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A SENSE OF ASIA

A reminder from Japan of what allies do


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By Sol Sanders
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM

Sol W. Sanders

February 23, 2005

While President Bush was entreating a Brussels audience [diffidently clapping on a few cues] for a renewal of trans-Atlantic bonds, antithetically important accretions were taking shape in the U.S.-Japan alliance.

For the first time, in a joint statement concluding Japanese-U.S. security talks in Washington, peace in the Taiwan Strait was specifically mentioned publicly as one of the "common strategic objectives" of Japan and the United States. That had followed the Japanese earlier joining, separately, representations to the Europeans against the proposed lifting of the China arms sales embargo, as exacerbating tensions. The low-keyed Taiwan “mention” capped an alliance housekeeping session. But the statement drew attention to China's rapid military modernization program, much of it aimed at Taiwan, calling it a matter of concern, and urging Beijing to be more transparent in its military planning and weapons procurement.

When China blustered the announcement was interference in China’s internal affairs [Beijing officially regards Taiwan as a “renegade province”], Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was uncharacteristically frank for a politician: He reminded [perhaps Japanese and Americans as well as Chinese] the Washington security talks were aimed at reinforcing the alliance as well as reducing the burden of hosting an American deterrent. That’s particularly outspoken when talking to your No. 1 trading partner.

There was more: "We will strengthen the functions of the Japan-U.S. security treaty from the viewpoint of the Japan-U.S. alliance in the world." .He was reinforcing new aspects of what was once seen as a relatively limited one-sided bargain. For half a century after the Korean War brought the Cold War to East Asia, Washington threw a nuclear shield around a Japan under reconstruction as a “normal” country after the depredations of militarism and World War II. But the world, Japan, and the alliance, have moved on.

Koizumi reminded the Chinese: "We've been consistent in calling for a peaceful [Taiwan] solution.” That is commensurate with an American commitment to prevent a military solution. But it is no secret Taiwan – under its relatively benign 50-year Japanese occupation – and Japan have always had a special relationship. In a last gasp the Ching Dynasty tried to assert control over Taiwan [and Singkiang at outer reaches of empire] in the mid-19th century, but Japanese geopoliticians, building a new world power, saw Japan’s security linked to their neighboring island. [Koizumi also reminded reporters Tokyo believes aggressive Chinese gas prospecting in that same East China Sea is laterally drilling in Japan’s maritime backyard.]

Longtime Japan watchers have been surprised at the alacrity with which Koizumi and the Japanese have moved to reinforce the American alliance in the past few months. True, nothing concentrates the mind like a naked threat: the North Korean missile flight across their islands in 1998 was a wake-up call, perhaps as dramatic as 9/11 for the U.S. That was reinforced in an unprecedented way for a largely apolitical Japanese polity by the issue of North Korean kidnappings. The melodrama of innocent, frightened, fellow citizens haphazardly taken into captivity and death by Pyongyang’s murderous regime strengthened the hawks’ hands in a Japanese environment so long gulled by zooming living standards which pacifism seemed to have bought permanently.

In quick succession, the Japanese decided to collaborate on joint anti-missile defense in the face of considerable doubt in some quarters about its efficacy. They dispatched “noncombatant” troops to Iraq, token but significant in a free world divided by the crisis. Negotiations proceed on a dozen issues involving moving U.S. bases to Japan as part of America’s worldwide “transformation” deployment. Japanese naval ships are prominent in the U.S.-sponsored PSI [Proliferation Security Initiative], a coordinated effort outside treaty arrangements and the UN, to halt international weapons of mass destruction shipments.

Does that mean Japan has become a patsy for U.S.’ strategists? Hardly. Like all alliances, there will be continuing conflicting national interests. Koizumi, a politician with declining popularity, is being pushed, ironically, by the Japanese public to move more quickly than the coordinated effort Washington wants on economic sanctions as a weapon in the struggle with Pyongyang. The Japanese government, after months of Washington holding its coattails, guaranteed a massive [if preliminary] investment in Iranian oil – just as the U.S. was trying to inject realism into the Europeans’ “soft power” efforts to halt Tehran’s nuclear weaponry. There will be extensive haggling over the continuing large American military force’s costs in Japan, the always testy Okinawa situation where perhaps too many U.S. Marines are confined to too little space. And what to do about the mayor of Yokusuka, perhaps the most important U.S. Pacific naval base, who refuses an American homeported nuclear-powered aircraft carrier as the U.S. seeks to mothball its last diesels, for economy as well as strategy?

One can say, however, these are not atypical problems of an alliance between leading world powers with mutual interests. They used to be the problems of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization but ...

Sol W. Sanders, (solsanders@comcast.net), is an Asian specialist with more than 25 years in the region, and a former correspondent for Business Week, U.S. News & World Report and United Press International. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.

February 23, 2005

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