Abe here to spruik his invigorated Japan

09 July 2014

23 years ago I published a book called Serendipity City about a Japanese proposal to build a ‘multifunction polis’ in Australia: an urban development combining work and leisure, with the highest environmental values and modern amenities. The MFP was attacked from pillar to post. Critics on the Left likened it to Japan’s Manchurian adventure; critics on the Right warned of a flood of Asian immigration.

I mention this bit of history to highlight the contrast between the hysteria then, when Japan came offering us a different sort of relationship, and the general complacency today when Australia and Japan are entering into economic and security commitments of greater consequence than any multifunction polis.

In recent years this has produced a Security Co-operation Agreement, an Acquisition and Joint-Serving Agreement (facilitating joint military exercises and exchanges of military technology and hardware) and an Economic Partnership (aka ‘free trade’) Agreement. At a political level, especially since the return to power of conservative governments in both countries, relations have never been closer.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, while in Canberra this week, is joining a meeting of the National Security Committee and address Parliament – the first Japanese leader to do so. Abe’s grandfather Nobusuke Kishi, who came this way in 1957, would describe Japan’s relationship with Australia as ‘the next closest’ after the United States. It seems we have come full circle, and the emergence of China has counted for nothing.

Without wishing to be ungracious, however, what is Australia buying into with Abe?

On the plus side, he has undoubtedly lifted Japanese spirits after decades of economic malaise: industrial output is ticking up, deflation is receding and nominal wages are rising. But the economy is not out of the woods yet (energy imports have risen enormously since the nuclear reactors were shut down), and numerous structural impediments remain.

On the negative side, Abe has done nothing to repair relations with China and South Korea damaged prior to his taking office. Indeed, he has made things worse. Abe is an unabashed nationalist who believes the pacifist constitution Japan adopted during the Allied Occupation has outlived its usefulness. His Cabinet’s recent decision to ‘reinterpret’ the constitution in order to embrace the right of ‘collective defence’, i.e. the right to fight alongside other powers to defend the nation, was taken despite majority public opposition. Abe could have put forward a constitutional amendment, but knowing this would fail he chose the less democratic route.

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Abe here to spruik his invigorated Japan

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