“Japan, the US, and Regional Institution – Building in the New Asia” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013)

Kuniko Ashizawa (Adjunct Professor, Japan Program Coordinator, American University, School of International Service)

It is my great pleasure and honor to be a recipient of this year’s Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Prize. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Foundation, the members of the prize’s selection committee, those individuals in both the Japanese and US governments who shared their expertise and insights for this book project, and my academic advisors, especially Professor Kent Calder of the Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at Johns Hopkins University who kindly recommended my book for the prize. I am also grateful to my colleagues, friends and family who have been so generous in supporting my research and publications over the yeas.
This book focuses on Japanese and US foreign policy toward the creation of regional institutions in the Asia-Pacific region immediately after the end of the Cold War. It examines the decision-making process of each country and identifies major factors that shaped their respective foreign policy behavior. The specific cases of regional institution-building examined are the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, as the first Asia-Pacific inter-governmental institution to promote regional economic cooperation, and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), as the first framework to discuss regional security matters in Asia. Given the long-standing skepticism both Japan and the US held against regional multilateralism during the Cold War period, this study addresses why Tokyo and Washington changed their hitherto skeptical-sometimes antagonistic-attitude toward regional institutions and decided to participate in creating them.

By introducing an original analytical framework, the “value-action” model of foreign policy analysis, the book sheds particular light on the following three factors; “the international structural position of a state,” “values (pro-attitudes toward a certain kind of action) perceived by decision-makers,” and “decision-making contexts.” It argues that (1) the international structural position of Japan and the United States and (2) the idea of state identity-what is my country, what it represents-conceived inter-subjectively among foreign policymakers in Tokyo and Washington, together, shaped Japanese and US foreign policy behavior and actions toward the creation of APEC and the ARF.

It should be noted that the creation APEC and the ARF was the first major step, at the official, governmental level, in realizing “the Pacific Bain Community Concept,” that the late Prime Minister Masayoshi Ohira put forward in 1980. These two regional institutions also served as the indispensable catalyst for the subsequent proliferation of regional institution-building in Asia and the Pacific. For both the cases of APEC and the ARF, Japan pursued a quiet but important diplomacy, exerted a unique “behind-the-scenes” leadership, and therefore, actively engaged not only in realizing their creation, but also in building a new regional order in the post-Cold War Asia-Pacific. The participation in institution-building of APEC and the ARF, on the other hand, led the United States to review its long-standing policy of exclusive bilateralism in Asia and to start appreciating, though gradually, the role of regional institutions and multilateralism for managing regional relations and challenges.

Given China’s recent initiative to create the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and the ongoing US-led negotiation for a new free trade agreement among selected Asia-Pacific countries, termed the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), regional institution-building in the Asia-Pacific appears to have entered a new phase where different ideas increasingly compete and new tensions more likely arise over political rivalry and regional leadership in the context of regional institution-building. In this sense, it is an opportune time for Japan to reflect on the late Prime Minister Ohira’s “Pacific Basin Community Concept,” and to address the question about what type of regional order should be constructed in the 21st century Asia-Pacific. Encouraged greatly by the Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Prize, I will continue my research on regional institution-building in the Asia-Pacific, in order to make a contribution to promoting regional cooperation and constructing a stable regional order, an agenda that should be pursued urgently by Japan and other Asia-Pacific countries.

Profile
Kuniko Ashizawa teaches international relations at American University. From 2005 until 2012, she was a senior lecturer in international relations at Oxford Brookes University in the U.K. Her research interests include Japan’s foreign, security and development assistance policy, U.S.-Japan-China relations, and regional institution-building in Asia, and she has published a number of academic journal articles and book chapters, including in International Studies Review, Pacific Affairs, and the Journal of Peacebuilding and Development.
Ashizawa was a visiting fellow at various research institutions, including the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the East-West Center in Washington, and the Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies. She received her PhD in international relations at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, and a BA in economics from Keio University.