Japan wants to lead Asia. But how?

A gander at the geese Nov 29th 2006 From Economist.com Japan wants to lead Asia. But how? THE arrival of a new Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, or so many will have you believe, signifies that the country has awoken at last from a period of confused slumber during which its influence slipped away. As far as the economy is concerned, Japan has put behind it a catatonic decade or more during which it shrank from Asia, a region where its money flows had long dominated. Now the flows are building up again. Mr Abe and his band of youngish brothers want Japan to overcome a malaise that is even more deep-seated: the reluctance of Asia’s “quiet power” to declare itself a political force in the region, a leader to be reckoned with. The reluctance is rooted in embarrassment about a war that was over before Mr Abe was born. But challenges in the region are multiplying, and demanding a confident Japanese response. They include China’s rapid economic rise and its subtle power-accruing diplomacy; North Korea’s possession of missiles and nuclear capability; and Russia’s potential to bully Japan over future supplies of energy. Robert Zoellick, a former American deputy secretary of state, wrote in the Financial Times this week that, with seismic changes under way in north-east Asia, “Japan will be quiet no more”. The question is, what sort of noise it might make. Try the sound of geese honking. The image of ganko keitai, geese flying in formation, rooted in classical literature and once beloved of Japanese policymakers, is making something of a comeback. The idea is that Japan flies nobly at the head of the formation, its Asian neighbours in the slipstream. But how to pitch this message, without getting back some discordant echoes? In effect, Japan’s first ganko keitai was the imperial adventure of the 1930s, followed by military defeat. The post-war version was more benign. Japanese-led production networks fostered the industrialisation of East and South-East Asia. As Japanese industry grew more capital-intensive, lower-tech production shifted to lower-wage neighbours?first to South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore, and then, when those countries got richer, to Thailand, Malaysia and the like, and, eventually, to mainland China and Vietnam. The results in South-East Asia were impressive enough to spark a homegrown nationalism, around the slogan of “Asian values”, in part a rebuff to Japan and its notion of flying geese. Values and geese alike crashed in the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98. Even with the best of Japanese intentions, the post-war flying-geese model cannot be revived. There was always a colonial flavour to it. Pan-Asian production networks of increasing sophistication have superseded it. Besides, China has taken up the running, using its soft power to great effect in South-East Asia, with which it has also forged a free-trade agreement through the ten-member regional club, ASEAN. Japan has been caught off-balance. It has been left groping for other ｅxpressions of leadership. In early December Japan’s foreign minister, Taro Aso, is expected to deliver a speech in which he will define an “arc” of stability and prosperity anchored suitably in Japan and stretching south and west to take in Australia, New Zealand and India for starters, but also including Mongolia, more-or-less democratic states such as Kyrgyzstan and Georgia, and extending all the way to the Baltic. This is supposedly a vision built on shared values?transparent and market-driven?though to China (in particular) and to Russia it will rightly look like an attempt at containment. one Japanese official describes the vision as his country's bid, however sketchy, at a “commonwealth”. He regretted, only half-jokingly, that Japan, as it drew ever closer to Australia, New Zealand and India, could not have joined the original British one.