In Search of Mutual Trust and Cooperationin the West Pacific

Material Prepared for the Sino-US Colloquium (III)

Toshimichi NAGAIWA (永岩俊道 )Lieutenant General of Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) (retired)

Senior Guest Fellow, Defense and Security Team, the Sojitz Research Institute(Nagaiwa.Toshimichi@sojitz.com)

January 20, 2013Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre

Hong Kong, China

Source: Japan’s Ministry of Defense, http://www.mod.go.jp/

Wanted! Grace under PressureSlide No. 2

In Search of Mutual Trust and Cooperation in the West Pacific

1. Stabilizing the Japan-U.S.-China RelationshipThe Trilateral Relationship in the Age of Globalization

A Modus Vivendi To Be Reached

3. Japan’s Resolve to Nurture Peace and Prosperity Judicious Choice and Thoughtful Behavior

2. Looming Dangers of Misperception Japanese and U.S. Changing Perspectives on China’s Attitude

Wisdom and Action to Avoid Tragedies

Slide No. 3

In Search of Mutual Trust and Cooperation in the West Pacific

1. Stabilizing the Japan-U.S.-China Relationship

中国国际救援队奔赴日本地震灾区Chinese rescue team arrives in Japan

http://news.sinovision.net/portal.php?mod=view&aid=163923U.S. Operation Tomodachiat the time of the Great East Japan Earthquake

The Trilateral Relationship in the Age of Globalization

A Modus Vivendi To Be Reached

Slide No. 4

In Search of Mutual Trust and Cooperation in the West Pacific

2. Looming Dangers of Misperception

“In estimating danger there should be a certain sobriety of imagination, equally removed from undue confidence and from exaggerated fears.”

(Alfred Thayer Mahan)

“Exchange information.” . . . This is of great importance in achieving a common language./

“互通情报”。… 这对于取得共同的语言是很重要的。(Mao Zedong/毛泽东 )

“A stable global order ultimately depends on America’s ability to renew itself and to act wisely as the promoter and guarantor of a revitalized West and as

the balancer and conciliator of a rising East.” (Zbigniew Brzezinski, Strategic Vision, New York: Basic Books, 2012, p. 192.)

U.S. Changing Perspective on China’s Attitude

Wisdom and Action to Avoid Tragedies

Japanese Changing Perspective on China’s Attitude

Timeline toward a Belligerent World between 1890 and 19141890: End of Bismarckian Germany; Beginning of the Wilhelmine Era Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-17831896: First Lord of the Admiralty Goschen: the “Splendid Isolation” Speech1897: Anglophobic Alfred von Tirpitz appointed head of the German Imperial Naval Office Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future1898: Das erste Flottengesetz (First German Naval Law)1900: Das zweite Flottengesetz (Second German Naval Law)1901: Kaiser Wilhelm II: the “Ein Platz an der Sonne (A Place in the Sun)” Speech 1902: Anglo-Japanese Alliance against Russia1904: Anglo-Franco Entente Cordiale against Wilhelmine Germany Anti-German British Admiral John “Jacky” Fisher appointed First Sea Lord1904~1905: Russo-Japanese War1905~1906: the First Moroccan Crisis1907: the Crowe Memorandum, warning against the rise of Germany Germany accounts for half of world exports of electrical equipment Anglo-Franco-Russian Triple Entente against the 1882 Triple Alliance1911: the Agadir Crisis, or the Second Moroccan Crisis1912: First Lord of Admiralty Churchill: the Speech calling the German Navy a “luxury”1914: A German general becomes a military commander for the Ottoman Empire Beginning of WWI

Wisdom Needed to Avoid A Vicious Spiral of Anglo-German or Franco-German Rivalries . . . .

Slide No. 5

In Search of Mutual Trust and Cooperation in the West Pacific

Slide No. 6

In Search of Mutual Trust and Cooperation in the West Pacific

3. Japan’s Resolve to Nurture Peace and Prosperity

The late Fēi Xiàotōng/费孝通 , a veteran Chinese social anthropologist asked, “The current period is such that China is joining the world and the

world is moving toward integration. . . . [T]he Chinese culture can probably provide for a moral foundation (Dàoyìde Jīchǔ/道义的基础 ).”

(Rèn Xiǎo/任晓 , “The Moral Dimension of Chinese Foreign Policy,” in Allen Carlson and Ren Xiao, eds., New Frontiers in China’s Foreign Relations, Lanham,

MD: Lexington Books, 2011, p. 21.)

China Can Provide a Moral Foundation for the World

But, Sino-U.S. Rivalry Cannot Offer a Rosy Prospect to Ease the Tension

“Reducing the tension between the U.S. and Chinese military establishments is a critical element in easing the emerging security

dilemma, but this has been made difficult by Beijing’s recent decision to minimize high level contacts.”

(Paul H.B. Godwin, “Security Policy and China’s Defense Modernization: A Sixty-Year Perspective,” in Allen Carlson and Ren Xiao, op. sit., p. 122.)

Japan’s Judicious Choice and Thoughtful Behavior to Defuse the Tension

Developing “Confidence Building Measures (CBMs)”

Avoid Misperceptions and Miscalculations by Developing a Common LanguageCherish and Extend the 35-year history of Council on Political and Economic Affairs of

China [中国政経懇談会 /中政懇 ]; Enthusiastically initiated and supported by the Chinese leadership incl. Dèng Xiǎopíng/邓小平 , Liào Chéngzhì/廖承志 , Sī mǎyì Àimǎití/ 司马义 · 艾买提 , and Xú Xiàngqián/徐向前

“The two countries have many unresolved problems, but we should handle them without hast.” (Deng Xiaoping, October 7, 1977 (Recorded by the Japanese delegation))cf. “Japan-China Military Confidence Building Measures,” by Toshimichi Nagaiwa and Jun Kurihara, Tokyo-Cambridge Gazette: Politico-Economic Commentaries No. 7, CIGS, October 11, 2011.

Prevention of Incidents at Sea and in the Air (and Unbridled Nationalism) An INCSEA-like agreement: the prototype: the U.S.-Soviet 1972 agreement;

cf. “The Limits of U.S.-China Military Cooperation: Lessons from 1995-1999” by Kurt Campbell and Richard Weitz, Washington Quarterly Vol. 29, No.1, 2005.

Promotion of Military-to-Military Cooperation in Non-traditional Areas Development of Non-traditional Activities incl. MOOTW (Military Operations Other

Than War); cf. “ 中国军方成立非战争军事行动研究中心” «中国新闻网 » [China News] Dec. 12, 2011.

Japan’s Judicious Choice and Thoughtful Behavior to Defuse the Tension

Slide No. 7

In Search of Mutual Trust and Cooperation in the West Pacific

3. Japan’s Resolve to Nurture Peace and Prosperity

Wanted! Grace under PressureSlide No. 8

In Search of Mutual Trust and Cooperation in the West Pacific

Thank You!/ 谢谢 大家 !

Laozi says “A big country is, so to speak, lower reaches of a large river.

All things flow into it . . . . A big country should be the first to be humble.”

“大國者下流。天下之交 . . . . 大者宜爲下。”『老子』「謙德第 61章」

Importance of the Japan-U.S. Alliance when the Two Countries face the China Conundrum

Slide No. 10

Lessons learned from the Japan-U.S. relations in the 1920s

“In the Far East, peace can be permanently secured only if the two great Powers lying on either side of the Pacific work together

in harmony and understanding. . . . The first evidence of this should be our common attitude towards the Chinese nation.”

Remarks of Thomas Lamont, an American banker, in March 1920quoted in Walter LaFeber, 1997,

The Clash: A History of U.S.-Japan Relations

Japan: American Most Indispensable Partner in a Peaceful and Prosperous Asia

Slide No. 11

Lessons learned from the Japan-U.S. cacophony before WWII

“One of our best informed professional diplomats, Mr. John V. A. MacMurray, retired since several years, wrote in 1935 an extremely thoughtful and prophetic memorandum, in which, pointing to the likelihood of a war with Japan if we continued in the course we were following, he observed that

even the most drastic achievement of our objectives in such a war would only play into the hands of Russia and raise a host

of new problems.”

George Kennan, 1951, American Diplomacy, 1900-1950

How Can America Look at Japan and China through Its Lens?

Slide No. 12

MacMurray’s Insightful Analysis (1)

“MacMurray was a senior career diplomat who had spent twenty years dealing with Asia, most recently as U.S. minister

to China from 1925 to 1929, as well as an expert on international law who had been a key member of the U.S.

delegation at the Washington Conference. He was, in short, the sort of man to whom others turned both for technical

expertise and diplomatic wisdom. It made sense, then, in the summer of 1935, for Stanley Hornbeck, Assistant Secretary of State for Far Eastern Affairs, to commission him to write

an overview of the situation in Asia.”

Arthur Waldron, 1992, How the Peace Was Lost

How Can America Look at Japan and China through Its Lens?

Slide No. 13

MacMurray’s Insightful Analysis (2)

“MacMurray’s analysis [“Developments Affecting American Policy in the Far East”] profoundly challenged much

conventional wisdom of the time. Most people in the United States then believed that Japan was the villain of the drama that was plunging Asia into war, but MacMurray disagreed.

He contended that Japan’s newly assertive policies of the 1930s, far from being examples of unprovoked aggression for

of the effects of the virus of militarism, were in fact direct consequences of the actions of other countries, including the

United States, in the preceding period.”

Arthur Waldron, 1992, How the Peace Was Lost