Japanese Civil Society And

The 1990s witnessed a remarkable surgein the publics interest in civil society inJapan. An increasing number ofJapanese non-governmental organiza-

tions (NGOs) work in both international anddomestic fields.1 National security issueshave not been immune from these latest stir-rings of Japanese civil society. Citizens andcivil society organizations, along with somelocal governments, have challenged thecountrys security policy and its security rela-tions with the United States on such mattersas the US bases in Okinawa, the so-calledKobe Formula regarding nuclear ship visits,and Japans global nuclear disarmament ini-

tiatives. All three issues, directly or indirectlyhave had significant bearings on Japanssecurity policy and alliance relationship withthe US.

In combination with the more activeroles played by Japanese civil society organi-zations, local governments have sometimesplayed independent and defiant roles vis--vis the national government even in the for-eign and security policy realm, when thosepolicies seriously affect local communities,most typically in the case of Okinawa afterthe mid 1990s.2,3

Growth of Japanese Civil Society

Since around the mid 1990s, there hasbeen a strong and sustained public focus onboth domestic and international NGOs inJapan. Japans coming of age as an economicsuperpower has created a somewhat obses-sive interest in anything international in thepast decade and half. Kokusai-koken (inter-national contribution) has become a buzzword in Japan, especially after the Gulf War.Not only did Japan dramatically increase itsforeign aid budget during this period but thegovernment, the Foreign Ministry in particu-lar, also came to emphasize partnership withNGOs in implementation of its aid policy.

The 1995 Kobe [Hanshin-Awaji] earth-quake is said to have ushered in the Age of

20 Medicine & Global Survival, April 2001; Vol. 7, No. 1 Japanese Civil Society

Japanese Civil Society andU.S.-Japan Security Relations

in the 1990s

Naoki Kamimura, PhD

The rise of civil society in Japan in the 1990s has had an impact on the countrysnational security policy and security relations with the United States. Japanesecivil society organizations have increasingly interacted with the Japanese and USgovernments on security issues such as US bases in Okinawa, nuclear ship visits,and global nuclear disarmament. [M&GS 2001;7:20-25]

NK is Associate Professor, Faculty ofInternational Studies, Hiroshima City University.This article is adapted from a longer studyJapanese Civil Society, Local Government, andU.S.-Japan Security Relations in the 1990s: APreliminary Surveypublished in Otsuru CK,Rhodes E (eds). Nationalism and Citizenship III.Japan Center for Area Studies (JCAS)-RutgersSeries iii, JCAS Occasional Paper no.11, Feb.2001:1-16as part of a joint JCAS/RutgersUniversity project on Nationalism andCitizenship in the United States and Japan.Address correspondence to Naoki Kamimura,Faculty of International Studies, Hiroshima CityUniversity, 3-4-1 Ozuka-higashi, Asaminami-ku,Hiroshima 731-3194, Japan.E-mail: [email protected]

Volunteerism in Japan. Not only do moreJapanese individually involve themselves involunteer activities, but increasing num-bers of NGOs have started to channel suchvolunteer energy.4

There has also been a significant recentincrease in the number of local initiatives andreferenda that have directly challenged local,regional, or even national policy agendassince the mid 1990s on issues such as con-struction of industrial waste dump sites,nuclear power plants, or dams, and the relo-cation of US military bases. Many of thesechallenges have revolved around concernsfor the environment and local autonomy. Thenumber of successful referenda has increaseddramatically since 1995 from less than fiveper year to more than 20 per year toward theend of the 1990s, despite the difficult politicalhurdles imposed on the Japanese referendumsystem.5

Okinawa and the US BaseIssue, 1995-1998

The Okinawa case is a complex story inwhich a local government, led by an activeand articulate governor, Masahide Ota, firstchallenged and then lobbied and negotiat-ed with both the Japanese and US govern-ments, in collaboration with supportive citi-zens and civil society organizations on theisland and, to a lesser degree, on the main-land and abroad. Ota sought not only tochange Tokyos policy on US military basesin Okinawa but also to renegotiate the poli-cymaking process itself by giving the prefec-tural government a greater role.6

After a twelve-year-old Okinawan girlwas raped by three young American militarypersonnel in September 1995, igniting a waveof indignant protest throughout Okinawaand, to a lesser but significant extent, on themainland, Ota appealed to Japans court sys-tem for a clarification of the Local AutonomyLaw, made annual trips to Washington, DC toadvocate for changes in US basing policy, andsupported the organization of a prefecturalreferendum on the base issue in September1996. Ota met regularly with citizens groupsand with two successive, sympathetic primem i n i s t e r s .6 , 7

The US government took the situationquite seriously. Fearing that half-heartedmeasures after the rape incident would onlyworsen the situation and jeopardize contin-ued military presence on the island, the USacted quickly to soothe the emotional wounds.Beginning with apologies by the local com-mander and the consul general, US militaryand political leaders on an ever higher levelfollowed suit, culminating in PresidentClintons formal expression of regret over theincident. The US government also moved

swiftly to establish with the Japanese govern-ment a Special Action Committee onOkinawa (SACO) in November 1995 torearrange and consolidate US bases on theisland.8

With the presence of sympatheticJapanese prime ministers and accommodat-ing US attitudes against the backdrop of ahighly mobilized public in Okinawa, Otamomentarily created a situation in which theJapanese government had to negotiate withhim over continued use of US bases.6 Thecentral government agreed in December 1995to establish Okinawa Beigun Kichi MondaiKyougikai (Consultative Committee onOkinawa Base Problems), an unprecedentedforum in which representatives of OkinawaPrefecture directly negotiate the base consol-idation and reduction issue with the top-levelrepresentatives from the central government.This Tokyo-Okinawa negotiation continuedin parallel with SACO negotiations betweenTokyo and Washington.6

Throughout this process, Ota wasstrongly supported not only by leftist partiesand the labor movementthe traditionalenclave of anti-base activismbut also byvarious citizens movements in Okinawa.Womens groups in particular, such asWomen Against Military Violence, not onlyprotested the presence of US military basesbut also engaged in activities to help rapeand other crime victims. Civil society, ineffect, with the help of a sympathetic gover-nor, successfully reformulated the US baseissue into a post-Cold War shift toward pro-tection and promotion of human rights andenvironmental values.

Momentum for a drastic reduction of USbases in Okinawa lost steam, however, in1997 because of difficulties finding an alterna-tive marine air facilities site. The central gov-ernment succeeded in re-reformulating thebase issue into an old one of jobs and subsi-dies, and closed the loopholes in militaryland expropriation procedures by enactingTokuso-hou (Special Measures Law), whichdenied governors the indispensable role theyhad played previously in these procedures.6In the end, Ota lost his reelection campaign in1998 largely due to the deadlock over plans torelocate the Futenma marine base9 , 1 0 and thesubsequent shrinkage of central governmentfunding to the island, which added economicinjury to the already precarious Okinawane c o n o m y .

Ota was successful to the extent that hecould muster strong public support behindhis bold initiatives. Citizen activism played acritical role, at least initially, as long as Otacould define the issue as a new post-ColdWar concern for human rights or the envi-ronment instead of jobs and the economy.

Japanese Civil Society Kamimura 21

The Okinawa case suggests a potentiallypowerful, but at the same time limited andambivalent, role local governments can playbetween the central government and civilsociety in Japan.

The Antinuclear Movement andDisarmament Initiatives

The antinuclear movement has had along and impressive history in Japan since theUS atomic bombing of Hiroshima andNagasaki in 1945. Centering around thehibakusha (atomic bomb victims) and theirfamilies and relatives, the antinuclear move-ment, with political support from intellectuals,the labor movement, and leftist parties, hassuccessfully created in postwar Japan politicalmomentum for national victim support mea-sures as well as for antinuclear and global dis-armament initiatives. During the Cold War,however, successive conservative govern-

ments gave utmost impor-tance to the security relation-ship with the US and refrainedfrom advocating any policyinitiative that would jeopar-dize US strategic interests.They gave mostly lip serviceto the antinuclear causethrough such measures as theso-called three non-nuclearprinciples enunciated byPrime Minister Eisaku Sato in1967.

The cities of Hiroshimaand Nagasaki and their suc-cessive mayors tended to rep-resent more genuinely thecentral goal and aspiration ofJapans antinuclear move-ment: the immediate aboli-tion of all nuclear weapons on

Earth. According to Hiromichi Umebayashi,this all-or-nothing approach was quite natur-al for the antinuclear movement in Japan,which was indeed the only country to havesuffered from atomic bombings. This gave aparticular slant to the Japanese antinuclearmovement, however, by making any inter-mediate language, such as reduction orfreeze, somewhat unrespectable. Thisabsolutist stance, argues Umebayashi,helped generate tendencies to refrain fromhard-headed analysis of international politicsand to pay less attention to the direction androles of overseas NGOs, which tended toemphasize influencing international politics.

Another problem has seriously under-mined the effectiveness of the Japanese anti-nuclear movement. The antinuclear move-ment developed rapidly in Japan after the endof US occupation in 1952, and acceleratedafter the 1954 Bikini hydrogen bomb test and

the subsequent Lucky Dragon incident, inwhich crews of a Japanese fishing vessel suf-fered from the deadly effects of nuclear fall-out. After successfully organizing the firstWorld Conference Against Atomic andHydrogen Bombs in Hiroshima on August 6,1955, a broadly based coalition of politicians,scholars, and representatives of civil societyorganizations established Gensuikyo (theJapan Council Against Atomic and HydrogenBombs) in the following month. Gensuikyo,however, soon fell victim to the internationalCold War conflict and was beset by domesticpolitical repercussions, especially the rivalrybetween the Communists and the Socialists.Opposed to the increasing domination of theorganization by the Communists, who acqui-esced in Soviet nuclear tests while stronglydenouncing Western tests, groups led by theSocialists split from Gensuikyo and, in 1965,established a separate organization, Gensuikin(Japan Congress Against Atomic andHydrogen Bombs), with the Communist-ledmovement remaining as Gensuikyo.

As a result of this politicization and splitof the Japanese antinuclear movement, theoverall movement no longer attracted abroad cross section of the Japanese popula-t i o n . 1 1 Although the Japanese antinuclearcrusade continued, argues Lawrence Wittner,it lost much of its grassroots, popular flavor,as well as a substantial portion of its influ-e n c e . 1 1 The two organizations were locked ina bitter political struggle and competed witheach other for the leadership of worldwidegrassroots antinuclear activism, holding sepa-rate World Conferences for nuclear abolitionon the Hiroshima and Nagasaki Days. Theseorganizations failed to have much impact onthe policy of successive conservative nationalgovernments during the Cold War, despitetheir strong international moral appeals.

Local Government InitiativesIn the 1980s, the Japanese antinuclear

movement was reinvigorated by strong anti-nuclear and nuclear freeze movements thatspread throughout Europe, the US, and theSouth Pacific. Japanese towns and citiesnow numbering more than 2,000declaredtheir communities nuclear-free. About 200 ofthese nuclear-free local governments estab-lished Nihon Hikaku Sengen JichitaiKyougikai (Consortium of Nuclear-FreeLocal Governments) in 1984 for consultativepurposes. The consortium, however, hasremained more or less a ceremonial organiza-tion without much active political role inpushing the nuclear disarmament agendadomestically or internationally. The SekaiHeiwa Rentai Toshi Shichou Kaigi (MayorsConference on World Peace Solidarity),established by the mayors of Hiroshima and


In the 1980s, theJapanese antinuclearmovement was rein-vigorated by strong

movements thatspread throughout

Europe, the US, andthe South Pacific.More than 2,000

Japanese towns andcities declared their

communitiesnuclear-free.

Nagasaki in 1983 and with a current mem-bership of 456 local governments from 100countries and regions, has played a moresubstantial role. The Conference holds annualmeetings between August 6 and 9 inHiroshima and Nagasaki, and providesmember municipalities with information andmaterials related to the atomic bombing ofthe two cities.1 2 These antinuclear move-ments of Japanese municipalities, while hav-ing symbolic appeal, have failed to seriouslychallenge the governments nuclear disarma-ment policy, which strictly avoids any initia-tive that might jeopardize US nuclear deter-rence and capabilities.

Kobe Formula and Nuclear Ship VisitsA nuclear-free policy adopted by the

City of Kobe in 1975 under the leadership ofa newly elected kakushin (progressive)mayor, Tatsuo Miyazaki, with a strong back-ing from citizens and local labor unions, hasbeen more important and influential thanthese other local initiatives.13 This so-calledKobe Formula has generated a great deal ofpolitical controversy in the past few years,after years of benign neglect by the nationalgovernment. Under the Kobe Formula, thecity requires visiting foreign military ships topresent certificates of their nuclear-free sta-tus. While most nuclear-free declarations orresolutions by local bodies do not specifymeasures for implementation, the KobeFormula is based on the City Councils March1975 resolution rejecting port visits by shipswith nuclear weaponsan administrativemeasure continuously upheld and practicedby Kobe City since 1975.13 US military ships,which had visited the city port 423 timesbetween 1960 and 1974, ceased their visitsafter the adoption of the policy because of theUS Navys policy to neither deny nor confirmthe presence of nuclear weapons on a partic-ular ship. The legal basis on which Kobeslocal government can accept or deny requestsfor visits by foreign military ships is said tobe Kowan-ho (Port Law), which designatesthe local government as the administrator ofa civilian port located within its jurisdiction.1 3

The Kobe Formula had remained inforce without much challenge from theJapanese national government or visiting for-eign ships until very recently when KochiPrefecture, under the leadership of GovernorDaijiro Hashimoto in 1998, began earnestly toemulate Kobes example. Kochi went a stepfurther by introducing a local code thatrequires certification of visiting foreign shipsby the Foreign Ministry.1 4 The city ofHakodate, at the initiative of citizensgroups, started deliberations on adopting asimilar measure. The national government,especially the Foreign Ministry, mounted a

vigorous campaign to stop GovernorHashimoto from enacting a nuclear-freecode, insisting that it infringed upon thestates foreign policy making prerogative.Hashimoto rebutted that his government wasnot trespassing on the states jurisdiction, butwas only trying to implement Japans threenon-nuclear principles. Ultimately, strongopposition from Liberal Democratic Party(LDP) representatives in the PrefecturalAssembly, which constituted its largest fac-tion, and the lack of strong support frompublic opinion and other local governments,made Governor Hashimoto retract hisnuclear-free proposal in early 1999.

According to the Asahi Shimbun, mostlocal governments with major ports are reluc-tant to introduce a Kobe-style nuclear-freepolicy. The government of Osaka City, forexample, which declared itself nuclear-free,has sent inquiries to the Foreign Ministry andto the local US Consulate General regardingthe nuclear status of visiting US ships. TheForeign Ministry always responds that thereare no nuclear weapons on board becausethere was no request for previous consulta-tion by the US government. The USConsulate responds that, generally speaking,visiting US ships do not carry nuclearweapons, but that they can not certify the sta-tus of individual ships. Legal scholars aredivided on whether local governments canuse their authority to prohibit port visits byforeign ships admitted by the national gov-ernment.15 According to Kajimoto Shushi,behind the vigorous opposition to Kochisnuclear-free proposal by the national govern-ment and LDP lies the fear that the spread ofa Kobe Formula would effectively ban USwarships from these ports at a time when theUS and Japanese governments are trying togive US warships easier access to Japanesecivilian ports and other facilities.16

NGOs and GlobalDisarmament Initiatives

The mid 1990s witnessed an emergenceof highly focused and internationally wellconnected NGOs and think tanks devoted toadvocacy and research on national securityand disarmament. Several peace researchinstitutions were established, affiliated withuniversities or based on grassroots contribu-tions. What distinguishes these from themore established Japanese think tanks andresearch institutions is the fact that they arefree from control by traditional sponsorsincluding the national government, politicalparties, business, or the labor movement.Hiroshima Peace Institute, for example, wasestablished in 1998 by the City of Hiroshimaas an affiliate of Hiroshima City University,and successfully organized the Tokyo Forum


on nuclear disarmament in collaborationwith the government-supported JapanInstitute of International Affairs. Althoughthe policy impact of the Hiroshima PeaceInstitute is somewhat mixedit essentiallyco-organized the Tokyo Forum rather thaninfluencing official policy with original andindependent ideas of its ownit is remark-able that a research organ of Hiroshima Cityjointly organized a major global nuclear dis-armament initiative with a research arm ofthe Foreign Ministry, with which the city hadhad awkward and sometimes antagonisticrelations in the past.

The 1990s have also been characterizedby increasing networking among grassrootsJapanese NGOs with a focus on peace and dis-armament advocacy and NGOs outside thecountry, as well as by the emergence of newNGOs with expertise and organizing skills.One of the most successful has been PeaceDepot in Yokohama,1 7 the creation and activi-

ties of which may most clearlyindicate the coming of age ofJapanese civil society in thearea of national security.Peace Depot is unique amongJapanese NGOs in that itsfocus is not just advocacy butalso on collection, analysis,and dissemination of nationalsecurity information for citi-zen use. With roots going backto the Pacific-wide anti-Tomahawk campaign in themid 1980s, it was formallyestablished in 1997 by currentdirector Hiromichi Umebayasiand other disarmament advo-

cates and scholars. Peace Depot works as ahub for a network of citizens peace organiza-tions in Japan. Since its establishment, PeaceDepot has quickly become a standard bearerin Japans nuclear disarmament movement,with international disarmament NGOs oftendesignating Peace Depot or Umebayashi him-self as a point of contact and collaborationwith Japanese organizations.

One of the reasons behind this rapid riseof a newcomer in Japans antinuclear move-ment may have been widespread frustrationamong nuclear disarmament advocates withthe long-standing political and ideologicalconflicts and divisions among older organi-zations, especially between Gensuikin andGensuikyo. The two rival organizations, itshould be noted, have made some concertedefforts in recent years to repair the historicaldivisions of the Cold War era, and to form astronger single voice. There have also beengradual efforts to end a domestic Cold Warbetween the national government and theJapanese peace movement. Gensuikin, in par-

ticular, has taken the lead to initiate a dia-logue with the government on nuclear disar-mament policy. Gensuikyo also has takenadvantage of the new global environmentregarding nuclear disarmament by increas-ing contact with such new and effective inter-national forces as the New Agenda Coalition.

Peace Depot has enjoyed close attentionfrom the national government and transna-tional networks. An unprecedented collabora-tion took place between the Japanese ForeignMinistry and Japanese disarmament NGOsparticularly with Peace Depotduring theApril 2000 NPT Review Conference in NewYork. The Foreign Ministry, traditionally veryjealous of its prerogative in nuclear disarma-ment diplomacy, for the first time invited NGOrepresentatives, including Umebayashi andother Peace Depot members, for a series of pre-conference consultations. The Ministry in theend did not concur with Peace Depots recom-mendation that Japan support the NewAgenda Coalition initiative to secure moreconcrete pledges from nuclear states for theabolition of nuclear weapons.18,19 N o n e t h e l e s s ,Peace Depot had been requesting these consul-tations since its establishment and only recent-ly, especially during the past year or so, has theForeign Ministry become amenable. Accordingto Umebayashi, now that most other devel-oped countries have come to form a close linkwith civil society organizations, the JapaneseForeign Ministry could not but actively pursuea similar course, even in the realm of securityand nuclear disarmament.1 8 , 1 9

ConclusionThe influence on actual policy of newly

emerged NGOs and think tanks, such asPeace Depot and Hiroshima Peace Institute,has been limited. The Japanese governmenttook an explicitly different, pro-US, positionin the 2000 NPT Review conference despiteNGO recommendations for more drasticsteps toward the abolition of nuclear arms.On the other hand, the very fact that theJapanese government began to take NGOsseriously in the area of disarmament andnational security policy is itself an achieve-ment of Japanese civil society. Still, JapaneseNGOs have a long way to go compared withthose in other developed countries in termsof their number, size, and expertise.Especially wanting is their influence on thepolitical process and on security policy mak-ing in particular (although this latter weak-ness is not limited to Japanese NGOs but isalso found among their counterparts inWestern countries). There are two particularweaknesses in Japanese NGOs: insufficientavailability of funds and lack of security-related information from the Japanese gov-ernment. These weaknesses, however, might


The very fact that theJapanese government

has begun to takeNGOs seriously in thearea of disarmamentand national security

policy is itself anachievement of

Japanese civil society.

be overcome gradually, in part, because ofthe recent enactment of the NPO (NonprofitOrganization) Law and the InformationDisclosure Law.

During the Cold War, differences oversecurity issues were often described more orless as a political and ideological conflictbetween the conservative national govern-ment and progressive anti-governmentforces (hoshu vs. kakushin), or as a conflictbetween national and parochial local interests.The emerging concept of civil society couldallow for a broader and more flexible perspec-tive. Because of the underdeveloped natureof civil society in Japan, collaboration betweencivil society actors and local governments islikely to remain crucial in the coming years.Collaboration with, and support from, civilsociety actors are also crucial for local govern-ments when they find themselves in a positionto challenge national policy.

References1. Yamamoto T. Emergence of Japans civil soci-ety and its future challenges. In Yamamoto T(ed). Deciding the public good: governance andcivil society in Japan. Tokyo: JCIE. 1999.2. Yamamoto T. Nihon gaiko ni okeru shimin-shakai [Civil society in Japanese foreign policy].Kokusaimondai [International Affairs] 2000;484:56.3. Smith SA (ed). Local voices, national issues:the impact of local initiative in Japanese policy-making. Lansing: University of Michigan Press.2000.4. Saotome M. Nihon gaiko to NGO. In Usui H,Takase M (eds). Minsai gaiko no kenkyu [Astudy on international diplomacy]. Tokyo:Mitsumine Shobo. 1997.5. Shiratori H. Kokusai isshu wo megururefarendamu: Okinawa no jirei [Referendum oninternational issues: Okinawas case. KokusaiSeiji [Inernational Politics] 1999;120:135-54.6. Smith SA. Challenging national authority:Okinawa prefecture and the US military bases.In Smith SA (ed). Local voices, national issues:the impact of local initiative in Japanese policy-

making. Lansing: University of Michigan Press.2000.7. Funabashi Y. Alliance adrift. Washington,DC: Brookings Institution Press. 1999.8. Kamimura N. Post-cold war US foreign poli-cy decision making and security policy towardJapan: a preliminary survey. Hiroshima Journalof International Studies 1997;3:26.9. Eldridge R. The 1996 Okinawa referendumon US base reductions. Asian Survey1997;37:879-904.10. Eldridge R. Okinawa and the Nago heliportproblem in the US-Japan relationship. Asia-Pacific Review 2000;7:137-156.11. Wittner L. The struggle against the bomb(vol. II): resisting the bomb: a history of theworld nuclear disarmament movement, 1954-1970. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 1997.12. Peace Depot. Kaku gunshuku to hikakujichitai 1997 [Nuclear disarmament andnuclear-free local governments 1997]. Tokyo:Peace Depot. 1997.13. Okawa Y. Hikaku Kobe Hoshiki[Nuclear-free Kobe Formula]. Kobe: HyogoBuraku-mondai Kenkyujo. 1992.14. Peace Depot. Kaku gunshuku to hikakujichitai 1998 [Nuclear disarmament andnuclear-free local governments 1997]. Tokyo:Peace Depot. 1998.15. Kanbara M. Hikaku-joreika wa jichiken nokoshi dearu (Nuclear-free codification is an exer-cise of local autonomy. Sekai May 1999:43-49.16. Shushi K. Hikaku Kobe Hoshiki kogeki nonerai [Motives behind attacking nuclear-freeKobe Formula]. Asahi Shimbun. March 3, 1999.17. Umebayasi H. Interview with director,Peace Depot, August 10, 2000. Available onlineat www.jca.apc.org/peacedepot/katsudo-keii.html.18. Umebayasi H. Turning point for Japansnuclear disarmament diplomacy. (Paper pre-sented at the International Symposium onNuclear Disarmament in the 21st Century).Hiroshima: July 29, 2000.19. Noboru S. Ambassadors speech deliveredat the International Symposium on NuclearDisarmament in the 21st Century. Hiroshima.July 29, 2000.


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