Abstract
Japan has been an uncertain companion for Asian countries when it comes to promoting regional multilateralism in East Asia and the wider Asia-Pacific region. Throughout the Cold War period, Tokyo’s attitude toward the question of Asian-oriented multilateral institution-building, in both the political and security arenas, was openly negative and sceptical, thanks to its almost exclusive reliance on the US-led hub-and-spoke alliance system for maintaining regional stability and its own national security. This openly negative attitude turned into an overtly positive one around the time of the end of the Cold War, as the Japanese government became one of the key proponents for the first pan-regional inter-governmental frameworks in both the economic and security realms — the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), respectively. Yet, such a positive, at times, even enthusiastic, attitude toward post-Cold War regional multilateralism began to change again in the late 1990s, around which time, Japan’s support for the existing multilateral institutions appeared to have become less constant, while the country started opting for new types of inter-governmental arrangements — namely minilateral and trilateral, as well as traditional bilateral mechanisms — with selected countries in Asia and the Pacific.
Field research in Tokyo for this study was supported by Japan Foundation Endowment Committee in the United Kingdom and the East-West Center in Washington. I am particularly grateful to the East-West Center in Washington for hosting me as a Northeast Asian Visiting Fellow during the write-up phase of this chapter.
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Notes
MITI, Aratanaru Ajia-Taiheiyo Kyoryoku O Motomete: Konsensas Apurochi Ni Yoru Tasouteki Zenshinteki Kyoryoku No Suishin (Tokyo: MITI, 1988); T. Nakayama, ‘Statement by His Excellency Dr. Taro Nakayama, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan to the General Session of the Asean Post Ministerial Conference, Kuala Lumpur, 22 July 1991’, in S. Yamakage (ed.), Asean Shiryo Shushi 1967–1996 (Cd-Rom) (Tokyo: Nihon Kokusai Mondai Kenkyujo, 1999).
T. Terada, ‘Directional Leadership in Institution-Building: Japan’s Approaches to Asean in the Establishment of Pecc and Apec’, The Pacific Review, 14:2 (2001), 195–220.
A. Rix, ‘Japan and the Region: Leading from Behind’, in R. Higgott, R. Leaver, and J. Ravenhill (eds.), Pacific Economic Relations in the 1990s: Cooperation or Conflict? (Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1993), pp. 62–92.
K. Ashizawa, ‘Tokyo’s Quandary, Beijing’s Moment in the Six-Party Talks’, Pacific Affairs, 79:3 (2006), 419.
For details of Japan’s adoption of the ‘multi-tiered’ concept, see K. Ashizawa, ‘Japan’s Approach toward Asian Regional Security: From “Hub-and-Spoke” Bilateralism to “Multi-Tiered”’, The Pacific Review, 16:3 (2003), 361–82.
T. Yuzawa, Japan’s Security Policy and the Asean Regional Forum: The Search for Multilateral Security in the Asia-Pacific (London: Routledge, 2007), chapter 6, pp. 108–29.
See K. Ashizawa, ‘Tokyo’s Quandary, Beijing’s Moment in the Six-Party Talks’, Pacific Affairs, 79:3 (2006), 411.
See, on Japan’s APT policymaking, K. Itoh and A. Tanaka, Higashiajiakyoudoutai to Nihonnoshinro (Tokyo: NHK Shuppan, 2005), 411–32.
For more details on the TSD’s establishment, K. Ashizawa, ‘Australia-Japan-U.S. Trilateral Strategic Dialogue and the ARF: Extended Bilateralism or a New Minilateral Option?’, in N.M. Morada and J. Haacke (eds.), Cooperative Security in the Asia-Pacific: The Asean Regional Forum (London: Routledge, 2009), 105–08.
To be sure, there are some works dealing with one single case of a trilateral arrangement among states that makes a good amount of theoretical reference. But, these works are essentially case-specific, falling a little short of providing a general hypothesis on the origin of trilateral options for possible falsification. See, for example, T.S. Wilkins, ‘Toward A “Trilateral Alliance?” Understanding the Role of Expediency and Values in American-Japanese-Australian Relations’, Asian Security 3:3 (2007), 251–78; V. Cha, Alignment Despite Antagonism: The Us-Korea-Japan Security Triangle (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999).
M. Kahler, ‘Multilateralism with Small and Large Numbers’, International Organization, 46:3 (1992), 681–708.
M. Olson, The Logic of Collective Action (New York: Schocken, 1968), 35, 48.
K. Oye, ‘Explaining Cooperation under Anarchy: Hypotheses and Strategies’, World Politics, 38:1 (1985), 18–21.
J. Bhagwati, ‘Regionalism and Multilateralism: An Overview’, in J. de Melo and A. Panagariya (eds.), New Dimensions in Regional Integration (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 22–51.
G.W. Downs, D.M. Rocke, and P.N. Barsoom, ‘Managing the Evolution of Multilateralism’, International Organization, 52:2 (1998); D.Y. Kono, ‘When Do Trade Blocks Block Trade?’, International Studies Quarterly, 51:1 (2007), 165–81.
See, for instance, J. Prantl, ‘Informal Groups of States and the Un Security Council’, International Organization, 59:3 (2005), 559–92; A.-M. Slaughter, A New World Order (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004).
S. Harnisch, ‘Minilateral Cooperation and Transatlantic Coalition-Building: The E3/EU-3 Iran Initiative’, European Security, 16:1 (2007), 1–27; G.W. Downs, D.M. Rocke, and P.N. Barsoom, ‘Managing the Evolution of Multilateralism’.
Prantl, ‘Informal Groups of States and the UN Security Council’; D. Kono, ‘When Do Trade Blocks Block Trade?’, International Studies Quarterly, 51: 1 (2007), 165–81.
MOFA’s internal report on the Sixth ARF SOM in 1999, quoted in T. Yuzawa, Japan’s Security Policy and the ASEAN Regional Forum: The Search for Multilateral Security in the Asia-Pacific (New York: Routledge, 2007), 97.
Ibid., 158.
P. Jain and J. Burni, ‘Japan, Australia and the United States: Little Nato or Shadow Alliance?’, International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, 4 (2004), 277.
See, for instance, M. Wesley, ‘The Trilateral Strategic Dialogue’s Institutional Politics’, in W.T. Tow, et al. (eds.) Asia-Pacific Security: Us, Australia and Japan and the New Security Triangle (London: Routledge, 2007), 46.
Another bilateral concern for Australia was to strengthen its political and security tie with Japan. On Australia and the TSD, see H. White, ‘Trilateralism and Australia: Australia and the Trilateral Strategic Dialogue with America and Japan’, in W.T. Tow et al. (eds.), Asia-Pacific Security: US, Australia and Japan and the New Security Triangle (London: Routledge, 2007), 101–11. In terms of Japan’s attitude toward Australia, Tokyo viewed the TSD as more a result of strengthening ties with Australia since the late 1990s (which was epitomized by the signing of the ‘Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation’ in 2007), not particularly a means to strengthen this bilateral tie. Personal interviews with the director of the Oceania Division, MOFA, 19 October 2006, and the deputy-director of the Defense Policy Division, Ministry of Defense, 5 July 2007.
Personal interview with the director of the Northeast Division, MOFA, 8 September 2005. Also see M. Beeson and H. Yoshimatsu, ‘Asia’s Odd Men Out: Australia, Japan, and the Politics of Regionalism’, International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, 7:2 (2007), 227–50.
Exceptions are Wilkins, ‘Toward A “Trilateral Alliance”?’, which engages a good amount of theoretical discussion to present his original ‘Alliance Politics Framework’, and to alesserextent, W.T. Tow, ‘“ContingentTrilateralism” Applications for the Trilateral Security Dialogue’, in W.T. Tow, et al. (eds.) Asia-Pacific Security, 23–38.
J. Caporaso, in his discussion on multilateralism, touched upon this difference — a point or a space — between bilateralism and multilateralism, although he used the term ‘region’ instead of ‘space’. J.A. Caporaso, ‘International Relations Theory and Multilateralism: The Search for Foundation’, in J.G. Ruggie (ed.) Multilateralism Matters: The Theory and Praxis of an International Form (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 55.
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Ashizawa, K. (2013). Japan and Regional Multilateralism in Asia: The Case of the Trilateral Strategic Dialogue as a New Institutional Choice. In: Prantl, J. (eds) Effective Multilateralism. St Antony’ Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137312983_6
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