Newsletter No. 780
Editorial-Opinion
October 25, 2007

 

OPINION FLOW: QUESTIONING THE US-JAPAN ALLIANCE

A spate of opinion articles has appeared in Japanese newspapers in the past week which are bound to receive our attention. Each of them make valid points and are generally well-argued. The common denominator of the three pieces below is that each of them questions how the US-Japan Alliance has been functioning in recent years.

Robert Dujarric questions the principles of the first Armitage Report (though he doesn’t mention it by name). He believes that the US-Japan Alliance should keep its focus on East Asia. Robert Orr and Edward Lincoln take Tokyo to task for aligning themselves too closely with US Republican Party policy rather than adopting a more bipartisan (in the American sense) approach. The most challenging of all is the final piece by Kiroku Hanai who actually has the temerity to suggest that the US-Japan Alliance itself needs to be scrapped.

While my own basic opinion is probably closest to Robert Dujarric’s piece, the fact that some Japanese are now openly asking if the US-Japan Alliance is really worth it at all should serve as a wake-up call to American policymakers that their demands for total political obedience may have unforeseen consequences that run directly counter to their desires.

Time to wake up boys and girls!

Japan Needs to Keep its Military Close to Home
By Robert Dujarric
Asahi Shinbun, October 24, 2007

The fate of Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) operations in the Indian Ocean remains uncertain. What is already clear, however, is that observers have over-dramatized the refusal of Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan) leader Ichiro Ozawa to support the renewal of legislation authorizing Japanese refueling of allied navies involved in the Afghan war and related naval activities.

In fact, the struggle over the fate of the MSDF in the Indian Ocean is a "tempest in a teapot" with little impact on Japan's security and the country's contribution to the Japan-US partnership.

Japan plays a vital role in Northeast Asian security. The SDF, Asia's most advanced military, deter Japan's potential enemies in conjunction with their US allies. Moreover, Japan allows the United States to station forces in the country while providing them with logistical and infrastructure support. Without the SDF and American bases, Japan would be weaker and the United States would cease to exist as an Asian power.

But beyond Northeast Asia, Japan's military potential is extremely limited. Despite rising North Korean and Chinese capabilities, and regional conflicts in Southwest Asia, Japan has cut its Defense Ministry appropriations. Since most of Japan's military must be available to handle possible contingencies involving Korea or China, Japan's resources do not provide the SDF with much "surplus" to project power beyond the region. It is noticeable that even as he backed America over Afghanistan and Iraq, former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi refused to spend more on defense.

Nor is there any indication that Japanese voters want more money to go to the SDF. Therefore, there is no reason to believe that in the foreseeable future Japan will invest the resources necessary to be more than a (very) marginal player in security issues beyond Northeast Asia.

In addition, Japan remains committed to sending its servicemen and women where they will not be in harm's way. This further diminishes its contribution, since those who fight have more input on policy that those who remain in safe areas. This policy led to the humiliating situation for Japan's military, whose dedication and bravery is widely recognized, where their government ordered them to seek foreign protection (from Australia and the Netherlands) when they were dispatched to Iraq.

Though Ozawa's original idea of joining the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan raised the possibility of the SDF participating in a war, there is actually very little chance that Japan's Cabinet -- LDP or Minshuto -- will send forces to fight, except if the nation is directly threatened.

This analysis does not imply that Japan is a midget in international affairs. In Northeast Asian security, it is America's key partner. In the realm of economics and finance, it is one of the world's most important participants. It is inconceivable, for example, to imagine global discussions on currency movements taking place without Japan being at the head table.

Nor is Tokyo avoiding a more active role in military activities overseas necessarily bad for its interests and those of the United States. Japan faces serious security challenges in its neighborhood that require its attention.

This situation makes the calls for Japan to be the "Britain of Asia" illogical. Besides the fact that Germany, not the United Kingdom, has been the linchpin of American power in Europe, western European states face a different threat environment.

Thanks to the demise of the Soviet Union, they confront neither a major power nor a North Korea-type menace. While the Balkans requires their attention, European NATO members can afford to deploy a large proportion of their air and naval forces, and some of their ground forces, to out-of-area theaters. Northeast Asia is far less benign, and thus Japan needs to focus its military on its own region. Hoping that Japan will solve this dilemma by a massive rise in funds allocated to defense is not realistic.

Consequently, those who wish to develop the US-Japan alliance beyond Northeast Asia should think of other roles for Japan rather than hope it will become a major participant in US-led wars far from Japanese shores. Alternative roles for Japan can include government and NGO programs in countries in need of reconstruction assistance.

The SDF also have important disaster relief and humanitarian assistance capabilities that can be used outside of Japan. Japanese activities need not focus exclusively on Southwest Asia.

There are many areas of the world, such as the former Yugoslavia and Africa, were both Japan and the United States have an interest in regional security, where non-military Japanese participation could easily be increased for the benefit of Japan's international standing and of its relations with America.

The author is director of the Institute of Contemporary Japanese Studies at Temple University Japan Campus in Tokyo.

Japan's Elites Need a Balanced Approach toward the United States
By Robert Orr and Edward Lincoln
Asahi Shinbun, October 23, 2007

Last November, as the US Democratic Party was on the verge of gaining a victory in the US Congress, a flurry of activity and concern developed in Tokyo. Suddenly, many in the Japanese elite political and bureaucratic world realized that after six years of the Bush administration and Republican Congress, the Democrats would be important for them again. Many American Democrats with ties to Japan were barraged by phone calls and e-mails asking what it would mean for Japan if our party were to regain Capitol Hill. This anxiety has intensified as the prospects for the Republicans retaining the White House in the 2008 presidential election have grown dimmer.

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.

The problem is exemplified by the debate over extending Japan's Anti-Terrorism Special Measures Law. The world certainly hopes and expects Japan to live up to its global responsibilities, but the question of how best to do so is for Japan to decide.

The Fukuda government has introduced a proposal that would limit the scope of the Maritime Self-Defense Force's role to supplying fuel and water to allied ships on the high seas looking for terrorist-connected vessels. In addition, it would require the government to gain approval for an extension after one year.

In order to side-step opposition from Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan), instead of requiring full Diet support for the extension, the new law would only require Cabinet approval, thus avoiding the prospect of losing in the Upper House, which Minshuto controls.

Current and former Bush administration officials had insisted that Japan extend the Anti-Terrorism Law as it was, and they vilified Minshuto leader Ichiro Ozawa for his audacity in having an alternate vision of the role Japan might play. Attacking Ozawa or demanding Japan extend the law without amendment does not bring our two countries closer to an answer to the great problem of what to do about Afghanistan, Iraq or international terrorism. American Democrats, too, are wrestling with the best resolution to these very complex problems but believe making this into largely a bilateral US-Japan issue was a flawed approach, as do many other governments around the world.

The gulf between Japan's conservative political leadership and the American Democratic Party is not only related to the situation in the Middle East. Japanese political and bureaucratic leaders tend to see the Democrats as more beholden to labor than Republicans, and therefore more susceptible to protectionist trade actions against Japan. This concern is a great irony, since some of the bitterest trade actions toward Japan emanated from Republican administrations. After all, the 1969 textile dispute and the "Nixon Shocks of 1971" came from a Republican administration. And it was the Republican President Ronald Reagan who imposed limits on the importation of Japanese automobiles and other products in the early 1980s.

While rhetorically Democrats have assailed Japanese trading practices in the past, the bark has tended to be far worse than the bite. And the tense trade relations in the first term of the Clinton administration were over negotiations to make the Japanese market more open, not to make the US market less so for Japanese exporters. Today, many Japanese recognize that their country benefits economically by being more open. Besides, in both political parties in the United States, the current trade debate is far more focused on China than Japan. Therefore, the notion that a Democratic president would be "bad" for Japan lacks credibility. We think there is yet another reason why Japanese elites have tended to favor Republicans in recent years. It is because Japan is unused to power change.

The nation has been under a virtual one-party democracy in the form of the Liberal Democratic Party since 1955. Thus, there is little experience of power change in Tokyo (except for the brief period in 1993-94). In such a system, the opposition -- the Socialist Party in the past or Minshuto today -- is relegated to second-class status. For some reason, policy elites in Japan appear to have decided they should regard the United States in similar terms, and concluded that Republicans are closer to their own conservative views of the world. But in the United States, both Republican and Democratic parties are taken seriously and power shifts back and forth between them. Some businesses support Republicans, others Democrats.

Anxiety about a possible Democratic administration seems all the more odd, since some of the most admired Americans in Japan have been Democrats. The revered late Ambassador Edwin Reischauer was a Democrat appointed by President John F. Kennedy in 1961. Other past ambassadors, like Mike Mansfield, Walter Mondale and Thomas Foley, were all Democrats initially appointed by Democratic presidents. And Democratic President Bill Clinton visited Japan much more often than any Republican president.

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.

Robert Orr was president of Boeing Japan and before that a Vice President of Motorola for Europe in Brussels. Prior to that, he was a university professor of political science, and served as a US Congressional staffer and also in the government's Executive Branch. Edward Lincoln is a professor of economics and director of the Center for Japan-US Business and Economic Studies at the Stern School of Business, New York University. In the 1990s, he was special economic advisor to Ambassador Walter Mondale at the US Embassy in Tokyo.

Let the MSDF Refueling Law Die
By Kiroku Hanai
Japan Times, October 22, 2007

Late last month a gathering in Yokohama remembered the victims of a US military jet crash in a residential area thirty years ago. I was stunned to learn that a Japanese Self-Defense Force helicopter that had rushed to the scene of the crash flew away with two slightly injured US servicemen without looking after nine local residents who were injured, some seriously, by the burning Phantom reconnaissance aircraft.

The SDF crew allegedly did not even bother to call the fire station. Of the injured, two infants reportedly died before dawn the next day, and their grief-stricken mother died four years later after battling complications from her injuries. Participants at the gathering were shocked and angered upon realizing that the SDF's main concern was the U.S. military, not the Japanese public.

Another appalling revelation, more recently, was the statement by Shinzo Abe of the reason partially responsible for his decision to resign as prime minister. Abe said the governing Liberal Democratic Party's loss in the July 29 Upper House election had made it difficult for him to keep his promise to the United States to continue a Maritime Self-Defense Force operation to refuel coalition warships in the Indian Ocean. The operation is intended to help fight terrorism in Afghanistan. My immediate reaction was, why pay so much attention to US interests?

Diet debate between the ruling and opposition forces on the refueling operation apparently reflects opposition and public doubts as to why the government gives such unquestioning support to US President George W. Bush. Current Diet debate centers on allegations that the refueling operation lacks transparency, amounts to the exercise of the controversial right of collective self-defense, and violates the no-war Constitution.

Critics have raised suspicion that the US aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk took part in bombing operations in Iraq after receiving fuel from a US tanker that had been refueled by an MSDF supply ship. That would violate the Japanese special law for antiterrorism measures, which provides the legal basis for logistic support to the US military operation in Afghanistan.

Washington recently informed Tokyo that the Japanese-supplied fuel was never diverted for use in Iraq military operations. The Defense Ministry is seeking additional information, since the US account has not satisfied the opposition.

Japan so far has supplied ¥22 billion worth of fuel -- free of charge -- in the Indian Ocean operation. It is purportedly the only country supplying free fuel to allied ships. Naturally recipient countries are grateful for this support and ask that it be continued.

The Defense Ministry revealed October 9th that 89% of the fuel supplied by the MSDF to supply ships since fiscal 2001 went to US vessels. The government claims the refueling operation is part of Japan's international contribution, but clearly it is intended to assist US forces. The operation can be regarded as an extension of Japan's generous "host-nation" support to the US military presence.

The government has never explained why it provides free fuel. Perhaps the reasoning is that Japan must give such support in exchange for its "free ride" in the bilateral security arrangement. Yet, Japan's defense contribution to the US is much greater than comparable support from other countries.

According to the 2004 Statistical Compendium on Allied Contributions to the Common Defense, published by the Pentagon, Japan's bilateral cost-sharing contribution was 1.77 times greater than the total of the 14 NATO member countries. Furthermore, Japan's direct support for the US military presence, even excluding such off-budget expenditures as deferrals or waivers of taxes, fees and rents, is 42 times greater than the NATO total. The offset percentage for the costs of stationing US forces is 74.5% for Japan, compared with 32.6% for Germany, another nation defeated in war.

In the 62 years since World War II, Japan has never fought a war thanks to its pacifist Constitution, and has never received US support in a military emergency. On the other hand, US forces launched operations from their Japanese bases in the Korean, Vietnam, Persian Gulf, Afghan and the Iraq wars. Perhaps the US should pay for the use of its military bases in Japan.

In my opinion, it is the US, rather than Japan, that is enjoying a "free ride" in the bilateral security system.

The opposition Democratic Party of Japan argues that the refueling operation could lead to use of military force overseas, which is banned for Japan under the Constitution, and that assistance to America in exercising its rights to self-defense could amount to Japan's exercising the right of collective self-defense. Both acts contravene the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution, according to the DPJ.

The government claims that the refueling operation does not amount to use of force and is not unconstitutional. However, it is undeniable that logistics is a major element of a military operation. The government is apparently oblivious to the Japanese military's neglect of logistics in the Pacific War, which drove many soldiers to starvation in the southern theaters and led to Japan's defeat.

The government is moving to extend, for the fourth time, the antiterrorism special-measures law that it compiled based on a revised interpretation of the Constitution. In light of the excessive host-nation support that Japan already provides for the US military presence, it should not extend the Indian Ocean refueling operation to support Bush's war efforts.

Fearing rejection of an extension bill after the Upper House election, the government has presented new legislation to the Diet in an attempt to overcome the difficulties. It removes a controversial clause allowing ex post facto Diet approval of operations. But the opposition says the change contravenes the principle of civilian control of the SDF. Simplifying procedures for SDF deployment overseas runs counter to the spirit of the Constitution, which bans use of force to settle international disputes.

While advocating United Nations-centered diplomacy, Japan has been promoting a US-dependent security policy. There used to be a time when the word "alliance" was taboo; nowadays some pundits openly call for a stronger Japan-US alliance. A defense alliance that exists to fight a potential adversary contravenes the pacifist Constitution.

The government should replace the Japan-US security treaty with a friendship treaty and espouse real UN-centered diplomacy.

Kiroku Hanai is a journalist and former editorial writer for the Tokyo Shinbun.