Japan Envisions a 3-Way Street

If Japan had a foreign policy even half the match of its economy, this would be something to behold. For, notwithstanding the nerve-shattering downturn in the yen, Tokyo remains incandescent: You drive through the streets of this kaleidoscopic powerhouse of a world capital feeling that you are near the center of planet Earth’s human-energy core. Bow your head to success.

But respect another, different reality: Japan, hobbled by a coalition government, not to mention its culture of caution, has yet to step up to its destiny as a major international player. This remains the nation of a thousand reasons for saying no to any foreign initiative that would put it on the line. Were there a Nobel Prize for diplomatic caution, Japan would retire the trophy.

Yukihiko Ikeda would never admit to that publicly, but I have to believe that the widely admired minister of foreign affairs must be frustrated by Japan’s often dormant diplomacy. Indeed, as I interviewed him at the glacially gray Foreign Ministry Friday, I envisioned Japan with its arms and legs pinned down inside a cocoon, struggling, with such an alert, fluttering sensibility as Ikeda’s, to spread its wings.

In fact, the previous weekend, Ikeda had been tending to his country’s business in the People’s Republic of China. Aides still had smiles on their faces because of China’s pointed avoidance of even a mention of their tense territorial dispute over what the Japanese call the Senkaku Islands. Determinedly chain-smoking one Carlton after another, Ikeda smiled, too, and allowed for the “steady improvement in the bilateral relationship,” but seemed to be searching for something more. Repeatedly emphasizing that neither Japan nor China alone can ensure Asia’s peace and prosperity--nor, he insisted, can Japan and Washington without China--this new triangle of power will need to triangulate over inevitably fearsome bumps on the road ahead. “It is indispensable,” he said, “for these three countries to maintain a favorable relationship and further develop this trilateral good relationship. On the part of China, they have been showing more eagerness--that is, a positive posture--to try to develop and expand a better relationship with the United States and Japan and become a fully involved member of the international community.”

Ikeda believes that a central task of statesmanship is to assure the sometimes paranoid Chinese that the world is not actually out to get them. So he took pains in Beijing to explain that the 1960 Japan-U.S. security pact was not just one continuing plot to contain China, despite the dramatic strengthening of this bilateral insurance policy in the rocky aftermath of Beijing’s missile-tipped tantrum over the Taiwan issue last year. “We mentioned to China that [the renegotiated pact] was not devised with China as a target in mind, but rather it serves as a kind of international public good for the stability of the region at large.” I don’t know whether Beijing’s leaders will buy that, but they couldn’t have helped but be pleased by Ikeda’s thought on the Taiwan unification issue: “I believe tension will not be caused from the Chinese side at this time,” he said. His eyes met mine when I referred to U.S. congressional posturing over Taiwan. Then he added: “If I started talking about this, I would have to refer to the remarks made by the men in the U.S. Congress. I would like to refrain from making any comments.”

I broached the latest taint on America’s image in Asia--last week’s alleged assault by a U.S. serviceman on a Japanese woman. Whether or not it occurred as charged, it only served to revive memories of the far worse incident last year involving the rape of a Japanese 12-year-old by three U.S. servicemen stationed in Okinawa. Ikeda passed up the opportunity to lecture, and instead pointed to his government’s current effort to extend the expiring lease on the U.S. base in Okinawa as evidence of an unswerving commitment to a continued U.S. troop presence in Japan. At the same time, Ikeda praised the current U.S. focus on the China relationship, even, he suggested, if it comes at the expense of some attention to Japan--as in Vice President Al Gore’s recent visit to Asia, in which he spent two days in China but a mere few hours in Japan.

Last week the influential Beijing Review implicitly endorsed the Ikeda view of the surpassing importance of the triangular relationship. As he put it to me, “It is not a zero-sum game where one becomes better and the other will deteriorate. . . . There will be a synergistic effect . . . and a plus-sum game.” I hope he is right. Northeast Asia, with, according to some estimates, about 25% more soldiers under arms than in all of NATO, is one big blowout ready to happen. Military budgets are up almost everywhere, not just in China. Since the end of World War II, geopolitical conflicts in Korea and Vietnam have cost more than 100,000 American lives. This is why a functional Japan-U.S.-China relationship is so important to even Anywheresville, USA. Japanese diplomacy is still a long way from blooming, but it is a consolation to have a closet internationalist like Ikeda at its helm, working as he is to free Japan from the cocoon.