The Bush administration has left the building (in Asia, anyway)

South Korea's Dong-A Ilbo reports that the Asia team for the denouement of the Bush administration is complete...

Daniel Drezner could not have been more right when he said that the Bush administration is looking for "September call-ups" for its foreign policy team.

Look at the roster provided by Dong-A. While some, including Dr. Paul Heer and James Shinn, have publication records, suggesting that they have experience in and knowledge about the region, others show just how hard the administration had to work to find staff to fill positions.

Victor Cha's successor holding the Korea and Japan brief at the National Security Council is Katrin Fraser, indicated by Dong-A as a "professional diplomat" but in fact assistant to Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations Kristin Silverberg (who is herself a former political adviser to Candidate Bush, not to mention an adviser to CPA viceroy Paul Bremer until October 2003). The only newsworthy bits about Fraser seem to be that she taught English in Korea as a Fulbright a few years ago, and that she wrote an article criticizing the Bush administration for insensitivity to Korea.

From Victor Cha, an accomplished expert on the region to a woman who only very recently taught English in Korea? I am sure that the Japanese government is thrilled with this choice.

Yep, this is the Asia policy team that will handle the continuation of the six-party talks, turbulent relations with China as the 2008 Olympics approach, and a Japan that is grappling with fundamental questions about its position in the region and the world. For nearly the next two years, this is the team that will handle Asia's becoming the global center of gravity.

"We would...help them"

Having previously written about the strategic and political questions surrounding China's rumored aircraft carrier program, I found this VOA article (hat tip: China Digital Times) on Admiral Keating's visit to China fascinating.

VOA reports that Keating discussed the operational difficulties of deploying and maintaining aircraft carriers with Vice Admiral Wu Shengli of the PLAN — but not necessarily as a way of dissuading China from developing aircraft carriers.

Rather, Keating apparently said that if China is determined to develop an aircraft carrier, the US will offer its assistance: "It is not an area where we would want any tension to arise unnecessarily...and we would, if they choose to develop [an aircraft carrier program] help them to the degree that they seek and the degree that we're capable, in developing their programs."

With the US offering help to the PLAN in developing aircraft carriers, does anyone still think that the region's security environment can be neatly summarized as the US seeking to build up a coalition to contain China?

I think Keating's suggestion contains a certain logic. US help in building a blue-water navy reinforces the idea that a Chinese blue-water navy need not be a threat to US interests, because the US and China share an interest in keeping maritime Asia stable and open.

I wonder, though, what Japan thinks about Keating's offer.

Gaiatsu revisited

After reading this post by Matt Dioguardi at Liberal Japan. and reading that MTC was "not thrilled" with yesterday's admittedly dyspeptic post about gaiatsu and constitution revision, I feel that it is necessary to clarify about what the US should do over the coming years as Japan debates constitution revision.

Pace Matt Dioguardi, gaiatsu is not simply a matter of the US government communicating to Japan what it would prefer Japan to be able to do in the alliance. In the case cited by Dioguardi, this article in the Japan Times, Secretary Gates telling Defense Minister Kyuma that the US would like Japan to be able to exercise its right of collective self-defense so that it would be able to shoot down, hypothetically, a missile fired in the direction of the US is simply a restatement of a long-standing US position — as is telling Japan that if it did not try to shoot down a missile in that scenario, it would have serious repercussions for the alliance. That's not a threat; that's a fact.

Can you imagine how quickly the phrase "free rider" would be on the lips of every single member of Congress if that were to happen?

It seems that Gates was simply taking a page from the 2000 Armitage-Nye Report, which said:

Japan's prohibition against collective self-defense is a constraint on alliance cooperation. Lifting this prohibition would allow for closer and more efficient security cooperation. This is a decision that only the Japanese people can make. The United States has respected the domestic decisions that form the character of Japanese security policies and should continue to do so. But Washington must make clear that it welcomes a Japan that is willing to make a greater contribution and to become a more equal alliance partner.

That also happens to be my position on what the US can do. The prohibition on the right of collective self-defense is the most significant obstacle to further alliance cooperation, but the days of press-ganging allies must end. (Isn't that the meaning of coalitions of the willing?)

The US can make its desires known through bilateral diplomatic channels, but gaiatsu — which involves actively supporting advocates of policies desired by the US in domestic policy debates — should not be used. While that may seem like a fine line, statements by Secretary Gates and Ambassador Schieffer on what the US would like Japan to be able to do fall within the realm of diplomacy.

But that's it. The US should communicate its desires, but it should not use its power to bend Japan to its will, lest any new settlement on the constitution and the alliance be as tainted as the old. I am thinking, of course, of the demonstrations surrounding the passage the 1960 Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security between the United States and Japan; while Japan and the US will not be drafting a new treaty, the potential changes resulting from the reinterpretation of the prohibition on the right of collective self-defense and constitution revision could be of the same importance as the treaty. They must be — or be perceived — as the result of decisions made by the Japanese people, not decisions made or perceived to be made as a result of collusion between Japanese politicians and the US.

What if they had a debate...

Prime Minister Abe and DPJ President Ozawa had their long-anticipated head-to-head debate yesterday, reportedly the longest length of time ever in a Diet session without a direct clash between party leaders.

That according to a handy table provided in the print edition of the Asahi Shimbun, which indicates that the previous record was in 2002, when Prime Minister Koizumi and current DPJ Secretary General Hatoyama Yukio waited until 10 April to debate. Another table shows readers that compared to the Ozawa-Abe debate in November of last year, Ozawa bested Abe again in terms of time used, 28:43 to 16:05 (compared with 25:55 to 19:42 in November). A third chart shows that the time was divided between arguing about Abe's "beautiful country" vision (about eighteen minutes), education problems (about seven minutes), regional decentralization (sixteen and half minutes), and the scandal regarding liver damage from drug poisoning (three minutes).

Having dissected the minutiae of the debate, however, one can then turn to the editorial page of Asahi — and Yomiuri — and find the usual complaints about how nothing of substance came out of the debate.

Wrote Asahi: "Although it seems that this debate [on Abe's emphasis on the emperor system in his book] was becoming very interesting, Mr. Ozawa quickly turned to a different subject, and his half-baked finish was extremely disappointing." But as if that wasn't enough to anger the Asahi diehards, Ozawa also failed to take a sufficiently strong position on constitution reform: "Well, what do the DPJ and Ozawa, who has perhaps been an advocate of constitution reform for many years, think about the 'postwar' era? To begin with, what stance will they take against Abe's manner of constitution revision? Will they approve? Will they oppose? Ozawa has kept this mostly to himself...Although this was question time, since Ozawa did not state his attitude on the fundamental hinge issue of constitution reform, this was meaningless."

Yomiuri was also dissatisfied with the overall quality of the debate, noting that "it is extremely difficult to say" whether there were differences between Abe's and Ozawa's visions of Japan's future and important policy positions, but it also takes a special relish to criticizing Ozawa and the DPJ for "insisting upon drastic reforms" but "not referring to concrete proposals." The Yomiuri editorial also quotes Ozawa's 1993 book, Blueprint for a New Japan, on the importance of quality debate in the Diet, showing that in every democracy, the longer a politician serves, the easier it is for critics to dredge up old speeches and writings and use them as weapons. Noting that during his time as the head of the Liberal Party Ozawa emphasized the importance of question time, the editorial suggests that that Ozawa is gone. Restating the importance of direct confrontation in the Diet — "Question time is a good opportunity for the opposition to clarify how it differs from the governing party and to announce its presence" — the editorial hints at discontent within the DPJ over the wasted opportunity.

Having seen the outcome of direct debate between Abe and Ozawa in the Diet, I feel vindicated having argued that the DPJ may well be better off have prioritized campaigning around the country over vigorously challenging the government in the Diet. Direct debate has shown Ozawa to be inadequate to the task of presenting the DPJ as a serious contender for government and made the DPJ look confused and divided on the important policy questions of the day, just as I anticipated.

Considering that this debacle coincided with Asahi polls showing that support for Abe continues to rise and that the DPJ still has a lot of work to do to win support before July's Upper House elections, it seems increasingly clear that Ozawa's days as head of the DPJ are numbered, regardless of July's results.

Idealism, realism, and US China policy

Over at Foreign Policy, China scholar David Lampton and journalist James Mann debate the argument presented in Mann's new book, The China Fantasy: How Our Leaders Explain Away Chinese Repression. (The subtitle really says it all.) (Hat tip: China Digital Times)

There is no love lost between Lampton and Mann in this debate, and its implications reach far beyond US China policy.

Lampton challenges the argument in Mann's book that politicians, academics, and corporate leaders are making excuses for Chinese authoritarianism to justify close engagement with Beijing. He argues that policymakers have no illusions about China, but emphasize engagement because "there are economic, security, and intellectual gains to be made from working together."

Mann reiterates his thesis in response to Lampton, saying that his purpose is not to propose a new framework for US China policy but to expose the rhetorical compromises made by American leaders.

Mann's point is well taken, although arguably this problem is a matter of cognitive dissonance: the interests of the US, as observed by Lampton, lead the US to favor engagement in one way or another with China, but China's failure to meet political and moral standards determined by American values mean that engagement with China carries a certain sort of moral repugnance. Democracies, like individuals, often have a hard time coping with the mismatch between their ideals and a reality that falls far short of those ideals, and so they find ways to explain away the contradictions — hence the behavior observed by Mann.

I would prefer that US opinion leaders and policymakers be less squeamish about the contradictions, but their response is understandable.

I ultimately have to side with Lampton in this debate, because, as he suggests in his second contribution to the debate, there are real doubts about the ability of the US to influence political change anywhere, whether through the use of force, sanctions, or rhetorical pressure.

As Lampton asks, "...Even if democracy were to rank first among U.S. goals in dealing with Beijing, could the United States achieve or effectively promote it? Again, consider the dispiriting U.S. interventions in Haiti, Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. Or if it’s verbal condemnations of human rights abuse Mann prefers, consider Myanmar, Cuba, Iran, Syria, North Korea, and Libya—all states that have blithely ignored the opprobrium of human rights advocates and U.S. politicians for decades."

As he subsequently suggests, the only way for the US — or perhaps more appropriately, Americans — to influence political developments abroad is through the patient support of individuals working to strengthen civil society and building capacity for institutions essential to the rule of law. But as for the pace and content of liberalization in foreign countries, there does not seem to be much that the US can do, which raises the question as to whether democratization deserves the priority in American foreign policy it has been given in recent years.

Does emphasizing democratization, irrespective of whether the US has the ability to advance democracy, serve any purpose other than to resolve some of the unease that comes from having to lead in a world that so often seems to fall short of the high standards demanded by American values? And does emphasizing democratization without being able to follow through undermine the value of the message?

No gaiatsu on revision

Oh, to be the "grand strategist" author of best-selling books — and to be the peddler of a strategic concept that purports to explain everything.

Clearly, that's the ticket to being able to get away with writing blog posts like this one by Tom Barnett: "Japan will and must un-pacify." In a single thirty-word post, Dr. Barnett reduces a debate that is fundamental to how Japan thinks not only about its future, but also its past and the relationship between state, society, and individual to the simple formula of "Japan will revise its constitution so it can retain influence in Asia and the world."

Parsimonious, I guess.

This is a good time to note that in the constitution revision debate, gaiatsu is not an option — not for the US, for China, or for South Korea.

Japan must revise — or not revise — on its own.

Japan — the Japanese people — must be permitted to consider its future without the interference of foreign powers. What is at stake is the legitimacy of the Japanese political system; it's not just about the shape of Japanese security policy over the coming decades. The settlement that results from the coming debate on revision must be seen as universally legitimate, lest it become the basis for a new political cleavage, just as during the cold war the LDP and the Socialist Party spent decades fighting over the meaning of the constitution.

This debate should be the occasion for a new birth of Japanese democracy, the moment at which the Japanese people wrest power away from the bureaucrats and the politicians and demand the formulation of a new relationship between government and governed, in which the government is actually held accountable for its actions.

Whether that will be so remains to be decided, but the US — and alliance handlers in Washington who have been long awaiting this moment — cannot try to influence the outcome.

Fortunately, the cold war is over. It is no longer a zero-sum world. If the Japanese people decide against permitting a more expansive regional and global security role, Japan will not be "lost." Rather, it will be consigning itself, regrettably, to a more limited position in the global balance of power, and once more limiting the US-Japan alliance largely to Article V of the Mutual Security Treaty with the US (i.e., the defense of Japan).

Alternatively, the Japanese people could opt for greater independence in the region and greater responsibility for their own defense, resulting necessarily in a looser alliance (if not breaking it altogether).

Whatever Japan chooses, however, must be the product of decisions made by the Japanese people: the new settlement should not be foisted upon them by foreign countries or Japanese politicians.

As such, it should not matter what US conservatives or liberals say, contrary to the point of this article by Sankei's Komori Yoshihisa. Nor should it matter what Beijing or Seoul have to say in opposition to constitution revision.

The Japanese people must do this own their own terms.

Who to believe?

Earlier this week I noted that Condi Rice had told Japan that the resolution of the abductions issue was no longer an obstacle to the removal of North Korea from the US State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Indicating just how serious this issue is to Tokyo, Yomiuri (article not online) reported yesterday that Abe had a twenty-minute phone call with President Bush on the evening of the 14th to clarify US support on the abductions — and, of course, George told his buddy Shinzo that he still enjoys the president's support.

The State Department's deputy spokesman reiterated US support as well.

So what does the leaked suggestion of US willingness to shift ever further away from Japan's position mean? Is there any substance to it, despite US denials, or is it just another leak in an administration that is sinking fast? I guess we won't know until North Korea dangles some bait, because until that point the US can claim unconditional support for Japan all it wants without having to do anything to prove it.

Alternatively, perhaps this leak was a calculated move to entice North Korea to stay on the wagon, so to speak.

Whatever the reason, I remain unconvinced that the US is with Japan all the way on abductions.

What manner of constitution debate will Japan have?

In the wake of yesterday's passage of the national referendum bill, each major daily unsurprisingly featured an editorial looking forward to the next three years of debate on revision.

In the left-wing Asahi Shimbun, the mood was, unsurprisingly, despondent about the passage of the bill. At the same time, though, the tone was defiant, taking up the prime minister's challenge to make the July Upper House elections about constitution revision.

The issue of most concern seems to be that in the LDP's draft constitution produced last year, the second clause of Article 9 says, in lieu of the prohibition on the maintenance of armed forces for aggressive war and the renunciation of the right of belligerency, "To ensure the peace and independence, as well as the security, of our country, the prime minister shall be the commander-in-chief and a self-defense 'army' shall be maintained." [The draft uses 自衛軍 instead of 自衛隊, indicating the elevation of the JSDF — which currently use the nominally more modest-sounding "force" — into a proper military.]

Lamenting the lack of debate heretofore, Asahi argues that this proposed change should be the basis for a popular debate on revision.

The right-of-center Yomiuri Shimbun, meanwhile, criticizes the DPJ for its opposition, in spite of the fact that "not a small number of members" believe strongly in revision. Echoing the prime minister, Yomiuri argues, "The international situation and Japan's security environment have been dramatically transfigured, Japan's economic system is changing fundamentally, and there are conditions at home and abroad that could not even be imagined at the time the constitution was created. Furthermore, [Japan] must weather more waves of great change to come." Yomiuri also argues that it is imperative for the DPJ and Komeito to make their own draft revisions quickly.

The right-wing Sankei Shimbun, similar to the Yomiuri, criticized the DPJ and Komeito for heretofore failing to draft substantive revision, and laments the superficial character of the constitution revision debate thus far, which is odd, considering that unlike the Asahi and Yomiuri editorials, the Sankei editorial does not even hint at what the major points of discussion ought to be.

Obviously readers will note that one common thread running through these editorials is concern about the quality of debate thus far, and calls for a widespread debate on revision in the Diet and among the Japanese people at large. Interestingly, when discussing the issues involved in revision, the editorials talked solely about Article 9. While Article 9 is fundamental — the constitution is, after all, often described as "Japan's pacifist constitution" — it seems that the debate is as much about what kind of country Japan should be in the twenty-first century; Japan's security posture is but one part of that debate, and it is imperative that other parties to the debate begin to take in the same terms as Abe. To date, it seems that Abe alone has talked, however vaguely, about the Japan as it ought to be, essentially having the field to himself.

It is long past due for Abe's opponents to present their own, preferably more concrete, visions for Japan's future, and to challenge the assumptions made by the prime minister that constitution revision is a necessary step to a better future for Japan. The burden of proof is on advocates of revision, not on those who are skeptical about or in outright opposition to revision: Abe and company have to demonstrate, concretely, how the system designed by the constitution has failed, and how revision will enable the Japanese state and people to better cope with future challenges and ensure continuing prosperity.

It is also time that opinion leaders begin questioning the government's assumption that constitution revision is a necessary condition for creating a "beautiful country." I strongly disagree with Yomiuri's argument that because aspects of the world today were not envisioned sixty years ago, the constitution must be reformed. Statements like that must be backed up with solid demonstrations of what makes them so.

Has the modern world fatally undermined the relevance of Japan's postwar constitution? How so?

When Abe talks about discarding the postwar regime, what does that mean? What part of the regime? Just the security bits? Or the whole bloody mess? If so, why isn't Abe talking about destroying the LDP, which has played an outsized role — arguably a more significant role than the constitution — in shaping postwar Japan?

Vestiges of the 1955 system, which has long distorted policy by placing sectional and local interests above national interests, remain. Why isn't Abe turning his attention to this significant piece of the "postwar regime"?

And what about the assumption that because Japan's security environment is changing, it must revise its constitution? Why revise, if re-interpretation will suffice?

And, above all, what exactly do the Japanese people want?

On these questions, it seems that Abe and other advocates of revision have been given a free pass.

Ultimately, I think constitution revision is useless without political reform. Japan's problem is not its constitution, but rather the parasitic policy making system — the alliance between the LDP and the bureaucracy — that has no constitutional standing whatsoever, and has perverted Japan's institutions to selfish ends. Changing the constitution without changing the policy making process, which necessarily means destroying the LDP as it exists, is futile.

Let the debate begin?

The Upper House of the Diet passed the national referendum bill this afternoon. In accordance with the bill's provisions, there will be a three-year moratorium on constitution amendments — meaning Japan has until 2011 to have a thorough debate on whether and how to revise the constitution. With luck Japan will have a new, slightly less obsessive prime minister by then.

As for the prospects of a debate on revision, check out this post at Shisaku, discussing comments by Tokyo Governor Ishihara Shintaro on whether the constitution ought to be revised — you may be surprised to learn where the ever feisty governor stands.

But will Japan actually have the open debate that Ishihara rightly says it ought to have? And now that Abe has his referendum law, will he actually get around to governing, or is he going to sit in the Kantei staring at the clock and twiddling his thumbs for three years, occasionally coming out to talk about the "beautiful country" that Japan will become once it has rid itself of that awful "foreign" constitution that is apparently the source of all Japan's problems?

China's history problems

On my recent trip to China — discussed here — I had a distinct sense of twenty-first century China being a country alienated from its past. Its modern past, the decades following the declaration of the "New China" following the CCP's victory in the Chinese Civil War in 1949, is passed over in the public space, but for the ubiquitous visage of Mao Zedong (including the massive portrait overlooking Tiananmen Square that was recently vandalized and replaced).

The vacuum of the modern past seems to be filled, instead, with the hollowed-out and commercialized vestiges of the imperial past, the heirlooms of China's ancient civilization that the CCP has "naturally" inherited. Tourist sites like the Forbidden City and Summer Palace are undoubtedly major moneymakers for the PRC, but they — and the past they represent — seem more like curiosities of a decadent past than a source of meaning for a China that is wholly uncertain about its identity.

Indeed, in looking for how the CCP views the past, I was struck, if not surprised, by the party's efforts to cultivate an air of inevitability about its rule when visiting the museum of the Chinese Communist Party at the site of the first party congress in Shanghai; the party is presented as delivering China from its foreign enemies, the heir of earlier attempts to expel foreigners and overturn the weak rulers who had failed to defend China. Like all communists, the CCP views history simply as something to justify its hold on power, not as a force that can help the Chinese people think about who they are, what they value, and how they should relate to other countries.

With this in mind, it is worth looking at two articles linked to by the China Digital Times today. Each article in turn addresses a different aspect of the PRC's history problem.

The first, by Henry Zhao in the New Left Review, looks at a debate between two Francophone Sinologists on the relevance of Confucianism as a means of looking at the revival of classical learning within China. (For more on this phenomenon, and Yu Dan, the biggest beneficiary of the revival thus far, check out this article on Danwei.) In reviewing of Swiss Sinologist Jean-François Billeter's Contre François Jullien, Zhao gives a succinct overview of Confucian thought, and its treatment in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and he is clearly sympathetic to Billeter, who has argued that Confucianism cannot be separated from the political system it undergirded for millennia.

This is an important reminder as Confucianism sweeps China again — both for the Chinese people and for the CCP. While it is understandable that Chinese are interested in reclaiming an important part of their past that had been vilified under Mao, to re-embrace the past uncritically is no virtue either. The party, meanwhile, is surely cognizant that Confucianism, while giving absolute power to rulers and demanding obedience for the ruled, also included provisions for dynastic change when rulers failed to fulfill their duties properly. In any case, there is no question that the Confucius vogue is a product of the vacuum at the heart of Chinese identity.

A second article, by Jeffrey Wasserstrom, a professor of history at California-Irvine, calls attention to Shanghai's changing interpretation of its past as host to a foreign enclave. While I was indeed impressed by how pre-1949 history was presented in Shanghai in a relatively favorable light, the relegation of the early decades of communist rule — noted by Wasserstrom — to "Old Shanghai" (perhaps even "Old China") should by no means be viewed as a welcome change.

In any other words, Japan is hardly alone in having problems searching for a usable past — and it is hardly the worst offender in the region, seeing as how the party that rendered China's recent history "unusable" still sits, however uneasily, upon the Dragon Throne.

Alliance tension out in the open

The Asahi Shimbun's English edition printed a story today suggesting that US Secretary of State Rice told Japanese officials last month that resolving the abductions issue is not a precondition for the removal of North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

In previous posts such as this one, I suggested that Japan seems to overestimate the willingness of the Bush administration, in its feeble dotage, to stand alongside Japan on the abductions issue should a breakthrough (however unlikely) become possible. And yet Abe seems content to rely upon pablum emanating from the White House, instead of concrete signals emanating from the State Department that the US is ready to deal, with or without Japan.

As this article suggests, what seemed like a more abstract problem now looks to be very real, with an unnamed US government source quoted in the article as saying, "[this] was the first public statement that clearly separated the abduction issue from the decision to remove a nation from the terrorism list."

While the "Agreed Framework 2.0" could collapse at any time — diminishing Japanese fears of abandonment in the process — this story further supports my suspicions that for all the chummy rhetoric emanating from Washington late last month, there are genuine political problems facing the alliance that neither government seems willing or able to face.

What will happen at the first sign of a crisis? Does anyone else think that Kim Jong-il might have something in store to force the issue?

Revision as redemption

Ozawa Ichiro, DPJ president, laid into the prime minister on TV Asahi this morning, emphasizing that he disagrees not just with the prime minister's position on constitution revision, but with the prime minister's philosophy root and branch.

I'm with Ozawa on this one (and not because I work for a member of his party).

Back in January, I wrote that instead of looking back to Japan's postwar nationalists, including Abe's grandfather Kishi Nobusuke, it was more appropriate to view Abe as governing in the same vein as the Choshu oligarchs who built the Meiji state, conservative pragmatists who combined the desire to forge a strong, unified — heavy emphasis on unified — independent state capable of competing with the European empires with tremendous tactical flexibility. And let's not forget, of course, that the oligarchs had no trust in the people whatsoever. Wrote Richard Samuels in his Machiavelli's Children:

Never liberal...the Meiji oligarchs believed that public opinion encouraged political dissent, which was seditious and weakened the state. Ito captured this view by referring to "the onslaught of extremely democratic ideas" that had to be resisted. Ito would incorporate the people to achieve national unity, but not as a matter of any innate right to self-government. He chose to avoid popular control by appealing to "a higher transcendent moral order...that would deny any notion of private interest"— the emperor.

While I won't go so far as to call Abe anti- or un-democratic, I do think that he shares with the Meiji genro the desire for an independent and unified Japan. Perhaps in some way Abe's desire to revise the Occupation-era constitution is akin to the Meiji leaders' burning desire to amend the "unequal treaties" imposed on Japan in its time of weakness.

In fact, political scientist Douglas Lummis apparently has alluded to the Meiji Constitution, according to an article by Eric Johnston in the Japan Times last week: "He believes the LDP would prefer the kind of society Japan was in the years immediately before the war." I don't necessarily share the same alarm as Lummis, but I think he's right in observing that constitution revision is bigger than article nine.

Abe, in a manner similar to Charles De Gaulle, father of the French Fifth Republic with whom I've so often compared him, has une certaine idée de Japon, but do the citizens he supposedly represents as prime minister share his vision, and if they don't, is Abe willing to modify his vision? Or are the prime minister's plans for the education system a way of bending twenty-first century Japan to his vision, much as Mori Arinori's reforms of the education system in 1885 served as a means of inculcating Japan's youth with the Meiji oligarchs' vision of Japan? (See chapter three of the Ministry of Education's white paper, which discusses the creation of the modern education system; this section is especially revealing.) If that is the case, then it is necessary to ask whether Abe's vision — again, arguably the direct descendant of the ideas of the Meiji oligarchs — is appropriate for twenty-first century Japan in the first place.

But for all Ozawa's opposition, I'm not quite sure from what quarters opposition to the prime minister will come, if it comes at all. Certainly not, it seems, from within the LDP. Nor, if this post at Global Voices Online surveying opinions on constitution revision voiced by Japanese bloggers is indicative of anything, will it come from the Japanese people.

My problem, mind you, isn't constitution revision: my problem is Abe's obsession with it, which is the mirror image of the tendency of some defenders of the constitution to treat it as a kind of sacred totem. For Abe is intimately wrapped up with the constitution, revision being as much a personal as a political matter for him — just look at how he writes about his grandfather in his book.

If Japan is to revise its constitution, it should do so under a prime minister who is capable of soberly assessing the matter, not one who is utterly consumed by the idea of revision as redemption.

Book of the week

This week's book, Japan's Security Strategy in the Post-9/11 World: Embracing a New Realpolitik by Daniel M. Kliman, provides concrete analysis of how Japanese security policy has changed not just in the post-9/11 world as the title suggests, but since the end of the cold war.

Although it is a relatively slim volume, it is packed with useful observations, particularly concerning the role played by the North Korea threat in the process of normalizing Japan's security policy.

Kliman, moreover, further reinforces the idea that the policies resulting from Japan's sensitivity to its international environment — well documented by Kenneth Pyle and Michael Green — have shifted as the region has changed; whereas during the cold war the Yoshida Doctrine's opportunistic pacifism and reliance on the US were a rational response by a broken country at the front lines of cold war, the uncertain post-cold war environment suggests a different set of policies. Steps taken by Abe lend more weight to Kliman's argument.

Keating in China

Admiral Timothy Keating, newly minted chief of US Pacific Command, is currently visiting China to meet with PLA brass. As documented by Dana Priest and Robert Kaplan, among others, the heads of the US Military's unified combatant commands wield tremendous military power, of course, but also diplomatic power (America's "proconsuls," to use the imperial metaphor that has perhaps gone out of favor in recent years).

As powerful as Keating is, though, his PLA interlocutors may very well wield power that puts his to shame. As Bates Gill and Martin Kleiber write in Foreign Affairs regarding China's ASAT test, "Put bluntly, Beijing's right hand may not have known what its left hand was doing. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) and its strategic rocket forces most likely proceeded with the ASAT testing program without consulting other key parts of the Chinese security and foreign policy bureaucracy -- at least not those parts with which most foreigners are familiar."

Keating, in fact, pressed General Guo Boxiong, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, on the test, insisting that it sent a confusing signal and demanding an explanation.

While signs of the PLA's predominance are worrying, Keating's trip in general is encouraging, ensuring that the two militaries have, at the very least, cordial relations.

I also found comments by Guo reported by the People's Daily interesting: "Guo said both China and the United States shoulder responsibilities of safeguarding world peace and stability and promoting common development. The two countries are both stake holders and constructive partners who share strategic interests, and China attaches great importance to China-U.S. relations." While one cannot put too much stock in China's rhetoric, it is interesting that they are accommodating the US government's "responsible stakeholder" ideas. China certainly has nothing to lose from presenting itself as a responsible stakeholder — hence the "peaceful rise" rhetoric — and will no doubt continue to do so until it finds something else to be more beneficial.

In any case, China is not going away, and the US (and Japan) might as well figure out how to ensure stable relations with Beijing instead of making things up as they go along.

Making sense of China's Sudan policy

If there's any sense to be made, that is.

In the same week that Amnesty International condemned China for selling arms to Sudan that are purportedly being used in Darfur by Janjaweed militias accused of genocide, China has announced that it is both sending a military detachment to support African Union peacekeepers in Darfur and appointing a special envoy to Africa who will focus on Darfur.

Will this policy change make any difference whatsoever in stopping genocide in Darfur, or will it simply be window dressing to distract observers from China's unstinting support for unsavory regimes worldwide, including elsewhere in Africa? As James Kirchick wrote in the New York Sun this week, China has become the major supporter of Zimbabwe, even as the country's total collapse continues.

For all the talk about how China wants no political trouble surrounding the Beijing Olympics, I strongly doubt that China will completely back away from support for regimes that provide it with critical resources, no matter how much pressure comes from abroad. China's relations with authoritarian regimes is, after all, as much a part of the debate about who runs China as domestic policy, with this week's announcements on Darfur showing that there may be more infighting behind the scenes between the PLA and the CCP than outsiders realize.

In light of this though, I have to ask: where is Japan? Why is Japan, with its self-defense forces now having international activities as one of its primary missions, not in Africa, helping to prevent genocide in Sudan? Seems like a perfect opportunity to show how Japan is willing to bear a greater burden globally.

Abe's id speaks

Well, it was only a matter of time. First, Defense Minister Kyuma signalled in Washington that Japan was approaching a reconsideration of its restrictions on arms exports, prompting Chief Cabinet Secretary Shiozaki to deny that any change was impending and reaffirm the principles. Then, Abe voiced a slightly more ambiguous position, resting somewhere between Kyuma and Shiozaki.

And now, as seems to have been the case throughout the short life of the Abe Cabinet, LDP PARC Chairman Nakagawa Shoichi has put in his two cents on the lifting of the three arms export principles, speaking with less ambiguity than the others on the need to adjust Japan's security norms and institutions for the new era.

Am I wrong to think that Nakagawa, as a party official and not a minister, has acted as Abe's id, saying what Abe wishes he could say, if only he didn't have to be sensitive to public opinion? The best example of this is probably the debate on the debate about nuclear weapons last fall, when Abe refused to censure Nakagawa for his repeated calls for Japan to discuss developing nuclear weapons. Is Abe using Nakagawa as a decoy, testing to see how far his government can push before it runs into implacable opposition?

Whatever the case may be, it seems safe to conclude that the government is opening another front in its campaign to roll back postwar political and legal limits on Japanese security policy. New Komeito has voiced its disapproval once again, but is its discontent with Abe's obsession with overturning the postwar security regime ever going to manifest itself as anything other than public complaints?

Meanwhile, with the government's energy dedicated to challenging longstanding constraints on Japanese security policy, the prospects for further structural reform — the Koizumi revolution — are growing ever dimmer. Why should Abe tackle hard questions about the long-term future of Japanese state and society that would require battling members of the LDP and bureaucracy when he can overturn constraints that have limited Japan's independence in security policy, pleasing the LDP's conservatives in the process?

There is no question that the pursuit of independence is the key to understanding the Abe Cabinet's agenda, enabling Abe to complete the project that proved elusive for his grandfather. Amaki Naoto spells out, sympathetically, this line of thinking in depth in this post. Amaki contrasts Abe with Koizumi, who he feels was content with subservience to the US (he also lambastes Koizumi for his "disgraceful" mimicking of Elvis Presley); Abe, on the other hand, is interested in "independent conservatism," like his grandfather. Amaki spends much of the post elaborating on what sort of US-Japan relationship is consistent with Abe's Gaullism, and he provides an excellent look at the implications of Abe's foreign and security policies.

But the burning question, the question that these "independent conservatives" seem unwilling to answer, is whether any of these changes will make any difference whatsoever if Japan cannot find a way to discover new sources of wealth creation and transform its economy for the post-industrial age.

Pooling reserves in Asia

The Yomiuri Shimbun's lead editorial today focuses on an agreement reached at the annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank (ABD) to pool currency reserves among the ASEAN + 3 countries so to be able to provide liquidity in the event of a crisis.

Building on the Chiang Mai Initiative, an earlier agreement in ASEAN + 3 that provided for bilateral currency swaps in the event of a crisis, this agreement may signal a new phase in Asian regionalism, although, as this Reuters story notes, the details of the arrangement have yet to be solidified.

I think this agreement may be important for a few reasons: it cements the role of ASEAN + 3 as the critical forum in regional cooperation (much to the chagrin of the US, undoubtedly); it reinforces the counter intuitive pattern of integration whereby ASEAN is the hub and the region's giants (Japan, China, and South Korea) are the spokes; and, together with that, it signals to the world that even as Asia stands up a complement (or a rival) to the IMF, Asian integration remains a largely open affair.

While I think the first two points are probably uncontroversial, the last may require some teasing out.

The key point is that ASEAN is the hub. Because ASEAN, a group of smaller, poorer countries dwarfed by the great powers of Northeast Asia is the hub of regional integration arrangements, there is less of a "Fortress Asia" feel to ASEAN + 3 cooperation than there might otherwise have been if it was occurring under the aegis of China or Japan. With Japan and China cancelling out each other's influence within the grouping, ASEAN has been free to push for a more open environment. ASEAN's thrust — and thus the thrust of ASEAN + 3 initiatives — is largely outward.

Look at ASEAN's recent activities. It has recently opened FTA negotiations with the EU and CEP negotiations with Japan, while continuing with CEP negotiations with the PRC and pushing ahead with the liberalization of markets within ASEAN.

One can argue about whether these agreements are trade-creating or trade-distorting, but the politics of ASEAN-centered regionalism suggest a more dynamic, commercial regionalism than Europe's inward-looking, institution-building regionalism. As numerous commentators have observed, the conditions of Asia make European-style integration unlikely.

The relationship of the ASEAN + 3 pool to the IMF remains to be decided — Yomiuri suggests that it will be complementary — but that relationship will say much about how power has shifted to Asia in the decade since the Asian contagion. As such, even as the region becomes more open to global commerce, it may become less friendly to international financial institutions perceived as harmful to "Asian" interests.

While it is too early to say more about this arrangement, seeing as how it remains inchoate, it is, unmistakably, an important step in Asian regionalism — and a sign of the growing wealth, power, and independence of Asian countries (and not just China).

A few good henjin

Shisaku replies to my Monday post on the DPJ, arguing, "...the alternative to Diet theatrics--conducting face-to-face retail politics--may fail to ignite excitement at the ballot box."

His point is well taken — and his analysis of voting behavior is quite sound; I did not mean to imply that the DPJ should shun the Diet entirely. However, there are limits to what the DPJ can hope to get out of making a vocal showing in the Diet, considering that doing so tends to make the DPJ look amateurish and not quite ready for government.

The fact is that the DPJ is a smaller, younger version of the LDP. A life raft for castaways from the LDP, as well as the JSP and smaller parties that were consumed by the churning maelstrom of Japanese politics in the 1990s, it shares the same fundamental quality as the LDP: it is an "every member for himself" party, with a lack of policy cohesion that would be unacceptable in just about every other mature democracy. (Both the LDP and the DPJ make the US Republican and Democratic Parties look dictatorial by comparison.)

While I appreciate the desire, voiced by Ozawa and others, to create a two-party system with each party having clear and coherent policy positions, I wonder if that outcome is possible as long as the LDP remains characterized by its utter lack of principle save that of holding power. To win, does the DPJ have any alternative to playing the same kind of politics as the LDP, building up strong local organizations to back its candidates and indulging in the same sort of give-and-take used by the LDP to develop its local bases?

Of course, doing so means shelving any hope of serious political reform in the near term — and it may also mean foregoing any hope of forming a government, because why would voters back the shadow of the LDP when they can have the real thing (and the benefits its candidates promise to deliver to supporters).

But getting back to the question of what the DPJ can hope to accomplish in Diet deliberations, especially in the face of the enormous LDP majority in the Lower House, it seems that although British parties and Japanese parties are rather different, especially in terms of party discipline, the DPJ is very much like Britain's Conservative Party. Indeed, the electoral plight of the Conservatives and Japan's Democrats derive from a similar source.

With Tony Blair, his New Labour backed by equally large majorities, at least in the first half of his government, governing from the center (or even the center-right), the Conservative Party has been about as effective an opposition party as the DPJ; that is to say, wholly ineffective. Its best ideas had been co-opted, and it compounded its problems by turning to ineffectual leader after ineffectual leader.

Similarly, the DPJ had its thunder stolen by the widely popular reformist Koizumi Junichiro, and was unable to rediscover its voice, even as Koizumi's reformist program stalled and his popularity dropped. Turning to the canny veteran Ozawa in the aftermath of Maehara Seiji's disastrous leadership of the party seemed like a good move, but despite Ozawa's policy bona fides, he has had no more success against an LDP promising (if not delivering) reform than his hapless predecessors.

Maybe it's time for the DPJ to move past the Kan-Ozawa-Hatoyama troika and find a party leader who can combine rock star appeal with a clearly communicated, coherent policy message (that actually has substance behind the slogans).

Alas, good henjin are hard to find.

Shiozaki doth protest too much?

Yesterday I noted that Chief Cabinet Secretary Shiozaki reaffirmed the government's commitment to the three arms export principles, saying that the three principles are "an extremely important policy."

It seems, however, that Abe is leaning more towards Kyuma's position than Shiozaki's, as he said at a press conference at the Kantei yesterday, "It has been decided that henceforth, in conformity with the three principles, we will proceed prudently with an investigation."

I don't think we've heard the last of this issue.

Does the PLA run China?

Back in January, in the aftermath of revelations about China's ASAT test, I wrote that the test, which contrasted sharply with cooperative overtures by China at approximately the same time, might have been the product of the PLA's over-sized role in policy debates in Beijing.

Now, over at China Confidential, Confidential Reporter asks whether "China may actually be a military dictatorship posing as a party-ruled, authoritarian (formerly totalitarian) state." (Hat tip: China Digital Times)

This is a hugely important question, but one that may not be answerable, due to the opacity of the Chinese state. But if the PLA is truly ruling China, can any of China's neighbors trust conciliatory words spoken by Premier Wen and the Chinese Foreign Ministry? Are the social changes supposedly at work in China all subject to reversal by a PLA "counterrevolution"? Or, on the contrary, can the PLA, not to mention the party, govern China at all?

On that point, I have strong doubts about the ability of any central authority to govern a nation of more than one billion people, hence the reason for having more confidence in the sustainability of India's rise — Indian federalism seems to provide a more durable system of governance for a megastate than China's klepto-constructo-developmental authoritarianism. After all, the law of diminishing marginal returns surely must apply to population: beyond a certain level, every additional million (or hundred million) provides more problems than benefits for a central government.

Presumably, though, if significant authority can be devolved to the state and municipal levels — and if that authority can be held accountable by the people — the threshold after which the law of diminishing marginal returns kicks in can be pushed up. Consider that federalism enables Delhi to share responsibility for the governance of the populous but poor state of Uttar Pradesh with state authorities in Lucknow. So perhaps when considering India's comparative advantages relative to China it is necessary to mention its federalist political system.

All of which means that the CCP — or the CCP's PLA masters — cannot be thrilled about reports that China's population is set to rise.

Kyuma's false alarm

While in Washington, Defense Minister Kyuma addressed the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. (The speech, which, can be viewed here, is nothing special; be sure to fast forward to the seven minute mark, unless you want to watch Heritage President Edwin Feulner fulminate against China and refer to the defense minister as "Mr. Kayuma.") In his speech, Kyuma said regarding Japan's three principles on arms export, "The time to investigate whether the current situation is good or not is coming." (Asahi's article here)

According to Kyuma, joint missile defense research with the US and the costliness of developing weapons in one country (i.e., kokusanka) are the main reasons pushing Japan to consider loosening restrictions on arms exports.

It seems, however, that Kyuma's remarks were indicative of the Abe Cabinet's opening yet another front in the war to roll back the limits on Japan's defense policy. Chief Cabinet Secretary Shiozaki denied that Kyuma's remarks signal a policy change by the government.

But is Shiozaki's denial strategic or tactical? Does the Abe Cabinet really have no designs on the arms export principles, or is it postponing the issue to a time when the agenda is slightly less crowded?

Given Abe's "revolutionary" bent, I strongly doubt that it's the former.

Muddled thinking on the DPJ

The Asahi Shimbun has published yet another editorial urging the Democratic Party of Japan to be more forthright in confronting the Abe Cabinet in the Diet.

The occasion for this editorial was Ozawa Ichiro's completion of a second tour of the country's regions as part of his electoral strategy of building up the DPJ's support structure from the ground up.

While Asahi concedes that Ozawa's strategy may well have contributed to the DPJ's successes in last month's local elections, the editorial voices the newspaper's continuing frustration with the Ozawa DPJ's lack of direct confrontation with the government.

As I previously discussed here, I am not altogether convinced that the DPJ has much to gain from head-to-head clashes with the government. Consider the record this year. The new Diet term began with the resignation of Tsunoda Giichi, which, together with revelations about Ozawa's plans to build a dormitory for political aides and Nakai Hiroshi's admission to committing the same wrongdoing as Agriculture Minister Matsuoka Toshikatsu, undermined the DPJ's ability to take the ruling coalition for the financial improprieties of LDP members. Aside from that, on what grounds could the DPJ have laid a major blow on the government? The inequality issue seems to have been a non-starter (although it may yet play a role in this summer's Upper House election).

Why does the DPJ have no position from which to attack the government?

Because, despite all the fanfare, Ozawa's efforts to impose policy discipline on the DPJ have fizzled. It remains as fractious as ever, divided between old Socialists and young hawks, and on the fundamental question of constitution revision, its basic policy document contains the mealy-mouthed compromise that the party takes no specific position on constitution revision, pending specific proposals.

And that's supposed to inspire public support for the DPJ?

Given that engaging in policy debates will simply expose the fault lines within the DPJ, the party is better off going to the people directly, campaigning the old-fashioned way.

The constitution revision blitz

Amaki Naoto has a fascinating post considering the national referendum age limit issue.

To summarize, the LDP draft passed by the Lower House stipulated that the age limit for voting in a national referendum on constitution revision will be twenty, same as for other elections. The rejected DPJ draft, meanwhile, called for lowering the voting age in a revision referendum to eighteen. This issue is still under discussion as the Upper House debates the bill.

Amaki wonders as to why the DPJ would want a lower voting age, when, he argues, Japan's impressionable youth have been "brainwashed" into becoming more right wing. He points to an exceptionally high turnout among Japanese in their twenties and thirties in the 2005 postal reform election, and notes that it is a "known fact that they supported Koizumi's stark politics." He further suggests that the LDP is working "meticulously" to cultivate support among younger Japanese. Interestingly, he also notes that the bill's inclusion of a three-year waiting period before revisions can be drafted is part of the LDP's PR strategy.

In any case, Amaki concludes that the DPJ is probably, for the most part, full of advocates of revising Article 9 anyway, implying that the whole debate about revision is a farce, driven more by the DPJ's electoral interests than by genuine disagreement with the LDP.

I don't disagree with his comments on the DPJ: constitution revision is yet another issue where the DPJ is on the reformist side of the matter, but is trapped between its beliefs and the need to act as a proper opposition party.

Meanwhile, I fear that in the absence of an effective political opposition, the Abe Cabinet will steamroll any opposition through its relentless repetition of the message that constitution revision is necessary and the postwar regime must be dismantled. After seeing the blitz that the cabinet launched leading up to Constitution Day, I can only imagine the impact a steady drumbeat of statements reiterating the need to change the "postwar regime" will have on public opposition to revision. In other words, it's the ol' drown-your-opponents-with-verbiage approach.

It's time that someone challenged Abe on his whole "changing the postwar regime, starting with the constitution" argument. Article 9 aside, does anyone really believe that the problems with the postwar regime lie in the postwar constitution, and not with the informal policy making mechanisms devised by the LDP and the bureaucracy since 1955?

Book of the week

Apologies for not posting a recommended book last week, due to my travels in China.

This week's selection is Fareed Zakaria's From Wealth to Power (Amazon link at right).

Zakaria's book, while in part a theory-laden discussion of the rise of great powers, focuses on how the US went from being an economic giant but a political and military midget in the late nineteenth century. Zakaria takes issue with the standard realist account of the balance of power, suggesting that in the case of the US what mattered in the emergence of the US were decisions taken in Washington in the decades following the civil war that enabled the federal government to exercise the latent power of the continental nation. The state's ability to draw upon the power of the nation forms the basis for what Zakaria calls "state-centered realism."

The implications of this theory for contemporary Japan are obvious. Twenty-first century Japan, in a manner not unlike late nineteenth America, is in the process of making the political decisions that will enable its government to wield national power that it has heretofore been denied.

One significant difference, however, is that Japan is trying to normalize its security policy in a regional environment more akin to Europe in the late nineteenth century, which means that whatever decisions that Abe Cabinet makes regarding Japan's security policy will undoubtedly raise alarms in neighboring capitals. Hence the absurdity of Abe's remarks last week about Japan's needing to keep its neighbors informed about constitution revision. The problem is not a matter of the fairness of Japan's having to genuflect to its neighbors regarding every mooted change to the postwar regime. No, Abe's pronouncement that Japan will explain changes to its neighbors is absurd because changing the constitution will send a clear signal to Japan's neighbors that it will play a more significant, independent role in the regional balance of power, a reality that no amount of "explanation" will be able to obscure.

In any case, Zakaria's book is an excellent corrective to systemic realism and a reminder that in international politics what happens within states is incredibly important (a point that seems obvious to most people but with which some — though, of late, fewer — IR scholars struggle).

Asia's shifting balance

The past week has brought a host of stories pointing to how the balance of power — both globally and in Asia — is shifting, suggesting that the assumptions made by each major regional power will have to change accordingly.

First, Taiwan's place as the most likely cause of war between China and the US (with or without Japan) may well be shifting, due to growing appreciation on the part of the US that as the potential costs of war with China have risen, the costs of providing a security "blank check" to Taiwan have risen in parallel. It is not surprising, therefore, that Stephen Young, head of the American Institute in Taiwan (the de facto embassy), has called upon Taiwan to pass a budget that provides funding for US-provided weaponry. Is this a last-ditch effort by the US to urge the Chen administration to focus more on trying to correct the cross-strait balance and less on provoking China with moves toward de jure independence?

At the same time, Taiwan has selected Joseph Wu, a member of Chen's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), as its representative in Washington; Wu acknowledges that in the face of deepening US-China ties, Taiwan will increasingly have to struggle to earn Washington's support, not to mention its attention. Meanwhile, it seems that some in Taiwan — most notably Ma Ying-jeou, the KMT's newly selected candidate for next year's presidential elections — recognize that Taiwan's future is increasingly across the strait, at least economically. Ma has called for removing restrictions on Taiwanese economic activities in mainland China, which raises the obvious question of whether a diplomatically isolated Taiwan that is increasingly economically dependent on China will be able to retain de facto independence for long.

In other words, strategic ambiguity is becoming ever more ambiguous, which undoubtedly is important for the US-Japan alliance (and may even explain why Taiwan was absent from the most recent SCC statement).

But fluctuation in the regional balance is not limited to Taiwan. Indeed, perhaps the more serious changes involve Japan, which is learning to look outside of the alliance for friends and partners. For all the talk about the strength of the alliance — Richard Armitage echoed the rhetoric emanating from last week's bilateral meetings in Washington in an interview in Mainichi — the US-Japan relationship is, oddly enough, much healthier in security cooperation between the US Military and JSDF than in political cooperation between the two governments. As the Economist reports this week, Abe's visit to the Middle East this past week is largely a product of Japanese realpolitik, with the Abe Cabinet looking out for Japan's security interests independent of other concerns. Similar thinking can be found in the growing trend in favor of a Russo-Japanese rapprochement, with Foreign Minister Aso, on a visit to Moscow, agreeing to schedule a summit between Abe and Putin at next month's G8 meeting in Germany.

And so the new regional balance of power comes into view. It is not an old-fashioned military balance of power, because the US presence in the region, with the help of its alliance with Japan, means that the US will continue to be primus inter pares as far as military power is concerned. In the shadow of the US military primacy, however, competition for energy, for trade, for commodities, and for the future of political and economic development in the region is burgeoning. Thus Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's advice to President Bush cannot be taken lightly: the US and Japan must become more flexible politically, even as they deepens military ties. But without political coordination and communication — clear explanations of the reasoning behind their respective independent initiatives — US-Japan security cooperation will be unsustainable over the long term.

After all, can the alliance survive without a clearly defined purpose, which is, in effect, the meaning of the "globalization" of the US-Japan alliance? Or will it flounder, just as NATO has floundered as it has tried to become more global in its vocation?

The global order election

As commentators assess the results of the first debate among the (declared) candidates for the Republican nomination for the 2008 US presidential election (check out the summary by Slate's John Dickerson), it is becoming increasingly clear what the central question of the 2008 election ought to be.

Namely, how can the US, as the Washington Post's David Ignatius asks, midwife the complex multipolar order that is coming into being? Is it at all possible for the US, with the help of allies and rivals too, to craft the new global rules of the game?

This question went wholly unaddressed in Thursday night's debate — as Andrew Sullivan writes, "As for foreign policy, very little nuance, very little subtlety, almost no fresh thinking" — even by Senator John McCain, who gave an address at Stanford's Hoover Institution two days earlier that spoke directly to this issue. Instead, the debate seems to have been a cordial softball game, with the candidates trying to one-up each other as to who has the greatest claim to being Ronald Reagan's heir (not surprisingly, perhaps, since the debate was held at the Reagan Library).

Nevertheless, the US and the world need next year's election to be "about" foreign policy, but not a specific foreign policy issue like "Iraq" or "terrorism." Rather, the US is in dire need of a national conversation about when and how American power ought to be exercised; the manner in which the US interacts with countries like China, which may be illiberal at home but share an interest in regional and global stability; and the role of democratization in US foreign policy in the wake of the Iraq war.

The US, as the only country in the world with truly global interests matched with global reach (whether politically, economically, or militarily), desperately needs to determine what it wants the next new world order to look like, and how it hopes to achieve its goals — because no other single power can.

The US cannot, of course, shape the new order on its own, but it can present a vision and begin working with other great powers to hammer out a final version; in other words, what is needed is American leadership, not American dominance. As Ignatius wrote, "American power alone is demonstrably unable to achieve world order; we can't even maintain the peace in Baghdad. But no multilateral coalition has emerged as an alternative."

As such, it is worth looking at Senator McCain's remarks on this question.

McCain stated his theme early in his address: "Now it is our generation's turn to build." McCain is explicitly interested in institution building, domestically and globally, in a manner similar to the Truman administration in the early years of the cold war, a project that the current administration has almost willfully avoided. (And indeed, McCain paid tribute to Truman throughout the speech.)

Then he made a statement that seems like a no-brainer but in fact sets McCain apart from the Republican field: "Today the talk is of the war on terror, a war in which we must succeed. But the war on terror cannot be the only organizing principle of American foreign policy."

Finally, McCain outlined his grand proposal for international order: "a league of democracies." This idea was proposed by Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay, of the Brookings Institution and the University of Texas respectively, in the January/February issue of The American Interest, and debated by a number of senior foreign policy thinkers in the same and subsequent issues. In short, McCain — and Daalder and Lindsay — called for an organization of democratic allies that would be able to act when and where other international organizations, especially the UN, fail. As McCain said:

The new League of Democracies would form the core of an international order of peace based on freedom. It could act where the UN fails to act, to relieve human suffering in places like Darfur. It could join to fight the AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa and fashion better policies to confront the crisis of our environment. It could provide unimpeded market access to t hose who share the values of economic and political freedom, an advantage no state-based system could attain. It could bring concerted pressure to bear on tyrants in Burma or Zimbabwe, with or without Moscow's and Beijing's approval. It could unite to impose sanctions on Iran and thwart its nuclear ambitions. It could provide support to struggling democracies in Ukraine and Serbia and help countries like Thailand back on the path to democracy.

In short, to the question of what role democratization should have in American foreign policy, McCain answered strongly in favor of its playing a central role.

But, as Scott Paul writes at The Washington Note — echoing questions raised by discussants in the American Interest — there are serious questions about the desirability of such an organization, and whether it can be formed in the first place. What role would a League of Democracies play in cooperation with authoritarian China or illiberal democratic Russia to manage global order? More fundamentally, is such an organization even possible? An organization of democracies acting as a kind of global posse assumes that every democracy acts in favor of democracies in every face of every foreign policy issue. That's obviously not the case.

Think of the manifold cases when democracies act in ways that not only don't further the spread of democracy, but actually hinder it. (Western support for Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf may be the most prominent example at present.) Realpolitik, foreign policy based on the cold calculations of a state's security interests, remains an essential determinant of foreign policy in every democracy. And then there's the influence of history, nationalism, identity, religion, and so forth, intangible factors that shape foreign policy in unpredictable ways. (As an Asia scholar, a question that immediately comes to my mind is the Japan-South Korea relationship, where the fact that both are democracies seems to be the least important element.)

And McCain doesn't even begin to tackle the question of who would qualify, with the implication being that a relatively lax definition of democracy would render the organization too large and unwieldy to be the effective international actor that McCain desires.

So McCain deserves plaudits for daring to think about the future of American leadership in an increasingly multipolar world, but cooperation among democracies is not a panacea for the world's ills.

Instead, the only way the US will be able to rise to the challenge of the new multipolarity is by becoming more flexible, less reliant on old allies incapable of mustering the will to act, more willing to talk with rivals with which the US competes in some areas while sharing interests in others, and more willing to talk with and listen to all interlocutors in pursuit of a stable, peaceful global order — to ensure, in McCain's word, "a new global order of peace, a peace that can last not just for a decade but for a century, where the dangers and threats we face diminish, and where human progress reaches new heights."

But, ultimately, if strength was the watchword of the unipolar moment, then flexibility will be the watchword of the multipolar era that is coming into being.

Japan's constitution turns sixty

As Japan celebrates Constitution Day, marking the anniversary of the promulgation of the postwar constitution, the Abe Cabinet has renewed its push to revise the constitution — read Article 9 of the constitution — on the heels of bilateral meetings with the US that pointed to a more globally active US-Japan alliance.

In Washington, Defense Minister Kyuma told the Washington Post that revision will go forward, but with "restraint" and with the goal of enabling Japan to uphold UN resolutions, a position that sounds rather similar to DPJ President Ozawa Ichiro's "UN-centric" foreign policy activism.

Meanwhile, on 2 May, at a press conference in Cairo, Abe emphasized that Japan must explain constitution revision to the US and to surrounding countries in Asia so "to not be misunderstood," as the Diet prepares in the coming weeks to pass the legislation establishing a national referendum system for constitution revision.

The problem with coverage of the Abe Cabinet's comments on revision, however, is that these reports take for granted the ease with which Abe will be able to get his way on drafting revisions. Despite this recent Mainichi survey that showed 51% of those polled in favor of revision, other surveys have suggested that support for revision is far from overwhelming, especially where the first clause (renouncing war) of Article 9 is concerned. Of course, even within the political system support is far from assured — with the DPJ opposed to revision at this juncture and moderates within the LDP concerned about the outline of revision — raising questions as to whether the Cabinet would be able to muster the necessary two-thirds majority in both houses of the Diet. (And if Abe's bid to make this summer's election about constitution revision results in a disastrous defeat for the LDP, will constitution revision retain a prominent position on the national agenda?)

Again, as with the transformation of the US-Japan alliance, what matters is the process: if constitution revision results from a genuine debate, engaging all parts of Japanese society, as opposed to being imposed from above, then indeed constitution revision can play an important part in rejuvenating Japanese society in the twenty-first century. But if it just perpetuates heavy-handed, top-down rule from above by authorities in Nagata-cho and Kasumigaseki, then constitution revision is the wrong policy at the wrong time for the Japanese people.

Towards a global alliance

Commentators have had a day to digest the joint statement produced at Tuesday's SCC meeting in Washington. For an excellent review of the circumstances surrounding the meeting — including the impact of impertinent statements by Defense Minister Kyuma and Foreign Minister Aso — check out former Japanese diplomat Amaki Naoto's blog, in which he criticizes harshly Abe's handling of the US-Japan relationship. (Granted, he also criticizes the government for failing to assume full responsibility for the defense of Japan.)

Having read the joint statement, I have a few responses.

It is interesting that in the list of common strategic objectives, there is no mention of Taiwan. Readers will recall that the statement produced in February 2005 was notably in that it was the first significant mention of Taiwan being a shared interest of the alliance. As such, Taiwan's absence from this statement is interesting.

In place of Taiwan, there is a clear shift away from thinking about specific contingencies that the alliance might face and a greater emphasis on shaping the East Asian and global strategic environments. Beyond talking specifically about the resolution of the North Korean crisis, the statement calls on China to become a stakeholder in regional and global order; APEC to become a greater mechanism for regional cooperation; a more significant role for ASEAN; strengthened US-Japan-Australian cooperation; greater cooperation with India; and bilateral cooperation in Iraq and the Greater Middle East.

Accordingly, given the broader thrust of the shared strategic objectives, the specific measures for bilateral military cooperation are designed to improve the ability of the alliance to operate throughout the "arc of instability." While the statement also discusses greater operational interoperability on missile defense, it is exceedingly clear that the purpose of this document — statements on realignment included — is to indicate that the alliance is becoming distinctly more global in character, a point entirely missed by this Japan Times summary, for example.

What is absent, however, is more than a line about how the alliance's structure ought to change as it becomes more global and more equal in nature. As in earlier joint statements, the SCC called for the "establishment of a flexible, bilateral interagency coordination mechanism to coordinate policy, operational, intelligence, and public affairs positions before and during crisis situations." This has been a standard line in joint statements throughout the decade, but there is no indication of how the alliance ought to change to reflect its new purpose and new division of roles and missions.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: this is a discussion that needs to happen now, and it needs to happen in full view of the Japanese public (and not just in the form of Abe visiting the troops as "commander-in-chief.")

Two plus two equals...no change whatsoever?

In advance of Tuesday's 2 + 2 meeting in Washington, Secretary of State Rice met one-on-one with Foreign Minister Aso, and Secretary of Defense Gates met with Defense Minister Kyuma.

The pre-meetings, it seems, were as limited in scope as the full meeting of the Security Consultative Committee (the formal setting of the 2 + 2) looks to be.

According to Yomiuri, the defense policy meeting focused mainly on the need to implement last year's realignment agreement fully, without amendment, with some talk of the ongoing investigations into leaks of classified information about the Aegis system by MSDF sailors. Secretary Gates also reiterated that the F-22 is not for sale, although he suggested that it would be good "from the perspective of the division of roles between the US and Japan," hinting at further investigation of the issue.

The foreign policy meeting, meanwhile, reiterated the message to North Korea expressed by President Bush and Prime Minister Abe last week.

Interestingly, in a preview of the SCC meeting, Sankei reports that the joint statement will include a reaffirmation of the US nuclear umbrella, in part as a response to last autumn's debate on having a debate on Japan's nuclear weapons policy. Other than that, though, the 2 + 2 will undoubtedly include statements reiterating bilateral cooperation on North Korea, missile defense, on the realignment of US forces in Japan, and on cooperation in the reconstruction of Iraq — but nothing on the long-term health of the US-Japan alliance or a discussion of steps that should be taken to strengthen the alliance.

In regard to the realignment agreement in particular, in the years leading up to the relocation of US Marines to Guam, the allies must discuss what will happen to the alliance when it becomes decoupled from the defense of Japan, the natural implication of a drastic reduction in the scale of US forces forward-deployed in Japan. While the allies seem to be groping towards some kind of transformation of the alliance into a global alliance, the terms of that change have yet to be made explicit, having been handled on an ad hoc basis in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Changes in the alliance must be made explicit, preferably with unambiguous language in a joint statement. As such, every meeting of senior US and Japanese officials that passes without the future structure of the alliance being discussed is a wasted opportunity.

The China enigma

After an afternoon of walking around in slums located within blocks of Tiananmen Square — festooned with flags for the national holiday — I am ever more convinced that the only way to think about China in the early twenty-first century is by drawing upon the Jain parable of the blind men and the elephant.

For Japan's neighbors, and, indeed, for the entire international community, there is no generalizing about China. There are no simple answers.

What is one to make of the existence of urine-soaked slums in the heart of Beijing, adjacent to broad avenues packed with European luxury cars and blocks away from crowds of tourists (Chinese and otherwise) carrying the latest digital cameras and snapping pictures of the portrait of Mao overlooking Tiananmen Square? And how about the whitewashing of Chinese history between the founding of the People's Republic in 1949 and the turn of the twenty-first century — and the consequently crass abuse of China's imperial past?

There appears to be no logic to Beijing and little order. Massive commercial and housing developments appear to have fallen from the sky, with nothing but the presence of cranes building similar structures suggesting that the behemoths were the product of human hands. I felt a distinct and omnipresent energy and a materialism unmatched in my experience (dialectical materialism without the dialectical). At the same time that more and more Chinese are following Deng Xiaoping's injunction that "to get rich is glorious," millions of Chinese are turning to religions of ancient or western provenance. It is a society changing in ways that even its one-party rulers are incapable of controlling, try though they might.

How can the US and Japan deal with this bundle of contradictions that is China? China demands a foreign policy approach, especially from the US, that resists the urge to rush to judgment or to cajole. The political change desired by Americans will not happen overnight, and it will not happen because of American prompting. Tokyo, perhaps to an extent greater than Washington, acknowledges that the ability of outside powers to impact the course of political development within China is limited.

Unpleasant as it may seem, this is the China with which the world will have to live for the foreseeable future.