Not surprised at all

The Japan Times reported today that when Vice President Cheney visited Japan in February, he asked Abe for clarification as to what constitutes progress on the abductions issue.

I knew there had to be more to those meetings than Cheney simply reassuring Japan of US support.

Amazing, though, that it took two months for this story to leak.

Cheney comes and goes

The vice president has swooped in, addressed US navy personnel in Yokosuka, talked and dined with Prime Minister Abe and Foreign Minister Aso (I wonder if Aso had anything to say about the "comfort women" resolution currently being debated in Congress), met with the parents of abductee Yokota Megumi, and is now en route to Australia, which is, in Cheney's words, along with Japan the "most reliable" US ally in the region. (That may be true -- but it is a not so subtle dig at South Korea; as much as I think more cooperation between the US, Japan, and Australia could be a good thing for all three, I'd rather the US expend its energy on patching things up with Seoul.)

In any case, Adamu at Mutantfrog Travelogue argues in this post that Cheney's visit was "boring." Now, I'm not going to disagree about the risk of some kind of distortion in the space-time continuum as a result of Abe and Cheney meeting -- I've written about Abe's anti-charisma before, most notably here, and having seen Vice President Cheney speak on two occasions, the best I can say is that he is a competent public speaker, but not one that anyone would mistake for charismatic.

But "boring" is exactly the point: both governments needed a routine exchange of views to remind themselves that, even as the region changes, the alliance is still important.

I am less sanguine about Adamu regarding tensions in the alliance. They do exist. How could they not, after the US cut the deal it did in the six-party talks? A nuclear North Korea, still intransigent about its abductions of Japanese citizens, being welcomed to back into the fold while being given energy support to boot -- and in return only having to close its reactor at Yongbyon? All with the support of the US, in cahoots with Beijing, among others? Given the importance the North Korea threat has had not only for Japanese governments but for the Japanese people as a whole since the "Sputnik moment" that was the 1998 Taepodong launch, if the Beijing deal survives, Japan will have some serious thinking to do about its foreign policy goals. Much more than the indiscreet comments by members of Abe's Cabinet, regional dynamics suggest the possibility of Japan's being abandoned, or, to be less dramatic, ignored (i.e., Japan passing again).

So hopefully Cheney was able to assuage concerns about a renewed bout of Japan passing, and provide the political foundation for bilateral discussions on the political management of the alliance. His visit wasn't going to result in a major agreement -- substantial work on the alliance is nearly always done at the subcabinet level, with some guidance from the relevant ministers and the blessings of political leaders. But hopefully Cheney helped clear the air. Now for the allies to begin thinking about how the political management of the alliance has to change, as suggested by the new Armitage-Nye Report. Perhaps next month's 2 + 2/Security Consultative Comittee meeting, in recent years the major forum for accelerating progress on alliance cooperation, will help map out how to strengthen the alliance politically in changing times.

Feeling the chill

The chill to which I'm referring, of course, is the chill that has set in between Tokyo and Washington.

Without looking particularly hard, I found two very clear signs of a growing appreciation among Japanese opinion makers that the US-Japan alliance is experiencing a bit of turbulence.

On the front page of today's Yomiuri, in an article published as part of an ongoing series of page one articles about the North Korean nuclear threat, Yomiuri reports on tensions just below the surface in bilateral negotiations surrounding the tentative agreement in the latest round of six-party talks. (This article does not seem to have been posted online yet.) The article reports, almost with surprise, at the swift turnaround in the US position, from clear unity with Japan following the missile and nuclear tests of 2006, to going so far as to indicate that the US might be willing to remove North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, which in 2004 George Bush insisted North Korea was, in part because of its kidnappings of Japanese citizens.

The article seems to be searching for an answer to the question, "what changed?" It's not all too difficult to explain. With Congress in Democratic hands after November and with Iraq still in shambles, the range of ways Bush could ensure a legacy narrowed considerably. Domestic avenues are more or less blocked due to the Democratic victory. The Middle East is no path to a quick victory. Reaching an accord via the six-party talks was all that was left: it enabled President Bush to show himself as willing to use patient diplomacy with other great powers in pursuit of peace -- a la Ronald Reagan's missile diplomacy with Gorbachev. Surely MOFA's American experts have some idea how presidential thinking changes as an administration winds down. It seems that the GOJ got caught up in the rhetoric that proclaimed US-Japan relations to be the best ever, and forgot that good relations can only be maintained with hard work from alliance managers in both governments -- and, in Japan in particular, with hard work by the political leadership to ensure that Japan remains at the forefront of US considerations in Asia.

But, as this op-ed in the Japan Times by former Japanese Ambassador to the US Okawara Yoshio points out, Abe has been too lax in his handling of US-Japan relations, with the result being that as a six-party agreement became possible, the US government quickly pushed Japanese concerns to the side.

The Yomiuri article ends on a doubtful note regarding Cheney's visit from the 20th to the 22nd (the following is my translation):

On the 20th, US Vice President Cheney comes to Japan. On this trip, Japan and Australia are the first priority, as he will not visit China and South Korea. This itinerary provides a "signal that Japan and Australia are America's most important allies."

To achieve a comprehensive solution to the nuclear, missile, and abduction problems, close US-Japan cooperation cannot be lacking. On Vice President Cheney's trip to Japan, can both countries close the gap on North Korea policy? The fundamentals of the alliance relationship are being questioned.

Tokyo may well be in a position to benefit from fissures within the Bush administration, as I expect that Cheney's position on the tentative agreement is not all that different from former US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton's. But I wonder if Cheney -- without his longtime ally at the Pentagon, without Scooter Libby, his beleaguered erstwhile advisor (who apparently has quite the interest in Japan), and without John Bolton -- would be able to undermine the six-party agreement fatally. Still, if he can successfully reassure Japan that the administration is not abandoning Japan while giving the Abe Cabinet a wake up call that it cannot ignore the US, his trip will have served its purpose.