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The Japan that Comes Up with Ideas©
Akio Morita and Shintaro Ishihara in The Japan That Can Say No and the accompanying trends of the subsequent decade and a half admirably began to put an end to the cycle of Japan imitating the West. However, now Japan needs the next step, and that is the topic of this essay.
Recently, we see increasing world awareness of Japanese efforts to improve global political clout. Japanese efforts to obtain a seat on the United Nations Security Council, mutterings about amending Article IX of the Japanese Constitution to permit further Japanese involvement in foreign military activities, and even the JET Program* show Japan looking for a stronger presence in world affairs. Now, rather than just saying ‘no’, Japan must come up with innovative ideas to put an end to the practice of follow the leader.
Indeed, the JET Program displays Japan’s ability to innovate and invent. JET exemplifies characteristic Japanese values such as the importance of education, and the ability to learn while teaching, as well as the ability to teach by showing others how well one learns. To find more of these ideas, we would do well to discover fundamental Japanese values. Those who have taught in Japan and learned from Japan, as well as the Japanese themselves, should apply the best of these qualities to international relations.
For years, a cloud surrounded this proposition. The propaganda of the 20th Century and earlier encouraged theories of ethnic superiority in many countries. In a counter-reaction, mainstream Japan squashed the idea that Japanese practices could have potentially great contributions to world culture. Japan now faces a problem of how to rediscover those core Japanese values that made it the model of communitarians.
Many propose Japan’s playing the West’s own game better than the West played the game itself led to the excesses of Japanese military excursions of the last two centuries. In fact, if you take that theory to it’s natural conclusion, one could say that the Japanese sped up the demise of imperialism by showing the corruptness of the type of blatant colonialism advanced by the West.
People appreciate this lesson in gradually greater degrees as we move further away from Japan. For instance, to say the least, China and Korea see no redeeming residue from the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The Co-Prosperity Sphere appears to China and Korea as one more phase in the millennial old politics practiced among the three kingdoms. Filipinos regarding World War II display less hostility. As we move further abroad, Indonesians acknowledge in publications and on a personal level the role the Japanese played in giving the Indonesians the confidence to usurp the Dutch. Indonesians saw fellow Asians were able to effectively administrate their nation. Moving still further away, Europe’s moral rejection of colonialism was hastened by World War II.
For much of recent history Japan played catch up with the West. Japan’s extraordinary success at playing catch up with the West makes her a unique model for developing nations. In Meiji, Taisho, and Showa, Japan competed with the West. In Heisei, we began to try to find a way to cooperate with the West. Japan and others cultivate Japan’s role as a mentor to developing countries. What about Japan makes the Japanese nation consistently rise to the top, formerly as a colonizer, and now as an economic power?
Japan leaped ahead of the West into a communal society because the Tokugawa Era shut Japan off from Europe and the negative influences of the Age of Individualism, according to a popular theory espoused in Japan As Number One: Lessons for America by Ezra F. Vogel. Certainly individual rights require respect, but any philosophy can be taken to extremes, and Japan proves the advantages of moderation in individualism. In the 21st Century we need a way to recognize and develop Japanese values as Japanese nurtured them from the 17th to mid-19th Centuries, without closing our doors to the outside world. This challenge is not as difficult as it appears.
Over the last couple decades, the international perception of Japanese society as being well administered has waned. This author firmly disagrees with the notion that Japanese society took a turn for the worse at the beginning of the ‘90s. Japan’s incredibly low illiteracy, secondary school dropout rates, out-of-wedlock births, teenage births, violent crime, theft, and divorce, to name just a few of the positive attributes of Japanese society remain remarkably steady. These achievements should make Japan the envy of many nations, if not all major industrialized nations.
Stock market returns, investment rates, and other economic indicators cannot change the fact that by comparison to every other populous country in the world, Japan superbly manages the most important factors for societal quality of life. No other country with as few natural resources as Japan provides such a high standard of living for as large a number of people. This record of a nation that has done more with less than any nation in the history of the world refutes the objection that economic quality of life of other major industrialized powers proves the flaws in Japan’s methods. Bad times in Japan seem far preferable to the good times in many other countries.
Certainly the system shows cracks in places; for instance, corruption in a number of Japanese social structures. However, many of the current problems in Japan, such as corruption, arose due to an excessive zeal to import Western morality. For instance, according to some estimates the majority of foreign exchange into North Korea is derived from the pachinko industry in Japan. Pre-Meiji history includes plentiful examples of licensed gambling. Marginalization of pachinko, for example, causes more problems than effective regulation. Another example, among major industrialized nations with a quasi-legal sex industry, only Japan fails to regulate sanitation. Consequently, the increasing AIDS rate in Japan contrasts with declines in every other major industrialized nation. Frequently we can trace the slippage in the admirable rates mentioned above of low illiteracy, drop out rates, etc. to the fault of compromising Japanese ideals for Western ones.
Incongruities such as these causes the outside world to look at Japan and scratch their collective heads about why a country as well administered as Japan fails to fix these very obvious flaws in the machine. The Japanese system breaks down when Japanese abdicate Japanese common sense in favor of Western beliefs. For example, in the case of pachinko, claims that Japan strives to solve the North Korean dispute conflict with the facts that Japan takes insufficient action to regulate money laundering with North Korea. This incongruity escapes foreigners, and results in unnecessary difficulties for Japan. Because of Japanese conflicted notions in adopting Western systems, foreigners look at Japan and come up with theories such as Karel Van Wolferen’s in The Enigma of Japanese Power: People and Politics in a Stateless Nation.
Clearly, Japan faces challenges, but the solutions to those challenges require the application of the lessons of Japanese history and traditional Japanese values. So why not apply those lessons and values? How come Japan lacks a place among the leading political nations, if not the leader of the global community, to the same extent others clearly recognize Japan’s economic prowess? Japan measures her written political history in millennium, while America measures her written political history in centuries, and yet Japan allows America to dictate terms to it. First, America says to put this Article IX in your Constitution**. Now America says to take it out. America, the only nation to have ever used nuclear weapons against humans, dictates the terms those weapons may be possessed by other nations. America welcomes Japan to play a role in global affairs, but America forbids Japan to reprimand America for military aggression. America permits Japan’s development of a Third Way of economics, except when those methods conflict with American economics.
Curiously enough, the reason for this lies with the lack of closure on World War II. For example, Japan lacks a signed peace treaty with Russia. While China and Japan executed a Friendship Treaty, conflict among our peoples still simmers. Most significantly, if the American Occupation of Japan supposedly ended in 1952, why do the Americans station such large numbers of troops here? If the Occupation is over, why is the occupying army still here? When wars end, don’t the armies go home?
Instead, Japan and America have a reciprocal relationship of colonialism. Economically, Dependency Theory reigns, and Japanese companies develop American raw materials and sell finished goods to America. In juxtaposition, America extends its military umbrella over Japan. This ensures poor political health for both countries. American soldiers suffer as surrogates, and relying on foreign mercenaries morally weakens Japan. Generations of Japanese youths grow up without taking the appropriate pride in their country because they never explore their own ideals because they never have to fight (not in a military sense) for Japanese ideals. If an entire nation never determines the true reasons for protecting one’s beliefs, no wonder obfuscation inevitably results.
The solution is that the responsibility for defending Japan must be Japan’s responsibility alone. While doing so, Article IX must be preserved and improved. Article IX is an admirable goal, and was forged in the warm afterglow of finding common ground among recent enemies. However, the limitations of Article IX have become clear. Trying to insist that a nation does not have a force to defend itself is unreasonable. Japan has come to that conclusion, and modified the implementation of Article IX accordingly. To reflect this reality, and enforce the image that Japan follows the rule of law, Japan should amend the second clause of Article IX by including the words: 'outside our nation's borders' after "will never be maintained".
America should be rightly proud for suggesting the Japanese adopt pacifism. Japan should be rightly proud of executing the pacifist path with exemplary consistency. Common sense dictates that if the Americans thought Article IX to be good enough for the Japanese, Article IX is good enough for the Americans to apply to themselves. An amended Article IX applied internationally is an idea whose time has come if we are serious about advancing international relations, and improving economic prosperity. Military assets by their nature do not appreciate. Investment in trade, and improving people’s personal wealth bring returns on investment that a rusting tank, or an exploding missile only deplete.
Consequently, troops that are positioned outside a nation’s territory should qualify a nation to be labeled a de facto aggressor, and the UN Charter should reflect that fact. Excuses like ‘the host government wants us here’, or ‘we were invited’ are as dated as the former banana republics of Latin America. Effectively, we are applying Article IX to all nations. Granted, this idea may sound extreme, or a bit far-fetched, but this is the direction the world wants to eventually go. Perhaps we are decades or centuries away, but these are pacifist ideals that Japan has nurtured and developed for more than half a century. While the brush of Article IX might have been American Nationals, they were using a Japanese canvas and a paint blended from a dying age of imperialism.
*The author is Chair of the Western Japan Chapter of the JET Alumni Association.
**The Japanese Constitution Article IX
(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 a 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.
Recently, we see increasing world awareness of Japanese efforts to improve global political clout. Japanese efforts to obtain a seat on the United Nations Security Council, mutterings about amending Article IX of the Japanese Constitution to permit further Japanese involvement in foreign military activities, and even the JET Program* show Japan looking for a stronger presence in world affairs. Now, rather than just saying ‘no’, Japan must come up with innovative ideas to put an end to the practice of follow the leader.
Indeed, the JET Program displays Japan’s ability to innovate and invent. JET exemplifies characteristic Japanese values such as the importance of education, and the ability to learn while teaching, as well as the ability to teach by showing others how well one learns. To find more of these ideas, we would do well to discover fundamental Japanese values. Those who have taught in Japan and learned from Japan, as well as the Japanese themselves, should apply the best of these qualities to international relations.
For years, a cloud surrounded this proposition. The propaganda of the 20th Century and earlier encouraged theories of ethnic superiority in many countries. In a counter-reaction, mainstream Japan squashed the idea that Japanese practices could have potentially great contributions to world culture. Japan now faces a problem of how to rediscover those core Japanese values that made it the model of communitarians.
Many propose Japan’s playing the West’s own game better than the West played the game itself led to the excesses of Japanese military excursions of the last two centuries. In fact, if you take that theory to it’s natural conclusion, one could say that the Japanese sped up the demise of imperialism by showing the corruptness of the type of blatant colonialism advanced by the West.
People appreciate this lesson in gradually greater degrees as we move further away from Japan. For instance, to say the least, China and Korea see no redeeming residue from the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The Co-Prosperity Sphere appears to China and Korea as one more phase in the millennial old politics practiced among the three kingdoms. Filipinos regarding World War II display less hostility. As we move further abroad, Indonesians acknowledge in publications and on a personal level the role the Japanese played in giving the Indonesians the confidence to usurp the Dutch. Indonesians saw fellow Asians were able to effectively administrate their nation. Moving still further away, Europe’s moral rejection of colonialism was hastened by World War II.
For much of recent history Japan played catch up with the West. Japan’s extraordinary success at playing catch up with the West makes her a unique model for developing nations. In Meiji, Taisho, and Showa, Japan competed with the West. In Heisei, we began to try to find a way to cooperate with the West. Japan and others cultivate Japan’s role as a mentor to developing countries. What about Japan makes the Japanese nation consistently rise to the top, formerly as a colonizer, and now as an economic power?
Japan leaped ahead of the West into a communal society because the Tokugawa Era shut Japan off from Europe and the negative influences of the Age of Individualism, according to a popular theory espoused in Japan As Number One: Lessons for America by Ezra F. Vogel. Certainly individual rights require respect, but any philosophy can be taken to extremes, and Japan proves the advantages of moderation in individualism. In the 21st Century we need a way to recognize and develop Japanese values as Japanese nurtured them from the 17th to mid-19th Centuries, without closing our doors to the outside world. This challenge is not as difficult as it appears.
Over the last couple decades, the international perception of Japanese society as being well administered has waned. This author firmly disagrees with the notion that Japanese society took a turn for the worse at the beginning of the ‘90s. Japan’s incredibly low illiteracy, secondary school dropout rates, out-of-wedlock births, teenage births, violent crime, theft, and divorce, to name just a few of the positive attributes of Japanese society remain remarkably steady. These achievements should make Japan the envy of many nations, if not all major industrialized nations.
Stock market returns, investment rates, and other economic indicators cannot change the fact that by comparison to every other populous country in the world, Japan superbly manages the most important factors for societal quality of life. No other country with as few natural resources as Japan provides such a high standard of living for as large a number of people. This record of a nation that has done more with less than any nation in the history of the world refutes the objection that economic quality of life of other major industrialized powers proves the flaws in Japan’s methods. Bad times in Japan seem far preferable to the good times in many other countries.
Certainly the system shows cracks in places; for instance, corruption in a number of Japanese social structures. However, many of the current problems in Japan, such as corruption, arose due to an excessive zeal to import Western morality. For instance, according to some estimates the majority of foreign exchange into North Korea is derived from the pachinko industry in Japan. Pre-Meiji history includes plentiful examples of licensed gambling. Marginalization of pachinko, for example, causes more problems than effective regulation. Another example, among major industrialized nations with a quasi-legal sex industry, only Japan fails to regulate sanitation. Consequently, the increasing AIDS rate in Japan contrasts with declines in every other major industrialized nation. Frequently we can trace the slippage in the admirable rates mentioned above of low illiteracy, drop out rates, etc. to the fault of compromising Japanese ideals for Western ones.
Incongruities such as these causes the outside world to look at Japan and scratch their collective heads about why a country as well administered as Japan fails to fix these very obvious flaws in the machine. The Japanese system breaks down when Japanese abdicate Japanese common sense in favor of Western beliefs. For example, in the case of pachinko, claims that Japan strives to solve the North Korean dispute conflict with the facts that Japan takes insufficient action to regulate money laundering with North Korea. This incongruity escapes foreigners, and results in unnecessary difficulties for Japan. Because of Japanese conflicted notions in adopting Western systems, foreigners look at Japan and come up with theories such as Karel Van Wolferen’s in The Enigma of Japanese Power: People and Politics in a Stateless Nation.
Clearly, Japan faces challenges, but the solutions to those challenges require the application of the lessons of Japanese history and traditional Japanese values. So why not apply those lessons and values? How come Japan lacks a place among the leading political nations, if not the leader of the global community, to the same extent others clearly recognize Japan’s economic prowess? Japan measures her written political history in millennium, while America measures her written political history in centuries, and yet Japan allows America to dictate terms to it. First, America says to put this Article IX in your Constitution**. Now America says to take it out. America, the only nation to have ever used nuclear weapons against humans, dictates the terms those weapons may be possessed by other nations. America welcomes Japan to play a role in global affairs, but America forbids Japan to reprimand America for military aggression. America permits Japan’s development of a Third Way of economics, except when those methods conflict with American economics.
Curiously enough, the reason for this lies with the lack of closure on World War II. For example, Japan lacks a signed peace treaty with Russia. While China and Japan executed a Friendship Treaty, conflict among our peoples still simmers. Most significantly, if the American Occupation of Japan supposedly ended in 1952, why do the Americans station such large numbers of troops here? If the Occupation is over, why is the occupying army still here? When wars end, don’t the armies go home?
Instead, Japan and America have a reciprocal relationship of colonialism. Economically, Dependency Theory reigns, and Japanese companies develop American raw materials and sell finished goods to America. In juxtaposition, America extends its military umbrella over Japan. This ensures poor political health for both countries. American soldiers suffer as surrogates, and relying on foreign mercenaries morally weakens Japan. Generations of Japanese youths grow up without taking the appropriate pride in their country because they never explore their own ideals because they never have to fight (not in a military sense) for Japanese ideals. If an entire nation never determines the true reasons for protecting one’s beliefs, no wonder obfuscation inevitably results.
The solution is that the responsibility for defending Japan must be Japan’s responsibility alone. While doing so, Article IX must be preserved and improved. Article IX is an admirable goal, and was forged in the warm afterglow of finding common ground among recent enemies. However, the limitations of Article IX have become clear. Trying to insist that a nation does not have a force to defend itself is unreasonable. Japan has come to that conclusion, and modified the implementation of Article IX accordingly. To reflect this reality, and enforce the image that Japan follows the rule of law, Japan should amend the second clause of Article IX by including the words: 'outside our nation's borders' after "will never be maintained".
America should be rightly proud for suggesting the Japanese adopt pacifism. Japan should be rightly proud of executing the pacifist path with exemplary consistency. Common sense dictates that if the Americans thought Article IX to be good enough for the Japanese, Article IX is good enough for the Americans to apply to themselves. An amended Article IX applied internationally is an idea whose time has come if we are serious about advancing international relations, and improving economic prosperity. Military assets by their nature do not appreciate. Investment in trade, and improving people’s personal wealth bring returns on investment that a rusting tank, or an exploding missile only deplete.
Consequently, troops that are positioned outside a nation’s territory should qualify a nation to be labeled a de facto aggressor, and the UN Charter should reflect that fact. Excuses like ‘the host government wants us here’, or ‘we were invited’ are as dated as the former banana republics of Latin America. Effectively, we are applying Article IX to all nations. Granted, this idea may sound extreme, or a bit far-fetched, but this is the direction the world wants to eventually go. Perhaps we are decades or centuries away, but these are pacifist ideals that Japan has nurtured and developed for more than half a century. While the brush of Article IX might have been American Nationals, they were using a Japanese canvas and a paint blended from a dying age of imperialism.
*The author is Chair of the Western Japan Chapter of the JET Alumni Association.
**The Japanese Constitution Article IX
(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 a 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.
Tags: article, constitution, ii, ix, military, war, world, wwii
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