Aso's US visit a double-edged sword
By Kosuke Takahashi
TOKYO - Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso's days in office might be numbered,
but he put on a brave face during his meeting with United States President
Barack Obama on Tuesday at the White House, stressing the importance of the
countries' bilateral alliance.
As widely expected, the two leaders re-affirmed more cooperation on the global
economic crisis and touched on anti-terrorism efforts in Afghanistan, the North
Korean nuclear deadlock and global warming.
Aso is reported to have said that Japan will pay the salaries of 80,000 Afghan
police officers for six months and also fund the construction there of 100
hospitals and 200 schools and train
20,000 teachers. The projects are to be financed out of the US$2 billion Afghan
reconstruction fund, the world's third-largest, that Japan pledged in 2002 -
there is about $500 million left of the fund.
Many political observers in Tokyo say that Obama stressed relations with Tokyo
as a "cornerstone" of US foreign policy in large part because Washington needs
Japan's continuous support over growing US debt obligations, or the buying of
US Treasuries, to maintain the present dollar key-currency system, amid the
ongoing global financial turmoil.
They also see Obama as trying to draw the attention of Japan's powerful main
opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), which is increasingly showing signs
of shifting its axis of cooperation toward other Asian nations, especially
China.
The leader of the DPJ, Ichiro Ozawa, on Monday held a 75-minute meeting in
Tokyo with Wang Jiarui, the head of the International Department of the Chinese
Communist Party's Central Committee, to discuss better Sino-Japanese relations
and Korean Peninsula issues. That was much longer than his half-hour meeting
with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last week. Wang visited Pyongyang
and met North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in January.
Aso, one of the most unpopular leaders in Japan's post-war history, had a lot
riding on this summit amid mounting domestic pressure for him to step down over
his numerous gaffes, mishandling of a worsening recession and unwise defense of
the finance minister who recently resigned after appearing to be drunk at a
Group of Seven meeting in Rome this month.
By riding the coat tails of the popular new US president, Aso hoped to turn the
top-level meeting into a public relations victory. He expected the summit to
convince Japanese people he is here to stay - that he is the man in control of
not only Japan, but also of the Japan-US alliance.
But his visit to the White House - the first foreign leader to call since Obama
took over in January - failed to make big front-page news in any Japanese
newspaper on Wednesday - it was overshadowed by the benchmark Nikkei 225 stock
average briefly falling below a 26-year closing low a day earlier.
Few political analysts believe that Aso, already seen by many as lame-duck,
will be able to use the one-hour meeting with Obama to reverse his fortunes and
those of his ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) before crucial elections to
the Lower House of the Diet (parliament) - which must be held by September.
These polls could see a change in the ruling party - a major power shift from
Japan's 50-plus years of de facto one-party monopoly - as the DPJ are expected
to emerge victorious.
"For the prime minister, who has lost 70 to 80% of the public's confidence,
there was no way in which he could conduct effective talks, and the US could
not have been able to seriously talk to him on various issues," Ozawa told
reporters after Aso's summit with Obama.
Ozawa has advocated policies of multilateral cooperation by centering on the
United Nations, and he has called for a more equal partnership with the US. The
DPJ has often refused to support US policies, notably over the war in Iraq and
the use of Japanese naval vessels for refueling aid in the US-led war in
Afghanistan.
Ozawa's background and roots go back to a group founded by late prime minister
Kakuei Tanaka, which signed a Japan-China joint communique that helped
normalize diplomatic relations with China in 1972.
Summits always a double-edged sword
For any Japanese prime minister, meeting with a US president has always been a
double-edged sword. It has turned out to be a savior for a lackluster premier,
but in many cases it has contributed to bringing them down.
Shinzo Abe and Yasuo Fukuda, Aso's immediate predecessors, both struggled to
pass a bill in the Diet to extend the Maritime Self-Defense Force's refueling
mission in the Indian Ocean for anti-terrorism operations in and around
Afghanistan.
This bill caused their popularity to plummet and forced them to quit after less
than one year in office. They had had summits with then-US president George W
Bush at which they pledged Tokyo's full support for the refueling mission. This
bill has been a high-priority issue for the conservative LDP. It is regarded as
the cornerstone of the Japan-US military alliance and Tokyo's commitment to
international cooperation against terrorism, despite formidable domestic
opposition.
Prior to those two prime ministers, Kakuei Tanaka, Kiichi Miyazawa, Ryutaro
Hashimoto, Keizo Obuchi and Yoshiro Mori, among others, all quit in less than a
few years after they had held summits with the US president.
They were subjected to US pressure on various issues, such as on Japan's
structural reforms to remove impediments to trade and to balance of payments
adjustment, Tokyo's easing of regulations, the liberalization of Japanese
markets, the disposal of non-performing loans held by banks after the collapse
of an asset bubble economy in the early 1990s, Japanese overseas military
actions, notably in Iraq, and cooperation on US missile defense.
"Historically, there have been so many prime ministers who quit soon after
swallowing US demands in the Japan-US summit," said Minoru Morita, a noted
political analyst in Tokyo. "The US demands have often been inconsistent with
Japanese public opinion and national interests. That's a factor in Japan's
prime ministers quitting in the past."
As it happens, Japanese premiers in the post-World War II who had long terms
were those who preserved the golden era of US-Japan relations. Among them were
Yasuhiro Nakasone, who was best known for his close relationship with president
Ronald Reagan, popularly called the "Ron-Yasu" friendship, and popular
Junichiro Koizumi, who had close personal relations with George W Bush.
Political analysts such as Morita believe that the more these premiers had
strong personal ties with their counterpart, the more they could discreetly
conduct domestic and foreign policies to boost their popularity in Japan.
For example, to gain Bush's trust and confidence, Koizumi told Bush during a
meeting in the US state of Georgia in 2004 of his plans to have the
Self-Defense Force take part in the multinational force in Iraq - without prior
discussion on the matter at home.
In return, Koizumi was able to visit North Korea in 2002 and 2004 to meet Kim
Jong-il, whom Bush said he "loathes" and called a "pygmy". Koizumi aimed to
seek a breakthrough in deadlocked relations with the North over the release of
Japanese abductees to boost his popularity ahead of Upper House elections in
July, 2004.
Growing public discontent
Public support for Aso's government fell to 15%, while its disapproval rating
reached a whopping 80%, with a majority of voters calling for swift general
elections, the Nikkei newspaper reported on Monday.
Seventy-one percent of respondents want Aso to resign as soon as possible, with
DPJ leader Ozawa gaining in popularity as the choice for premier, according to
the latest opinion poll by the Asahi newspaper.
"Aso is hopeless, so is the LDP," Chuichi Date, a LDP Upper House member who
currently serves as the party's deputy secretary general, told Asia Times
Online. "Once we pass the budget bills by the end of next month, the Aso
cabinet should resign en masse and have a snap election. We cannot shift
personnel by changing the head via yet another party presidential campaign
because this causes public criticism of the revolving door of prime ministers
who keep resigning after very short tenures."
Aso has delayed called elections, viewing them as a fatal battle that could
bring the DPJ into power. Yet the longer he delays, the more the LDP could
self-destruct.
A spring storm is headed for the Japanese political world.
Kosuke Takahashi is a Tokyo-based journalist. He can be contacted at
letters@kosuke.net
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