Modern Japanese Diplomacy
Instructors
Credits / Language / Semester
2Credits / English / Winter
Objectives/Overview
The objective of this course is to provide some ideas to students for better understanding Japan's strategic choices in the coming decades.
The course will approach this task by learning lessons from history. We will see how Japan responded to major strategic challenges it faced at every turning point in its modern history.
The focus, however, will be more on the international political dynamics as it affected and shaped Japan's response. The central theme will be whether Japan perceptively grasped the evolving nature of the world political structure and was able to maintain consonance between Japan's foreign policy and the strategic environment.
It will cover, albeit in a sweeping manner, Japan's modern diplomatic history from opening of Japan in the mid-nineteenth century to the present. It would be more of a "tour d'horizon" of major issues of international political structure to which Japan was inevitably been involved with.
Students will submit a term paper predicting the state of the world order and Japan's role at around the year 2030.
Keywords
Japanese Diplomacy, Japan's strategic choices, "Third Opening of Japan", world order,,,,
Schedule
"Modern Japanese Diplomacy" Fall Semester 2012
Syllabus
1. Introduction: What is "Diplomacy?" What is “Japanese Diplomacy?"
2. “The World” and “The World View”
3. Modern International Political Structure in Historical Perspective
Cf. "After Victory"
4. Japan's Strategic Choices:
The Opening of Japan and the Second "Opening";
5. Major Diplomatic Relations or Issues (from strategic perspectives)
(1) US:
6. (2) Europe and Russia
7. (3) Middle East / the Gulf; Africa; Latin America
8. (4) China and the Korean Peninsula
9. (5) Southeast Asia (ASEAN); South Asia and Oceania:
Asian (East Asian) Regionalism ("East Asian Community")
10. (6) Global Security Issues:
Including Non-Proliferation, International Terrorism
11. (7) Global Economic Issues
12. Predicting the Future: "Clash of Civilizations"? ; “Power Transition”?
13. "The Third Opening” with "? ":
Japan’s Next Strategic Choice
Teaching Methods
The course will be mostly lecture but will provide time for some discussions after each lecture. Students are encouraged to come well prepared.
Term Paper will require students to predict the global power structure and Japan's role in it at around the year 2030. Since this paper should reflect the basic understanding of the course, students will be submitting initial outline of their paper at mid-term.
Grading
Grading
1) Term Paper 80%
2) Overall engagement, as reflected in active participation in discussions, and weekly preparations 20%
Required Text
Required; preferably read before class begins;
1) Yutaka Kawashima:
Japanese Foreign Policy at the Crossroads:
Brookings Institution Press
2) G. John Ikenberry:
After Victory: Princeton University Press
Reference Books
Recommended;
For the first few introductory sessions
1) Ian Morris: Why the West rules--for now: the patterns of history, and what they reveal about the future
2) Samuel Huntington: The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order: Simon and Schuster
More to be recommended for various regional or topical issues