Bush tries to reassure Japan

US President George W. Bush spoke with Japanese journalists before heading to Japan for the Toyako summit, and while he spoke about the summit, it seems that his interlocutors were more interested in last week's announcement that the US will proceed in removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

In what Mainichi describes as an effort to still Japanese fears of "abandonment," the president insisted that he remembers his meeting with the Yokotas and that the abductees will not be forgotten.

In his attempt to reassure Japan, Mr. Bush stated that the abductions issue should be resolved within the framework of the six-party talks (presumably as opposed to the framework of Japan-North Korea bilateral talks).

Will Japanese leaders and the Japanese public be reassured by the president's words? It seems that the time of relying on the president's words has passed, and even conservatives — who, if Abe Shinzo's reliance on Mr. Bush's promises on the abductees, once put considerable stock in the president's words — are no longer content to rely on the promise of President Bush. And why should they? How does the president propose to resolve the abductions issue in a multilateral setting? Are China and South Korea prepared to pressure North Korea on the abductees. If not, the president's desire to see the abductions issue solved multilaterally is meaningless. All it means is that Japan will continue to look to others for the answer to the problem instead of looking at its own policy and asking, "What constitutes 'progress' on the abductions? What will constitute 'resolution' on the abductions?" What if the proof Japan wants doesn't exist?

There are few signs that Japan is prepared to reckon with the consequences of putting its North Korea policy in the hands of the families of the victims — and fixing that mistake. As tragic as the abductions are, Japan has squandered its influence and outsourced its North Korea policy to the US as a result of this issue. Now that the US has changed course as a result of its — or the State Department's — assessment of US national interests, Japan's leaders are left with nothing, no plan B, no new ideas, nothing but railing at the US for its abandonment of Japan.

Is there a leader in Japan — aside from this man — with the courage to challenge the abductions-centered consensus, to tell the families that as sad as it is to say, they might not get the truth until after the collapse of the DPRK, and in the meantime Japan has other goals to pursue in the region that mean shelving the abductees for now, like North Korea's nuclear program? The prevailing deal is far from perfect, and only a first step, but why shouldn't Japan be engaged in seeing the deal through in the hope that this agreement will stick? Does Japan have nothing to gain from a stabilized Korean peninsula? As Sam Roggeveen noted, even if the agreement doesn't disarm North Korea — an unlikely goal — it might result in a less belligerent North Korea, which will in turn buy China, South Korea, the US, Japan, and Russia time to plan for what to do when Kim dies, a process in which Japan ought to be deeply engaged.

He came, they talked...what next?

Prime Minister Fukuda, cold bug and all, arrived in Washington as scheduled on Thursday evening and spent Friday meeting with President Bush and then dining with the president and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

The Swamp, the Chicago Tribune's politics blog, has a summary here, and takes care to note that Mr. Bush served US beef to Mr. Fukuda, just as he did for Mr. Abe at Camp David in April.

There appear to have been few surprises in the summit. Mr. Bush made a point of mentioning, yet again, his meeting with Yokota Megumi's parents and the US commitment to the resolution of the abductions issue, despite proliferating signs that the US is ready to move forward in removing North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism. The agenda ran the gamut, from Iran to Burma to Afghanistan to the beef trade (of course) to climate change. Mr. Fukuda promised to exert full efforts to pass a new law that authorizes Japanese participation in operations in and around Afghanistan. Whatever differences exist in their respective positions, they were papered over in the joint press conference.

There was some talk, mostly by Mr. Fukuda, on the question of what the alliance is to become in the future. Following on his pre-summit interview in the Washington Post, in which he emphasized the alliance's Asian "vocation," Mr. Fukuda spoke at length about the role the alliance should play in Asia. "A firm US-Japan alliance," he said, "is the foundation for peace and prosperity in Asia."

Mr. Fukuda made very clear in his remarks that his vision of the alliance is of a contributor to peace and stability in the region, which means cordial and open relations with all nations in the region. This is a very far cry from Mr. Aso's amorphous arc of freedom and prosperity and Mr. Abe's address in New Delhi about an alliance of democracies (promptly ignored) — for the better. The alliance's success in the future ought to be measured by how it bridges gaps in the region, not how it exacerbates gaps in the region, as would undoubtedly result from the schemes of some American and Japanese conservatives. Mr. Fukuda unequivocally recognizes this. Does the American foreign policy establishment?

The tension over the refueling mission and the differing positions in the six-party talks remains, of course, but the crisis atmosphere will likely subside as a result of this summit. Neither government is truly prepared to begin addressing the structural problems that underlie the most recent bilateral disputes — and they have no choice but to live with one another under the current arrangement, warts and all.

But, as Jun Okumura notes in his response to the summit, the problem of North Korea remains a sword of Damocles hanging over the alliance, a problem that has been papered over for far too long in alliance discussions. I have a hunch that with Mr. Fukuda in charge in Tokyo, the allies will find a way to work through it. There are enough hints that Mr. Fukuda wants to change Japan's bargaining position in the talks, if not to improve relations with the US then to reengage Japan in addressing a challenge that is a major test of Japan's ability to be a political power in the region. It may depend on the US somehow giving Japan enough concessions as to provide political cover for Mr. Fukuda in battles with the conservatives in his own party who are both outraged over the US shift and adamantly opposed to any changes in Japan's positions on North Korea.

Whatever the policy implications of the summit, I suspect that the Washington trip will prove to be a boon for Mr. Fukuda's public support. He persevered in coming despite his illness, he stood alongside Mr. Bush without being overly sycophantic, and he avoided embarrassing gaffes that might have exacerbated tensions with the US.

He may have also boosted his popularity among that other important constituency to which Japanese prime ministers must be attentive — the community of American Japan hands. Mr. Fukuda specifically requested a meeting with Japan hands from universities and think tanks to discuss the problem of Japan's dearth of international intellectual and academic exchanges, especially with the US. Given that some of the experts invited to the session were among those who questioned the durability of his government when he took office, Mr. Fukuda may have earned some points in giving this select group the opportunity to question him in an intimate setting.

Fukuda should mention Iran

In the past week, the Bush administration has raised the intensity of its rhetoric on Iran to dangerously absurd levels.

Last week, President Bush suggested that Iran's possession of nuclear weapons could lead to World War III, which White House press secretary Dana Perino later played down as suggesting nothing more than the seriousness with which the president views the threat posed by a nuclear Iran.

More recently, however, Vice President Cheney said in a speech to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy on Sunday, "The United States joins other nations in sending a clear message: We will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon," and that Iran faces "serious consequences" for its pursuit of nuclear arms.

Between talk by Mr. Bush — head of state of a country that has somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 nuclear weapons — of World War III and Mr. Cheney's using the same language that he used in advance of the Iraq War (Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan), observers in the US and elsewhere cannot be blamed for wondering whether the US will be at war with Iran in the waning months of the Bush administration. (Niall Ferguson dismisses the idea that war is imminent — imminent being a few weeks — but that's little comfort to me.) Even if the talk is bluster designed to make Iran give in somehow, the LA Times wonders whether the Bush administration, its credibility all but spent, can achieve anything but more Iranian recalcitrance with this approach.

For my part, like Fareed Zakaria, I'm not convinced that Iran is somehow beyond deterrence:

When the relatively moderate Mohammed Khatami was elected president in Iran, American conservatives pointed out that he was just a figurehead. Real power, they said (correctly), especially control of the military and police, was wielded by the unelected "Supreme Leader," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Now that Ahmadinejad is president, they claim his finger is on the button. (Oh wait, Iran doesn't have a nuclear button yet and won't for at least three to eight years, according to the CIA, by which point Ahmadinejad may not be president anymore. But these are just facts.)

How does Japan enter the picture?

Prime Minister Fukuda will, of course, be in Washington next month to meet with President Bush. I think that the November summit might be a good opportunity for Mr. Fukuda to distinguish himself from his predecessors and state in no uncertain terms that Japan finds the Bush administration's rhetoric counterproductive to the resolution of the crisis, that Japan, as a state with official ties with Iran, wants to play a greater role in finding a solution, and that Washington cannot count on Tokyo's support in the event of war unless all other options are exhausted first.

In other words, for the US-Japan alliance to be more equal, Japan has to act like an equal of the US, making demands of its own on its ally.

Of course, given the Bush administration's expectations from its allies (i.e., seen and not heard), an interjection by Mr. Fukuda would probably have little impact on the administration's plans for Iran — and it's unclear to me how Japanese mediation could help resolve the crisis — but at least Mr. Fukuda could stake out a firm Japanese position now and perhaps prevent Japan from getting overwhelmed by events should a war come, all while signaling to the Japanese public that Japan's foreign policy will not be conducted from Washington.

Bush talks sense on China

This week is the 2007 APEC summit in Sydney, and in advance of the week-long summitry, President Bush has been talking Asia — and saying the right things.

In a round table discussion with foreign journalists (hat tip: The Swamp), Mr. Bush spoke of the "complex relationship" between the US and China, but also noted, "...I view China as a positive opportunity." He did not hesitate to mention the economic friction or US concerns about human rights, but the overall picture suggests that as the Bush administration wanes, it increasingly recognizes the importance of China as a partner in the Asia-Pacific region, the single most important bilateral relationship in the region, judging by the time spent talking about it in this press conference. The days of Ambassador Mansfield's bar-none ranch are long gone.

Compare the above interview with an interview Mr. Bush had with NHK's Okushi Kensuke. The NHK interview focused on a couple of bilateral issues — the anti-terror special measures law and the six-party talks — before turning to US policy in Iraq. Both of the above-mentioned issues are trust issues: Washington's (overblown) concerns about the reliability of Japan's commitment to participate in Afghanistan, Tokyo's concerns about being abandoned in the six-party talks (and regarding Afghanistan, fears that the US security guarantee will weaken if Japan doesn't demonstrate its loyalty by contributing to US-led campaigns). The Sino-US relationship, for all the friction and feuding, is a relationship whose concerns are regional and global in scale. The US-Japan relationship, for all its significance for both countries, often amounts to the US doing heavy lifting for Japan on various security issues and occasionally cajoling Japan on trade and monetary issues.

When Mr. Bush meets with Hu Jintao, the agreements reached and decisions made have the potential to be hugely significant for the region, but can one say the same about the outcomes of the meeting between President Bush meets Prime Minister Abe this week?

This isn't to say that the US-Japan relationship is irrelevant or that the US and China are prepared to run the region in a sort of bilateral concert, but it does suggest that the US is increasingly seeing Asia policy through the prism of China policy (as opposed to seeing it through the prism of Japan policy), and that the value of a bilateral relationship to the US will increasingly be the value it has in contributing to "stability" (read a positive and mutually beneficial relationship with China).

"No comment" — too little, too late?

The comfort women resolution has passed the House Committee on Foreign Affairs by a vote of 39 to 2. It now moves on to the full House, where Speaker Pelosi has suggested it will be considered in mid-July, conveniently before the Upper House elections.

The Abe government's response: no comment. Adhering to the sensible position that the government will not comment on resolutions in the legislatures of other countries, Chief Cabinet Secretary Shiozaki said, "Since this will not truly shake relations between the US and Japan, hereafter absolutely nothing changes."

Now why could the Japanese government not have said that six months ago, and stuck to it? This is a textbook case of shutting the barn door long after the horses have broken out and gone stampeding across the countryside.

Meanwhile, it seems that Ambassador Kato's gloomy pronouncements about the impact of the resolution were completely overblown, and scared no one into voting against the resolution. How much Japanese taxpayer money has already been sunk into the campaign to see this resolution destroyed? And — despite the official "no comment" — how much remains to be spent in the next two weeks?

Whatever the appropriateness of Congress deliberating on this issue, there are much bigger questions now. This episode has been important in revealing how thinking about the relationship differs between Washington and Tokyo. Congress has never been particularly concerned about hurting Japan's feelings, and of late the White House seems particularly disinclined to defend Japan. (But why should it? Is there another US ally that is incapable of handling criticism from the US government?) Meanwhile, the Abe government and its sympathizers, acting out of a mixture of pride, arrogance, and the absolute certainty that they have "The Facts" on their side have grossly overreacted to this issue, clearly leading some in Washington to wonder just who exactly the US is dealing with in Tokyo. As such, how can the alliance survive if one party expects love to be blind, and the other is beginning to take a closer look at its partner and noticing imperfections that were ignored in the first blush of romance?

Maybe it's time for George and Shinzo to have a little chat about where this relationship is headed. Taking a break from each other? Seeing other people? It seems that's what Abe is doing, anyway.

George and Shinzo, together again

So old chums George and Shinzo have gotten together again, this time in Heiligendamm on the sidelines of the G8 summit, to chat about their mounting unpopularity abductions (surprise! Bush still supports Abe's position) and climate change.

I wish, I wish, I wish I could rouse up some interest in what's happening in Germany, aside from the scheduled meeting between Abe and Putin, but I fail to see why the G8 matters. Seriously, when was the last time a G8 meeting had a practical impact on global governance? 1987, when the Louvre Accord helped push Japan's asset bubble to new heights of excess? The past twenty years have seen a dramatic decline in the relevance of the organization, as suggested by this op-ed by former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing, one of the founding heads of state. Giscard wonders whether the current composition — the US, Canada, France, Germany, the UK, Italy, Japan, and Russia — has significant clout to see its conclusions implemented.

I wonder if that's but one problem, and not even the most significant. The expansion — and growing level of abstraction — of G8 agendas, with the agenda becoming a catch-all for whatever issues the member nations find important to them. There seems to be little acknowledgment of the limits of the resources and will of the countries involved. But the world is too complex, and power too diffuse, to pretend that the G8, no matter how wealthy or militarily capable its members, has the ability to solve even a fraction of the problems that the leaders gather to discuss. (Does anyone really think that more European involvement in the North Korea crisis will bring it any closer to a satisfactory outcome for Japan?)

So the media will continue to cover the summits, because the interaction between world leaders makes for interesting drama — and as for the Japanese media, they love to report on the G8, because it shows Japan as a world leader (hence the ongoing coverage of next year's summit, to be hosted by Japan) — but as far as I'm concerned, the G8 is just another antiquated global forum.

Mr. Abe goes to Washington

Abe is set to begin his visit to Washington, which means that there is a surge of media coverage repeating the same questions that I have been asking at this blog for the past six months. Domestically, does Abe represent a return to the pre-Koizumi style of LDP governance? Internationally, is Abe truly committed to the alliance, or is he a Gaullist who views it more as a relationship of convenience (meaning Japan should have capabilities independent of the alliance)?

The doubts surrounding Abe come out strongly in Mary Kissel's interview with Abe in the Wall Street Journal, previously discussed here. Kissel makes the same point that I made in this post yesterday:

Mr. Abe might yet surprise on the domestic front; he deliberately mentioned that Japan's tax rates are higher than the OECD average--a signal corporate-tax burdens could ease. His team could aim for something small; perhaps by resolving a long-running dispute over U.S. beef imports, or by cracking open immigration.

But in the long run, that's not the kind of sweeping reform Japan so desperately cries out for. Mr. Abe needs to make Japan an easier place to do business for foreigners, break down regulatory barriers to trade and keep plugging away at the anti-reform base in the LDP. Period.

Once again, the Koizumi formula is the way to go: political reform must precede or accompany structural reform of the economy.

As for this weekend's agenda, the transcript of a press conference with Dennis Wilder, the National Security Council's Senior Director for Asian Affairs, is available here.

Several things stand out.

First, there will be no escaping the comfort women issue. Even if President Bush leaves it out of discussions, as I expect he will, press coverage of Abe's visit will necessarily mention the resolution before Congress and Abe's ambiguous response, from which he has backtracked.

Second, there will be no way for Abe to avoid comparisons with Koizumi, which, as I've mentioned before, is something that Abe's advisers are working assiduously to avoid within Japan. In part due to the heavily covered visit to Graceland last summer, Koizumi raised expectations of Japanese prime ministers in the US as well -- Koizumi indubitably became more recognized among Americans than all of his predecessors combined.

If you read the transcript above, there is much talk about the Bush-Koizumi relationship. Wilder even made clear that since leaving office Koizumi remains "a close friend." This means that throughout the weekend, this man


will be casting his shadow over the proceedings at the White House and Camp David -- and there's not a thing Abe can do about it.

Of course the US-Japan relationship is bigger than the relationship between the president and the prime minister, but close cooperation at the top facilitates greater cooperation at the ministerial and sub-ministerial levels, ensuring that the work of individuals focused exclusively on the bilateral relationship enjoys the blessings of the leaders who make the ultimate decisions.

So that's the big question for the weekend. Will Bush and Abe be able to forge a cordial relationship, that while not having the same bonhomie of the Bush-Koizumi relationship, will be able to serve as the basis for efforts to strengthen the US-Japan relationship during the waning years of the Bush administration and remove some of the doubts that have set in over the past six months?

Abe's first six months

The FT's David Pilling provides a solid summary of Abe Shinzo's first six months in the Kantei.

Being a summary, there is, of course, little new in this article, but it serves as a good reminder of the problems with the Abe Cabinet -- and of Abe's tendencies as a leader.

I found this paragraph, though, particularly distressing:

Those close to him say he would have benefited from a fight for the premiership. Many of the ruling Liberal Democratic party factions take credit for propelling him to office and all are busily seeking political patronage and influence. As a result, Mr Abe has appeared far more willing than the stubborn and single-minded Mr Koizumi to listen to often competing advice.

If Abe somehow manages to go the distance, remaining as president of the LDP for the maximum six years, how will six years of governance in this vein leave the LDP -- and Japan? Imagine six years of window-dressing legislation like the education reform, that seeks to create a more self-confident Japan even as public finances and public services crumble in the face of Japan's demographic collapse.

None of this will, of course, be discussed at Camp David this coming week, at least not in any particular depth. Abe will no doubt reassure President Bush that he is in firm command at home, that he is moving his agenda forward -- pointing to recent legislative victories -- while reassuring Bush that the Japanese government remains his firmest ally. (Bush will no doubt be pleased to hear that -- remember this cartoon -- and there will no doubt be lots of flighty rhetoric about how strong the alliance is today.)

In light of the anticipated love fest, however, I wonder how Bush will go about telling Abe that the US will not be selling the F-22 to Japan anytime soon, no matter how much Abe, Kyuma, and company lay on the "bar-none ranch" rhetoric. Given that the US has already said no to John Howard's Australia, the Bush administration's other remaining close ally, I just don't anticipate the US turning around and offering to amend the Obey amendment's restrictions for Japan. (For more on the F-22 question, check out Shisaku.)

The healing power of Dice-K?

Perhaps the baseball gods are smiling on the US-Japan relationship, with wunderkind Matsuzaka Daisuke's first start for the Red Sox a masterful performance.

What better way for the allies to change the subject away from all that nastiness about comfort women and North Korean nuclear weapons? State Department spokesman and Red Sox fan Sean McCormack evidently, according to Jiji, interrupted a press conference to thank the Seibu Lions for Matsuzaka. (Although Japanese Finance Minister Omi Koji criticized NHK for excessive coverage of Matsuzaka's debut -- hey Omi! get on message.)

Yes, baseball, what a nice way to paper over the serious problems facing the alliance in advance of Abe's visit. I wonder if Bush and Abe will be playing a game of catch at Camp David, just as Bush did with Koizumi on the latter's first visit to the US as prime minister.

Can you see this man playing a game of "catch ball" with President Bush?

Comfort women, not on the agenda; how about drift?

So reports Jiji regarding the meeting between President Bush and Prime Minister Abe scheduled for the end of this month during Japan's Golden Week holidays.

This is not altogether surprising; despite Ambassador Schieffer's voicing concerns about Abe's response to the congressional comfort women resolution (mentioned in this post), I would be shocked if the issue was taken up by more senior administration officials, especially given the state of relations between the administration and the Democratic Congress. If anything, I would not be surprised if the US sends a new ambassador to Japan in the aftermath of Abe's visit.

The agenda, according to Chief Cabinet Secretary Shiozaki, will focus largely on security issues in the Asia-Pacific region. Without knowing more details about the agenda, I assume that the summit will be more or less boilerplate about the importance of the US-Japan alliance to the region, much like Vice President Cheney's visit to Japan in February, rather than frank and forthright discussion of the sources of the friction that has emerged between the allies since Prime Minister Abe took office.

As regular readers of this blog know, I am concerned about the clear signs of drift in the US-Japan alliance that have presented since former Prime Minister Koizumi visited Washington (and Graceland) last summer. The only cure for drift is sustained engagement by the senior leaderships of both countries, from the sub-cabinet level up to the chief executives and back down. I fear, however, that the Bush administration, under siege at home and abroad and lacking Japan experts in its midst, is inadequately prepared to dedicate itself to pursuing more open, constructive political cooperation with Japan -- and the Abe Cabinet, between its plummeting popularity and a general laxness in its approach to the US-Japan alliance, seems hardly capable of picking up the slack.

Accordingly, in the face of the challenges of a fluid regional security environment, the region's most significant security partnership -- anchor of the US position in East Asia since the end of World War II -- appears powerless.

I hope I'm wrong. I hope there's strength yet. But if President Bush and Prime Minister Abe -- and, more importantly, the US and Japanese foreign and defense ministers, in the 2 + 2 meeting following the summit -- do not have frank and open discussions about the evolving regional security environment, about approaches to the emergence of China, and about differences between the US and Japanese positions in the six-party talks (if they make it to the end of the month), my fears may well be justified.

Summiting in Hanoi

So President Bush and Prime Minister Abe have had their first meeting, in the wake of the APEC summit in Hanoi.

As the recap provided by the White House indicates, the agenda of their conversation was not particularly surprising and the meeting provided no major changes in US-Japan alliance policy. (Although, as this Yomiuri summary indicates, the two leaders spoke of a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific, which, if it could be achieved, would be a significant development.)

What is interesting in the recap is that it is Prime Minister Abe who spoke of the importance of the alliance's fundamental values of "freedom, democracy, basic human rights and the rule of law." This is the continuation of a trend, noted by Michael Green, that began under Koizumi; Japan has begun to speak more of the alliance's values and of Japan's commitment to spread freedom and democracy as a way to contrast itself with China, which may be an important market but is still governed by a one-party dictatorship and has yet to become a responsible stakeholder in Asia and the world. Also interesting in Mr. Abe's remarks is that he suggested that the "globalization" of the alliance, which intensified under Mr. Koizumi, will continue.

There is no indication, however, as to whether the strong personal rapport that characterized the Bush-Koizumi relationship will also characterize the Bush-Abe relationship. We may have to wait until this week's issue of the Prime Minister's email magazine to learn more.