Japan’s Wish: Diplomatic Peace and Quiet

As a nation that has offered the world a diplomatic revolving door, with seven prime ministers in the last eight years, Japan should hardly laugh at America for the sorry impeachment spectacle in Washington. Still, it’s nearly impossible for the Japanese to believe that much good can come out of Clinton’s calamity. What they do believe, though, is that they, too, have a stake in the outcome.

For Japan, which lost nothing less than a world war to the United States and then saw America lift it back on its feet, the U.S. makes for its most important bilateral relationship. But this year has been rocky on that score. In addition to lingering bitterness over the U.S. president’s long-planned, well-publicized, nine-day summertime sojourn to China, which dwarfed his hastily arranged two-day visit to Japan months later, Tokyo resents Washington’s public criticisms of its policies. Still, Japan’s leaders tend to regard Clinton himself as more personally and intellectually sympathetic to Japan than almost anyone else in his government. So, with both U.S.-Japan relations and Clinton’s presidency at a critical juncture, I called on Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura, Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi’s alter ego in many respects, for a candid assessment of the U.S.-Japan relationship.

As a seasoned diplomat, Komura wouldn’t touch America’s impeachment controversy with a 10-foot kendo sword. But if Clinton survives, the Japanese leadership plainly hopes that the president, who impresses Japanese as the rare American who actually listens to them, will instruct his aides to treat Japan as something more than a transoceanic punching bag. Komura’s concern is that Washington’s policy of public lecturing on economic policies not only unintentionally complicates Japan’s economic reform but may even slow it down. “In many cases,” he says, “it may make it more difficult for us to put policies into practice. We have to explain to our people additionally the reasons why we are taking that new policy and that we are not taking that policy because of pressure from the U.S.”

There’s another outside pressure problem that concerns Komura. This is the never-ending, World War II apology controversy: The unrelenting pressure, particularly from Asian politicians, for apologies for past wartime brutality. Precisely because Komura believes the matter is being seriously mishandled in Asia, he inferentially praises the diplomatic style of Kim Dae Jung, the South Korean president. He promised an abrupt end to Korean “apology diplomacy” if Japan unequivocally said it was truly sorry in the final communique capping his October visit to Tokyo. When the Japanese snapped the offer up, Korea got its first complete and formal apology. Explains Komura: “The Japanese culture is one in which we can drain events from the past as if draining water and then forget. This is also the case when both the offender and the victim are Japanese.” Komura adds: “After an apology is made and that deed is forgiven, and when the two parties shake hands, the two parties will no longer touch upon that issue thereafter. But the offender will always continue to have a sense of remorse.”

In stark contrast to Korea’s Kim, Japan’s leadership and much of its public believes that China’s President Jiang Zemin overdid the “apology diplomacy” during his state visit to Japan last month. Says Komura: “Hardly anybody in Japan feels that it was a good idea that Japanese forces went into China. It was Japan that was at fault. But even those many Japanese who feel that way also have a sense that even in that case, do they have to apologize and apologize and apologize every time they meet someone from another Asian country?” The goal of Chinese diplomacy, the Japanese absolutely believe, is to drive a wedge between Tokyo and Washington, in part by reminding the latter in all manner of ways that just half a century ago they were at each other’s throats.

In reply, Japanese diplomacy seeks to make sure Washington knows who its true friends are. An international crisis provides just that opportunity. Late last week, when the U.S. and Britain commenced the bombing of Baghdad, China immediately protested. But not Japan. Despite criticism in leading newspapers such as Asahi Shimbun and the Japan Times, the government publicly justified and supported Clinton’s action. Tokyo is only too happy to make the point that when the chips are down, it’s not China that Washington can count on, but long-time ally Japan.