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Japan's 21st-century role to be U.S. satellite in Asia?
Steven C. Clemons Special to The Daily Yomiuri
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has turned out to be a pretty tame
lion. Swept into office in a wave of populist euphoria that he might
deliver his people and nation from economic malaise and geopolitical
obscurity, Koizumi was the hope for liberal nationalism in Japan. After
nearly six decades of U.S. presence in Japan, some hoped that while
supporting the basic tenets of the U.S.-Japan security alliance, he might
at least shore up Japan's sovereignty and general weight in the equation.
Fast forward to the day of U.S. President George W. Bush's 48-hour "Get
out or face the heat" warning to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and
the actual incursion into Iraq, and one sees Koizumi performing like one
of the most sycophantic prime ministers in Japan's history, at least in
matters relating to the United States.
Reacting to Bush's speech, Koizumi made clear that he supports the
Bush ultimatum to Saddam and that Japan will endorse the invasion by U.S.
and British troops. Reading as if from talking points scripted by the
White House National Security Council staff, Koizumi embraced the plan to
reach back to U.N. resolutions 678, 687 and 1441 to justify the U.S.
action. It would be interesting to know whether Diet legal counsel came
to this conclusion on their own, or whether this was a full intellectual
import from Washington. Koizumi also remarked that Japan would not
participate in any military action against Iraq "because of
constitutional constraints," implying that if those tethers were not
in place, Japan might be up there on the front line with the Americans
and the British.
In the days before the attack on Iraq started, nearly 70 percent of
the Japanese public disapproved of the imminent attack on Iraq. Perhaps
Koizumi would give a British Prime Minister Tony Blair-like performance
if he could, and commit Japan to this war despite the ambivalence of the
international community and his own citizens. But to fall into lockstep
behind Bush now while maintaining "radio silence" during the
great debates in the United Nations in recent months relegates Japan to
servant and satellite of U.S. interests, rather than a nation whose
national identity is finally emerging from behind U.S. hyper presence.
I am not an apologist for Saddam, nor am I patently against any type
of conflict that would topple him. However, the U.S. political leadership
has stumbled into this replay of the Gulf War, generating numerous
"friendly fire" casualties among its allies, and failing to
understand that the grand theater of U.S. leadership requires that the
United States appear as if it can competently manage multiple crises in
the world at once. Otherwise, every thug and interest-maximizing
government in the world who has a score to settle, land to acquire, or
nearby nations to intimidate would use the point in time when the global
hegemon is tied down and distracted by Iraq to make their moves. The
unfolding debacle with North Korea demonstrates the limited ability of
the Bush administration to "walk and chew gum" at the same
time. Furthermore, it is unclear whether the soft underbelly
vulnerabilities of civil infrastructure are any more hardened to the real
threat of terrorism than they were before the Sept 11, 2001, attacks.
Koizumi would be a better friend to the United States if he had
articulated his points of strong support for Bush, combined with public
counsel on Japan's concerns about the manner and strategy that Bush was
pursuing this war.
Two astonishing trends to observe in the world today are that European
power is on the rise and that China, a nation targeted early by the Bush
administration as the primary object of our national security concerns,
is looking like an astonishingly stable power with upward of 50 billion
dollars a year in foreign direct investment pouring in. China is laughing
all of the way to the bank as this U.S.-led global turmoil unfolds.
Europe has chosen arenas to closely collaborate with the United States
while confronting the United States in others. Japan, in contrast, has
disappeared from the scene. When asked a year ago why Japan was so
invisible in the great debates about global governance and in most other
international policy matters, Japanese Ambassador to the United States
Ryozo Kato said it was the wrong time for Japan to stick its head up and
the time to support the United States was in times of crisis.
It is not in U.S. interests for Japan to appear as weak and peripheral
to world affairs as it now appears to so many. Japan is a rich nation
that clearly has economic challenges, but it still ranks as the world's
second largest economy and maintains one of the largest and most
competent defense forces in the world. Yet no leader considers Japan a
credible architect in the unfolding world order. Japan's sycophantism and
acquiescence to the Bush administration on its Iraq policy seem to harken
back to the days when U.S. Gen. Douglas MacArthur was sending orders to
the first Occupation-era leader, Prime Minister Kijuro Shidehara.
The United States needs a strong Japan, not a "yes man." It
needs a Japan that will collaborate on the realities of global governance
in economic and security dimensions. While Koizumi promised a Japan with
a fuller sense of itself and its national potential, Japanese got a prime
minister who is perpetuating the image of Occupation Japan, lobotomized
in foreign policy and a supplicant to U.S. needs and whims.
While Koizumi might not have wanted to go the distance that German
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has gone in distancing Germany's interests
from those of the United States, one can clearly see that Japan has still
not graduated from its satellite status.
Clemons is executive vice president of the New America Foundation, a
centrist public policy institution in Washington. He was also a member of
the "Understanding Tomorrow's Japan" task force of the U.S.
Pacific Council on International Policy.
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