Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T11:00:56.307Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Influencing the imagined ‘polar regions’: the politics of Japan's Arctic and Antarctic policies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 October 2017

Aki Tonami Open the ORCID record for Aki Tonami [Opens in a new window]
Aki Tonami*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Business Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Japan Nordic Institute of Asia Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark ([email protected])
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

How does a state that is not a ‘natural’ Arctic or Antarctic state perceive the polar regions, interpret their roles in its foreign policy and translate this into actual polar policy? This paper seeks to answer these questions by comparing the Arctic and Antarctic policies of Japan. The paper shows that Japan's national image of the polar regions as a combined region began before World War II due to its imperial past of joining the race to the Antarctic and the Arctic. However, from a policy point of view, the polar regions for Japan long meant primarily Antarctica. Japan, as a defeated power and a late-comer to the international system established after World War II, takes a liberal position in the governance of Antarctica. Having and maintaining a capability to conduct scientific research in the Antarctic via international decision-making institutions has been considered an important status marker associated with great power identity. Regarding the Arctic, Japan attempts to replicate the general success of its Antarctic policy, backed by tools of science and technological diplomacy, the purpose of which is to revive its domestic economy. Japan's scientific whaling in the Antarctic is primarily a domestic, identity-based political conflict between a nostalgia for Japan's imperial past and its more modern, liberal identity of today.

Type
Research Article
Information
Polar Record , Volume 53 , Issue 5 , September 2017 , pp. 489 - 497
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Akashi, H. (2011). Notes on the Science-Technology Basic Law regime [in Japanese]. Journal of Management Faculty, Komazawa University, 40, 39–88.Google Scholar
Anisimov, O. A., Vaughan, D. G., Callaghan, T. V., Furgal, C., Marchant, H., Prowse, T. D., . . . Walsh, J. E. (2007). Polar regions (Arctic and Antarctic). In: Parry, M. L., Canziani, O. F., Palutikof, J. P., van der Linden, P. J., & Hanson, C. E. (Eds.). Climate change 2007: impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (pp. 653–685). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Anton, D. K. (2009). Antarctic whaling: Australia's attempt to protect whales in the Southern Ocean. Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review, 36, 319–351.Google Scholar
Arctic Economic Council. (2014). Backgrounder. Retrieved from http://arcticeconomiccouncil.com/about-us/backgrounder/ Google Scholar
Bennett, M. M., Greaves, W., Riedlsperger, R., & Botella, A. (2016). Articulating the Arctic: contrasting state and Inuit maps of the Canadian north. Polar Record, 52, 630–644.Google Scholar
Blay, S. K. N. (1992). Current developments: new trends in the protection of the Antarctic environment. The 1991 Madrid Protocol. The American Journal of International Law, 86, 377–399.Google Scholar
Blok, A. (2008). Contesting global norms: politics of identity in Japanese pro-whaling countermobilization. Global Environmental Politics, 8, 39–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blok, A. (2011). War of the whales: post-sovereign science and agonistic cosmopolitics in Japanese-global whaling assemblages. Science, Technology & Human Values, 36, 55–81.Google Scholar
Cabinet Office of Japan. (2015). The Science and Technology Basic Law (unofficial translation).Google Scholar
Catalinac, A. L., & Chan, G. (2005). Japan, the West, and the whaling issue: understanding the Japanese side. Japan Forum, 17, 133–163.Google Scholar
Chaturvedi, S. (1996). The polar regions: a political geography. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Clark, I. (2007). Legitimacy in international society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hara, K. (1999). Rethinking the “Cold War” in the Asia‐Pacific. The Pacific Review, 12, 515–536.Google Scholar
Hara, K. (2006). Cold War frontiers in the Asia-Pacific: divided territories in the San Francisco system. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hashimoto, S. (2009). Statement by H.E. Seiko Hashimoto, State Secretary for Foreign Affairs of Japan on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the Antarctic Treaty. Retrieved from http://www.mofa.go.jp/announce/svm/state0904.html Google Scholar
Herrmann, R. K. (2013). Perceptions and image theory in international relations. In: Huddy, L., Sears, D. O., & Levy, J. S. (Eds.). The Oxford handbook of political psychology (2nd ed., pp. 1–35). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hook, G. D., Gibson, J., Hughes, C. W., & Dobson, H. (2012). Japan's international relations: politics, economics and security (3rd ed.). Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
International Court of Justice. (2014). Press release unofficial: whaling in the Antarctic (Australia v. Japan: New Zealand intervening) the court finds that Japan's whaling programme in the Antarctic (JAPRA II) is not in accordance with three provisions of the Schedule to the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling. The Hague: International Court of Justice.Google Scholar
Ishii, A., & Okubo, A. (2007). An alternative explanation of Japan's whaling diplomacy in the post-moratorium era. Journal of International Wildlife Law & Policy, 10, 55–87.Google Scholar
Joyner, C. C. (1989). Japan and the Antarctic Treaty System. Ecology Law Quarterly, 16, 155.Google Scholar
Kelley, J. (2004). International actors on the domestic scene: membership conditionality and socialization by international institutions. International Organization, 58, 1–34.Google Scholar
Lebow, R. N. (2016). National identities and international relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Liu, M., & Kronbak, J. (2010). The potential economic viability of using the Northern Sea Route (NSR) as an alternative route between Asia and Europe. Journal of Transport Geography, 18, 434–444.Google Scholar
Livingstone, D. N. (1992). The geographical tradition: episodes in the history of a contested enterprise. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
MEXT. (2010). Chikyukansokku suishin bukai Hokkyoku kentou sagyo bukai Hokokusho -Chukan torimatome-[Intermediate report of the Arctic Research Examination Working Group, the Earth Observation Promotion Committee]. Retrieved from http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/shingi/gijyutu/gijyutu2/035-4/houkoku/1296814.htm Google Scholar
MoFA. (2013a). Antarctic Treaty/Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty. Retrieved from http://www.mofa.go.jp/mofaj/gaiko/kankyo/jyoyaku/s_pole.html#giteisyo Google Scholar
MoFA. (2013b). Q & A. Retrieved from http://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/economy/fishery/q_a_e.html Google Scholar
MoFA. (2015). ICJ and Japan. Retrieved from http://www.mofa.go.jp Google Scholar
Morikawa, J. (2009). Whaling in Japan: power, politics and diplomacy. London: Hurst & Company.Google Scholar
Naganobu, M. (2012a). Dokei no suiheisen e (1) Kotohajime [Towards the horizon of admiration (1) The beginning]. Rakusui, 837, 12–16.Google Scholar
Naganobu, M. (2012b). Dokei no suiheisen e (4) Kita hyoyo eno shinkō [Towards the horizon of admiration (4) Moving towards the Arctic Ocean]. Rakusui, 840, 14–23.Google Scholar
NIPR. (2003). Nankyoku Jōyaku Taisei [The Antarctic Treaty System]. Retrieved from http://www.nipr.ac.jp/jare-backnumber/topics/gaibuhyouka/shiryou11.html Google Scholar
NIPR. (2014). The Antarctic JARE. Retrieved from http://www.nipr.ac.jp/english/antarctic/jare.html Google Scholar
NIPR. (2016). Dai 58 ji kansokutai no goshōkai [Introducing the 58th research expedition]. Retrieved from http://www.nipr.ac.jp/jare/jare58/index.html Google Scholar
Oros, A. L. (2008). Normalizing Japan: politics, identity, and the evolution of security practice. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Roeschke, J. E. (2009). Eco-terrorism and piracy on the high seas: Japanese whaling and the rights of private groups to enforce international conservation law in neutral waters. Villanova Environmental Law Journal, 20, 99.Google Scholar
Scott, S. (1999). Australian diplomacy opposing Japanese Antarctic whaling 1945–1951: the role of legal argument. Australian Journal of International Affairs, 53, 179– 192.Google Scholar
Sea Shepherd. (2008). Operation Migaloo. Retrieved from http://www.seashepherd.org/migaloo/ Google Scholar
Secretariat of the Antarctic Treaty. (2014). The Antarctic Treaty. Retrieved from http://www.ats.aq/e/ats.htm Google Scholar
Strausz, M. (2014). Executives, legislatures, and whales: the birth of Japan's scientific whaling regime. International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, 14, 455–478.Google Scholar
Suzuki, S. (2008). Seeking ‘legitimate’ great power status in post-cold war international society: China's and Japan's participation in UNPKO. International Relations, 22, 45–63.Google Scholar
Headquarters for Ocean Policy. (2015). Japan's Arctic Policy.Google Scholar
Institute of Cetacean Research. (2013). Japan's research whaling in the Antarctic. Retrieved from http://www.icrwhale.org/eng/FAQResearch.pdf Google Scholar
The Mainichi Shimbun. (2015). Shokuryō wo jikyū dekiruka (gyogyō hen) [Are we self-sufficient in fish?]. Retrieved from http://mainichi.jp/articles/20150806/dyo/00m/010/000000c Google Scholar
Tomotsugu, S. (2013). Japan's attitude toward Antarctica from 1910 to 1964: at intersection of idealism and realism [in Japanese]. The Annuals of Japanese Political Science Association, 64, 360–380.Google Scholar
Tonami, A. (2016). Asian foreign policy in a changing Arctic: the diplomacy of economy and science at new frontiers. London: Palgrave McMillan.Google Scholar
Tonami, A., & Watters, S. (2012). Japan's Arctic policy: the sum of many parts. In: Heininen, L. (Ed.). Arctic Yearbook 2012 (pp. 93–103). Akureyri: Northern Research Forum.Google Scholar
Urrestarazu, U. S. (2015). “Identity” in international relations and foreign policy theory. In: Jørgensen, K. E., Link, W., & Hellmann, G. Theorizing foreign policy in a globalized world (Vol. 4, pp. 126–149). London: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young, O. R. (2008). Building regimes for socioecological systems: institutional diagnostics. In: Young, O. R., King, L. A., & Schroeder, H. (Eds.). Institutions and Environmental change: principal findings, applications, and research frontiers (pp. 115–144). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar