Buddhism and the Question of Relationality in International Relations/Budizm ve Uluslararasi Iliskilerde Iliskisellik Sorunu.

• Author: Shimizu, Kosuke

Introduction

Relationality seems to have attracted a broader audience in international relations (IR) in the last decade. Patrick T. Jackson and Daniel H. Nexon's well-known work on relationality before the state was the inception (1) and Qin Yaqing's Relational Theory of World Politics followed the relational path and developed it into an established approach to contemporary world affairs. (2) Others present extensive research on how the relational approaches differ from mainstream IR discourses as well as from each other. (3) One of these relational approaches is Japanese Buddhism, which applies a particular style of relationality, engi or pratityasamutpad, to IR, and assumes spontaneous relationality prior to the construction of its subjects. Unlike other approaches of the relational turn that concentrate more on analyzing or stabilizing the international order, the Buddhist theory of IR is mainly concerned with the political practice of the liberation and healing of people. (4)

Buddhism contains diverse theories and thoughts, including Theravâdâ, Mahayana, and Vajrayana. Therefore, using 'Buddhism' as a perspective based on just one of the Buddhist philosophical discourses is too much of a generalization. Accordingly, from among them, this article will mainly focus on Mahayana Buddhism, as it emphasizes relationality with 'others' more than 'self. Mahayana Buddhism considers spontaneous and fluid relationality as a key component of reality and leads to the perspective that everything, including the conscious 'self,' is impermanent. (5)

In this article, I will illustrate how Mahayana Buddhist teachings can contribute to IR. First, I will briefly explain the discourses of relationality in IR in general. Second, I will introduce the engi relationality of Japanese Buddhism and focus in particular on language and being in order to reiterate the Mahayana Buddhist perception of ontology. Third, I will use a case drawn from the Okinawa base issue to clarify how to apply Buddhist relationality to foreign relations. Fourth, I will introduce the second case study, Denmark and the 'light in the darkness,' to illustrate the applicability of Buddhist IR relationality even outside of the East Asian context. Finally, the uneasy diplomatic relations between Japan and South Korea over the issue of sexual slavery during the Second World War will be introduced as a case to which the Mahayana Buddhist approach could have been applied but has not succeeded.

Buddhism and Relationality

Relationality has been one of the main subjects in the recent literature on critical engagement with IR. (6) The first explicit attempt to introduce relationality to the field was Jackson and Nexon's article on "relationality before the states." (7) They developed a relational understanding of IR to argue that the identities of actors are determined by the relationality between them, not the other way around, by taking relationality as a process. Another variant of relationality in IR is Confucian IR, which has been largely developed and disseminated by prominent Chinese scholars such as Yan Xuetong, Qin Yaqing, and Zhao Tingyang. (8) Their discourses employ Confucian canonical texts, including Confucius's Analects and Mencius.

While these are forerunners of relational approaches, Nordin et al. state "that any analysis of international affairs should begin with relations, not with the putative essences of constitutively autonomous actors." (9) For Nordin et al., a relational approach appears simply to be a form of IR theorization with a particular focus on the relationality among the actors. Trownsell et al. define relational approaches to IR, saying that "ontologically relationality begins by assuming interconnection as prior to the existence of entities." (10) Like Jackson and Nexon, (11) Trownsell et al. take the standpoint that relations come first and the identities and roles of actors second. A relational approach also epistemologically means that the research object cannot exist without the researcher. This involves an ethical dimension of how one can conduct social research by taking into consideration the relationship with "others" (12) when focusing on relationality itself does not necessarily answer the question "whether any existing relations are good or bad." (13)

These approaches are connected by their critical understanding of the mainstream IR that presumes an autonomous and independent actor that presumably always tries to maximize its profit. (14) Mahayana Buddhism offers one possibility for such discussions and has the potential to provide possible theoretical cores for further development of IR theory, given that it is critical of fixed identity and ego and provides extremely interesting insights into their relationship with language. (15) Before thoroughly investigating the theoretical potential of Mahayana Buddhist IR, we need to understand Mahayana Buddhist relationality in general. When we try to grasp the quintessence of Buddhism, we need to understand how subjectivity is constructed and how it is related to temporality.

Before starting a detailed discussion on Buddhist relationality, it is worth noting here that my understanding of Buddhism is not confined to the traditional interpretations of Buddhist teachings. Instead, I deliberately expand my focus to such unconventional figures as Izutsu Toshihiko, Nakamura Hajime, Hiromatsu Wataru, and Sueki Fumihiko, who are generally regarded as philosophers rather than specialists in Buddhism. This deliberately widened area of focus is because I assume that their philosophies are profoundly influenced by Buddhism, particularly their articulations of ontology.

The primary goal of Buddhism is, in principle, to be free of suffering. The distinct traditions in Buddhism, Theravâdâ, Mahayana, and Vajrayana, all aim to investigate the truth in the world for liberation. Among these, Mahayana Buddhism aims to liberate people in general from suffering, not just monks, as Theravâdâ Buddhism assumes. Thus, Mahayana Buddhism is, from the beginning, social as well as political. Geographically, Theravada Buddhism is more popular in South East Asia and Vajrayana in Tibet, whereas Mahayana Buddhism was substantially developed by a Buddhist monk, Nagarjuna, in the fifth century, and can be found mainly in East Asia, typically Japan, where almost all Buddhist sects belong to Mahayana Buddhism, including Zen Buddhism. (16)

In this article, I focus on Mahayana Buddhism partly because of its concept of ku (emptiness), on which my argument exclusively relies, and partly because the idea of ku drives our focus towards the relationality with 'others'. Indeed, in Mahayana Buddhism, the subject only appears out of relations with others. It is not the subjects that create relations with others, such as in Wendtian constructivist IR. (17) It is rather a relationality that comes first, and then it generates subjects.

This Mahayana Buddhist relationality is spontaneous and not initiated by any presupposed agent. In other words, it is an action without the subject that appears to us as a relationality. As the action is a process, not a form, Mahayana Buddhist relationality is impermanent, unlike the Confucian IR, which assumes embedded and fixed roles.

For example, a desk in front of me only becomes a desk when I write, say this paper, on it. The desk connects me and the paper as a desk, and this is the relationality. Without this relationality, and thus a desk, I would not be the author, or the paper would not be written. Similarly, without the person to use it as a desk and the paper to be written on it, the desk would not be a desk. In this way, the engi relationality presupposes spontaneity, and it is this spontaneity that generates not only subjects and objects but also how these are connected. In fact, the desk can also become a base if I stand on it to replace a light bulb. It may function as a tea table if I put a cup of tea on it. In these cases, the base connects me to the light bulb, and the tea table connects me and a cup of tea, and simultaneously it becomes a base or tea table. Whether this furniture in front of me is a desk, base, or coffee table depends entirely on how it connects the person who uses it and the objects their conduct is aiming at.

How to use the desk is not totally controlled by the subject who uses it either. The subject uses the desk as a desk because they are forced to write an article or book. Even if not forced, they like to write articles or books instead of playing a baseball game that they are supposed to play for their team. Regardless of the reasons, they did not decide to use the desk as a desk out of the blue. There are other relationalities that compelled them to use the desk as a desk. Similarly, they use the desk as a base because they find that the bulb needs replacing. A certain action, thus relationality, is, in fact, a result of other relationalities and the chain of relationalities goes infinite. The subject we think of is also the result of the immense relationalities from moment to moment, and we come to see the illusion of established and permanent 'self' in this chain of relationalities.

On the contrary, Confucian relationality presupposes the function of the desk. It connects the paper and me, but the relationality is embedded and fixed in the context of a desk. Anyone sitting in front of it is supposed to write a paper; thus, the desk is a desk from the beginning and is fixed, although the subject and object are replaceable with others. The subject could be my colleague or me, and the paper could be a letter or a notebook, but the subject must use the desk as a desk, and the object of their conduct must be appropriate to be placed on the desk. If the subject uses it as a base for changing a light bulb or placing a teacup, they would be seen as violating the moral code.

In this way, the difference between Confucian and Buddhist...