Futenma becomes interesting

Or at least the issues connected with it do.

For a serious discussion on the U.S.-Japan "alliance" it would be worthwhile---if the whole world has not already done so---to read this June 9 post at Shisaku and download the PDF and read it. Essays include:

• Troubled Alliance by Kenneth B. Pyle
  
• Return to Basics: Recalibrating the US-Japan Security Alliance by Michael Finnegan
  
• Redefining the US-Japan Security Alliance by Michael Green
  
• Alliance Endangered by Kent Calder
  
• The 50th Anniversary: Time for a "Renewal of Vows" by Andrew Oros
  
• A Short-term challenge to the US-Japan Security Alliance Putting its Long-term Heath at Risk by Yuki Tatsumi

Some of the authors should be familiar enough for us to know that they aren't taking the R. Taggart Murphy (below) point of view.

A solution for Futenma etc?

...the American public is turning more isolationist and unilateralist than it has at any time in decades, according to a new poll released Thursday.

The survey by the Pew Research Center found a plurality of Americans -- 49 percent -- think that the U.S. should "mind its own business internationally'' and leave it to other countries to fend for themselves.

It was the first time in more than 40 years of polling that the ranks of Americans with isolationist sentiment outnumbered those with a more international outlook...MiamiHerald

No, we don't wanna go as far as having the US, like, totally leave Japan (and South Korea and...) as its presence is vital to regional stability. Besides, even though PM Hatoyama has said that he wants Japan to have an equal relationship with the US, we don't mean so equal that Japan would have to provide for its own security to the extent that the US has to provide for its own.

Anyway, we know the US presence in Japan is vital 'cause everybody who is anybody has said so for decades and decades. Who would counterbalance the Soviet Union, oops! I mean North Korea, no, wait, it's Rising China this week...err, no, it's North Korea 'cause of the nukes, no, it's Rising China and the DPRK and also the bogeyman. Anyone who questions the US obligation to save the world from itself has to be some sort of naive leftwing loony, a minivan driving soccer mom or dad, a disillusioned vet, or a rightwing-wacko America firster. They might even be one of those rare few in today's US who might actually have to go fight in an overseas adventure.

Those darned stupid Americans.

18 Dec 09 James Fallows takes this poll as proof that 44% of Americans are crazy.

News Flash from Telegraph UK: US-Japan split threatened (???)

Incoming Tokyo Governments Threatens Split with US,
By Julian Ryall in Tokyo

A split is emerging between the United States and Japan over the new Tokyo government's anti-globalisation rhetoric and its threats to end a refueling agreement for US ships in support of the war in Afghanistan. Telegraph.co.uk

Mr. Ryall must know something that has been missed over the last 3 weeks since this story first came out. Unfortunately, that something is not mentioned in the story as the only thing new reported was that Hatoyama "repeated his intention to defy the US" on refueling and the contents fail to support the idiotically sensationalist headline.

Perhaps the threatened split is derived from what Makato Watanabe of Hokkaido Bunkyo University said in the article: "The US has been critical of new trends in Japan, but we are not a colony of Washington and we should be able to say what we want....[after reaffirming that the US-Japan relationship will remain most important, but that Japan will no longer be a yes man] ...this suggests to me that healthy change is taking place."

Oh my god! No longer a "yes-man". If this sort of thinking is a threat to the US-Japan relationship, then there was not much of one to begin with.

12 Sept: Joseph Nye's comments on the refueling and more are at the Japan Times.

You mean the government lies?

I don't know what all the fuss is about since the rest of the planet has known for decades about the US-Japan agreement to allow nukes to pass through Japan without prior consultation

Foreign Ministry bureaucrats ordered the destruction of copies of a 1960 secret nuclear agreement between Japan and the United States just before the information disclosure law took effect in 2001...

The Japanese government has continually denied the existence of the secret pact, but U.S. documents and statements from former U.S. and Japanese diplomats strongly suggest otherwise...Asahi Shimbun

Reischauer was involved when he was Ambassador to Japan: In Talks with Ambassador Reischauer, Japanese Foreign Minister Agrees to Lie about Nuclear Weapons.

Reischauer embarrassed a lot of people when he publicly disclosed the agreement in 1981. Only the Japanese government continues to officially deny history in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Denial of history despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Shockingly out of character---if a government can have character.

What you say?!!

Published in the NYT and it is not some sort of idiotic fantasy-world pap like some of the recent stuff has been. I'll have to read and reread this to make sure that I am not dreaming as it seems to make some sense. Not that it will make any difference...

...in view of the deepening quagmire in Japan’s domestic politics, U.S. policymakers may need to scale down their ambitions for the role they wish to assign Japan. More than 60 years after World War II, Japan is still generally isolated in the Asian region. It remains heavily dependent on the United States for its defense and the health of the U.S. economy for its growth — not a positive state of affairs for U.S. policymakers trying to cope with rising regional powers and economic difficulties of their own...

...mounting voter frustration in Japan with an unresponsive political system leaves the door ajar for nationalist politicians and policies...A must read at NYT

The authors go on to state that the 60-year old contingency scenario for Korea is no longer adequate and that perhaps the security relationship with Japan should be "multilaterized." Someone shut these guys up before they influence US policy to move past the 1950s. Fortunately though, US foreign policy does not change until change is forced.

Maybe I am just a bit too sensitive to the rants of the nationalists, but methinks the door is a little more than ajar already.

(Speaking of NYT nonsense, I have never been to Norway and know nothing about it, but I'll just bet that this is oversimplified goofiness.)

China? China who?

Old news, but old man Fukuda insists that the G8 not be expanded to include China or India:

...[Fukuda objected to any expansion]saying the G8 should remain a forum for a small number of states bearing a large responsibility for the international community.

Tokyo fears expanding the meeting would diminish Japan's clout on the world stage.

...adding China would make it impossible to discuss human rights issues and world currency issues related to the yuan, the official said. (Why? China would stubbornly refuse to address issues related to itself? They might have an opposing opinion and cause confusion? It's more effective to discuss China if China is not there?)

Yes, Japan's diminishing clout on the world stage is primarily due to things other than the decisions Japan makes.

Isn't this exclusion of China similar to the 1950s-1970s US when it did not recognize China as China, but Taiwan as China?