Posted on 12/13/2007 1:02:24 PM PST by charles m
Like father, like son
IN JAPAN'S dynastic politics, even foreign policy is a family business. The most recent prime minister, Shinzo Abe, was the grandson of one prime minister; the incumbent, Yasuo Fukuda, is the first prime minister to follow his father's footsteps into office.
The hawkish Mr Abe indulged in occasional revisionism over Japan's rapine wartime past and espoused a sweeping “arc of freedom and prosperity” that was supposed to anchor Japan in a Eurasian community of democratic nations but was in practice a not-particularly-subtle attempt to throw a cordon around a rising China. Though the arc languishes as official policy on the foreign ministry's website, it has in practice been abandoned by Mr Abe's successor.
Thirty years ago Mr Fukuda senior went to Manila and promised South-East Asia that Japan had forever renounced aggression against its neighbours, and would do everything to build confidence and mutual respect. This became known as the Fukuda doctrine. In the practice of it, Mr Fukuda père opened diplomatic relations with China. Now, Mr Fukuda fils is proving a chip off the old block.
Late last month at the 16-country East Asia Summit in Singapore, the younger Mr Fukuda looked singularly at ease schmoozing with Asia's leaders, most of whom say they value discretion over confrontation. In effect, he assured them that the Fukuda doctrine was alive and well. Though there is no question of Japan abandoning its 60-year alliance with the United States (and neighbours would no doubt be horrified if it did), Mr Fukuda assured them that he would follow a more “Asia-focused” policy.
China, in particular, has taken notice. Its leaders have not forgotten the father, and the stripling 71-year-old son will get a warm welcome on a first official trip to Beijing in late December or early January. Where Mr Abe used bluntly to bring up China's human-rights record and its lack of military transparency, people who know Mr Fukuda say that there is no question of his raising such indelicate issues with the Chinese. As an early seasonal gift, his government last month refused to meet the Dalai Lama, who was on a visit to Japan, explaining that the Tibetan leader was not “important” enough.
The upshot is that traditionally strained relations between Japan and China look set for a sharp improvement. President Hu Jintao will visit Japan in the spring, and is likely to be invited as a guest to the G8 summit to be held in early July in Hokkaido, in northern Japan. Climate change will top the summit's agenda, and China's pollution record will draw flak, as will its human-rights record soon after, during Beijing's Olympics. Mr Hu will look to Mr Fukuda—if he is indeed still prime minister—to provide friendly covering fire on both counts. The last thing China wants to do in the coming months is undermine Japan's prime minister, and this will help Mr Fukuda, with a minimum of effort, to rise above his domestic problems and look every inch the statesman.
Can you blame them? With the frivilousness displayed by the recent NIE and our apparent unwillingness to confront those that threaten us, I think we will see other allies abandon our "fictional" umbrella of protection.
Which season would that be?
Spring. From article: “President Hu Jintao will visit Japan in the spring.”
They’ll get much, much closer, and as they do the Australians will be even more interested in their economic ties with China (the average Australian already believes China is more important), and the young Japanese generation will follow suit and be far less interested in security ties with the U.S. Why would anyone continue tying their cart to a horse that has expressed no interest in their region, and which seems to agree with talk of decline? We’ve lost massive face in Asia for a number of reasons, and it’s going to take very overt action and/or words from our leaders, to Asia, that we’re not going anywhere in order to get it back.
I don’t see that happening any time soon.
My feeling is that relations are cooling precisely because the Pacific fleet is so assertive - they don't have have to worry about a Chinese threat as long as we're covering them. Pull the Pacific Fleet back to Guam, and close our bases in Japan and South Korea, and these countries will suddenly become much more solicitous of Uncle Sam. Ever notice how kids are generally much nicer to their friends than to their parents? Well, we are now their "parents". It would improve our relations with them if we merely became their friends.
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