April 13, 1996

Japan and American -
Friends in Need

The alliance between America and Japan--the cornerstone of East Asia's security--is in even worse trouble than it looks

IN EUROPE, the end of the cold war strained the North Atlantic alliance; but NATO is not in danger of collapse. In the Pacific, the American-Japanese alliance is also showing strain; and it seems natural to suppose that this partnership, too, will nonetheless survive. If NATO has weathered the bickering over Bosnia, the arguments over enlargement, and the ebbing of the Russian threat, then surely the American-Japanese alliance can overcome apparently equivalent obstacles. All it will take is a bit of statesmanship on both sides: a resolution to refrain from calling the other nasty names and a feel-good summit.

     That will be Bill Clinton's hope as he sets off next week to visit Japan and South Korea. Having infuriated the Japanese by cancelling a trip to Osaka last November, Mr Clinton plans to be in Japan from April 16th to 18th, a longish trip by his standards. Unlike previous summits, which focused on trade, this one will dwell on security. It will try to stiffen Japan's willingness to play host to 47,000 American troops, which has been wavering since three American servicemen raped a Japanese schoolgirl last September. Protestors calling for the Americans to withdraw mustered Japan's biggest demonstration in a quarter of a century.

     To placate the Japanese, Mr Clinton will probably announce the return of some land now used by American troops. He will be the guest of the emperor, whose father the Americans nearly hanged after 1945: the perfect symbol of reconciliation. He will shake hands with Japan's prime minister, Ryutaro Hashimoto, who only a year ago was hurling abuse at American trade negotiators. And, with stage-managed amity, he will emphasise the importance of the two countries' alliance to East Asia's security at a time of growing regional instability--witness China's bullying of Taiwan, or North Korea's recent renunciation of the armistice that ended the Korean war.

     Can the partnership be patched up in this way? There are two broad reasons for supposing that it cannot, and that the comforting analogy with NATO promotes complacency. The first doubt holds that trade arguments will soon dominate the partnership again, and that the healing effect of next week's summit will therefore be fleeting. The second maintains that the alliance is doomed by forces that no summit can address: that America is gradually losing its appetite for defending allies rich enough to defend themselves, and that rich Japan is losing patience with American tutelage.

     Either of these arguments, if true, could consign the alliance to gradual decay, with potentially dreadful consequences. Deprived of America's nuclear shield, Japan would develop its own nuclear weapons to stay even with China. South Korea, which has been invaded by both Japan and China in the past, would shortly follow. So might the more sophisticated South-East Asian states, whose military budgets are already growing rapidly. Pretty soon, the whole region could be nuclear and nervous.

     Such an arms race would unfold on a continent far less stable than Europe at the height of the cold war. China faces a succession struggle; North Korea faces famine and possible collapse; South Korean democracy is in a tempestuous infancy. Farther south, Indonesia has succession worries of its own; Hong Kong will revert to China next year; and Taiwan is trying to stave off a similar fate. In short, if the American-Japanese alliance frays, the miracle economies of the Pacific rim could set a second record for mankind. Having pulled off history's fastest ever advance in human welfare, they could next succumb to its fastest and nastiest reversal.

Trade troubles
How real are these dangers? Consider, first, the possibility that trade rows will undermine America's partnership with Japan. Such disputes have dogged the alliance for many years, and the partnership has survived. In 1992, for instance, George Bush went to Tokyo brandishing a list of trade demands, flanked by industrialists demanding better access to Japanese markets. But the trade disputes seem to be getting worse--and have begun to jeopardise the security part of the partnership.

     Mr Clinton came to power promising to redouble the commercial bias. Visiting Tokyo for the G7 summit in 1993, he turned his meeting with Kiichi Miyazawa, Japan's prime minister of the time, into a trade negotiation. The defence treaty barely got a mention.      The Clinton team argued that, with the cold war at an end, geo-politics could give way to geo-economics. Communism had collapsed; or, where it had not, communists were too intent on getting rich to threaten anybody. In the absence of this threat, America could withdraw from the costly, tiring business of propping up allies and staring down foes. Instead, it should concentrate on economic goals, chiefly export promotion. If the pursuit of economic gain hurt cold-war ties, then so be it.

     This thinking changed American policy. The Commerce Department saw its budget and prestige expand; the State Department grew demoralised. The biggest impact from this shift fell on America's dealings with Japan. Here was a country whose security role now seemed less crucial. And here was a country whose vast markets appeared closed to American products. With his trip to Tokyo in 1993, Mr Clinton inaugurated a policy of aggressive trade demands, untrammelled by concern for the wider partnership.

     Three years later, Japan-bashing on trade has damaged relations between the two countries. An opinion poll taken in the middle of last year's acrimonious car talks found that friendly feelings between the two countries had hit a ten-year low. Japan's trade minister of the time grew wildly popular by denouncing American demands; so popular, indeed, that he is now prime minister. Meanwhile, thuggish China and North Korea have demonstrated that the security alliance with Japan is as necessary as ever.

     In 1995 Joseph Nye, a senior Defence-Department official, declared that the military alliance was suffering from neglect.*1 Wedded to geo-economics, the Clinton team at first failed to gave his concerns their due. What made the difference was last September's rape of the schoolgirl and the wave of anti-American demonstrations that followed. Supported by much of the Japanese press, the demonstrators argued that it was outrageous for Japan to pay 70% of the cost of maintaining American bases on its soil, if American servicemen behaved so badly. Even politicians on whom America had previously relied failed to speak out in defence of the security treaty. In Washington, the Defence Department's vague concern turned into "real panic", in the words of one of Mr Nye's advisers.

Half a hope on trade
That was enough to produce Mr Clinton's sudden switch to worrying about the military alliance. But is the switch anything more than a panic reaction? At first sight, it does not look like it. The prospects for keeping security at the top of the agenda with Japan are dim. Republicans are as reluctant as Democrats to return to the vigilance of the cold war; there are few votes in it. Richard Lugar, the one Republican presidential candidate to stress his knowledge of foreign affairs, got almost no votes in the primaries. At the State Department, old Japan hands marvel at how the tough congressional questions that they used to face have given way to yawning indifference. In sum, neither party seems interested in giving a consistently high priority to the security treaty with Japan.      That said, however, there remains half a hope that America will come back to security in future. It lies in the failure of Japan-bashing trade policies.

     When he goes to Tokyo, the president will no doubt claim credit for America's shrinking trade deficit with Japan.

But the truth is that this reflects the yen's rise to around ¥107 to the dollar, up from ¥126 when Mr Clinton took office. It does not reflect the trade talks initiated in 1993, because most of America's important demands have been turned down flat by Japanese officials. Japan-bashing has failed on its own terms.

     Nor will it succeed any time soon. Japanese intransigence on trade is likely to prove permanent. During the 1970s and 1980s Japan repeatedly yielded to foreign-trade demands, whether for access to its domestic market or for "voluntary" restraints upon its exports. But that was because Japan's firms were making miracle profits during their years of catch-up growth. Now that they are less flush, these firms are far less keen on "generosity".      Besides, the Japanese are now protected by the World Trade Organisation. During last year's car talks, America threatened to use its draconian "Super 301" trade law, which provides for punitive sanctions against countries deemed to be unfair traders. The Japanese said that they would challenge the legality of such a step under WTO rules. The counter-threat worked; the Americans backed down; the Japanese are not going to be cowed by Super 301 in future.

     Japanese steadfastness is not the only reason why Japan-bashing has failed. The other is that bashing can backfire on America's own economic interests. Since the 1980s, the fear of a trade war has spread occasional panic through Wall Street. During last year's trade row, investors worried that, by forcing up the yen, American trade pressure might hasten a banking crisis in Japan, with ugly consequences for the American banks that do business with them. Not long afterwards, America's trade negotiators signed a deal on car trade that included little of what they had originally wanted.

     None of this means that trade rows are gone. Mr Clinton will not be able to avoid mentioning several disputes next week, concerning photographic film, insurance and semiconductors. Decades of trade rows have produced an interest group of dispute-experts in Washington, who make a fine living by lobbying on behalf of firms trying to penetrate Japan and who know just how to keep trade rows active. But the limited gains from such disputes should at least mean that they are kept in check. No longer will they be pursued without regard to the security relationship.

Half-baked on security
If trade rows can be more-or-less contained, what of the other threats to the alliance? These come down to the idea that the security treaty, born of Japan's defeat in 1945, is now anachronistic. Some Americans argue that Japan has outgrown the need for American defence; as the world's second biggest economy, it should do its own soldiering. For their part, some Japanese feel that reliance on American troops is a slur on the nation's pride; they are fed up with being "a mercantile nation that just writes cheques", in the words of Mr Hashimoto.

     These are serious objections. General Douglas MacArthur, who ruled Japan from 1945 to 1951, likened Japan to a child in need of America's fatherly protection. The military alliance that he helped devise reflects this paternalism. America promises to protect Japan and to quench instability in Asia.

In return, Japan merely offers bases for American troops. The Japanese do maintain a "Self-Defence Force" but its usefulness is stunted by Japan's pacifist constitution, which forbids going to war.

     For a surprisingly long time, the alliance worked on the basis of America's conquering self-confidence and Japan's corresponding humility. Until the 1970s, Americans continued to see Japan as a backward place where you could afford cheap maids; Japan continued to admire American ways and products. A deep self-doubt possessed the Japanese, who were ashamed to sing the national anthem or raise the flag; some left-wingers regarded the Japanese state itself as illegitimate.

     All this has been changed by Japan's stunning economic success. Now it is the Japanese who find America cheap, who complain that American workers are lazy and their products unreliable. Japan's flag and national anthem are no longer suppressed; the anti-nationalist left-wing has all but evaporated. The old self-doubt has been replaced by self-confidence, sometimes overblown. In many respects, Japanese reckon they know better than MacArthur's heirs--and plenty of Americans are willing to agree with them.

     For at least a decade, therefore, the two countries' military alliance has seemed precariously lop-sided. Some critics, seeing that MacArthur's father-child arrangement has been slow to adapt, are starting to lose patience. Last year Chalmers Johnson, the president of the Japan Policy Research Institute, argued that Japan would never take more responsibility for its own defence while the American security treaty remained in place; he therefore called on his country to close down its Japanese bases.*2 On Japan's side, a different version of this argument emerged. The rape, some said, proved that Americans behaved as though they were still members of an occupation force. The only way to cure Americans of their arrogance was to send them packing.

Complacency revisited
It will be easy for next week's summiteers to dismiss these extreme views. Only a small minority wants all American troops to go; a poll taken after last September's rape found that just 14% of Japanese held this opinion. But, having ignored the perils of geo-economics for too long, America had better not ignore this second set of threats. For the truth is that the security treaty is every bit as anachronistic as the critics charge. Unless it is brought up to date, nobody should be surprised if the extremists multiply.

    Indeed, the same poll demonstrates the dangers of complacency. Even fewer Japanese--just 7%--wanted the bases maintained at their current size; the vast majority resented their presence, and wanted them scaled back gradually. More polls, assembled in a new book*3, suggest that younger Japanese are more hostile to the bases than their elders; and that many doubt whether America would defend Japan in a crisis. In 1990, 62% of Japanese said that America would be a reliable ally; in 1994, only 47% did. At times a majority has said that the bases, by provoking enemy attack, may actually reduce Japan's security.

     The alliance needs to be modified before such resentments undermine it. Since last autumn's rape, America has begun to take up this task. The armed forces are preparing to hand back unneeded land--not the airbases, which America must keep if it is to deploy troops quickly in Asia and the Middle East, but housing estates and suchlike. Mr Clinton's visit will also bring the announcement of a scheme to involve Japan more in logistical support for American troops taking part in peacetime military exercises or peacekeeping operations.

     Japan's sense of involvement with the American forces on its soil ought to be promoted further. Japanese defence officials and diplomats seldom visit America's bases in Japan, and one recent exception to this rule suggests how valuable more exceptions could be. A month ago a group of bigwigs from Tokyo was loaded onto a buggy and driven past endless helicopters, tanks and other war materiel. All they could say was sugoi!, which means, roughly, Wow! They had heard Americans talk of their commitment to Japan. Now they had seen the evidence.

     Some Japan hands in Washington discuss the sugoi factor and wonder how they can build on it. But the trouble is that a strong unilateralist strain remains in America's military policy, a tendency as marked in Asia as it was in Bosnia. When Bill Clinton sent aircraft carriers to watch over the Taiwan Strait recently, he did not forewarn the Japanese. Left out of American plans, they are hardly likely to feel confident in American protection.

     This matters, because Japan's leaders will need to feel more confidence in the alliance if they are to play their part in strengthening it. Japanese voters are even less keen than their American counterparts on expanding their military responsibilities abroad. Polls suggest that most Japanese think it wrong to use force to maintain international law; and that most doubt whether their country's military power will ever match its economic stature. If the security treaty is to be modernised, a bold politician will have to look his countrymen in the eyes and demand that they rethink some of their most basic attitudes.

     Scary as it may sound, the long-term health of the alliance with America may therefore hinge on Japan's chaotic politics. Since 1993, a one-party system has given way to a chaos of competing splinter groups and then to something resembling two-party competition. Over the same three years, the country has been ruled by five different prime ministers. But, out of this mess, something promising has emerged. Both the two main parties are led by men who want to expand Japan's responsibilities. These leaders need all the support they can get from their American friends. Mr Clinton's visit next week will be a start. But the finishing point remains distant.

*1 ''The Case for Deep Engagement''. By Joseph Nye. Foreign Affairs. July/August 1995.
*2 ''The Pentagon's Ossified Strategy''. By Chalmers Johnson and E.B. Keehn. Foreign Affairs. same issue.
*3 ''Public Opinion in America and Japan''. By Everett Carll Ladd and Karlyn Bowman. AEI Press.

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Updated January 13, 1997