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Japan, South Korea and the rise of a networked security architecture in East Asia

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Abstract

This article explains Japan’s and South Korea’s role in the transition from the hub-and-spokes alliance system to a networked security architecture in East Asia. It is argued that China’s contestation of the rules-based international order in East Asia has been confronted by East Asian states through a mixture of resistance and accommodation. From a Japanese point of view, Beijing’s ascendency is considered particularly disruptive for the regional order. Consequently, Japan has become a central hub in the development of the networked security architecture enacting two complementary strategies: the consolidation of the alliance with the United States and the creation of new and less binding forms of bilateral, minilateral and multilateral security partnerships with Asian allies. By contrast, since Seoul considers China as an essential partner for the stabilisation of the Korean Peninsula, it has played a more peripheral role in the development of this regional networking dynamic.

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Notes

  1. Coherently with the rest of the special issue, this article follows the definition of primary institutions and regional order provided by the English School (see Buzan 2004 and Buzan 2014).

  2. The central argument of the special issue is that China’s selective contestation of main primary institutions of the regional order in East Asia has sparked a process of renegotiation of that order among regional powers that has led them to broaden the composition of this regional hegemonic order. This, in turn, has translated into a reconfiguration of the alliances and defence arrangements into a networked security architecture (see Introduction).

  3. The networked security architecture is defined as “a network of interwoven bilateral, minilateral and multilateral defence arrangements between the United States and its regional allies and partners, and that also partly includes China” (see Introduction). From this perspective, the mini and multilateral channels are not alternative, but complementary, to the existing “hub-and-spokes alliances”.

  4. The history issue refers to the enduring animosity on the Korean side stemming from the perceived lack of apologies and contrition for the Japanese occupation of the peninsula between 1910 and 1945.

  5. Since the Meiji Restoration Japanese policymakers embraced the concept of Datsu-A Ron, “Leave Asia, Join the West”, originally proposed by Fukuzawa Yukichi in 1885. “Asia” was identified with backwardness and weakness. “Joining the West” meant embracing political and social modernisation. (Korhonen 2013).

  6. In that occasion, Xi Jinping revendicated China’s role as a power that defeated Nazi-fascism in World War II, as a fundamental legitimising element for China’s newfound great power status. On this point see Kaufman (2015).

  7. The concept of South Korea being a middle power was promoted during the Kim Young-sam presidency (1993-1998) and became increasingly central in the country’s foreign policy discourse during Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun presidencies.

  8. Previous steps were labelled “full-scale cooperative partnership” and “comprehensive cooperative partnership” in 2000 and 2003, respectively.

  9. China considered the installation of the THAAD system, a component of the US-led ballistic defence system, as a threat to its security and a form of incipient containment. To put pressure on South Korea, it used economic coercion and trade restriction. In 2018, President Moon announced the policy of three Nos: no additional THAAD deployment, no participation in the US’ missile defence network and no establishment of a trilateral military alliance with the USA and Japan.

  10. The 2018 South Korean Diplomatic White Paper stresses the necessity of consolidating a “substantive and mature strategic cooperative partnership” (p. 63).

  11. Following Buzan, we conceive war as “a negotiated practice within international societies that varies markedly over time”; specifically, it “can vary from a fairly open practice (any reason will do, low restraints on methods) to a highly constrained one” (Buzan 2015, 135).

  12. Grey-zone strategies are defined as “activity that is coercive and aggressive in nature, but that is deliberately designed to remain below the threshold of conventional military conflict and open interstate war” (Brands 2016).

  13. Japan to introduce the concept of dynamic deterrence and dynamic defence force in its main strategic document, the National Defence Program Guideline (NDPG), in 2010. These concepts are related to the necessity to deter grey-zone threats, described as a blurred area between war and peace. These documents overcome for the first time the binary distinction between peacetime and wartime activities (Japanese MOD, 2010).

  14. Similar statements can be found in all the Japanese Defence White Papers since 2010.

  15. Called Suyan Reef by China.

  16. In this case open forms—“Asia–Pacific” or “Indo-Pacific”—of institutional cooperation include the United States as well as other non East Asian partners such as India or Australia.

  17. Recent economic initiatives such as the AIIB, the RCEP and the Belt and Road Initiative promote a similar geographic model, with China at the centre and the exclusion of the United States and the marginalisation of Japan. See Dian and Menegazzi (2018).

  18. The most significant examples are Kim Dae-jung’s proposals for an East Asia Vision Group in the framework of ASEAN + 3, as well as proposals for a North East Asian Community under Roh Moo-hyun, later rebranded as North East Asia Peace and Cooperation Initiative (NAPCI) under Park Geun-hye. Asia–Pacific configurations refer to those including the US, as well as Australia or India, while “East Asian” configurations exclude them.

  19. The Guidelines for US–Japan Defense Cooperation of the alliances are a document that provides a detailed framework for bilateral defence cooperation within the alliance, integrating the US–Japan Security Treaty of 1960. They have been modified in 1978, 1997 and 2015.

  20. The Alliance Coordination mechanism is an inter-agency framework aimed at fostering coordination between the different agencies and bureaucracies involved in alliance activities and security policies more generally.

  21. The concept of seamless cooperation refers to the need to promote cooperation and joint planning, not just for peace scenarios and war contingencies but also in the grey zone between the two, contrasting the use of hybrid strategies by China.

  22. The concept of Free and Open Indo-Pacific has been used by the Trump administration since 2017. However, Prime Minister Abe firstly used the concept during a speech in Nairobi in 2016. Previously he used the concept of “the confluence of the two seas” during a speech to the Indian Parliament in 2007.

  23. These concepts proposed by the Japanese leadership in the decade after the first Abe government all emphasise the necessity to uphold the regional order and forge new forms of cooperation between democracies based on common values as well as common strategic interests.

  24. Chinese proposals for the creation of the East Asia Summit were based on the format including ASEAN countries, China, Japan and South Korea. Japan pushed for a format also including Australia, New Zealand and India.

  25. The Vientiane Vision is an initiative promoted in 2016 by the Japanese Ministry of Defence aimed at coordinating defence cooperation with ASEAN countries in areas such as ISR, capacity building and cyber security.

  26. The 2009 Joint Declaration led to the creation of a 2 + 2 meeting mechanism similar to that already existing in the US–Japan alliance.

  27. The main concession on the military side to North Korea was the suspension of joint military exercises such as Ulchi Freedom Guardian.

  28. The GSOMIA is not a particularly deep form of military cooperation. Before reaching the agreement with Japan, South Korea signed similar pacts with 32 other countries, and NATO.

  29. The NACI envisioned by Roh was multilateral for a dispute resolution and trust building, aimed at defusing conflict in the Korean Peninsula and, more broadly, in East Asia.

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Acknowledgements

For useful and constructive feedback, the author would like to thank Tim Dunne, Evelyn Goh, Hugo Meijer, John Nilsson-Wright, Daniel Nexon, Celine Pajon, T.J. Pempel, Pascal Vennesson and the two anonymous reviewers.

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  1. Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche e Sociali, Università di Bologna, Strada Maggiore 45, 40125, Bologna, BO, Italy

    Matteo Dian

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Dian, M. Japan, South Korea and the rise of a networked security architecture in East Asia. Int Polit 57, 185–207 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-019-00194-8

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