The problem with history

The Sankei Shimbun's Komori Yoshihisa, editor-at-large based in Washington, DC, illustrates why the congressional comfort women resolution is so disastrous.

In response to this NY Times editorial, Komori, in this post, shows the defensiveness of Japanese nationalists -- and why Congress is not in a position to criticize Japan's treatment of its own history.

He wrote (my translation): "How arrogant! What about the inhuman acts that were the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? What about the fire bombing of Tokyo?"

I have to imagine that he is not alone in that reaction to US criticism on the comfort women issue.

Once again, historical acceptance cannot be dictated, certainly not by a foreign government.

Fireworks in Hanoi?

On Wednesday, 7 March, talks in the Japan-North Korea normalization working group are set to resume in Hanoi.

I'm not entirely clear on what to expect. Since the six-party agreement last month, Japan has ratcheted up the pressure on North Korea to come clean on the abductions issue -- Abe once again urged North Korea to take concrete steps in today's session of the Upper House Budget Committee -- but I have seen no signs that Japan is any closer to having its demands satisfied.

What I find particularly interesting is that according to the Mainichi Shimbun article linked above, Abe said, "The US perfectly understands and supports the Japanese position [my emphasis]." Is this true? Do the US and Japanese governments have the same definition for what constitutes "progress" on the abductions issue? What happens if North Korea makes some initial offer on abductions, together with verifiable progress on nuclear weapons, that satisfies the US but not Japan? Will the US still be perfectly understanding and supportive?

Perfect storm over Taiwan?

At the talk I heard last week by Randall Schriver (discussed here), he referred to the possibility of a "perfect storm" in the dispute between China and Taiwan as 2008 approaches, 2008 being the year in which the US and Taiwan elect new presidents and China hosts its long-desired Olympic Games. He suggested that the storm has begun forming already, as candidates in both countries begin campaigning.

I was somewhat incredulous about the "perfect storm" idea, but over the past couple of days several stories have led me to wonder if the danger might be real.

First, China tells a visiting John Negroponte that the US should halt plans to sell missiles to Taiwan, at the same time that China announced a major increase in defense spending. Now, Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian, at a campaign rally for presidential candidates from his Democratic People's Party, has apparently hinted at Taiwanese independence. (The Financial Times suggests that the verb he used could be "understood as 'will,' 'wants,' 'must' or 'should,' but regardless of the interpretation his statement -- "Taiwan wants independence, Taiwan wants name rectification, Taiwan wants a new constitution" -- is potentially provocative.) The brinkmanship will undoubtedly continue as what looks to be a hard-fought election heats up.

There is indeed real potential for a perfect storm.

The 'comfort women' issue explodes

The news today is that the Abe Cabinet, while apparently still respecting the 1993 Kono statement on the 'comfort women' issue, will not issue another apology, even if the US Congress passes a resolution calling for Japan to apologize.

As suggested by two articles in South Korea's Chosun Ilbo -- found here and here -- Abe's remarks last week may have nullified any progress he has made since coming to office in forging a rapprochement with Seoul.

Once again the failure of the postwar Japanese polity to account fully for the totality of Imperial Japan's crimes during the war continues to haunt Japan and cast a shadow over its efforts to become a more substantial contributor to regional and international security.

But Japan's failures still do not justify the US Congress passing this resolution. I want to respond to a comment made on this previous post, which challenges the view presented by Michael Green in the Yomiuri article I translated.

Before I go respond, however, I must emphasize that I have deep sympathy for those who suffered at the hands of Imperial Japan, just as I have deep sympathy for the victims of each and every of the twentieth century's brutal regimes. That does not mean, however, that I want my representatives in Congress meting out historical justice. That is the issue with which I'm concerned, not the substance of the resolution.

So first, the poster -- who signs her post as 'Shrinegirl' -- launches an ad hominem attack on Green for being "quite uninformed" and lacking "understanding of the American political process." She accuses Green of "McCarthyism" -- that old smear -- for suggesting that some of the NGOs involved in pushing for the resolution having North Korea's backing. Having seen no evidence one way or the other, I'm not inclined to dismiss this immediately; it seems entirely plausible that at least one NGO involved in this debate has received support from North Korea. He did not name any organization in particular, so it's foolish to read that to mean Amnesty International or any other interested organization.

The poster goes on to write: "It is wrong to call it a history issue. The Comfort Women is among the many unresolved historical issues still having a profound impact on regional relations. Cooperation and stability is fundamental to ther success of the 2 Party Talks and to overall security. The US Congress has every right to be concerned about how its major ally in Asia represents itself, especially to other US allies like South Korea, Australia, and Singapore. In terms or women's rights this issue has very contemporary resonance."

I take exceptional issue with the argument that this is not a "history issue." That is all this issue is (or should be). The question of historical fact -- and judgments about historical right and wrong insofar as the behavior of foreign governments and peoples are concerned -- are not matters to be resolved by legislators, in any legislature. (Congress is free to apologize for whatever mistakes it feels the US government has made.) The twentieth century was a terrible century, perhaps the worst in human history in terms of the crimes committed by humans against others. I strongly doubt that a panel of US representatives is competent to determine which group of twentieth century victims is most deserving of justice (which also assumes that the US Congress is in a position to deliver "justice"). Who is to determine which cause is most worthy of congressional support? At the moment, it seems that the victims that are best organized get Congress's help in their pursuit of justice, as a similar dynamic is at work in a current debate on a similar congressional resolution condemning Turkey for the Armenian genocide, discussed in this Washington Post op-ed by Jackson Diehl. (It's strikingly similar: proposed by a Democratic congressman from a California district heavily populated by the aggrieved minority group, the Turkey resolution has prompted lobbying by the Turkish government, angry denunciations, and the potential for geopolitical consequences.)

This is a matter for the historians, because that is exactly what is at issue: Japanese leaders have yet to face up to the whole weight of burden of Japanese history. Japan's skeletons have been allowed to hang in the closet for too long, in part because after the war the Japanese people could tell themselves that they were victims too, because of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As described by Ian Buruma in The Wages of Guilt, his excellent book on German and Japanese efforts to cope with their wartime behavior, Japan's unique status as the only country to date attacked with nuclear weapons meant that Japan's wartime past was not dealt with openly in the same way that postwar Germany dealt with the crimes of the Third Reich.

One measly congressional resolution is not going to make up for six decades of failing to address Japan's past properly. That is a job for historians, ideally Japanese historians: to end the obfuscation of Japanese politicians, Japanese historians must not hesitate in documenting the facts of the war as well as possible. I know, however, that in recent years the academic environment surrounding Japan's wartime behavior has become decidedly unfriendly to those unwilling to toe the nationalist line -- but this means that Japanese historians will have to look abroad for venues in which to document the truth of Japan's wartime behavior. (A tiny disclosure: I have been assisting with one such effort.)

This congressional resolution has already had the unintended consequence of leading the Japanese government to dig in its heels in resisting the resolution, complicating efforts to put East Asian international relations on a more stable ground -- and surely making it less likely that Japan will fully accept the facts of its wartime misbehavior. (As this debate rages, Tokyo Governor Ishihara Shintaro's film glorifying kamikaze pilots -- I Go to Die for You -- is on the brink of its debut.) I have no doubt that the groups pushing for this resolution are well-intentioned, but in politics good intentions can have disastrous consequences, and this may well be one such case.

Finally, this poster suggests, "The heart of the resolution is regional reconciliation, and Mr Abe successfully ended that." I don't disagree with the latter half of that statement, but I strongly dispute the former. Whatever the intentions of this resolution, it will not result in regional reconciliation. For genuine reconciliation requires that the parties involved want to be reconciled. Beyond Japan's failures in regard to its history, for all their moralizing about Japan's past, do Korea and China really want to be reconciled with Japan? Arguably both find the issue of Japan's history to be a useful safety valve for domestic discontent.

This post has gone on for far too long, but seeing as how this is the hot-button issue of the moment, a long post was required.

Yomiuri on Sunday

A couple articles caught my eye in today's edition of the Yomiuri Shimbun, both of which appear to be unavailable online. (Articles from Sunday's paper never seem to be posted online.)

The first was an interview with US Japan hand Michael Green, focused on the "comfort women" resolution, the title of which summarizes the interview fairly well: "Leave 'comfort women' to the historians." The points made by Green are more or less the same points I made in two previous posts on the congressional resolution. He argues, "The US Congress's involvement in this issue is a big mistake. In particular, for the Committee on Foreign Affairs there is a pileup of problems that should be dealt with, like North Korea's human rights violations and the challenge of a rising China." He also attributed Representative Honda's eagerness to push for this resolution to Koreans resident in California, as well as to the entanglement of North Korea-sponsored anti-Japanese and anti-American NGOs.

Published on the same page is an article discussing the outline of contemporary US-Japan-China strategic triangle, with reference to the new Armitage-Nye Report. I mention the article because I found an interesting phrase contained within: "Kim Jong Hill [キム・ジョン・ヒル]." The "Hill" referred to is, of course, Christopher Hill, US assistant secretary of state and representative at the six-party talks. This is the first use I've seen of such a phrase in English or Japanese, and a quick Google search revealed nothing. It certainly made me laugh, but there's a bit of truth in the quip.

In some ways, Hill -- and the agreement he helped forge in Beijing -- may be as indirectly harmful to Japan's interests as Kim is directly harmful, because the six-party agreement, essentially made between the US and China over Japan's head, forces Japan to choose between taking a stand on principle and isolating itself, or assenting to an agreement that does little to secure its interests. Of course, it's not really fair for Japan to blame Hill or the US -- the Bush administration is simply looking out for what it perceives to be US national interests.

Japan has no one to blame for its less-than-ideal decision except the Abe Cabinet, which has seemingly focused on the abductions issue to the exclusion of all else.

The muddy waters of the post-Koizumi era

For those who want a general overview of the present state of Japanese politics -- what's changed, what hasn't -- check out this article by Tokyo University professor Kabashima Ikuo and PhD candidate Okawa Chihiro. Published at Japan Echo, a monthly journal that publishes translations of scholarly articles originally written in Japanese, Kabashima and Okawa provide a competent account of the transition from Koizumi to Abe and the reasons for Abe's difficulties of late.

I particularly liked their account of urban-rural dynamics in the evolution of the Japanese political system:

The electoral reforms of 1994 rectified the rural prefectures’ overrepresentation in the Diet and increased the electoral importance of the urban districts, and the LDP was unable to win over urban voters. After the short-lived reformist administrations of Hosokawa Morihiro and Hata Tsutomu, the LDP returned to power by means of a coalition with the Social Democratic Party of Japan (formerly the Japan Socialist Party, now the Social Democratic Party) and the small New Party Sakigake (now defunct), and it formed other coalitions to weather subsequent threats. In the meantime, however, the depopulation and aging of the LDP’s rural support base and the decay of the LDP support apparatus had been accelerating. It was clear that the party could not hope to retain control of the government over the long term without building support in the urban areas.

This is the historical context in which Koizumi Jun’ichirô, an urban politician from the city of Yokosuka, was elected president of the Liberal Democratic Party in 2001. Koizumi ran for president of the LDP on the paradoxical- sounding promise that he would "smash the LDP," but what he was talking about was the old "LDP system." Persuaded by Koizumi’s call for a neoliberal program of structural reforms, Japanese voters—especially urban voters—entrusted him with the task of overhauling an obsolete socioeconomic system that had brought the nation to a dead end.

Thanks in part to his unusual personal popularity, a result of his unique style of leadership, Koizumi was able to leverage the "prime minister effect" to bring urban voters back to the LDP. It was Koizumi who cast light on the urban areas where the LDP had struggled and thus breathed life back into the LDP. The summit of his accomplishment was the 2005 general election.

Abe clearly lacks the effortless appeal to urban voters that Koizumi had, and I have serious doubts if Koizumi truly succeeded at converting the LDP into an urban party. That is the context for the upcoming local and Upper House elections. If Koizumi failed, and the DPJ, for all its incoherence and opportunism, remains the default party of urban Japan, then this summer might be especially painful for Abe's LDP.

Read the whole thing.

Negroponte chides Congress

The Japan Times reports that US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte has criticized Congress for the comfort women resolution, saying, "Our view is what happened during the war was most deplorable. But as far as some kind resolution of this issue (is concerned), this is something that must be dealt with between Japan and the countries that were affected."

Thus the medium- and long-term implications of this resolution are unclear. Should it pass, it may produce some momentary unpleasantness -- but once again the executive branch will be in a position of defending Japan from critics in Congress, suggesting that the resolution will probably not result in undue harm to efforts to transform US forward deployments in Japan or strengthen the alliance.

The US Congress, thought police?

So Prime Minister Abe has commented upon the US House Resolution 121 -- the so-called "comfort women resolution" -- currently under debate in the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

The resolution states that Japan

(1) should formally acknowledge, apologize, and accept historical responsibility in a clear and unequivocal manner for its Imperial Armed Force's coercion of young women into sexual slavery, known to the world as 'comfort women', during its colonial and wartime occupation of Asia and the Pacific Islands from the 1930s through the duration of World War II;

(2) should have this official apology given as a public statement presented by the Prime Minister of Japan in his official capacity;

(3) should clearly and publicly refute any claims that the sexual enslavement and trafficking of the 'comfort women' for the Japanese Imperial Armed Forces never occurred; and

(4) should educate current and future generations about this horrible crime while following the recommendations of the international community with respect to the 'comfort women'.

I'm not going to debate the facts of Japanese behavior during the war, but, rather, I'm going to question -- as Adamu of Mutantfrog Travelogue did in this post -- Congress acting as an arbiter of history, in part, it seems, due to pressure from ethnic groups in the US. My problem is not necessarily the usual "what would the US think if governments passed resolutions condemning American slavery," but rather the likely impact of congressional intervention in this matter.

I see two possible outcomes. The first is defiance. As noted in the BBC article linked above, Prime Minister Abe's response has been to question the historical facts. Rather than sheepishly accept the dictates of a foreign legislature, Japanese nationalists -- and perhaps even those who are not particularly fervent nationalists but still object to being told what to think about their history -- will likely stonewall, obfuscate, and fight the passage of the resolution, aggravating the issue, because no doubt the activists pushing for this resolution will redouble their efforts in response to Japanese defiance.

The other possible outcome is false acceptance, which at the moment seems less likely. But the larger point is that it is impossible to decree acceptance of historical wrongdoing. It is impossible to make people believe something they refuse to believe, regardless of the facts of the matter. Contrition that results from the goading of foreigners is, in my opinion, not contrition at all. Japan has a lot of historical soul-searching to do, but that soul-searching cannot -- and should not -- be the product of a decree from Washington.

Maybe the House Committee on, er, Foreign Affairs should spend more time thinking about the numerous problems in American foreign policy, instead of policing the thoughts of foreign governments; I'm not quite sure if that's what Tom Lantos had in mind when changing the committee's name.

And I wish someone could remind me where in the US Constitution Congress is empowered with the authority to dictate history to foreign governments. I keep flipping through my copy, but I can't seem to find it anywhere.

Two Chinas, two Asias

I spent Friday afternoon at the headquarters of the Keidanren -- a classic example of Tokyo-style brutalism if I've ever seen one -- at a symposium convened by the World Trade Center Tokyo and the Tokyo American Center on "China's Rise and the Emerging Architecture of Trade and Investment in the Asia-Pacific Economy." Keynotes by a Chinese and an American academic, with a panel of veteran Japanese diplomats.

The discussion ended up being very interesting, addressing the many varieties and possibilities of trade agreements in East Asia.

But I'm not going to summarize the discussion here. Rather, I found the contrast with the talk I attended earlier this week, on the evolving situation in the Taiwan Straits, jarring, but illuminating.

It seems that at present, two Asias exist side by side -- with observers seeing the Asia they prefer to see. The business leaders, academics and diplomats gathered at the Keidanren today prefer to see the Asia characterized by ever-deepening economic, political, and cultural integration, the "spaghetti bowl" of organizations and agreements, including ASEAN, ASEAN + 3, the East Asian Summit (ASEAN + 6), APEC, the Chiang Mai Initiative (connected to ASEAN + 3), the ASEAN Regional Forum, and a host of bilateral free trade agreements. It's an Asia marked by increasingly dense trade and investment ties within the region. At the heart of this Asia is China, the new "workshop of the world," which has become one of the world's biggest traders since joining the WTO, and has enthusiastically embraced regionalism. This is the China that showed up at Cebu earlier this year.

But then there's the other China -- the China that reacts defensively to US calls for military transparency (not to mention the ASAT test) -- that was the focus of Randy Schriver's talk on Wednesday. That's not to say that Schriver only described the belligerent China; if anything, his view, and the view of China in the Armitage-Nye Report, is much more balanced than the seemingly unbridled optimism I heard today. In any case, this second Asia contains the risk of conflict, as it is characterized by ethnic tensions, arguments over history, the possibility of zero-sum competition for energy (the Sino-Japanese conflict over EEZs in the East China Sea, for example), the potential for a nuclear arms race in Northeast Asia, and concerns about China's military buildup, especially as directed at Taiwan. This Asia is by no means inevitable, but every time China shows its belligerent side, the shadow of this conflictual Asia threatens to darken the bright, shining Asia of ever thicker regional ties.

I give the US government credit for not overreacting in recent years to the shadows of the latter Asia -- but sooner or later it is going to have to exert substantial effort to ensure that the former takes a shape that is in the interests of the US (i.e., an Asia that does not harden into a trade bloc that excludes the US). Having a hedge against the latter outcome, in the form of enhanced alliances with Japan and Australia and deeper ties with India, Vietnam, and other regional partners, is fine, but it can only be one facet of US Asia policy.

So I'm with Georgetown's Dennis McNamara, one of the keynote speakers on Friday: it is time for the US to begin working at shaping the cooperative Asia as best it can in a direction that favors the US. (See this Asahi interview for a summary of McNamara's views on this subject.)

But it is important to remember that the decision as to which Asia -- cooperative or conflictual -- will emerge will depend largely on decisions made in Beijing.

A new "new world order"?

Apologies for the lag in posting; life in Nagata-cho has gotten busy, leaving little time to dash off notes.

In any case, I want to call attention to an article in Foreign Affairs by Tufts University professor and blogger Daniel Drezner, called "The New New World Order."

Drezner argues that US foreign policy in recent years has been characterized by an increasing willingness to welcome emerging powers, namely China and India, into leadership roles in international society, lest they opt out and create parallel structures: "If China and India are not made to feel welcome inside existing international institutions, they might create new ones -- leaving the United States on the outside looking in."

His thesis links to a notion I've been toying with for some time. In the early years after the cold war, various international relations theorists (realists, by and large) were quick to point out that a new multipolar order would quickly replace the aberrant unipolarity that had followed the fall of the Soviet Union. Numerous articles talked about the inevitability of multipolarity, and speculated as to which powers were the leading candidates to become the next great powers. (Germany and Japan were the leading candidates -- just as Japan's economy stalled and Germany was forced to absorb the enormous costs of reunification with the impoverished East.)

It seems, however, that those realists were right, about fifteen years too soon -- and their vision of multipolarity owed more to bygone nineteenth century European balance of power than to the world order actually coalescing today. It seems that the multipolar order emerging today more resembles the "three-dimensional chessboard" discussed by Joseph Nye and others, in which multipolarity in economics, culture, and politics exist alongside and despite US military dominance.

Rather than resisting this, Drezner argues, the US has embraced the emergence of new powers and sought to revise international order accordingly, given them a stake in the system in a bid to forestall a revolution of the "upstarts."

This is especially interesting in light of the recommendations of the recent second Armitage-Nye Report, which I have previously discussed at length. The picture painted by the report is of a US more willing to cooperate with China, India, and other regional powers -- including Japan -- to shape the regional environment so to accommodate the new giants. The extent to which the US has worked to engage China was revealed today, in a talk by Randall Schriver, partner at Armitage International, former deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asia/Pacific affairs, and participant in the drafting of the Armitage-Nye Report. (I was attending on behalf of my boss.)

The picture painted by Schriver -- whose brief was to discuss China-Taiwan relations, which ended up encompassing Sino-US relations -- is of a US that, while still hedging somewhat in the event that China takes a belligerent turn, has fully embraced engagement with China, from the president down. Thanks to Secretary Paulson, the China-US Strategic Economic Dialogue ensures that US fears don't subvert the overall economic relationship. Under outgoing chief of Pacific Command William Fallon, the US Military and the PLA held their first joint exercises and engaged in a number of visits and exchanges. The Bush administration, like earlier administrations that have entered office intent on taking a hard line against China, is now pushing for greater engagement with China in the hope that it will become, in the words of former Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, a "responsible stakeholder" in international society.

I will close with a number mentioned by Schriver in his talk. In the first Armitage-Nye Report, published in October 2000, China was mentioned a total of six times. In the most recent Armitage-Nye Report, China was mentioned 123 times. It is a new Asia, and, perhaps, a new world order.

Step back, Mr. Prime Minister

I want to call attention to Prime Minister Abe's email magazine from last week, in which he discusses seeing a performance by Noel Paul Stookey, onetime member of Peter, Paul, and Mary, of his new song "Song for Megumi," about Yokota Megumi, poster child of the abductions issue.

Simply put, Abe's note shows just how far gone his government is on this issue; it oozes with trite, maudlin phrases such as, "As I listened to the sound of the quiet melody strummed on the acoustic guitar and the soft vocals -- a gentle voice one would use when speaking to a young girl -- an image of a happy Megumi together with her family floated before my eyes."

I can't quite tell what Abe is trying to say. If he's being totally sincere, then this message would lead me to question whether Abe has the backbone to be an international statesman. I don't, however, think Abe's concern stems from purely altruistic reasons. (If anything, this message suggests that Abe has no shame when it comes to using one family's private suffering to his political advantage.)

The abductions issue itself, which has long been Abe's bread and butter, is an ideal way to soften Abe's hard nationalist edge: lambasting North Korea for kidnapping Japanese children is hardly likely to draw criticism, but it has allowed Abe to attack an enemy of Japan and pose as the defender of the Japanese nation (and Japan's children).

I'm not saying the Abe Cabinet is wrong to press North Korea on abductions, but the abductions issue is but one obstacle of many on the road to defusing the North Korean threat and integrating the DPRK into the region. As a result of the abductions issue, the Japanese government seems to have lost all perspective on the Korean issue, and as a result finds itself relatively isolated as the six-party process moves forward.

Abe may have heard encouraging words from Cheney, but the man to listen to may be Christopher Hill, the assistant secretary of state for East Asia / Pacific affairs, who said last week at a briefing at the Brookings Institution (transcript available for download here), "...I hope that at some point [North Korea] will come around to an understanding that Japan is right there, and they need Japan. When that moment comes, by the way, and when they do understand that Japan has a need and a right to have closure on this question of abductions, I do hope the Japanese will also reciprocate in the context of what we’ve been doing, that is, de-nuclearization in the Korean Peninsula." In other words, while the US government understands Japan's need for answers on the abductions issue, the US government will not allow the issue to stand in the way of progress on de-nuclearization and normalization.

It seems also that in this message Abe is trying to humanize himself. Why else would he say, for example, "In my junior and senior high school days, I too often listened to their songs, although the name of the group or the titles of its songs may not ring a bell with young people today," referring to Peter, Paul, and Mary? This seems to say, "I may look and act like an aloof patrician, but really I'm like you; I too listen to popular music [just like a certain prime minister identified with Elvis Presley]." I'm sure that it will surprise no one that Abe still looks just as wooden as ever despite, or perhaps because of this lame attempt to appear accessible.

Accordingly, the time is nigh for Abe to step down from the abductions soapbox -- which has helped distort public opinion on Japanese-North Korean relations, as noted here -- and formulate an approach to North Korea that balances all of Japan's interests in regard to Pyongyang. Let's not forget that Japan is perhaps the country most threatened by North Korea's nuclear arsenal.

Stepping back from an issue that has defined Abe's public image for half a decade: now there's an act of political courage.

Japan's evolving democracy...aimed squarely at USFJ?

In light of this recent post on encouraging signs that the realignment of the US military presence may at last be ready to move forward to a conclusion that satisfies both countries, I found this op-ed in the Japan Times by journalist Hanai Kiroku interesting, in that it shows how the US military presence has, in some way, been an impetus to greater civic involvement by Japanese citizens, at least at the local level.

I found these paragraphs particularly interesting:

On Feb. 17, an open discussion was held in Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture, on problems with the U.S. military presence. The meeting was sponsored by a local citizens' council, headed by the mayor, for promoting the reversion of U.S. military bases. Panelists included Col. David E. Hunter-Chester of the U.S. Army Japan command as well as the director of the Yokohama Defense Facilities Bureau of the Defense Ministry, a progovernment college professor, a representative of a nongovernmental organization campaigning for peace and disarmament, and the director of the local citizens' council. It was the first time in Sagamihara, a city with a U.S. military base, that officials from the U.S. armed forces and the Defense Ministry attended such a citizens' meeting.

Looking at the list of panelists, I had expected heated debate, but nothing like that happened. Also present was a Japanese activist who stages a weekly sit-in at the front gate of U.S. Camp Zama to protest the U.S. military presence. There was no heckling and no confusion, probably because the audience was satisfied that open discussions were being held between anti- and pro-U.S.-military groups. There was even a feeling that the two camps understood each other to some extent.

The audience apparently liked the fact that Hunter-Chester, who has lived in Japan more than 10 years including as a high school student, spoke mostly in Japanese. As the meeting closed, somebody in the audience shouted to him in Japanese, "Come to the next session in civilian clothes." He seemed a bit perplexed. I think it was a constructive proposal.

Many Japanese feel that U.S. forces in Japan are taking advantage of their privileges under the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement. The request that the officer attend the next meeting wearing civilian clothes symbolizes citizens' hope that the U.S. military will deal with Japanese residents around U.S. military bases from a civilian standpoint. I share the same hope.

Merely by being in Japan, the US military has encouraged Japanese citizens to take an active interest in governance. While it is unfortunate that the US military is the target of civic activism -- when there are so many more deserving targets ensconced in Nagata-cho -- I hope that the US response to opposition from local communities throughout Japan resembles the response outlined above. The US bases in Japan are, or ought to be, members and participants in the communities that host them, and US military personnel in the community should bear the same responsibilities as their Japanese neighbors.

Accordingly, rather than deferring to Tokyo -- although, of course, the central government has to play a part in coaxing or coercing local communities to agree -- the US Military should at the very least try to disarm local opposition by listening to grievances and make a concerted (and visible) effort to accommodate them.

And, with luck, the spirit of civic participation forged from resisting US Forces in Japan (USFJ) will carry over into Japanese domestic policymaking, with citizens becoming active and vocal participants in the policymaking process, rather than passive observers who occasionally voice their outrage at shenanigans in the Diet.

Preserving American dynamism

As the 2008 US presidential election ramps up, it seems that the biggest looming question -- perhaps even bigger than Iraq -- is the question of how to preserve America's economic dynamism in the face of intense competition from the BRICs and others. Will the US economy and society be able to adapt successfully to the post-industrial world?

It seems that Barack Obama hasn't quite accepted that the challenge facing the US will not be solved by the same tired policies, at least according to this piece by economist Thomas Sowell (via RealClearPolitics). Simply easing the pain won't work; nor, for that matter, will propping up the old pillars of the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party needs to become a post-industrial party, that not only pushes for relief to those harmed by globalization, but also realizes the importance of reconstructing the American economy from the ground up, to ensure that younger generations have the tools to compete.

Bill Gates -- perhaps the poster boy for the post-industrial economy -- has an op-ed in the Washington Post pointing to how the American education system needs to change. He writes:

Our schools can do better. Last year, I visited High Tech High in San Diego; it's an amazing school where educators have augmented traditional teaching methods with a rigorous, project-centered curriculum. Students there know they're expected to go on to college. This combination is working: 100 percent of High Tech High graduates are accepted into college, and 29 percent major in math or science. Contrast that with the national average of 17 percent.

To remain competitive in the global economy, we must build on the success of such schools and commit to an ambitious national agenda for education. Government and businesses can both play a role. Companies must advocate for strong education policies and work with schools to foster interest in science and mathematics and to provide an education that is relevant to the needs of business. Government must work with educators to reform schools and improve educational excellence.

Compare that with what Sowell notes about Obama's views on changing the American education system:

He thinks higher teacher pay is the answer to the abysmal failures of our education system, which is already far more expensive than the education provided in countries whose students have for decades consistently outperformed ours on international tests.

This sounds like a great way of rewarding teachers, who, through their unions, have remained one of the biggest pillars of support for the Democratic Party, but not a particularly great way to reconstruct the American education system. Changing American education means changing how and what American students are taught -- not simply pumping in more money for teachers or computers. It will actually require people to think about what's best for America's future, instead of doing what Washington does best: throwing money at problems.

For all of Obama's talk about how he wants to do things differently, is there actually any substance to his rhetoric? And, if not him, is there anyone else in the field who gets it?

Changing bases

The Economist this week has an article that suggests that local officials in cities hosting US bases may finally be acquiescing to the plans formulated by Washington and Tokyo.

I think there's still a ways to go before the May 2006 agreement is fully on track, but it seems that Tokyo is finally willing to exert some effort in forcing the localities to follow Tokyo's lead; the US has agreed -- has been pushing for, in recent years -- to reductions and reorganization of American force deployments in Japan, without much reciprocation from the GOJ, at least when it comes to making sacrifices to see the deal through to its conclusion. Tokyo's cooperation is long overdue.

Cheney comes and goes

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

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

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

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

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

Quantative easing continues

So the BOJ opted to raise interest rates by .25%. Ken Worsley has the wrap-up here.

It seems that the effect on the carry trade will be negligible; the EU will no doubt still complain about the weak yen; and the BOJ's independence is still in doubt.

Reading on the six-party agreement

With Vice President Cheney in Tokyo to reassure the Abe Cabinet that the US "understands" Japan's need for progress on abductions, it is worthwhile to look at a couple essays that look into the conditions surrounding the preliminary six-party agreement reached in Beijing.

First, in the Washington Post, Philip Zelikow, onetime Condoleeza Rice co-author and until recently one of her senior advisers at the State Department, outlines the State Department's thinking in moving forward to the Beijing agreement.

Meanwhile, at Japan Focus, Gavan McCormack spells out the regional setting of the Korean question in greater detail, and points out the danger posed by this agreement to Japan:

The Nixon Shocks of 1970 would pale by comparison with such “Bush Shocks.” South Korea and Japan face especially large consequences. For Japan, dependence on the US has been the almost unquestioned foundation of national policy for over half a century. A new level of subjection to US regional and global purpose, presupposing an ongoing North Korean threat, has just been negotiated. The prospect of anything like the above shift in US Asian policy would be devastating to Tokyo. It can hardly have been coincidental that previously unimaginable rumbles of criticism of the Bush administration began to be heard from Tokyo, from the Minister of Defense and Minister of Foreign Affairs no less, over Iraq, a “mistaken” war whose justification had not existed and which had been pursued in “childish” manner, and over Okinawa, where the US was too “high-handed”. Neither earned more than the mildest of rebukes from the Prime Minister.When the Beijing deal was struck, Japan was notably the odd-man out.

This very much echoes a point I previously made here.

Both provide an interesting look at how the balance of power within the federal government changed leading to this agreement. We've come a long way from Newt Gingrich's 2003 harangue against Colin Powell's isolated, beleaguered State Department, although, of course, the State Department's clout remains insignificant in terms of personnel and budget.

Courageous or foolish?

The big story in political Japan today is that the drop in the rate of support for the Abe Cabinet has continued unabated, with the Asahi poll finding that the rate of support has dipped below the rate of people actively oppose to the cabinet.

What I found most interesting, however, was the Yomiuri poll (in Japanese), which asked which three issues voters want the Abe Cabinet to tackle. Coming in first, with 61.7%, was reforms related to pensions, health care, and social security; coming in second, policies to promote economic growth, with 52%; and beyond that, in no particular order, taxation, education, administrative reform, and growing inequality. My point here is that near the bottom of this list, clocking in with 6.2%, is constitution reform, the issue that Abe has declared to be the major point of contention in this summer's Upper House election.

I realize, of course, that the mark of a good politician and great leader is a willingness to buck opinion to do what he or she thinks is right, but I think there's a fine line between courageously standing up for one's beliefs and ignoring the public's concerns about the direction the country should go.

As such, after a poll -- conducted by the Yomiuri Shimbun no less -- that shows the public favors dealing with just about every other issue on the agenda before constitutional revision, perhaps Abe should reconsider making this election the constitution election. So, I repeat my question: courageous or foolish?

Interest rates, again

The Bank of Japan is due to consider once more tomorrow whether it is the right time to raise Japan's interest rates again.

The last time, you may recall, the Bank's policy meeting was surrounded by a storm of debate surrounding comments by senior LDP and government officials questioning the wisdom of raising rates again (discussed in this post).

This time, however, a mere month later, following the Yanagisawa storm and the threat of G7 action on the weak yen at its meetings in Germany earlier this month, there's nary a peep out of the government or the LDP, unusual for the Abe Cabinet, which has been described as having "foot-in-the mouth disease."

Ken Worsley, of Trans-Pacific Radio and now the Japan Economy News & Blog, summarizes the relative lack of silence on tomorrow's meeting in this excellent post.

His conclusion: "...I don’t think the fundamentals are actually there for a rate hike, unless one prefers to go by some funny numbers."

I'm inclined to agree, but, then again, I've previously described BOJ President Fukui as having an "itchy trigger finger" as far as interest rates are concerned, and this might be a rate hike the Abe Cabinet can get behind: a rate hike could be used by the GOJ to point out to concerned Europeans that the government isn't tampering with the yen, with the recent GDP number -- however ambiguous -- providing cover for the move. Without the public fuss, a rate hike could allow the BOJ to reassert some semblance of independence -- however the reality plays out in invariably smoke-filled rooms in posh drinking establishments.

So the question of how big the rate hike will be depends on one's view of how Japanese monetary policy is made. If the BOJ is truly independent, look for something bigger, perhaps even on the order of fifty basis points; if it's not, look for something smaller, that serves both the government's and the bank's political needs.

Green on US Asia Policy

I didn't catch this until today, but apparently Michael Green, CSIS Japan Chair and participant in the drafting of the latest Armitage-Nye Report, had an op-ed on US Asia Policy in the Washington Post last Tuesday (via CSIS).

The title pretty much says it all: "America's Quiet Victories in Asia."

Green's point is that the US position in Asia is quite firm, in part because it has been diligently built up over decades. Indeed, the US, as an Asian power, has been characterized in a large part by steadiness: steady commitments to allies through deployments in Japan and South Korea, the steady deepening of trade ties, and, since the third wave of democratization swept through the region, steady support for the solidification of democratic regimes. Over time, American steadiness has borne fruit. As Green wrote:

None of these leaders embraced democracy because it was imposed by the United States, nor are they contemplating imposing democracy on their neighbors. Many continue to have major governance and democracy challenges (Thailand's coup for one) and are torn over how to manage the undemocratic disaster that is Burma. Yet all recognize that their economic development and national security depend on the spread of democratic principles and good governance. As these values are consolidated across the region, they will inevitably affect China, Burma and even North Korea.

This sums up the aim of the latest Armitage-Nye Report. The authors clearly desire that the US continue to play a steady, largely silent role in the region, with a light touch, reassuring words, and a willingness to let a newly vibrant Asia make its own way to a more liberal regional order, even if that means that occasional setback along the way. Of course, part of the quiet US role is a continuing military presence in the region, to continue to provide an all-purpose deterrent and supply public goods (open sea lanes, etc.). But even that role is evolving to be less visible, as with the consolidation of US forward deployments in Japan and planned redeployment of Marines to Guam.