"Don't Abandon Japan" -- Hudson Institute (Critique of Trump Statements)

Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, arriving in Washington this week for President Obama’s nuclear-security summit, is America’s strongest ally in Asia — a region crucial to America’s future. Since taking office, Abe has pursued politically risky policies that have steadily bolstered not just Japan’s, but also America’s position in Asia. So he must be puzzled to find himself at the center of a U.S. political dispute.

Battling for votes, the Trump presidential campaign suggests that Japan is an economic and military drain on the U.S. After criticizing China, the campaign smacks Japan. Such overheated rhetoric is as outdated as it is misguided.

In the last few years, Abe has labored mightily to reinflate his currency, to restrain risky regional disputes that also endanger U.S. interests, to raise Japanese defense spending, to adopt new defense guidelines increasing Japan’s regional and global security burden, and to bend his country’s U.S.-inspired post-war constitution to enable Japan to defend U.S. ships and troops in the event of an attack.

In the process, he has sought to jump-start Japan’s stalled national economy — the third largest in the world — and to push trade deals advancing Western resilience against China’s economic bullying. He has done all this even as China’s military probes Japan’s southern boundaries and northern Japan recovers from a tsunami-related nuclear-plant disaster.

Instead of the Japan, Inc. that scared Congress and labor unions in the 1980s and 1990s and inspired fearmongering books like Clyde Prestowitz’s Trading Places, Japan now struggles with an economy that has persistently underperformed for two decades, ironically due to many of the same misguided Keynesian policies that President Obama has used to leave the U.S. economy stuck in low gear since the 2008 financial crisis.

Today’s leading economists, as well as Prestowitz’s newest book, Japan Restored, argue that Japan’s economic revival would help America and the world. Instead of being the fearsome economic predators of 1990s myth, Japanese companies like Honda, Nissan, and Toyota have opened auto plants in the U.S. that have created more than 1.3 million jobs through 2013, and have become innovative partners in new manufacturing areas like robotics.

Even more important, as an economic rival, Japan has been supplanted by a far more menacing competitor, namely China. While some aspects of our trade deficit with Japan could stand some correcting, the deficit with China has ballooned to $365.7 billion, a new record. Chinese cyberattack and commercial cybertheft endanger both Japan and the United States.

Furthermore, unlike Japan in the 1980s and 1990s, China is also a threatening geopolitical competitor. China’s $1.4 trillion “One Belt, One Road” program for financing massive infrastructure projects — from harbors and high-speed trains to oil and natural-gas pipelines that will connect China with the rest of the world — aims to displace U.S. influence worldwide, not just in Asia. Its aggressive actions in the South and East China Seas threaten freedom of navigation and could recklessly spark armed conflict. Meanwhile, China has never applied its considerable leverage to reverse the irresponsible international misbehavior, provocative missile programs, and outrageous nuclear-proliferation activities of its client state, North Korea.

Japan lies at the forefront of such challenges. So over the past decades it has spent billions annually — at times covering the majority of U.S. costs — to support U.S. bases in Japan, bases that are the bedrock of America’s position in Asia. Japan has sent ground troops to Iraq and contributed to Western efforts in Afghanistan, and it remains a foremost funder of international economic development.

But its current prime minister wants to do more to meet and to deter the challenges from China and North Korea and to be America’s true strategic partner in East Asia. Notably, he has steadily increased Japan’s defense budget — indeed, the defense budget for fiscal year 2016 will be Japan’s biggest since World War Two. In working for these changes, Abe specifically argued that Japan needed to be able to come to the aid of the U.S. in a conflict, and to provide real capabilities when it did.

In connection with this week’s summit, Japan has sought to counter the threat of nuclear blackmail in Asia — a current focus given North Korea’s recent provocations. Japan may be America’s single most significant partner in deploying missile-defense systems, including co-development of the updated Aegis and SM3 anti-ballistic programs.

For Japan, these have been historic steps. In short, Japan has been the kind of powerful democratic ally, and Abe the kind of prime minister, that America has wanted and needed for a long time to maintain peace and collective security in the region.

In 1951 General Douglas MacArthur returned from overseeing the occupation and transformation of Japan and told Congress, “Politically, economically, and socially Japan is now abreast of many free nations of the earth and . . . may be counted upon to wield a profoundly beneficial influence over the course of events in Asia.” After 70 years of uninterrupted responsible democratic governance, those words are even truer today than they were then.

It’s not time to strain our ties to Japan, but to strengthen them. Japan-bashing, like 1980s boom-boxes and DeLoreans, should not be disinterred. All of Asia, including China, will be watching what our next president does to encourage Japan’s revival as a global economic engine — and its emergence as America’s steadfast ally and n the Pacific.

I served for 3 years in Sasebo Japan on shore duty at our US naval base and ammunition facility there. There are a lot of dynamics in the situation there:

We gave the Japanese their Constitution which limits Japan to a small Self-Defense Force. And Prime Minister Abe has been pushing the Japanese people to build up their armed forces and modify the law.
Indeed the self-defense force is very weak. As far as naval forces go, they have no aircraft carriers, for example. What limited military infrastructure they have is purchased from the US.
Historically Japan has always been a warrior nation. They experienced a long feudal period with lots of civil wars and bloodshed. And once they were forced to move into the modern era and abandon the samurai government, they quickly adapted and became a world military power -- as we well-know. And that's precisely what the Chinese and Koreans now fear.
The people are naturally competitive. Very similar to Americans: they take their sports seriously and love winning.
Technically, Japan is fully capable of being a strong military power. They have a very active space program that has sent spacecraft around the moon. They have also sent a spacecraft to land on and retrieval rocks from an asteroid and return those rocks to earth (landing in a remote area of Australia). When they buy fighter aircraft from us, they modify the aeronautics and send suggestions back to the US manufacturers for improvement.
Japanese nationals perform 90% of the maintenance and repair work on our ships and military facilities there. And the US government pays for that. I see no reason why a lot of that work couldn't be done by American workers living in Japan at naval bases. Japan is a great place to live, so it would be a highly prized overseas assignment.
Owing to the utter tyranny of the Japanese government during World War II -- and the disastrous results of that war, Japanese are afraid of military power and highly suspicious of it. As a result, the armed forces in Japan are not treated with proper respect by the populace.

I think a strong Trump presidency would force Japan to make the necessary transition to picking up their fair share of the defense load. So this will actually help Abe to go where he wants to go. Without America pushing for change, however, nothing is going to happen.

Below is the naval base in Sasebo...

What a fantastic post!

Agreed with EVERYTHING you wrote (very well), except for:

When they buy fighter aircraft from us, they modify the aeronautics and send suggestions back to the US manufacturers for improvement.

Alas, the great majority of JASDF a/c are not purchased off-the-shelf, though that is what I would prefer:

Most are licensed produced, generally to a higher quality than the American originals. More and more they are co-developed, a process that involves MUCH more transfer of know-how. I agree with your notation of their habit of suggesting improvements --they are amazing manufacturers, improvers, and increasingly, innovators.

I love Japan in a BILLION ways, but I'm not sure we want to make Japan into an aerospace competitor, and I don't think such measured reservations constitute "Japan-bashing".

Both presuppose that they were both at one time OURS in some sense to lose or abandon --I richly contest that.

I find a great many Western people arrive in Japan, see the technology and living standard, deeming it somehow WESTERN. Well, there is hip-hop, there are movies, yes. Maybe those are western.

But for anyone who really spends time there, there are a bazillion ways in which Japan is not only different, but maybe the OPPOSITE --that escapes the casual visitor.

I think there are people whose livelihood is tied up in minimizing change in Japan as lackeys of their Establishment and that is a role unhelpful not only to the outside world, but ultimately to Japan herself.

Prestowitz wrote Trading Places in 1988, almost THIRTY years ago —and it’s STILL being trundled out as a SCARY HOB-GOBLIN..?!

Good God, ahahhahah..!

Oh sure, Japan is baaaaarely getting by, and will collapse into a million pieces if Orange-Face spouts off a bit.

Guess colleges aren’t the only cross-eyed, dialogue-fearing entities clutching for their beloved SAFE-SPACES, heh..?

RIDICULOUS.

Guess everything would be better if elite Toudai ‘crats decided EVERYTHING for everyone and the yucky VOTERS (bitter lemon face, here) in both countries would just go to hell, huh..?

I did a refit in Sasebo many years ago.

It's one of the finest shipyards I've ever seen. They got us out of there 2 weeks ahead of schedule and tossed in a couple of things, not minor, to boot.

I took a carton of Marlboro's and a 5th of Jack out on the town to a bar and traded it for a full week's worth of beer and Santori.

It's the first place I ever saw Karoke and thought it was the weirdest thing I ever saw.

Mariner, you’re missing the point.

1. YES, it’s sensible to make wealthy nations pay more for their own defense.

2. NO, it shows complete lack of understanding of TRUE STATESMANSHIP when Trump chestbeats about how “China & Japan are taking money from us.” He actually said that. Incredulous!! And the lame, cavalier way he says “Good luck, have a nice time...” [if Japan & SK get in a war with the Norks]. That sounds like abandonment. There are better, more diplomatic ways to say it and Trump blew it again.

I’ve been to Japan 5 times and my wife is Japanese. I know how his soundbytes play on NHK television for the people of Japan. You don’t insult your allies with senseless poorly-articulated accusations.

Although Trump is the best choice, and I’d vote for him, he’s no Ronald Reagan. He needs to pay for some handlers to soften his unnecessarily rough edges.

Yes, some of his rough edges are fantastic (fighting Political correctness), but not these types of international gaffes.

I just love how people spout off about things they know nothing about. Japan pays a greater share of the cost of hosting out military than most of our allies.

Access to shipyards and aircraft depots, at Japan's expense.

Payment of overseas allowances and COLAs for U.S. service members.

Base construction projects and housing

Fuel for American aircraft when at Japanese bases.

Japan is not freeloading. Facts can be such pesky things when they get in the way of your rhetoric.

...Japan is not freeloading. Facts can be such pesky things when they get in the way of your rhetoric...

USNBandit, you make some good points. Not sure why you claim I'm spouting rhetoric. What specific claims of mine are in error?

gaijin, thanks for your comments. And you make a very good point about future competition with Japan in the aerospace business.

I think this is not a question of freeloading. This is really a question of negotiating the best deal for the American people.

I should hope that Japan provides access to their shipyards and aircraft depots. After all, if a battle erupts in the region, the lives of American sailors, soldiers, and airmen are at risk. We are the frontline of defense for Japan, Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines.

I agree Japanese pay a lot for new construction of housing, but that's a minor expense compared to the salaries of Japanese nationals we employ there.

When I was in Sasebo in the 1980s, the second biggest employer in the city was the U.S. Navy, second only to SSK, the giant shipyard that builds supertankers. So the repair and maintenance of our ships at their shipyards is good business for them. Not to mention the "tourist" dollars that come into the city when an aircraft carrier (5,000 people) pays a visit every once in a while.

The military role of America in the Far East is a big question for the next president. North Korea's increasingly provocative moves are the biggest threat. And China's build up of its military is another key concern.

Now is the time for Japan to pick up a larger role in its own defense and defense of the region with other nations like the Philippines. Trump has been emphasizing the importance of solving the key problem of North Korea. If he gets elected, I think he'll set the ball in motion to drive real change in our policy there.

...Trump chestbeats about how “China & Japan are taking money from us.”...

I think Trump is doing nothing more than telling the rest of the world that America is no longer the patsy when it comes to negotiating trade deals.

Sure, my Japanese wife is also anxious about what Trump is saying. And the NHK television station, being owned by the Japanese government, will certainly look to defend Japan's self interest.

Trump's chest-beating is having the desired affect: getting people's attention. So he's set up the right climate for the negotiations to take place. America will better look after its self-interests now.

If the Midwest and Eastern states of the US get their Toyotas made in Lexington, Kentucky, why can't the West Coast get its Toyotas from a Japanese owned plant in Nevada or Arizona. I think this is the result Trump wants to achieve.

And Trump will absolutely fight the movement to make Mexico the new manufacturing hub of the United States.

Great place, Sasebo!

My three years there were the most memorable in my life. Fortunately my girl friend -- and later wife -- was a tour guide who knew about the surrounding area and introduced me to the great variety of Japanese foods and culture. Ha! I even practiced ice hockey with the local city team.

And outside Sasebo's deep draft, typhoon-haven harbor is the lovely 99 Islands national park pictured below.

-—”I think Trump is doing nothing more than telling the rest of the world that America is no longer the patsy when it comes to negotiating trade deals.”

Nope, he’s doing more than that. Yes, he’s correct to “tell the rest of the world that America is no longer the patsy when it comes to negotiating trade deals.”

But he’s committing gaffes because he’s unable to be DIPLOMATICALLY ARTICULATE (and note I’m not asking for him to be PC).

What he meant by his phrase “Japan and China are taking our money” is that “Japan & China are taking our jobs because we are non-competitive.”

Both you and I can make that translation from Trump-speak to what he meant.

However he said something different (”Japan & China are taking our money”).

He’s just not sophisticated in Diplomacy and has a lot to learn once he becomes president. Along the way he will alienate allies, like he’s alienated the vast majority of Japanese people.

Thanks for the correction (if that post is correct about Trump not saying that).

Still, there are other Trump diplomatic blunders “Japan & China are taking our money” - which reads on their television as “Japan/China are thieves!!”

I agree, we need a bully to beat up the American Left bigtime — and Trump is the one to do it. But not to beat up our allies. That’s just dumb.

You're right. Japan and China are not taking our money. In fact, they are loaning us all kinds of money.

More truthfully Japan and China are taking our jobs. The long term effect of our current policy is to hollow out the market for high skilled, high pay American workers.

The greatest book I ever read on economics was Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt.

In that book, Hazlitt makes a strong case for free trade. However, Hazlitt also said the best economic policies are "those that deliver the greatest economic benefit in the long run and not the short run."

Trying to take back clothing manufacturing from Asia is not going to work. If we did that, retail stores couldn't operate because they need the high profit margins from the clothing to make up for the cost of workers at their stores.

But in auto manufacturing and other high end industries, I think we need to stop the "sucking sound" that Ross Perot once warned us about.

I think we need a whole series of trade discussions on FR. It's a huge -- and complex -- issue.

...for anyone who really spends time [in Japan], there are a bazillion ways in which Japan is not only different, but maybe the OPPOSITE --that escapes the casual visitor.

Hey gaijin, would love to hear your observations on a few of things that are OPPOSITE about Japan. That would start a very interesting discussion.

Let me offer a couple and invite you and other Japan lovers to chime in.

The typical American bar is typically a large, noisy sports bart. A Japanese bar is often very small, conducive to conversation, and is decorated like a living room.
At an American restaurant you are treated to a wide variety of dishes and you kind of park yourself at that place. In Japan, restaurants often specialize in one dish -- could be tempura, noodles, grilled fish.&nsbp; And often the Japanese will explore 2 or 3 eating places in an evening.

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