Newsletter No. 240
April 15, 2006

 

THE RETURN OF JAPANESE MILITARY DIPLOMACY?

As is well known, before and during World War II, Japan often had more than one foreign policy; one was that of the diplomats, another that of the Army, and finally that of the Navy.

In the postwar period, even after the creation of the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) in 1954, there was an extreme allergy in Japanese political circles to anything that smacked of independence within the military community. A good example of this could be seen in the Mitsuya Kenkyu (Three Arrows Research) scandal of the 1960s.

Now comes a story from the Pakistani press that shows how much things are changing. Earlier this month, President Pervez Musharraf held a meeting with an important government dignitary from Japan. Was it a famous politician? No. Was it high-level MOFA bureaucrat? No. Rather, it was none other than General Tadashi Yoshida, Chief of Staff of the Air Self-Defense Force (ASDF).

President Musharraf thanked the Japanese General for Japan’s assistance in regard to the October 8, 2005, earthquake in Pakistan, and went on to recall “the long-standing excellent relations between Pakistan and Japan, and expressed the hope that General Tadashi Yoshida’s visit would further strengthen the relations between the Armed Forces of Pakistan and the Air Self Defense Forces of Japan.”

General Yoshida replied by thanking “the President for the opportunity to call him, and termed his interaction with the military leadership of Pakistan as excellent and fruitful.”

It’s not necessary to interpret this meeting in a sinister light, but nonetheless we do seem to have something new here. How often have we heard before of SDF officers paying visits to foreign heads-of-state? In any case, almost all of the SDF’s international exchanges in the past have been exclusively with the United States. Obviously, the Iraq mission has now put the GSDF in contact with colleagues in the Netherlands, Britain, and Australia.

Are we witnessing here the first, delicate steps toward a new Japanese military diplomacy?