Heed the Japanese Warnings

The next time President Clinton goes to Japan--whether it’s later this week or next year--he should chuck out the window of Air Force One those dreary briefing papers and dip into a riveting essay on tortured U.S.-Japan relations. It’s by Japanese political journalist Yoichi Funabashi, who in the current Foreign Affairs writes about “Tokyo’s Depression Diplomacy.” One of the most important Asia-Pacific analyses of the year, it’s an anguished plea by a respected analyst and a Japanese patriot (who is anything but anti-American) for Washington and Tokyo to realize the collision course they’re on.

Funabashi’s thesis is that Japan may be entering a critical phase in relations with the U.S. “Economic and financial failure,” he writes, “have exacerbated Japanese insecurity at a time when it must confront a complex of foreign policy concerns.” Japan’s chief worries include Asia’s economic meltdown, Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests, China’s emergence as a great power and uncertainty over the U.S.-Japan alliance. He warns: “Japan, historically disposed to a sense of strategic exposure, is again feeling vulnerable about its place in the world.”

The Japanese are suddenly distrustful of U.S. policy, which seems to want to tilt toward China. Funabashi applauds U.S. efforts to engage China, but not China’s motives, which he believes are manipulative, and its goals, which he worries are supremacist. He writes: “The perception that Japan and China are trading places in Asia has started to spread. Tokyo feels used and abused by Washington. China barely conceals its desire to weaken the U.S.-Japan bilateral relationship. The most problematic factor for Japan’s political leaders is that Bill Clinton did not affirm, in his summertime talks with Chinese President Jiang Zemin, the stabilizing importance of the U.S.-Japan alliance in Asia.”

Funabashi is right to say Washington is kidding itself to believe it can continually complain about Japan’s economic failures without playing into the hands of anti-American elements ready to dump the military alliance in a snap. “It is cruelly ironic that U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin is busy extolling the virtues of China’s state-directed economy without a fully convertible currency while lambasting Japan as an economic miscreant,” he writes, with bitterness. Rubin’s critical fusillades, while making technically correct points, have reinforced the near-eternal impression of America the arrogant, scapegoating Asians. This is surely the last thing Rubin intended.

In truth, Rubin’s rockets are scarcely the whole problem: Japan can’t blame everything on him any more than Rubin should blame everything on Japan. Even as it is a major economic power, Japan struggles with being held to second-rate status on the world stage. In June, when the five established nuclear powers (and permanent U.N. Security Council members) met in Geneva in response to India’s and Pakistan’s shocking nuclear tests, Japan’s sincere request to sit in and pitch in was put aside.

Tokyo might wonder whether testing nuclear weapons is, as India has evidently concluded, the only way to get respect these days. Says a sympathetic Stanley Roth, U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific Affairs: “The Japanese are understandably frustrated at not being at the meetings.” It could be that they won’t make the top table very often if Beijing has its way. Admits Roth, reflecting on the Clinton-Jiang summer summit: “When President Clinton raised the issue of a triangular dialogue between Washington, Beijing and Tokyo, the Chinese were very leery.” But an isolated Japan is in no one’s interest, including China’s. This is why concerned Japanese officials are counting on new Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan, a Japan expert, to broaden China’s perspective and develop a better working relationship with Tokyo.

Until then, Clinton needs to worry at least as much about Japan as he does about China. For starters, he should order a suspension of official criticism of Japan for its slowness to reform its economy and stimulate consumer demand. Washington has made this point over and over again. Now Japan is acting, and some U.S. restraint is called for. The largest economic stimulus plan in Japan’s eight years of stagnation has just been announced by Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi. And a new $10-billion aid program for hard hit Asia, led by Washington and Tokyo, was announced Monday by Vice President Al Gore.

It’s good to see Tokyo and Washington working together instead of shouting at each other. In this spirit, when the president is in Tokyo, he needs to make the point, publicly and repeatedly, that America’s relationship with Japan is as vital as its ties to Britain or any other ally. He could even graciously note that Japan houses more U.S. forces than anyone else, including Korea, Italy or Britain.

Fortunately, with the absurd and debilitating impeachment crisis waning by the day, the president should be able to focus on Japan’s problems and, in his intuitive way, reflect an appreciation of Japanese sensibilities. Insightful not only analytically but also psychologically, he is one of the few in Washington who can lift U.S.-Japan relations out of their current doldrums. If only he were to put his mind to it--and read his Funabashi.