Albright Soothes Japan’s Fears of U.S.-China Ties

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright went to extraordinary lengths Tuesday to ease Japanese concerns about the Clinton administration’s improving relations with China, emphasizing that the United States remains strongly committed to its alliance with Japan.

In June, President Clinton plans to make the most extensive visit to China ever by a U.S. president and the first since the Tiananmen Square crackdown of 1989. Despite some discreet lobbying from Tokyo, the White House has decided that the president will not stop in Japan or any other Asian country during the trip.

It was left to the secretary of State to reassure Japan that it will not be left behind in Clinton’s drive for a new normalization with Beijing. In a daylong stop here, the first of a six-day visit to Asia, Albright repeatedly pressed the themes that Japan is America’s closest partner and that the two nations share a belief in democracy.

The ties between the United States and Japan are “unique and lasting,” she said in a speech at Sophia University. “There are few issues vital to the region or globe on which we do not work together.”

She coupled this praise for Japan with some pointed new criticism of human rights abuses in China, which she will visit today. “While some Chinese dissidents have been released to exile in recent months, the Chinese government’s repression of dissent and religious freedom has not ceased,” Albright told her Japanese audience.

She added, however, that it is important to recognize that China is changing.

Japan’s unease about Clinton’s upcoming trip is rooted in history: The Japanese, with the world’s No. 2 economy and a postwar constitution that sharply curbs their military powers, have long worried about the ambitions of and any restiveness by their giant neighbor; the Chinese, who have seen their economy grow at an astronomic rate, have bitter memories of Japan’s militarism and its brutal wartime occupation.

When former President Nixon revealed in 1971 that his national security advisor, Henry A. Kissinger, had secretly visited Beijing, the announcement startled Japan, which had for years held back from dealing with China’s Communist regime for fear of offending Washington. Ever since, Japanese officials have fretted about another Nixon shokku, or “Nixon shock.”

Publicly, Japanese officials now say they realize that this administration’s dealings with Japan and China are not a zero-sum game, in which an improvement in U.S. ties with one of Asia’s two old rivals would represent a setback for the other.

The secretary of State made the same point Tuesday in her meetings with Japanese officials. An aide traveling with Albright said the officials did not voice to her directly any worries about Clinton’s decision to stop only in China in June.

Still, there have been signs of irritation over the unfolding Sino-American rapprochement.

One Japanese official asked recently why the administration was giving so much public credit to China for what it had not done during the Asian financial crisis--it didn’t devalue its currency--while giving less credit to the aid Japan has extended to Southeast Asia.

Seeking to assuage any hurt feelings in Tokyo, Albright stood Tuesday alongside Foreign Minister Keizo Obuchi and called Japan “America’s leading partner, friend and longtime ally.” The alliance between the United States and Japan, which includes a U.S. force in Japan of almost 50,000 troops, remains “the cornerstone of regional security,” she asserted.

Albright chose the occasion of her visit here to sign an updated version of the defense guidelines the administration worked out with Japan in 1996. They detail how American and Japanese armed forces would provide logistics support, services and supplies to one another in an emergency.

Over the past two years, the defense guidelines have been repeatedly attacked by Chinese officials, who sometimes complain that the United States and Japan are working together to contain China.

Thus, Albright’s reaffirmation of these guidelines represented another American gesture of reassurance toward Japan.

While Clinton will bypass Japan on his upcoming trip, he has already visited Tokyo twice as president--once in 1993 and again in 1996. He has never set foot in China. In late June and early July, he is expected to spend about 10 days there, stopping in Beijing, Shanghai and at least one other city. Clinton will also visit Hong Kong, over which China regained sovereignty last July.

Albright sought Tuesday to downplay the frictions that have arisen between the United States and Japan during the Asian financial crisis. She praised several times the $128-billion economic package announced by the Japanese government last week to spur domestic demand and keep Japan out of recession.

But she made clear that the administration would like Tokyo to take further steps to encourage economic growth. “We [the United States] are selling to the world, but we are also buying the exports that will lead this region back to prosperity and growth,” she said in her speech. “That is what we ask of Japan.”