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The relationship of trust between Japan and the United States is in its worst state ever. After U.S. President Barack Obama refused to see Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama in Copenhagen and listen to his excuse over his mishandling of bilateral ties, the latter talked with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and claimed to have obtained her understanding. But Ms. Clinton summoned the Japanese ambassador to the U.S. only to tell him that she had not indicated her approval.

The "Nixon shock" comes to mind when one looks for a past example of a lack of mutual understanding to such a degree. At a summit meeting in 1969, President Richard Nixon promised to return Okinawa to Japan while Prime Minister Eisaku Sato pledged to voluntarily regulate textile exports to the U.S. Yet the Japanese government simply continued inconclusive negotiations.

In 1971, when the U.S.-China rapprochement bypassed Japan and the convertibility of the U.S. dollar to gold abruptly ended, informed U.S. sources said this double shock was meant to penalize Japan for its breach of trust over the textile exports issue.

The dollar's departure from the gold standard came as a serious blow, bringing about the most serious economic recession in Japan in the postwar period. The U.S.' rapprochement with China also inflicted irreparable damage to Japan-U.S. policy coordination regarding China, preventing the two countries from sharing common China policy, a situation that has continued to this day. Leftists and Sinophiles have never failed to say "Americans betrayed us first."

With the current level of lack of communication between Japan and the U.S., two issues — China and economic policy — worry me most, just as in the time of the "Nixon shock." In addition, we now have the issue of relocation of U.S. military bases.

The dollar and the dollar-pegged Chinese yuan are capable of causing a sharp appreciation of the yen — though such a scenario is unthinkable at the moment — and dealing a serious blow to the Japanese economy. Or the U.S. might participate in an Asian forum in which Japan is not represented.

The issue of U.S. military bases is even more serious. In Japan, even after the end of the Cold War, there remain leftist forces trying to weaken the Japan-U.S. alliance. They don't care if military solidarity between Japan and the U.S. is undermined. They will press for a further weakening of the alliance in the name of "reducing the burden" on Japan. This could result in irreparable damage to the security alliance.

If the Hatoyama administration fulfills its international commitments, this can be prevented.

What I would like to ask for now, however, is patience on the part of the U.S. For one thing, even if the Futenma relocation issue is not resolved, the status quo will continue, meaning the U.S. has nothing to lose. On the other hand, the rise of China will pose the most serious challenge to the security of East Asia and the world. Under such circumstances, whatever countermeasures are taken — soft or hard — the Japan-U.S. alliance is too valuable an asset to lose.

Although the process of improvement has been excruciatingly slow, the Japan-U.S. alliance is now approaching its ideal shape. The relationship of trust between the armed forces and government offices of the two countries has never been better.

A solution to the issue of the right to collective self-defense and other issues will be in sight once a conservative administration comes to power. It should be noted that even Hatoyama once stated that the exercise of the right to collective self-defense is not a constitutional issue but a matter for the government to decide.

The U.S. was patient with South Korea during the five years of Roh Moo Hyun administration. (South Koreans may not like the comparison, for while the Hatoyama Cabinet terminated refueling mission in the Indian Ocean, South Korea under Roh sent troops to Afghanistan). The realists in the South, who were ostracized at the time, are now back in power, giving their support to the U.S.-South Korea alliance.sk

The relationship of trust between Japan and the U.S. will eventually be restored and the time will come when the alliance relationship will be strengthened. Until then I do hope the U.S. side will be patient.

THE JAPAN TIMES Sunday, Jan. 31, 2010

Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2009
Enough concessions on Taiwan
By HISAHIKO OKAZAKI
 

For those who are concerned that democratic Taiwan should continue to have the freedom to choose its own future, President Barack Obama's coming visit to Beijing brings back the memory of a regrettable episode during President Bill Clinton's visit to China in June 1998.
 

Early in the spring of that year there were signs that the American government would assure China that the United States would not defend Taiwan if it declared independence. On March 13, Joseph Nye proposed in a Washington Post op-ed the elimination of ambiguity in the American position by stating that the U.S. would not recognize or defend Taiwan, if it were to declare independence.
 

I argued against such a policy in an op-ed in The Japan Times and directly to Assistant Secretary of State Stanley Roth in Tokyo when he was accompanying Secretary Madeleine Albright on her way to Beijing for the preparation of the presidential visit.
 

My argument was as follows: "Suppose Taiwan declared independence and China used force, believing in the American statement of its position, I wonder whether the American public and the Congress would acquiesce in abandoning a free and democratic Taiwan to China. If not, it is tantamount to tricking China into a war. It would be similar to how the Korean War began. The United States declared that South Korea is outside its defense line, but intervened when the North launched an attack, having possibly believed in (the United States') words."
 

I do not know whether my arguments had any influence, but there were no statements about not defending Taiwan then. Then on the eve of the president's visit, stories began to circulate that the president was going to commit to "three no's" — that the U.S. would oppose Taiwan independence, a one-China-one-Taiwan policy, and Taiwan's formal membership in state-based international organizations. Fortunately, there was no mention of the "three no's" in the joint press conference or in the major policy speech at the Beijing University.
 

Then the volte-face came. Dropping by in Shanghai, the president declared the three no's in a dialogue with Chinese intellectuals on a TV show.
 

Although the U.S. Congress quickly rejected the commitment through resolutions of both houses, China may still view the remark as an official commitment of the U.S. president and may quite likely expect President Obama to reconfirm it.
 

It is not difficult at all to suspect that there were some disgraceful deals behind the scenes. The date of the visit, to start with, is believed to have been sought by the U.S. to turn attention away from a domestic scandal, and that indebted the U.S. to say the three no's and bypass Japan and Korea while making the longest trip that Clinton made to a single country. The topics to be discussed during the Shanghai TV interview, which had originally been planned to concentrate on cultural affairs, seemed to have been changed at short notice.
 

Through the 37-year history of U.S.-China engagement, the U.S. has consistently retreated in the war of semantics on Taiwan. The U.S. has been unable to muster points against the steel wall of one-party dictatorship. They lost inch by inch every time. However, each time, the Americans reassured the public that the U.S. position hadn't changed.
 

How deceptively the U.S. position had eroded can be seen in the comments made by President Clinton. He began his remarks on the three no's by stating that he was reiterating the American policy on Taiwan but not specifying the time of the previous remarks, whether it was during his meetings in Beijing or some unknown time before. National Security Adviser Sandy Berger explained that the U.S. had simply repeated its basic position.
 

In fact, the U.S. has kept on shifting its position. It started with an admirably objective statement by Henry Kissinger, national security adviser, in 1972. "The U.S. acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China." This was cleverly phrased but would have become obsolete were Taiwan to declare independence. Retreat from this position began in 1983 by denying the intention of pursuing a policy of "two Chinas" or "one China, one Taiwan."
 

The word "pursuing" implies planning, working for, and encouraging, but it does not prevent the U.S. from accepting a fait accompli of Taiwan's independence. However, there is a more clear implication in the term "not support" used during Clinton's visit of 1998, which is well explained in the editorials of the Washington Post among others: "What is not fine is for the United States at this time to rule out independence or any other option that the Taiwan people eventually might choose."
 

The American reassurance to Taiwan at that time was that "not support" does not mean "oppose." In fact "oppose" is the term coveted by China throughout the Bush administration. China boasts domestically that it has won the commitment from the U.S., but no diplomatic record has yet to testify to such a position.
 

In the coming visit of President Obama, the best is not to go beyond the three communiques. The bottom line is not to reconfirm the "three no's," which are already denied by Congress. Never accept the change from "not support" to "oppose."
 

Incidentally, the Japanese government, uncharacteristically perhaps, has never conceded an inch from its stand to "understand and respect the Chinese position" in the past 37 years.

By HISAHIKO OKAZAKI
Until the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ)'s win in Sunday's election, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) had dominated Japanese politics for more than half a century except for short intervals.

The impact on the U.S.-Japan alliance is still not clear. It is hard to divine it from the abstract words of the DPJ's "manifesto" for the election campaign: "In order to build a close and equal U.S.-Japan alliance, Japan will fulfill her responsibilities by sharing them with the United States, based upon an autonomous Japanese diplomatic strategy."

The manifesto contains two concrete proposals: to promote a U.S.-Japan free trade agreement (FTA) and to revise the U.S.-Japan Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). An FTA would reflect urban, free-trade thinking in contrast to the LDP's policy influenced by its strong constituency in the farming districts. But faced with criticism from farmers, the DPJ toned down its FTA stance during the election campaign.

The call for a SOFA revision reflects strong leftist, anti-American thinking. In fact, under the existing SOFA with the U.S., Japan enjoys stronger rights with regard to criminal jurisdiction than do South Korea or Germany. With little room for improvement in this regard, short of abolishing the U.S. bases outright, leftists have pushed for revision as part of an anti-U.S. base campaign.

It is doubtful that the DPJ can deliver on either of its campaign proposals mentioned above. Moreover, the future of political realignment in Japan is unpredictable. Some coalition will be arranged, but nobody knows how long it will last.

It's quite possible that conservative forces will prevail within the DPJ. In fact, conservatives make up a large majority, including followers of former DPJ chief Ichiro Ozawa (former Liberal Party members and "Ozawa children"), moderate conservatives (DPJ leader Yukio Hatoyama, former Prime Minister Tsutomu Hata and former Democratic Socialists), and realists (former DPJ leader Seiji Maehara, Yoshihiko Noda and some younger members).

However, we need to exercise caution. It often happens in history that a leftist minority prevails over a less aggressive majority. The anti-U.S. base campaign is a good example. The legacy of the former Socialist Party still remains strong in the DPJ party secretariat, and the DPJ needs a coalition with leftists in the Upper House to maintain a majority in that chamber.

Sometimes an American ally gets an anti-American leader. South Korea had the Roh Moo Hyun government (2003-2008), yet the U.S.-South Korea alliance, after weathering all manner of friction, remains sanguine today.

I don't believe the DPJ government of Japan will become as much a source of friction as the Roh government was. I am fairly certain that Americans will be able to conduct business as usual with the new Japanese government.

Behind the changing political landscape, there is an encouraging development for the alliance. In the past, under the LDP absolute majority, the opposition party did not need to present a policy alternative; it was simply engaged in criticizing the government. This time, the DPJ was forced to present a manifesto, and the LDP countered with measures to strengthen the U.S.-Japan alliance. The LDP manifesto proposed strong U.S.-Japan missile defense cooperation, including contingencies for shooting down enemy missiles headed toward the U.S. and assisting U.S. naval vessels engaged in a joint operation.

For Americans or anyone with common sense, these are natural duties toward an ally, but at present the Japanese government is prohibited from carrying them out due to a theological argument against "exercising the right to collective self-defense."

At present, this is the policy of the LDP, and will be realized under any future LDP government. It may yet be adopted by the new DPJ government. The government- appointed Council on Security and Defense Capability issued a report to this effect in August. The report is to be reflected in the new Defense Outline adopted toward the end of this year. The DPJ government will face a decision on whether to adopt it.

One thing remarkable about the LDP manifesto is that it was not involved in theological polemics; it simply advocated what common sense dictates. This stance might facilitate a bipartisan agreement on the issue.

After all, as the prohibition against a collective defense is the result of a extremely stretched interpretation of the Constitution, it is fair to say it is not really a constitutional issue.

The American side should not hesitate to point out that the issue is a matter of duties toward an ally.

Hisahiko Okazaki is a former ambassador to Thailand.
The Japan Times: Friday, Sept. 4, 2009