condition of selecting rational courses of action despite differences of culture. Countries in similar situations of threat and insecurity may act in similar ways whatever their cultural backgrounds and whatever values they may uphold. In a situation of threat any action that departs appreciably from reality for reasons related to particular cultural values, idealism or political indecision would be punished severely by events. Neo-realism would have it that values and identities are irrelevant on the Korean peninsula, that their signiﬁcance has been suppressed by the predictable logic of survival. Nonetheless, even in a high-threat situation such as that of the Korean peninsula neo-realism has limitations. In any given situation the logic of survival may suggest several instrumental choices, each viable within a particular context. Underlying values become important in explaining why one course of action is selected in preference to another, why bandwagoning may be selected over military deterrence. Decisionmaking may result in a course of action that deviates from that anticipated by an objective observer, which will require explanation in the realm of values and identity. The North may be examined as an unusual case in constructivism. The ability to construct a world-view that determines the actions and behaviour of others is normally the prerogative of great powers – those with a sense of world mission and a military capability to shape events. Smaller actors, however, are compelled to navigate within an environment that has been constructed by the actions of larger states. North Korea, however, has prolonged its survival as a totalitarian state by constructing its own world view and by enforcing a stringent isolation from the external world. How this system survived, when logic and the rational observer predicted change or collapse after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, requires a reference to regime values. In South Korea one signiﬁcant theme in politics has been the interplay between state survival in the face of the Northern

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threat, and deeper aspirations in relation to the North. Koreans have unfulﬁlled aspirations for nationalist reconstruction which have been frustrated by the cold war division of the peninsula. Reuniﬁcation would involve more than the effort to overcome cold-war divisions and would entail the long-postponed reconstruction of the Korean nation, state and identity. Pending that event South Korea remains a temporary entity creating a legitimacy gap between loyalty to the southern state and loyalty to the wider nation which includes the North as well. The result has been a deﬁnite dualism in the politics of the south and oscillation between the imperative of state survival and the deeper longing to embrace the North. During the cold-war years state survival dominated all other considerations, the threat of North was at its height and the South was ruled by a series of military dictators from Rhee Syngman to Roh Tae-woo. Nonetheless, every Southern government has required a reuniﬁcation policy to justify itself before the nation. Roh Tae-woo introduced Nordpolitik in July 1988, which was modelled on the Ostpolitik of West German Premier Willy Brandt in the early 1970s. The ﬁrst elected President Kim Young-sam attempted to follow a policy of reconciliation, which was not realised because of the 1993–1994 nuclear crisis and its repercussions. Democratisation, however, has removed the restraints on the public desire for reuniﬁcation, particularly after the emergence of the Kim Dae-jung presidency in December 1997. Kim’s “sunshine” policy was the most explicit statement of national reconciliation conceived by a Southern government. The aspiration for reuniﬁcation is sacred yet it clashes with policies and institutions in both North and South that have assumed more than a temporary nature. The North has portrayed itself as the legitimate representative of Korean nationhood because of its leaders’ struggle against the Japanese during the war, and its strict self-reliance and refusal to bow to external powers. Policies based on reconciliation challenge the very existence of the Northern state and exacerbate the dilemma of its existence. The tension between the national aspiration for unity and the existence of the two separate states is one that was revealed by the “sunshine” policy and continues to inﬂuence the security of the peninsula.

The Northern regime The Northern regime has constructed an artiﬁcial value system and a coerced identity that has been drawn from Korean history and culture, which has become parasitical. The legitimacy of the ruling party has been based on an identiﬁcation with the history of the group and the evocation of a national memory of the hostility of the outside world. Isolation has facilitated the successful imposition of the ruling party’s ideology, which is then vindicated by external enmity. The provocation of the external environment through acts of terrorism, military incursions or threats serves to promote and deepen that isolation and strengthens the hold of

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the ruling party. An enforced identiﬁcation between ruler and ruled is created on the basis of a confrontation with the external world that has been managed and directed by the party leadership. That identiﬁcation is then reinforced by the strict control of information, totalitarian controls on people’s movements and extensive indoctrination and propaganda campaigns. The artiﬁciality of this identity renders it vulnerable to contact with the external world, and it would not survive the loosening of controls or the inﬂux of new information. Fear of contact becomes an incentive for the continual and obsessive re-imposition of the ideology and for demonstrations of its relevance and vindication, which require further acts of provocation of the outside world. The doctrine of self-reliance or juche which was announced by Kim Ilsung on 28 December 1955 became the operating ideology of the North. Juche was used by Kim to eliminate his opponents and to justify a native Korean approach to building communism, as against those returning Korean communists who called for the adoption of Chinese or Soviet methods.1 The essence of juche is national pride in being Korean and has been regarded as the “the absolute given of North Korean life, the deﬁning characteristic of the nation.”2 Juche has many dimensions, including a “militant” nationalism and an ethnocentric sense of national superiority.3 The leader was a “divine gift” to the people, who demanded absolute loyalty, love and obedience in a system of “paternal socialism” in which the state was an extension of the family.4 Most signiﬁcant was the stress given to the development of a military capability to protect Korea against the depredations of hostile external powers, which had always taken advantage of its weakness in history. The North’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programme, which has included nuclear, ballistic missile (BM) and clandestine chemical and biological weapons, is a product of this obsession with self-protection against an hostile environment. Juche is Korea-centric and draws upon Confucian values and rituals which have been strongly entrenched in Korean history. Cultural anthropologists who have examined Korean traditions note that Confucianism’s most fundamental feature was the patrilineage system, which in Korea was more tightly structured than was the case in China.5 The strong tradition of ancestor worship in Korea predated the introduction of Confucianism in the Koryo Dynasty (918–1392) and has been related to pre-Confucian shamanist traditions which are prevalent in rural parts of Korea.6 NeoConfucianism became the state ideology of the Choson Dynasty (1392–1910) and adapted to native shamanism with its stress on ancestor worship. Confucian ceremonies during which related clans would pay their respects to their ancestors, were ofﬁciated by the primogeniture descendant of the most senior clan line.7 Ancestor worship was a “social ordering device” for Korean society bringing related clan groups together on the basis of kinship and lineage, and providing a means for common identiﬁcation and solidarity.8 The concept of familism may also be used to explain

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Korea and the importance attached to ﬁlial piety as the basis of behaviour. Studies of the South note that political parties follow family lines, with an emphasis on paternal relations and strong identiﬁcation with the clan group.9 The Northern regime has drawn from these traditions to create a native ideology to underpin its authority. The gloriﬁcation of the leadership, the role accorded to the Kim Il-sung ruling family, Kim’s insistence upon recognition of his son Kim Jong-il as heir, and the strong emphasis upon the obligation of the subjects to the ruling family demonstrate the traditions of the past. Juche owes little to Marxism-Leninism. Indeed Marxist economic materialism, the stress on class as the prime mover of history and the characteristic derision of feudal practices have no place in juche.10 The idea of the divine leader could be seen in the 5th amendment of the 1998 constitution which referred to Kim Il-sung as the “eternal president.” Then the international community logically expected that Kim Jong-il would assume his father’s position as president after the obligatory period of mourning after his death on 8 July 1994; similarly, an ofﬁcial Juche calendar was introduced on 8 July 1997 which ﬁxed the year of Kim’s birth, 1912, as year one. The deiﬁcation of father and son was announced in the Northern newspapers Rodong Sinmun and Minju Choson in 1996; they were referred to as father–son gods.11 The strong indigenous nature of the ideology of the ruling regime enabled it to survive the collapse of communism in the Western world, and to resist the pressures for change to which the Chinese and Vietnamese communist parties have been subjected. The party removed references to Marxism-Leninism from the 1980 charter of the ruling Korean Worker’s Party (KWP) and from the 1992 version of the constitution.12 The legitimacy of the regime was based not on economic performance or success, as a rational Western mind would have it, or upon the dictates of class struggle and social transformation according to Marxism-Leninism, but upon adherence to Kim Il-sung’ s ideological legacy. In that respect the imposition of juche has created a religious community which is oblivious of the governance criteria of the external world, and in its isolation has developed idiosyncratic characteristics.13 In the contest for legitimacy with the South, the spiritual and ideological appeal of the North has been important in Kim Il-sung’s approach to radical student groups in the South, particularly during the period of the dictators. Juche places the North in the position of being truly independent, unlike the South which allows the stationing of US troops and has become beholden to a foreign power.14 The strong position of the ruling party is due to its indigenous ideology and the pervasive controls exercised by the security apparatus in ensuring the isolation of the people and explain why the regime has survived despite economic collapse and a disastrous famine over 1995–1996. According to normal logic a regime that fails to feed its own people and which is responsible for severe economic deterioration would provoke

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revolt, riots or demonstrations. In Poland workers revolted in the shipyards of Gdansk in December 1970 for less, when the Communist Party increased food prices without warning before Christmas. Notions of legitimacy and the likelihood of revolt in response to deteriorating economic conditions are culturally and historically determined and vary accordingly. Predictions based on Western assumptions that the North Korean regime would collapse after the cold war were wide of the mark. In February 1996, commander of US forces in the South Gary Luck thought that the North would disintegrate through implosion or explosion, that it was unlikely that the North’s leadership would remain cohesive enough to make rational decisions, and that its collapse could be soon expected.15 Defence Intelligence Agency Director Patrick Hughes claimed in August 1996 that the North could collapse or implode and had already begun the process of self-destruction. When Hughes testiﬁed in 1996 he expected “political calamity” within three years.16 South Korean President Kim Young-sam thought that North was “unstable” because of food shortages and the failure to conﬁrm Kim Jong-il in his father’s positions, but he was hesitant about predicting collapse.17 By contrast, John Merrill of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research stated that Kim Jong-il was in ﬁrm control and that the North would not collapse soon.18 The North Korean people experienced unprecedented economic distress as internal conditions began to deteriorate in 1992. After the collapse of the Soviet Union fuel supplies from the Soviet ally were reduced, and China, which used to supply the North with 25 per cent of its grain needs or about 1 million tons, began to demand payment in hard currency for delivery of grain. In 1992 the harvest failed and reports from Japanese visitors to the North who travelled by ferry from Niigata to Wonsan indicated food shortages and riots.19 Over 1995–1996 agricultural conditions deteriorated further and production dropped by a reported 15 per cent to an estimated 3.5 million tons. Information received from Northern defectors painted a grim picture of malnutrition and starving villagers, little fuel was available to operate the farm tractors and grain production dropped by 15 per cent.20 There were reports that Northern television advised people to eat wild grass roots, and advice was broadcast on edible roots and grasses. Many did not survive, and estimates of famine deaths vary from 270,000, as admitted by the North, to the World Vision claim that 15 per cent of population (about 3 million) died; South Korean estimates were around the 2–3 million mark.21 In 1995 the North appealed for food aid from international agencies, which by 2001 provided grain to an estimated one-third of the population. How could the regime survive? The Soviet Union faced repeated humanitarian disasters in its history, the collectivisation campaigns and the estimated 20 million lost during the Second World War all demonstrated that as long as a regime is assured of the loyalty of the party, the security apparatus, and the army it can survive. The structure of the Northern economy has ensured that loyalty, so the

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effects of the famine have fallen mainly upon the rural population. The North has three economies, the ﬁrst being the primary economy which includes the state sector and its collective farms and factories. This economy has collapsed. The second is the secondary economy which includes black market production and trading. It also includes the military production system where goods are produced in military factories for international trade through organisations controlled by the military. The secondary economy is estimated to be larger than the primary economy and to account for up to 60 per cent of GDP.22 The third is the special court economy which provides goods for the party elite estimated at around 1 million. Following the Soviet model the party elite have special privileges and access to their own stores, and foreign trade organisations. As conditions degenerated the control of the regime was strengthened and there have been sporadic reports of revolts. In September 1992 news circulated of a military coup attempt against both father and son when cases of malnutrition were reported even in the army. The 18 army ofﬁcers involved were reportedly executed.23 Another army revolt was reported in Northern Hamgyong province in 1995, an area badly affected by famine.24 Reports indicate that the military is in command in the North and makes the key decisions, but the military itself is interpenetrated by the security organs, the State Security Department and the Secret Service which ensure loyalty to the leadership. Rivalry between reformers and hardliners has been noted throughout the 1980s and early 1990s; the reformers managed to have the Joint Venture Law of 1984 passed and the Rajin–Sonbong special free trade and investment zone accepted in 1991.25 The inﬂuence of the reformers waned as the North’s economic condition deteriorated as the hardliners moved to impose stronger control. In February 1997 Hwang Jang-yop, who was Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the North’s Parliament and Central Committee Secretary in charge of foreign policy, defected in Beijing because of the increasing inﬂuence of the hardliners.26 Soon after his defection events seemed to vindicate his predictions. A purge of economic technocrats was reported in March 1997 which was linked to the rise of the military. Premier Kang Song-san was purged with ten other ofﬁcials, including Kim Pyongshik one of the four vice-presidents.27 Deputy Premier Yon Hyong-muk was demoted after calling for closer economic relations with the South.28 In February and April 1997 promotions within the military were announced; on the latter occasion some 122 army ofﬁcers were promoted, including four vice-marshals. Evidently the famine years may have stimulated distrust in the regime which prompted the top leadership to press for greater control. The outcome was the ascendancy of the military within the party, which was announced on 5 September 1998 at the same that Kim Il-sung was declared to be the “eternal president.” The chairmanship of the National Defence Commission, held by Kim Jong-il, was declared to be the top position of the country and had the effect of elevating the military over the party.29 In this

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situation of tight control no direct challenge to the leadership was conceivable, but lower level rivalry is possible and has indeed been observed. There is still some leeway for the technocrats and the military to pursue their own policies, and the picture is not one of a totally monolithic regime. As the regime debates its options in a difﬁcult environment it seems that Kim Jongil tilts in different directions and allows these groups to test their policies. Within the context of strong control from the top there have been conﬂicting and perhaps confused actions. North Korea’s survival seemed problematic after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the market reforms in China resulted in reduced supplies of grain and fuel. The regime sought substitute supporters in the West and the US such that the last remaining vestige of communist totalitarianism would ironically survive with Western support. The North provoked situations to bring the international community to the realisation that it had a stake in the North’s survival, because of alarm over the chaos that would arise if the regime collapsed. It has relied on its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes to draw attention to its demands and to elicit a spirit of negotiation and accommodation to extend its existence. It has sought guarantees of its security, political recognition and large scale economic assistance to compensate for its own mistakes and misrule. It has attempted to exploit Western apprehension surrounding its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes to the point where its demands would appear legitimate and deserving. Success in ensuring survival in the way outlined would strengthen the regime’s credibility in terms of competing with the South for the legitimacy of the Korean nation. The North has had the consistent strategy of seeking the removal of US forces from the South, which would remove a major hindrance to the kind of dialogue with the South that would beneﬁt it. Without the US military presence the North might prevent a reuniﬁcation based on a take over by the economically stronger South and may be in a position to effect a reuniﬁcation on its own terms, based on its nationalist appeal to the Korean people.30 The Northern regime has several advantages that have assisted the promotion of its aims. A regime exercising complete control over its own society is able to plan its moves with cold-blooded rationality with long-term objectives in mind and without concern for elections, public opinion, or a liberal conscience. It may threaten the escalation of tensions exploiting fears of its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes to a level that would prompt panic in liberal governments, which are accountable to electorates and public opinion according to humanitarian criteria. The sheer audacity with which it has provoked tensions has prompted a search for compromise and adjustment within the West, and a corresponding criticism of those who resist concessions. Nonetheless, the threat to escalate has to be used sparingly lest all desire for compromise evaporates and liberal Western governments are pushed beyond their endurance. Moreover, the North faces an international community which is not

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always united and composed of governments with markedly different interests and objectives on the Korean peninsula. The US has been most inclined to adopt punitive measures in relation to the North as a product of its global non-proliferation policy and its concern over the North’s WMD programme. Other actors in the Korean peninsula have been less inclined towards punitive measures and regard the North not as a problem for global non-proliferation but as a regional issue requiring accommodation and adjustment. China has opposed the imposition of penalties on the North, and its attitude towards the peninsula has been shaped by the Taiwan issue and the US military presence in the South, which it has no wish to strengthen. Japan has been greatly concerned about the North’s WMD programmes, and until recently Japanese politicians have felt intimidated to the extent of volunteering economic aid to keep the Northern regime aﬂoat. Russia has been an outside actor in the peninsula but has generally followed China in avoiding provocative action. The North has resorted to a combination of initiatives to surrender its WMD programmes on the one hand and threats to continue with them on the other to divide the external powers, and to reduce the ability of the US to maintain its opposition to it. The dynamics of interaction between the external powers have been manipulated by the North to create constraints which would hinder the US and its desire to punish the North for violation of nonproliferation norms. The intention has been to ensure that dialogue and engagement would prevail over sanctions and containment. The nuclear crisis of 1993–1994 demonstrated these dynamics and how the North exploited fears of its nuclear programme to entice the US into supporting its existence.

The engagement of the North The North’s nuclear programme included the 1986 Soviet-constructed 5 MW reactor at Yonbyon about 100 km north of Pyongyang; an as yet uncompleted 50 MW gas-graphite reactor also at Yongbyon; a 50 MW gasgraphite reactor at Taechon, also uncompleted; and a reprocessing plant at Yongbyon which could produce weapons-grade plutonium.31 Though the North joined the NPT in 1985 it did not sign the safeguards agreement with the IAEA until 30 January 1992, and then under Russian pressure after the visit of Yeltsin’s special envoy Igor Rogochov to Pyongyang. Under the terms of the safeguards agreement the North was obliged to accept international inspection of its nuclear facilities by the IAEA, and six ad hoc inspections were conducted from May 1992 to February 1993. They revealed that plutonium was produced on three or four separate occasions and that high-explosive tests, which may have been detonators, had been conducted around the site. On 25 February, the IAEA was moved to request additional inspections of two nuclear waste sites; the request was refused.32 Samples of plutonium and waste did not match and

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the IAEA intended to examine two nuclear waste sites but was refused. On 12 March 1993 Kim Il-sung declared that the North would withdraw from the NPT, thereby provoking the crisis. Central to the North’s strategy was the intention of manipulating the nuclear crisis to obtain American assurances of its survival, which placed the Clinton administration in the centre of negotiations. The main concern for the Clinton administration was the prevention of nuclear proliferation, for which it was prepared to be accommodating. The first round of US–North Korea negotiations was conducted in New York on 2 and 4 June 1993 between Assistant-Secretary of State Robert Gallucci and First Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs Kang Sok-ju. The result was a joint US–North Korean statement dated 11 June in which the North suspended its withdrawal from the NPT, both sides calling for the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.33 During the second round on 19 July 1993 agreement was reached according to which the North would resume talks with the IAEA; it declared that it would accept a resumption of inspections of its nuclear facilities. Over October and November 1993 talks with the North continued at the UN with the US disposed towards a comprehensive approach to the issue which entailed a US guarantee of the North’s security, political recognition and economic aid in return for which the North would subject its nuclear programme to full inspection.34 After meeting with the IAEA, on 3 December the North announced its acceptance of one off inspections of seven declared nuclear sites, but not the two waste sites that the IAEA particularly wanted to inspect. In negotiations with the North on 29 December the US accepted this agreement, but the issue of the two waste dumps remained unresolved. The hope was that conflict could be avoided and that the North could be persuaded to abide by non-proliferation norms.35 In addition, the US accepted the North’s demand to cancel the “Team Spirit” exercise with the South which was scheduled for March 1994. The US also agreed not to involve the South in these negotiations, dropping its demand for high-level North–South talks. IAEA inspections began on 1 March 1994 and revealed that the North had broken the seals the agency had placed in the Yongbyon reprocessing plant during its last inspections in 1993.36 The outline of a US–North Korea agreement had already taken shape, based on American accommodation of the North’s demands. Kim Il-sung called for an invitation to visit the White House, US recognition of his son Kim Jong-il as successor, US diplomatic recognition of the North and a peace treaty with the US which would replace the 1953 armistice agreement.37 The Clinton administration hesitated to make further concessions and would offer diplomatic relations and economic assistance only if the North allowed inspections of the two disputed nuclear sites.38 The US could not consider a separate peace treaty with the North without undermining its alliance with the South, and called for a peace treaty between

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both North and South. The North declared that only after the conclusion of a peace treaty with the US would full international inspection of its nuclear facilities be allowed.39 To place further pressure on the US, in April 1994 the Yongbyon reactor was shut down and fuel reloading began on 12 May which entailed the removal of 8,000 fuel rods in what was a two-month operation.40 Refuelling without international supervision was against the NPT safeguards agreement as the North could remove the record of its past processing of plutonium. It was at this point that the Clinton administration considered force. Defence Secretary William Perry later revealed that an air strike on the North was debated but rejected because of the fear of Northern attack on the South.41 Kim Young-sam claimed that he refused to support Clinton over the use of force, inducing him to relent.42 Sanctions were considered as the next option but the regime’s isolation reduced its vulnerability to international sanctions as imposed by the UN Security Council. Because of China’s role in supplying the North with an estimated 1.1 million tons of oil annually sanctions would make sense only with China’s cooperation. Japanese cooperation was also required to interdict the sources of ﬁnance to the North from the Korean residents’ organisation or Chongryun. All the key actors the US had intended to rely upon were opposed to sanctions as provocative, and China in particular had made its position known when sanctions were ﬁrst considered in 1993 after the North temporarily withdrew from the NPT.43 The North threatened war against Japan if it joined sanctions against it, which alarmed Japanese politicians, wary as they were about the reactions of Korean residents. The coalition which then governed Japan was dominated by the Socialist Party and was incapable of making a clear decision on sanctions in any case.44 Russia was also opposed to sanctions and the normally cooperative Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev stated that only if the North withdrew from the NPT and refused to cooperate with the IAEA would they be required. South Korean President Kim Young-sam similarly was opposed, claiming that they were premature; he stressed the need for bilateral North Korea–US negotiations and an inter-Korean summit with Kim Il-sung.45 Former President Jimmy Carter criticised the Clinton administration for its severity and visited Pyongyang with the intention to mediate. On 16 June he met Kim Il-sung and claimed that if the North agreed to freeze its nuclear programme and suspended operation of the nuclear plants, the US would forgo the resort to economic sanctions and would resume high-level negotiations with the North in Geneva; he told the North Korean leader that the US was willing to consider light-water reactors to replace the gasgraphite reactors. On 16 June Carter revealed the details of the agreement in an interview with Cable News Network (CNN), before he had reported to the administration.46 Former Assistant Secretary of State during the Reagan administration Paul Wolfowitz declared that Clinton allowed Carter to reverse the direction of US policy, which was moving towards

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the imposition of sanctions without the UN’s involvement.47 Kim Youngsam noted that Clinton was eager for a compromise on the basis that the North was ready to collapse, in which case its leaders would be amenable to dialogue.48 Clinton lunged at the opportunity presented by the Carter visit to defuse the crisis and to head off pressure for confrontation which he opposed. The Clinton administration assumed that dialogue would allow the Northern regime time to reform according to the Chinese model, and if it did not reform it might collapse of its own accord. Harrison has argued that the Pyongyang pragmatists, led by Kim Yongsun who was International Affairs Secretary in the Central Committee, had consistently sought a compromise with the US over the nuclear issue since the North signed the safeguards agreement in 1992.49 He visited Pyongyang in early June 1994 and claimed that a “small group of pragmatists around Kim Jong-il took the initiative with Washington and persisted steadfastly despite US rebuffs and hard line opposition in Pyongyang.”50 These pragmatists were mainly in the Foreign Ministry and included First Deputy Foreign Minister Kang Sok-ju, Deputy UN Ambassador Kim Jong-ju and Director of US affairs Li Hyong-chol. They were willing to consider a comprehensive nuclear freeze in return for Russian light-water reactors ﬁnanced by the US. According to this interpretation the Carter visit allowed the pragmatist’s idea of a nuclear freeze to be presented to Kim Il-sung himself where it was linked to the establishment of diplomatic relations with the US, an end to all economic sanctions then imposed on the North since the Korean War, a peace treaty with the US and the demand that the North be treated as an equal.51 Agreement was reached at Geneva on 12 August 1994 when Robert Gallucci and Kang Sok-ju negotiated the basic features of what was to become the Agreed Framework. The North agreed to forgo production of plutonium by not reprocessing spent fuel rods, and to freeze the construction of two additional reactors. In return the US promised to normalise relations with the North, to provide light-water reactors at a cost of $4 billion, and to supply the North with energy in the interim before the new reactors begin operation. The US attempted to press the North to close the reprocessing plant entirely and to accept international inspection of all nuclear waste sites; both demands were crucial for the sceptics in the Clinton administration. The North rejected these demands but agreed to open its nuclear sites to inspection after the light-water reactors were completed, some 6–10 years in the future.52 The US rejected the North’s demand that Russia should supply the light-water reactors and on 15 August Kim Young-sam announced that the South would supply them, in return for which the North should open its entire nuclear programme to inspection. To deﬂect this demand the North threatened that if the agreement was not conﬁrmed by 23 September 1994 it would restart the Yongbyon nuclear reactor.53 The North also demanded additional compensation of up to $2 billion for scrapping the gas-graphite reactors, which the US rejected. Sources within

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the Clinton administration later claimed that China had applied pressure upon the North to accept the Carter deal, and that China’s frustration with the North had grown and its leaders were more disposed to cooperate with the US since the Clinton administration renewed MFN for China in May 1994.54 The Agreed Framework signed in Geneva of 21 October 1994 was based on the compromise of positions negotiated months in advance. Certain features of the 12 August agreement were deﬁned in greater detail in the Agreed Framework; the freeze of the North’s nuclear reactors was to begin within one month of the agreement, the North’s gas-graphite reactors would be dismantled when construction of the light-water reactors would be completed in 2003; the US was to supply 500,000 tons of heavy oil annually to the North, beginning three months after the agreement. The ﬁrst delivery of 50,000 tons of oil was made in February 1995; there was the suspicion that the North would divert oil for military use but there was nothing in the agreement to prevent this. Section 2 stated that “The two sides will move toward full normalisation of political and economic relations”; Section 2 (2) stated that “each side will open a liaison ofﬁce in the other’s capital” following resolution of consular and technical issues. The agreement obliged the North to comply fully with the safeguards agreement “with regard to verifying the accuracy and completeness” of its declaration about its nuclear sites.55 The agreement immediately became the target of attack from the US Republican right wing, which noted that the provision for inspection of the North’s past compliance with safeguards provisions was exhortatory and not binding. The North was still in violation of the safeguards provisions and the agreement simply accepted that violation, a poor precedent for the administration’s non-proliferation policy. Defence Secretary William Perry defended the agreement, saying that the North would not receive the main components for the reactors until inspections were permitted on 8,000 fuel rods which had been placed in concrete to slow corrosion. Even if the North violated the agreement by separating plutonium it would only obtain oil from the US and no reactors, and would not be rewarded.56 Assistant Secretary of State Winston Lord opined that it was not a perfect agreement but the best available – it managed to keep the North in the NPT. It also obtained the North’s agreement to the principle of inspections and prevented the further development of the nuclear programme, without which the North could have produced more nuclear weapons.57 The criticism had the effect of removing any interest within the Clinton administration in the establishment of diplomatic relations with the North, let alone a peace treaty. Robert Gallucci upped the ante and declared that there would be no diplomatic relations with the North until it ceased the export of BMs and withdrew signiﬁcant numbers of forces from the border with the South.58 Within the Clinton administration it was acknowledged that the agreement was negotiated with collapse of the North in mind, and

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that it would at least delay any further development of the North’s nuclear programme which would make that collapse more dangerous. The Clinton administration’s justiﬁcation of the deal reﬂects the fact that it had been trapped by conﬂicting policy needs that had guided its policy. Global nonproliferation policy dictated that it press for the North’s strict compliance with IAEA safeguard provisions and demand a full accounting for spent nuclear fuel. The effective implementation of non-proliferation policy and the effort to prevent “rogue” states from acquiring WMD would depend upon the administration’s credibility. The credibility of Clinton’s non-proliferation policy was held hostage to the realities of the Korean peninsula, and while Clinton was unprepared for a confrontation with the North all he could do was to negotiate sufﬁcient time to postpone a resolution of the problem. The North had demonstrated the efﬁcacy of its survival strategy and a precedent had been established for future negotiations with the US. Over 1991–1993 Western expectations were that the North would disappear into history, but subsequently it appeared that it could prolong its existence with the assistance of the West. The North had understood the extent to which the US would compromise to avoid confrontation, and that the other actors – China and Japan in particular – could inﬂuence the US and prevent it from adopting confrontational measures. The key to its survival was the fear of the nuclearisation of the Korean peninsula which ensured that the international community would have an interest in its stability. The North’s strategy involved a contradiction in that its effectiveness depended upon the existence of its nuclear programme and its apparent willingness to trade it for economic aid and political concessions. The nuclear programme was a card which once played could not be used again, and as the regime’s ultimate source of security it was to be held and not played. Without the nuclear programme the regime would have no other leverage over the US, in which case there was every incentive to preserve it while manipulating international hopes for its termination as part of a deal. The North had to dangle the carrot of the elimination of the nuclear programme before the US, which it would later whisk away. The Agreed Framework signiﬁed a move towards engagement in US policy which could not but affect the balance of political forces within South Korea. The Southern state had been built as a fortress against the communist North, around which the military and the security establishment rallied in their implacable hostility towards the threat that the North represented. With the Agreed Framework the prospect emerged of improved relations with the North, in which case hopes for reuniﬁcation and national completion were stimulated. The impact was to release aspirations for reuniﬁcation in the South and to challenge the fortress mentality that had governed the attitude towards the North since the Korean War. President Kim Young-sam was buoyed by the hope of reuniﬁcation, which no government in the South could ignore. The Carter

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visit in June resulted in Kim Il-sung’s agreement for an inter-Korean summit which stimulated expectations of an imminent breakthrough in relations with the North. Leader of the opposition Democratic Party Lee Ki-taek had declared that reuniﬁcation was a matter of survival for the Korean people.59 President Kim was initially encouraged by the Agreed Framework, agreeing that inspections of the North’s nuclear sites could be delayed up to ﬁve years. He announced that measures to promote economic cooperation with the North would be forthcoming and said that he would sponsor the North’s membership of APEC. President Kim declared that he would pursue “constructive engagement” of the North, that he would fundamentally change the South’s attitude towards the North, and would seek a peace treaty with North to replace the 1953 armistice.60 South Korean Chaebol were interested in economic contact with the North and wanted access to its cheap labour. As a result of the hopes stimulated by the Agreed Framework the ban on business trips to the North was lifted in November 1994 and Southern ﬁrms pressed for negotiations with the North to expand economic ties. The ﬁrst direct South–North business deal was negotiated in December when the North agreed to import cement from the South. The ﬁrst industrial joint venture between North and South at Nampo in May 1995 was another child of this period which involved Daewoo in a pilot project to test the waters for future cooperation.61 Radical South Korean students gloriﬁed Kim Il-sung and juche ideology; Kim was regarded as a national hero based on the mythology of his liberation of the nation from the Japanese. The North controlled student movements in the South through the Federation of Korean Student Councils or Hanchonnyon, which was committed to juche and agitated for the removal of US forces.62 So great was the respect for him in the South that after his death on 8 July 1994 some people constructed altars to him and clandestine mourning ceremonies were held by radicals which were all prohibited by the police. South Korea’s security establishment was strongly opposed to an improvement of relations with the North, which would stimulate pressure for the removal of US forces and would in its view create a false sense of security. President Kim came under strong criticism from his own hardliners who in response to the Agreed Framework on 14 November formed a National Council for Freedom and Democracy (NCFD) to coordinate opposition against him. Hardliners in Kim Young-sam’s government included premier Lee Yong-duk, a Protestant refugee from the North, and uniﬁcation minister Lee Hong-koo, who called for the isolation of the North. They opposed the Agreed Framework which called upon the South to ﬁnance partially the light-water reactors, and they demanded a change in behaviour from the North.63 Above all, critics of the agreement focused on the danger of isolation before an improvement of North–US relations, and the possibility that the North would drive a wedge between the South and its ally the US which would leave it vulnerable to attack. This concern

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made the South’s relationship with the US a higher priority over the engagement of the North for as long as the Northern threat was considered real. Despite the best intentions of Kim Young-sam, and his hope for an inter-Korean summit, he was pushed by his own conservatives and his security establishment into a defensive position, and to protect the alliance with the US above all. The polarisation of views threatened the unity of President Kim’s ruling Democratic Liberal Party and resulted in the sacking of Foreign Minister Han Sung-joo, criticised for being too soft on the North. On its part the North raised the unacceptable demand that the South abolish the National Security Law, which prohibited contact with the North, before relations could improve. By the middle of 1995 the momentum generated by the Agreed Framework had stalled as the South adopted measures to protect itself against the North, and to prevent it from exploiting its new relationship with the US. President Kim became more cautious and the earlier enthusiasm for dialogue with the North was dampened; he announced an increase in host country support for US forces from $300 million to $399 million by 1999.64 He also announced a 10 per cent increase in defence spending, the largest since he came to ofﬁce in January 1993, and declared that defence spending would be doubled by 2001; on the acquisitions list were two AWACS, two destroyers, and new air defence missile systems.65

The South’s engagement policy Before he was elected President of South Korea in December 1997 Kim Dae-jung had already outlined the basis of his engagement policy. He called for “successful economic cooperation and development with North Korea” which would, as he claimed, turn Korea into one of the top eight economies in the world.66 In his inaugural address of 25 February 1998 President Kim stated that “inter-Korean relations must be developed on the basis of reconciliation and cooperation” and that the “Cold War style of South–North relations for over half a century . . . must be liquidated as soon as possible.”67 The engagement policy took shape subsequently; on 27 March all restrictions on investment in the North were removed, except in the defence and strategic industries.68 Bilateral South–North talks were revived in April, the agenda of which included family reunions and economic assistance for the North; Kim called for a summit meeting with the North, and stressed the importance of economic cooperation. On 30 April 1998 the South Korean government introduced new measures to promote economic cooperation with the North, which included greater freedom to visit the North for business purposes, and the lifting of restrictions on joint ventures and on the export of production facilities to the North. Restrictions were also removed on imports from the North.69 The President’s new policy provoked a response from the North’s Kim Jong-il who on 18 April 1998 made an unusual and direct appeal for reuniﬁcation.70

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The President’s engagement policy initially made little mention of a ﬁnal goal, which was a basis for criticism. During an interview with CNN in November 1998 Kim stressed that his was not a policy of reuniﬁcation, “we do not intend to pursue a policy of reuniﬁcation, but we will pursue a peaceful cooperation and to live in harmony between the two Koreas.”71 When President Kim met Japanese Prime Minister Obuchi Keizo in March 1999 he deﬁned the engagement policy in terms of an effort to dismantle “the Cold War structure on the Korean Peninsula” and to realise “ﬁrm peace and stability in Northeast Asia.”72 Subsequently, however, Kim moved beyond the short-term objectives in response to criticism and outlined a vision of a ﬁnal end for the engagement policy. What happens when peaceful coexistence is achieved or when the cold-war structures are dismantled? During his speech at the Free University of Berlin on 9 March 2000 the President referred to his three-stage approach towards reuniﬁcation, with the ﬁrst stage entailing a union of the two states, the second would be a federal system where both North and South would have “local administrative units”, the third and ﬁnal step would be complete reuniﬁcation.73 Any improvement of inter-Korean relations required the support of the major actors, and above all a supportive US. The Clinton administration could offer incentives for cooperation on a scale beyond that provided by the South, and without its support no progress could be envisaged. It was disposed to follow up on the Agreed Framework in a similar engagement policy, but opposition from national intelligence agencies, the Defence Department, and the Republicans in Congress demanded reciprocity from the North as a condition. President Kim’s visit to Washington in June 1998 reopened the bitter debate in Washington over the merits of the carrot or the stick in dealing with the North.74 A review of policy towards the North was initiated in Washington and on 12 November 1998 former Defence Secretary William Perry was appointed North Korea Policy Coordinator and began an interagency review process that took into account President Kim’s engagement policy. Perry stated that the “views and insights of President Kim are central to accomplishing U.S. security objectives on the Korean peninsula.”75 After an interagency battle which pitted the State Department against the Defense Department hardliners Perry met Kim Dae-jung in Seoul on 9 March 1999 and announced American support for Kim’s engagement policy. Proponents of the carrot had triumphed over the supporters of the stick in the US, claiming that the North had abided by its obligations under the Agreed Framework and had demonstrated a cooperative attitude. Fundamental to this reassessment of American policy was the Perry report’s admission that the isolation and deterrence of the North had been futile, and that the North had not been deterred from embarking upon its BM programme. Given sufﬁcient time it might even develop an ICBM capability which could target the US. The result was that the South’s

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engagement policy and US–North Korea dialogue could move along parallel lines; this coordination of policies had not been attempted before. Kim Dae-jung could pursue his aims with the conﬁdence that the US would be supportive and not obstructive. The Perry report of 12 October 1999 accordingly called for a “comprehensive and integrated approach” towards the North which would entail a “two-path strategy.” The ﬁrst path was to negotiate a termination to the North’s nuclear and ballistic missile (BM) programme thereby “ending the Cold War in East Asia”; the second path would involve “ﬁrm but measured steps” if the North rejected the ﬁrst path. Concern related to North’s test ﬁring on 31 August 1998 of the Taepodong 1 (TD-1) missile over Japan which demonstrated that the North had progressed further than expected in the development of missile technology. In late 1997 the US intelligence community claimed that the TD-1 was still on the drawing board. The TD-1 came in two- and threestage varieties with estimated ranges of 2,200 or 2,896 km respectively, both which could target all of Japan. The North had been reportedly preparing for the test ﬁring of the Taepodong 2 (TD-2) with an estimated range of 4,000–6,000 km, which could target most of East Asia including Alaska and western Hawaii.76 The report reacted against the predictions of intelligence agencies over the 1993–1995 period that the North would collapse and recognised that the regime had revealed remarkable resilience. Moreover, the North had cooperated with the international community not only over the 1994 agreement but in relation to the alleged nuclear site at Kamchang-ri. The American media had portrayed the site as a clandestine nuclear facility the existence of which was used by domestic critics of the administration in an attempt to torpedo any attempt to improve relations with the North. In March 1999 the US negotiated access to this site in exchange for 600,000 tons of food, though the State Department was at pains to deny the connection.77 US inspectors were allowed to visit the site in May 1999 and 2000 and discovered a vast network of empty tunnels whose purpose was unknown.78 It was no nuclear facility and by being cooperative over this issue the North defused congressional opposition to the engagement policy.79 The Clinton administration’s engagement policy had initially encouraging results for its proponents. If the intention was to offer the North incentives to discontinue its BM programme the Berlin Agreement of 12 September 1999 seemed promising. The US agreed to lift sanctions that barred trade in consumer goods and commercial products and prohibited the transfer of funds. Sanctions relating to counter-terrorism and nonproliferation were to remain in force, which prevented the North from receiving most types of US assistance and aid. The North announced the temporary suspension of its BM programme and on 24 September its news agency conﬁrmed that it “will not launch a missile while the talks are under way with a view to creating an atmosphere more favorable for the talks.”80 As a consequence bilateral talks resumed in Berlin in November

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1999 while the North pressed for the removal of all sanctions and for the establishment of normalised relations with the US. The Clinton administration’s concern was the possible test launch of the TD-2 missile thought it was unclear whether it existed yet. Reports circulated about the second testing of the TD-1 missile since December 1998 when US intelligence detected the movement of missile components from storage to a launch site.81 By June 1999 news reports had concluded that the TD-2 was about to be tested, based on satellite observation of propulsion tests. In July 1999 after a visit to Pyongyang former UN Undersecretary General Yasushi Akashi reported that he had been told that the testing of a missile was imminent.82 There was no clariﬁcation of whether the ﬁrst or second versions of the TD missile were to be tested. The US security establishment publicly proclaimed that the North had continued with the development of the TD-2, which was emphasised in the Rumsfeld Commission’s report on BM proliferation.83 There were American reports that the North was well on the way to the production of an ICBM which could be a three-stage variant of the TD-2, but the technical difﬁculties of relying upon the “clustering” of missile engines to achieve greater range would have to be overcome. Certainly the international community took the threat seriously and when US Defense Secretary William Cohen met his South Korean counterpart Cho Sung-tae in Seoul in July 1999 both warned the North to desist from testing the second version of the missile. Defence Minister Cho visited China in August to obtain China’s support in the effort to prevent the North from undertaking the test.84 The belief was created that the North was ready to test the second version of the missile when the Berlin agreement was reached with the US. The failure to go ahead with the supposed test was then hailed as a success by the Clinton administration, though there was no declaration to terminate the BM programme, just a temporary suspension. With the favourable conditions created by the Clinton administration, on 9 April 2000 Kim Dae-jung announced that he would travel to Pyongyang for the historic inter-Korean summit which was scheduled for 13–15 June 2000. The North initially resisted the proposal and raised impossible issues for the South, including the demand that the US withdraw all forces from the peninsula and that the 1953 armistice agreement be replaced by a North–US peace treaty, without the South. One reason for the North’s agreement to the summit was Kim Jong-il’s visit to Beijing where he was probably persuaded by Jiang Zemin to go ahead. A second factor was the South’s ﬁnancial incentive of $200–500 million which was transferred to the North on 9 June via Hyundai to ensure that the summit would be held as planned.85 The summit resulted in a short declaration which mentioned reuniﬁcation in terms of proposals for federation and confederation, the need to settle humanitarian issues and a promise to meet again.86 A North–South agreement on family reunions was signed on 30 June which permitted reciprocal visits in August, but soon the euphoria

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of the historic event evaporated. The North showed no interest in improving the security situation along the DMZ and reciprocity was lacking. The North’s Armed Forces Minister Vice-Marshal Kim Il-chol met with his Southern counterpart Defence Minister Cho Sung-tae over 25–26 September when the South proposed various tension-reduction measures, conﬁdence-building measures (CBMs), and called for advanced notice of military manoeuvres, the exchange of military observers and a military hot line. All these proposals were rejected by the North, which placed Kim Dae-jung in some difﬁculty with his opposition which continued to regard his engagement policy as appeasement.87 In 2000 the North had seemingly come close to success as it had become the object of concurrent engagement policies on the part of the South and the US. Indeed, the North had the opportunity to exploit the reuniﬁcation sentiment in the South and the nationalist frustration that had accumulated since the division of the peninsula. It could have offered investment opportunities and cheap labour to the Southern Chaebol as a means of promoting the development of its own economy while assisting the economic recuperation of the South. These steps would have stimulated overwhelming support for the sunshine policy in the South, in which case the US military presence on the peninsula would have been seen as unnecessary. Had the North followed through after the Berlin agreement and offered assurances to both the US and Japan over its BM programme it could have swayed opinion in both countries, creating a unique historical moment equivalent to the dismantling of the Berlin Wall. The deviation from rational actor behaviour requires an explanation in terms of the values of the Northern regime and its survival strategy. The North wanted the beneﬁts of the engagement policies without the obligations which would have threatened its survival. It could not respond to these engagement policies without undermining itself as its isolation was its strength. There were differences in the two engagement policies as the US had the short-term goal of removing a source of threat on the Korean peninsula while that of the South was long term in nature and was intended to prepare the ground for eventual reuniﬁcation. Nonetheless, both demanded change from the North which would reduce barriers and break down the isolation of the regime. The Northern regime resisted the inducements for change and sought the beneﬁts in terms of diplomatic recognition from the US, economic assistance from the international community, and the diplomatic circumvention of the South. Survival demanded that it maintain the potential for a nuclear and a BM programme to be taken seriously by the Clinton administration and that it avoid the inducements for a closer relationship with the South to maintain its isolation. For these reasons there was no follow-up after the June 2000 inter-Korean summit as the South’s engagement policy stalled as a consequence of the deliberate acts of provocation staged by the North. After the announcement of the sunshine policy various provocative

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incidents raised questions about the willingness of the Northern regime to reciprocate. On 22 June 1998 a northern midget submarine which had been involved in an inﬁltration mission was caught entangled in ﬁshing nets in southern waters; the crew members committed suicide to evade capture. Kim, however, insisted that the event would not deﬂect him from the path of reconciliation with the North.88 On 15 June 1999 there was a more serious incident when a naval conﬂict erupted in an area claimed by the North above the so-called northern limit line or the sea boundary drawn by the UN command after the Korean war. Northern patrol boats escorted ﬁshing vessels into the disputed area for crab ﬁshing where they were challenged by Southern naval vessels, which resulted in the sinking of one Northern gunboat.89 The incident occurred as North–South talks were about to open in Beijing, which made it seem as though the intention was to destroy conﬁdence in the engagement policy. These acts stimulated criticisms from the South Korean security establishment that the “sunshine policy” rewarded extortion and bad behaviour, and that there were no penalties for the North’s regular provocations of the South.90 Criticism came from the political parties, as well as from opposition leader Lee Hoichang of the Grand National Party (GNP) who called for reciprocity in the relationship with the North.92 Regular reports of Northern missile deployments were fed to the international press from disaffected elements within the South Korean government. The Chosun Ilbo newspaper quoted an unidentiﬁed government ofﬁcial to the effect that the North had ten missile bases and was building an additional three underground missile bases, one along the border with China.92 Similarly, Yonhap news agency carried a report that the North had deployed 4–5 missile batteries in underground bases near the DMZ.93 Moreover, South Koreans, as the President admitted himself, had discovered that the costs of reuniﬁcation were much higher than anticipated and would be prohibitive.94 At a time when the South was devastated by the ﬁnancial crisis which erupted in late 1997 these concerns turned interest away from reuniﬁcation and undermined the purpose of the sunshine policy. On 29 June 2002 another naval clash occurred in the same area when one Northern torpedo boat was sunk and others were damaged, prompting opposition leader Lee Hoi-chang to blame the sunshine policy.95 The GNP demanded the resignations of the defence minister and naval ofﬁcers responsible, and some even called for military action against the North.96 According to the South the June 1999 incident may have been accidental, but the June 2002 clash seemed planned and deliberate.97 On 4 July the North issued a statement claiming that it wanted to continue dialogue with the South which demonstrated a concern to limit the negative consequences of the conﬂict.98 A report issued by the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff on 7 July said that the attack was intended, not accidental or a result of local commander defending ﬁshermen, and that the North’s naval vessels had repeatedly tested South’s responses in the disputed area.99 Indeed, the

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view in the South was that the naval clash had the full support of Kim JongIl, which raised serious issues about decision-making in the North. Either Kim Jong-il was orchestrating the attacks to destroy the sunshine policy while appearing to support it, or he could not prevent his military from undertaking provocative actions to prevent dialogue with the South.100 Given the tightly controlled system in the North the latter seemed unlikely. Much has been made of the indications of economic reform in the North, as if they presage a fundamental change of the system. Kim Jong-il visited China over 15–21 January 2001 to study China’s market reforms, then he was personally guided by Zhu Rongji and met Jiang Zemin in Shanghai to see the city’s transformation ﬁrst hand. According to Harrison, Kim is a “reformer by stealth” and would like to follow the Chinese model, but is opposed by the old guard.101 Beginning from 1995 the North demonstrated an interest in the operation of market economies, the small team work system in the farms was extended in 1996 and markets in villages and towns were allowed to operate. Between 1997 and 1998, 60 Northern ofﬁcials were sent abroad to take courses on economics in Australia, China and the US, in programmes largely funded by US agencies.102 Probably in response to Chinese pressure the North has been opening up to the outside world; diplomatic relations with Canada and Spain were established on 6, 7 February 2001 respectively, with the EU in August 2001, and subsequently with Australia, France, Italy, New Zealand and the United Kingdom; the head of state, Kim Yong-nam, visited Indonesia in July 2002. Noland used the term “apparatchik capitalism” to describe the Northern regime’s aims and objectives, which points to minor tinkering with the system.103 Oh and Hassig have stressed that the intention is reform within very strict parameters to overcome the deﬁciencies of the system and to attract foreign aid and investment from the international community to keep Kim Jong-il in power. In this context the North’s economic policies have been regarded as “fanciful day dreams.”104 They interviewed 20 Northern defectors over the 1997–1998 period who claimed then that it was too late for serious reform, that Kim Jong-il stresses juche and not economic reform.105 Major economic changes were announced to begin as from 1 July 2002, which seemed to go beyond anything previously attempted. Market reforms were promised, together with wage increases and price adjustments, in an effort to deal with the crippling shortages faced by the country. Wages were allowed to rise 20 times and prices followed; people would be required to pay for their housing; state subsidies for factories were to be reduced or terminated; factories operating at 10–15 per cent of capacity would no longer obtain subsidies from the state; farmers’ markets are to provide people with most of their grain and the market price for grain would be increased.106 The intention was to spur the farmers to produce more grain, the consumption of which would then revive production in the factories. The state printed more money to cover the steep price rises and wage increases, and in a closed system will main-

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tain stringent controls to contain the economic effects. The fate of the Soviet Union shows that serious market reforms are incompatible with a strictly planned economic reform and would threaten the regime if implemented to their full extent.107

The Bush administration Clinton’s engagement policy could not continue beyond a change of administration as it became apparent that the North would not meet US expectations over its WMD programmes and the proliferation of BM technology. The George W. Bush administration, inaugurated in January 2001, expressed conservative Republican hostility towards the engagement policy, which it regarded as a futile public relations exercise. Behind policy towards the North were former Reagan administration hardliners, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Deputy Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz and Undersecretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton. The Bush administration conducted a review of policy towards the North and on 6 June 2001 announced that the agenda for negotiations would be widened to include the North’s conventional forces as well as its nuclear and BM programmes. It would insist on IAEA inspections of the nuclear programme and strict veriﬁcation of any agreement reached.108 After the 11 September terrorist attack positions hardened and Bush included the North, together with Iraq and Iran, as a state engaging in the proliferation of WMD in his “Axis of Evil” State of the Union address of 29 January 2002. The Bush administration was unwilling to certify to Congress that the North had observed the conditions of the 1994 Agreed Framework, stressing that section 3 of the agreement required IAEA monitoring of the North’s nuclear freeze, and that the North was to cooperate with the IAEA which it had failed to do.109 The Bush administration was alarmed by the North’s BM programme, its inventory of 45–100 Nodong-1 missiles and its willingness to engage in the proliferation of BM technology. The North’s BM programme also earned revenue of up to $500 million to $1 billion annually in sales of missile-related technology to Pakistan, Libya, Syria, Iran, Egypt and Yemen. In November 2001 the North announced in Rodong Shinmun that it would continue with its BM programme as a “self-defence measure” against the US and rejected US demands for inspection of its WMD programme.110 Subsequently the US revealed that the North had admitted to a clandestine enriched uranium nuclear programme which according to the Agreed Framework was supposed to have been frozen. The circumstances are unclear, but the disclosure came in talks with Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly in Pyongyang over 3–5 October 2002 and it seemed that a calculated decision had been made to declare the nuclear programme publicly.111 The North was apparently alarmed by the Bush administration’s confrontational attitude towards WMD proliferators and had

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decided that public revelation of the nuclear programme might shock the Bush administration into reviving Clinton’s engagement policy. The purpose was made clear subsequently when the North’s number two leader Kim Yong-nam, who was head of the Presidium of the North’s Supreme People’s Assembly, stressed that the nuclear issue would be settled if the US abandoned its hostile policy towards the North.112 On 25 October the North proposed a non-aggression pact with the US and demanded that the US should recognise the North’s sovereignty and should not hinder its economic development. The North declared that it was entitled to possess nuclear weapons to defend its sovereignty against the growing threat of the US.113 The Washington Post reported a different list of conditions for abandoning the nuclear programme, including the demand that President Bush visit Pyongyang, a non-aggression treaty, a peace treaty and the lifting of all economic sanctions against the North.114 Moreover, the North prepared to activate the 5 MW reactor at Yongbyon as IAEA inspectors were expelled, and IAEA seals and monitoring cameras were removed over December 2002 in a rerun of the 1994 crisis. For the Bush administration the incident illustrated the extent to which strategic deception was part of the North’s behaviour, and that the Agreed Framework had acted as cover.115 The US cancelled the shipment of 42,000 tons of heavy oil to the North under the Agreed Framework and sought allied support for tough measures against the North. The US was strongly supported by the conservatives and the security establishment in South Korea. Lee Hoi-chang of the opposition GNP accused the North of attempting to sideline the South through a non-aggression treaty with the US. Lee opposed transportation links with the North before a settlement of the nuclear issue was reached, and declared that if his party came to power it would suspend all ﬁnancial aid to the North until the nuclear issue is resolved.116 The GNP claimed that the nuclear programme had been accelerated after the sunshine policy was promulgated in 1998, ﬁnanced by the payment made by Hyundai on behalf of the government to ensure the success of the inter-Korean summit of June 2000. It also claimed that the South’s Defence Ministry knew of the North’s uranium enrichment programme in 1999 but that the government had swept the information under the carpet to protect the sunshine policy.117 The sunshine policy had released a powerful longing for reuniﬁcation and national fulﬁlment and was not simply a temporary and unfortunate lapse as Southern conservatives maintained. The Bush administration’s resistance to engagement of the North contributed to rising “antiAmericanism” in the South, which was revealed in demonstrations and protests during the December 2002 presidential elections. The US was blamed for the failure of the sunshine policy, and in the emotionalism of Southern politics America was accused of being a greater threat to peace than the North.118 Within the South the attitude arose that it should somehow mediate between the US and the North; that the Bush adminis-

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tration should ignore the North’s nuclear and BM programmes in favour of dialogue with the North. Yim Sung-joon, Senior Presidential Secretary for Foreign Affairs and National Security, expressed the government view that the North’s confession in relation to the nuclear programme was an indication of a willingness to solve the issue which should provide an opportunity for dialogue.119 Presidential candidate Roh Moo-hyun of the Millennium Democratic Party outlined his views before the elections, and as heir to Kim Dae-jung he called for an end to US hostility towards the North in response to which the North would freeze its nuclear programme. The South, Japan and the US would then give ﬁnancial assistance to the North in exchange for its acceptance of inspection of nuclear sites.120 In the presidential elections of 19 December 2002 Roh Moo-hyun, who once called for the withdrawal of US forces from the South, emerged victorious, defeating his hardliner rival Lee Hoi-chang. On 24 December presidentelect Roh declared that there was no alternative to the sunshine policy, which he claimed had produced results, and on 30 December, together with President Kim Dae-jung, he urged the US to avoid confrontation of the North and to support dialogue. Roh called for a peace regime on the Korean peninsula and the economic integration of the North with China and Japan which would create incentives for the North to desist from its nuclear programme.121 By engaging external powers to this end the hope was that the issue could be defused without the need for confrontation of the North, and the Bush administration could then be induced to continue with Clinton’s engagement policy. The South required American support to reopen dialogue with the North, and while the Bush administration resisted the South’s entreaties and approached the North from the perspective of curbing global WMD proliferation there was no basis for engagement. Without American support for his engagement policy Roh Moo-hyun was obliged to modify his approach and to accept the priority of nuclear non-proliferation over dialogue with the North. This change of policy was expressed during Roh’s meeting with President Bush in Washington on 14 May 2003.122 The Bush administration’s hardliners discovered in turn that military power was ineffectual over this issue, and that the US required regional support to resolve it. The US could act unilaterally over Iraq when it resorted to military power to remove Saddam Hussein in March 2003, but without regional support was deterred from utilising force over North Korea. Neither China nor the South was prepared for the chaos and the massive refugee ﬂows that would overwhelm them; the South’s concern was that Seoul was only 60 km from the DMZ and vulnerable to shortrange missiles. Moreover, North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes had developed further than those of Iraq, which had been subject to UN inspections since 1991, and the possibility of missile retaliation against Japan could not be dismissed. Despite its previous intentions the Bush administration was obliged to work with Asian partners South

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Korea, China and Japan, who called for accommodation and dialogue. The North exploited this desire for accommodation and came close to a separate deal with Japan, and had it not been for the abductions issue, which arose after Koizumi’s visit to Pyongyang in September 2002, economic assistance to the North would have been a real possibility. Considerable pressure was brought to bear upon the Bush administration to revert to Clinton’s engagement policy. Richard Armitage declared in January 2003 that the US was considering a written assurance of nonaggression but not a formal treaty of non-aggression in return for which the North would dismantle its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.123 Others expected more. South Korean Foreign Minister Yoon Young-kahn called upon George Bush to visit Pyongyang in the way Nixon visited Beijing in 1972 to break the diplomatic logjam.124 The Task Force on US Korea Policy, chaired by Selig Harrison, called for a comprehensive approach that would link the elimination of the North’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes to broad economic support for North Korean development.125 The view of the task force was that engaging the North should not be seen as surrender to “extortion” or “blackmail,” since it was no different from the Soviet Union’s resort to strategic parity with the US in the late 1960s which later motivated the Nixon administration to seek détente with Moscow. The US was urged to act quickly to defuse the issue and to prevent the nuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, which could stimulate the pressure for a nuclear Japan. The logic was that the North was compelled to pursue a strategy of survival based on its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes by American hostility and indifference. If the North could be assured of alternative means of survival by the US, which would include extensive economic support it would drop the nuclear and ballistic missile programs. One problem with the comprehensive approach is that it assumed that the North would be willing to surrender its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes and subject itself to stringent inspections, which it rejected in 1994. The values of the Northern leaders and their experience of survival disposed them not to put trust in paper agreements devised by the West but in their own resources, in which case the incentive for surrendering those programmes is absent. The North has pointed to the American invasion of Iraq in March 2003 as proof that it still requires a deterrent to ensure its security, even with a non-aggression pact with the US.126 The North would be most reluctant to forgo those programmes which would assure it of the West’s attention, and it would negotiate for the economic and political beneﬁts of the comprehensive approach but without the obligation to surrender all the programs in question. From the North’s perspective the international community’s desire for accommodation will eventually outweigh American pressure to remove these programmes, and with sufﬁcient demonstration of resolve the demands for stringent inspections may be fobbed off. The North is seeking an ambiguous agreement

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which will allow it to retain the core elements of these programmes as insurance. It seeks survival on its own terms and has attempted to manoeuvre the international community into an acceptance of these terms as legitimate, as the necessary price for peace on the Korean peninsula. A second problem with the comprehensive approach was the assumption that the North genuinely seeks liberalisation of the system and economic reforms of the kind advocated by the international community. With the knowledge that Gorbachev’s reforms resulted in the collapse of the Soviet system the North’s leadership has shown itself unwilling to respond to the economic incentives presented by the West in any case. The Northern leadership would introduce only those changes that would strengthen the existing system. It would be an illusion to imagine that Kim Jong-il would preside over a transformation of the system which would make him superﬂuous.

The future The North has shown how a determined and single-minded totalitarian leadership unfettered by the constraints of public opinion is able to survive against its adversaries. Since the early 1990s its behaviour has been consistent and points to the effort to obtain international agreement to its survival as a fossilised relic of the communist era. The regime has effectively exploited the threat of its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes to draw support for its continued existence and has succeeded in representing its survival as essential for stability in the Korean peninsula. It has played upon fears of instability and chaos on the peninsula with the intention of manoeuvring the international community into a position where accommodation of its demands is accepted as respectable. It has sought recognition that the higher aim of stability on the Korean peninsula should override American concerns about nuclear proliferation. It has fostered a nuclear program which should have been terminated under the Agreed Framework of 1994, insisting that a peace treaty and a non-aggression treaty with the US would be the price of its discontinuation. It has attempted to cultivate the image of acceptability by establishing diplomatic relations with Western countries and by dabbling in economic reform. The Northern regime has engaged in a prodigious effort to construct a basis for legitimacy based on the regime’s idiosyncratic interpretation of the universe which cannot survive contact with the external world. To ensure the survival of this artiﬁcial construction, which is so much at variance with the external world, the regime has resorted to survival strategies where nuclear and ballistic missile programmes are given a higher priority than the welfare of the people, who have suffered famine and extreme privations. The regime requires extreme isolation for its survival and yet it attempts to draw the support of the international community with the promise of reform, change and the breaking down of this

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isolation. The tensions and contradictions inherent in this policy threaten it and seem to have motivated the regime to perpetrate occasional and otherwise inexplicable acts of provocation. The North may encourage engagement with the South through family reunions and tourism but ultimately it cannot respond to the engagement policies it encourages and demands. The logic of state survival has suppressed the Southern aspiration for national fulﬁlment in reuniﬁcation, stimulating considerable frustration and a sense of victimisation before history. That frustration explains the tendency in the South to place a higher priority upon accommodation of the North over the enforcement of non-proliferation regimes. Should the survival imperative be eased by improved relations with the North as a result of a regime change in Pyongyang, or for whatever reason, these tendencies in the South would ﬁnd political expression. The South’s relationship with the US would most likely deteriorate, and a populist groundswell would probably arise which would call for the withdrawal of American forces. The alliance with the US could be terminated in an outburst of nationalist sentiment which would revive Korea’s traditionally close relationship with China. Old wounds with Japan would be reopened which would threaten deep divisions in North-East Asia. These trends have surfaced in the past with the promise of better relations with the North and have been barely contained by the South’s need for American support. The North would muddle through, hoping to postpone a resolution of the nuclear issue indeﬁnitely, but its threats would become increasingly less credible. It faces the grim prospect of isolation before the international community because of its inability to surrender its nuclear programme, though its survival may be tolerated on the pragmatic basis that stability in the North would be preferable to chaos. Any such pragmatic accommodation on the part of the international community would be temporary as eventually the North may simply grind to a halt. There may be a silent collapse of central authority and refugee movements to China and the South which could turn into a ﬂood. Salvaging the situation then may require international coordination and a major UN operation on a scale surpassing any so far.

5

Values, identity and US Asia Paciﬁc policy

America is no ordinary country and the circumstances of its creation have imprinted a guiding destiny upon successive generations of leaders. Hannah Arendt observed that ordinary countries have emerged from the mists of time and tradition, America however was a product of a compact between free people recorded and sanctiﬁed in recent history. America was the product of an act of free choice which bound and committed later generations for as long as they call themselves American.1 Ordinary countries are bound by ethnicity, common culture, religion or values that have been handed down from long-forgotten ancestors. As an ethnically diverse immigrant community America, however, is bound by the principles enshrined at its creation and the common experiences so derived. In this sense America is a crusading ideology, a platform for the promotion of the message of human freedom against tyranny and arbitrary rule.2 The principle of freedom is the Republic’s guiding principle, in domestic politics as well as foreign policy, and no American leader or public ﬁgure can survive or retain credibility without its invocation. In American politics and foreign policy freedom, as a principle, is a powerful mobilising force which will identify aims and goals, separate friends from enemies and justify commitment and action. With this principle America could sustain the commitment against communism and could triumph over its powerful Soviet adversary. There are two traditions that support and sustain the principle of human freedom and which inﬂuence foreign policy in very different ways. The ﬁrst is the Wilsonian tradition of liberal internationalism which promotes democracy, political liberty and human rights through active multilateralism, international law and institutions, and where necessary by resort to the internationally sanctioned use of force. The Wilsonian tradition was inspired by the eighteenth-century Enlightenment which posited the universality of reason and natural law, it assumed that the phenomenal world was shaped by ideals derived from these universals. The idealism of the Enlightenment provided the intellectual context for the American Declaration of Independence of 1776, in which liberty was regarded as a self-evident truth, the American constitution of 1787 and the subsequent

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Bill of Rights of 1789. The Wilsonian tradition is very much an extension of the American experience of state creation into international affairs and provides the intellectual foundation for many international relations programs in American universities. The conviction that natural law underlay their beliefs gave the Wilsonians a powerful faith in the universality of their mission to propagate their values by active internationalism. It also imparts a vibrant optimism in the future in that all peoples everywhere would be responsive to these truths, and a corresponding sense of frustration with those who fail to conform to their expectations of human behaviour. There is a second and much more sombre tradition that inﬂuences American foreign policy. America’s Puritan heritage predates the formation of the Republic and the Enlightenment, but it has had a powerful inﬂuence over America’s early history and has shaped the values that American leaders are expected to articulate publicly. From Puritanism comes America’s God-fearing public morality, the assurance of salvation that comes from obedience to God’s will, the equality of all in a democratic community, and the importance of working for one’s salvation in an evil world. The impact of this heritage is a powerful sense of righteousness, an uncompromising commitment to morality and a stark dichotomy between good and evil, the chosen and saved and the condemned. Moral condemnation is the right of the elect, those who stand pure before God and who are certain of their salvation; unto them the law has been bestowed.3 No American statesman better demonstrated these values than Eisenhower’s Secretary of State John Foster Dulles whose anti-communist absolutes and rigid views shaped America’s policy towards the communist world in a way that every American citizen could understand and identify with. The simpliﬁcation of the categories of judgement into good and evil, and the strident condemnation of communism, made Foster Dulles the great moral ideologue of containment and ensured its public support.4 Above all, this heritage imparted the belief that moral perfection is possible in the world, that human behaviour should be constantly compared with an absolute standard and that any shortfall becomes ground for condemnation. For America’s early Puritans the failure to reach the absolute standard which they set themselves induced remorse, deep guilt and humility before God. When Americans demand immediate moral perfection from other cultures, however, the result is all too often exasperation and bitterness. This American tradition shares with the Wilsonian liberal internationalists the commitment to human freedom and democracy which constitutes the American experience. While Wilsonians exhibit a benign attitude towards the external world, based on the expectation of constant improvement, the Puritan heritage dictates a deep suspicion towards it as a source of evil. It can justify isolationism before the imperfections of the external world and gives rise to unease in relation to the UN and strange foreign

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cultures. It can be decidedly antagonistic to the internationalism of the Wilsonians and to the commitments they seek from the American public. It can also awaken the American imperialist impulse, justifying involvement in the external world to defend American values or to protect American interests and its close allies. Conservative Republicans and the Christian right behind them drew upon the strength of this tradition in their vigorous defence of American freedoms when they denounced the loss of China to the communists in 1949, when they rallied to the defence of Chiang Kai-shek in Formosa, and when they defended the McCarthyism of the 1950s. Their inﬂuence over the Reagan administration was seen in its confrontational ideology and in Reagan’s characterisation of the Soviet Union on 8 March 1983 as an “evil empire.” Today the Republican right is an implacable critic of China over political and religious freedoms in China and the one-child policy in particular. The moral wing of American politics regards itself as the custodian of true American values and the liberal internationalists are regarded as well-meaning but muddled people who would compromise with the devil.5 The differences between the two traditions should be noted in terms of their impact upon foreign policy. Wilsonian liberal internationalists appeal to universal values, seek moral ends by moral means and are very concerned to gain international legitimacy and approval for their actions. The Wilsonians are uncomfortable with the use of force and power, but not above its use when the situation may demand it. The Republican conservatives in particular appeal to American values, and have fewer inhibitions about the resort to force and power in their belief that morality must be supported by power, and that right requires might. In their view truth faces a treacherous world in which power and force are justiﬁably employed as necessary protection against the evils that will seek to destroy it. The propagation of American values requires American hegemony, military superiority, and a corresponding coalition of like-minded democratic states. In terms of the emphasis upon military power, the willingness and determination to act against enemies, the adherents of this tradition come close to the realist school of international relations. There is one important difference, however. Realism posits the state as the highest loyalty and calls for the prudent calculation of ends and means to further state interest. Realism would avoid rash and impudent action, and for the sake of state interest, would compromise rather than take unnecessary risks. The American right, however, is motivated by the ideology of American values which goes beyond state interest and prudence in the pursuit of idealism, all too often deriding diplomatic pragmatism as an accommodation with evil. America’s foreign policy has suffered from the tension between the endless quest for the impossible and the frustration that arises when external limits are encountered. Perhaps there is no greater cultural difference in international relations today than that between America and Asia. In Asia states trace their

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origins though the mists of history to a distant past; they have been founded upon cultures that revere deep traditions handed down through the generations. Asia respects tradition with the recognition that there can be no stronger binding force, where ancestors and elders are given due respect and where kinship ties deﬁne individual identity. Even Asian communist regimes have drawn upon tradition while they repudiated it ideologically, and traditional political practices have served as a basis for legitimacy. Asia is largely indifferent to the abstract high principle that Americans hold so dear and reacts negatively to the disregard of all the kinship and personal ties that are important for it. While Americans insist upon the application of disembodied principle to politics, demanding that practical behaviour conforms to the abstract idea, Asia knows that all eventually resolves itself in human compromise. The highest principle must be embodied in some human situation for it to survive in an imperfect world. The American belief in moral perfection in this world is a product of a Judaic-Protestant tradition, one that is not shared by HinduBuddhist or Confucian Asian cultures, or by the Augustinian tradition of Catholicism. In these belief systems perfection cannot be expected in the material world and is possible only in the world to come, and without the pressure to strive for the impossible there is a greater tolerance of the failings of humankind. In Hindu-Buddhist cultures there is the relativity of both good and evil, perplexing for the Protestant mind, in which morality is both universal and contextual. Confucian cultures incorporate the idea of correct behaviour and the proper balance between good and evil forces, but not perfection. From their perspective America’s quest for the moral perfection of humankind appears as the futile exuberance of a young culture intoxicated by its material success. America’s dichotomy between good and evil becomes arbitrary judgement and procrustean classiﬁcation, while the moral condemnation of those who fall short of expectations becomes self-destructive hostility. A commitment to principle may stimulate the highest efforts from its adherents, endowing them with a consistency of purpose and a powerful belief in their cause. It may also result in extremism of action and a careless disregard for opposition that can be self-defeating in due course. Material goals are bounded and limited and those who strive for them are predictable and comprehensible. Universalism, however, spawns aims that know no limit, which are intolerant of constraints and which are impatient of compromise. The universal is a jealous mistress demanding complete obedience and commitment, and even small differences with others may translate into heretical deviations. In Europe and Asia various cultures have been living cheek by jowl for centuries in an interaction that has imparted an understanding of the limits of beliefs and values, a familiarity with difference and the need for tolerance. America, however, has reigned supreme within its own domain in the Western hemisphere without a similar interaction and is unfamiliar with cultural differences, unaware of

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limits and dismissive of restraints. One signiﬁcant result has been the confusion of morality and power that seems so prevalent in American society. Americans too readily assume that universalism brings with it the power to resolve all issues, that America is able to rectify all injustices, to correct all wrongs. Washington lobby groups indulge in the pastime of identifying wrongs and evils that are to be eradicated, removed, or put right, to tempt the administration into action, to persuade it of its own omnipotence, and to convince the public that for America all is possible. Ideologists seek the application of principle to all global and regional issues and demand strict conformity to their standards. They press for the universal extension of moralism in a way which would deﬁne new issues stimulating the demand for action within Congress and the American public. For America behaviour should conform to and uphold principle, and the idea that principle and practice could diverge is difﬁcult to accept and is a reason for condemnation and criticism. Pressure arises from domestic lobbyists for immediate action to resolve difﬁculties and for the easy invocation of force and military power. A related problem that clouds judgement and obfuscates the issues of foreign policy for the public is the confusion of universalism and populism. The pressures of electioneering and the need to appeal to a less than well-informed public about complicated international issues results in oversimpliﬁcation into a few easily understandable and culturally determined popular categories. When the populist issues of American politics masquerade as universal principle other countries are right to be alarmed and search for reassurance in institutional restraints. The problem is compounded by the fact that information about the outside world is often framed in terms of populist views and stereotypes for it to be understood by voters. When human rights issues come to dominate relations with Asian governments because of their easy popularisation, when Asian governments that face difﬁcult dilemmas in implementing human rights encounter capricious condemnation, then America’s diplomacy suffers. The key issue for America is the relationship between its sense of mission and the means to achieve its desired goals, or the perennial relationship between foreign policy goals and means. The dilemma involves the principles to which Americans are committed and which bind American society, and the diplomatic and economic resources available to it relative to other actors. During the cold war America’s ideological principles were supported by its resources and the universal purpose of defeating communism drew forth an unlimited commitment. In the post-cold-war world, however, foreign policy principle and means have diverged and the problem of their proper alignment has become a serious issue. America’s ﬁrst response to the termination of the cold war was to assert the universality of principle in the neo-Wilsonianism of the Clinton administration, and to let the means to uphold that principle whither. The discrepancy between these two was subsequently revealed in a number of foreign policy failures in China, Somalia and Bosnia, when it was revealed that

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without the power the principle would be ineffectual. America’s second response was to stress military power, and to compensate for the irresolution and failures of the Clinton administration through an unchallenged global hegemony. This response was adopted by the Republican George W. Bush administration, particularly after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. In the Bush administration, however, the military means have overshadowed and subverted the aims to the point where they have become ends in themselves. The Bush administration has revived fears of a “new imperialism” and of an uncontrollable quest for superiority that would drain America’s resources without solving some of the key security issues America faces, which are beyond military means alone.

The Clinton administration and neo-Wilsonianism The Clinton administration faced the task of determining America’s response to the post-cold-war world during a wave of American triumphalism. Then it seemed that a historic opportunity had presented itself to reshape the world according to America’s values. Wilsonian internationalism was revived as the main theme of US foreign policy, with the promotion of democracy and human rights as America’s major task in foreign affairs.6 The American foreign policy elite was strongly inﬂuenced by the democratic peace theory, according to which democracy would bring peace and that its promotion was a duty for the administration. Bruce Russett’s 1993 seminal work entitled Grasping the Democratic Peace popularised the democratic peace theory and stimulated a long debate on the relationship between political structure and external behaviour.7 Joshua Muravchik argued that democracy was a “global norm” and that its promotion could be engineered as practical foreign policy.8 Francis Fukuyama’s controversial 1992 work The End of History and the Last Man engrafted Wilsonian democratic idealism upon a Hegelian teleological framework in declaring that the direction of history was towards the universal acceptance of liberal democracy as the “best possible solution to the human problem.”9 Winston Lord, who later became Clinton’s Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian Affairs, was a strident critic of the elder Bush administration’s engagement of Beijing after the Tiananmen square massacre of June 1989. As chairman of the National Endowment of Democracy he asserted that the US must promote its democratic values in the post-cold-war world.10 Bill Clinton, that astute reader of the popular mind, immediately understood that he had a weapon to bring down the elder Bush’s administration, and an electioneering slogan that would assure success in the November 1992 presidential elections. In his address to Georgetown University on 12 December 1991 Clinton stressed that democracy promotion was vital to America’s national interest and declared that “democracies do not go to war against each other,” in demonstration of the extent to which policy

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had been inﬂuenced by academic theory.11 This conﬁdence was based on the observation that for the ﬁrst time in history the majority of UN members were regarded as democratic, in which case a historical moment had been reached to bring about a global democratic transformation.12 In his remarks to the Foreign Policy Association on 1 April 1992 he criticised the elder Bush’s administration, claiming that it subordinated human rights and democracy to political stability and declared that US foreign policy could not be divorced from moral principles. He called for a “new strategy of American engagement” and declared that “I believe it is time for America to lead a global alliance for democracy as united and steadfast as the global alliance that defeated communism.” On the elder Bush’s administration he stated that “in China the President continues to coddle aging rulers with undisguised contempt for democracy, human rights and the need to control the spread of dangerous technologies.”13 During his conﬁrmation hearings on 31 March 1993 Winston Lord stressed the theme of democracy promotion that “even as we deal pragmatically with authoritarian governments we should press universal principles.”14 After the conﬁrmation of his appointment Lord told the Vienna Conference on Human Rights on 14 June 1993 that “Democracy is the best way to advance lasting peace and prosperity in the world.”15 Clinton spoke before the South Korean National Assembly on 10 July 1993 when he declared that the US would debunk the idea that democracy and human rights are unsuitable to Asia.16 National Security Council adviser Anthony Lake, in his speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York of 21 September 1993, depicted US policy in terms of the “enlargement of the community of market democracies,” which was the administration’s ﬁrst priority.17 America still basked in the triumph of the cold war victory and could be forgiven the groundswell of optimism and hope that had engulfed the decision-makers. Clinton simply gave a voice to this popular upsurge with its own conﬁdent expectations about America’s world role without understanding the repercussions for foreign policy. The neo-Wilsonian internationalists who congregated around the Clinton administration assumed that a teleological determinism was at work, like Fukuyama’s Hegelian movement, which would bring about global democratic transformation. The identiﬁcation of the necessary practical steps towards this objective and their testing under realistic foreign policy conditions was neglected. They laid great store on multilateral cooperation, collective security, humanitarian intervention, and support for UN peacekeeping operations; all were stressed in Winston Lord’s report of June 1992 to the Carnegie Endowment Foundation.18 When faced with realistic situations the Clinton administration avoided the inherent difﬁculties in negotiating with reluctant allies over collective security and multilateralism, and was unwilling to consider unilateral intervention in view of the domestic political risks. The Clinton administration found itself in the position of declaring a vision of democratic change without being prepared to follow through with the

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necessary measures, which it had adroitly sidestepped for political reasons. Enlargement remained an expression of hope without practical foundation. Clinton simply allowed himself to be swayed by the heady mood of the times without demonstrating the practical ability to realise it in a foreign policy context. His innate populism gave expression to the public mood but it also prevented him from developing the means to implement the vision, which would demand unpopular commitments from the electorate. As a populist president Clinton soon discovered the perils of foreign policy. He had adopted neo-Wilsonianism as an electioneering device to promote his domestic popularity but he was unprepared to deal with the real and urgent issues that consequently arose in the international arena. He concentrated on domestic issues, where he felt at home, and left foreign policy to his subordinates. The elder Bush’s administration had avoided involvement in crises where American interests were not at stake and had deﬁned foreign policy largely in terms of cold-war realism. The elder Bush circumvented the pressure for intervention into the former Yugoslav crisis which erupted in 1991, or in Haiti where the democratically elected government of Aristide was removed by a military coup in September 1991. Despite his public declarations Clinton basically followed a similar path, avoiding intervention where he could but without the ability to curb his most popular instincts. Clinton held back from the Bosnian crisis in 1993. As Secretary of State Warren Christopher explained on 27 June 1993, Bosnia “does not affect our vital interests” and that America would lead in every respect when protecting its “vital interests.”19 Under pressure in Bosnia the Clinton administration eventually intervened and negotiated a ceaseﬁre under the Dayton Accords of December 1995, according to which predominantly American NATO forces were introduced into Bosnia to keep the peace. Clinton would not allow Haitian refugees to land in Florida because of domestic pressures and on 11 October 1993 allowed Haitian demonstrators to prevent the landing of a vessel carrying military engineers. Clinton was drawn into Somalia because the elder Bush’s administration in December 1992 had ordered US forces to intervene in the civil conﬂict to distribute famine relief. When on 3 October 1993 some 18 marines were killed in a failed operation in Somalia Clinton ordered the withdrawal of the US contingent. Somalia was a test case of liberal interventionism and its ability to stabilise war-torn countries and to establish the conditions for a democratic transition, but Clinton had no desire to place his popularity at risk by incurring further American casualties. Clinton was not a leader who would shape public opinion in support of foreign policy, nor would he use his impressive public relations skills to persuade the public to accept the burdens of the new internationalism he had earlier proclaimed. Clinton simply responded to the public mood and shifted with its changes, which rendered foreign policy ﬁckle and capricious.20

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No president was less prepared to deal with China than Clinton who had allowed foreign policy to be inﬂuenced by his own domestic agenda. He had little understanding of China and delegated authority to Anthony Lake and his deputy Sandy Berger who acted as coordinators of China policy.21 It was never explained how the wide sweeping goals of the new internationalism would be imposed on great powers such as China, or what would be done if they resisted. Since the nineteenth century America had hoped to transform China in its own image and had been buoyed by the belief in the Chinese people’s willingness to accept Protestant Christianity and political democracy. Americans made a crucial distinction between the communist regime responsible for the Tiananmen Square killings, which they saw as increasingly anachronous, and the Chinese people who were expected to become more receptive to inﬂuence from the democratic West. Success for neo-Wilsonian internationalism would require the fostering of greater contact and ties with the Chinese people, and the removal of restrictions on trade and travel to encourage the people to demand political change. The communist regime’s desire for economic engagement of the global community could be exploited in a strategy that could gradually undermine its role in Chinese society and compel it to acquiesce in political changes that would make it redundant. The Clinton administration, however, had no thought-out strategy over China and responded to the persistent urgings of Washington lobby groups who shifted the focus of policy to the regime, and not to the people where it should have been. Clinton’s experience of the renewal of the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) trade beneﬁts agreement for China demonstrated the extent to which policy had been held hostage to lobby groups which had undermined all semblance of coordination and coherence in policy towards China.22 Rather than developing a strategy based on the prospects for broad social and political change in China and stressing that government should deal with systems, Clinton became entangled in the interests of a few high-proﬁle Chinese dissidents. Because of his campaign commitments to the democracy promotion agenda Clinton felt obligated to human rights groups such as Human Rights in China and Human Rights Watch-Asia – dissidents made for better publicity than programmes. The Clinton administration began with the aim of imposing conditions for MFN renewal, which was pushed by Winston Lord against a reluctant Warren Christopher. In March 1993 Christopher revealed that substantial progress in human rights and in the observance of non proliferation norms would be required. On 28 May 1993 MFN with China was renewed with three conditions: restrictions on the emigration of close family members of dissidents were to be lifted; the export of prison labour products to the US was to be banned; and China was to demonstrate signiﬁcant overall progress in human rights. Clinton then faced pressure from powerful business lobby groups for the unconditional renewal of MFN for China, which he could

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not easily deﬂect. The United States Business Council, the Business Coalition for US–China Trade, which included some 800 companies and trade associations, the US–China Business Council, the various American Chambers of Commerce, as well as Hong Kong Groups all pressed for MFN renewal.23 The Clinton administration was caught between its campaign promises and the practical realities which determined their implementation. By March 1994 it was seeking Beijing’s cooperation to ﬁnd a way out of this dilemma. Warren Christopher travelled to Beijing to ensure that future MFN would be contingent on general progress in human rights, which would avoid the controversy of annual renewals and would break the linkage between trade and MFN. If Beijing would show general progress in human rights, American critics of the regime might be placated and the business lobby groups satisﬁed. Beijing released prisoners and allowed inspectors into prisons, but immediately before Christopher’s visit arrested two Shanghai members of the China Study Group for Human Rights, then released them after his departure. Chinese Premier Li Peng demonstrated Beijing’s indifference to the US by reminding Christopher that America could lose business opportunities in China by acting in this way.24 Beijing had no incentive to cooperate. The regime’s conﬁdence was such that it knew the Clinton administration would eventually be compelled to renew MFN for business reasons. A public demonstration of US weakness would send a message to the Americans that pressure on Beijing would backﬁre, that human rights would not be publicly bargained for trade beneﬁts. Within the Washington foreign policy community prominent ﬁgures publicly criticised the linkage between MFN and trade; they included former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger, Cyrus Vance and Lawrence Eagleburger, and they pointed to the danger of having a single issue determine China policy and wider American interests in Asia.25 In his effort to vilify the elder Bush’s administration for engaging Beijing Clinton had not considered the wider linkages with foreign policy, and apparently never thought that he might require Beijing’s support. Beijing’s importance to the US was made evident during the Korean nuclear crisis of 1993–1994, when the administration persistently lobbied the Chinese to press Pyongyang to cooperate with the IAEA. Moreover, the administration belatedly realised that Beijing’s cooperation was also required to prevent WMD proliferation to Pakistan, but Beijing had an incentive to engage in proliferation after Bush had agreed to sell Taiwan 150 F-16s in November 1992. After having assumed a major role in Pakistan’s nuclear programme in the 1980s Beijing assisted the development of its ballistic missile programme as well: US intelligence estimated that over 1993–1994 China had transferred 30 M-11 missiles to Pakistan. Obvious non-cooperation over these issues was Beijing’s weapon in managing the US and to remind it of the limits to its human rights diplomacy. Winston Lord then capitulated and in his memo to Warren Christopher,

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written in April 1994, which was leaked to the Washington Post on 5 May 1994, he regretted the “missionary approach” which would weaken US in Asia, and which had provoked attacks upon him from US business.26 Clinton had no choice and similarly capitulated without the results he had been seeking from Beijing, and on 26 May 1994 he announced MFN renewal.27 Anthony Lake defended the decision, stating that MFN renewal was not a mistake and that it was based on tangible results in China’s observance of human rights. Warren Christopher later said that China had fulﬁlled the mandatory requirements for MFN renewal, but admitted that it had not demonstrated progress in overall signiﬁcant progress in human rights. Christopher announced that the intention was to integrate China into the global community and he identiﬁed the new policy which was to be pursued by the administration as the “comprehensive engagement” of China.28 Commerce secretary Ron Brown announced that US exports to China reached $8 billion in 1993, composed in the main of aircraft and related parts. He declared that these exports supported 150,000 jobs and that the US could have a greater impact on human rights in China by expanding economic and commercial ties with it.29 Clinton’s capitulation over the MFN issue had major consequences for US policy towards the Asia Paciﬁc region. Most important was the impact upon Beijing where consistency of purpose is respected and where leaders are expected to display power to be credible. If Clinton backed down over this issue, which was regarded as fundamental for American values, he would back down over all the others. So would he stand on anything? Clinton’s credibility before China and Asia in general was damaged and the commitment to human rights and democracy promotion appeared to be yet more rhetoric from the American side. The discrepancy between high principle and the means of implementation was exposed and it was not enough simply to rely upon hectoring to convince Asia of America’s serious purpose over these issues. Public lectures would compel Beijing to dig in its heels to demonstrate its resistance to the US. The neo-Wilsonian failure to devise a practical strategy for implementing its principles before Asia and its disregard of the practical realities of foreign policy cost the Clinton administration dearly. The Clinton administration could have prepared the American public in advance for interaction with Asia over this issue by aligning high principle carefully with a strategy of implementation, by scaling down public expectations and by focusing in economics and trade. The unfortunate linkage of US policy to high publicity human rights cases could have been avoided. As it was, Clinton’s earlier campaign promises excluded such ﬂexibility and contributed to exaggerated public expectations that later confronted him. Beijing had seen the Clinton administration avoid commitment to Bosnia and back down over Somalia, and it did not expect it to react over the Taiwan missile ﬁrings over 1995–1996.30 By then the domestic pressures upon Clinton had hardened. The election of a Republican Congress on 8 November 1994 was

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indicative of frustration with Clinton over domestic issues and healthcare proposals in particular. A Republican-dominated Congress was largely hostile to the internationalism espoused by Clinton and gave expression to the imperialist theme in American foreign policy which stressed military power, American hegemony and unilateralism.31 Hostility towards internationalism of any kind, including the UN, was the hallmark of the Chairman of the Senate Committee of Foreign Relations Jesse Helms who expressed a Republican isolationism over foreign policy. Most signiﬁcant was the emergence of a powerful pro-Taiwan group in Congress that had its roots in the Republican supporters of Chiang Kai-shek in the 1950s. Republicans in Congress were strongly opposed to Beijing’s human rights record and its role in proliferation, and were highly critical of the Agreed Framework negotiated by the Clinton administration with North Korea in 1994. Congress insisted on the Taiwan Relations Act of 10 April 1979 which reinstated an American obligation to protect Taiwan after the Carter administration normalised relations with Beijing in December 1978.32 It was an almost united Congress that voted for the resolution on 9 May 1995 to give the Taiwanese President Lee Teng-hui a visa to visit the US. Democrats joined Republicans over this issue: in the House it was a 360 to 0 vote, in the Senate it was a 97 to 1 vote.33 Beijing’s case was made worse over the Lee visit by Ambassador Li Daoyu’s effort to hector and scold 44 American senators in a letter in which he warned the US of the “dangerous consequences.”34 A characteristic inability to understand democratic politics had prompted Beijing to alienate Congress. Republican Senators Frank Murkowski, who later became chair of the Foreign Relations subcommittee on Asia Paciﬁc Affairs, Larry Pressler, Jesse Helms and Alfonso D’Amato met Lee Teng-hui at Syracuse airport when he arrived in the US. In February 1995 House Speaker and Republican Newt Gingrich suggested that the US establish diplomatic relations with Taiwan, which he thought should have the right to self-determination.35 In March 1997 Gingrich visited Shanghai and stressed that the US would defend Taiwan if China attacked, which conﬂicted with the administration’s policy of ambiguity over this issue.36 The Clinton administration lost its sense of direction after the MFN debacle and it never successfully developed a sense of cohesion in policy towards Asia. It could not return to the liberal internationalism it had earlier embraced as the accommodation of both Beijing and Pyongyang had undermined its credibility. Critical of the elder Bush administration’s engagement policy towards Beijing the Clinton administration surrendered all sense of linkage with human rights issues and slid into his predecessor’s policy. Pressed by external circumstances Clinton drifted into accommodative policies towards Asia without a prepared strategy. Echoing the liberal internationalists, Clinton had initially called for the downsizing of the military and the defence budget but when pressed by his conservative Republican critics he ended up increasing both. Despite the

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broad internationalist approach to Asia Paciﬁc security issues he had advocated, in time Clinton reasserted the primacy of America’s alliances. Clinton was compelled to preside over the restoration of continuity with the elder Bush administration when he had promised a break with the past. The neo-Wilsonians had anticipated a peace dividend after the termination of the cold war; they had expected that the defence budget could be reduced and the savings invested into domestic needs. During the 1992 campaign Clinton declared that defence spending would be cut by over one-third by 1997. He announced that he would replace the cold war military structure with a smaller mix of capabilities and afﬁrmed that “we can and must substantially reduce forces originally designed to counter the Soviet threat.” America, said Clinton, will not bear every burden, but will “tip the balance.”37 Winston Lord’s report of June 1992 to the Carnegie Endowment Foundation, which exempliﬁed the new liberal internationalism, similarly called for reductions in the defence budget and the withdrawal of troops stationed, abroad allowing the US to rely upon multilateralism, collective security and UN peacekeeping.38 Clinton’s choice of congressman Les Aspin as Defence Secretary demonstrated his desire to impose the new priorities on the intractable defence bureaucracy. During his Senate conﬁrmation hearings on 7 January 1992 Aspin echoed the liberal internationalist position, declaring that “democracies tend to make war less, support terrorism less.” He declared that future crisis would involve multilateral forces and greater burden-sharing for allies which would place the US in a supporting role. The US would break with the cold war defence structure and would develop fast sealift and airlift forces which would obviate the need for the deployment of forces abroad. It would maintain a force structure that would enable the US to conduct a major ground war in the Middle East, and aerial defence of South Korea in the event of a Northern invasion.39 With this reduction in role the range of missions for the US would now include humanitarian intervention, and in the Clinton administration’s ﬁrst cold war defence budget in 1994 some $300 million was allotted for peacekeeping missions.40 Clinton thought that a 10 per cent reduction in the defence budget was possible if the US shifted from a dominant to a supporting role in a balance of power strategy in Asia, which relied upon burden-sharing and the contributions of allies. Neo-Wilsonians, including Winston Lord, were reluctant to endorse the concept of the balance of power, which would have entailed the surrender of idealism to realism, and found themselves hamstrung by their ideology as a consequence. The balance of power was an instrumental concept which could justify cuts in the defence budget. Without it reductions were not easily imposed, as the Defence Department demonstrated a vibrant life of its own that foiled the best intentions. Aspin’s bottom-up review of defence strategy was announced on 2 September 1993 according to which the US would repudiate the 1992

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base-force review of the elder Bush’s administration. The intention was to reduce forces to the level required to ﬁght a major regional war in the Middle East and to hold the line in the Far East. The proposals envisaged reductions of total forces from 1.7 to 1.4 million, army divisions from 12 to 10, reserve ﬁghter wings from 26 to 20, total naval vessels were to be reduced from 450 to 345. The Marine Corps was to be expanded and new carriers were to be added to the ﬂeet.41 The defence establishment had developed strong roots in American society and was not to be changed because of the untested ideological proclivities of a new administration. Aspin discovered the difﬁculties of managing America’s most powerful bureaucracy and soon admitted that another 4 per cent or $56 billion would be required to fund pay rises and cost overruns.42 At the end of the cold war the livelihood of some 6 million people depended on defence, including 1 million in the Pentagon, 3 million in the defence industries, and 2.143 million in the armed services; their lobby groups included powerful defence industries and contractors who could promise a voter backlash if the proposed spending cuts were approved.43 Clinton understood that defence cuts cost votes as he had himself campaigned for the Seawolf nuclear attack submarine, a cold-war programme which was a budget burden after the Soviet collapse. In his State of the Union address of 25 January 1994, Clinton bowed to the defence lobby groups and declared that he had drawn the line against further defence cuts.44 In December 1994 in response to the Republican Congressional victory, Clinton announced an increase in defence spending by $25 billion over six years. The bottom-up review was lost and the best of intentions evaporated as from 1994 the defence budget allocated funds for 18 trident missiles, F-22 ﬁghters, and for an expansion of the B-2 bomber programme to 20; in 1996 Congress voted to expand the B-2 bomber programme.45 Defence spending declined from the peak cold-war ﬁgure of $373 billion in 1989 to $262 billion in 1997, but not by as much as the Clinton administration had intended. The envisaged restructuring had been thwarted and the budget was compelled to carry many unwanted weapons programmes. The 1995–1996 Taiwan crisis had a profound impact upon the Clinton administration and the danger of confrontation and escalation facilitated a shift to an engagement policy with Beijing. NSC adviser Anthony Lake downgraded the enlargement theory and reshufﬂed America’s priorities in the Asia Paciﬁc. First priority now was the strengthening of America’s alliances; second priority was the deeper engagement of China, which he said was essential for stability on the Korean peninsula and for nuclear non-proliferation; in third place was the enlargement of the community of democracies. He stressed the importance of the American military presence and surmised that an American withdrawal “could slow the proud march of Asia’s newest democracies to a crawl.”46 Clinton himself reiterated the same priorities in his address to the Australian parliament on 20 November 1996. He stressed that “we will continue to revitalize our core

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alliances both bilaterally and regionally,” and that the US had no interest in the negative strategy of containing China.47 Indeed, the engagement policy had been earlier emphasised by other ﬁgures in the administration within both the State and Defence departments. Defence Secretary William Perry had pressed for closer engagement of Beijing and during his visit to China in December 1994 stressed the need for military-to-military ties.48 Perry became the major advocate of comprehensive engagement of Beijing within the administration, he argued for the renewal of military talks with Beijing after the 1995–1996 crisis, which had been suspended by Beijing in May 1995. Perry opposed any attempt to contain China which he said would trigger an acceleration in China’s military spending.49 The ﬁrst formal defence consultations with Beijing began in December 1997 when PLA chief of the General Staff Lt.-General Xiong Guangkai visited the Pentagon. In January 1998 a Maritime Military Consultative Agreement was signed with Beijing which was the ﬁrst-ever agreement on preventing incidents and naval clashes at sea. Clinton had been hustled into the engagement of Beijing as the product of a crisis which dramatically reshaped his priorities. The need to prevent further deterioration of the relationship with Beijing had overridden his earlier declarations and propelled him to respond to the task at hand, but without a convincing strategy that would give his reactions a sense of balance. If the Clinton administration had prepared a strategy for the engagement of Beijing that would have integrated the various elements of his policy perhaps some of the difﬁculties his administration faced with domestic critics, as well as with allies, could have been avoided. It started, however, with a liberal internationalist position that had excluded the need for such strategic planning and the necessary balancing of priorities which might have curbed some of the President’s more impulsive gestures. The administration’s rapid reversion to engagement made the commitment to human rights appear like a public relations game, despite its pronouncements. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright gave great publicity to the human rights issue when she visited Beijing on the occasion of Deng Xiaoping’s death in February 1997. Similarly, Clinton sparred with Jiang Zemin during the October 1997 summit in Washington when he criticised China for being on the “wrong side of history.”50 The absence of a guiding strategy behind the Clinton administration’s engagement of Beijing was evident during the President’s visit to Shanghai on 30 June 1998 when he offered the so-called “three noes” to his hosts. In response to a prompt by Jiang Zemin Clinton declared that the US would not support an independent Taiwan, would oppose Taiwan’s entry into international organisations where statehood was the criterion for membership, and that the US would not support a “one China one Taiwan” policy.51 Clinton went further than any previous president in afﬁrming support for Beijing’s position over Taiwan, which created the uneasy spectacle of major concessions before Beijing. The President conducted a lecture in Beijing on freedom which

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was broadcast live over the Chinese media, and he debated the Tiananmen Square killings with Jiang Zemin. The administration pointed to these events and argued that the engagement policy provided for an effective vehicle for the propagation of human rights.52 Nonetheless, Clinton had offered a clariﬁcation of policy which beneﬁted Beijing in more ways than one in return for the dubious right to public debate. Clinton had raised the prospect of the downgrading of Taiwan for the US by the deliberate removal of the ambiguity that had allowed the US to remain committed to Taiwan. Moreover, he also revealed the proclivity of the administration to place the engagement of Beijing ahead of the relationship with allies such as Japan. Clinton had acceded to Chinese requests not to stop over in Tokyo during his trip to Beijing to create the image of a special relationship with China, which was not lost on the Japanese. The articulation of the three noes was particularly disturbing for the Japanese as it seemed to form part of a pattern. The difﬁculty was the reconciliation of America’s alliance relationships, which were considered the foundation of policy in the Paciﬁc, with the new interests of the Clinton administration. Its plan to restructure defence forces under the bottom-up review logically pointed to reductions in forward deployed forces both in Japan and Korea. In addition, Clinton’s endorsement of Asian multilateralism in his speech in the South Korean Parliament on 10 July 1993 implied a shift away from the traditional alliances as the success of multilateralism would make them irrelevant. The Pentagon reacted to these concerns by promulgating the Nye report of February 1995 to remove all doubt about America’s willingness to retain forward-deployed forces in the Western Paciﬁc. The effort to ensure the relevance of the US alliance with Japan resulted in the framework agreement, which was signed when Clinton visited Japan in April 1996, and the revised defence guidelines of September 1997. In his Shanghai visit Clinton had elevated China above Japan and from the Japanese perspective had actually ventured into new policy.53 The US could not elevate the engagement of China to its principal policy objective without undermining the alliance with Japan. If Japan were downgraded in favour of Beijing the incentive to support the US over regional security would be lost and Japan would develop its own engagement policy with China. The American alliance system in the Western Paciﬁc could unravel as a result. The comprehensive engagement policy had serious domestic repercussions that the Clinton Administration could not ignore. Beijing still represented a Communist Party system that was responsible for the Tiananmen Square killings of 1989, for the repression of political and religious freedoms, and for the suppression of the rights of the Tibetan people. America could not develop an equal relationship of the kind desired by Beijing’s rulers without triggering a public or Congressional backlash that it was selling out American values. Certain stabilising

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arrangements were possible with Beijing to prevent tensions and conﬂicts, but a full and equal relationship was incompatible with the values the Administration had championed. Comprehensive engagement also threatened the status of Taiwan and increased the pressure upon the administration to give way to Beijing under the one-China policy. For America’s Taiwan supporters it was apparent that Clinton, who supported liberal internationalism and the enlargement of the democratic community of states, was willing to surrender a democracy for the sake of a relationship with a authoritarian government in Beijing. Democratisation had given Taiwan a special place in America’s value system and had evoked strong support, particularly from Congress. There were also realist reasons as to why America had an interest in Taiwan’s separate status – one was to prevent the Chinese navy from exerting effective control of maritime areas within the island chain, the Aleutians, the Kuriles, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines and Indonesia.54 Taiwan was also regarded as an essential factor in counterbalancing Beijing without which the balance of power in the region would swing to Beijing’s advantage.55 The proponents of comprehensive engagement have argued that it was necessary to bring stability to the Asia Paciﬁc region. Robert Zoellick, who was Undersecretary of State and Deputy White House Chief of Staff during the elder Bush’s administration, claimed that ad hoc engagement was not enough, and that it had to be comprehensive by encompassing security, and economic and political dimensions to ensure regional stability.56 It was also argued that engagement would allow America to direct China’s internal political development towards greater pluralism and even democracy. America could mediate between Beijing and Taiwan and may encourage the acceptance of federation or confederation, which would involve a redeﬁnition of the Chinese state.57 How would engagement be reconciled with America’s alliance system in the Asia Paciﬁc region? Zoellick thought that the US could impose the condition that China accept the US alliance system in the Asia Paciﬁc for engagement to proceed. On this basis a mutually acceptable regional security system could be devised which could involve China directly.58 Still others have been less ambitious, calling for limited engagement with deﬁned areas of cooperation which could be separated from the competition which would continue in this relationship.59 The best that the administration could achieve with Beijing would be a limited or interim engagement policy in recognition that the relationship with Beijing would be regularly subject to domestic political storms. Former Assistant Secretary for Defence Chas Freeman bemoaned the fact that US policy towards China was driven by Congress and special interests and the absence of a vision to integrate China into the international community.60 The US State Department would like a free hand to deal with China on the basis of mutual accommodation and without what

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it would regard as intrusion from domestic politics. The neo-Wilsonianism that Clinton had invoked, however, militated against the foreign policy realism that would allow such an accommodation as it stimulated expectations of US policy and galvanised support for Taiwan as a new Chinese democracy. Congress reacted negatively to Clinton’s three noes statement and in July 1998 a House resolution supported Taiwan’s right to participate in international organisations; both Senate and House reafﬁrmed the signiﬁcance of the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 as the basic commitment to Taiwan. Clinton was also criticised for using the word “uniﬁcation” in describing Taiwan’s future during the Shanghai visit.61 Speciﬁcally, the House urged the administration to support Taiwan’s membership of the IMF as a “qualiﬁed economy.” A Senate resolution urged the President to seek China’s public renunciation of the use of force against Taiwan.62 Congressional support for Taiwan, no doubt, has been stimulated by effective lobbying from groups such as the Formosan Association for Public Affairs (FAPA), the Taiwan International Alliance (TIA), and the Taiwan Economic and Cultural Representative Ofﬁce (TECRO).63 Beijing would like to denigrate this support for Taiwan as the product of effective lobbying within Congress which may in time be neutralised by counter lobbying. Nonetheless, Taiwan’s democratic credentials have been critical in ensuring Congressional receptiveness to those lobbying efforts. The 1995–1996 missile ﬁrings inspired the idea of China as a future threat amongst various groups that were opposed to the engagement policy. It seemed that Beijing was bent on challenging the US military role in the Asia Paciﬁc region to create those strategic conditions that would make America hesitate to come to Taiwan’s defence. Different agencies in the US came to different conclusions about how to respond to Beijing. While the Pentagon leadership publicly advocated engagement the intelligence community was somewhat hostile. In 1997, Defence Intelligence Director Lt-General Patrick Hughes described China as one of the few countries that could emerge as a large-scale regional threat to US interests over the next 10–20 years.64 Within the so-called “blue team” of Beijing critics – which included Congressmen, Congressional staffers, researchers, and Taiwan lobbyists – there was the view that conﬂict was likely, that Beijing was preparing for war with the US over Taiwan.65 The military raised concerns about Beijing’s force modernisation, its short-range missile deployments around Taiwan and its weapons purchases from Russia that would enable it to attack US carrier groups in the event of a conﬂict.66 Commander in Chief of Paciﬁc Forces (CINCPAC) Admiral Joseph Prueher, who later became US ambassador to China, claimed that Beijing’s aim was to become the dominant power in Asia, while his successor Dennis Blair called China a “potential antagonist.”67 American critics of Beijing have claimed that even without war the US and China would remain adversaries, and that China’s integration into the international economy would strengthen its military power and its ability to challenge

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the US.68 They claimed that Clinton had attempted to “appease and placate” Beijing, had allowed relations with democratic allies to deteriorate, and had “betrayed American values” by giving Beijing a higher priority than America’s democratic allies.69 A neo containment policy favoured by the critics would have aggravated the situation and strained relations with those same democratic allies, particularly Japan, that had little interest in confronting Beijing. Those allies of the US sought closer economic relations with the Chinese economy in any case. Any attempt to give expression to American values by strengthening relations with democratic allies, or by selling Taiwan new weapons to counter Beijing, would contribute to a new arms race in the Taiwan straits, with the attendant risks of conﬂict and escalation, without the assurance of allied support. In the ﬁnal years of the Clinton administration an effort was made to link the engagement of Beijing with a balance of power within a wider framework of Asian powers. In March 2000 Defence Secretary William Cohen visited Vietnam where he declared that the US military relationship with Vietnam could become as important as that with other East Asian allies. He suggested that US naval vessels could visit Vietnam, which held out the prospect of America’s return to Cam Ranh Bay, a US base during the Vietnam War and since then a Soviet and Russian facility until 2002.70 In the same month Clinton visited India where he noted that India gave the US airlift rights during the Gulf War and had cooperated with the US over terrorism.71

The imperialist theme in the George W. Bush administration The George W. Bush administration gave vent to the strong criticism of Clinton’s foreign policy that had been expressed in conservative Republican circles since the Taiwan crisis. The frustration with Clinton’s willingness to compromise over America’s vital interests stimulated the brash determination to assert American values within the Bush administration when it came to ofﬁce in January 2001. The revival of the imperialist theme has been the hallmark of the Bush administration’s attitude to foreign policy, particularly after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. The overwhelming emphasis has been upon military power and its efﬁcacy in ensuring a conducive environment for American freedom. Military superiority in defence of freedoms was promoted by the Reagan administration, and its present articulation has been particularly associated with Assistant Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz. It was Wolfowitz who pressed for an attack on Saddam Hussein of Iraq after the September 2001 terrorist attacks, and who has argued the case for military deterrence.72 The features of the Bush administration’s policy were outlined in the National Security Strategy declaration of September 2002, which was a compilation of speeches by President Bush.

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The ﬁrst feature of the Bush administration’s strategy was the identiﬁcation of “a distinctly American internationalism that reﬂects the union of our values with our national interests,” which invoked the characteristic ideology of Americanism rather than the universalism of the neoWilsonians.73 The second feature was the stress given to American military power. President Bush told a Joint Session of Congress on 30 September 2001 that “we must build and maintain our defences beyond challenge,” and that “the unparalleled strength of the United States armed forces and their forward presence have maintained the peace in some of the world’s most strategically vital regions.”74 The neo-Wilsonians saw no need for military superiority at this level, which would, moreover, undermine the global conventional or nuclear arms reductions initiatives that they promoted. The third feature was the doctrine of pre-emption which was intended to deal with the threat of global terrorism. Bush emphasised that America must “deter and defend against the threat before it is unleashed” and justiﬁed the doctrine by claiming that international jurists had made the legitimacy of pre-emption conditional upon the existence of an “imminent threat.” Bush declared that America would have to “adapt the concept of imminent threat to the capabilities and objectives of today’s adversaries.”75 The fourth feature was a conditional multilateralism, and Bush declared that “America will implement its strategies by organising coalitions.”76 Bush’s multilateralism distinguished between front-rank partners, which were America’s alliance partners in NATO, Japan, South Korea and Australia, and second-level partners or “great powers in transition,” Russia, India and China. The neo-Wilsonians hoped to embrace all in their open multilateralism and were less inclined to make such distinctions. The ﬁfth feature was the idea of a balance of power which, as Bush put it, would “favour freedom,” though it was unclear who was involved in that balance.77 Difﬁcult issues were raised by Bush’s hegemonic strategy. Aside from whether the American economy could support a defence budget that would rise to cold-war levels, there was the tension between unilateralism and multilateralism that the strategy revealed. America’s military superiority and reliance on pre-emption could destroy the multilateralism and undermine the support of allies as fears are stimulated that America demands a licence for unrestricted intervention. Its more cautious allies would be alienated and its regional competitors would be pushed to acquire WMD by way of deterrence. The Bush administration’s strategy was based on the assumption that a benign hegemony enforcing the rules of global interaction from which all beneﬁt would be acceptable by all, and its actions would be ultimately endorsed by the international community.78 Nonetheless, an American global military hegemony which can deﬂect major challenges to international order may not translate into effective regional dominance. There is no hegemony which can be assuredly dominant in every region, or which is capable of undertaking major operations in

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different conﬂict zones unilaterally. If an impatient America constantly presses for action it may slide into a self-defeating unilateralism, with the result that it could be immersed in various regional quagmires simultaneously, all seemingly without easy solution. Should America seek multilateral support its allies and coalition partners would negotiate a price which would result in a modiﬁcation of aims and perhaps a diversion from the values it seeks to uphold. Within the Bush administration criticism was directed against Clinton’s proclivity to let Beijing dominate America’s Asia Paciﬁc policy, with the consequent distortion of priorities that downgraded America’s allies.79 Deputy Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz argued that the strategic value of Beijing to the US has been exaggerated, and that greater emphasis should be placed on Japan. The Republican foreign policy team sought a Japan that was more closely integrated in America’s strategy for the region, and an ally in the East that is the equal of Britain.80 Both Wolfowitz and Deputy Secretary of Defence Richard Armitage have called for an end to strategic ambiguity in relation to Taiwan and have claimed that a clear American commitment to the island would reduce the risk of war.81 In an ABC interview on 24 April 2001 President Bush declared that America would do “whatever it took” to defend Taiwan, but in a CNN interview on the following day he supported the one-China policy and stressed that there was no endorsement of Taiwan’s independence.82 On 25 April the Bush administration also revealed its intention to increase weapons sales to Taiwan, including PAC-3 Patriot missiles not yet deployed by US forces, eight diesel-powered destroyers no longer produced in the US, 12 P-3 Orion ASW aircraft, and four Kidd-class destroyers instead of the four Arleigh Burke-class destroyers with Aegis systems requested by Taiwan.83 The Bush administration developed ties with Taiwan and invited Taiwan’s Chief of Staff Li Chieh to a seminar with Pentagon ofﬁcials in Florida in February 2002. Taiwan’s Vice Defence Minister Kang Ning-hsiang followed with a visit to the Pentagon in September 2002. Moreover, in the 2003 Foreign Relations Authorisation Act Congress inserted a phrase that, for the purposes of defence transfers, “Taiwan shall be treated as though it were designated a non NATO ally.”84 The Bush administration could not make an enemy of China while its cooperation was required over a range of global and regional security issues. Wolfowitz may have called for an end to strategic ambiguity over Taiwan but with the same demand for clarity he stressed that the US was opposed to Taiwan’s independence and supported the one China policy.85 Morevoer, the administration was made aware of the danger of conﬂict escalation with Beijing when an EP-3E surveillance aircraft was forced down on Hainan island on 1 April 2001 and the 24 crew members were detained by the Chinese for 11 days. The delay in returning the crew indicated conﬂict involving Beijing’s hardliners, represented by Defence

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Minister Chi Haotian who pressed for Jiang Zemin to demand an apology from the US.86 China’s hardliners used the opportunity to stimulate antiUS hostility, and if this had provoked similar reactions from Washington’s hardliners the crisis could have escalated. The US Defence Department sought to restore military exchanges with Beijing to retain a channel of communication which may help to defuse similar incidents in the future. Bush was compelled to seek China’s cooperation against terrorism and WMD proliferation during the October 2001 APEC summit in Shanghai, and during Jiang Zemin’s visit to the US in October 2002.87 The Bush administration was also obliged to request Beijing’s cooperation to deal with North Korea’s nuclear programme in recognition that it could not act alone over the Korean peninsula. China’s cooperation was required to place pressure upon the North and to engage it in dialogue in the US–North Korea Beijing meeting that was held in April 2003.88 The Bush administration was compelled to involve both China and South Korea in the Korean crisis in recognition that unilateral action would be foolhardy. The administration’s policy towards North Korea was inﬂuenced by Richard Armitage’s report of March 1999, which revived the comprehensive approach but with enforcement provisions. North Korea would be offered diplomatic relations, economic beneﬁts and security assurances in exchange for the elimination of the threat posed by the North’s WMD and conventional forces. If the approach should fail the report recommended that the US consider pre-emption “with the attendant uncertainties.”89 When in ofﬁce the Bush administration veered between the isolation and the engagement of the North according to a vibrant internal debate. Secretary of State Colin Powell managed to inﬂuence the decision to begin negotiations with the North on 8 June 2001. Hardliners, however, pressed the issue of the North’s involvement in WMD proliferation and Bush accordingly included North Korea in his “axis of evil” State of the Union address in 29 January 2002, which was reportedly strongly inﬂuenced by Armitage’s report.90 Talks with the North began, but the second nuclear crisis erupted when on 4 October 2002 the North admitted to a nuclear programme and expelled all IAEA inspectors on 27 December. The Bush administration was in no position to adopt punitive measures against the North while it held the South hostage with its conventional forces, and while it was required to solicit Chinese support. Bush himself declared that the axis of evil countries could be distinguished; North Korea was different from Iraq and the situation on the Korean peninsula could be “resolved peacefully.”91 The Bush administration’s hope was that China and other regional actors would become equally concerned about the North’s nuclear programme, in which case a regional resolution would be possible.

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The future America has come into its own in the post-cold war era and is able to shape history as never before. The neo-Wilsonians who gathered around the Clinton administration believed that a unique moment in history had arisen for the propagation of democracy and human rights and that events reﬂected a universal process of political transformation. The new imperialists around the Bush administration had a similar conviction, but true to their heritage recognised the evils in the external world that would threaten America and its mission. Both traditions in American foreign policy revealed a discrepancy between appropriate means and aims which they attempted to resolve in different ways. The neo-Wilsonians were buoyed by their conviction in a universal process which required from the US not direct intervention into every situation but the coordination of multilateral efforts towards the desired end. While the neo-Wilsonians were swept up in the dizzying vision of historical change, their universalised aims and objectives went beyond their ability to realise them in a practical way. They were embarrassed by Beijing over human rights and were compelled to realise that China’s cooperation was required for Asia Paciﬁc stability. The new imperialists put their faith in American hegemony and uncontested military superiority to create a world suitable for the dissemination of American values. They were determined to avoid the obvious traps of their predecessor by ensuring that the aims would be well supported by the means, and that America would be embarrassed no more. George W. Bush rectiﬁed the omission of his father who let Saddam Hussein survive the Gulf War in 1991 and had him removed him by military power in March 2003. The danger is that with an expansion of means comes an ever-increasing array of practical goals as America discovers new injustices and new cases of proliferation which will demand action. Conﬁdence in military superiority may draw America into new ventures that would tax its strength, and it cannot intervene militarily into the Middle East and East Asia simultaneously without risking overextension. While the Bush administration set itself the task of eradicating terrorism in the Middle East and Afghanistan it has been compelled to recognise the need for diplomacy and cooperation in the Asia Paciﬁc region. Moreover, America cannot force its vision of the future on Asia by military means, nor will military power arrest the development of Asian political trends working against its interests. America cannot employ military power unilaterally in relation to North Korea when surrounding governments press for re-engagement, nor will this power prevent China’s emergence as a centre for new forms of Asian regionalism based on its economic strength. There is a third American approach to foreign policy, which seeks to insulate the impact of those domestic values upon the business of diplomacy. America’s realists, George Kennan, Hans Morgenthau, James

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Schlesinger and Henry Kissinger, have stressed the importance of separating the diplomatic process from the tumultuous storms of domestic politics. The proponents of diplomatic realism advocate stability and predictability in foreign policy and a recognition of the external constraints to action.92 Kissinger sought a balance between the moral and the strategic elements of American foreign policy, arguing that no country can impose its preferences on the rest of the world and that priorities must be established.93 Realists hark back to the nineteenth century and call for a concert of powers including China, Japan and South Korea, which would manage security issues on the basis of practical adjustments without interference from domestic politics.94 Amongst East Asians there is the belief that America should be more realist, and should cease promoting human rights and American values. The Chinese have argued that Americans should recognise that values are relative across different cultures, and that America should terminate its relationship with Taiwan and should establish an equal relationship with China.95 Other arguments are that the US should support the political legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party, should avoid criticism of ofﬁcial Chinese domestic positions, and should grant the same status to China as to Japan in a new security arrangement.96 American China scholars and post-modernists argue that that the US should recognise China as a separate and different civilisation and should learn the relativity of all value systems, an idea that has attracted much attention within academic circles.97 American leaders cannot work outside the context of their own value system, and to imagine that an American administration could throw over all concern for ideals and values is impractical. China carries with it the legacy of communism which is antithetical to America’s value system; the US may avoid deliberate conﬂict and provocation in the relationship but it cannot desist from the promotion of its values. Nonetheless, the excesses of American ideological zeal and the extremism of high principle should be curbed as the future will bring new challenges. Asia will appropriate the industrial and information processes that placed the American economy at the forefront of change and will develop greater conﬁdence. As China’s industrial and economic power increases it will attract support from within Asia, creating a natural resistance to American ideological posturing. America will have to match aims and objectives with the means available to it and should distinguish between situations in recognition of the danger of overextension. Accommodation will be required to deal with external complexity as America will be compelled to learn how to reconcile universalism with diplomatic prudence, and how to work with the long-term economic and political forces in Asia which promote democratisation. These forces are best fostered through practical programmes stressing trade, economic growth and political incentives rather than the hectoring and condemnatory moralism so favoured by America’s public ﬁgures. Many Asians look for a matured Wilsonian spirit tempered by

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experience and restraint and without the imperious hubris that is oblivious of all restraint. When American idealism learns to respect external constraints, and when presidential candidates cease promising the impossible during election campaigns, the wild swings which have characterised policy towards Asia over the Clinton and Bush administrations could be avoided. Policy would then become more consistent from one administration to another and much more effective.

6

Values, identity and Asia Paciﬁc regionalism

The Asia Paciﬁc is not a natural region as shared values or culture are lacking. If a natural region entails a consciousness of regional identity or cultural afﬁnities then the term “East Asia” may be more appropriate; traditionally this has referred to the Chinese area of civilisation, including China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam.1 Alternative deﬁnitions of East Asia are based on the use of Chinese characters and only include China, Japan and Korea.2 Others go beyond common culture and take into account economic interaction. The economist’s concept of East Asia breaks with the historian’s identiﬁcation with Chinese civilisation and includes Southeast Asia on the basis of related economic systems.3 Strategic deﬁnitions of East Asia were prominent during the cold war, which included Russia as an East Asian power, together with South-East Asia.4 Strategic deﬁnitions divided the region into North-East Asia and South-East Asia, which reﬂected US strategic priorities in terms of containing the Soviet Union.5 The Asia Paciﬁc region, however, is broader still and reﬂects the reality of regular interaction as well as common or shared values. It refers to the effort to marry the US and its Western allies, including Western Latin America, with an expanded version of East Asia, in which case regionalism deﬁned in terms of shared values competes with regionalism deﬁned in terms of regular interaction. A fundamental dichotomy between the West and Asia is embraced in the term “Asia Paciﬁc” in which the tension between cultural commonality and security/economic interaction has inﬂuenced conceptions of regionalism. The impact of this dichotomy has been to stimulate identity politics and value assertion to the point where conceptions of regionalism are framed mainly in terms of culture.

Institutions or cultures? Can institutions change cultures and bring about greater cooperation, or do institutions themselves fracture along cultural lines? This question is most pertinent for the future of the Asia Paciﬁc as a region characterised by deep cultural diversity, where distinct Asian cultures interact with each other and rub shoulders with the West. Based on the European experience

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a process of regional institution building was initiated in the Asia Paciﬁc after the termination of the cold war – ﬁrst in terms of economic regionalism and then later in terms of security regionalism. The hope was that the transformational power of institutions would reshape Asian cultures into a greater acceptance of cooperative relations as a basis for enduring stability. Nonetheless, the Asia Paciﬁc differs signiﬁcantly from Europe whose common value system derived from Christianity and which has been shaped by events such as the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. A common value foundation is absent in the Asia Paciﬁc region, which has complicated the process of institution building and which has highlighted the resistance of various cultures to institutional changes. No doubt cultures will change with conditions, and, according to the purely instrumental view, cultures, values and identities are all formed through experience. Cultures are accumulations of experience which when given meaning become collective memory from which group histories are constructed. Cultural traditions, religious belief systems and collective memory provide the nurturing context for values and for conceptions of identity which are formed through contact with the external environment. External stimuli may decide whether these values will take cooperative and irenic form, or whether they will trigger an outburst of accumulated resentments stored within collective memory. With a threatening external environment values are strongly defended and protected, cooperation with others is regarded with suspicion and international institutions may be exploited. The preservation of identity in this sense dictates survival in a threatening environment or orientation in uncertainty in which realism becomes the dominant philosophy. Institutions may create a benign external environment and may foster a positive experience of cooperation where the beneﬁts of stability and greater certainty override those obtained by bitter selfreliance. A change in external environment may then reshape values in even the most survival-orientated culture, creating pressure for a reinterpretation of values and identity. The cooperative values that are inherent in most cultures would be invoked and the survivalist values which are characteristic of threat may be downplayed and relegated to the past. Cultures do not lose their sense of identity, nor are their core values repudiated as they become cooperative in institutions. Cultures are constantly adapting and they may distinguish between core values which are reinterpreted in new circumstances and past encrustations which are discarded as they become obstacles to cooperation. Economic and security interaction may serve as a stable basis for Asia Paciﬁc regionalism by reshaping the external environment of actors and by encouraging cooperative values over survivalist instincts. Cultural commonalities within the context of a natural region may not be required for the successful implantation of cooperative institutional structures. Patterns of economic and security interaction between states may be more reliable guides to cooperative behaviour than cultural commonality which provides

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uncertain bonding. Interdependence theorists have claimed that the motivations of state leaders may be changed from an exclusive concern with their own interests to the defence of common interests in cooperation. Asia Paciﬁc interaction has developed well beyond the borders of cultural commonality and has embraced external Western actors whose inclusion in regional structures cannot be contested. For every regional economy the US is either the ﬁrst or second major market, while the role of US alliances and forward-deployed forces in providing stability to the region has been recognised by most regional governments. With the US come other Western-orientated states, such as Canada which aspires to develop its own interactive relationships with the region, and Australia and New Zealand whose relationships with South-East Asia warrant their inclusion in regional structures. Nonetheless, the construction of an Asia Paciﬁc regionalism has stimulated inherent tensions between two different deﬁning characteristics of regionalism, between notions of common culture and interdependence which has transcended culture. In Europe institution building over ﬁve decades on a foundation of common values has resulted in the relatively successful operationalisation of the idea of community. The Asia Paciﬁc region, by contrast, has known war and division over the same ﬁve decades, and this has exacerbated existing cultural rivalries and conﬂicts. Unlike the idea of Europe which is historically grounded in common religion and political structures reaching back to the Holy Roman Empire, the concept of the Asia Paciﬁc is a recent and artiﬁcial creation. It embraces sub-regions, which for cultural and historical reasons may provide a more natural basis for institution building and regionalism. Within the concept of the Asia Paciﬁc there are East Asian, North-East Asian, South-East Asian and South Paciﬁc sub-regions, each offering a sense of commonality which is conspicuously absent from the wider concept. When unresolved tensions still hinder the development of interstate relations, attempts to promote institutional structures and regional institutions at the Asia Paciﬁc level may falter. New conﬂicts may arise from differing expectations of regionalism and the role of institutions, expectations which are themselves products of culture. Such conﬂicts about the nature and purpose of regionalism and institutional structures may create incentives for the institution-building process to be directed along cultural or civilisational lines, bringing together states of similar cultural backgrounds. Asia Paciﬁc regionalism brings with it unresolved conﬂicts regarding the relationship of the West and Asia in common institutions, as their views of regionalism and institutional structures have been inﬂuenced by values and identity in any case. Interaction between Asian and Western states has made both conscious of the differences and has crystallised views as to the purpose and direction of regionalism. Western states demanded the right to participate in Asian regionalism and habitually assumed the universality of their views of institutionalism. Asian states were much more varied in

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their responses but their most powerful and signiﬁcant representatives, Japan and China, deﬁned a role for regionalism that was more particular to their needs, and which accommodated their political or economic systems. While the West sought the application of universal law as a product of deductive reasoning from principles, the Asian approach was to allow for the building of common institutions in accommodative fashion. Western attempts to force the pace of institution building based on the application of deductive logic have stimulated counter-responses; a minority on the Asian side have adapted the Western approach according to their speciﬁc needs, others have recoiled from Western-deﬁned notions of institution building, and yet others have been motivated to give expression to an Asian consciousness and the formation of an ideology of Asianness as a basis for regional interaction. Rather than transcending culture as the theorists of regionalism and institutions anticipate, attempts at institution building may in certain situations actually coerce its elevation to a regional level beyond the sovereign state. In a situation of diversity regionalism may stimulate divisions based on cultural lines as like-minded states group together and search for support against opposition. Cultural commonality may then ease misunderstandings and will facilitate communication and the accommodation of interests. In this situation regionalism may trigger the formation of sub-groups, based on assumed cultural ties, and new constructions of group identity, based on shared values and areas of understanding. The inherent tensions in the relationship between Asia and the West were revealed in the Asian values debate that erupted in 1993. Clinton’s espousal of neo-Wilsonianism as foreign policy universalism alarmed Asia’s partially democratic and authoritarian governments alike, which were previously assured of American indulgence during the cold war. In his address to South Korea’s National Assembly on 10 July 1993 Clinton called for a “new Paciﬁc community” based on a “shared commitment to democratic values.” His ﬁnal point in that speech was that the US would “debunk” the notion that democracy and human rights were unsuited to Asia, or that their promotion was “cultural imperialism.”6 Warren Christopher addressed the 26th ASEAN Annual Ministerial Meeting (AMM) in Singapore in July 1993 and explained the administration’s commitment to democracy promotion. He declared that the spread of democracy was essential for growth and stability, and that democracies do not threaten their neighbours.7 From the Clinton administration’s perspective the ending of cold-war support for Asia’s authoritarian leaders meant the termination of an embarrassment. The promulgation of neo-Wilsonianism was regarded as a return to America’s true values and the end of the coldwar intermission. From the perspective of Asian governments, however, America’s volte-face was perceived as an annoyance and by some as betrayal. On the Asian side responses to the neo-Wilsonianism of the Clinton

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administration came at various levels. The ﬁrst and most immediate was the political level where Asian governments were concerned that America would impose standards of democracy and human rights upon the region which were unsuited for their cultures. Clinton’s early commitment to Asia Paciﬁc institution building presaged the construction of regionalism on America’s terms, based on an unquestioned sense of moral universalism. At stake were the terms and condition of the post-cold war order in the Asia Paciﬁc and whether it would reﬂect the tolerance and accommodation of different cultures that were essentially Asian, or whether it would be an American contrivance. Colonialism had made Asians exceptionally sensitive to Western political social domination, and to the denigration of their cultures. In the past Asia reacted to Western colonialism in terms of a cultural exclusiveness that regarded Western notions of democracy and human rights in relative terms, products of Western societies and unrelated to Asia. In the post-cold war era the debate could no longer be cast solely in relative terms as most educated Asians accepted the beneﬁts of democracy and notions of human rights. They were faced with the difﬁcult task of distinguishing between the universal and the culturally speciﬁc in America’s ideology and devising a consensus amongst themselves. The most vociferous responses came from Singapore and Malaysia, two highly Westernised societies that had faced a crisis of conﬁdence in their own cultures in the face of extensive economic growth. Both were multi-cultural one-party states that had curbed the political expression of their citizens in the name of communal stability, and which felt threatened by America’s democracy promotion campaign. Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew and Malaysia’s Mahathir were at the forefront in the preparation of a common Asian position for the Vienna Human Rights Conference of June 1993. The issue brought together ASEAN and China in a diplomatic alignment that was forged when Mahathir visited Beijing in June 1993. Then Mahathir joined Chinese Premier Li Peng in attacking Western critics of Asian human rights policies and in asserting that Asia had different notions of democracy and human rights.8 The UN Asian regional committee on human rights brought together 49 Asian and Arab states in Bangkok in June 1993, and it agreed that human rights must be considered in the context of cultural, social and historical backgrounds. Members also insisted that human rights did not justify interference into the internal affairs of states. At the Vienna Human Rights Conference later in the same month the proponents of Asian values brought into question the 1948 United Nations Declaration of Human Rights (UNDHR), claiming, as did Lee Kuan Yew, that it was a Western document written by the victorious allied powers with no Asian input. Lee, Mahathir and Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas called for a new universal declaration of human rights with Asian participation.9 At the conference the US, UK, France and Russia pressed for a UN human

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rights commission and human rights court, which was strongly opposed by these Asian leaders.10 The Asian conception of universal human rights was spelled out by the 26th ASEAN AMM in July 1993 where foreign ministers sought a balance between the political, legal rights espoused by the West, and economic, social and cultural rights. ASEAN ministers stressed that human rights are interrelated and indivisible, should be addressed in a balanced and integrated manner, and protected and promoted with due regard for speciﬁc cultural, social, economic and political circumstances. They stressed that ASEAN would draft a common approach on human rights, and noted that “development was an inalienable human right.” They were opposed to the use of human rights as a “conditionality” for economic assistance, and said that the promotion of human rights should respect national sovereignty, territorial integrity and non-interference into domestic affairs.11 Singapore pressed for a separate ASEAN statement on human rights which would highlight the right to development, but could not gain support from other ASEAN members.12 Similar views were expressed at the ASEAN International Parliamentary Organisation meeting in Kuala Lumpur, which on 24 September 1993 declared that current human rights standards reﬂected a Western bias. The declaration called for a globally acceptable charter, and acceptance of the principle that the “universal promotion of human rights should take place in the context of international cooperation based on respect for national sovereignty.”13 Proponents of Asian values took heart from the rise of China which, as they argued, would tilt the balance against the West and constrain its ability to propagate its version of democracy and human rights. In 1993 the World Bank and the IMF applied purchasing power parity measures to China and concluded that the Chinese economy was four times larger than previously thought, moving from the tenth to the third largest economy. Lee Kuan Yew claimed that the world would have to accommodate a rising China and advised Western governments to adjust their attitudes accordingly to ensure that China would develop into a peaceful and responsible power.14 Nonetheless, Asia was not united over Asian values, and in the Vienna conference on Human Rights Japan campaigned for the Western position, opposing Asian attempts to remove the linkage between developmental assistance and human rights. Leaders of Asian democracies such as South Korea’s Kim Dae-jung and Taiwan’s Lee Teng-hui stressed democracy above cultural values, or sought to identify indigenous traditions that were supportive of democracy. Others such as Malaysia’s Anwar Ibrahim called for “modernised Asian values” which would be compatible with democracy and which would not justify authoritarianism.15 Thailand’s former prime minister, Anand Panyarachan, argued that democratisation should proceed in an “Asian way,” not through indiscriminate borrowing from the West but through building on indigenous cultures.16 Even Lee Kuan Yew subsequently admitted that there was no single value system

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which covered all of Asia’s diversity, but thought that the role of the family was a common principle.17 Later he claimed that he had never used the term “Asian values” since there were many kinds of Asian values, and that he had referred to “Confucian values” to mean that an individual’s right did not override society’s right.18 Asian values fell victim to Asian diversity as there was a proliferation of ideas and opinions as to what those values were. Asia had no common value system, as Lee Kuan Yew referred to Chinese East Asia while Mahathir was concerned about Islam, and even the role of the family that Lee Kuan Yew referred to was not speciﬁcally Asian but universal. Asia is a geographical concept representing a vast stretch of territory comprising diverse traditional cultures and civilisations that had been colonised by the West. Nonetheless, westerners who are irritated by the debate and who dismiss the Asian position simply as a justiﬁcation for authoritarian rule and the oppression of human rights fail to appreciate the underlying motivation. The idea of Asia is a product of contact with the West, it represents tolerance of diversity in response and accommodation of different cultures in a situation where no one value system will predominate over others. Within this accommodation there is protection for heterogeneity in the mechanism of consensus and the elaborate conventions of coexistence. When the Clinton administration threatened a value hegemony over Asia in the name of the universality of democracy and human rights Asia’s most vulnerable states were prompted to respond by searching for a common basis for resistance in terms of the idea of Asia. Asia has no natural cultural unity yet the behaviour of the West has been critical in prompting the construction of an Asian ideology of commonality. In this sense the idea of Asia is an ideological construct which has meaning only in the context of encounter with the West. Asia presumes a common interest, which selectively draws upon collective memories of colonialism and various nationalist movements for its justiﬁcation. The word “Asia” has Greek and Latin roots and its extension to the traditional cultures of a vast geographic space was the product of Western intrusion and subsequent colonisation. Certain nationalist movements and the Comintern appropriated the term “Asia” to give a wider meaning to the anti-colonial struggle in the effort to form coalitions against the colonial powers. What united Asia was treatment at the hands of the West, which was a tenuous unity at best. A US that insists on its own priorities, and which demonstrates an inclination to impose a value hegemony over Asia, would trigger self-defensive movements within Asian governments and the invocation of the idea of Asia in some form. In the process of building Asia Paciﬁc regional structures Asian governments have for this reason revealed an acute sensitivity to Western domination, and to the Western assumption of universality. Efforts by the West to promote its own interpretation of regionalism have stimulated resistance and have strengthened the tendency of the movement towards Asian regionalism.

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Asia Paciﬁc security regionalism Since the termination of the cold war there have been two parallel developments in Asia Paciﬁc regionalism – APEC has been the major vehicle of economic regionalism while the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) has been the only regional-wide security forum. Both regional institutions have included Western governments, which form a sizeable group – the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the ARF in addition allows a place for the EU. Amongst Western governments certain culturally derived assumptions relating to regionalism came to the fore. The ﬁrst was the importance of human rights and democracy as the public expression of their own values; the second was the demand for organised institutional structures with binding agreements and clear timetables. The preference for legality in the West was strongly marked in terms of the clear formulation of obligations and sanctions for non-performance. Third, there was the proclivity for public disclosure of differences and condemnation of what was regarded as deviant behaviour. The casting of obligations and procedures in a legal context allowed clear judgements to be made about right and wrong, and for moral condemnation of those who failed to meet expectations. Amongst Asian governments it was most important to foster coexistence and community, which would promote mutual accommodation where adjustments would be made through consensus and respect for individual positions. There was a natural reluctance to consider legal commitments, binding agreements and structured organisation which would disrupt the main task of solidarity building and which could trigger a destructive polarisation of positions. Above all, differences were not to be aired publicly and harmony was to be maintained to allow for mutual adjustment of positions. From the Western position this deference to consensus resulted in inefﬁciency and bad time management and allowed unacceptable deviations from international norms or common sense. From the Asian position there could be no other way to involve all of Asia’s diversity.19 The ARF emerged from the discussions on regional security between the ASEAN institutes of strategic studies and international affairs over 1989–1991. The need was to devise a regional security framework that would include the major Asia Paciﬁc powers in the post-cold war order: the US, Japan, China and Russia. There were three features in this regional order. The ﬁrst was the engagement of China, which in the Maoist era had been perceived as a threat to the region through its support for the local communist parties of the region. China demonstrated its receptivity to engagement when on 2 December 1989 it presided over the conclusion of the Hatyai agreement. Then former Malaysian Communist Party leader Chin Peng emerged from exile in Beijing to signal the termination of China’s support for regional communist parties in an agreement with the Malaysian and Thai governments. China subsequently terminated its

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support to the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and supported the Paris agreements, which in 1991 brought a resolution to the civil strife in Cambodia. Above all, these events impressed South-East Asian leaders above all who had viewed China through the prism of its support for communist insurgencies, and made them aware of the need for institutional structures which would engage China. Second was the need to involve Japan to prevent the emergence of instability which would be associated with a revival of Sino-Japanese regional rivalry. Third was the importance of US involvement and its accommodation of a rising China to constrain a tendency towards an impulsive and destabilising unilateralism or to avoid a drift into isolationism. For countries dependent upon the US alliance system strengthening the role of the US had priority, but for Malaysia and others the accommodation of China was the key feature of the post-cold war regional order. ASEAN provided the forum with a foundation. As the Asia Paciﬁc region’s example of successful regionalism it was natural that the early discussions relating to the application of common security to the Asia Paciﬁc should be conducted in ASEAN institutes. ASEAN, moreover, had developed a structure for regional dialogue with external actors in the Post-Ministerial Conference (PMC), which by 1993 had included seven partners – the US, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and the EU. ASEAN and PMC senior ofﬁcials met in May 1993 and for the ﬁrst time placed regional security on the agenda of PMC discussions. They agreed on the need to bring China and Russia into a dialogue on regional security and made recommendations accordingly to the ASEAN Annual Ministerial Meeting (AMM) to be held later in July.20 Malaysia pressed for the rapid inclusion of China, and Foreign Minister Datuk Abdullah Badawi visited Beijing in June speciﬁcally to invite China into the dialogue. Badawi dismissed lingering reservations about China within ASEAN and stressed its willingness to assume a positive role.21 After Mahathir had publicly declared China to be a threat to the region in the 1980s Malaysian leaders felt obliged to close the chapter on the past by enthusiastically engaging China in regional dialogue. Ali Alatas, Indonesia’s foreign minister, was hesitant about the proposal for an Asia Paciﬁc security body, fearing that ASEAN would lose its identity, and he insisted that it remain at the centre of the new grouping.22 At that stage the regional body envisaged was to include the ASEAN six, the seven dialogue partners, including Western members, and China and Russia. When ASEAN foreign ministers met at the 26th AMM from 23–24 July 1993, Vietnam, Laos and Papua New Guinea were added for a total of 18 members in order to increase the number of Asian members and to balance the West. To ensure ASEAN would not be displaced the new grouping was attached to it and its meetings would follow the ASEAN AMMs, which were held in ASEAN capitals by rotation. The aims of the ASEAN Regional Forum were spelled out in the communiqué of the 26th

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AMM. It was stressed that ASEAN would work with dialogue partners to evolve “a more predictable and constructive pattern of political and security relationships within the Asia Paciﬁc region,” and “to foster the habit of open dialogue and encourage patterns of behaviour that reduce the risks to regional security.”23 The membership of the ARF had been determined by the decision to use the ASEAN–PMC as a base, and by the desire to maintain a balance between Asian and Western members at the outset. This was to ensure its adherence to the spirit of consensus that had been developed by ASEAN, which assured members of the accommodation of differences. Existing ASEAN procedures, which were intended to preserve public harmony, and the elaborate protocol and ceremony which was to foster a collegiate spirit, were carried over into the ARF. The intention was to prevent it from falling under the inﬂuence of its Western members, in which case it would lose its relevance for Asia. The initial working style of the ARF was revealed when it ﬁrst met in Bangkok on 25 July 1994; there was no formal agenda, and in a three-hour meeting the salient issues of the South China Sea, the Korean peninsula, and possible conﬂict between China and Japan were raised.24 Ali Alatas reﬂected the prevailing Asian view when he declared that the ARF was a consultative forum and should not be turned into a multilateral platform to resolve security issues, and that other ad hoc bodies would be created for this purpose.25 Singapore’s Shunmugam Jayakumar thought that the ARF was a success, as controversial issues were avoided; he proposed that ARF senior ofﬁcials would meet to draft an agenda for subsequent meetings.26 Senior ofﬁcials ensured that troubling issues would be prevented from disrupting ARF meetings. From the start ASEAN members ensured that the Asian approach prevailed within the ARF. ASEAN had invested much in involving China in regional dialogue and was not inclined to allow controversial issues such as the South China Sea or Taiwan to disrupt their meetings. With the promise that these contentious issues would not be raised China could participate and the process of community building could begin. For Western members of the ARF a forum that avoided the central security issues of the region was futile; the many ceremonies devised by ASEAN for the meetings were simply empty gestures. Asian members followed the rationale that if these divisive issues had been raised at the outset China probably would have terminated its participation and the ARF would have collapsed. To avoid this prospect the ARF accordingly would pursue a two-stage process where, ﬁrst, all members would become accustomed to dialogue and would progressively become more sensitive to each other’s security concerns. At some later stage troubling security issues might be raised when dialogue had become entrenched and there could be mutual accommodation of views and positions. To be sure, there were differences amongst Asian members over the pace of development of the ARF. Philippine Foreign Minister Roberto Romulo sought the forum’s support

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over the South China Sea and pressed for the fast-track approach. He called for the exchange of defence white papers, the creation of a regional arms transfer register and the exchange of observers in military exercises. Nonetheless, the consensus to which the Philippines was subject dictated a step-by-step approach and the deliberate avoidance of all public controversy.27 The Americans proposed that the forum be prised free of its ASEAN origins, that non-ASEAN states which soon outnumbered their ASEAN counterparts should also chair meetings, and that forum meetings should also be conducted outside ASEAN.28 ASEAN was jealous of its role, however, and successive AMMs reafﬁrmed that ASEAN was the “primary driving force of the ARF,” which was regarded as a ”consultative forum.”29 ASEAN could not allow alternative forums to develop or lose control to external members without admitting its own redundancy, and, as Jayakumar claimed, ASEAN had to stay in the ”driving seat” of the ARF or risk being sidelined.30 Malaysia’s Badawi warned that the ARF process may go in a direction that ASEAN did not want, in which case it could be used by others for their “selﬁsh ends.”31 One of the salient effects of ASEAN management was the difﬁculty of integrating the Korean peninsula issue into forum discussions. The ARF’s insistence that controversy be avoided prevented the development of dialogue over the Korean peninsula within the body. Dialogue over this issue was at a different stage where substantial proposals could be made, but as long as the process was tied to the ARF progress was hindered. This inadequacy stimulated proposals for a separate North-East Asia security dialogue, as suggested by Japanese Foreign Minister Komura Masahiko, or for a China – South Korea – Japan tripartite summit, a North-East Asia security consultative mechanism or a six-party forum.32 In any case the security of the Korean peninsula was negotiated outside the ARF and involved bilateral contacts between North-East Asian actors, the US and North Korea in particular. Over this issue the ARF was irrelevant. The South China Sea is perhaps the most signiﬁcant issue that should have been handled by the ARF, yet its founding charter, as explained above has dictated its exclusion from the agenda of meetings. Mahathir, who insisted on China’s inclusion in regional dialogue, saw no need to raise the issue with China and declared that it attracted too much attention.33 The situation was later complicated by China’s occupation of Mischief reef in the Philippine claim area, which was revealed in February 1995. This event prompted Philippine ofﬁcials to invoke ASEAN and ARF support in what for them was a clear case of territorial encroachment. An ASEAN–China Senior Ofﬁcials Meeting (SOM) was held at Hangzhou in April 1995 where the Chinese side refused to discuss the South China Sea issue.34 In May 1995 a SOM was held to arrange the agenda of the second ARF, but the Philippine demand to include the South China Sea issue was rejected. China had objected and insisted that

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the issue not be raised at ARF.35 At the 25th ASEAN AMM held in Brunei in July 1995 Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen refused to allow discussion of the issue at the multilateral level and called for bilateral negotiations; he declared that China was willing to settle disputes with neighbours according to UNCLOS. The Chinese insistence upon bilateral negotiations undermined the basis of the institutionalist strategy which had been devised for the very purpose of engaging China, and to steer it away from the path of threat and intimidation. The ASEAN consensus which stressed the importance of good relations with China overrode the Philippines whose protestations of victimisation at the hands of China were largely ignored. Filipinos felt that they had been pressed into a situation were they should accept the loss of several minor islands to allow the regional organisation to focus upon the more signiﬁcant task of developing closer institutional relations with China. ASEAN ofﬁcials were relieved that China had not intruded into other claim areas, such as those of Vietnam or Malaysia where the risk of conﬂict was higher, and that the institutional links with China had not been jeopardised. This was regarded as a success of a certain kind in that China had revealed a calculation of cost and beneﬁt and had adjusted its actions to its perception of risk by choosing ASEAN’s weakest link for its moves. Chinese representatives refused to discuss the issue in a multilateral forum, which undermined the stated task of the ARF in terms of inculcating habits of dialogue. ASEAN members would be loath to admit it but rather than bringing about mutual adjustment the ARF allowed a one-sided accommodation of China’s extensive claims in the area, and its unwillingness to deal with the issue raised the prospect of its irrelevance. US Assistant Secretary of State Winston Lord insisted that ARF had to address the South China Sea if it was to be a “credible” security dialogue.36 Thai Foreign Minister Amnuay Viravan lamented that the ARF had become a “second UN,” and stated that it had to do away with ceremony and deal with the real issues, including the South China Sea.37 At the 7th ARF held in Singapore in July 1999, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright called for action over the South China Sea and declared that it was the appropriate body to deal with this issue. China’s Foreign Ministry representative Zhang Qiyue rejected all efforts to involve the forum in this issue and reiterated that China would only discuss it with the claimants bilaterally.38 Since 1995 ASEAN representatives had pushed for the drafting of a code of conduct over the South China Sea, which would exclude the resort to force. The issue was raised at the 7th ARF in Bangkok in July 2000, and was opposed by Beijing. The ARF eventually decided that the code of conduct was an ASEAN matter, and it was no longer raised at the ARF. On 4 November 2002 ASEAN eventually concluded an agreement on the conduct of parties in the South China Sea with China, which was less than the desired code of conduct.39 The fact that ASEAN and not the ARF was the body involved demonstrated how successfully China had emasculated the regional forum.

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Asian and Western positions diverged over the issue of Myanmar’s membership in a way that epitomised the differences between East and West. Myanmar’s military leaders in the State Law and Order Council (SLORC) had cancelled the election results of 27 May 1990, which resulted in 392/485 seats and 82 per cent of the vote for Aung Sang Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD). Aung Sang Suu Kyi remained under house arrest from 1989 until she was released partially in July 1995, and completely in May 2002. The Western response was to condemn Myanmar and impose sanctions on the regime for gross violations of human rights; the EU in particular demanded the public condemnation and the isolation of the regime. ASEAN called for the constructive engagement of the regime on the basis that offering incentives for cooperation would be more effective in encouraging reforms in the regime than public castigation and sanctions. Though this approach was contested within the ASEAN region a general consensus was eventually formed to involve the regime in the organisation; the expectation was that a natural accommodative process would induce change in the regime. ASEAN could not accept the Western demand for public condemnation and isolation of the regime, which in its view would simply entrench the regime in its own hostility. Western representatives were openly frustrated by an approach that went against their own values and which justiﬁed the appeasement of an odious regime, leaving it without any incentive to change. After considerable debate ASEAN pressed for the constructive engagement of Myanmar at the July 1993 ASEAN PMC over the objections of the EU.40 Thailand initially took the lead over constructive engagement of the regime primarily to defuse border tensions with a neighbour.41 Indonesia was concerned that the isolation of Myanmar would throw it into a dangerous dependence upon China and had hoped that Myanmar could be introduced into the ARF in May 1994. Ali Alatas visited Yangon in February 1994 in preparation for Myanmar’s membership.42 Singapore’s interest in Myanmar was trade and proﬁt, it was Myanmar’s largest trading partner and number seven investor, mainly in hotels and tourism. Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong visited Myanmar in March 1994. He declared that the political situation had improved there and that Singapore would assist the regime to open up economically. At that stage Malaysia was reluctant to include the regime in either ASEAN or the ARF because of its expulsion of the Muslim Rohingyas in 1992 to which it objected. ASEAN was not ready to sponsor the regime’s membership in regional institutions in 1994, though it was invited to send a delegation to the 27th AMM in 1994. By 1996, however, Mahathir shifted his position to support Myanmar, and a consensus was being formed. SLORC’s arrest of 300 pro-democracy activists in May 1996 was regarded by Ali Alatas as an internal affair and did not prevent Myanmar’s membership of the ARF, where Asian governments were in a majority, in July 1996. The EU, US and Canada strongly

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opposed this decision and there was a sharp exchange of words. US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was appalled, declaring that Myanmar was ruled by “drug trafﬁckers.” The EU representative Manuel Marin warned that Myanmar’s membership of ASEAN would create difﬁculty for EU–ASEAN relations, while Denmark pushed for sanctions because of the death in prison of its honorary consul in Myanmar.43 Surprisingly, Myanmar’s membership of ASEAN was delayed until July 1997 because of the controversy created by constructive engagement. The ARF was a distant security forum that concerned regional foreign ministries. ASEAN, however, had taken on a regionally representative role and there were demands that it become more democratic and cease being simply a foreign ministers’ forum. Muslim organisations in Malaysia and human rights activists in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand protested against the plan to include Myanmar in ASEAN. Local human rights campaigners called for dialogue status with ASEAN similar to that of a state, and for a regional commission on human rights.44 The critics of Myanmar’s entry into ASEAN inﬂuenced Philippine Foreign Minister Domingo Siazon, who as representative of a democracy was obliged to listen to the pro-democracy groups over this issue. For a time it seemed that ASEAN might divide between the Philippines and Malaysia over the issue, but the views of Mahathir, Indonesia and Singapore shaped the regional consensus. Mahathir was keen to have Myanmar in ASEAN by the 30th anniversary of the founding of ASEAN in 1967 and proclaimed that ASEAN membership was the best way to change Myanmar.45 Lee Kuan Yew stressed that the democratic opposition could not bring stability to Myanmar and that it would collapse into different ethnic groups like Bosnia if it came to power.46 Ali Alatas insisted that the internal situation of prospective members would not be a criterion for membership and upheld the ASEAN principle of non-intervention into internal affairs.47 In this way Myanmar slid into ASEAN membership at the 30th AMM in July 1997. Myanmar’s membership posed problems for ASEAN in its relationship with the EU and the West in general. Once a member, the principle of consensus and membership solidarity dictated support for Myanmar despite its inexcusable human rights record. ASEAN leaders had argued that membership of the organisation would bring change to the regime, an argument that was even espoused by younger-generation leaders such as Thailand’s Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan. Once inside ASEAN, however, the ruling regime could count upon ASEAN support against international pressure, invoking the principle of membership solidarity. ASEAN leaders were then compelled to defend the regime, and to excuse its lapses before the international community. After Myanmar joined ASEAN friction with the EU quickly developed over the Asia–Europe Meeting (ASEM), a 25-member forum that had ﬁrst met in Bangkok in March 1996. The EU was opposed to the inclusion of Myanmar in the London ASEM-2 which was scheduled for 1998.

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Mahathir regarded the EU attitude as an insult and insisted that all members should participate without exclusion. As a compromise it was agreed that Myanmar and Laos would join ASEM at a later date and that the forum would avoid human rights issues.48 Western members regarded the ARF as irrelevant. It could not deal with the Taiwan crisis and the missile ﬁrings of 1995–1996, it had abnegated responsibility for the South China Sea and had resisted pressure to be more responsive to human rights considerations. Ali Alatas claimed in response that the ARF was a recently created body, and that it could not be expected to perform a dispute resolution function which China had rejected anyway. It was argued that time was required for forum members to develop habits of dialogue which would eventually strengthen security. As a consequence of these developments, however, habits of procrastination and circumvention were being inculcated while genuine dialogue was avoided. This was seen during the 5th ARF held in Manila on 27 July 1998, when the issue of South Asian nuclear tests was raised. The US, Canada and Australia wanted the forum to condemn the nuclear tests by India and Pakistan, which had not signed the NPT. India had joined the ARF with Myanmar in July 1996 and Asian members insisted that there should be no public condemnation of a new member. The chairman’s report from the meeting made mention of the two views, including the Asian view that the ARF should not be converted into a forum for denouncing participants. The report mentioned that ministers “expressed grave concern” over these nuclear tests – very mild language under the circumstances.49 Special envoy of the Indian Prime Minister Jaswant Singh noted with delight the absence of unanimity over this issue at the ARF since India had been condemned for the nuclear tests in other forums.50 In view of the conﬂicting interests of its members the ARF was compelled to start with the “bottom-up” approach towards regional dialogue as China was opposed to formal structures. This entailed the creation of mechanisms of dialogue over particular issue areas which would accustom members to transparency and open discussion. In the 2nd ARF three working groups were established on CBMs, peacekeeping, and preventive diplomacy; members agreed to the publication of defence white papers and to submit them regularly to the ARF. Other proposals included a regional arms register, exchanges of military intelligence, support for UN peacekeeping, the creation of a regional security studies centre and a conﬂict resolution mechanism.51 The 2nd ARF stressed that the dialogue process would move at a pace “comfortable to all participants,” starting with CBMs, and then moving eventually to preventive diplomacy.52 Despite China’s refusal to discuss the major issues directly it responded to the ARF request for transparency and CBMs by publishing three white papers, the ﬁrst was entitled China: Arms Control and Disarmament in November 1995, the second was China’s National Defence in July 1998, revised and published again in December 2002. Foreign Minister Qian

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Qichen introduced the “new security concept” to the 4th ARF in July 1997 which stressed common interest, dialogue and cooperation in preference to military alliances. The Chinese Foreign Ministry drafted a position paper on the “new security concept,” which was then submitted to the 9th ARF in Brunei in July 2002.53 ARF members were gratiﬁed that China had responded to the call for transparency which was regarded as a victory for the forum and a justiﬁcation for the approach adopted. Nonetheless, China’s papers were vague and not directed to speciﬁc issues, which created the impression of a public relations campaign to deﬂect criticism for the refusal to conduct dialogue on the key issues. The Asian approach could be justiﬁed by the argument that it had preserved the forum for the future when the resolution of these issues may be possible. Had there been an attempt to deal with these issues earlier the forum would have been immobilised, useless for any purpose. However, the controversial issues that the forum avoided were those related to China’s regional role, and the fear was that the ARF had been turned to the service of Chinese policy. Chinese interests had shaped the consensus behind the forum, which allowed Beijing to expand relations with the region without being held to account for its actions in the Taiwan straits or the South China Sea. Singapore’s Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (IDSS) proposed various improvements including the creation of an eminent persons group (EPG) to suggest changes, the involvement of defence ministers and the regional defence community, the creation of a secretariat, a risk-reduction centre and a special task force on terrorism.54 These proposals are controversial and are unlikely to be accepted quickly. The ARF had not lived up to the earlier expectation that it would become the principal security body for the region and had found itself progressively displaced. Its inability to grapple with the key security issues of the region stimulated the search for alternatives, such as a trilateral US, China, Japan forum, or the conversion of APEC into a security forum. As a concession to ASEAN the ARF may survive, but the real issues will be discussed elsewhere. The global anti-terrorist campaign unleashed by the US in 2001 gave the forum a temporary boost as for once there could be common agreement over an issue. The 9th ARF Brunei held in July 2002 called for measures against terrorist ﬁnancing; ARF SOMs discussed plans to coordinate border controls, and intelligence sharing. The global terrorist campaign was orchestrated by the US for which the ARF was one coordinating device; the others were ASEAN and APEC.

Asia Paciﬁc economic regionalism Differences between Asia and the West in terms of conceptions of economic regionalism have also been marked. The Western experience emphasises free markets which bring beneﬁts to consumers and provide a competitive mechanism for the constant improvement of manufacturing.

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The Anglo-American tradition in particular reﬂects the dominant inﬂuence of neo-classical economics that markets are natural and selfcorrecting mechanisms, and that the role of the state should be residuary and regulatory. The Western participants in Asia Paciﬁc regionalism – the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – have been strongly socialised in the Anglo-American tradition of neo-classical economics where maximum beneﬁts result from the free activity of markets and where governments should stay out. Despite diversity, the Asian experience reﬂects the dominant role of the state in the economy, where the strict division between state and markets, so characteristic of the Anglo-American tradition, becomes blurred. The role of the state in guiding resource allocation and ensuring high levels of investment in productive and internationally competitive export industries has been particularly noted in most Asian economies.55 The relative success of the Asian development model in the 1980s and early 1990s inculcated an Asian acceptance of the role of government in markets and a corresponding distrust of Anglo-American theoretical abstractions about the superiority of the free market. The Asia Paciﬁc region’s ﬁrst attempt at economic regionalism in APEC brought together these fundamentally opposed experiences and the deadlock that resulted was predictable. The Anglo-American tradition took for granted the principle of the free market as a universalism from which particular positions were derived by logical deduction. Those positions included trade liberalisation, with binding commitments according to an agreed schedule which would identify targets and dates, the removal of government-imposed obstacles to free business activity, and a clear organisational structure; a dispute settlement mechanism (DSM) which would adjudicate in cases of non-performance and apply penalties if need be. Western thinking followed logic and legality in insisting that the movement towards free trade be consistent and comprehensive, in which case exceptions could not be allowed without calling into question the process itself. No special allowance could be made for agriculture or for any other favoured sector. Within the Asian diversity the notion of mutual accommodation within a consensus ensured that any Western attempt to impose the above version of economic regionalism would provoke a backlash. The dominant Asian conception of economic regionalism included the stress on community building, which conﬂicted with Western expectations. In the Asian conception economic regionalism went beyond trade liberalisation and embraced the wider aspects of economic community building, which could include trade facilitation, cooperation over ﬁnance and macroeconomic coordination as well as technical cooperation. Above all Asians were generally non-ideological in their approach to these issues, in which case the logically consistent application of a comprehensive trade regime was far from their minds. For Westerners free trade was self-evident and universal economic law, but for most Asians it was simply social conditioning expressed as a particular Western ideology. Exceptions

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could be allowed according to particular needs and mutual accommodation, and for some there was no pressing need to include agriculture. The willingness of Asians to tolerate multifarious exceptions was a natural process of accommodation of the needs of others which frustrated westerners who demanded strict conformity to what they regarded as universal law. Minority positions were adopted by Singapore and Thailand, both of which had much to gain from free trade and who supported the Western approach. Nonetheless, neither would risk publicly repudiating the Asian consensus, of which they considered themselves a part, and pursued their goals quietly.56 APEC had its origins in a Japanese–Australian cooperative effort to facilitate economic regionalism in the Asia Paciﬁc. The Japanese roots went back to the pre-war “ﬂying geese” model of development and Kojima Kiyoshi’s proposal for a Paciﬁc Free Trade Area in 1965.57 Economic Planning Agency ofﬁcial and Foreign Minister over 1979–1980, Okita Saburo developed the Australian connection in the creation of the Paciﬁc Free Trade and Development (PAFTAD) founded in 1968 and the Paciﬁc Economic Cooperation Council (PECC), established in 1980 and which was the precursor of APEC. Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke in Seoul in January 1989 proposed a Paciﬁc OECD as a regional trade association which in November 1989 became know as APEC.58 The intention was to create an open economic regionalism that would integrate China and other emerging Asian economies, to curb US trade unilateralism and contain trade disputes.59 Beyond the hope of trade facilitation the objectives were vague and the purposes unclear. Hawke did not consult with or include the US in his proposal to demonstrate pique over US agricultural subsidies which affected Australia. It is possible that APEC would not have been initiated had it been an American proposal, as the concern over US dominance was too great.60 Nonetheless, no economic regional body could exclude the US, which joined the group in November 1989. In 1993 Asia was undecided about APEC. ASEAN leaders were clear in their demand that ASEAN should be protected from APEC, which should in their view remain a loose consultative forum without legally binding agreements or targets. Mahathir was outspoken in his opposition to the institutionalisation of economic regionalism, which in his view would allow the Americans to dominate the region. He insisted that APEC should be purely consultative and voluntary and should not displace ASEAN.61 A similar view was expressed by the normally reticent Thai Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai, who was concerned about the lack of clarity around APEC and feared that it may undermine global trade negotiations in GATT.62 The Indonesians were similarly disturbed that APEC may supplant ASEAN, and insisted that it should operate as an organisation parallel to existing regional bodies. Indonesia’s Coordinating Minister for Industry and Trade Hartarto said that Indonesia would support APEC providing it was not given institutional form, and would continue as a

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consultative and cooperative forum.63 The ambiguous Japanese position reﬂected a solicitous regard for ASEAN views, as well as the concern that the West would push for trade liberalisation too quickly.64 Japan was under strong pressure from Western agricultural exporters, as well as from Thailand, to open its rice market, which induced caution towards the new grouping. In this situation the Clinton administration gave the new group clear deﬁnition in terms of trade liberalisation at the ﬁrst meeting of APEC leaders at Blake Island on 20 November 1993. China and most ASEAN leaders were reluctant to endorse the American approach, and to register his objections Mahathir did not appear.65 While Asia was undecided and uncertain the Americans had the advantage of clarity and consistency in directing APEC towards their goals. Asia’s indecision gave Americans the conviction that their approach had been endorsed by the region, and that the way was open for full trade liberalisation. The eminent persons group (EPG) played an important part in fostering this belief in regional agreement over what were essentially American goals. Created in 1992, with one representative from each APEC country, the EPG was instrumental in focusing the group’s attention upon trade liberalisation. EPG members were mainly economists trained in the Western way, others were government ofﬁcials or businessmen associated with PAFTAD and the PECC.66 Fred Bergsten, who was director of Washington’s Institute for International Economics and former Assistant Secretary to the Treasurer for International Affairs, publicly declared that economics overruled culture in the Asia Paciﬁc region as EPG members could agree on American-deﬁned goals. Bergsten’s goals were ambitious. He saw APEC as a catalyst for global trade liberalisation and as a means for resolving America’s trade disputes with Japan and forcing the Japanese to open their rice market.67 The EPG gave professional legitimacy to these goals and issued three reports: for the Blake Island meeting in 1993, the Bogor meeting of 1994 and the Osaka meeting of 1995. An epistemic community dominated by Westerntrained economists, however, was not necessarily representative of their home governments and within Asia it was accused of promoting American interests. APEC trade ministers had difﬁculty accepting Bergsten’s ﬁrst report in 1993 which proposed that 1996 be the target for trade liberalisation. Asian members were opposed to this imposition of goals and rejected the terms “economic community” and “free trade” which had been used liberally in the report.68 The EPG never reconciled the tension between the demand for a free trade area like NAFTA, which reﬂected the American insistence on reciprocity, and the idea of open and non-discriminatory regionalism.69 In September 1994 ASEAN economic ministers actually discussed the dissolution of the EPG, and Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister Supachai Panitchpakdi warned of the EPG’s “hidden agenda.”70 ASEAN’s concern was that the EPG was being used by the Americans to promote APEC ahead of the ASEAN Free Trade Agree-

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ment (AFTA). After the EPG issued its third report, on the Osaka meeting of 1995, it was dissolved. After the 1993 Blake Island meeting it became clearer to Asian members, that the US would override their interests for the sake of global trade liberalisation, and that APEC was being prepared for this larger role. Sandra Kristoff, Senior Director of Asia Paciﬁc Economic Affairs at the US National Security Council declared that APEC should not just be a loose forum; it should have a structure, with an APEC free trade agreement, an investment treaty and a DSM.71 Kristoff declared that APEC was a regional means to foster global trade liberalisation and to anchor the US in the region. She proclaimed that it was the best vehicle to build a transPaciﬁc community.72 Undersecretary of State for Economic Affairs Joan Spero saw APEC as the main pillar of US policy towards the Asia Paciﬁc, which would engage in a “ratcheting up process” to promote global trade liberalisation.73 Disagreements erupted as the US attempted to force the pace. During the APEC ﬁnance ministers’ meeting in Hawaii in March 1994 ASEAN resisted US pressure for ﬁnancial liberalisation and was strongly supported by Japan.74 The EPG split over free trade between Western and Asian camps. Thai EPG member Narongchai Akrasanee noted that there were two groups in APEC, the “Anglo Saxons,” who wanted an institutionalised APEC, and Asians who wanted to keep APEC as a consultative forum. There were signiﬁcant differences amongst the Asians, however. The Thai government insisted on the Asian position while supporting the West over agriculture.75 Singapore had no hesitation about siding with the West over free trade. Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong agreed with Australia’s Paul Keating in September 1994 that APEC should have a speciﬁc timetable to promote free trade.76 The Bogor meeting of 15 November 1994 was the point at which the broadest possible compromise could be reached between these groups. The US wanted a declaration of free trade with one common deadline for all, an agreement to reduce barriers to foreign investment, and an APEC investment treaty that guaranteed equal treatment for national and foreign investors.77 The Americans had an ally in Suharto, who was emboldened by the success of deregulation in Indonesia to campaign for free trade to the extent of overruling his own ofﬁcials.78 At Bogor Suharto pushed for a compromise between both the West and Asia which resulted in separate deadlines for free trade. The EPG report for the Bogor meeting included three deadlines: 2010 for industrialised economies, 2015 for the NIEs, and 2020 for developing economies. The leaders accepted the 2010/2020 split deadline in a two-step process towards tariff reductions, which would be extended to non-members as well.79 The US accepted the split deadline on the belief that regional economic growth would make the deadlines irrelevant and that members would reduce tariffs well in advance. There were no timetables or detailed schedules, which created the impression of a public relations exercise; the inclusion of

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China as a developing economy with a target date of 2020 would allow it a ten-year advantage over the US, one that would be contested by Congress in time.80 Mahathir declared that the deadlines were indicative and not binding and appended an annex to the Bogor declaration to that effect.81 Japan’s position remained ambiguous, with the Foreign Ministry following the ASEAN lead and MITI pressing for greater involvement in the APEC process.82 Japanese ofﬁcials were uneasy about the direction of APEC and were concerned that it would increase the pressure on them to show results at the next Osaka meeting. After the Bogor agreement the inherent contradictions between the West and Asia came to the fore. The US prepared for an acceleration of free trade for the Osaka meeting of 1995, complete with speciﬁc timetables, protection for intellectual property rights, the removal of barriers to telecoms and shipping, the acceptance of common industrial standards and an investment treaty.83 The US was supported by the Paciﬁc Business Forum (PBF), a product of the 1993 Blake Island meeting which at Osaka in 1995 became the APEC Business Advisory Council (APECBAC). The PBF represented APEC business interests and included two representatives from each country; it demanded a clear commitment to trade liberalisation with clear deadlines and targets from the Osaka meeting.84 Conﬂict developed at the APEC Fukuoka SOM in February 1995 when it became obvious that the Japanese would resort to voluntarism to fend off the demand for results.85 The US pressed for action in 18 areas of trade with indices to measure the progress of trade liberalisation. With the support of Malaysia and China, Japan insisted that APEC leaders should deal in broad guidelines and not concrete plans, and called for a “ﬂexible consensus” which would allow members to liberalise trade in selected areas of their own choosing.86 China joined Japan in calling for voluntary liberalisation, claiming that APEC was setting unrealistic goals and declaring that telecoms, ﬁnancial services, energy and agriculture were all sensitive sectors.87 Senior ofﬁcials could not reach agreement as Japan, China, and South Korea demanded the exclusion of agricultural products from the trade regime, though Thailand pressed for their inclusion.88 At the Osaka meeting of 19 November 1995 the principle of voluntarism was upheld in the idea that members would liberalise trade voluntarily through Concerted Unilateral Action (CUA), according to which they were to submit individual action plans (IAPs) for trade liberalisation to the next APEC meeting. Through this device Japan deﬂected Western pressure for action and passed the problem on to the Manila meeting in 1996. Japanese Prime Minister Hashimoto Ryutaro declared that Osaka was not the place to discuss detailed trade liberalisation for the 2010 or 2020 deadlines.89 When the IAPS were eventually submitted the business community was disappointed and regarded them as inadequate to realise APEC’s goals.90 The Osaka APEC meeting was a watershed as the Asian and Western groups clearly diverged, which prevented agreement except over the most

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basic issues. The loss of American interest in APEC was obvious to other members when it became clear that the grouping would follow the voluntarist path. US Trade Representative Mickey Kantor had stressed the three elements of the US position, including comprehensiveness, which entailed the inclusion of all sectors; comparability, to ensure that all members followed their action plans for trade liberalisation; and reciprocity from nonmembers. Sandra Kristoff warned that sectoral exclusion would call APEC into question and alluded to America’s waning interest.91 The President had lost his fast-track authority to conclude trade deals according to which Congress could approve or reject without amendment. According to the 1974 Trade Act the President’s fast-track authority was to be renewed regularly and it eventually lapsed on 15 April 1994. Vocal labour and environmental groups in Congress expressed opposition to free trade deals, which denied them the right of amendment. Clinton’s authority to negotiate trade deals was removed and he failed to turn up to the Osaka meeting, citing the US budget crisis as a reason. Thereafter APEC continued as an opportunity for leaders to meet, but its inability to act as a vehicle of economic regionalism in a situation of divergent interests had been revealed. In the subsequent APEC meetings an attempt was made to reconcile the principle of voluntarism with the comprehensiveness demanded by the US in the proposal for Early Voluntary Sectoral Liberalisation (EVSL). Members were to identify speciﬁc sectors where all would accept early liberalisation according to an agreed schedule. In Vancouver on 25 November 1997 members agreed upon 15 sectors initially and then reduced the number to nine, but failed to agree on the exact products to be included and the tariff levels to be targeted. EVSL became another source of conﬂict between the US, which continued to press for target dates, and Japan, Malaysia, South Korea and Taiwan, which stressed that reductions must be voluntary.92 The Japanese position was critical as pressure was applied to Japan by Western members to include agriculture in one of the sectors. The Japanese Employers’ Federation or Keidanren pushed for a positive role in APEC, the Japanese domestic ministries wanted to delay liberalisation in APEC in order to create a bargaining chip for WTO negotiations, while the agricultural ministry opposed the inclusion of agriculture in any case.93 At the Kuala Lumpur APEC meeting of 18 November 1998 the issue of agriculture came to a head when Japan and South Korea, with Chinese and Malaysian support, refused to accept tariff reductions in ﬁsh and forestry products. For the second time Clinton did not attend, giving the situation in Iraq as his reason. With this deadlock leaders decided to pass the nine EVSL sectors to the WTO.94 After abnegating a role in terms of trade liberalisation APEC found itself divided over the issue of global trade negotiations. In Auckland 1999, and in Brunei in 2000, the deadlock was repeated when the US, Australia and New Zealand all pressed for new global trade negotiations, while Malaysia and South Korea were opposed.95

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In terms of trade liberalisation APEC had failed. Bergsten noted that APEC added nothing that had not been declared for the WTO, or which members would not do anyway because of national plans. Their IAPs were a mixture of commitments to the WTO and already declared national programmes.96 To begin with, APEC was an excessively ambitious undertaking that included fundamentally incompatible economic approaches from Asian and Western members. The initial enthusiasm that surrounded APEC’s creation simply glossed over these basic differences on the basis that the economic gains were obvious to all, and that economic rationalism would eventually triumph. Economic rationalism would dictate that all members would scramble to maximise economic advantages, in which case any notion of an Asian coalition should be dismissed. China for example had much to gain in terms of access to the US market yet instead of supporting the Western position its leaders joined Japan and South Korea over particular issues. Thailand and Singapore, the two Asian countries coming closest to the Western position, continued to maintain solidarity with Asia, even while they sought individual adjustments. US insistence on the scope and the pace of trade liberalisation within APEC was shared by other Western members and triggered solidarity building amongst Asian members, despite their diversity. Western imposition and impatience to shape APEC allowed Mahathir to emerge as the chief ideologue of the Asian coalition and the spoiler of everything that the West had attempted within APEC. In terms of the stated aim of trade liberalisation APEC may have failed, but it was the ﬁrst institution to embrace the Asia Paciﬁc region and to attempt the difﬁcult task of bringing together Asia and the West in the face of the complications of their relationship. APEC could be credited with the development of a greater awareness of the beneﬁts of trade liberalisation amongst Asian leaders and open trade policies in general. In a region where protectionist policies were entrenched in domestic economic structures this was a considerable gain.97 In addition, APEC has unexpectedly shown promise as a security forum in a way proposed by US Defence Secretary William Perry in November 1995.98 The Japanese Foreign Ministry has been promoting the idea of a trilateral forum which would allow issues such as Taiwan to be discussed. APEC may overcome the deﬁciencies of the ARF, where ceremony has priority over substance and where ARF foreign ministers are tied to an agenda negotiated in advance by SOMs. A trend has been developing where the security issues of the day are raised in APEC meetings as well. APEC foreign ministers in Auckland in September 1999 examined the East Timor issue at the suggestion of Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy. The Shanghai APEC meeting of October 2001 issued its ﬁrst political statement which strongly condemned the terrorist attacks on the US of 11 September. APEC ﬁnance ministers in Los Cabos met in September 2002 and agreed on a plan to interdict funds to terrorist organisations. The Los Cabos APEC summit of October 2002 agreed that North Korea should

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scrap its nuclear programme, and called for unity in the war on global terrorism. APEC may continue as a more ﬂexible and appropriate forum for security consultations than the ARF.

Asian economic regionalism Bergsten declared that the ultimate goal of APEC was the creation of a true community and that trade liberalisation was the means.99 APEC had failed to create an Asia Paciﬁc community and had exposed deep divisions between Asia and the West. APEC stimulated, however, the process of community building within Asia and the search for an appropriate body which could guide it. The ﬁnancial crisis of 1997/98 resulted in moves towards an Asian economic regionalism similar to the East Asia Economic Caucus (EAEC), promoted by Mahathir since 1990. Mahathir intended to bring together ASEAN with China, Japan and South Korea as an alternative to APEC, which in his view had come under American domination. He obtained Chinese support when he visited Beijing in June 1993; Qian Qichen, however, told the 26th ASEAN AMM of July 1993 that the EAEC would be an economic forum and should be compatible with other trading arrangements.100 Not wishing to alienate the US, ASEAN decided At the 26th AMM that the EAEC would be a consultative group within APEC.101 An East Asian grouping would not make sense unless it were compatible with other arrangements which involved the US, given that for all Asian economies the US was a major market. The importance of the US had constrained Japanese interest in the proposal, prompting the Japanese Foreign Ministry to impose the condition that Australia and New Zealand be included before Japan could join. Japanese behaviour frustrated Mahathir who even threatened to boycott the Osaka APEC meeting if Japan refused to join preparatory meetings for the EAEC. Malaysian Trade Minister Raﬁdah Aziz then announced that the EAEC could then proceed without Japan, which was plainly impossible.102 The ﬁnancial crisis of 1997/98 made some kind of East Asian consultative body necessary to bring together ASEAN, China, Japan and South Korea to negotiate currency stability and macroeconomic coordination. This body ﬁrst met in Kuala Lumpur in December 1997, when Jiang Zemin, Hashimoto Ryutaro and South Korean Prime Minister Koh Kun were invited to meet with their ASEAN counterparts in what became known as the ASEAN plus three meeting. One major feature of this group was a move away from exclusive preoccupation with trade liberalisation, and a broadening of regionalism to include monetary and ﬁnancial arrangements. The meeting was recognition of China’s role in the ﬁnancial crisis, China having promised not to devalue the yuan, thereby avoiding further ﬁnancial instability for which the region was grateful. China also contributed $1.5 billion to the IMF’s $16 billion rescue package for Thailand, which demonstrated that it had become a stabilising inﬂuence in the

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region. The idea of an Asian Monetary Fund (AMF) was proposed by Japan as a mechanism to deal with the ﬁnancial crisis and to avoid excessive dependence upon the IMF, which had been criticised for the harsh conditions of its bail-out packages. Strongly opposed by the US, the AMF was stillborn but a currency swap agreement known as the ASEAN Chiang Mai initiative of May 2000 was expanded to include the ASEAN plus three in a $1 billion fund. Both Mahathir and the Japanese denied that the new ASEAN plus three arrangement was the same as the EAEC proposal; and Japanese Minister for International Trade and Industry Fukaya Takashi speciﬁcally denied the comparison in May 2000.103 In view of their objections to the EAEC the Japanese felt obliged to repudiate the suggestion, which prevented Mahathir from declaring a victory. This trend towards Asian regionalism signiﬁed a search for a more natural regionalism without the ideological clashes which characterised APEC. It indicated the importance of cultural or political compatibility in the development of regionalism which would mitigate differences of views and interests and bring about an agreement on goals and objectives. Assumptions of a shared Asianness served as ideological underpinning for this group and provided China with a favourable context for its rise to prominence. Asian regionalism beneﬁts China above all in its effort to build a supporting coalition of Asian states which could be directed against the US and which would reduce American inﬂuence in the region. Most Asian states have been culturally predisposed to accept China as the natural leader of Asia through centuries of deference, which is particularly noticeable in South Korea and Thailand. These historically conditioned patterns of deference towards China result in contextual behaviour within these Asian states; in relation to the West, equality may be demanded and public criticism and protest is regarded as a right. Towards China, however, the propensity for hierarchical relations may be observed, where criticism is stiﬂed and public protest is unthinkable. Most Asian states would passively accept China’s rise, but Japan, however, is a competitor to China and not a deferential state and would face great difﬁculty in locating itself within an Asian regionalism that would come under China’s inﬂuence. At the 3rd ASEAN plus three meeting held in Manila in November 1999, long-term plans were unveiled for Asian regionalism which included an East Asian Common Market, a monetary union and a single Asian currency; and the idea of a common “Asian identity” was also discussed.104 At the Hanoi ASEAN plus three meeting in December 1998 Kim Dae-jung proposed the formation of an East Asia vision group composed of 26 members, two from each country, with former South Korean Foreign Minister Han Sung-joo as chair. The vision group reported to the Brunei ASEAN plus three meeting of November 2002 and made the following recommendations which were intended to broaden and expand East Asian regionalism. First was the creation of an East Asian Free Trade Area

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(EAFTA); second was an East Asian Investment Area (EAIA) which would entail an expansion of the ASEAN Investment Area proposal to embrace all East Asia; third was a mechanism for exchange rate coordination; fourth a regional monitoring and surveillance process to supplement that of the IMF; and ﬁfth was technological and ﬁnancial cooperation. The report also emphasised the need for an East Asian summit and an East Asian forum which would include NGO and government representation from various sectors. The intention was the promotion of a “regional identity and consciousness” which would result in an “East Asian community.”105 The process of trade liberalisation which had been stimulated by APEC was continued in an Asian context in the form of fragmented free trade agreements (FTAs). This development showed that trade liberalisation per se was not the bone of contention between Asia and the West but rather that it was the Western style of promotion and the insistence on strict consistency and comprehensiveness. In November 2001, Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji proposed a China–ASEAN FTA, which was accepted at the Phnom Penh ASEAN plus three meeting on 5 November 2002 and given a deadline of 2010. Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro was prompted by the Chinese move to propose an “East Asian community” when he visited ASEAN capitals in January 2002.106 China’s FTA initiatives placed Japan in a dilemma as Tokyo was unprepared for free trade and Japan proposed alternatives with ASEAN such as cooperation in investment, tourism, and education.107 Increasingly, however, Japanese business and the new Ministry of Economics, Trade and Industry (METI) which was formed from MITI in 2001, sees FTAs as a means to stimulate structural reform within Japan. Competition with China may trigger pressure for reform within Japan which otherwise would be stiﬂed by conservative LDP factions and the domestic ministries. METI Minister Hiranuma Takeo called for an East Asian Economic Zone that would embrace India as well. Trilateral North-East Asian cooperation was also proposed as Koizumi, Zhu Rongji and Kim Dae-jung met in Brunei during the ASEAN plus three meeting in 2001 and agreed to hold separate meetings of foreign, economic and ﬁnance ministers. For Japan trilateral cooperation was required to deal with cross-border issues, terrorism, piracy and environmental problems which could not be raised in any other forum.108 Japan also proposed a trilateral economic forum, to include business, academia, and government ofﬁcials to stimulate trade and investment, which was intended to expand dialogue beyond governments.109 With the failure of multilateral trade liberalisation in APEC, bilateral FTA negotiations proliferated within the region. As an advocate of free trade Singapore sought to promote APEC goals bilaterally with Japan, Chile, New Zealand, Mexico and South Korea; Singapore signed FTAs with New Zealand in November 2000, with Japan in January 2002, and the US in May 2003. Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong claimed that these FTAs

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would have a “positive demonstrative effect” and would further the cause of free trade. He claimed that bilateral FTAs would create a “web of interconnecting FTAs” which would then further the goals of APEC in piecemeal fashion.110 Thailand also has sought bilateral FTAs with nine countries, including Japan and India, to diversify markets and to lessen dependency upon the US. Japan promoted FTAs as part of its dual-track approach, which entailed developing both multilateral and bilateral approaches together as outlined by MITI in May 2000. A Japan–South Korea FTA was raised when Koizumi visited Seoul in October 2001. Business leaders from both countries have pressed for the early conclusion of the FTA, which is hindered on the Japanese side by the concern over agriculture.111 Formal negotiations on a Japan–Mexico FTA have also been hampered by the agricultural issue, which was not an issue in the FTA with Singapore, a country without an agricultural sector. Asian governments sponsoring FTAs have different objectives; for Singapore they are steps towards an open trading system that was promised by APEC; for Japan FTA’s are exclusive bilateral arrangements which may actually undermine multilateral free trade. Bilateralism entrenches reciprocity and militates against open multilateral trading regimes. Moreover, Japanese FTAs threaten the exclusion of agriculture, which would contradict global trade liberalisation. South Korea is also sensitive to agriculture, and the FTA signed with Chile in February 2003 came under strong domestic pressure to restrict agriculture. When taken together the result of these mixed agreements could be an incoherent trading system. The process of negotiating bilateral FTAs may require careful monitoring by the WTO to ensure that all sectors are included, and to prevent trade diversion.112 Nonetheless, despite this concern Asia may allow for particular accommodations and variations in its trade relationships. Freed from Western pressure in APEC Asian regionalism has revealed a haphazard character as it brings together various compatible and conﬂicting developments in a process of community building. Asia’s diversity will not allow for the ideological consistency that is so typical of the Western experience, which stimulated conﬂicts and brought APEC as an economic institution to a halt. Community building in a situation of diversity demands strong accommodative abilities and a willingness to tolerate differences and variations, which may depart considerably from Western notions of economic regionalism. Since APEC lost the initiative the construction of economic regionalism has taken various directions. The most prominent version of Asian regionalism is one centred around China as Asia’s natural leader, which would balance the US in particular.113 Japan has responded to China’s challenge and searches for an East Asian economic partnership grouped around itself. In view of Japan’s hesitation and concern over free trade and agriculture FTAs, China has an advantage in rallying support, particularly from ASEAN. Moreover, the process of FTA formation, as promoted by Singapore and Thailand, conﬂicts with the

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idea of an exclusive Asian grouping as non-Asian economies are involved. How these trends can be reconciled in an Asian regionalism would indeed be difﬁcult to imagine. Asian regionalism may emerge as one centre in a number of concentric circles with cross-cutting linkages to other groups based on security or economic need. Within that centre Asian regionalism would attract considerable support, particularly in relation to perceived Western impositions or value assertions.

The future Values, identity and culture have inﬂuenced the process of institution building and regionalism. Theorists of institutionalism and regionalism downplay these factors and focus upon the trans-cultural character of institutional security and economic ties. Their logic is that security and economic institutions foster those external conditions which could facilitate cooperation over common goals in which the impact of dissimilar value systems would be reduced. Institutional ties would cross cultures equally and would demonstrate a binding effect in bringing together disparate cultures according to the economic and security beneﬁts of greater cooperation. No doubt signiﬁcant cross-cultural institutional ties have been created within the Asia Paciﬁc region, not only with the US but with the EU, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In the process of developing regionalism, however, the initial enthusiasm that members brought into APEC and the ARF soon gave way to the realisation that there were profound misunderstandings between the West and Asian members with regard to purpose, structure and operation. Those misunderstandings have contributed to an awareness that there are certain assumed or imagined commonalities within Asia which are reinforced by contact with the West and which justify a speciﬁcally Asian form of regionalism. These commonalities of response to the West provide support for the ideological construct of an Asian identity, which is then grounded in culture and regarded as a pre-existing reality. The idea of Asia will not simply disappear as a result of closer economic and security integration as it is constantly being stimulated by contact with the West. Such contact has brought multiple beneﬁts that are valued by Asians, but it has also provoked an understanding of the differences which had previously been glossed over in the rush for cooperation. Conceptions of Asia will continue to shape regional responses to the West and will provide ideological support for notions of Asian regionalism.

7

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Values and identities relate to ﬁrmly held positions and ingrained preferences which draw upon the collective memories of the cultures concerned. Within cultures they are disseminated through the socialising experience in which custom, tradition and education assume a prominent role. Their deﬁnition at any point in time presents problems for analysis, but as every practitioner of foreign or security policy knows, their exclusion comes at the cost of much misunderstanding and error. They are understood through their consistency over time, and their inﬂuence is noticeable in those sensitive areas of foreign and security policy which touch upon the collective’s view of itself and which leaders are obliged to protect. In those areas values have a direct impact upon the policy-making process by restricting the range of possible options, by eliminating contrary alternatives and elevating those choices which are perceived to uphold preferences. The positions that are accordingly developed are foundational for the collective concerned and establish the parameters of decision-making for secondary areas of policy where instrumental calculations are feasible as long as core values are unchallenged. Decision-makers may be seemingly preoccupied with instrumental choices in which core values may not be consciously at issue. Each decision may be a product of some immediate cost-beneﬁt calculation, but when examined over a long period of time certain preferences may become visible. These preferences are inherent in the socialisation of the decision-makers and their interaction within the broader context of decision-making and its constituent domestic actors. Political culture has an important role in terms of understanding the sources of foreign and security policy, and the experiences, fears and aspirations that motivate policy. Ultimately foreign and security policy are products of a cultural context in which the imprint of values may be overt and obvious or deceptively concealed behind a conﬁdent rationalism. An understanding of that context is required to explain behaviour that deviates from the logically predictable according to the rational actor model and related rationalist approaches. Asia Paciﬁc regional security can be better comprehended not on the basis of the projection or extrapolation of

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rationalist theories but through the identiﬁcation of the foundational positions of the major actors, those positions which reﬂect their values and identity and around which secondary policy may be formulated. These foundational positions may determine the extent to which collaboration within institutions is practical, whether cooperative ventures will succeed and whether proposals for regional structures will receive support. Not every actor has an identiﬁable foundational position and smaller states may be undecided or ambiguous about their identity. Others may demonstrate competing value systems or diverse cultural inﬂuences without a sense of loyalty to any one. In the Asia Paciﬁc region, however, the major actors have well-formed political cultures and distinct conceptions of identity and values which have been deﬁned in interaction with the West and the US in particular. In China’s case identity has elevated the centralised state to a key role in maintaining the unity of Chinese civilisation, for which the separate status of Taiwan is a challenge. This foundational issue has established the parameters of Chinese policy towards the US, Japan and Asia Paciﬁc regionalism in general. Should Beijing invoke force over Taiwan to maintain the traditional conception of the centralised state, conﬂict with the US, tension with Japan and the division of the Asia Paciﬁc would be the result. In Japan’s case paciﬁst values have been foundational and have explained the Japanese unwillingness to become a military power, yet those values are products of the protection offered by the US alliance. This dependence upon the US explains why Japan has also acted to preserve the US alliance by cooperating more closely with the US over regional security and global terrorism, thus creating tension with domestic values. Japan’s policies reﬂect an uneasy dualism of policy and the attempt to reconcile both alliance cooperation and paciﬁsm. One result of the American connection was that Japan has been reluctant to support a distinctly Asian regionalism without the West and it has become more closely tied to US policy over Taiwan. In the Korean peninsula, proposals to engage the North in the expectation that the Kim Jong-il leadership will be responsive to the opportunity, that US assurances of the North’s security will allow the regime to become normal, fail to take into account that the North is not a normal regime and should not be understood in terms of the logic appropriate for a Western democracy. The North has shown that it intends to survive on its own terms with Western economic aid and will resist greater exposure to the external world. It would be most unlikely to exchange its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes for Western assurances of its security, in which it has little trust. It seeks to preserve those programmes in some way as ultimate insurance while obtaining external support. In the South, the yearning for national completion and fulﬁlment of the Korean identity was expressed in Kim Dae-jung’s policy of engagement of the North, which was not reciprocated by the North despite the opportunity to end the cold war on the Korean peninsula. Engagement

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threatened the Northern regime with the removal of the isolation which was crucial to its survival, in which case there could be no response. Without change in the North there can be no effective engagement policy and a ﬁnal resolution of the Korean peninsula would be postponed to the future. Should change in the North occur, for whatever reason, and the Southern engagement policy is reciprocated, the result would be a realignment of security relations in North-East Asia and the likely disengagement of the US from the peninsula Asia Paciﬁc regionalism has been proffered as the means to overcome conﬂicts and disputes based on the beneﬁts of institutions and their role in fostering interstate cooperation. Institutional theory would have it that political culture would submit to institutions and that culturally related difﬁculties and misunderstandings would be overcome in institutional cooperation. Political culture, however, can shape the development of institutions and related misunderstandings can immobilise them. Political culture is important in explaining the development of the region’s only security forum the ARF, where the Asian insistence to preserve group consensus prevented it from functioning effectively over regional security issues such as the South China Sea. It also explains the conﬂicts that erupted within APEC when Asia and the West clashed over the scope and pace of trade liberalisation, which gave Mahathir the opportunity to formulate an ideology of Asia. Asia was not inherently opposed to trade liberalisation, which has been pursued in ASEAN according to a timetable and acceptable schedule without the presence of the US. Asia has sought to implement many of proposals that were raised in APEC and has become progressively more amenable to the notion of free trade earlier promoted by the US and Western economists. The polarisation of views that undermined APEC had much to do with operating style and decisionmaking differences which were stimulated by an impatient America responsive only to its own schedule and targets. The focus upon values and identity reveals lessons for America in particular as US security policy is compelled to accommodate the foundational positions of the major Asian actors to obtain their support. America has no interest in confrontation with China and should not offer protection to Taiwan beyond that required to deter open aggression. Despite the attempts to portray themselves as a separate nation the Taiwanese are divided about their own identity and see their economic future with the mainland, and may in due course seek their own accommodation with Beijing. There is little point in penalising China for speciﬁc human rights abuses or imposing sanctions which would provoke the Chinese leadership into an effort to save face. It would be more productive to promote China’s opening up to the outside world and the normalisation of its society, which would prompt the Chinese themselves to rectify the omissions of their own political system. America should encourage the development of challenger norms in China which would bring new governance

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structures and pluralism that would accommodate Taiwan. Through trade and closer economic contact America can assist those positive trends in China that would bring about a revision of traditional notions of the centralised state and the acceptance of alternative political structures within which Taiwan may have a place. Economic change is likely to reshape China and the traditional concepts of government will not be isolated from the transformation that China has experienced. America should position itself to inﬂuence the direction of change in China. In relation to Japan, Americans cannot expect its full involvement in regional security as the Asian equivalent of the British ally which could participate in joint security operations in the Asia Paciﬁc region. The insistence upon the priority of the alliance with Japan may result in a dangerous polarisation of the region and the stimulation of the Chinese tendency to direct Asian regionalism against the US. It would be in America’s interest to encourage the Japanese to develop multilateralist links with China to reduce the tensions created by its bilateral alliances, particularly over the Taiwan issue. In the Korean peninsula America alone cannot resolve outstanding issues of nuclear and ballistic missile proliferation and has to work through a regional coalition involving China, Japan, South Korea and, to some extent, Russia. America can encourage a regional understanding over the North’s nuclear programme, which would link non-proliferation with the engagement policies favoured by regional participants, but it is in no position to impose unilateral solutions. The most signiﬁcant lessons are for America itself. Americans are not inclined to see themselves in a cultural context and too often assume that their experience is universal – that America is the world. Americans tend to be impatient with cultural differences and are quick to regard them as evidence of backwardness or poor adaptation to modernity. The neoWilsonians imagined that the universal ideas they promoted would resonate equally within Asia and would become self-evident throughout the region, but they failed to match their goals with a supporting strategy. Their strong convictions stimulated the tendency to promote a value hegemony over the region, provoking the emergence of the ideology of Asia as resistance to American demands. America’s role in the Asia Paciﬁc cannot be divorced from the idealist values and universal themes which spring from its identity and its sense of mission, and a realism based on value relativity would be a betrayal of all America stands for. Americans should realise, however, that the object is not to create replicas of American democracy and society in Asia. Americans should understand that universal values would be best promoted by local proponents and interpreted according to local political cultures. America cannot impose its values on Asia without triggering further clashes; it can, however, adopt greater diplomatic prudence that will avoid open conﬂict with Asia while promoting its values through economic ties and educational programmes over the long term. America should evade those issues that will stimulate value

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clashes with Asian leaders, for whom loss of face becomes an intolerable humiliation, and could revert to the silent but effective promotion of trade and economics to bring about change in Asia. America’s new imperialists in the Bush administration have created new dilemmas in their intense reactions to the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks. The new imperialists have stressed global hegemony and have revived America’s fascination for military power as a means to promote American values. No doubt military power has a role in maintaining order and preventing open challenges to international order, but the habitual tendency to elevate military power above other considerations is misplaced. The major issues in the Asia Paciﬁc region require political understanding rather than the application of force. Unchallenged military power gives America the illusion of omnipotence and control over all events, concealing from sight those political forces and trends which may undermine its position. America may hold the strategic high ground with assurance but may see the ground beneath its feet eroded by incremental political changes, which in the intoxication of power it has simply neglected. Military power will not help America eliminate the attraction that a stronger China may have for the rest of Asia, and as the Chinese economy grows it becomes increasingly regarded as an alternative market for Asia’s exports. China may indeed involve other Asian countries in new regional groupings which would seek to displace the US from its accustomed role and undercut its bilateral military alliances in the region. The economic rise of China has inﬂuenced developments throughout the Western Paciﬁc and makes possible trends towards an Asian regionalism that would balance the US. Americans have assumed that they would always be in a position of dominance and that their role as regional hegemon was assured, but as these regional trends gather strength America’s relationship with a more conﬁdent Asia may have to be redeﬁned. The key issue for America is how to relate to a region where it may be militarily dominant but politically defensive, where its strategic position may be weakened as allies move to accommodate China or Chineseinﬂuenced Asian regionalism. The excessive dependence on military power that has characterised the Bush administration will not assist America in this crucial adjustment of role. The focus on values and identity has relevance for the broader study of international relations. The role of political culture should be recognised in international relations, foreign policy and security studies, not as a rigid or static concept but as an evolving notion that includes within it areas of change and redeﬁnition according to challenger norms and competing themes. Political culture is the starting point for the application of the rationalist theories of international relations which when disembodied from their cultural or political context and then universalised become mechanistic impositions and gross distortions. Rationalist theories, whether realism or institutionalism, require an understanding of political

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culture and corresponding values and identity for them to be meaningful, particularly in regions of cultural interaction such as the Asia Paciﬁc. The inclusion of political culture in these rationalist theories would reduce the compartmentalised thinking which results from the effort to universalise theory to the point where one aspect of political behaviour comes to represent the whole. Through an examination of collective memory and belief systems it should be understood why some cultures stress realism and insist upon realist interpretations of events, and why other cultures are more open to cooperation and institutional building within regionalism. Yet others may display both approaches according to different issues. Political cultures, particularly in Asia, are capable of demonstrating both realism and institutionalism at different times, when the language of idealism may be used to camouﬂage a deliberate and calculated realism. Political cultures may display different characteristics according to whether they are challenged, threatened or paciﬁed. China’s challenged identity over the Taiwan issue reinforces the cultural proclivity towards realism and the tendency to regard regional institutions as instruments in the struggle to regain the so-called lost territories, the South China Sea included. Japan’s paciﬁed identity has explained why Japan has not developed into a military power and the difﬁculty of adapting to a security role in terms of the US alliance. In the Korean peninsula threatened state identity has dictated a stark realism that has dominated inter-Korean relations. In this context the South’s engagement policy and the hopes attached to it require an explanation in terms of political culture. America’s proselytising identity, and the idealism that motivates it, similarly requires explanation in the realm of the values that have shaped American history, as does the allure of military power and the tendency to reduce security issues to military problems. The external pressures on identity generate the responses which are then classiﬁed as realist or institutionalist and which ultimately will demonstrate the prospects for security in the Asia Paciﬁc region. Over the long term there is the hope that the external environment may be changed if institutional structures addressed the speciﬁc security needs of individual actors. Cooperative norms may then be stimulated within Asian political cultures in a process of change and adaptation that would remove some of the sources of tension which may inﬂuence the process of value formation. This indeed would demand time.

Notes

1 Values and identities 1 Max Weber (translated by Talcott Parsons), The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, London: Allen and Unwin, 1930. 2 Gabriel A. Almond, “Comparative Political Systems,” The Journal of Politics, 18, 6 (1956), pp. 391–409. 3 Lowell Dittmer, “Political Culture and Political Symbolism: Towards a Theoretical Synthesis,” World Politics, 29, 4 (1977), pp. 552–583. 4 Policies are the “concrete and speciﬁc manifestations of culture.” Alan Macmillan, Ken Booth and Russell Trood, “Strategic Culture,” in Ken Booth and Russell Trood (eds) Strategic Cultures in the Asia Paciﬁc Region, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999, p. 10. 5 Gabriel A. Almond and Sidney Verba (eds) The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations, Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963. 6 Robert D. Putnam, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993. 7 Lucien Pye, Asian Power and Politics: The Cultural Dimensions of Authority, Cambridge, Mass.: The Belnap Press of Harvard University Press, 1985. 8 Ronald Inglehart, Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Countries, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990. 9 Ruth Benedict, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture, New York: World Publishing, 1946. 10 Takeshi Umehara, “Ancient Japan Shows Post-modernism the Way,” New Perspectives, 9 (1992), pp. 10–13. 11 Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996, pp. 20, 43. 12 Friedman deﬁnes culture as the speciﬁc properties of a society’s system of meaningfully organised repertories of social action, including anything that is important for that society’s self-identiﬁcation such as language, blood descent, etc. (Jonathan Friedman, Cultural Identity and Global Process, London: Sage, 1994, pp. 72–74); Immanuel Wallerstein regards culture as “a set of characteristics which distinguish one group from another.” Anthony King calls culture a way of life, a system of values, and beliefs (see Anthony King, “Introduction, Spaces of Culture, Spaces of Knowledge” in Anthony King (ed.) Culture, Globalization and the World System: Contemporary Conditions for the Representation of Identity, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997, p. 2). 13 Ted Hopf, “The Promise of Constructivism in International Relations Theory,” International Security, 32, 1 (1998), pp. 171–200; Ronald L. Jepperson, Alexander Wendt and Peter J. Katzenstein, “Norms Identity, and Culture in National

Notes

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17 18 19

20 21

22 23 24 25 26

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Security,” in Peter J. Katzenstein (ed.) The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics, New York: Columbia University Press, 1996, p. 59. For the distinction between collectivist and individualist cultures see Harry C. Triandis, Individualism and Collectivism, Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1995, Ch. 3. Valerie M. Hudson, “Culture in Foreign Policy: Developing a Research Agenda,” in Valerie M. Hudson (ed.) Culture and Foreign Policy, Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Reinner, 1997, pp. 7–10. Alexander George, “The Causal Nexus Between Cognitive Beliefs and Decision Making Behaviour: the ‘Operational Code’ Belief System,” in Lawrence S. Falkowski (ed.) Psychological Models in International Politics, Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1979, pp. 99–116. John Dufﬁeld, “Political Culture and State Behaviour: Why Germany Confounds Neorealism,” International Organization, 53, 4 (1999), pp. 765–803. Triandis, Individualism and Collectivism, p. 177 See Maurice Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992, pp. 43, 53; also Alon Conﬁno, “Collective Memory and Cultural History: Problems of Method,” The American Historical Review, 105, 2 (1997), pp. 1386–1403. Arthur G. Neal, National Trauma and Collective Memory: Major Events in the American Century, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1998, pp. 202, 203, 215. The constitution of identity is a “game of mirrors” or a “complex temporal interaction of multiple practices of identiﬁcation external and internal to a subject or population.” The sense of history is a mirror and “constructing the past” is an “act of self identiﬁcation.” See Freidman, Cultural Identity and Global Process, p. 145. “Memory becomes a prisoner of political reductionism and functionalism”; see Conﬁno, “Collective Memory and Cultural History.” Robert Jervis, The Logic of Images in International Relations, New York: Columbia University Press, 1989, p. 254. Robert Jervis, Perception and Misperception in International Politics, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1976, pp. 58–113. Douglas W. Blum, “The Soviet Foreign Policy Belief System: Beliefs, Politics, and Foreign Policy Outcomes,” International Studies Quarterly, 37, 1993, pp. 373–394. Karl K. Schonberg, “Traditions and Interests: American Belief Systems, American Policy and the Bosnian War,” World Affairs, 162, 1 (1999), pp. 11–21. The US presidency has been examined as the major institution in the construction and the formation of collective memory; in terms of “epideictic oratory” it is regarded as the chief interpreter of collective memory in US political culture. See Shawn J. Parry-Giles and Trevor Parry-Giles, “Collective Memory, Political Nostalgia, and the Rhetorical Presidency: Bill Clinton’s Commemoration of the March on Washington, August 28, 1998,” The Quarterly Journal of Speech, 86 (2000), pp. 417–437. Jon Hurwitz, Mark Pefﬂey and Mitchell A. Seligson, “Foreign Policy Belief Systems in Comparative Perspective: the United States and Costa Rica,” International Studies Quarterly, 37, 3 (1993), pp. 245–270. Akira Iriye, Across the Paciﬁc: An Inner History of American East Asian Relations, New York: Harcourt Brace, 1967, pp. 82, 329. Jack Snyder, The Soviet Strategic Culture: Implications for Nuclear Options, R-2154-AF, Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand Corporation, 1977. Alastair Iain Johnston, “Thinking About Strategic Culture,” International Security, 19, 4 (1995), pp. 32–64.

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31 Colin S. Gray, “Strategic Culture as Context: The First Generation of Theory Strikes Back,” Review of International Studies, 25, 1 (1999), pp. 49–70. 32 Alan Macmillan, Ken Booth and Russell Trood, “Strategic Culture,” in Booth and Trood (eds) Strategic Cultures, p. 8. 33 Alan Macmillan, Ken Booth and Russell Trood insisted that their intention was to maintain the military focus inherent in the term “strategic culture,” strategy was understood as the military dimension of security, and strategic culture as the military dimension of political culture. Ibid., p. 11. 34 Jeffrey W. Legro, “Military Culture and Inadvertent Escalation in World War II,” International Security, 18, 4 (1994), pp. 104–142. 35 See Robert H. Miles, Macro Organizational Behaviour, Glenview, Ill.: Scott and Foresman, 1980. 36 Nicholas Onuf, World of Our Making, Columbia: University of South Carolina press, 1989. 37 Anthony Giddens, The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1984, pp. 16–28. 38 On the distinction between metaphysical and social/political constructivism see André Kukla, Social Constructivism and the Philosophy of Science, London: Routledge, 2000, pp. 5–7. 39 Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace (brief edn), New York: McGraw-Hill, 1993, p. 4. 40 John Vasquez, The Power of Power Politics: From Classical Realism to Neo Traditionalism, Cambridge University Press, 1998, pp. 9.150. 41 See Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Relations, Boston, Mass.: AddisonWesley, 1979, pp. 126–131. 42 See ibid., pp. 88–91. Kowert and Legro claim that neo-realism was drawn from microeconomics, that states were regarded like ﬁrms that responded to the stimulus of the market. See Paul Kowert and Jeffrey Legro, “Norms, Identity, and Their Limits: A Theoretical Reprise,” in Peter J. Katzenstein (ed.) The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics, New York: Columbia University Press, 1996, p. 456. 43 Kenneth Waltz, “Reﬂections on Theory of International Relations: A Response to My Critics,” in Robert Keohane (ed.) Neorealism and its Critics, New York: Columbia University Press, 1986, p. 334. 44 Alexander Wendt, “Anarchy Is What States Make Of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics,” International Organization, 46, 2 (1992), pp. 335–370. 45 John Gerard Ruggie, “Political Structure and Dynamic Density,” in John Gerard Ruggie, Constructing the World Polity: Essays on International Institutionalization, London: Routledge, 1998, pp. 137–155. 46 Helen Milner, “The Assumption of Anarchy in International Relations Theory,” in David A. Baldwin (ed.) Neo-realism and Neoliberalism: The Contemporary Debate, New York: Columbia University Press, 1993, pp. 143–169. 47 Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics, London: Macmillan Press, 1977, pp. 46–50. 48 John Gerard Ruggie, Constructing the World Polity: Essays on International Institutionalization, London: Routledge, 1998, p. 133. 49 Jeffrey W. Legro and Andrew Moravcsik, “Is Anybody Still a Realist?,” International Security, 24, 2 (1999), pp. 5–55. 50 Ruggie’s core features of constructivism include: ﬁrst, the idea that human consciousness is the focus in international life, that ideational factors have normative as well as instrumental dimensions, and express collective intentionality; second, the ideational factors that shape actor behaviour range from culture, ideology to aspirations and principled beliefs; third, that the identities and

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52 53 54

55 56 57 58 59

60

61 62

63

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interests of states have been socially constructed and partly generated by interaction. See John Gerard Ruggie, “What Makes the World Hang Together? Neo Utilitarianism and the Social Constructivist Challenge,” International Organization, 52, 4 (1998), pp. 855–885. See Peter J. Katzenstein, “Introduction: Alternative Perspectives to National Security,” in Peter J. Katzenstein (ed.) The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics, New York: Columbia University Press, 1996, pp. 1–32. Wendt, “Anarchy Is What States Make Of It,” pp. 335–370. Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1983, pp. 33–35. Kowert and Legro note the difﬁculties: in any situation there may be a multiplicity of norms which may have contradictory impact, their impact will be identiﬁed after the event in any case when norm selection or salience becomes a matter of intuition. Kowert and Legro, “Norms, Identity, and Their Limits,” p. 486. Constructivism offers a “methodological conventionalism”: Jepperson, Wendt and Katzenstein, “Norms Identity, and Culture in National Security,” p. 68. Andrew Moravcsik, “Taking Preferences Seriously: A Liberal Theory of International Politics,” International Organization, 51, 4 (1997), pp. 513–553. Jepperson, Wendt and Katzenstein, “Norms Identity, and Culture in National Security;” in Katzenstein, (ed.) The Culture of National Security, pp. 67–68. Jack Snyder, “Anarchy and Culture: Insights from the Anthropology of War,” International Organization, 56, 1 (2002), pp. 7–45. See John Gerard Ruggie, “Epistemology, Ontology, and Regimes,” in Ruggie, Constructing the World Polity, p. 91. For the distinction between values and norms see Friedrich V. Kratochwil, Rules, Norms, and Decisions: On the Conditions of Practical and Legal Reasoning in International Relations and Domestic Affairs, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989, pp. 64–67. Jepperson, Wendt and Katzenstein, “Norms Identity, and Culture in National Security,”p. 54. Flynn and Farrell posit three kinds of norms, (1) those that constrain behaviour, which set some standard of action, (2) those that deﬁne the actors themselves, and (3) those that enable action, which permit or facilitate action that would not normally occur; see Gregory Flynn and Henry Farrell, “Piecing Together the Democratic Peace: The CSCE, Norms, and the ‘Construction’ of Security in Post-Cold War Europe,” International Organization, 53, 3 (1999), pp. 505–535. Thomas U. Berger, “Norms, Identity, and National Security in Germany and Japan,” in Katzenstein, The Culture of National Security, pp. 317–345. See Thomas Risse-Kappen, “Ideas Do Not Float Freely: Transnational Coalitions, Domestic Structures, and the End of the Cold War, International Organization, 48, 2 (1994), pp. 185–214; Matthew Evangelista, “The Paradox of State Strength: Transnational Relations, Domestic Structures, and Security Policy in Russia and the Soviet Union,” International Organization, 49, 1 (1995), pp. 1–38; also Daniel Duedney and G. John Ikenberry, “The International Sources of Soviet Change,” International Security, 16, 3 (1991/92), pp. 74–117. See John Gerard Ruggie, “Multilateralism at Century’s End,” in Ruggie, Constructing the World Polity, pp. 102–131. Another possible case of identity transformation may be Turkey in terms of its exposure to Europe; see Gülnur Aybet and Meltem Müftüler-Bac, “Transformations in Security and Identity After the Cold War,” International Journal, 55, 4 (2000), pp. 567–582. According to Wendt sovereignty is “reciprocal permission” to rule over territory; sovereignty transforms identities and gives them recognition in space and

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offers protection to small states according to the constituent rules of the game. See Wendt, “Anarchy Is What States Make Of It,” pp. 335–370. Buzan distinguishes state from society for the purposes of security and uses the Weberian deﬁnition where state and society are regarded as separate. The state is equated with the central government, while in the traditional deﬁnition the state includes territory and society. See Barry Buzan, People, States and Fear: An Agenda for International Security Studies in the Post Cold War Era (2nd edn), New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991, pp. 19, 58. 65 As Lucien Pye has argued, there is no universal concept of power because, culture conditions the expression of power; see Pye, Asian Power and Politics p. 19. 2 Values and identity and the significance of Taiwan to China 1 Lucien W. Pye, Asian Power and Politics: The Cultural Dimensions of Authority, Cambridge, Mass.: The Belnap Press of Harvard University Press, 1985, pp. 195–196. 2 China is identiﬁed with a “parabellum strategic culture” which refers to what Johnston has called the realpolitician’s axiom si pacem, parabellum, or if you want peace then prepare for war. Alastair Iain Johnston, “Cultural Realism and Strategy in Maoist China,” in Peter J. Katzenstein, The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics, New York: Columbia University Press, 1996, pp. 217, 256. 3 Lucien W. Pye, The Mandarin and the Cadre: China’s Political Culture, Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1988, pp. 81–82. 4 Chinese intellectuals suffer the “iron grip of patriotism” which prevents criticism and binds them to authority. Pye, The Mandarin and the Cadre, p. 104. 5 Michael D. Swaine and Ashley J. Trellis, Interpreting China’s Grand Strategy: Past Present, and Future, Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand Corporation, 2000, p. 34. 6 Gilbert Rozman, “China’s Quest for Great Power Identity,” Orbis, 43, 3 (1999), pp. 383–402. 7 Wu Xinbo, “China: Security Practice of a Modernizing and Ascending Power,” in Muthiah Alagappa (ed.) Asian Security Practice: Material and Ideational Inﬂuences, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1998, p. 125. 8 Pye, The Mandarin and the Cadre, pp. 32, 136, 137. 9 Chih-Yu Shih, China’s Just World: The Morality of Chinese Foreign Policy, Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1993, pp. 2, 3. 10 Jacques Gernet, A History of Chinese Civilization, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982, p. 29. 11 Ibid., p. 55. 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid., p. 52. 14 See Shiping Hua, “Some Paradigmatic Issues in the Study of Chinese Political Culture,” in Shiping Hua (ed.) Chinese Political Culture: 1989–2000, Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2001, p. 9. 15 See Michel Oksenburg and Elizabeth Economy, “Introduction: China Joins the World,” in Elizabeth Economy and Michel Oksenburg, China Joins the World: Progress and Prospects, New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1999. 16 See Avery Goldstein, “The Diplomatic Face of China’s Grand Strategy: A Rising Power’s Emerging Choice,” The China Quarterly, 168 (2001), pp. 835–864. 17 Johnston, “Cultural Realism and Strategy in Maoist China,” p. 257.

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18 Wu Xinbo, “China: Security Practice of a Modernizing and Ascending Power,” p. 143. 19 Joseph S. Nye, “China’s Re-emergence and the future of the Asia Paciﬁc,” Survival, 39, 4 (1997–98), pp. 65–79. 20 Reuters, 29 July 1992. 21 South China Morning Post, 18 March 1995. 22 South China Morning Post, 15 March 1995. 23 Quansheng Zhao, “Chinese Foreign Policy in the Post-Cold War Era,” World Affairs, 159, 3 (1997), pp. 114–129. 24 Gordon Chu, “The Changing Concept of Zhong (loyalty): Emerging New Chinese Political Culture,” in Shiping Hua (ed.) Chinese Political Culture, p. 67. 25 See Edward Freidman, “Still Building the Nation: The Causes and Consequences of China’s Patriotic Fervor,” in Shiping Hua (ed.) Chinese Political Culture, pp. 103–130. 26 Thomas A. Metzger and Ramon H. Myers, “Chinese Nationalism and American Policy,” Orbis, 42, 2 (1998), pp. 21–36. 27 Suisheng Zhao, “Chinese Nationalism and its International Orientations,” Political Science Quarterly, 115, 1 (2000), pp. 1–33. 28 Harry Harding, “China’s American Dilemma,” Annals of the American Association of Political Science, January 1992, pp. 12–25. 29 John W. Garver, Face off: China, the United States, and Taiwan’s Democratization, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997, pp. 35, 36. 30 Lu Yu-shan, “The CCP is Worried about a US Led Anti-China Alliance,” in Tangtai, Hong Kong,” BBC Summaries of World Broadcasts, 24 June 1993. 31 Interview with Journal editor, Beijing, 22 July 2002. 32 Discussion with scholars, Renmin University of China, 14 July 2000. 33 Japan Times, 10 August 1995. 34 Straits Times, 12 March 1996. 35 Straits Times, 11 August 1995. 36 Interviews with Chinese ofﬁcials and scholars in Beijing have revealed a uniform image of Japan as “inherently militaristic,” and that the party has been too lenient with Japan (interviews in Renmin University, Beijing, 15 July 2002). Here there is continuity with the older generation of Chinese which experienced the war. See President Yang Shangkun’s comments on Japan in Singapore in January 1992 (Straits Times, 10 January 1992). 37 On the textbook issue of 1982 and its symbolism for China see Caroline Rose, Interpreting History in Sino-Japanese Relations: A Case Study in Political Decision Making, London: Routledge, 1998. 38 Student protests against Nakasone’s visit to the Yasukuni Shrine in 1985 exploded into pro democracy movement demanding free speech. On this occasion democracy activists Wang Xizhe and Li Xiaobo called for force to be used to liberate the islands. See Straits Times, 10 October 1996; “Planting the Flag,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 17 October 1996. 39 John W. Garver, “China’s Push Through the South China Sea: The Interaction of Bureaucratic and National Interests,” The China Quarterly, 132 (1992), pp. 999–1028. 40 Tai Ming Cheung, Growth of Chinese Naval Power: Priorities, Goals, Missions, and Regional Implications, Paciﬁc Strategy Paper 1, Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1990, p. 9. 41 Hong Kong, “Liaowang,” 27 March 1989, Summaries of World Broadcasts, 22 April 1989; Zhang Xusen declared that China would develop advanced naval technology and would upgrade its strategy accordingly to protect its claims in

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59 60 61

62 63 64

Notes the South China Sea. See “Senior Ofﬁcer Outlines China’s Naval Ambitions,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 16 April 1992. Straits Times, 21 April 1992. Straits Times, 15 December 1992; South China Morning Post, 14 December 1992. Straits Times, 28 February 2000 Harvey Stockwin, “China’s Controversial Territorial Claim,” South China Morning Post, 8 March 1992; also “Testing the Waters,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 12 March 1992. See Statement by Mr. Qian Qichen, State Counsellor and Foreign Minister of the PRC During a Meeting with ASEAN Foreign Ministers, ASEAN Secretariat, 21 July 1992. Rigoberto Tiglao, “Remote Control,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 1 June 1995. Philippine Daily Inquirer, 6 January 1999; Straits Times, 25 January 1999. Amy Myers Jaffe and Steven W. Lewis, “Beijing’s Oil Diplomacy,” Survival, 44, 1 (2002), p. 115. See C.P.F. Luhilima, “ASEAN Edgy Over China’s Aims in the Region,” Jakarta Post, 31 July 1992. Japan Times, 20 March 1996. David Shambaugh, “China’s Military in Transition: Politics, Professionalism, Procurement and Power Projection,” The China Quarterly, 146 (1996), pp. 265–298. Allen S. Whiting, “Chinese Nationalism and Foreign Policy After Deng,” The China Quarterly, 142 (1995), pp. 295, 315–316. See White Paper – The Taiwan Question and Reuniﬁcation of China, Taiwan Affairs Ofﬁce and Information Ofﬁce, State Council, August 1993; Martin L. Lasater, “Chinese Uniﬁcation Policies,” p. 56. Garver, Face off, pp. 60–61. Allen S. Whiting, “The PLA and China’s Threat Perceptions,” The China Quarterly, 146 (1996), pp. 596–615. Michael D. Swaine, “The PLA and Chinese National Security Policy: Leaderships, Structures, Processes,” The China Quarterly, 146 (1996), pp. 360–393. Membership of TALSG included Jiang Zemin, Foreign Minister Qian Qichen, Director of the State Council’s Taiwan Affairs Ofﬁce Wang Zhaoguo, Minister of State Security Jia Chunwang, Chairman of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan straits (ARATS) Wang Daohan and Lt-General Xiong Guankai; Swaine, “The PLA and Chinese National Security Policy,” pp. 371–373. Straits Times, 14 July 1994. South China Morning Post, 3 February 1995. On Taiwanisation see Hung-mao Tien, “Social Change and Political Development in Taiwan,” in Harvey Feldman, Michael Y.M. Kau and Ilpong J. Kim (eds) Taiwan in a Time of Transition, New York: Paragon House, 1988, pp. 11–16. See Hung-mao Tien and Tun-jen Cheng, “Crafting Democratic Institutions,” in Steve Tsang and Hung-mao Tien, (eds), Democratization in Taiwan: Implications for China, London: Macmillan, 1999, pp. 23–49. See Party Platform, Democratic Progressive Party home page. Available: (accessed 20 August 2002) Shao-Chuan Leng and Cheng-yi Lin, “Political Change on Taiwan: Transition to Democracy?,” The China Quarterly, 136 (1993), pp. 805–839.

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65 Julian Baum, “Looking South: Aid and Trade are New Foreign Policy Planks,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 10 March 1994. 66 Julian Baum, John McBeth and Rodney Tasker, “In His Private Capacity,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 24 February 1994. 67 Frank Ching, “An About-turn by Taiwan,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 4 August 1994. 68 Straits Times, 13 October 1995. 69 Christopher R. Hughes, “Democratization and Beijing’s Taiwan Policy,” in Steve Tsang and Hung-mao Tien (eds) Democratization in Taiwan: Implications for China, London: Macmillan, p. 137. 70 For the eight-point speech see Martin L. Lasater, “Chinese Uniﬁcation Policies,” in Martin L. Lasater and Peter Kien-hong Yu (eds) Taiwan’s Security in the Post-Deng Xiaoping Era, London: Frank Cass, 2000, pp. 61–63; alsoHughes, “Democratization and Beijing’s Taiwan Policy,” pp. 137–138. 71 On Lee Teng-hui’s six principles see Lasater, “Chinese Uniﬁcation Policies,” pp. 62–63. 72 Garver, Face off, pp. 67–73. 73 See Lee Teng-hui, “Taiwan Today,” Vital Speeches of the Day, Business Source Primer, 61, 20 (1 August 1995). Available: (accessed 4 April 2003) 74 Chih-Yu Shih, China’s Just World, p. 34 75 Anthony D. Smith, National Identity, Reno: Nevada Press, 1991, p. 135. 76 Straits Times, 17 August 1995. 77 Julian Baum, “He’s no China Doll,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 31 August 1995. 78 South China Morning Post, 13 March 1996. 79 The two new ordinary members admitted to the CMC were regional commander Wang Ke and Wang Ruilin, who was number two in the army’s political department and former private secretary to Deng Xiaoping. Straits Times, 29 September 1995; Japan Times, 13 October 1995. 80 South China Morning Post, 9 December 1995. 81 South China Morning Post, 7 October 1995. 82 Straits Times, 16 August 1995. 83 Straits Times, 26 September 1995. 84 Straits Times, 11, 20 October 1995. 85 Straits Times, 16 February 1996. 86 Straits Times, 5 September 1995. 87 See Maureen Pao and Susan V. Lawrence, “Hands Across the Water,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 14 December 1995. 88 See South China Morning Post, 2 December 1995. 89 Willy Wo-lap Lam, “Jiang Hostage to the Hawks,” South China Morning Post, 10 February 1996. 90 Japan Times, 17 February 1996. 91 Straits Times, 26 March 1996. 92 Lu Keng “Personal Appeal, Disgust with China Helped Lee Win Big in Poll,” Straits Times, 26 March 1996. 93 Xinhua report in Straits Times, 26 March 1996. 94 See comment by Li Jia-quan of the Taiwan Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Straits Times, 19 March 1996. 95 Lee Kuan Yew, From Third World to First: The Singapore Story, 1965–2000, Singapore: Singapore Press Holdings, 2000, p. 630. 96 Straits Times 28 February 1996. 97 Discussions in Renmin University, Beijing, 17 July 2002.

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98 Sunday Times, 14 April 1996. 99 Straits Times, 27 April 1996. 100 Jürgen Domes, “Electoral and Party Politics in Democratization,” in Steve Tsang and Hung-mao Tien, Democratization in Taiwan, London: Macmillan, pp. 53–55. 101 The New Tide group argued that the independence clause was Taiwan’s weapon against Beijing’s one-China policy, and that to surrender this would mean surrendering all weapons against Beijing. See Taipei Times, 23 March 2000; Tsong-jyi Lin, “The Evolution of National Identity Issues in Democratizing Taiwan,” in Stéphane Corcuff (ed.) Memoirs of the Future: National Identity Issues and the Search for a New Taiwan, Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2002, p. 131; Lee San Chuoy, “Internal Bickering Splits Teng Hui Opponents,” Straits Times, 2 June 1996. 102 Japan Times, 21 May 1996. 103 See Keith B. Richburg, “Leader Asserts Taiwan is ‘Independent, Sovereign’,” Washington Post, 8 November 1997 104 Straits Times, 19 July 1999. 105 See report by Benjamin Gilman, Chairman of the US House of Representatives International Relations Committee, Straits Times, August 1999. 106 Straits Times, 14 July 1999. 107 Julian Baum, Bruce Gilley and Richard Halloran, “Chinese Fireworks,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 10 February 2000. 108 Japan Times, 31 January 2000. 109 Straits Times, 1 February 2000. 110 The relevant section stated that “If a grave turn of events occurs leading to the separation of Taiwan from China in any name, or if Taiwan is invaded and occupied by foreign countries, or if the Taiwan authorities refuse, sine die, the peaceful settlement of cross straits reuniﬁcation through negotiations then the Chinese government will only be forced to adopt all drastic measures possible, including the use of force, to safeguard China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and fulﬁl the great cause of reuniﬁcation.” White Paper – The One China Principle and the Taiwan Issue, The Taiwan Affairs Ofﬁce and the Information Ofﬁce of the State Council, 21 February 2000. Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the United States of America. Available: <www.china-embassy.org/eng/7128.html> (accessed 3 September 2002). 111 Straits Times, 1 March 2000. 112 Straits Times, 29 February 2000. 113 Straits Times, 24 April 2000. 114 See John Pomfret, “China to Taiwan: Begin Unity Talks or Face Attack,” International Herald Tribune, 9 March 2000; also International Herald Tribune 22, 24 February 2000. 115 Straits Times, 7 March 2000. 116 Ellic Joffe, “China’s Military Chiefs are Intransigent on Taiwan Politics,” International Herald Tribune, 3 April 2000. 117 Chinese ofﬁcials began to talk openly of a deadline for reuniﬁcation talks, at the latest by the 17th Party Congress in 2007. A strong warning to Taiwan was popular. See Robert Kagan, “Blueprint for How China Could Solve the Taiwan Problem by Force,” International Herald Tribune, 13 March 2000. 118 Straits Times, 1 February 2000. 119 Sangwon Suh, Alejandro Reyes and Allen T. Cheng, “Seismic Changes,” Asiaweek, 31 March 2000. 120 Straits Times, 19 March 2001. 121 William Ide, “Taiwanese leader Comments on China,” Washington Post,

Notes

122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133

134 135 136 137

138

179

3 August 2002. Available: <www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A387392002Aug?> (accessed 4 April 2003). John Pomfret, “China and Taiwan Back Away from Renewed Tensions,” Washington Post, 10 August 2002. Available: <www.taiwansecurity.org/WP/ 2002/WP-081002.htm> (accessed 4 September 2002). Maureen Pao and Susan V. Laurence, “Hands Across the Water,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 14 December 2000. Reuters, 1 December 2001; Taipei Times, 8 December 2001, Available: http://taiwansecurity.org/TT/2001/TT-120801-htm (accessed 5 September 2001). “Beijing Keeps its Blinkers On,” Editorial, Taipei Times, 6 December 2001, Available: (accessed 3 April 2003). “PFP Leader Advocates Eventual Uniﬁcation Through ‘Stage by Stage’ Model,” Taiwan News, 2 June 2002. Available: <www.taiwansecurity.org/ News/2002/TN-060202.htm> (accessed 2 April 2003). Walker Connor, Ethnonationalism: The Quest for Understanding, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994, p. 217. Ibid., pp. 92–94. Anthony D. Smith, Nations and Nationalism in a Global Era, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995, pp. 53–56. Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1983, pp. 33–35, 54–55. Ibid., pp. 58–59. Lai Tse-han, Ramon H. Myers and Wei Wou, A Tragic Beginning: The Taiwan Uprising of February 28 1947, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1991, p. 180. A later poll by the MAC resulted in percentages that do not match those above. April 2000 April 2001 For reuniﬁcation 18.9% 24.4% for independence 18.5% 17.8% See Straits Times, 7 April 2001. Taiwan Communiqué, 66, International Committee for Human Rights in Taiwan, June 1995. Available:<www.taiwandc.org> (accessed 8 September 2002). Lee Teng-hui, “Understanding Taiwan: Bridging the Perception Gap,” Foreign Affairs, 78, 6 (1999). See Hsin-yi Lu, The Politics of Locality: Making a Nation of Communities, New York: Routledge, 2002, pp. 33–54. In 1994 43 per cent called themselves Taiwanese, in 1997 the ﬁgure increased to 55 per cent; the number not deﬁning themselves as Chinese fell over the same period from 41 per cent to 30 per cent; Taifa Yu, “Relations between Taiwan and China after the Missile Crisis: Towards Reconciliation?,” Paciﬁc Affairs, 72, 1 (1999), pp. 39–56. In a similar poll a sample size of 1,067 was selected and over September 1992–1999 it was discovered that the “I am Taiwanese” category increased from 16.7 per cent to 45.4 per cent. The “I am Chinese” category declined from 48.5 per cent in January 1993 to 12.7 per cent in April 1999. The “I am both Taiwanese and Chinese” category increased from 36.5 per cent to 45.4 per cent over the same period. In response to the missile crisis over 1995 to 1996 there was a dip in those considering themselves either Chinese or Taiwanese, and an increase in those describing themselves as both. See “The

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143 144

145 146

147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163

Notes Story of Taiwan” website, available: <www.gio.gov.tw/info/taiwan-story/society/ edown/chart/chart-2.htm> (accessed 8 September 2002). Taifa Yu, “Relations between Taiwan and China after the Missile Crisis, pp. 39–56. See Robert Marsh, “National Identity and Ethnicity in Taiwan,” in Stéphane Corcuff (ed.) Memoirs of the Future: National Identity Issues and the Search for a New Taiwan, Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2002, p. 158. Hughes, “Democratization and Beijing’s Taiwan Policy,” pp. 138–139. Lee Teng-hui was criticised as a source of “chaos” by pro-reuniﬁcation Alliance and New Party supporters, and Taiwanese business representatives lamented the damage to relations with the mainland. See Straits Times, 12, 14 August 1995. Ian Buruma, “Taiwan’s New Nationalists,” Foreign Affairs, 75, 4 (1996), pp. 77–91. “Political manipulation of national and ethnic identity has won the DPP political power.” See Wang-Jenn Hwan, “DPP Needs to Heal Ethnic Divisions,” Taipei Times, 8 December 2001. Available: (accessed 25 August 2002). Straits Times, 18 August 2001. In April 2001 the Philippine navy pursued ten Chinese ﬁshing vessels from Scarborough Shoal and conﬁscated dynamite, cyanide and catches (Philippine Daily Inquirer, 2 April 2001). In June 2001 another confrontation was reported between numerous Chinese ﬁshing vessels and two Philippine patrol boats (Manila Times, 26 June 2001). Interview with ofﬁcials of the Thai Foreign Ministry, Bangkok, 20 July 2001. Interview with ofﬁcial of State Oceanic Administration, Beijing, 17 July 2000. Julian Baum, “Strait Talking,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 6 (November 1997). Straits Times, 10 June 1996. See Board of Foreign Trade, Ministry of Economic Affairs web page. Available: <www.trade.gov.tw/eng2002/index.asp> (accessed 7 April 2003). Julian Baum, “Dangerous Liaisons,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 25 March 1999. Allen T. Cheng, “The United States of China,” Asiaweek, 6 July 2001 Jeremy Page, “China Tells Taiwan to Keep Politics Out of Transport Talks,” Reuters, 6 July 2002. South China Morning Post, 25 January 2002. “Government to Lift Investment Bans on More Items in China,” Taiwan Headlines, 7 August 2002. Available: <www.taiwanheadlines.gov.tw> (accessed 3 September 2002). Business Times, 1 August 2002. “Chen Says Others Can Negotiate Direct Links,” Taipei Times, 11 May 2002. Available: <www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwanarchives/2002/o5/11/13556> (accessed 6 September 2002). “Taiwan Businessmen on Mainland More Aware of Political Boundaries,” Central News Agency, 31 December 2001. Available: <www.taiwansecurity.org/> (accessed 6 September 2002). “Revealed: 1992 Stance on ‘One China’,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 27 July 2000. International Herald Tribune, 29 June 2000. Taifa Yu, “Relations between Taiwan and China after the Missile Crisis,” pp. 39–56. Amber Wang, “EU model for Cross-Strait Ties: Chen,” China Post, 1 June

Notes

164 165

166 167 168 169

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2002. Available: <www.taiwansecurity.org/News/2002/CP-060102.htm> (accessed 2 September 2002). Japan Times, 10 July 2001. South China Morning Post, 27 March 2001. Former premier Vincent Siew visited Beijing with the proposal for a regional common market where customs duties will be harmonised and monetary policies reconciled. Business Times, 4 May 2001. See Susan Lawrence, “One Leader Too Many,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 28 November 2002. Chris Buckley, “Capitalists Lobby at Beijing Congress,” International Herald Tribune, 13 March 2003. People’s Daily, 15 November 2002. See Gordon Chang, The Coming Collapse of China, New York: Random House, 2001; Minxin Pei, “Will China Become Another Indonesia?,” Foreign Policy, 116 (1999), pp. 94–108; Jack Goldstone, “The Coming Chinese Collapse,” Foreign Policy, 99 (1995), pp. 35–53.

3 Values, identity and Japanese security * The assistance of Mariko Nagao, who helped with translation, and Noriko Takahashi, who acted as research assistant, is gratefully and extensively acknowledged for this chapter. 1 Thomas U. Berger, “Norms, Identity, and National Security in Germany and Japan,” in Peter J. Katzenstein (ed.) The Culture of National Security: Norms and Identity in World Politics, New York: Columbia University Press, 1996, pp. 317–345. 2 Peter J. Katzenstein and Nobuo Okawara, “Japan’s National Security: Structures, Norms, and Policies,” International Security, 17, 4 (1993), pp. 84–118. 3 Article 9 of the 1947 constitution says: “(1) Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. (2) In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.” 4 Social Democratic Party home page. Available: <www5.sdp.or.jp> (accessed 5 October 2002). 5 Yoichi Funabashi, “Japan and the New World Order,” Foreign Affairs, 70, 5 (1991/92), pp. 58–74. 6 Akira Iriye, Japan and the Wider World: From the Mid-nineteenth Century to the Present, London: Longman, 1997, pp. 182–183. 7 Business Times, 14 February 1992. 8 Maruyama Masao, “Thought and Behaviour Patterns of Japan’s Wartime Leaders,” in Masao Maruyama, Thought and Behaviour in Modern Japanese Politics, New York: Oxford, 1963, p. 127. 9 See Mark R. Peattie, Ishiwara Kanji and Japan’s Confrontation with the West, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1975, pp. 118–123. 10 See Tadashi Aruga, “The Security Treaty Revision of 1960,” in Akira Iriye and Warren I. Cohen (eds) The United States and Japan in the Post War World, Lexington, Ky.: The University Press of Kentucky, 1989, pp. 61–80; Peter Duus, The Rise of Modern Japan, Boston: Houghton Mifﬂin, 1976, pp. 262–264. 11 Sasaki Takeshi “Post War Politics at a Turning Point,” Japan Foundation

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15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45

Notes Newsletter, 18, 5–6 (1991), pp. 1–7, quoted in Chalmers Johnson, Japan: Who Governs? The Rise of the Developmental State, New York: W.W. Norton, 1995. p. 304 Asahi Shinbun, 15 March 1991. Yomiuri Shinbun, 14 January 2001. The bill limited the SDF to logistics support and prevented it from patrolling buffer zones, monitoring cease-ﬁre agreements and disarming armed groups. The ﬁve conditions imposed by the political opposition on the bill were: (1) there had to be a cease-ﬁre agreement, (2) the consent of the host countries, (3) impartiality, (4) the withdrawal of the peacekeeping force if these principles are broken, and (5) the use of force only in self-defence. See Tsuneo Akaha, “Japan’s Security Agenda in the Post Cold War Era,” Paciﬁc Review, 8, 1 (1995), pp. 45–75. Differences of view surfaced even in the Bureau as one group argued that lightly armed forces should not be banned under the constitution. Asahi Shinbun, 27 March 1991. Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 3 July 1996. Yomiuri Shinbun, 21 January 2002 Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 10 May 1994. On the Hosokawa coalition’s response during the Korean nuclear crisis see Yoichi Funabashi, Alliance Adrift, New York: Council of Foreign Relations Press, 1999, ch. 13. Asahi Shinbun, 4 June 1994. Japan Times, 17 June 1994; New York Times, 9 June 1994; Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 4 June 1994. Japan Times, 19 April 1996. Asahi Shinbun, 17 September 1996. Asahi Shinbun, 28 June 1996. Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 1, 2 August 1995. Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 13 August 1994. Asahi Shinbun, 16 February 1991. Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 4, 5 September 1994 Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 4 September 1994. Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 2 August 1995. Japan Times, 25 May 1999. See “Procedural Agreement between the Japan Defence Agency and the Department of Defense of the United States of America,” in Japan Times, 17 April 1996. Takahiko Ueda, Ako Washio and Mari Koseki, “Tokyo Makes Major Defence Policy Shift,” Japan Times, 19 April 1996. Japan Times, 23 April 1996. See Ichiro Ozawa, Blueprint for a New Japan: The Rethinking of a Nation, Tokyo: Kodansha, 1994. Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 2 July 1996. Japan Times, 15, 21 September 1996. Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 25 May 1999. Asahi Shinbun, 31 May 1997. Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 25 May 1997. See “Text of Bilateral Defense Report,” Japan Times, 9 June 1997. Asahi Shinbun, 11 June 1997. Asahi Shinbun, 26 July 1997. Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 23 August 1997. Straits Times, 11 April 1997.

Notes 46 47 48 49 50

51 52

53

54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74

183

Asahi Shinbun, 17 August 1997. Asahi Shinbun, 17 August 1997 Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 23 August 1997. Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 25 May 1999. On the defence guidelines see Tsuneo Akaha, “Beyond Self Defense: Japan’s Elusive Security Role Under the New Guidelines for US–Japan Defense Cooperation,” Paciﬁc Review, 11, 4 (1998), pp. 461–483; Sakamoto Kazuya, “Advancing the Japan–US Alliance, Japan Quarterly, 48, 2 (2001), pp. 18–24. Mainichi Shinbun, 27 April 2001. Nakasone has called for the incorporation of collective security into Japan’s ﬁrst “popularly drafted constitution”, and for a “fundamental law of national security” that will state that Japan will not engage in the use of force in the territory of another country. Article 9 should be rewritten to allow Japan to possess armed forces. See Nakasone Yasuhiro, “Rethinking the Constitution (1) Make it a Japanese Document,” Japan Quarterly, 44, 3 (1997), pp. 4–9. Ozawa’s revised Article 9 would read as follows: “the Japanese people renounce war as a expression of a nation’s military power, the use of military power to settle international disputes, and the possession of military power to pursue the above purpose is prohibited.” An additional article would be included which will stress the need for international cooperation. Bungei Shunju September 1999. Japan Times, 21 May 2001. Japan Times, 20, 31 January 2000. Mayumi Itoh, “Japanese Constitutional Revision,” Asian Survey, 4, 2 (2001), pp. 310–328. Mainichi Shinbun, 2 May 2000; Japan Times, 7 July 1999. After ﬁrst opposing the proposal the Socialist Democratic and the Communist parties decided to join the discussions on constitutional revision. Mainichi Shinbun, 8 January 2000. Mainichi Shinbun, 8 January 2000. Asahi Shinbun, 31 January 2002; Yomiuri Shinbun, 20 January 2002. Asahi Shinbun, 31 January 2002. Asahi Shinbun, 17 October 2002. Some argue that constitutional revision is out of the question; see Saeki Toshiro, “Amendment is Just a Grand Illusion,” Japan Quarterly, 48, 4, 2001, pp. 72–79. Japan Times, 24 March 2001. Michael J. Green and Benjamin L. Self, “Japan’s Changing China Policy: From Commercial Liberalism to Reluctant Realism,” Survival, 38, 2 (1996), pp. 35–58. Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 7 April 2002. Hisane Masaki, “Panel Takes an Unﬂinching Look at Sino-Japanese Relations,” Japan Times, 16 May 1997. Koichi Kato, “The View from the North Paciﬁc,” 5th Column, Far Eastern Economic Reunion, 15 August 1996. Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 8 April 1992. Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 27 November 1998. Asahi Shinbun, 28 November 1998. Yoichi Funabashi, “Tokyo’s Depression Diplomacy,” Foreign Affairs, 77, 6 (1998), pp. 26–36. Green and Self, “Japan’s Changing China Policy,” pp. 35–58. The National Institute for Defence Studies, a research arm of the Defence Agency, drew attention to China’s ballistic missile programme and argued

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78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90

91 92 93 94 95

96 97 98 99 100

101 102 103 104 105

Notes that in opposing TMD China wanted to gain unilateral military supremacy over Japan. Japan Times, 11 March 2000. The Defence White Paper of 2000 noted that in 1998 there were two recorded incursions; in 1999 there were 27, and 14 to July 2000. See Mainichi Shinbun, 28 July 2000. Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 26 September 2000. The Japanese claim is that four of ﬁve islands were purchased by the Koga family in 1932; in 1978 they were purchased by Kuribara Kunioki. Straits Times, 20 September 1996. How the disputed islands could be purchased privately was not explained by the Japanese side. Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 30 October 1996. Hiroshi Matsubara, “Japan Still Key to Taiwan Independence Bid,” Japan Times, 29 September 2002. Japan Times, 14 February 1997. Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 6 February 1997. Eichii Shindo, “Shed the Cold War Mindset,” Japan Times, 29 September 1997. Japan Times, 15 April 2001. Japan Times, 29 April 2001; Yomiuri Shinbun, 8 May 2002. Asahi Shinbun, 28 June 1998. Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 28 June 1998. Yomiuri Shinbun, 7 October 2001. Mainichi Shinbun, 9 October 2001. Mainichi Shinbun, 2 October 2001, Mainichi Shinbun, 8 October 2001. The Chinese Foreign Ministry noted that ﬁghting terrorism was a “common task” for the international community but for “historical reasons” Japan should deal with this issue in a “prudent manner.” People’s Daily, 28 September 2001. People’s Daily, 11 January 2002. Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 31 December 2001. See Cho Se-hyon, “Ghost of Japanese Militarism,” Korea Herald, 25 September 2001. Available: <www.koreaherald.co.kr> (accessed 8 October 2001). Korea Net: Korean Government Homepage, 18 December 2001 Korea Net: Korean Government Homepage, 18 December 2001; see also Hwang Jang-jin, “South Korea Moves Quickly to Join US Military Action,” Korea Herald, 25 September 2001. One observer claimed that Japan’s response to terrorism was an indication that Japan was returning to “normality.” Shin Yong-bae, “Japan’s Move to Expand Military Role Overseas Draws Mixed Reactions from South Korea,” Korea Herald, 4 October 2001. Japan Times, 6 October 2001. Nikkei Weekly, 29 October 2001. Japan Times, 7 December 2002. Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 11 November 2001. The Japanese were informed by US intelligence, and the Maritime SDF tracked the vessels by radar as they came into Japanese waters probably to pick up spies; over 200 warning shots were ﬁred as the MSDF vessels chased them out. See Mainichi Shinbun, 24 March 1999. Yomiuri Shinbun, 21 January 2002. Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 17 September 2001. See Asahi Shinbun, 25 October 2001. “SDF Ships Under Tactical U.S. Command in Indian Ocean,” Japan Today, 22 June 2002. Available: <www.japantoday.com> (accessed 4 November 2002) Japan Times, 23 October 2002.

Notes

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106 The warning was given to Ginandjar Kartasasmita, the then Indonesian Coordinating Minister for Economics and Finance. Straits Times, 12 May 1998. 107 Nayan Chanda, “Foot in the Water,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 9 March 2000. 108 Japan Times, 4 May 2000. 109 Jane’s Security, 2 June 2000. Available: <www.janes.com/security/regional_ security/news//fr/fr000602> (accessed 5 November 2002). 110 Japan Times, 3 January 2001; Charles Bickers, “Extending Tokyo’s Reach,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 18 January 2001. 111 This would be the ﬁrst attempt for Japan to develop and manufacture military aircraft since the plan to develop the F-SX ﬁghter to replace the F-1. The US demanded co-production rights and in January 1988 joint production of the FSX based on F-16 design was agreed upon. The ﬁghter was renamed the F-2 and was deployed in 2000. Japan will avoid joint development with the US in the future. Japan Times, 10 January 2001. 112 Other items included a down payment on an Aegis-equipped destroyer, equipment to deal with chemical and biological attacks and an advanced telecommunications network for SDF HQ. Host country support for US forces was reduced by 2.8 per cent. Japan Times, 25 January 2001. 113 Japan Times, 21 December 2001. 114 Asahi Shinbun, 11 September 2002. 115 Asahi Shinbun, 2 June 2002. 116 Reuters Press Service, 12 August 1993 117 Asahi, 20 February 2003. Available: <www.asahi.com> (accessed 21 February 2003). 118 Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 7 April 2002. 119 Asahi Shinbun, 8 April 2002. 120 Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 4 April 2002. 121 Minshuto Meru Magajin, 41, 14 February 2002. 122 Yomiuri Shinbun, 29 May 2002. 123 Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 17 April 2002; Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 16 April 2002. 124 Japan Times, 8 June 2003. 125 Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 1 September 2001. 126 Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 2 September 1998. 127 Nihon Keizai Shinbun 2 March 2002. 128 LDP faction leader Kanemaru Shin visited Pyongyang in September 1990 and led the North to believe that Japan would pay reparations for the colonial period; the Japanese Foreign Ministry repudiated Shin’s understanding with the North and insisted that normalisation of relations be based on the basic treaty of 1965, which had limited claims for normalisation; the Japanese side raised the abductions issue, and nuclear inspections. See Michael Armacost and Kenneth B. Pyle, “Japan and the Uniﬁcation of Korea; Challenges for U.S. Policy Coordination,” in Nicholas Eberstadt and Richard J. Ellings (eds) Korea’s Future and the Great Powers, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001, pp. 138–139. 129 Mainichi Shinbun, 9 April 2000. 130 Japan Times, 27 September 1997. 131 Junko Takahashi, “Pyongyang Policy Shaped by Public,” Japan Times, 1 January 2003. 132 Japan Times, 1 June 2003. 133 See Nikkei, 25 January 2003, also Teruaki Ueno, “Japan Says Would Strike N. Korea if Attack Imminent,” Reuters, 13 February 2003. Available: <www.reuters.com> (accessed 19 February 2003)

186

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134 Japan Times, 22 May 2003. 135 For this prediction see Chalmers Johnson, “Containing China: US and Japan Drift Towards Disaster,” Japan Quarterly, 43, 3 (1995), pp. 10–18. 136 Would Japan go to war with the US against China? Kan Naoto visited the US in August 2002 and claimed that in the event of a military conﬂict between the US and China, Japan would not be involved but would not prevent the US from using Japanese bases. Asahi Shinbun, 11 September 2002. Most Japanese cannot imagine conﬂict with China, which is unthinkable for the political leadership. 137 Reinhard Drifte, “An Old Architecture for Peace? Reconﬁguring Japan Among the Unreconﬁgured Great Powers,” Paciﬁc Review, 3, 12 (1999), pp. 479–489; Akaha, “Beyond Self Defense.” 138 Asahi Shinbun, 4 January 2002. 4 The Korean peninsula 1 Hy-Sang Lee, North Korea: A Strange Socialist Fortress, Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2001, p. 26. 2 Kongdan Oh and Ralph C. Hassig, North Korea Through the Looking Glass, Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2000, p. 15. 3 Han S. Park, North Korea: The Politics of Unconventional Wisdom, Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 2002, pp. 23–24. 4 Ibid., pp. 25–26. 5 Martina Deuchler, The Confucian Transformation of Korea: A Study of Society and Ideology, Cambridge, Mass.: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University Press, 1992, pp. 284–285. 6 Roger L. Janelli and Dawnhee Yim Janelli, Ancestor Worship and Korean Society, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1982, p. 164. 7 Deuchler, The Confucian Transformation of Korea, p. 8. 8 Ibid., pp. 284–285. 9 Park Yong-Shin, “The Socio-Cultural Dynamic of a Newly Industrializing Country: the Experience of Korea,” in Richard Harvey Brown (ed.) Culture, Politics, and Economic Growth: Experiences in East Asia, Studies in Third World Societies, Williamsburg, Va.: William and Mary College, Virginia, vol. 44, 1995. 10 Ibid., p. 64. 11 Ibid., p. 220. 12 Oh and Hassig, North Korea Through the Looking Glass, p. 22. 13 Lee, North Korea: A Strange Socialist Fortress, pp. 164–165. 14 Oh and Hassig, North Korea Through the Looking Glass, pp. 18–19. 15 Japan Times, 17 March 1996. 16 Japan Times, 11 August 1996. 17 Japan Times, 10 May 1995. 18 Japan Times, 13 June 1996. 19 Japanese visitors reported food riots near the Chinese border which were suppressed by the army; they saw the slogan “let’s eat 2 meals a day and not 3” at that time. The Guardian, 20 August 1993. 20 Jaspar Becker, “The Strangulation of a Nation,” South China Morning Post, 10 February 1996. 21 On the effects of the famine see Marcus Noland, Avoiding the Apocalypse: The Future of the Two Koreas, Washington, D.C.: Institute for International Economics, June 2000, pp. 191–194. 22 Kongdan Oh and Ralph C. Hassig, “North Korea Between Collapse and

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27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48

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Reform,” Asian Survey 39, 2 (1999), pp. 287–309; also Oh and Hassig, North Korea Through the Looking Glass, pp. 66–67. Yonhap, 25 August 1993; KBS Radio, 24 August 1993; BBC Summaries of World Broadcasts, 26 August 1993. Selig Harrison, “Time To Leave Korea,” Foreign Affairs, 80, 2 (2001), pp. 62–78. Selig Harrison, Korean Endgame: A Strategy for Reuniﬁcation and U.S. Disengagement, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002, pp. 28–33. Hwang Jang-yop was ranked number 24 in the hierarchy, had married a niece of Kim Il-sung, and claimed involvement in the development of juche ideology; he was the highest-ranking Northern ofﬁcial to defect to the South, explaining that he defected to escape a purge as the hardliners closed in on liberals. Shim Jae Hoon, “Man in the Middle,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 27 February 1997. “Leadership Purge,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 6 March 1997. Shim Jae Hoon, “Dancing in the Dark,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 13 March 1997. Lee, North Korea: A Strange Socialist Fortress, p. 221. Chuck Downs, “Discerning North Korea’s Intentions,” in Nicholas Eberstadt and Richard J. Ellings (eds) Korea’s Future and the Great Powers, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001, p. 104. Noland, Avoiding the Apocalypse, pp. 145–146. Nayan Chanda, “Nuclear Synergy,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 6 May 1993. United States Information Service, 14 June 1993; Nayan Chanda, “Nuclear Jaw-boning,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 17 June 1993. Nayan Chanda, “Fission Chips Down,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 2 December 1993. New York Times, 5 January 1994; International Herald Tribune, 5 January 1994. Nayan Chanda, “Seal of Disapproval,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 31 March 1994. Nayan Chanda, “The Inspectors Return,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 10 March 1994. Japan Times, 28 February 1994. Nayan Chanda, “Forgive and Forget,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 12 May 1994. Japan Times, 5 June 1994. New York Times, 25 January 1995. Kim Young-sam claimed that he argued for 32 minutes against the air-strike plan in a meeting with Clinton in early June 1994 saying that there would not be another Korean war while he was president. Straits Times, 25 May 2000. Banning Garrett and Bonnie Glaser, “Looking Across the Yalu: Chinese Assessments of North Korea,” Asian Survey, 35, 6 (1995), pp. 528–545. “Sanctions Mean Outright War”; see statement by the Committee for the Peaceful Reuniﬁcation of the Fatherland, Japan Times, 5 June 1994. Also Japan Times, 10 June 1994. Shim Jae Hoon, “Flawed Record,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 26 May 1994. See Harrison, Korean Endgame, pp. 215–220; Leon V. Sigal, “Jimmy Carter,” Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, 54, 1 (1998), pp. 40–46. Washington Post, 2 June 1994; Japan Times, 24 February 1995. Japan Times, 9 October 1994.

188 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61

62 63 64 65 66 67

68 69 70 71 72 73

74

Notes Harrison, Korean Endgame, p. 204. Ibid., p. 220. Ibid., pp. 221–225. Nayan Chanda, “Pay in Advance,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 13 October 1994. Nigel Holloway and Shim Jae Hoon “The Price of Peace,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 25 August 1994. Straits Times, 1 July 1994. Agreed Framework Between the United States of America and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea October 21, 1994. Available: <www.ceip.org/ﬁles/ projects/npp/resources/koreaaf.htm> (accessed 6 December 2002). New York Times, 25 January 1995. United States Information Service, 10 February 1995, Japan Times, 14 December 1994. International Herald Tribune, 8–9 January 1994. Shim Jae Hoon, “Taming the North,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 24 November 1994. The Daewoo investment in the Nampo was $512 million for the manufacture of apparel and bags; the North accepted 13 technicians from the South who will train Northern workers, the ﬁrst time the North accepted workers from the South. Shim Jae Hoon, “Bridging the Divide,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 14 September 1995; Japan Times, 27 June 1995. Shim Jae Hoon, “Children of Delusion,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 11 August 1994. Shim Jae Hoon and Nigel Holloway, “Hold the Champagne,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 27 October 1994. Bases support for US forces was to be increased by 10 per cent annually over three years; Korea paid 33 per cent of the salary costs of US forces, while by comparison Japan paid 70 per cent. Japan Times, 4 November 1995. Japan Times, 25 December 1995. Kim Dae-jung, “Fix Korea’s Structural Woes,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 30 January 1997. See “Let us Open a New Era: Overcoming Crisis and Taking a New Leap Forward”, Inaugural Address by Kim Dae-jung the 15th President of the Republic of Korea, 25 February 1998, Chong Wa Dae, Ofﬁce of the President, Republic of Korea. Available: <www.bluehouse.go.kr> (accessed 9 December 2002). Japan Times, 29 March 1998. See “New Measures to Promote Intra-Korean Economic Cooperation,” Korean Uniﬁcation Bulletin, 1, July 1998. Available: <www.unikorea.go.kr/en/ interkorean/interkorean.php?page> (accessed 7 December 2002). Kim Jong-Il’s letter on reuniﬁcation was addressed to participants in a conference on reuniﬁcation organised by the North, see Straits Times, 30 April 1998. See President Kim’s Interview with CNN, 23 November 1998, Chong Wa Dae, Ofﬁce of the President, Republic of Korea. Available: <www.bluehouse.go.kr> (accessed 6 December 2002). “Sunshine Policy Aimed at Ending Cold War Structure,” Korea Times, 21 March 1999. Available: <www.hk.co.kr> (accessed 6 December 2002). Address by President Kim Dae-jung of the Republic of Korea at the Free University of Berlin, 9 March 2000. Chong Wa Dae, Ofﬁce of the President, Republic of Korea. Available:<www.bluehouse.go.kr> (accessed 9 December 2002). On Kim Dae-jung’s visit to Washington from 8–11 June 1998, see Thomas W.

Notes

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76 77 78 79

80 81 82 83

84 85

86 87 88

189

Lippman, “Kim Pushes for Cooperation with N. Korea”, Washington Post, 12 June 1998. Available: <washingtonpost.com/> (accessed 7 December 2002). See Dr William J. Perry, Review of United States Policy toward North Korea: Findings and Recommendations, Ofﬁce of the North Korea Policy Coordinator, United States Department of State, October 12, 1999. Available: (accessed 10 December 2002). see CNS Resources on North Korea’s Ballistic Missile Program, Center For Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Affairs. Available: (accessed 10 December 2002). Shawn W. Crispin, with Shim Jae Hoon, “Buying Time,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 1 April 1999. International Herald Tribune, 12 July 1999. Congressional opposition to the engagement policy formed a North Korea Advisory Group which was led by Chairman of the House Committee on International Relations Benjamin A. Gilman; other members were House representatives Doug Bereuter, Sonny Callahan, Christopher Fox, Tillie K. Fowler, Porter J. Gross, Joe Knollenberg, Floyd Spence. See North Korea Advisory Group: Report to the Speaker, U.S. House of Representatives, November 1999. Available: <www.house.gov/international_relations/nkag/ report> (accessed 12 December 2002). Kathryn Tolbert, “N. Korea: Won’t Test Missile If Talks Go On,” The Inquirer, 25 September 1999. Available: <www.phillynews.com/inquirer/99/ Sep/25/international/KOREA25.htm> (accessed 3 December 2002). The Daily Yomiuri, 2 December 1998. Available: <www.yomiuri.co.jp> (accessed 2 December 2002). Nicholas D. Kristof, “North Korea Plans Missile Test,” Seattle Times, 4 July 1999. Available HTTP: <www.seattle-times.com/news/nation-world/html/> (accessed 20 November 2002). “There is evidence that North Korea is working hard on the Taepodong-2 (TD-2) ballistic missile.” See Executive Summary of the Report of the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States, The Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld, Chairman, July 15 1998. Available: (accessed 19 November 2002): See also testimony of General Thomas Schwartz, Commander-in-Chief United Nations Command/combined Forces Command and Commander US forces Korea, Senate Armed Services Committee, 7 March 2000. Available: <www.senate.gov/~armed_services/statemnt/2000/000307ts.pdf> (accessed 20 November 2002). Japan Times, 24 August 1999. Head of South Korean intelligence Lim Dong-won admitted the ﬁgure of $200–500 million which had been transferred from state banks to Hyundai; Japan Times, 16 February 2003. Other reports say government loans totalling $186 million were transferred through three banks in three different countries; the real ﬁgure is probably higher and may reach $1 billion. Doug Struck, “Critics Say South Korea Paid for Talks with North,” Washington Post, 10 February 2003. On the inter-Korean summit of June 2000, see Korea Herald, 14 June 2000; Han Soon Joo, “the Koreas Must Develop Trust, conﬁdence and Cooperation,” International Herald Tribune, 17 June 2000. Sah Dong-seok, “Little Progress in Military Issues; Critics.” Korea Times, 26 September 2000. Shim Jae Hoon, “Kim the Cool,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 9 July 1998.

190

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89 Japan Times, 16 June 1999. 90 Peter M. Beck, “Beyond Balancing: Economic Cooperation on the Korean Peninsula,” Korean Economic Institute Working Paper, 10, 1999. Available: (accessed 10 December 2002). 91 Shim Jae Hoon, “Cloudy Outlook,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 15 July 1999. 92 Japan Times, 8 July 1999. 93 Straits Times, 28 February 2000. 94 The reported costs of German reuniﬁcation reached $600 billion over 1989–1996, or over 5 per cent of Western Germany’s output for this period. North Korea is much poorer relative to the South than was East Germany relative to West Germany. The North’s income is 10 per cent of that of the South, while East Germany’s income was on third that of West Germany. The population discrepancy is also important as the North’s population is half that of the South while East Germany’s population was a quarter of that of West Germany. The costs of Korean reuniﬁcation would be well beyond the capacity of the South Korean economy to manage alone. See Economist, 10 May 1997; Nicholas Eberstadt, The End of North Korea, Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute Press, 1999, pp. 127–130; Noland, Avoiding the Apocalypse, pp. 307–310. 95 Korea Herald, 2 July 2002. 96 See Editorial, “Rational Approach to Conﬂict,” Korea Herald, 5 July 2002. 97 “Military confrontation should be a fatal blow when inter-Korean contacts have already been stalled for months due to the North’s insincerity that fuels criticism by the South’s political opposition.” This editorial saw the clash as a deliberate decision taken by the North and a “terrorist act.” See “North’s Impudent Offense,” Korea Herald, 1 July 2002. 98 The statement was issued by the North’s Committee for peaceful Reuniﬁcation of the Fatherland. The North was conciliatory over the clash and declared that “We will make every effort to smoothly proceed with dialogue and cooperation between the two Koreas as agreed in the historic July 4 South–North Joint Communiqué and June 15 South–North Joint Declaration.” Seo Hyunjin, “Pyongyang Stresses Dialogue Following Skirmish on West Sea,” Korea Herald, 5 July 2002. 99 See Doug Struck, “Attack on Boat Premeditated, South Korea Says,” Washington Post, 8 July 2002. 100 Don Kirk, “Two Koreas Deﬁant in Yellow Sea Dispute,” International Herald Tribune, 11 July 2002. 101 Harrison, “Time to Leave Korea.” 102 Robert Scalapino, “China and Korean Reuniﬁcation – a Neighbor’s Concerns,” in Eberstadt and Ellings, Korea’s Future and the Great Powers, p. 117. 103 Noland, Avoiding the Apocalypse, p. 9. 104 Kongdan Oh and Hassig, North Korea Through the Looking Glass, p. 72. 105 Oh and Hassig, “North Korea Between Collapse and Reform.” 106 “North Koreans conﬁrm shifts in Economy,” International Herald Tribune, 31 July 2002; Christopher Torchia, “North Koreans Outline Change to Economy,” Washington Post, 30 July 2002; John Larkin, “Mysterious Reform,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 8 August 2002. 107 According to documents somehow leaked to the South Kim Jong-il is anything but a reformer. These documents were submitted to the Central Committee in 1999 and revealed Kim Jong-il’s as paranoia and his fear of being bombed as Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic was bombed by NATO in 1999. The documents stressed the need to preserve the status quo and Kim Il-sung’s legacy; A document dated June 2001 attacked party members who were con-

Notes

108 109 110 111

112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126

191

sidered reformist, which indicated no genuine interest in reform. John Larkin, “Behind the Tyrant’s Mask,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 2 May 2002. John Larkin and Murray Hiebert, “Welcome to the War,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 13 December 2001. Peter Sevin, “North Korea Not Following Nuclear Pact, U.S. to Say,” Washington Post, 20 March 2002. Japan Times, 3 December 2001. During the meeting Kelly showed the North evidence of the programme; at ﬁrst the North denounced the accusations as fabrications. The next day Deputy Foreign Minister Kang Sok-joo admitted what Kelly was saying and claimed that even more powerful weapons were being developed. Hamish McDonald, “N. Korea Admits to Nuclear Program,” The Age, 18 October 2002. The South’s Uniﬁcation Minister Jeong Se-hyun said that the US may have misunderstood and that there may have been a translation problem arising from the words “to be entitled” to possess nuclear weapons, which could be understood as “has come to own” or to possess nuclear weapons. This interpretation was supported by the Northern Foreign Ministry statement of 25 October which said that it was entitled to nuclear weapons. Korea Herald, 24 November 2002. Seo Hyun-Jin, “North Ready to talk About Nukes,” Korea Herald, 22 October 2002. Seo Huyn-jin, “N.K. Floats Non Aggression Pact,” Korea Herald, 26 October 2002. Washington Post, 28 November 2002. Park, North Korea, pp. 154–155. “Lee against Rail Links before Pyongyang resolves Nuke Issue,” Korea Herald, 22 October 2002. Ryu jin, “GNP Vows to Suspend Aid to North Until Nuke Issue is Resolved,” Korea Times, 12 November 2002. Hwang Jang-jin, “Seoul Criticised for Sweeping Information on North Korean Nukes Under Carpet,” Korea Herald, 22 October 2002. Editorial, “Crisis or Opportunity?,” Korea Herald, 19 October 2002. Kim Ji-ho, “Seoul, Washington View N.K. Nuclear Issue Differently,” Korea Herald, 21 October 2002. Kim Hyung-jin, “Lee, Roh differ on How to Resolve Nuke Issue,” Korea Herald, 25 October 2002. “Seoul Plans High Level Talks with Beijing, Moscow,” Korea Times, 27 December 2002. Hwang Jang-jin, “Roh Shifting N. Korea Strategy,” Korea Herald, 17 May 2003. Japan Times, 20 January 2003. George Gedda, “Powell Rejects South Korea Proposal,” Washington Post, 28 March 2003. See The Task Force on US Korea Policy, “The Nuclear Crisis on the Korean Peninsula: Avoiding the Road to Perdition,” Current History, 102, 663 (2003), pp. 152–170. Howard W. French, “N. Korea Says it Needs a ‘Deterrent,’ ” International Herald Tribune, 7 April 2003.

5 Values, identity and US Asia Pacific policy 1 Hannah Arendt, On Revolution, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1973, pp. 181–182. 2 Roger S. Whitcomb, The American Approach to Foreign Affairs: An Uncertain Tradition, Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1998, p. 52.

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3 David Campbell, Writing Security: US Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992, pp. 41–56. 4 Townsend Hoopes, The Devil and John Foster Dulles, London: André Deutsch, 1974, p. 505. 5 On the Christian right and its impact upon American politics and foreign policy, see Martin Durham, The Christian Right: The Far Right and the Boundaries of American Conservatism, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000; also Michael Lienesch, Redeeming America: Piety and Politics in the New Christian Right, Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1993. 6 Frank Ninkovich, The Wilsonian Century: US Foreign Policy Since 1900, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999, pp. 12, 13, 34–37. 7 Democracies “rarely ﬁght each other even at low levels of lethal violence, and never (or almost never) go to war against each other.” See Bruce Russett, Grasping the Democratic Peace: Principles for a Post-Cold War World, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993, p. 119. 8 Joshua Muravchik, Exporting Democracy: Fulﬁlling America’s Destiny, Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute, 1991; see also Brad Roberts, The New Democracies, Global Change and US Foreign Policy, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1990. 9 See Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man, London: Penguin, 1992, p. 338. 10 Susumu Awanohara, “Collision Course,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 4 February 1993. 11 See Governor Bill Clinton, “A New Covenant for American Security,” Speech given to students at Georgetown University, 12 December 1991. Available: New Democrats Online.Org (accessed 12 December 2002). 12 Freedom House noted that the number of democracies had grown from 44 in 1972 to 99 in 1992, but stressed that the US should promote democracy abroad through trade. United States Information Service, 17 December 1992. 13 United States Information Service, 1 April 1992. 14 United States Information Service, 31 March 1993. 15 United States Information Service, 15 June 1993. 16 United States Information Service, 13 July 1993. 17 According to Lake “enlargement” had four features: (1) strengthening the community of major market democracies, (2) consolidating democracy and markets in states of special signiﬁcance or opportunity, (3) countering the aggression of states hostile to democracy and markets, and (4) pursuing humanitarian goals and limiting sectarian conﬂict in regions of greatest concern. United States Information Service, 20 December 1993. 18 George Szamuely, “Clinton’s Clumsy Encounter with the World,” Orbis, 38, 3 (1994), pp. 373–394. 19 “Christopher: US will Always Protect Vital Interests,” US Department of State, International Information Programs, 28 June 1993. Available: <usinfo.state.gov/ products/pdq/pdq.htm,,aol> (accessed 14 December 2002). 20 What distinguished Clinton was his “near obsession in doing the popular thing.” See William G. Hyland, Clinton’s World: Remaking American Foreign Policy, Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1999, p. 203. 21 David M. Lampton, “China and Clinton’s America: Have They Learned Anything?,” Asian Survey, 37, 12 (1997), pp. 1099–1118. 22 MFN status was granted to US trading partners under GATT but could be revoked by the Administration if non-compliance with US legislation was demonstrated. The revocation could be waived by the President; China has

Notes

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24 25 26 27

28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48

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relied upon regular presidential waivers to retain MFN status. In 1998 the term “MFN” was dropped and “Normal Trade Relations” (NTR) was used. See Vladimir N. Pregelj, Most-Favored-Nation (Normal-Trade-Relations) Policy of the United States, CRS Issue Brief for Congress, 7 June 2000. Available: <www.ncseonline.org/nle/crsreports/economic/econ-49/cfm?$CF> (accessed 15 December 2002). A coordinated campaign was launched when 400 companies in California insisted that that the revocation of MFN would jeopardise US exports to China and 35,000 jobs. David M. Lampton, “America’s China Policy in the Age of the Finance Minister,” China Quarterly, 139 (1994), pp. 597–621. On US business lobby groups see Robert G. Sutter, US Policy Toward China: An Introduction to the Role of Interest Groups, Lanham, M.: Rowman and Littleﬁeld, 1998, pp. 56–63. Daniel Williams “Chinese rebuff Christopher,” Washington Post, 13 March 1994; see also Robert Manning, “Clinton and China: Beyond Human Rights, Orbis, 38 (1994), pp. 193–205. Thomas Lippmann, “Clinton’s China Policy Under Attack at Home,” International Herald Tribune, 17 March 1994, Susumu Awanohara, “About Face,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 19 May 1994. Clinton justiﬁed his decision to those who wanted to see MFN revoked by declaring: “I ask you, will we do more to advance human rights that way?” New York Times, 27 May 1994. “The surrender at Beijing will make it impossible for friend or foe to trust his foreign policy word.” A.M. Rosenthal, “Bill Clinton’s Teachings,” New York Times, 27 May 1994. United States Information Service, 31 May 1994. United States Information Service, 24 August 1994. David Lampton, “China and Clinton’s America.” See International Herald Tribune, 14 November 1994. See David Tawei Lee, The Making of the Taiwan Relations Act: 20 Years in Retrospect, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. New York Times, 11 May 1995. “Li the Abrasive,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 6 July 1995. Japan Times, 5 February 1995. When Newt Gingrich later visited Taipei, however, he conformed to ofﬁcial policy and supported the one-China policy; see International Herald Tribune, 31 March, 2 April 1997. See Clinton, “A New Covenant for American Security.” Szamuely, “Clinton’s Clumsy Encounter with the World.” United States Information Service, 7 January 1992. United States Information Service, 26 March 1993. See Les Aspin’s Georgetown address of 2 September 1993 in United States Information Service, 3 September 1993. Washington Post, 27 December 1993–7 January 1994; see also Alan Tonelson, “Superpower Without a Sword,” Foreign Affairs, 72, 3 (1993), pp. 166–180. Sanford Gottlieb, Defense Addiction: Can America Kick the Habit? Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1997, p. 6. United States Information Service, 25 January 1994. Gottlieb, Defense Addiction, p. 147. United States Information Service, 23 October 1996. United States Information Service, 20 November 1996. State and Defense departments were not far apart in their views of the engagement policy; both stressed China’s importance as a strategic partner in the Asia

194

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66

67 68

Notes

Paciﬁc region to bring stability to the Korean peninsula and to contribute to proliferation control. See Assistant Secretary of State for Regional Security Affairs Chas Freeman’s remarks in United States Information Service, 29 October 1993. William Perry stressed that the US and China share responsibility for the security of the Asia Paciﬁc Region and noted WMD proliferation in South Asia, the South China Sea and Taiwan, as well as in the Korean peninsula. United States Information Service, 19 October 1994. United States Information Service, 22 May 1996. See James Mann, About Face: A History of America’s Curious Relationship with China, from Clinton to Nixon, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999, p. 137. John Pomfret, “Clinton Gets Up Close to New China,” International Herald Tribune, 2 July 1998. Julian Baum et al., “The Crying Game,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 16 July 1998. See Hisahiko Okazaki, “Clinton’s China Policy,” Japan Times, 24 November 1998. Paul Wolfowitz, “Remembering the Future,” The National Interest, 59 (Spring 2000), pp. 35–46. Ross H. Munro, “China: The Challenge of a Rising Power,” in Robert Kagan and William Kristol (eds) Present Dangers: Crisis and Opportunity in American Foreign and Defence Policy, San Francisco, Calif.: Encounter Books, 2000, p. 48. Robert B. Zoellick, “China: What Engagement Should Mean,” National Interest, 46 (1996/97), pp. 13–22. David Shambaugh, “Facing Reality in China,” Foreign Affairs, 80, 1 (2001), pp. 50–64. Ibid. Bates Gill, “Limited Engagement,” Foreign Affairs, 78, 4 (July/August 1999), pp. 65–76. Chas W. Freeman Jr., “Sino American Relations: Back to Basics,” Foreign Policy, 104 (1996), pp. 3–17. Japan Times, 22 July 1998. Lee, The Making of the Taiwan Relations Act, p. 194. Sutter, US Policy Toward China, pp. 123–124, 139. Nigel Holloway and Matt Forney, “That T-Word Again,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 20 February 1997. The term “blue team” was adopted from Chinese military exercises in which red and blue teams would conﬂict; see Robert G. Kaiser and Steven Mufson, “US Hardliners Paint Beijing as Big Menace,” International Herald Tribune, 23 February 2000. Beijing had deployed some 300 short-range BMs opposite Taiwan, and the number was expected to increase substantially. China’s force modernisation was described as “heavily dependent” upon arms imports from Russia and other CIS states. The Pentagon was concerned about the purchase of two Sovremenny destroyers from Russia with SSN-22 “Sunburn” anti-ship cruise missiles which could put US carriers at risk. See Annual Report on the Military Power of the People’s Republic of China, US Department of Defense, Ofﬁce of the Secretary of Defense, 12 July 2002. Available: <www.defenselink.mil/pubs/> (accessed 10 December 2002). See Richard Halloran, “Reading Beijing,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 25 February 1999; for Dennis Blair’s comment see “Cool it,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 23 March 2000. Richard Bernstein and Ross Munro, “The Coming Conﬂict with China,” Foreign Affairs, 76, 2 (1997), pp. 18–32.

Notes

195

69 Straits Times, 16 March 2000. 70 Ibid. 71 Nayana Chanda, “Coming in From the Cold,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 30 March 2000. 72 Romesh Ratnesar, “Bush’s Brainiest Hawk,” Time, 161, 4, 27 January 2003; “The Pentagon’s Highest Flying Hawk,” Business Week, 31 December 2001. For Wolfowitz’s views on the importance of democracy promotion and deterrence, see Wolfowitz, “Remembering the Future.” 73 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, Washington, D.C.: The White House, 17 September 2002, p. 1. 74 Ibid., p. 29. 75 Ibid., pp. 14, 15. 76 Ibid., pp. 25, 27. 77 Ibid., p. 29. 78 John Lewis Gaddis, “A Grand Strategy of Transformation,” Foreign Policy, 133 (2002), pp. 50–57. 79 Kurt Campbell, “A Strategic Embrace in Trouble,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 22 March 2001. 80 See the bipartisan study group report which included Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Armitage, James Kelly and others. The United States and Japan: Advancing Toward a Mature Partnership, INSS Special Report, Institute for National Strategic Studies, Washington, D.C.: National Defence University, 11 October 2000. Available: (accessed 11 December 2002). 81 See Washington Post, 23 April 2001. 82 Bush said that the US would do “whatever it took for Taiwan to defend itself.” See ABC news transcript Good Morning America, 25 April 2001. Available: <www.mthholyoke.edu.acad/int> (accessed 12 December 2002). On 25 April Bush said that the US would help Taiwan to defend itself but that there was no endorsement of Taiwan’s independence. See Inside Politics CNNTV. Available: <www.cnn.com/2001> (accessed 17 December 2002). New York Times, 27 April 2001. 83 See Taiwan Arms Sales, CNN.com. Available: <www.cnn.com/interactive/ allpolitics/0104/arms.sale/content.html> (accessed 16 December 2002). Also New York Times, 18 November 2001. 84 Nat Bellocchi, “US–Taiwan Relations Still Evolving,” Taipei Times, 30 October 2002. Available: <www.taiwansecurity.org/TT/2002/TT-102002.html> (accessed 16 December 2002). 85 Charles Snyder, “Wolfowitz Clariﬁes Position,” Taipei Times, 31 May 2002. Available: <www.taiwansecurity.org/TT/2002/TT-053102.html> (accessed 16 December 2002). 86 Bruce Gilley and David Murphy, “Power Play in Hainan,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 19 April 2001; Japan Times, 20 April 2001. 87 James Dao, “Closer Ties with China May Help U.S. on Iraq,” New York Times, 4 October 2002. 88 David Lague, “Beijing’s Tough Korea Call,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 6 March 2003. 89 Richard L. Armitage, A Comprehensive Approach to North Korea, National Defense University Forum, No. 159, March 1999. Available: <www.kimsoft.com/ 1997/armitag.com> (accessed 15 December 2002). 90 Bush’s words were: “North Korea is a regime arming with missiles and weapons of mass destruction, while starving its citizens . . . States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of

196

91 92 93 94

95 96 97

Notes

the world.” The President’s State of the Union Address, Washington, D.C.: The United States Capitol, 29 January 2002. Glen Kessler, “Bush Stresses Iraq, N. Korea Differences,” Washington Post, 3 January 2003. James Schlesinger, “Fragmentation and Hubris,” National Interest, 49 (Fall 1997) pp. 3–10. Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994, p. 812. The utility of the concert of powers for US foreign policy was explored by Richard Rosecrance, “A New Concert of Powers,” Foreign Affairs, 71, 2 (1992), pp. 64–82. In relation to the Asia Paciﬁc region, see Amitav Achariya, “A Concert of Asia?,” Survival, 41, 3 (1999), pp. 84–101. Soong-Bum Ahn, “China as Number One,” Current History, 100, 647 (2001), pp. 250–256. Fei-ling Wang, “To Incorporate China: A New Policy for a New Era,” Washington Quarterly, 21, 1 (1998), pp. 67–81. Thomas Metzger and Ramon H. Myers, “Chinese Nationalism and American Policy,” Orbis, 42, 2 (1998), pp. 21–36.

6 Values, identity and Asia Pacific regionalism 1 On the characteristics of a region see Bruce Russett, “International Regimes and the Study of Regions,” International Studies Quarterly, 13, 4 (December 1969), in Norman D. Palmer, The New Regionalism in Asia and the Paciﬁc, Lexington, Mass.: Lexington, 1991, pp. 6–7; Werner J. Feld and Gavin Boyd, “The Comparative Study of International Regions,” in Werner J. Feld and Gavin Boyd (eds), Comparative Regional Systems: West and East Europe, North America, the Middle East, and Developing Countries, New York: Pergamon press, 1980, p. 5. 2 See Chie Nakane and Chien Chiao, (eds) Home Bound: Studies in East Asian Society, Tokyo: Centre for East Asian Cultural Studies, 1992. 3 See The East Asian Miracle-Economic Growth and Public Policy, Oxford University Press: The World Bank Group, 1993; also Joseph E. Stiglitz and Shahid Yusuf (eds) Rethinking the East Asian Miracle, Oxford University Press: The World Bank Group, 2001. 4 See Robert Ross (ed.) East Asia in Transition: Toward a New Regional Order, Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1995. 5 Joyce E. Larson (ed.) New Foundations for Asian and Paciﬁc Security, New York: National Strategy Information Centre, 1980. 6 United States Information Service, 12 July 1993. 7 Reuters, 26 July 1993. 8 Li Peng said on this occasion that each country must deﬁne for itself its own human rights, and that “democracy is not an end but a means.” Reuters, 14 June 1993. 9 Straits Times, 17 June 1993. 10 Straits Times, 16 June 1993. 11 See “Joint Communiqué Twenty-Sixth ASEAN Ministerial Meeting, 23–24 July 1993”, ASEAN Documents Series, 1992–1994, Jakarta: ASEAN Secretariat, 1994, pp. 12–15. 12 The Nation (Thailand), 24 July 1993. 13 Business Times (Singapore), 24 September 1993. 14 Straits Times, 15 May 1993. 15 Anwar Ibrahim, “Asia’s New Civility,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 6 October 1994.

Notes

197

16 Anand Panyarachan, “Coping with the New Asian Ways,” Bangkok Post, 19 February 1993. 17 Straits Times, 28 September 1998. 18 Straits Times, 30 January 1999. 19 On the tension between Western and Asian approaches in APEC and the ARF, see Kishore Mahbubani, “The Paciﬁc Way,” Foreign Affairs, 74 1 (1995), pp. 100–112. 20 South China Morning Post, 21 May 1993. 21 Xinhua, 15 June 1993. 22 Michael Vatikiotis, “The First Step,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 3 June 1993. 23 See “Joint Communiqué Twenty-Sixth ASEAN Ministerial Meeting 23–24 July 1993.” 24 Rodney Tasker and Adam Schwarz, “Preventive Measures,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 4 August 1994. 25 Straits Times, 27 July 1994. 26 Straits Times, 26 July 1994. 27 Straits Times, 23 July 1994. 28 Straits Times, 17 December 1998. 29 See “Joint Communiqué Twenty Sixth ASEAN Ministerial Meeting 23–24 July 1993.” 30 Straits Times, 4 August 1995. 31 Sunday Times (Singapore), 30 July 1995. 32 Hisane Masake, “North East Asia’s Elusive Forum,” Japan Times, 23 December 1994. 33 Sunday Times, 22 August 1993. 34 South China Morning Post, 3 April 1995. 35 Straits Times, 24 May 1995. 36 Straits Times, 19 May 1995. 37 Bangkok Post, 15 July 1996. 38 Japan Times, 27 July 1999. 39 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, 4 November 2002, ASEAN Secretariat, Jakarta. Available: <www.aseansec.org/13165.htm> (accessed 15 December 2002). 40 Straits Times, 28 July 1993 41 Leszek Buszynski, “Thailand and Myanmar: the Perils of ‘Constructive Engagement,’ ” Paciﬁc Review, 11, 2 (1998), p. 290. 42 Michael Vatikiotis and Bertil Litner, “Pariah No More,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 3 March 1994. 43 Joe Leahy, “Round One Rangoon,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 1 August 1996; Straits Times, 26 July 1996. 44 ASEAN foreign ministers “need to act on values that are respectful and worthy of respect,” Jakarta Post, 22 July 1996; see Anuraj Manibhandu, Nussara Sawatsawang and Saritdet Marukatat, “ASEAN Role for Burma Poses Credibility Risk,” Bangkok Post, 20 July 1996. 45 Business Times, 16 August 1996. 46 Bangkok Post, 9 June 1996. 47 Straits Times, 29 November 1996. 48 Nonetheless, Myanmar participated informally in subsequent ASEAN meetings despite the lack of formal membership. For the Bangkok ASEM of January 1999 it was agreed that the Myanmar delegation could attend as long as they did not speak and sat behind a nameplate marked “new members.” See Bertil Lintner et al., “Growing Pains,” Far Eastern Economic Review,

198

49

50 51 52 53 54 55

56 57 58 59

60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73

Notes 28 January 1999. In the ASEAN–EU meeting in Vientiane in November 2000 a similar problem arose over Myanmar’s participation; the UK and France refused to join. Closing Statement by H.E. Domingo L. Siazon Jr. Chairman of the Fifth ASEAN Regional Forum, Jakarta: ASEAN Secretariat, July 1998; see also Jyoti Malhotra, “ASEAN Resists West’s Pressure on N-Rap,” Indian Express, 27 July 1998. India Today, 10 August 1998. Straits Times, 2 August 1995. Chairman’s Report of the Second Meeting of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam, 29–30 August 1995, Jakarta: ASEAN Secretariat, 1 August 1995. China’s Position Paper on the New Security Concept; July 31 2002, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China. Available: <www.fmprc.gov.cn> (accessed 18 December 2002). Straits Times, 28 June 2002. Peter Wade, Economic Theory and the Role of Government in East Asian Industrialisation, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990, Anis Chowdhury, Iyanatul Islam, The Newly Industrialising Economies of East Asia, London: Routledge, 1993. On the differences between Asian and Western approaches, see John Ravenhill, APEC and the Construction of Paciﬁc Rim Regionalism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp. 99–100. See Pekka Korhonen, “The Theory of the Flying Geese Pattern of Development and Its Interpretations,” Journal of Peace Research, 31, 1 (1994), pp. 93–108. Ravenhill, APEC and the Construction of Paciﬁc Rim Regionalism, pp. 50–51, 80. Ross Garnaut, “Introduction – APEC Ideas and Reality: History and prospects,” in Ippei Yamazawa (ed.) Asia Paciﬁc Economic Cooperation: Challenges and Tasks for the Twenty First Century, London: Routledge, 2000, p. 1. Interview with Indonesian member of the APEC EPG, Suhadi Mangkasuwondo, 5 December 1996. Straits Times, 14 July 1993. Australian Financial Review, 14 July 1993. Antara, 231/A (9 August 1993), 233/B (11 August 1993). Yoichi Funabashi, Asia Paciﬁc Fusion: Japan’s Role in Apec, Washington, D.C.: Institute for International Economics, 1995, p. 66. Masami Kagei and Hiroshi Kashikara, “APEC Majority Resists Target Date for Free Trade,” Nikkei Weekly, 22 November 1993. Ravenhill, APEC and the Construction of Paciﬁc Rim Regionalism, pp. 126–130. International Herald Tribune, 14 November 1994. Interview with Indonesian member of the APEC EPG, Suhadi Mangkasuwondo, 5 December 1996. Garnaut, “Introduction-APEC Ideas and Reality,” p. 9. Adam Schwarz, “Local Heroes,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 6 October 1994. United States Information Service, 24 February 1994. Ibid., 27 May 1994. Charles Smith, “Bump Ahead,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 15 September 1994.

Notes

199

74 Bangkok Post, 19, 21 March 1994. 75 Thailand wanted agricultural subsidies removed, a DSM, and a commitment from the US not to resort to unilateralism. Editorial, “What Chuan Should Tell APEC at Bogor,” Bangkok Post, 7 November 1994. 76 Bangkok Post, 14 September 1994. 77 Japan Times, 3 November 1994. 78 Interview with Indonesian member of the APEC EPG, Suhadi Mangkasuwondo, 5 December 1996. 79 APEC Economic Leaders Declaration of Common Resolve, Bogor, Indonesia, November 15 1994, APEC Secretariat. Available: <www.apec.org.sg> (accessed 16 December 2002). 80 New York Times, 16 November 1994. 81 Straits Times, 16 November 1994. 82 “Race to Asean,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 9 June 1994. 83 Financial Times, Straits Times, 17 January 1995. 84 The PBC presented a report to Japanese Prime Minister Murayama for the Osaka meeting calling for reductions in the time for the implementation of Uruguay round commitments, human resource development, harmonised custom-clearance procedures and product standard regulations, and an infrastructure task force which would report on infrastructure in the region. The Council insisted that every goal must be backed by clear deadlines and targets. Bustanil Ariﬁn, Les McGraw and Minoru Murofushi, “Business View of APEC,” International Herald Tribune, 23–24 September 1995. 85 Straits Times, 27 June 1995. 86 Straits Times, 1 June 1995. 87 Straits Times, 13 November 1995. 88 Japan Times, 6 October 1995. 89 Japan Times, 16 November 1995. Malaysia’s Trade and Industry Minister Raﬁdah insisted on adding the word “voluntary” in the ﬁnal communiqué and delayed the conclusion by 45 minutes. Hashimoto and Ali Alatas retorted that the action plans were voluntary in any case but ﬁnally relented. See Sebastian Moffett, “The Devil’s in the Details,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 30 November 1995. 90 Japan Times, 26 August 1999. 91 Straits Times, 5, 9, 10 November 1995. 92 Japan Times, 21 June 1998. 93 Hisane Masaki, “Japan Plays Hard Ball over Liberalisation Issue,” Japan Times, 11 September 1998. 94 International Herald Tribune, 19 November 1998; Anuraj Manibhandu, “No Room To Hedge On Change,” Bangkok Post, 20 November 1998. 95 At the Shanghai APEC meeting of October 2001 leaders called for free trade and for a new round of global trade talks, but by then the APEC momentum had dissipated and nothing new was introduced. Straits Times, 22 October 2001. 96 C. Fred Bergsten, Whither APEC? The Progress to Date and the Agenda for the Future, Special Report 9, Washington, D.C.: Institute of International Economics, October 1997, pp. 5, 10. 97 This was APEC’s positive educational role in maintaining support for open trading policies. See Garnaut, “Introduction – APEC Ideas and Reality,” p. 16. 98 Reuters, 15 November 1995. 99 Bergsten, Whither APEC?, p. 5. 100 Xinhua, 24 July 1993.

200 101 102 103 104 105

106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113

Notes Sunday Times, 25 July 1993. Straits Times, 19 April 1995. Straits Times, 3 May 2000. Michael Vatikiotis, “Block Mentality,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 9 December 1999. See Towards an East Asian Community: Region of Peace, Prosperity and Progress, East Asia Vision Group Report, 2001, Japan: Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Available: <www.mofa.go.jp/region/asia-paci/report2001> (accessed 20 December 2002). Sachiko Hirao, “Pursuit of FTAs. Vital but troublesome,” Japan Times, 5 May 2002. Japan Times, 13 January 2002. Japan Times, 3 January 2002. Japan Times, 6 November 2001. Straits Times, 23 October 2000. Japan Times, 21 March 2002. Claude Barﬁeld, “Preferential Pacts that Hurt Trade,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 4 July 2002. Xie Hong, “Beijing ‘Seeks Economic Bloc in East Asia,’ ” Straits Times, 20 March 2003.

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Index

Abdullah Ahmad Badawi 144, 146 Abe, Shinzo 78 Albright, Madeleine 67, 125, 147, 149 Ali Alatas 140, 145, 148, 149, 150 Almond, Gabriel 2 Amnuay Viravan 147 Anand Panyarachan 141 Anwar Ibrahim 141 APEC: Asian views 152, 155, 158; Australia 153; China 156, 157, 158; Eminent Persons Group (EPG) 154, 155; Japan 153, 156, 157; Malaysia 156, 157; origins 153; Paciﬁc Business Forum [later Business Advisory Council (APECBAC)] 156; Singapore 153, 158; Taiwan 157; Thailand 153, 156; South Korea, 156, 157; Summits 74, 132, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, US 154–9; Western approach 152, 155, 158. Arendt, Hannah 111 Armitage, Richard 105, 108, 131, 132 ASEAN 28, 49, 144; Annual Ministerial Meetings (1993) 139, 141, 144, 159; (1994) 148; (1995) 147; (1997) 149; ASEAN plus three meeting 159, 161; China FTA 49, 161; Free Trade Agreement (AFTA) 155, 156; Post Ministerial Conferences 31; (1992) 144; (1993) 148; South China Sea 31; ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) 143–51; China 144, 146, 147,150, 151; Korea 146; Myanmar 148, 149; South Asia 150; South China Sea 145, 146, 147; Taiwan 145 Asia–Europe Meeting (ASEM) 149, 150 Asian ﬁnancial crisis 1997–1998 50 Asian Monetary Fund (AMF) 160

Asian values 139–42 Aspin, Les 123 Aung Sang Suu Kyi 148 Axworthy, Lloyd 158 Berger, Sandy 119 Bergsten, Fred 154, 158, 159 Boas, Franz 3 Bolton, John R. 105 Brodie, Bernard 9 Brown, Ron H. 121 Burma see Myanmar Bush, George H. W. (b. 1924), 27, 33, 59 Bush, George W. (b. 1946) 74, 75, 105, 107, 108 Cam Ranh Bay 129 Carr, E. H. 12 Carter, Jimmy 73, 94, 96 Chang Chun-hsiung 44 Chen Shui-bian 42, 43, 44, 45, 51, 52, 53, 71 Chi Haotian 26, 33, 37, 54, 132 Chiang Ching-kuo 34 Chiang Kai-shek 34 Chiang Mai Initiative (2000) 160 China: Central Military Commission (CMC) 26, 30, 33, 34, 37, 43, 54; Communist Party (CP) 27; Confucianism 23; East Asian economic regionalism 159, 160, 162; Japan 28, 62, 69–70, 72, 75; Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) 33, 37, 43, 147, 151; nationalism 26, 27, 29; “ocean rights” 26; one-China principle 33, 35, 42, 52; realism 22–3; People’s Liberation Army (PLA) 30, 32, 33, 34, 39, 43; South China Sea

210

Index

China – cont. 30–2, 49; Taiwan missile ﬁrings (1995–1996) 37, 39; US 28, 119–29, 131–2; White Paper on Taiwan 33, 36, 42, 43 Christopher, Warren 36, 65, 118, 119, 120, 121, 139 Chuan Leekpai 153 Clinton, Bill 39, 64, 73, 116–29, 139, 157 Cohen, William S. 67, 101, 129 Conner, Walker 45 Deng Xiaoping 25, 29, 34, 43, 70, 125 Diaoyu/Sengaku Islands 28, 70–1 Doi Takako 76, 78 Eagleburger, Lawrence S. 120 East Asian Economic Caucus (EAEC) 159, 160 East Asian regionalism 160–1, 162 European Union 144, 148, 149 Freeman, Chas W. Jr. 127 Fukuda Yasuo 1–2, 78, 81 Fukuyama, Francis 116–17 Gallucci, Robert 92, 94, 95 Geertz, Clifford 9 Gehner, Ernst 15, 45 Gernet, Jacques 23 Giddens, Anthony 11 Gilpin, Robert 12 Gingrich, Newt 122 Goh Chok Tong 148, 155, 161 Gorbachev, Mikhail S.17, 18 Gray, Colin S. 9 Halbwachs, Maurice 6 Han Soon-joo 98, 160 Harrison, Selig S. 94, 104, 108 Hashimoto Ryutaro 63, 64, 67, 80, 156, 159 Hatoyama Ichiro 58 Hawke, Bob 153 Helms, Jesse 122 Hosokawa Morihiro 61, 62 Hu Jintao 54 Huntington, Samuel 3 Hwang Jang-yop 81, 89 India 150 Inglehart, Robert 3 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) 91, 92, 93, 96, 105, 106, 132

Ishihara Shintaro 68, 71 Japan: Anti Terrorism Act 75; Asian regionalism 159, 160, 161; Cabinet Legislation Bureau 60, 65, 66, 78; China 28, 62, 69–70, 72, 75; Communist Party 55; constitution 55, 58, 68, 69; Defence Agency 61, 65, 77, 78, 81, 82; Democratic Party 63, 64, 67, 68, 74, 82; emergency legislation (2002) 78; FTAs (Free Trade Agreements) 161, 162; Gulf War (1991) 59, 61; Komeito 55, 61, 67, 68, 69, 74, 76; Liberal Democratic Party 58, 59, 63, 64, 65, 67, 68, 69, 70, 73, 74, 77, 78, 79, 80, 82; Liberal Party 67, 68; Malacca Straits 77; Ministry of Foreign Affairs 60, 65, 66, 80, 82, 156, 158, 159; Ministry for International Trade and Industry [MITI] (later Ministry of Economics and Trade and Industry [METI]) 156, 160, 161; new right 78; North Korea, 60–2, 64, 73, 77, 78, 80; ODA 70, 72; Peacekeeping Operations Law (1992) 60, 69, 75, 76; Self Defence Forces (SDF) 60, 75, 76, 77, 79; Socialist Party [later Social Democratic Party] 55, 58, 62, 63, 64, 66, 67, 64; South China Sea 66, 67; South Korea 75; Taiwan 66, 67, 71–2; Theatre Missile Defence (TMD) 80; US 58, 59, 64–9, 126 Jayakumar, Shunmugam 145, 146 Jervis, Robert 7, 8 Jiang Zemin 26, 33, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 42, 49, 52, 54, 69, 101, 104, 125, 126, 132, 159 Joffe, Ellie 43 Johnston, Alastair Iain 9 Kaifu Toshiki 59, 60 Kajiyama Seiroku 65, 67 Kan Naoto 67, 78, 80, 81 Kantor, Mickey 157 Kato Koichi 69 Keating, Paul J. 155 Kelly, James A. 105 Kim Dae-jung 85, 98, 99, 100, 101, 107, 141, 160 Kim Il-sung 86, 87, 92, 93, 97 Kim Jong-il 81, 87, 88, 89, 94, 104 Kim Young-sam 85, 88, 93, 94, 96, 97, 98

Index 211 Kishi Nobusuke 58 Kissinger, Henry A. 120 Koizumi Junichiro 73, 74, 75, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 108, 161, 162 Kono Yohei 61, 72 Korea, North: Agreed Framework (1994) 62, 95, 96, 97–8, 99, 105, 106; APEC 97; economic reforms 104; famine 88, 89; Japan 60–2, 64, 73, 77, 78, 80; Juche 86, 87, 104; Korean Worker’s Party 87; naval intrusions into South Korea 103, 104; Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) 91, 92, 93, 95; nuclear programme 91, 92; US chapter 4; Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) 86, 91 Korea, South: East Asian economic regionalism 160, 162; Japan 75; Juche, attitude towards 97; “Sunshine Policy” 85, 98, 102, 103, 106, 107 Korean Summit (2000) 97, 101–2, 106 Kozyrev, Andrei V. 93 Kristoff, Sandra 155, 156 Lake, Anthony 117, 119, 121, 124 Lee Kuan Yew 40, 56, 141, 142, 149 Lee Teng-hui 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 46, 47, 49, 50, 51, 71, 72, 141; “two-states theory” 41; visit to Cornell University (1995) 36, 122 Li Peng 33, 40, 70, 120, 140 Lien Chan 38, 43, 50, 52 Liu Huaqing 30, 34, 37, 38 Lord, Winston 95, 116, 117, 119, 120, 123, 147 Lu, Annette 52 Mahathir, Mohamad 47, 140, 146, 148, 149, 150, 153, 154, 156, 158, 159, 160 Maruyama Masao 56, 57 Mischief Reef 31 Miyazawa Kiichi 69 Morgenthau, Hans J. 11, 12, 24 Mori Yoshihiro 72 Muravchik, Joshua 116 Murayama Tomiichi 62, 63, 64 Murkowski, Frank H. 122 Myanmar 148, 149 Nakasone Yasuhiro 59, 68, 69 Nakayama Taro 68 Narongchai Akrasanee 155 Neo-realism 12–14

Niebhur, Reinhold 12 Nodong missile 81, 105 Nonaka Hiromu 76, 80 Nye, Joseph S. Jr. 26, 62, 64 Obuchi Keizo 70, 79, 99 Onuf, Nicholas G. 11 Ozawa Ichiro 60, 65, 69 Pakistan 150 Perry, William 65, 93, 95, 99, 100, 125, 158 Philippines: South China Sea 31, 145, 146; Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) 48 Powell, Colin L. 132 Putnam, Robert 2 Qian Qichen 28, 31, 42, 43, 51, 147, 151, 152, 159 Raﬁdah Aziz 159 Ramos, Fidel 34 Realism, and Realpolitik 11–12, 22, 24 Roh Moo-hyun 107 Roh Tae-woo 85 Russett, Bruce M. 116 Schwarzenberger, Georg 12 Sengaku Island/Diaoyu 29, 70–1 Shakashvili, John 39 Shii Kazuo 76 Siazon, Domingo 149 Singapore 145; Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) 161; Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (IDSS) 151 Smith, Anthony D. 45 Snyder, Jack 9 Soong, James 43, 44, 45 South China Sea 26, 27, 29–32, 48; ASEAN 31; China 30–2, 49; Fiery Cross Reef 30, 31; Japan 66, 67; Philippines 31, 145, 146; US 48, 49 Spero, Joan E. 155 Suharto 35, 155 Supachai Panitchpakdi 154 Surin Pitsuwan 149 Taepodong missile 80, 81, 100, 101 Taiwan 22–54; confederation proposal 53; Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) 34, 35, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 47, 51, 52; “Go South” Policy 35;

212

Index

Taiwan – cont. Japan 66, 67, 71–2; KMT 34, 35, 38, 39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 47, 52; mainland trade and investment 50, 51; nation building 45–8; New Party 38, 39, 47; People’s First Party 44; Taiwan Solidarity Union 44; “three links” 51; US 28, 36, 38, 113, 122, 127, 128, 131; Tanaka Kakuei 71 Tang Jiaxuan 32, 70, 75 Thailand 162 Toynbee, Arnold J. 3 Umehara Takeshi 3 US: Agreed Framework (1994) 62, 95–6, 99, 105, 106; Bush administration (1989–1993) 118; Bush administration (2001–) 105–7, 116, 129–32; carrier groups 38, 39, 49; China 119–29, 131–2; Clinton administration 48, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 100, 102, 116–29, 142; Japan 58, 59, 64–9, 126; Joint Chiefs of Staff 39; Most Favoured Nation status (MFN) 95, 119–21; neo-Wilsonians 111, 112, 113, 117, 118 119, 121, 123, 130, 139; non-proliferation policy 96, 105, 120, 132; North Korea, 84–110; Nye

report (1995) 64; Reagan administration 27, 34, 113; Republicans 79, 113, 121–2, 124, 129; Shanghai communiqué (1982) 27; South China Sea 48, 49; Taiwan 28, 36, 38, 113, 127, 128, 131; Taiwan Relations Act (1979) 122, 128 Vance, Cyrus R. 120 Vasquez, John A. 12 Waltz, Kenneth N. 12 Watanabe Michio 59 Weber, Max 2 Wolfowitz, Paul 93, 105, 129, 131 World Trade Organization (WTO) 53 Yamasaki Taku 60, 67, 68, 74, 77, 79 Yang Baibing 26 Yang Shangkun 30 Yasukuni Shrine 29, 74, 75, 82 Yoshida Shigeru 56, 78 Zhang Wannian 33, 37, 43, 54 Zhang Zhen 33, 34, 37, 38 Zhu Rongji 43, 82, 104, 161 Zoellick, Robert B. 127

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