Abstract
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs identifies the “two main pillars of Japan’s international peace efforts” as contributions to international humanitarian relief operations and participation in UN peacekeeping operations (PKO), and it could be argued that these efforts have constituted some of the more positive aspects in the evolution of Japan’s foreign policy in the 1990s. Prompted by international negative reaction to Japan’s immobility in the run up to and during the Gulf War, the implementation of the International Peace Cooperation Law (IPCL) in 1992 has resulted in a number of successful PKO missions and a greater commitment to humanitarian relief. This aspect of Japan’s foreign policy is in line with the concept of a UN-centered diplomacy, revived by Prime Minister Kaifu Toshiki in 1990, and it could provide one way forward to a more proactive foreign policy in the twenty-first century. However, Japan’s participation in peacekeeping operations has not been without controversy both domestic and international, raising the sensitive issues of constitutional revision, the constitutionality of the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) and their overseas deployment, and Japan’s role in the UN and in the international arena.
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Notes
Bert Edstrom, Japan’s Evolving Foreign Policy Doctrine (Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan, 1999), p. 41.
Edstrom, 1999, pp. 166, 174; Ueki Yasuhiro, “Japan’s UN Diplomacy: Sources of Passivism and Activism,” in Japan’s Foreign Policy, ed. Gerald L. Curtis (New York and London: M. E. Sharpe, 1993), p. 350.
Ronald Dore, Japan’s Internationalism and the UN (London: Routledge, 1998), p. 112.
Alan James, “Peacekeeping in the Post—Cold War Era,” International Journal 50 (Spring 1995): 247.
Milton Leitenberg, “The Participation of Japanese Military Forces in United Nations Peacekeeping Operations,” Asian Perspective 20:1 (1996): 8–13.
That is, UN members make available to the Security Council armed forces for the purposes of maintaining international peace and security. See Kenneth B. Pyle, The Japanese Question (Washington: AEI Press, 1995), p. 124.
Inoguchi Takashi, “Japan’s United Nations Peacekeeping and Other Operations,” International Journal 50 (Spring 1995): 339.
See Brian Bridges, Japan and Korea in the 1990s (Aldershot, Vermont: Edward Elgar, 1993), p. 57, for the Korean response; Isen Hirofumi, “Clearing the Mist from the Peace-keeping Debate,” Japan Echo XIX:3 (1992): 46, for other Asian reactions.
Charles Smith, “Loyalties under Fire,” Far Eastern Economic Review, 24 January 1991, pp. 10–12.
For details of Japan’s response to the Gulf crisis and the constraints involved, see Inoguchi Takashi, “Japan’s Response to the Gulf Crisis: An Analytic Overview,” Journal of Japanese Studies 17:2 (1991): 257–73.
J. A. A. Stockwin, Governing Japan (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), p. 74.
Hayashida Kazuhiko, “PKO ruporutaju” [PKO Reportage], Gaiko forum 78 (1995): 52–55.
For a discussion of issues raised by the Cambodia mission, see Suzuki Yoji, “Kanbojia no kyoshun” [The Lessons of Cambodia], Sekai 584 (July 1993): 22–30; Chuma Kiyofuku, “PKO: dainiji ronsen e” [The PKO Toward a Second Round of Debate] Sekai 584 (July 1993), p. 38. See also, Sekai (March 1993) and various articles in Japan Echo XX:3 (1993); 6–22.
Defense Agency, Boei hakusho [Defense White Paper] (Tokyo: Ministry of Finance Printing Bureau, 1998), pp. 182–84
Song Young-sun, “Japanese Peacekeeping Operations: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow,” Asian Perspective 20:1 (1996), p. 66.
Aurelia George Mulgan, “Japan’s Participation in UN Peacekeeping Operations: Radical Departure or Predictable Response?” Asian Survey XXXIII:6 (1993): 573.
See Hanns W. Maull, “Germany and Japan: The New Civilian Powers,” Foreign Affairs 69 (1990): 91–106; Aurelia George Mulgan, “International Peacekeeping and Japan’s Role: Catalyst or Cautionary Tale?” Asian Survey XXXV: 12 (1995): 1, 102–117.
See, for example, Dore, 1998; Ozawa Ichiro, Blueprint for a New Japan (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1994). The process for constitutional revision requires a two-thirds majority in each house, followed by a national referendum.
See, for example, Ueki, 1993; Reinhard Drifte, Japan’s Foreign Policy in the 1990s (Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan/St. Antony’s Press, 1996).
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Gaiko seisho [Diplomatic Blue Book] (Tokyo: Ministry of Finance Printing Bureau, 1998), pp. 35–36. (For the English version of Diplomatic Blue Book, see <http://www.mofa.go.jp>.)
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© 2000 Inoguchi Takashi and Purnendra Jain
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Rose, C. (2000). Japanese Role in PKO and Humanitarian Assistance. In: Takashi, I., Jain, P. (eds) Japanese Foreign Policy Today. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-62529-1_7
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