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Japan's Client State (Zokkoku) Problem
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 May 2025
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Introduction - The Servile and the Autonomous
As Japan moved to conduct House of Representatives elections in December 2012, attention in Western media and academic circles turned, as it does from time to time, to the question of whether the country was in decline, or even in some sort of crisis. Already five years have passed since the Minister for Economic Policy declared to the National Diet that “in economic terms Japan is no longer a first-class country,” by which she meant that its GDP had shrunk below 10 per cent as a proportion of the world's for the first time in 24 years. It has continued to fall since then. As a proportion of global GDP, Japan was 15 per cent in 1990, fell below 10 per cent in 2008, is expected to fall to 6 per cent in 2030 and 3.2 per cent in 2060, while China's rises steadily, from 2 per cent in 1990 to a predicted 25 per cent in 2030 and 27.8 per cent in 2060. It is that shift in relative weight, perhaps more than anything (national debt, aging, shrinking population) that disturbs Japan.
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References
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2 1990 and 2030 figures from Mitsuru Obe, “Focus - Japan to refocus on US-led trade pact amid troubles with China,” Wall Street Journal Online and OECD 2060 estimates from Jiji, “OECD forecasts Japan's share of global GDP will halve by 2060” Japan Times, 11 November 2012.
3 For brief outline, “Battle of Baekgang,” Wikipedia. (14 December 2012)
4 Magosaki Ukeru, Sengoshi no shotai, 1945-2012, Sogensha, 2012. For this author's discussion in Tokyo with Magosaki in September 2012, see Magosaki Ukeru and Gavan McCormack, “Nihon wa itsu made Beikoku no zokkoku ni amanjite iru no ka,” Shukan kinyobi, 28 September 2012, pp. 18-20. An even more recent book by Magosaki was published in September 2012, under the bold title Amerika ni tsubusareta seijikatachi (Politicians crushed by the US), Shogakukan, 2012.
5 Client State - Japan in the American Embrace, New York, Verso, 2007. (Zokkoku - Amerika no hoyo to Ajia de no koritsu, Tokyo, Gaifusha, 2008).
6 See the revised Japanese, Korean and Chinese editions of Client State: Japan in the American Embrace (New York, Verso, 2007, Tokyo, Seoul and Beijing, 2008).
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8 “Shuin sen: ‘Kokubogun’ tomadou Yonaguni,” Okinawa taimusu, 11 December 2012.
9 Magosaki, pp. 167-8. (Kishi is included for his “successful renegotiation of the Security Treaty with the US in 1960 and his (unsuccessful) attempts to renegotiate the Status of Forces Agreement and Sato for negotiating the reversion of Okinawa from the US to Japan in 1972, but a case could equally be made for seeing both as belonging essentially to the “servile” camp, giving priority to US policies and interests and to serving and deepening dependence through major transition moments, and Kishi devoted much of his political energy to attempting to revise the constitution, a major American objective. Magosaki also includes Fukuda Yasuo (Prime Minister, 2007-08) and Miki Takeo (Prime Minister, 1974-1976) among the servile, both dubious judgements but space precludes me dealing here with them.
10 Gaimusho, Gaiko seisaku kikaku iinkai, “Nihon no gaiko seisaku taiko,” 25 September 1969. http://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/gaiko/kaku_hokoku/pdfs/kaku_hokoku02.pdf, pp. 65, 71. For Magosaki's discussion, see Sengoshi no shotai, p. 257.
11 Ono Katsumi, Kasumigaseki gaiko - sono dento to hitobito, Nihon keizai shimbunsha, 1978, quoted in Magosaki's March 2010 lecture to the America-Japan Society.
12 McCormack and Norimatsu, p. 64.
13 Richard Armitage and Joseph S. Nye, “The US-Japan Alliance: Anchoring Stability in Asia,” CSIS (Center for Strategic and International Studies), August 2012, (link). This report, published months before the 2012 presidential election, lays out the position expected to be the kernel of East Asian policy for the incoming administration.
14 Kebin Mea (Kevin Maher), “Amerika to Kanada no kyokun,” Bungei shunju, October 2012, p. 169.
15 Gavan McCormack and Satoko Oka Norimatsu, Resistant Islands: Okinawa confronts Japan and the United States, 2012, pp. 193-6
16 Quoted in Sunohara Takeshi, Domei henbo - Nichibei ittaika no hikari to kage, Nihon keizai shimbunsha, 2007, P. 64.
17 Quoted in Narusawa Muneo, “Shin seiken no gaiko seisaku ga towareru Okinawa kichi mondai,” Shukan Kinyobi, 25 September 2009, pp. 13-15.
18 Asahi shimbun, 25 February 2009. See also Maeda Tetsuo, “Juzoku” kara “jiritsu” e - Nichibei Ampo o kaeru, Kobunken, 2009, pp. 17, 25.
19 Kimura Akira, “Kenryoku no boso to Amerika no katan - Ozawa mondai to mejia no katan - Ozawa mondai no imi o tou,” Doshisha University, 18 October 2012 (courtesy professor Kimura).
20 For detailed sources on the Hatoyama government see McCormack and Norimatsu, chapter 6.
21 Joseph S. Nye Jr, “An Alliance larger than One Issue,” New York Times, 6 January 2010,.
22 “Interview - Fukushima Mizuho zendaijin,” Shukan kinyobi, 18 June 2010, pp. 14-17.
23 Terashima Jitsuro, quoted in McCormack and Norimatsu, pp. 69-70. Terashima refers to Japanese intellectuals by the term, “do-gan” (literally “slave face”, a term he invents based on his reading of a savagely satirical early 20th century Chinese story by Lu Hsun).
24 “Yiyo na kokei, Genba gaisho, Bei kara koto shimon?” Akahata, 28 October 2012.
25 Quoted in John Pilger, “Blair must be arrested,” New Statesman, 4 August 2010.
26 Clare Short, formerly International Development Secretary, “Clare Short: Blair misled us and took UK into an illegal war,” The Guardian, 2 February 2010.
27 John Pilger, “Blair must be arrested,” cit.
28 “Britain rejects US request to use UK bases in nuclear standoff with Iran,” The Guardian, 25 October 2012.
29 “John Curtin,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Curtin
30 See my Cold War Hot War: An Australian Perspective on the Korean War, Sydney, Hale and Iremonger, 1983, resumed in Target North Korea: Pushing North Korea to the Brink of Nuclear Catastrophe, New York, Nation Books, 2004.
31 J.W. Burton, The Alternative, Sydney, 1954, p.90.
32 Quoted in Michelle Grattan, “Brown wants exit line from Afghan ‘stuff-up’,” The Age, 26 October 2010.
33 Malcolm Fraser, “Australia-US relations in the ‘Asian Century’,” Asialink lecture, University of Melbourne, 25 September 2012, See also Richard Tanter “Australia in the Pacific Pivot; national interests and the expanding ‘joint facilities’,” NAPSNET, Policy Forum, 27 November 2012.
34 “Australia should be spending 2 per cent of GDP on defence: Fitzgibbon,” Sydney Morning Herald, 11 November 2012.
35 Peter Hartcher, “US alarm at defense budget cuts,” Sydney Morning Herald, 10 November 2012.
36 Malcolm Fraser: 2012 Gough WhitlamOration, 6 June 2012, “Politics, Independence and the National Interest: the legacy of power and how to achieve a peaceful Western Pacific,” 37 Fraser, “Australia-U.S. Relations,” op. cit.
38 Paul Keating, quoted in Mark Baker, “US alliance comes at cost of regional status - Keating,” Sydney Morning Herald, 15 November 2012.
39 Kevin Rudd, “Principles of Pax Pacifica - Building the East Asia Security Order,” Shangri La Hotel, Singapore, 21 September 2012.
40 Quoted in Peter Hartcher, “America's choice, our future,” Sydney Morning Herald, 8 February 2008.
41 “Bei daitoryo sen kanetsu, shomen kara Okinawa mondai ronjiyo,” Ryukyu shimpo, 11 October 2012.
42 “Obama shi saisen, kichi mondai no ‘zenshin’ nozomu, Okinawa ni mo jinken, minshushugi o,” Ryukyu shimpo, 8 November 2012.
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