Japan's opposition feels the
heat By Weston S Konishi
Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) president
Ichiro Ozawa's success in orchestrating the
downfall of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo is a major
victory for his party. It is also arguably the
first time since the resignation of Abe's
grandfather Kishi Nobusuke in 1960 that a prime
minister has lost his job over an issue directly
related to the US-Japan alliance.
But
greater power and influence come hand in hand with
greater responsibility. As long as Ozawa continues
to consolidate power
and
alter government policies, he must be clearer
about where exactly he stands on security
relations with the United States, lest he send the
wrong signals about Japan's commitment to the
bilateral alliance.
After the DPJ's defeat
of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in the July
29 House of Councilors elections, Ozawa announced
plans to oppose extension of the anti-terror law,
which provides the legal basis for Maritime
Self-Defense Force refueling operations for US-led
coalition vessels in the Indian Ocean. Ozawa's
opposition to the law was widely seen as a
political strategy to trip up the Abe cabinet and
force a political crisis leading to a general
election - a strategy that has so far proved
successful.
Ozawa's opposition to the
anti-terror law's extension elicited a swift
response from the US. Soon after the election, US
Ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer made his
first visit to DPJ headquarters to persuade Ozawa
not to oppose the anti-terror bill. Ozawa flatly
refused this request, in what was described by
some Japanese newspapers as a bold rejection of US
pressure. (Subsequent reports suggest that the US
decided not to press the issue out of concern that
it might further undermine the LDP's position.)
Although there has been some speculation
in the US that Ozawa's actions are
"anti-alliance", other observers remember his
staunch support for the alliance in the early
1990s, when he was a key LDP power broker.
The question is whether Ozawa's opposition
to the anti-terror bill is a political tactic or a
more fundamental shift away from his previous
support for the US-Japan alliance. And where, by
extension, does the DPJ - which includes critics
and supporters of the alliance - stand as a whole
regarding elements of the US-Japan security
relationship?
Statements by Ozawa, as well
the official DPJ policy platform, shed little
light on these questions. The DPJ is generally
supportive of the US-Japan alliance, but calls for
Japan to have greater "autonomy" in the
decision-making process. The DPJ's basic
security-policy statement elliptically argues:
"The stance that Japan should take from now on is
to engage in close dialogue and consultation with
the United States, giving full consideration to
Japan's national interests." (Since when did Tokyo
stop considering national interests when engaging
the US?)
Now that the DPJ is no longer
just a noisy opposition party, it needs to move
beyond iconoclastic critiques of the alliance and
start filling in the details of its position on
security cooperation with the United States.
To be fair, the DPJ is clear on some
issues. The party considers the US invasion of
Iraq illegitimate and wants to end any
Self-Defense Force (SDF) role in the region - a
move that would be another blow to US President
George W Bush's coalition in the Middle East.
But there are a number of
alliance-management issues with which the DPJ has
registered general dissatisfaction. These include
the amount of host-nation support of US bases in
Japan, the implementation of US force realignment
plans in Okinawa and elsewhere, and legal
provisions of the bilateral Status of Forces
Agreement.
The question is whether the DPJ
intends to tweak these measures or just to block
them at some point.
It may well be that
the US-Japan alliance can absorb the death of the
anti-terror bill as we know it. But a withdrawal
of SDF missions in the Middle East, followed by a
breakdown of momentum across a string of
alliance-management items, would call into
question the depth and sustainability of bilateral
defense commitments.
Moreover, if there
are circles within the DPJ that believe a
Democratic Party victory in the 2008 US
presidential elections might bring an
administration more sympathetic to such changes,
they are sorely mistaken. No responsible
Democratic administration would accept revisions
to the alliance that might be unfavorable to US
strategic interests.
In the coming months,
Ozawa needs to bring heads together within his
party and articulate - not just to Washington but
also to the Japanese people - what exactly they
have in store for the alliance as the DPJ
continues to influence defense policy. The stakes
are high, and it would be a shame if the DPJ were
to inherit a Japan with more security autonomy
than it bargained for.
Weston S
Konishi (wkonish@gmail.com) is a
visiting research fellow at the Institute for
International Policy Studies. His views are his
own and do not necessarily reflect those of his
institute.
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