Japanese Foreign and Security Policies under Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, in: Panorama-Insight into Asian and European Affairs

What will be new and what will remain the same on Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s foreign and security policy agenda in the months and years ahead? “Probably very little and most of it” is only a mere possibility. This paper seeks to examine the various issues and policies which could be manoeuvred on the prime minister’s foreign and security policy agenda. Japan’s (relatively) new government which took office last September is currently reviewing some of the policy initiatives and policies which gradually, but nonetheless, fundamentally, transformed the quality and impact of Japan’s regional and global foreign and security policies initiated and implemented under former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi from 2001-2006. Amongst others, Koizumi back then oversaw Japanese military providing US forces engaged in the war in Afghanistan with logistical support in the Indian Ocean (2001-2010), dispatched military personnel to Iraq (2004-2006), and had his government adopt a series of laws enabling Japan to participate in and contribute to international military missions. Currently, as will be shown below, parts of that “upgrade” of Japan’s regional and global security profile, promoted and indeed taken for granted by previous governments run by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), are subject to change and adjustments. For starters, Prime Minister Hatoyama announced a revisiting of some of what he called “asymmetries” of the US-Japan security alliance