Marching orders for Japan's
reactionaries By Jon Reinsch
Richard Armitage is at it again. George W
Bush's deputy secretary of state has made a career
of telling Japan what to do. When then-Prime
Minister Junichiro Koizumi had second thoughts
about joining the "coalition of the willing" in
Iraq, Armitage told an official, "Don't try to
back off." Earlier, he had advised Japan (in Gavan
McCormack's paraphrase) to "pull its head out of
the sand and make sure the Rising Sun flag was
visible in the Afghanistan war".
Now, in a
report co-written with Joseph Nye for the
conservative-leaning Center for Strategic and
International Studies (CSIS), Armitage states:
"Japan should confront the historical issues that
continue to complicate relations with ROK [South
Korea]." The report was released on August 15, in
the midst of an upsurge in
tensions between Japan
and its neighbors. Koreans, Chinese, and other
Asians suffered horribly from Japanese
imperialism, and despite repeated apologies and
some payment of reparations, many in those
countries feel that Japan has not adequately
redressed its wrongs. Millions of Japanese agree.
But the cause of redress is only
undermined by the current spate of tit-for-tat
visits to islands of disputed sovereignty, rabid
demonstrations, and demands for apology that
predictably drive up nationalistic feeling on all
sides.
A pattern of
paternalism It goes without saying that
overcoming these differences would be in the
interests of Japan, South Korea, and China. It
would help them to peacefully cooperate and devote
resources to problems in the here and now. Most of
all, it would serve justice. But why, exactly, are
Armitage and Nye pressing for Japan to do this?
In order to answer this question, we must
examine some of their other recommendations for
Japan. These include the "cautious resumption of
nuclear power," a unilateral decision by Japan to
send minesweepers to the Persian Gulf "at the
first rhetorical sign or indication of Iran's
intention to close the Strait of Hormuz,"
increased collaboration with the United States on
surveillance in the South China Sea, and an
expansion of "the scope of [Japan's]
responsibilities to include the defense of Japan
and defense with the United States in regional
contingencies."
The last item requires
explanation: it is a reference to collective
self-defense (the use of force to defend an ally),
which is proscribed under the war-renouncing
Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution. This
prohibition is one of the few ways that Article 9
is still honored, making it another "historical
issue" that "complicates" matters for American
power projection. The report notes that the US
military's assistance to Japan in the wake of the
March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami set a useful
precedent for interoperability with Japan's
Self-Defense Forces. It was clear from the start
that the cynically named Operation Tomodachi
("Friend") was intended to make Japanese citizens
more amenable to the presence of US troops.
The paternalism of these recommendations
fits a pattern going back to Douglas MacArthur,
who famously characterized Japan as a 12-year old
boy. These days, Americans employ more tactful
language and affirm their respect for public
opinion when issuing orders to Japan - at least in
public. But does it matter to the authors, for
example, that poll after poll shows support for
eliminating nuclear power? Probably not.
Michael Green, another former Bush
official who participated in the creation of the
document, scorned resistance to nuclear power in
Japan as NIMBYism - just weeks before the
Fukushima disaster. Of course, the authors insist
that all this is for Japan's own good, but
curiously, in their formulation, Japan rarely has
interests at odds with the United States. Imagine
the howls arising from Congress if a group of
Japanese ex-officials started issuing
prescriptions to the United States - advising it,
for example, on how to interpret its own
constitution and employ its armed forces.
However, reports like this find a
receptive audience in the Japanese halls of power.
The conservative establishment there has long
chafed under Article 9 restrictions. Despite much
talk of "soft power," the overwhelming tendency is
to entrust security to military might - at first,
under the American "nuclear umbrella," but
increasingly to Japanese and American forces
acting in concert (under overall American command,
of course).
All this fits into McCormack's
depiction of Japan as an American client state,
with "servility on one side and condescension and
contempt on the other." When Prime Minister Yukio
Hatoyama made efforts toward an East Asian
Community and to reduce the burden of American
military bases on Okinawa, he was punished with a
stone wall of resistance from the Obama
administration and resigned after less than nine
months in office.
Ever since, prime
ministers have clung more tightly to the American
embrace. Though there are growing calls to
reconsider the alliance in view of an increasingly
multipolar world, the CSIS report aims to extend
Japan's role under US hegemony. Given longstanding
personal and institutional links between the two
countries' national security establishments, it
may succeed.
Enabling the
reactionaries And therein lies a
contradiction. As Philip Seaton observes in his
book Japan's Contested War Memories, the
United States has long served as an enabler for
Japanese politicians who nullify previous
apologies for wartime behavior with provocative
words and deeds:
Overall, American policy,
particularly since 9/11, has been unambiguously
helpful to Japanese conservatives. The American
government supports the Japanese government on
compensation (even concerning claims by US
citizens), is in favor of renouncing the
pacifist element of Japan's constitution, does
not condemn worship at Yasukuni Shrine where all
the war criminals executed by the Allies … are
enshrined, and is actively pushing for the
remilitarization of Japan. Some American
neo-cons have even suggested that Japan should
arm itself with nuclear weapons to confront the
North Korean threat, a proposal that horrified
many Japanese.
Given that all of these
are (or would be) viewed as a "failure to
address the past" if pursued unilaterally by the
Japanese government, the complicity of Japan's
most important ally in that "failure to address
the past" becomes stark.
The
Armitage-Nye report clearly persists in this
complicity. Increasing the offensive capability
and scope of the Japanese military is the last
thing likely to assuage bitter memories of the
Imperial Japanese Army's behavior during the
Fifteen-Year War of 1931 to 1945. And to encourage
a reliance on force is to suggest that such wounds
can be safely left to fester.
Thus, the
primary objectives of this report conflict with
its call for overcoming historical problems. If
the Armitage crowd had any genuine interest in
righting the wrongs of past wars, they would be
just as eager to see Chinese grievances addressed
as those of Koreans (not to mention the
innumerable victims of American atrocities).
Instead, they invoke the bogeyman of
China's rise as their main rationale for Japan-US
military integration. To be sure, China's
aggressive assertion of its territorial claims
plays into their hands; "alliance managers" in
Washington and Tokyo eagerly exploit friction with
China (and North Korea) to overcome resistance as
they introduce more and more weapons systems into
Japan. And so one recommendation the report does
not make - in this 75th anniversary of the Nanjing
Massacre - is that Japan more fully face up to the
outrages it perpetrated in China.
No, the
CSIS experts are interested in contestation over
history only to the extent that it interferes with
American strategic goals: Japan and Korea must
stop squabbling so they can be more effectively
used by the United States to counter China. When
South Korea, in the face of public opposition
centering on historical disputes, scuttled an
intelligence-sharing agreement with Japan, it was
very bad news in the Pentagon. Sure enough, the
report urges "quick movement to conclude" the
pact.
In a presentation of the report,
Armitage speaks admiringly of Japan's "national
brand" (51:30 in the video),
seemingly unaware of the major role Article 9
played in building it. He and Nye write that Japan
can ignore their report unless it wishes to be a
"tier-one nation" - meaning one, like the United
States, with "significant economic weight, capable
military forces, global vision, and demonstrated
leadership on international concerns." That is, if
you want to be an impotent little nothing of a
country, go right ahead. Armitage, though, hopes
for "a Japan in which young Japanese can dream,
not just exist" (59:05). In order to do more than
"just exist", apparently, your country must be
constantly at war. It must be, in other words, an
empire, or at least the favored vassal of one.
Just because the Armitage-Nye report's
call for Japan to rectify its historical
differences with South Korea is purely
self-interested and contradictory is no reason for
intransigence. The problem is that no solution
framed in terms of cleaving to the United States,
or reluctantly joining together with South Korea
against China, will last. In the midst of the
current crisis, the way forward requires
recognizing the common interests of all the people
of East Asia - no matter how much they diverge
from those of the American foreign policy elite.
Jon Reinsch, a Foreign Policy In
Focus contributor, is a Japan specialist and
computer programmer based in Seattle.
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