Newsletter No. 875
News-Analysis
January 13, 2008

 

THE RELAUNCH OF THE INDIAN OCEAN MISSION

I wasn’t planning to write another Newsletter so quickly on the Indian Ocean mission, but watching another avalanche of information dropping down in the last two days, I figured that I’d better write now or risk getting buried. So let’s just jump right in.

Reactions from Supporters of the Indian Ocean Mission

The statements produced by the vocal supporters of the Indian Ocean mission prominently emphasized the “war on terrorism” as providing the necessity for reauthorizing the mission. The commitment to Afghanistan was also a major theme:

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda: Japan's prosperity can only be enjoyed in a peaceful and stable international community. It needs to actively cooperate with the ‘fight against terror’ on its own judgment so as to contribute to the international community. The refueling activities are a demonstration of Japan's efforts to do the utmost within its capability. It is truly significant that Japan can now rejoin the ‘fight against terror.’ It is important to implement humanitarian and reconstruction assistance as well as security and counter-terrorism measures so as to eradicate terrorism. The Government of Japan will continue to actively implement humanitarian and reconstruction assistance and contribute to the nation-building of Afghanistan in close coordination with the international community.

Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba: We want to restart this mission as soon as possible… We are committed to actively contributing to the fight against terrorism.

Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith: The resumption of Japan's refueling operations is a very positive step and reinforces efforts to ensure sustained international commitment to Afghanistan… Australia itself remains committed to Afghanistan in partnership with Japan and other members of the international community.

German Foreign Ministry: We explicitly welcomed the move. Japan is an important international partner for us… Germany welcomes the move by Japan to strengthen its support for the efforts of the international community to rebuild Afghanistan.

Singaporean Foreign Ministry: The Diet's decision to resume the Maritime Self-Defence Force's mission in the Indian Ocean... is an important contribution to the global anti-terror campaign… Japan's contribution will help enhance the security of Afghanistan and the entire region.

Reactions from Critics and Opponents of the Indian Ocean Mission

Vocal opponents of the re-authorization, which were fewer in number than the vocal proponents, emphasized Japanese public opinion, parliamentary procedure, and, in the case of the Social Democratic Party, the Japanese Constitution:

DPJ Secretary-General Yukio Hatoyama: The most recent will of the people is reflected in the upper house… The bill that was rejected by the upper house, based on the people’s will, should have been abandoned.

Social Democratic Party: The Social Democratic Party strongly opposes the participation of the SDF ships for the refueling of American and other warships which are involved in the use of force as violation of the Peace Constitution. Furthermore, in spite of the fact that many problems have been pointed out about legal and other ambiguities regarding this mission, the government has just gone ahead and restarted it without clarifying the facts. The Social Democratic Party demands that support for the reconstruction of Afghanistan be carried out according to the provisions of the Peace Constitution, which means that the support must be non-military, civilian, and of the people.

Asahi Shinbun: After the bill was voted down by opposition parties in the Upper House plenary session, it was resubmitted to the Lower House where the ruling coalition of the Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito passed the bill in a second vote with the approval of a two-thirds or greater majority. This is the first time this rule has been used in half a century. We find the move extremely deplorable… Such moves effectively deny the necessity of the Upper House. A second Lower House vote is a constitutional emergency measure in cases when political clashes result in a deadlock. When using this option, it is essential for the legislative body to make the utmost effort to reach an agreement and gain public understanding. There must be solid political justification when overturning an Upper House decision… The government and the coalition may say they have achieved a breakthrough on the issue through a second vote. But such a forcible passage of the bill will eventually backfire.

The Popular Reaction in Japan

Near the end of my last newsletter, I asked the question: “Now that a lower house supermajority has been used for the first time since 1951, everyone is wondering how the Japanese public will react -- Will they be genuinely outraged or will they just shrug as usual?”

The initial evidence suggests that, by and large, the public has shrugged as usual.

Kyodo News was the first out of the gates with a public opinion poll. They found that a small plurality of the public -- 47% to 42% -- felt that the LDP-New Komeito use of the supermajority in this case was “inappropriate.” As I read it, the Japanese public certainly disapproved of the government action, but they were still quite far from being “genuinely outraged.”

Moreover, the same poll found a 6% rise in the Fukuda Cabinet’s overall approval rating since mid-December. This seems to have nothing to do with foreign policy or the Diet drama, but rather Fukuda’s decision to compensate victims of a domestic medical scandal.

I guess that what we should take away from this is the following lesson: Unless you’ve got Japanese parents on TV shedding copious tears about the fate of their loved ones, most ordinary Japanese just don’t care much about foreign policy issues one way or the other.

Japan as a Red State

There was an article in the Japan Times yesterday which carried comments of more than usual interest. They came from Satoshi Morimoto, a conservative scholar based at Takushoku University. Here’s what he said about the reauthorization of the Indian Ocean mission: “I think the White House is now relieved… For the Republican Party, which has pushed for the war on terrorism, Japan's return to the antiterrorism coalition will be significant because it means the United States is regaining support from its ally.”

In other words, Morimoto emphasized that the use of the supermajority was intended not only as a partisan act aimed at the heart of Ichiro Ozawa and the Democratic Party of Japan, but also one aimed at the American Democratic Party in hopes of tipping more support to the US Republican Party in its “war on terrorism.”

Indeed, we have already carried an article by Robert Orr and Edward Lincoln that criticized Tokyo for tilting too far toward American Republicans as opposed to Democrats (see Shingetsu Newsletter No. 780). They wrote:

Many Democrats have felt that these elites in Japan had abandoned them in order to seek a closer alliance with President George W. Bush and his foreign policy. Now that his foreign policy is in tatters and increasingly repudiated by the American people, due largely but not exclusively to the quagmire in Iraq, Japan appears to have attached itself too closely to a losing policy… We do not mean to imply that Japan should reject the Republican Party. That would be an equally great mistake. But the Japanese elites, just as the American elites, must reach out to all sides in our respective societies, not just one which has an ideological persuasion that is particularly attractive at the moment. It would be unfortunate if Japanese politicians and bureaucrats faced an incoming Democratic president with unnecessary anxiety driven by the tilt to Republicans and lack of adequate ties with Democrats.

I have also come across two other pieces written by Americans in recent months that have made much the same point. First, here was a passage from a short essay written by Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) President John Hamre in mid-December when he visited Tokyo:

There is political anxiety about what the upcoming American election will bring for Japan. The Japanese see themselves as a “red state.” In American political iconography, red states are Republican-dominated, and blue states are Democratic-dominated states. There is a deep preference for the Republican Party here.

Today, I also ran across this passage by Brad Glosserman of Pacific Forum CSIS that noted:

Japanese are equally nervous about political developments in the US. There is in Tokyo an instinctive distrust of Democrats, who are thought to be soft on security, captive of economic interests, and ready to bash Japan… Japan should court more Democrats in the US (or at least stop badmouthing them). The bilateral security alliance has been resilient because it has enjoyed bipartisan support. Dismissing Democrats’ views and the public handwringing about what a Democratic administration would do to the alliance alienates friends and allies. It should stop.

No one knows what kind of backlash or blowback will eventually result from all of this partisanship in Tokyo in favor of (what I regard as) a non-sensical Bush Administration policy of the “war on terrorism.” But if or when that blowback does come, we can be in little doubt that Tokyo’s current rulers really had it coming.

The Case for the MSDF Mission’s Significance

Readers of the Shingetsu Newsletter will have little doubt that I have some very decided analysis and opinions about these matters, and I will continue to express them forcefully. On the other hand, I also believe that it is important to fairly represent the opinions of those who disagree with my view. It would be best if this dissent came directly from the Shingetsu Membership itself, since that way other readers could evaluate for themselves who has the stronger case to make. Also, I myself tend to learn things from those direct challenges as it forces me to consider questions and views that may not occur to me as I pound the keyboard in the silence of my private office.

At any rate, the Yomiuri Shinbun has published an article trying to make the government’s case why the re-launch of the MSDF Indian Ocean mission is really necessary. While I strongly disagree with the Yomiuri’s overarching view of this issue, the arguments that they raise include some interesting and legitimate observations.

Here are the main points of their case, which originally derived from the arguments of MOFA officials:

1) Japan's hiatus from the fight against terrorism and abandonment of its responsibility as a member of the international community greatly eroded trust in Japan, and its effects could come back to haunt the country. From the perspective of the outside world, Japan may appear to be a state preoccupied with domestic matters and drifting along without a national strategy.

2) Pakistani warships that relied heavily on the MSDF's refueling operation have frequently had to return home to refuel. The efficiency of their warships' activities are said to have fallen by 40%.

3) French warships also had to refuel at ports. These port calls, which took 36 hours to 48 hours on average, sapped the vessels' operational efficiency.

4) Without MSDF officers at the coalition naval headquarters in Bahrain, the flow of information from the region dried up. In regard to the Iranian speedboat issue and other matters, Japanese officials therefore “couldn't obtain real-time information on these incidents.” The new law's main benefit is that Japan will gain access to security intelligence about the Middle East and South Asia by having officers in the multinational forces' headquarters.

Trust -- and Unverified

We have also learned that the first MSDF ships to be deployed back to the Indian Ocean will be the supply ship Oumi, based at the Sasebo, and the destroyer Murasame, based at the Yokosuka Naval Base. The total number of crew members will be about 300. As noted previously, they are expected to be on site in the Indian Ocean by around mid-February. This two-ship unit will work in the Indian Ocean until the end of June. The MSDF will also send two liaison officers to the multinational forces' headquarters in Bahrain ahead of the dispatch to start collecting that supposedly-precious real-time intelligence mentioned previously.

However, there still remains the problem of how to ensure that Japanese fuel will be used only for terrorist interdiction operations -- as specified once again in the new law -- as opposed to other purposes.

The Yomiuri describes the new procedures as follows: “The Defense Ministry plans to take measures to prevent fuel provided by the MSDF unit from being used for other purposes when the refueling mission resumes. Firstly, the ministry will hold more detailed talks in advance with recipient countries' military officers at the Bahrain headquarters. During the previous mission, Japanese officers confirmed only verbally the quantity of fuel and recipient warships' missions. In the resumed mission, they will record the data in reports and store the information in a database. When the MSDF unit provides fuel to supply ships, the Japanese side will demand that the names of warships that will be refueled by these ships are spelled out in black and white. If it cannot be ruled out that fuel from the MSDF unit might be used for other purposes, the defense minister, not SDF officers in Bahrain, will decide whether the refueling should go ahead. The Foreign Ministry plans to include a clause in official diplomatic documents with recipient countries that says warships to be refueled must be engaged in maritime interdiction operations, and the refueling service is offered to help the interdiction operations.”

Of course, since we have already heard about a refusal from Washington, it is not clear if the US Navy plans to actually cooperate fully with these new Japanese procedures.

Also, as a senior Japanese government official himself noted: “We have no choice but to trust the recipients' reports.”

The Japanese government will not make checks after a refueling is completed.