Japanese Passivity

In today’s accelerating world, we are exposed to changes that might have taken two or three hundred years to unfold during the Middle Ages. Time and space have contracted, and nothing now happens in isolation. Japan is having difficulty adjusting to this new world. It clings to a hopelessly idealistic and historically illegitimate constitution handed down by U.S. occupation forces nearly 60 years ago to block Japan’s reemergence as a military power. Japan now entrusts its survival to the United States, has forsaken independent thinking, and has become spineless.

Some people have contended that Japan can prosper as a nation of peaceful merchants. That might have been possible as long as the United States was a reliable guardian. Today, with the limited capability of the United States as a superpower apparent, this dependence is extremely risky for Japan. It is ironic that the Japanese economy — especially in the financial sector — is susceptible to plunder by the very Americans who were originally supposed to be our patrons.
The Japanese used to have the spirit and backbone of the samurai, the same warriors who were applauded by Walt Whitman when they visited the United States in the 1860s. When will we recover our national virtue, described so well by Ruth Benedict in The Chrysanthemum and the Sword?

Much will depend on how East Asia evolves, especially militarily, in the next decade. One critical factor will be where China — with its growing military and stubborn Communist Party — casts its gaze and whether its ambitions will be pursued with the same kind of hegemonic intentions employed in Tibet. It will also depend on whether China, which has repeatedly asserted claims on Japanese territory, persists in its provocations. I wonder how the United States will interpret its security treaty with Japan if our nation decides to confront China, perhaps even militarily, in the dispute over the Senkaku Islands, a part of Okinawa with potentially valuable seabed resources. There are many other uncertainties. The overheated Chinese economy is on the verge of collapse. What form will the frustration of the Chinese people take and how will it erupt? Economic collapse in China may trigger a Soviet-style disintegration that will lead to the dissolution of the Communist regime.

Nor is China the only concern. North Korea, with a political regime that can only be described as insane, is busily developing a nuclear capability and brandishing it as a bargaining chip. Let us not forget that this is a terrorist nation that has abducted more than 100 Japanese citizens and likely murdered most of them. Pyongyang has warned that it would hit Japan with missiles if Tokyo decides to impose economic sanctions, Japan’s sole form of leverage. Leaving aside uncertainty about the accuracy of North Korean missiles, the question of how Japan and the United States would respond remains critical.

These regional tensions and uncertainties may finally stimulate Japan to emerge from its futile passivity and become a strong nation willing to accept sacrifices. When Japan again exhibits the backbone that helped it become the first non-white nation to modernize successfully, the balance of power in this region will change dramatically. Japan, not China, is the region’s sleeping lion.