Ogura Kazuo's 'Japan's Asian Diplomacy

As part of my self-education I'm reading a good deal on Japan, China, and East-Asia in general. The last book that I got in my hand was Ogura Kazuo's Japan's Asian Diplomacy. The author served as Japan's ambassador to Vietnam, France, and Korea.

It quickly becomes obvious from the book that Ogura has plenty of insight into the main ideological and political currents shaping the broader agenda of foreign policy making in Japan, China, and Korea. He offers a historical, ideological, and political overview of Japan's relations with its neighbours going back to the early middle ages, and shows that in most cases the Japanese policies and stances were heavily influenced by internal political interests and leadership contests. In many places in the book he is openly critical about such short sighted diplomacy, and makes an effort to show that in many cases taking a too hard line in domestic politics forced the leadership into a position where to save face it was almost necessary to act aggressively on the international place - to live up to the expectations raised in the public, so to say.

The author was not afraid to point out some harmful and aggressive long standing tendencies of Japanese policies - such as treating the affairs of Korea almost as an internal issue requiring constant intervention - and the lack of long term vision in the building up of relations with China.

The book also offers a very interesting perspective on how the Tokugawa shogunate's closed-door policy served to prepare Japan to see itself ideologically and politically among the Western, colonizing, powers very soon after the Meiji period. This amounted to a significant shift from the earlier Japano- or Sino-centric world views dominating political thinking. It also explains in part why Japan acted quickly and with no sympathy towards other Asian nations.

The book discusses several other issues, and it is a very interesting and thought-provoking reading. I don't have an in depth knowledge of either Japanese history or politics yet, but I'm happy that I took down this volume from the library shelf, and at the moment it seems that it will definitely contribute to my understanding of the Japanese perspectives on diplomacy in Asia.