Benign neglect for the alliance?

Upon further reflection, I wonder if the Asia team that the Bush administration has assembled — which I previously discussed here — for its final years in office might be a good thing for the US-Japan alliance.

For too long, the alliance has been a cozy love fest. Even in rough patches, the alliance has been characterized by each ally stroking the other's ego, providing constant reassurance that the alliance is secure.

When I was doing research on my master's dissertation, I spoke with Carl Ford, who was at the State Department early in the current administration and was deputy assistant secretary of defense for Asia-Pacific affairs during the administration of George HW Bush. Speaking of the differences in alliance management during the Clinton administration and the twelve years of Republican administrations that preceded it, Ford said, "The Republican Asia team pampered Japan. They regularly told Japan how important it was – the US-Japan relationship is very high maintenance. When the Clinton administration came in, things changed – not dramatically so, but noticeably so. There was less pampering of Japan."

So at what point does pampering Japan and providing it with constant reassurance stop being a good thing and become an obstacle to forming a genuine alliance, in which the allies are comfortable airing grievances or questioning the direction and extent of cooperation?

Maybe a couple years dealing with an Asia team whose attention is directed elsewhere will be good for Japan. Perhaps a couple years of not hearing how important and special Japan is for the US will help Japan get used to the idea of being a more independent, flexible actor in changing Asia. If the alliance is as healthy as both countries' leaders insist, this should not be so hard to manage. (Although there will be more pressure on US officers and diplomats in Japan and James Shinn's team at the Pentagon to push the 2006 realignment plan forward, which will perhaps be more difficult without an experienced Japan hand at the White House.)

Besides, with a new Korean administration in the offing, maybe it is best that the US give priority to patching up the bruised relationship with South Korea?

Japan feels the heat

Based on the coverage in Japan's newspapers, it seems that Japan was blindsided by the US-ROK free-trade agreement. Perhaps Japanese observers did not quite believe that negotiators would be able conclude an agreement before time ran out. Of course, the agreement's passage in both the US and South Korean legislatures is hardly a foregone conclusion, as the Japanese media has noted, but the prospect of Korean companies -- especially automakers -- having preferential access to the US market seems to have stirred the Japanese government to action.

The FT reports today that Japan has announced that it is interested in ramping up talks with South Korea on a Japan-South Korea FTA, and quotes Abe has saying that even an FTA with the US should be considered. The FT also notes, however, that Korea is more interested in trade negotiations with the EU than with Japan.

Perhaps another sign of the deficiencies of the Japanese government's foreign policy making; Tokyo seems utterly incapable of shaping the regional environment, and is continually being outflanked by its neighbors, allies, and rivals, whether on trade, security, or in the six-party talks.

Redefining the US-ROK relationship

How interesting that on the same day that the US and South Korea conclude a "landmark" trade agreement -- legislative approval in both countries pending -- the Yomiuri Shimbun runs an editorial looking at the impact of North Korea on the February agreement to dissolve the US-ROK Combined Forces Command, giving primary responsibility for the defense of South Korea to the South Korean military.

The point of this editorial is not concealed: "It is also important for Japan to observe contemporary developments in the US-Korean security arrangements [alliance]."

The editorial proceeds to spell out the details of the new division of labor between the allies -- but I don't think there's any question that a reader should read between the lines and transpose the new US-ROK arrangement onto the US-Japan alliance.

But leaving aside the question of a new division of labor in the US-Japan alliance, the US-ROK free-trade agreement, coming on the heels of the February agreement, is an important indicator of how the US position in Asia is changing. The old hub-and-spoke system, establishing in the early 1950s, meant that the US was the senior partner in a series of bilateral alliances. That system appears to be breaking down, in a haphazard way, on all fronts.

That changes provides the context for Australia and Japan talking directly to each other about security, without the US acting as an intermediary, and it provides the context for the new US-ROK relationship, of which the trade agreement is an indispensable part. The US increasingly has to deal with allies on more equal terms. This is a good thing, but it requires the US to change its habits in Asia; it needs to learn to see the region and the world through the eyes of its allies and partners. Arguably Japan, however, remains stuck in a relationship largely unchanged from the hub-and-spoke era, in part due to the lingering presence of the US Military in Japan -- and the clear subordination of the JSDF to the US Military.

I think this is what Nagashima Akihisa was talking about in his address last month in a plenary session of the Lower House of the Diet -- discussed in this post. Japan too needs to enter the post-hub-and-spoke era. The smooth execution of the May 2006 2 + 2 agreement on the realignment of US forces in Japan would have been one way to do it, but it's been almost a year and little progress, if any, has been made. Another way of transforming the US-Japan alliance, suggested in the second Armitage-Nye report, is forging a US-Japan FTA, which would be even more revolutionary than the US-Korea FTA (the biggest US trade agreement since NAFTA). But the political obstacles in both countries -- already formidable in the US-Korea negotiations -- would likely be insurmountable (FT subscription required) in negotiations between the US and Japan.

So for all the friction between the US and South Korea since the election of President Roh in 2002, the election of a more conservative -- read pro-American -- candidate in this year's ROK presidential election could well result in a renaissance in the US-South Korea relationship, based on steps taken to build a more equal partnership. Getting to that point with Japan, however, seems to remain a distant goal.