External hardness - External hardness

This is an argument that emphasizes the restoration, maintenance, and expansion of national sovereignty abroad, and that a hardline diplomacy should be developed. In modern Japan, political movements that advocated a hardline foreign policy were often called hardline foreign policy movements, but these were opposition movements that criticized the government. The fundamental condition for a hardline foreign policy movement to become a government criticism movement is that government diplomacy must be carried out while comparing and calculating the reactions of the other country and related countries with its own capabilities. Therefore, even if a government shares the same ideas as the opposition about national interests and national morality, it usually has to carry out diplomacy to realize them cautiously and gradually. This is why hardline foreign policy movements that insist on the immediate achievement of national interests and morality are more likely to arise in developing countries and small countries that are easily restrained and oppressed by major powers in diplomacy.

[Masatoshi Sakata]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

対外的な国権の回復や維持、拡大を強調し、強硬外交を展開すべきであるとする主張。近代日本においてしばしば登場した対外強硬を唱える政治運動を対外硬運動とよぶが、これは野党派の政府批判運動であった。対外硬運動が政府批判運動となる根本的条件は、政府外交が相手国および関係諸国の反応と自己の力量との較量計算を行いつつ展開されなければならないという性格をもっているからである。したがって通常、政府は国益や国家的道義について、たとえ野党派と同じ考えをもっている場合でも、それらの実現のための外交は慎重かつ漸進的に展開せざるをえない。外交上大国の牽制(けんせい)や抑圧を受けやすい後進国や小国において、国益や道義の即時達成を主張する対外硬運動が起こりやすい理由である。

［酒田正敏］

出典　小学館　日本大百科全書(ニッポニカ)日本大百科全書(ニッポニカ)について　情報 | 凡例