The Short, Strange Life of Japan's Values Diplomacy
July 22, 2009 6:00 PM (finished)
David Leheny, Ph.D.
(Henry Wendt III '55 Professor of East Asian Studies, Princeton University)
| Date/Time | July 22, 2009 6:00 PM |
|---|---|
| Location | Room 549 5th floor, Akamon Sogo Kenkyuto Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo [map] |
| Abstract | As local debates raged about whether Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro's foreign policy had tipped too much toward the United States, and whether it needed to be more "autonomous" or even "pro-Asian," two of his successors had already started to stake out the case for a Japanese diplomacy that would embrace and promote free markets, liberal democracy, and the rule of law. Although both Abe Shinzo's "Values Diplomacy" and Aso Taro's "Arc of Freedom and Prosperity" were implicitly targeted at aligning Japan with the United States, Australia, and India against a rising China, these visions displayed the tensions inherent in any articulation of a country's putative values and its international stance. This paper examines how these depictions of Japan's diplomacy were exploitable both by American analysts arguing for the universalism of American values as well as by Japanese actors aiming to define their country's role in an Asia that had, in some alarmist views, started to ignore Tokyo. In doing so, it traces discourses of culture and development, relating them to contemporary diplomatic themes, particularly that of "soft power," a term associated most frequently with Harvard political scientist Joseph Nye, once thought to be the Obama administration's choice as ambassador to Japan. |
| Bio | David Leheny (PhD, Government, Cornell University, 1998) is the Henry Wendt III '55 Professor of East Asian Studies at Princeton University. Prior to moving to Princeton, he taught in the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1998-2007. He has also served as Regional Affairs Officer in the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, U.S. Department of State, as well as a Research Associate (joshu) in the Institute of Social Science at the University of Tokyo. In addition to articles in English and Japanese, Leheny is the author of two books: Think Global, Fear Local: Sex, Violence, and Anxiety in Contemporary Japan (Cornell University Press, 2006) and The Rules of Play: National Identity and the Shaping of Japanese Leisure (Cornell University Press, 2003). He is also the co-editor (with Kay Warren of Brown University) of the forthcoming Japanese Aid and the Construction of Global Development (Routledge 2009). |
