A Partnership in Review: EAST ASIAN PERIL: Fragile ties
By MANABU HARA, Senior Staff Writer
Tensions between Japan and China are more dangerous than Washington realizes. This is the 22nd in a series of interviews examining Japan-U.S. ties and their implications.
Ezra Vogel, a Harvard professor and prominent expert on Japan and China, believes the key issue in East Asia centers on increased dialogue between Japan, the United States and China over such issues as North Korea and the relationship with China.
Vogel also suggests that Japan should train its future leaders for the new era in the same way Shokason-juku, a private school at the end of the Edo Period (1603-1867), educated young samurai to lead the country.
Q: Now that President George W. Bush has been re-elected, do you think the influence of the neoconservatives will increase ?
A: The early appointments Bush made for his second term suggest that he is more concerned with gaining tight control than with whether appointees are neoconservative or cosmopolitan. It is understandable that a president confronted with limitless complex issues should interpret his re-election as a mandate to try for tighter coordination. The danger is that, with a narrower circle of loyalists, Bush will again make errors like invading Iraq and allowing national budget deficits to explode. It is therefore all the more important for concerned Americans to rely on one of our nation's great strengths, our vibrant civil society, to help make up for our government's limitation.
'Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni Shrine make it impossible for Chinese leaders to come to Japan.'
Q: What is your overall view of the current political relationship between Japan and the United States ?
A: At the government-to-government level, the political relationship is good, partly due to Tokyo's close cooperation with Washington on such issues as the U.S.-led war against Iraq. The Bush administration also has talented officials, such as Richard Armitage, James Kelly and Michael Green, who understand Japan very well.
But a good relationship depends on public opinion in the long run, and the Japanese people are critical of the government's stance toward Washington. So, we need to see action that the public on both sides can support in order to maintain a good relationship in the long run.
Q: What might have happened if Japan had refused the U.S. request for cooperation in Iraq? How can they sustain a solid, long-term relationship ?
A: Japan's refusal would have complicated the relationship. This could have created more friction between the two countries.
But I think that in the end we would maintain the alliance because we need an alliance with Tokyo, and Japan needs an alliance with Washington as well. So, if Japanese diplomats had carefully explained that the Japanese public does not support the dispatch of Self-Defense Forces to Iraq and found other ways to contribute to global security, the United States would still continue to support the U.S.-Japan alliance because it is in the interest of the United States as well as Japan.
When I was in the government during the Clinton administration as National Intelligence Officer for East Asia (1993-1995), (former Assistant Secretary of Defense) Joseph Nye and I were concerned about how to sustain a solid relationship between the two countries after the Cold War era. Our view was that the two countries should maintain a strong alliance to contribute to global stability, with the United States continuing to defend Japan from attack.
Q: What do you think of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi ? Can you compare him to other Japanese prime ministers ?
A: Prime Minister Koizumi is very skillful at dealing with the public. He is very good at sound bites when he faces the camera. He is sensitive to public criticism of old-style politics and appeals to public criticism of crony politics. Paradoxically, this has enabled him and his party to gain enough public support to keep in power many of those he's been critical of.
If you compare him, for example, to former Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, there is a striking difference between them. While Nakasone was a very good strategist and knew what was necessary for Japan, Koizumi does not think primarily in broad strategic terms.
Koizumi is now pursuing a very dangerous policy with China. Beijing's leaders are ready to move closer to Tokyo if Tokyo takes steps that allow Beijing to gain public support for warmer relations. But Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni Shrine make it impossible for Chinese leaders to come to Japan. His stance may win short-range approval, but the consequences for peace and stability in Asia are very serious.
Suspending his visits to the shrine would put Japan in a strong position to demand that China also review its textbooks and education programs to show the progress toward peace achieved in Japan after World War II. Japan after all invaded China in World War II, and it is unrealistic to expect China to take the big steps necessary to break the vicious cycle between the two countries, which is now becoming very dangerous.
Q: Do you think that Washington regards Koizumi's stance toward China as problematic for the United States as well? What should Japan and the United States do in East Asia now ?
A: I doubt that most Washington policy-makers are fully aware of the danger of heightened Sino-Japanese tension. Washington policy-makers are preoccupied with terrorism and nonproliferation, and few are making the broad constructive efforts to help create the better world that forms for many of us the basis of our patriotism. I hope that we will once again accept responsibility for our place in the world, which has given us pride in our country.
Washington no longer thinks in broad global terms or takes a long-term perspective. A heightening of tension between China and Japan would dwarf some of the intense but much smaller-scale ethnic conflicts around the world. The United States should encourage Japan to have a good relationship with China.
But the most important thing in East Asia is that Japan, the United States and China should increase discussions on such issues as North Korea and the relationship with China. Furthermore, China, Japan and the United States need to meet with South Koreans and Russians to begin discussing the Korean Peninsula problem from a long-term perspective.
Q: What are the weaknesses in Japanese and U.S. societies in terms of contributing to the global community ?
A: American people supported Bush because they want to feel safer, but the majority of Americans are now so focused on our own domestic issues that we do not do enough to play a constructive role in dealing with global issues like the environment and peace and stability around the globe. People in Washington do not pay enough attention to the importance of world opinion. The question should be not only ``How many terrorists have we killed?'' but ``How many new ones are we creating?'' This means that at the grass-roots level people are not getting enough education to understand how much the United States depends on the rest of the world.
As for Japan, it must better prepare its people for the ever increasing speed of globalization. As the world becomes smaller, Japan is hindered by the poor English skills of many of its people. Furthermore, Japan needs to give more attention to its overall goals and to do a better job of training top leaders.
In the years just after World War II, then Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida molded leaders from bureaucrats-turned-politicians (including former Prime Minister Eisaku Sato), who thought of the country as a whole. Even further back, the Choshu clan in western Japan had a Shokason-juku (a small private school founded by Yoshida Shoin, an ideologue from the end of the Edo Period who educated young samurai to lead their country into the new era). Japan needs to have the same kind of training for the new era. Profile
Born in 1930 in Ohio, Vogel received his Ph.D. in 1958 from Harvard University, where he taught from 1967 to 2000. He is now a research professor at the Asia Center at Harvard. His book, "Japan as Number One," remains one of the best-selling books in Japan ever written by a Western author.(IHT/Asahi: November 22,2004)