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US-Japan alliance under
strain
By Richard Hanson
"We do not know when there will be a
threat against Japan. America has said clearly that any
attack on Japan is an attack on the United States ...
The Japanese people must not forget that this provides a
strong deterrent against an attack on Japan." -
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi explaining his
support for US President George W Bush on the eve of the
Iraq war in March
TOKYO - As the United
States mobilized to invade Iraq in March, Japanese Prime
Minister Junichiro Koizumi stood tall and firm among the
"coalition" of nations that pledged to back, in various
degrees of enthusiasm, President George W Bush in his
war against Saddam Hussein.
Aside from those
countries that sent fighting forces, Japan's primary
role was that of a strong ally providing all manner of
diplomatic and other support. Most recently Japan
pledged to provide a hefty amount of money to aid the
US-dominated rebuilding of Iraq and to prepare to send
its own contingent of non-combatant troops to the
war-torn country.
But suddenly, the horror for
all parties (except those battling the US coalition with
bombs in Iraq) is that the prospect of a quick "mission"
well done has all but vanished in the dust of escalating
violence in the country.
For Japan, the present
question is whether the government will risk sending its
troops into what will almost inevitably be harm's way.
Events of the past week have made it clear that Japan's
leadership is weighing carefully what may be a no-win
proposition, and sending troops of the Self-Defense
Forces (SDF) now raises questions that Japan has not
faced before.
These include what, in senior
levels of government, are described as the "murmured
issues". What happens if a Japanese soldier is killed?
How much money will be paid out? What is the status of a
soldier who is killed? Will he (or possibly she) be
considered as a victim of war? Which way will public
opinion swing? Will there be calls for the government to
resign? Or will there be a swelling of patriotic
feelings?
All of these questions are weighing
heavily on the mind of Koizumi and are growing more
weighty with every report of a helicopter shot down in
Iraq.
Inevitably, as one government official put
it, the prime minister is also thinking that whatever he
chooses to do, the judgment will come back to haunt him
next summer when he will face a tough battle in the
election for the Upper House of the Diet (parliament),
after having just done well in a general election two
weeks ago.
The Upper House will be more
difficult for Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP),
in part because the weighting of seats up for grabs is
heavier in urban areas, where the rival Democratic Party
of Japan (DPJ) gets most of its support. The DPJ gained
a substantial number of seats in the November 9 Lower
House election, creating what most pundits describe as
the makings of a two-party rivalry on the national
political scene.
The two parties are virtually
twins as far as most policy issues are concerned. This
is largely because the DPJ, to a large degree, was
created by defectors from the LDP in the 1990s. The only
major issue that divided the two parties during the
recent election campaign was the issue of sending SDF
troops to Iraq.
In public, Japan is still
committed to sending troops to Iraq. But last weekend,
in talks with visiting US Secretary of Defense, Donald
Rumsfeld, the prime minister avoided any direct
reference by name of the forces that Japan has offered
to send. Not sending the troops is no longer an option,
according to all accounts. But sending troops is a lot
different than making a clear pledge to contribute US$5
billion in reconstruction aid for Iraq.
At the
moment, the government is biding its time by sending an
investigative team of 10 members of the SDF to a region
in Iraq that the Americans consider relatively safe.
That is of little comfort, as Japan's media are now
reporting threats from sources that claim to be
al-Qaeda, and which state that Japan itself is at risk.
Statements like, "Our attacks will reach the center of
Tokyo," are the kind of threat that no one can protect
Japan against.
In some ways, the dilemma comes
down to the nuts and bolts of Japan's relationship with
the United States. They are, after all, allies.
The argument is simple and goes something like
this. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Koizumi,
Japan responded swiftly to the attacks of September 11,
2001, on the United States. Anti-terrorism legislation
was enacted by the Diet, and limited approval was
granted to send some of Japan's well-equipped warships
of the Maritime SDF on non-combatant duty to aid the
US-led war to oust the Taliban government in
Afghanistan.
All in all, the US and Japan worked
well together. Koizumi - once nicknamed the Lone Wolf -
found a considerable advantage in the personal alliance
he forged with President George W Bush. In early 2001,
both leaders came to power - only three months apart and
both under untidy circumstances. Bush's contested
victory had to be christened by the US Supreme Court.
Koizumi defeated the old-guard faction leaders in a
popular takeover of the leadership in the perennially
ruling LDP.
If serendipity brought them
together, practical politics made their friendship
almost mandatory. The mid-1980s pairing of prime
minister Yasuhiro Nakasone and president Ronald Reagan
is an oft-cited example. The "Ron-Yasu" schmoozing at
times papered over underlying friction (such as Yasu's
beggarly weak-yen policy - Ron's Strong Dollar - that
unraveled in 1985 Plaza Accord negotiated in New York
City's famous hotel).
The point is that good
relations with the US have been almost a Holy Grail duty
for any Japanese prime minister who wants to stay in
office a long time. Koizumi has pretty much assured
himself of another three years in office as a result of
a victory in the recent hard-fought Lower House
election. (The LDP's coalition won an absolute majority.
Koizumi will rival Nakasone's term in office if he lasts
through the next three years.)
So all would be
hunky-dory, but for the fact that the world has changed.
Will Koizumi act with the purest of motives
regarding Iraq - or self-interest? America is still the
security blanket that shields Japan - under a
long-standing mutual security treaty - from threats of
attack by any enemy. The most menacing threat is its
neighbor, North Korea, which recently unleashed its
specter of nuclear weapons and missiles capable of
targeting Japan.
The answer is probably the one
Koizumi himself gave last March to graduates of Japan's
Defense Agency College, the training ground for future
officers of the SDF: "When the United States, an
absolutely invaluable Japanese ally, is sacrificing
itself, it is natural for our country to back the move
as much as possible."
However, that, from
Koizumi's view as a US ally, has just gotten harder to
say.
(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd.
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