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July 20, 2006
Strained alliance
By all outward appearances, the recent summit between President Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was a tremendous success. It certainly seemed that way as Koizumi—an avid Elvis fan—beamed from behind his gold-rimmed sunglasses during a visit to Graceland with the president. But behind the smiles, the U.S.-Japan relationship is actually undergoing a period of strain. This strain may ultimately work to the benefit of both countries, but only if it is managed correctly.
The post-war Japanese constitution expressly renounces war as a sovereign right of the state. This has not stopped Japan from developing its Self-Defense Forces (SDF) into one of the most capable militaries in East Asia. During the Cold War, this served U.S. interests well, as Japan provided a bulwark against communist expansion in the region. Today, as the exaggerated concept of “China-as-enemy” becomes more accepted, Japan’s military prowess continues to serve U.S. interests.
But Japan is becoming more essential to U.S. interests in less codified ways. Under the U.S.-Japan Mutual Security Treaty, the United States maintains an array of military bases in Japan that can be used in the defense of Japan proper or to maintain “peace and stability” in East Asia. But a recent report by the Nautilus Institute found that U.S. AEGIS destroyers based at Yokosuka were maintaining semi-regular patrols in the Sea of Japan that bestrode potential missile flight paths from North Korea to the United States. In other words, U.S. military assets based in Japan were taking part in U.S. homeland defense operations. This activity could be interpreted as running afoul of both the U.S.-Japan treaty as well as Japan’s pacifist constitution.
Conversely, the U.S.-Japan relationship can be interpreted as also becoming less essential but better codified. Earlier this year, the two countries agreed on a comprehensive realignment of U.S. military forces in Japan. Some U.S. bases in Okinawa will be closed and consolidated, and the military will relocate several thousand personnel from Japan to Guam. Although Japan will remain home to significant numbers of U.S. troops, the agreement represented an explicit and mutual understanding that the U.S. military presence in Japan would be reduced.
These two countervailing tendencies in the U.S.-Japan alliance—it becoming more essential but less codified, and vice versa—highlight the need for a more mature relationship between the two countries. Under Prime Minister Koizumi, Japan has inched closer to constitutional revisions that would make it easier for the SDF to participate in peacekeeping and support operations abroad. Such potential revisions have met with opposition both in Japan and among its neighbors, who never hesitate to remind the world of Japan’s atrocities during World War II. It is certainly true that Japan has not adequately reconciled its collective memory with its wartime actions, and Koizumi’s repeated visits to the controversial Yasukuni shrine only aggravate already-serious regional tensions. But it is also true that when China, Korea, and others hold Japan hostage to its own history, they perpetuate a circular argument incapable of generating meaningful diplomatic progress. A Japan that is a fully capable member of the global community will benefit both the United States and East Asia as a whole.
From the perspective of the United States, more transparency is required in its relationship with Japan. Most importantly, the Bush administration would be well advised to avoid further vilification of China. While that country may one day represent a genuine security threat, an exaggeration of that threat for domestic political purposes only aggravates the already tense and long competitive China-Japan relationship.
Fundamentally, the United States and Japan remain strong allies. Koizumi supported the U.S. interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq and provided SDF resources in each theater. Last year, Japan and the United States agreed to designate China-Taiwan tensions as a “mutual security concern.” Amid the recent North Korean missile tests, the United States has accelerated plans to install Patriot anti-missile batteries in Japan and publicized the routine deployment of another AEGIS destroyer to the region. And Elvis theatrics aside, the successful Koizumi-Bush summit exemplified the close relationship between the leadership of the two countries.
Clearly, the U.S-Japan relationship will continue to form the bedrock of East Asian security for some time to come. But unless the tensions inherent in the relationship are relieved in smart, pragmatic ways, it will become increasingly over-burdened and ineffective.
Providence Journal, 20 July 2006
Posted by Daniel Widome at 11:48 PM to Asia
