Waiting for Goldilocks: Getting Japan's Foreign Policy Just Right

[Editor's Note: This essay is part of a series of Audits of the Conventional Wisdom, a project of the Center for International Studies at MIT.]

Generations of American parents have read their children a story called "Goldilocks and the Three Bears." It is the story of a young girl who wanders into the bears' home in the woods. Goldilocks sits on chairs that are too big and too small, before finding one that is "just right." She rejects bowls of their porridge as being too hot and as too cold, until she finds one that is "just right." Like most children's stories, Goldilocks is metaphorical. Americans use it to describe the process of finding just the right balance between alternatives that are too extreme.

This metaphor captures the challenges awaiting Abe Shinzo, Japan's new prime minister very nicely -- particularly in the areas of foreign and security policy. His predecessor, Koizumi Junichiro, had already been like Goldilocks in his extended effort to find just the right policy toward North Korea. In his 2002 visit to Pyongyang he explored engagement, only to adopt toward a harder, more confrontational line. If the first was too hot and the second too cold, Abe is left with the responsibility to find a policy toward the DPRK that is "just right." North Korea's nuclear weapons test in October 2006 and its July 2006 missile tests certainly do not make this any easier.

Growing Ties to China

China policy provides the same challenge. Prime Minister Koizumi often acknowledged that Sino-Japanese economic relations are mutually benefi cial and that the two economies are complimentary. Indeed, bilateral trade has never been more robust. Japan provides China with technology and capital, while China provides Japan with cheap production and an export platform. Ten million Chinese work in Japanese firms, and that number continues to grow as Japan redirects its direct foreign investment toward China and away from the United States. Japan's export dependence on China has soared -- nearly to U.S. levels -- and the share of Japanese imports from China has nearly doubled. Both countries are energy importers, so each benefit considerably from global resource development, from stability in the sea lanes, and from the efficient use of resources. And both have an abiding interest in a vibrant regional economy.

According to a December 2003 Yomiuri Shimbun poll, 53 percent of Japanese respondents considered the United States to be the most important country from a political perspective, compared with 30 percent for China. But, when asked who is Japan's most important trade partner, more than half answered China -- twice as

many as named the United States.

Confrontational Diplomacy

Still, Japan's China diplomacy has been confrontational. Koizumi poked a long sharp stick in Beijing's eye by repeatedly visiting the Yasukuni Shrine, most recently in August 2006. Abe secretly visited the shrine in April.

Notwithstanding the fact that Beijing uses anti-Japanese nationalism to consolidate its own power, Tokyo has not gone nearly far enough to earn the trust of its neighbors. Japan still has a very bad reputation in East Asia due to its unwillingness to confront history squarely -- undoubtedly the largest constraint on its diplomacy. Japanese voters await a Goldilocks who will get the history issue -- and China policy -- "just right." What would this take? And is Abe the man for the job? Sino-Japanese trade and investment are at record levels, so clearly more needs to be done.

Certainly, a moratorium on Yasukuni visits by the prime minister -- a suggestion made by former diplomat Togo Kazuhiko -- would be a start. Replacing the current modus vivendi in which China and Japan compete for regional dominance would be helpful as well. If redirected through multilateral institutions, Sino-Japanese competition could be positive for both sides. Japanese strategists could continue to proceed functionally, building cooperation in specific policy areas such as energy, crime, the environment, and the economy. They could continue taking small and very tentative steps toward a "comprehensive" arrangement, an "open, transparent, and inclusive" regional trade bloc. Tokyo has sent intermittent signals that it could accept an East Asian Community that excludes the United States, and in the run-up to the first meeting of the nascent EAC in Kuala Lumpur in December 2005, Japan's ambivalence about U.S. participation was more transparent than the economic institutions it was proposing.