2. Hierarchy, IR, and identity

Although there is a virtual consensus on the meaning and analytical use of the concept of anarchy, there is much less agreement on the meaning and role of hierarchy. The reason lies in the fact that, although there is a plethora of studies departing from the ‘anarchical worldview’, there are many fewer authors who explicitly or implicitly depart from hierarchy. That said, an interest in hierarchy is definitely growing. Barder (Reference Barder2015), Bukovansky et al. (Reference Bukovansky, Clark, Eckersley, Price, Reus-Smit and Wheeler2012), Larkins (Reference Larkins2010), Lake (Reference Lake2009a, Reference Lake2009b), Clapton (Reference Clapton2009), Collard-Wexler (Reference Collard-Wexler2006), Donelly (Reference Donelly2006), or Kang (Reference Kang2004, Reference Kang2010) have provided us with many interesting insights into how various hierarchies are exercised and what role they play in ordering inter-state relations. Generally, and according to a recent seminal review article by Mattern and Zarakol (Reference Mattern and Zarakol2016), we can distinguish two conceptions of hierarchy present in IR literature: hierarchy as legitimate authority and hierarchy as inter-subjectively created organized inequality.

Hierarchy as a legitimate authority refers to a mostly liberal and liberal-constructivistFootnote ¹ theoretical paradigm. Liberals question the realist claim that states are unitary, hierarchic actors, and, by extension, liberal thinkers are uneasy about the claim that anarchy (the formal sovereignty of states) is analytically very significant to world politics. Liberals define pluralistic conceptions of the state, highlight the role of international law, and focus on international institutions rather than states. However, as a matter of practice, ‘liberal IR theory has tended to shy away from its own ambivalence, often conceding the primacy of the sovereign nation-state and anarchy’ (Mattern and Zarakol, Reference Mattern and Zarakol2016: 628). Liberals (and sometimes also liberal constructivists, i.e., Ruggie, Reference Ruggie1993) define hierarchy in terms of legitimacy under anarchy and illustrate the processes of trade-offs that generate or reconstruct the legitimate political authority in its hierarchical position (i.e., Lake, Reference Lake2009a). Thus, hierarchies may be produced either instrumentally, by vesting rational interest in the organization or one dominant actor, or normatively, through normative ‘persuasion’ of legitimate authority (in some cases, it can also be the combination of both). Kang (Reference Kang2004, Reference Kang2010) has, for instance, shown how Asian states became integrated into a tributary system that had guided them for almost two millennia. The system was based in formal hierarchy (and thus different from anarchy) given by China's cultural dominance and its spread to other Asian states – most notably Vietnam and Korea. They have accepted the dominance not only because of their belief in China's cultural superiority, but also because of the favorable economic conditions it entailed.

The second approach to hierarchy – hierarchy as inter-subjectively created organized inequality – is much wider. This broad and unsystematic approach does not immerse itself with political and/or normative authority but indulges the idea that hierarchies are ‘particular kinds of organizational forms, that is, systems that arrange units into unequal relationships with one another’ (Mattern and Zarakol, Reference Mattern and Zarakol2016: 627). Contrary to the first approach, hierarchies exist without any reference to a legitimate authority. Hierarchies are natural. They can be found in virtually all aspects of international and domestic policy and can emanate in a variety of forms. Hierarchy – as a system of inequality – represents a true organizational form and can very well exist on all possible levels of the ‘world’ (as opposed to the international) system. What unites these approaches is the belief that hierarchies always imply some form of power. This power can be found within the unequal relations present in hierarchical systems, no matter whether they are intra- or inter-state (which is not significantly different than the anarchical system presented in a neorealist thought; see Walker, Reference Walker1993). A true research agenda in hierarchy, according to these approaches, lies in uncovering these systems of inequality and finding ways to remedy them.

There have been a variety of studies that have accepted this broad version of hierarchy. Many of them have tried to transcend national state and focus on different forms of stratification – for example, Wallerstein's World System Theory. Some have tried to emancipate various ‘silenced’ approaches to studying politics such as post-colonial or feminist approaches (Nussbaum, Reference Nussbaum2001; Tickner, Reference Tickner2003; Chen, Reference Chen2010), some have dealt with civilizations and the formulation and reformulation of identities (Neumann, Reference Neumann1996, Reference Neumann1998; Suzuki, Reference Suzuki2009; Buzan and Acharya, Reference Buzan and Acharya2010). These studies, although implying/departing from hierarchical ontology (the performativity of hierarchy), have rarely focused on hierarchy per se. To the contrary, although they have revealed systems of hierarchy, their interest was in how particular systems were ‘performed’ in a specific case. Suzuki (Reference Suzuki2015), for instance, illustrated how Japan's national identity has been defined through its hierarchical relationship with China. Suzuki's goal, however, was not to question the anarchical assumptions of contemporary IR but to illustrate how Japan's national identity and foreign policy were reconstructed through Japan's hierarchically positioning narrative vis-à-vis China.

Epistemologically, these studies have focused on specific discursive regimes and have deployed various forms of narrative/discursive analyses (cf. Ringmar, Reference Ringmar1996; Campbell, Reference Campbell1998; Waever, Reference Wæver, Hansen and Waever2002; Rumelili, Reference Rumelili2004; Hansen, Reference Hansen2006; Suzuki, Reference Suzuki2009, Reference Suzuki2015; Bukh, Reference Bukh2010; Kolmaš, Reference Kolmaš2014, Reference Kolmaš2017; Hagström and Gustaffson, Reference Hagström and Gustafsson2015; Tamaki, Reference Tamaki2015). They start with the premise that the contours of our world (borders/states/civilizations/identities) are produced through the discursive practices by which we try to understand them. All political concepts (including anarchy, sovereignty, or the state) are defined by these discursive practices. The practices themselves are historically, contextually, and culturally contingent (as there are no universal truths), and through them the relational (hierarchical) statuses of their objects and subjects are being reconstructed. Although discursive structures are a key for our understanding of virtually any political concept (civilization, borders, states, etc.), the notion of identity has been of particular interest to post-structural scholars. Post-structuralists understand identity in a very much different way from traditional social constructivists (Wendt, Reference Wendt1992; Hopf, Reference Hopf1998), who believe that identities are produced by domestic cultural contexts, histories, traditions, and/or sedimentation of international norms (for Japan-related research, this line of research is represented by the works of Katzenstein (Reference Katzenstein1996), Katzenstein and Okawara (Reference Katzenstein and Okawara1993), Berger (Reference Berger1998), Oros (Reference Oros2008, Reference Oros2015) and others).

Post-structural identity research understands the identities to be produced by the practices of ‘othering’, in which various conceptions of a state's self are being formulated through its interaction with one or more broadly defined ‘others’. The idea of the ‘self’ is not tied to any particular quality or characteristics that could be defined with reference to culture, history, and/or any objective characteristics of the nation. For post-structuralists, the ‘self’ is produced and exists only ‘within’ the interaction with others and is produced/reproduced by discourse. This differentiation, by its very nature, is always hierarchical. Similar to the aforementioned article by Shogo Suzuki, there has been a quite interesting set of papers published over the last two decades that approach the formation of Japan's national identity through this theoretical prismFootnote ². They have identified a number of ‘others’: both external ones – such as the West, Europe, the USA, Asia, China, North Korea, and South Korea – and internal ones – such as the outcast group at the bottom of Japan's social order (burakumin), the Ainu people (often described as ‘indigenous’), Okinawa, and the Korean minority in Japan. Some have focused on temporal othering and showed how the positioning of the ‘self’ has been carried out in distinction to previous ‘selves’. By identifying the other, they have analyzed how these others have been juxtaposed with Japan to emphasize what Japan is, and hence to construct Japanese identity (Hagström and Gustafsson, Reference Hagström and Gustafsson2015: 5, also Oguma, Reference Oguma2002; Bukh, Reference Bukh2009, Reference Bukh2010, etc.). Identifying self-perception of various states does not only help us understand the features and tenets of their identities. Understanding states as ‘passive’, ‘reactive’, ‘normal’, ‘superpower’, etc. has a tacit connection with the ways these states behave. Unlike social constructivists, who understand identity as an independent variable that influences state's behavior, post-structural research treats identity as inextricably linked to foreign policy creation. Discursive formulation of identities enables or constrains certain kinds of action, by either promoting or excluding certain possibilities. The process of identity construction creates a range of imaginable conduct and propels policymakers to act accordingly. Edward Said, for instance, demonstrated how statements about ‘the Orient’ provided means for the appropriation of the Orient by successive waves of European colonization and imperialism. Michel Foucault illustrated how discourses on ‘madness’ affected medical, psychiatric, and legal practices and institutions (Hagström and Gustafsson, Reference Hagström and Gustafsson2015: 13). National identity – defined through hierarchy – is then much more than a simple description of state's ‘self’, it is the very essence of state's behavior.

In this vein, Hagstrom and Hanssen (Reference Hagstrom and Hanssen2015) illustrated the ways in which Japan reconstructs its ‘normal’ identity and subsequently its ‘more assertive’ security and defense policies by defining itself as a victim to North Korean aggressive policies. Similarly, Tamaki (Reference Tamaki2010, Reference Tamaki2015) highlighted how Japan's narrative on a widely defined ‘Asia’ has prompted Tokyo to engage in its program of colonialism before World War II and compels policymakers to address territorial disputes with Asian neighbors in the present. Much in the same line, Gustafsson (Reference Gustafsson2015) illustrated how the Chinese government has come to be seen as ‘denying Japan's self-identity as a peaceful state that has provided China with substantial amounts of official development aid during the post-war era’. China is then – according to Gustafsson – not regarded as ‘anti-Japanese’ merely because of protests against Japan and attacks on Japanese material interests, but for denying a key component of Japan's self-image (Gustafsson, Reference Gustafsson2015: 117). What all of these studies apparently have in common is that, although they might not explicitly state so, they inherently depart from the hierarchical worldview. Hierarchy did indeed play a key role in defining Japan's self-conception, as will be revealed in the following chapter. Unlike the previously mentioned studies, however, my aim is not to illustrate narratives on various ‘others’ and their role in reconstructing Japan's national identity. My aim is to emancipate hierarchy as an organizational principle and the role it plays in defining basic political concepts that are seen as ‘unchangeable’ by the anarchy-based worldview. The following part of this paper will then tie the conception of Japan's statehood, sovereignty, and autonomy to its very hierarchical roots present in the narratives on Japan's national identity.

3. Japan's national identity from a hierarchical perspective

Throughout its history, Japan has found itself in a more-or-less formal hierarchical relationship with other countries. Up to the Meiji revolution in 1868, which effectively started Japan's opening up to the world, Japan was a part of the Chinese tributary system that spread across Asia. According to Kang (Reference Kang2004: 339–340), the system (being built on Chinese internal culture and namely Confucianism) was defined by ‘formal hierarchy among nations while allowing considerable informal equality’. Kang believed that for most parts of Asia's history, Japan understood and accepted its position within this system: ‘Japanese elites consciously copied Chinese institutional and discursive practices in part to craft stable relations with China, not to challenge it’ (Kang, Reference Kang2010: 593). Yet unlike Vietnam or Korea, Japan was a boundary case. Although clearly deriving many of their domestic ideas, innovations, writing, and cultural knowledge from China, Japanese elites were always skeptical of China's central position. Indeed, ‘Japanese scholars and officials often made an explicit distinction between Chinese civilization, which they revered, and the Chinese state, which they often held in contempt’ (Kang, Reference Kang2010: 593–594, also Kolmaš, Reference Kolmaš2016).

China's humiliation by the West during the Opium Wars destroyed China's legitimacy necessary to run the tributary system. Japan's opening up to the world followed just two decades later, albeit in a somewhat ‘softer’ manner. In the 1850s, American ships first tried to open Japan up to foreign trade and, by the 1860s, they had succeeded. The Meiji Revolution of 1868 started the process of Japan's modernization, industrialization, and general change from a secluded, isolated (sakoku) country into a modern, open, and ultimately expansive power. Here, Japan found itself in a precarious situation. Simply accepting Western influence would forever position Japan into a low hierarchical status vis-à-vis the Western countries that had ended Japan's isolation policy in the first place. At the same time, however, disregarding the West in Japan's identity formation would rob Japan of the technological modernity it revered (Oguma, Reference Oguma2002). Japan's national identity became locked between these two worlds – superior West and inferior Asia – and precisely this interlocked hierarchical position played a key role in Japan's identity formation. Japan introduced a variety of Western practical, technological, philosophical, and scientific ideas and connected them to its own cultural and philosophical sources. Although conscious of its own origins, Japan reflected desires to catch up and be recognized by the West (Suzuki, Reference Suzuki2005, Reference Suzuki2009).

This had a profound effect on Japan's self-perception vis-à-vis Asia. When Japan accepted much of Western modernity, it began to differentiate itself very much from other ‘backwards’ Asian countries. As Tamaki wrote, Japanese narratives have tended to portray Asia as inferior to Japan. ‘Japanese elites in the nineteenth century shared the view that a weak Asia was being devoured by the West, ultimately symbolizing Asia's purported backwardness. This translated into the notion that Japan, which embarked on rapid modernization following the Meiji Restoration of 1868, was superior to backward Asia’ (Tamaki, Reference Tamaki2015: 25). The depiction of Asia as a hierarchically lower entity reconstructed the idea of Japanese uniqueness. The idea that Japan is superior to ‘backwards’ Asia had a profound effect on the way Japan treated it. Although Japan felt it should cooperate with ‘culturally close’ China, Tokyo's perceived uniqueness and China's perceived backwardness led it to establish itself as a leader of Asia instead (Iriye, Reference Iriye1992). Positioning itself as a hierarchical leader of Asian countries legitimized much of Japan's military ventures across Asia. Both Japan's invasion of Manchuria and its colonization of Korea were encouraged by many intellectuals across Japan who believed Japan to be waging a war of liberation from Western ‘predators’ who were already devouring much of China (Takeuchi, 1979 cited in Tamaki, Reference Tamaki2015). Japanese leaders often made remarks about Japan's perceived superiority toward other Asian countries. Ukon Matsui of the Imperial Army General Staff Office likened the Sino-Japanese conflict to a sibling rivalry within the Asian household (Ajia no ikka): it was a way for the elder brother (Japan) to instill repentance in the younger brother (China) purely out of brotherly love (Matsuura, 2010: 512 in Tamaki, Reference Tamaki2015: 29). Similarly, Foreign Minister Ishii Kikujiro wrote in July 1931 that ‘it is imperative that we use our holy interests as a shield with which to refuse pleasure to backward peoples’ (Tamaki, Reference Tamaki2015).

Yet feeling superior to Asia is only part of the story. In a similar vein, Japan felt its inferiority toward the West. Japan sought the West's acceptance as a part of the ‘modern’ nations with a significant power status. As Shih points out, Japan's invasion of Russia in 1904/1905 was precisely guided by Japan's quest for appraisal by Western powers. ‘The Japanese government was thrilled by the opportunity of becoming a party of balance of power which presumably only modern nations were eligible for participation’ (Shih, Reference Shih2010: 552). Western powers were slow and cautious in embracing Japan's power status. Although Japan was one of the victorious powers that emerged from World War I, there was a visible notion of inequality on the part of the USA and the European powers. The West placed restraints on Japanese trade; was unwilling to allow the Japanese the same kind of freedom in Manchuria that the Western countries regularly exercised across Asia, Africa, and Latin America; and notwithstanding Japanese pressure, the USA kept in place their anti-immigration policies toward the Japanese people (Smethurst, Reference Smethurst2012). In this sense, Japan's involvement in the World War II was not only due to its perception of superiority in Asia, but also in its perception of inferiority toward the West. ‘The bitter victory in the Russo-Japanese war inspired Japan into all-round involvement in the so-called China Theatre, where supposedly only European nations were entitled to play in the balance of power’ (Shih, Reference Shih2010: 552–553).

Japan's defeat in the war brought a change in the nation's self-perception. Its vision of hierarchical leadership in Asia was crushed along with its imperial ambitions. The Douglas MacArthur-led occupation aimed to reconfigure Japan along American ideas and traditions. Japan was to renounce Shinto as a state religion, reconstruct democratic parties and representation, reform land ownership, and – among many other changes – partially reconstruct its economic system to fit with Western ideas of liberalism and individualism (see i.e., McClain, Reference McClain2002; Hayes, Reference Hayes2009; McCargo, Reference McCargo2013). Japan emerged from the occupation as a country that not only accepted some Western models of political life, but more importantly as a country whose security was guaranteed by the USA. In order to demilitarize Japan and prevent it from waging future wars, the USA forced Japan to enact a peaceful Constitution in 1947. The key part of the Constitution was its Article 9, which effectively prevented Japan from possessing a regular army. It states that Japan ‘forever renounces war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes’ and that ‘in order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized’. According to the constructivist authors (Katzenstein and Okawara, Reference Katzenstein and Okawara1993; Berger, Reference Berger1998), this article was the defining element of Japan's nascent post-war pacifist/anti-militaristic identity. However, the nation's post-war identity was by no means simply pacifist. With the end of the American occupation of Japan, Tokyo took steps to reconstitute its own military forces. In 1950, Tokyo established its National Police Reserve. Following the establishment of Japan's Defense Agency in 1954, the reserves were transformed into the Japanese Ground-Self Defense Forces, with the aim (along with Maritime SDFs and Air SDFs) of defending the homeland from external aggression. As Oguma (Reference Oguma2002, also Bukh, Reference Bukh2010; Almog, Reference Almog2014) illustrated, these newly formed troops enjoyed significant support from the Japanese society. According to Oguma, Japanese people were not against the army/military in general, they were against the military cooperating with a former ‘enemy’; and rather than against conflict, violence, and war in general, Japanese society stood against the war on Japanese territory.

Indeed, many of the post-war debates on Japan's national identity have been centered on the Constitution and its Article 9. Many conservative right-wing politicians, who later formed an anti-mainstream group within the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), argued that the very existence of Article 9 robs Japan of its international sovereignty and political independence. Pre-war minister and Class-A war criminal suspect Kishi Nobusuke and war-time foreign minister and diplomat Shigemitsu Mamoru, among others, strongly protested against the peaceful Constitution and pressed on Yoshida Shigeru and other leading LDP politicians to alter it. In Kishi's own words: ‘It is not the policy of an independent nation to have troops of a foreign country based on its soil’ (Samuels, Reference Samuels2007: 30). They favored a combination of rearmament and conventional alliances and pressured for rebuilding Japan's security capabilities and reciprocal security commitments with the USA. But as Suzuki (Reference Suzuki2015: 100) reminded us, ‘what is often missed is the fact that the fundamental issue undergirding these discussions has frequently been about constructing an identity of Japan as an “autonomous” state. Whatever one's political colors were, debates surrounding Article 9 were intimately linked to a persistent fear that Japan had a “weak” or “subservient” identity that allowed it to be dominated by foreign powers’. The very sovereignty and statehood that Japan acquired after the Americans left in 1952 was only created in a hierarchical relationship toward the USA, and remains to be inextricably linked to it.

The Yoshida Doctrine and Japan's security alliance with the USA that was signed in 1952 in many ways codified this status. The doctrine was defined by three key points: continued reliance on the alliance with the USA to ensure Japan's security; emphasis on economic relations overseas to assist in the reconstruction of the domestic economy; and a limited military presence including the low level of armament. Although it gave Japan much-needed security guarantees, as well as access to American markets, it placed the USA in a controlling power-position vis-à-vis its Asian ally. The resulting policy was nonetheless a great success for the Yoshida government. Although Yoshida had to do much to balance the dissent within the LDP, he set the conditions for Japan's rocket economic growth while maintaining popular satisfaction with not breaching Article 9. This was no easy task. The conservatives within the LDP – including two soon-to-be Prime Ministers Kishi and Nakasone Yasuhiro – remained dissatisfied in the ways the alliance limited Japan's perceived independence and steadfast that Japan would eventually take on a larger strategic and military role that are the ‘normal’ signs of ‘independent diplomacy’ (jishu gaiko). As Samuels (Reference Samuels2007: 42–3) noted, because they, and not Yoshida, controlled the formation of the LDP in 1955, the original platform of the party actually stated: ‘In order to protect the liberty of our citizens, the independence of our national and the peace of the world, we will ready – under a collective security system – a self-defense capability commensurate with our national power and conditions that will prepare the country for the withdrawal of foreign forces stationed here’.

It should be noted that Yoshida was by no means a simple anti-militarist. In many ways similarly to Kishi and Nakasone, Yoshida believed that Japan would eventually accept a larger role in providing for its security and a larger independence vis-à-vis the USA. Yet Yoshida was also a pragmatist and knew that reliance on the doctrine would set the best possible conditions for Japan to acquire the ‘first-rate power’ (ittokoku) status. Winning over the nationalists within the LDP required an immaculate political skill and cooperation with the USA. Washington eventually agreed to promise Japan – among other nations – greater autonomy and a reduced base presence. The renegotiated defense treaty that was signed in 1960 also eliminated the USA's right to intervene in domestic security problems in Japan (see i.e., Williams Reference Williams2013; Easley, Reference Easley2017). Although over the course of the next decades, Japan's security capabilities increased significantly, the discussions about Japan's independence vis-à-vis the USA remained a key part of the construction of Japan's national identity. In light of the war in Vietnam, the USA adopted the Nixon Doctrine in 1969. The doctrine called on America's Asian allies to make a bigger commitment to sustaining Asian security. The 1970s’ ‘Nixon shocks’ – China rapprochement and the dismantling of the Bretton Woods currency system – disconcerted Tokyo and made it reconsider a more robust role for the SDFs in providing state security. In 1978, the USA–Japan ‘Defense Guidelines’ added sea lanes to the SDF's jurisdiction. The 1981 Reagan–Suzuki communiqué extended Japan's commitment to defending sea lanes out to 1000 nautical miles. In 1983, Tokyo exempted the USA from its export ban on arms technology, paving the way for alliance cooperation on defense research (Easley, Reference Easley2017: 70); and yet, as Inoguchi and Jain (Reference Inoguchi and Jain1996) wrote, ‘Japan's reliance on the USA resembled “karaoke diplomacy”: Japan's foreign policy choices were circumscribed by a set menu of alternatives determined by the United States. As with karaoke the background music, the American policy line, was predetermined; the only scope for the singer is in the style of delivery, policy implementation’.

The ‘independence’ discourse vis-à-vis the USA never really left Japanese political narrative. Nakasone's vision of the autonomous defense (jishu boei) or (originally) Ozawa Ichiro's vision of Japanese normalization (futsu no kokka ni mukau, Ozawa, Reference Ozawa1993) were formulated in relation to the USA. Maybe the clearest line of the hierarchical foundation of Japan's national identity can be found in discussions regarding the change of the post-war peaceful Constitution and Japan's political and defense reconstruction. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the resulting change in the IR system both globally and in the Asian region, Japan came to discuss the viability of the Yoshida doctrine for the upcoming age. If there was a key topic to these debates, it was the notion of Japanese autonomy (see i.e., Fouse, Reference Fouse2004; Mochizuki, Reference Mochizuki, Tellis and Wills2004). The ‘autonomy’ narrative, as shown above, was a key to the discussions of Japan's post-war statehood and sovereignty. After the institutionalization of the Yoshida Doctrine, the narrative became muted; yet in the 1990s, it re-emerged and gained a substantive momentum. Advocates of autonomy (such as the former governor of Tokyo and a now-retired politician Reference IshiharaIshihara Shintaro, or former mayor of Osaka and currently a leader of conservative Japan restoration party, Hashimoto Toru) have doubted the US obligation to defending Japan and have argued for a significantly larger role for the Japanese military, which would restore Japan's national prestige. They have criticized the ‘US-imposed’ Constitution and called for its revision that would grant Japan the autonomy it needs to deal with deteriorating security conditions in Asia. They have also called for a tougher position vis-à-vis China and questioned many of the regretful and conciliatory statements of the Japanese government toward its Asian neighbors, such as the Murayama apology for atrocities of the World War II (1994/1995) or the Kono statement of remorse for the comfort women Japanese soldiers enslaved during the war (1993). In a rally for the Japanese restoration party in 2012, Ishihara explained: ‘I cannot allow myself to die until my Japan, which has been made a fool of by China, and seduced as a mistress by the United States, is able to stand up again as a stronger, more beautiful nation’ (Fackler, Reference Fackler2012, italics added)Footnote ³.

It should also be noted that this ‘conservative’ discourse focuses not only on the USA. As Suzuki (Reference Suzuki2015) pointed out, China gradually became to play a similarly significant role in Japan's identity narrative. Especially during the heated Senkaku/Diaoyu crisis of 2010–2012, the Japanese media portrayed China as a ‘revisionist bully’ with ‘mafia-like’ practices that directly interfere with the international law. Japanese politicians, who proposed a conciliatory approach toward China, were depicted as weak-kneed and ‘naïve’ (amai gaiko). For instance, the visit of DPJ lawmakers to China in December 2009 was interpreted in the media as ‘tributary foreign policy’ (choko gaiko) in an obvious reference to China's hierarchical ordering of foreign policy where all non-Chinese states were seen as ‘barbarous’ and inherently inferior (Suzuki, Reference Suzuki2015: 111). What is apparent in this narrative is the fact that both the USA and China are depicted as nations who are robbing Japan of its sovereignty and independence. Japan's autonomy and autonomous national identity are inextricably linked to this hierarchical link. Sovereignty and autonomy – key pillars of the realist approach building on anarchical worldview – exist only within this hierarchical relationship and are ‘defined’ by it.

Although these politicians do not represent the mainstream political leadership of the ruling LDP, they are by no means fringe players in Japanese politics. In fact, many of their views are shared by the contemporary Prime Minister Abe Shinzo. Abe believes that, for reviving Japan's national identity, the systematic dismantlement of past and externally imposed structural obstacles is necessary. According to Hughes (Reference Hughes2015), Abe's ultimate objective is the revision of the war-renouncing Constitution that Japan was forced to accept following World War II. Hughes stresses that Abe is the founder of ‘Japan Rebirth’ (Sosei Nihon), a National Diet members’ group dedicated to rethink the post-war order. As a member of the Diet's cross-party Alliance for Promoting the Assessment of a New Constitution (Kenpo Chosa Suishin Giin Renmei), he pushed his LDP into drafting a new version of the constitution in 2012. The final documented reminisced about Japan's pre-war posture. To illustrate Abe's revisionism, Hughes has furthermore stressed that the Prime Minister has been a key member of the LDP Historical Investigation platform as well as other bodies that have revisited Japan's history textbooks (Hughes, Reference Hughes2015: 12–13, see also Glosserman, Reference Glosserman2014; Hosoya, Reference Hosoya2015; Dobson, Reference Dobson2017; Lande, Reference Lande2017). Abe is also the member of the Japan Conference (Nippon kaigi), a conservative nationalist and state-Shinto religious organization, which calls for the revision of Article 9 and ‘a beautiful traditional sovereignty for Japan's future’ (dentoteki no kunigara, see nipponkaigi.org). Abe's narrative defines Japan as a ‘weak’ and ‘bullied’ ‘victim’ country that has been robbed of its national prestige and is being bullied by aggressive neighbor. Defining Japan as a victim legitimizes dismantling the pacifist posture that Japan united itself following the World War II. Only through this change can Japan ‘stand up’ to the security challenges of contemporary Asia and ‘regain’ the confidence it lost following the war. Security changes that Abe promotes (such as the 2015 security laws that effectively breach Japan's post-war ban on collective security) are, in this vein, the way to reconstruct a ‘normal’ country with a traditional army.