Japanese Rearmament in the 21st Century: Historical Culture, International Relations, and Political Economy

• Main Authors: Yu Lin Chen, 陳鈺麟
• Other Authors: Mark Lai
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/5yc7ew

碩士 === 文藻外語大學 === 國際事務碩士學位學程 === 106 === The potential rearmament of Japan has long been a critical consideration not only for that country but for Asia Pacific as a whole. As one of Japan’s longest-serving prime ministers, Shinzo Abe has sought to use his rearmament strategy and economic policy (“Abenomics”) to deal with key challenges facing his country. Abe dissolved the Diet on September 28, 2017 after calling snap elections; the previous year, he started shifting from rearmament to economic reform in a bid to firm up public support ahead of the vote. The current research adopted a case study methodology to analyze Japan’s rearmament planning as well as Abenomics. The path dependence of three main analytic factors, namely Japan’s historical culture, foreign relations, and political economy, was also examined. After elucidating essential background information regarding Abe’s rearmament plan and Abenomics, this paper detailed the three aforementioned factors. It then provides the process and the timeline of Abe’s push for rearmament. Finally, the question of whether Japan should rearm is discussed. The findings of this research, based on historical path dependence analysis, provide a deep insight into Japan’s historical culture, foreign relations, and political economy in relation to rearmament. This paper mainly discusses how Abe has made his rearmament plans in the context of Japan’s foreign threats and historical humiliation. Furthermore, this research provides an analysis of Japan’s political economy in order to determine why Abe’s rearmament plan has failed so far. Examining related economic data and the main issues affecting the rearmament plan elucidates why the plan is not an effective means of rebooting the economy as well as what its side effects on the economy have been.