Japan’s Fundamental Shift, an Inch at a Time

Luck and character can conspire to make a winner. Last August, China’s pal North Korea unaccountably lofted a test missile over Japan’s head, which did more to rekindle Japanese affection for the U.S. security umbrella than anything short of outright invasion. “That,” says Yoichi Funabashi, the widely respected diplomatic columnist for the Asahi Shimbun, a top Japanese newspaper, “was like Japan’s Sputnik shot”--a national wake-up call. It made Japan more accepting of Keizo Obuchi, a plain-vanilla politician who had been named prime minister just weeks before. It also made the case that fundamental shifts may be occurring in East Asia that traditional diplomacy cannot handle.

This week, Obuchi brought his low-key style to a U.S. visit, and came up roses. President Clinton, at a press conference Monday with Obuchi, pointedly praised Japan for its economic reforms, though he also urged our strategic ally and economic competitor to stay with reforms aimed at opening markets and stimulating the economy.

Neither Clinton nor anyone else, especially in Japan, is under any illusion about Obuchi, who’s no Japanese version of a give-’em-hell Harry Truman. This ultra-cautious career politician leads not to be followed, but follows in order to lead. His quiet style seems to fit Japan rather well; this shy prime minister, riding a tide of compelling challenges and steadily improving domestic poll ratings, seems to be sniffing out the emerging Japanese consensus for reform like a patient hunting dog. Grouses Funabashi, “Obuchi is frighteningly common. But people are comfortable with him. He doesn’t intimidate. Obuchi will probably last two more years.” That, amazingly, would have him in office longer than any other Japanese prime minister this decade.

Obuchi’s government is a patchwork coalition, nothing new. Japan, notoriously, has been a place that could seem to say no to every foreign (or, for that matter, domestic) reform idea. But under Obuchi, a start has been made to clean out ossified, politically connected banks. And lately Tokyo is trying not to be so negative; to say yes to at least some measures of economic deregulation and market opening, yes to some new consumer laws, yes to accepting more foreign investment--something that until recently seemed almost a violation of moral law. And at some point Washington will come to realize and appreciate that Obuchi is probably more instinctively pro-American than anyone at the top of today’s Tokyo heap. Consider the sensitive issue of U.S.-Japan security cooperation: Obuchi is on the verge of getting Japan’s balky parliament to swallow new, less restrictive U.S. cooperation guidelines that could raise Japan’s military profile in Asia, as an adjunct to U.S. power.

It is still scarcely conceivable, in the event of a crisis in Asia, that a Japanese prime minister would give the U.S. anything like the level of support that Britain’s Tony Blair has provided over Kosovo. Recall that the U.S. public recoiled when Japan refused to do much more than write a check for the U.S. cause in the Persian Gulf--a region that supplies far more oil to Japan than to the U.S. Were U.S. forces to be fighting in Asia, could Obuchi, pro-Yank though he may be, escape constitutional restrictions and the pacifist postwar culture and allow the Americans to use Japan as a forward supply base for troops and equipment? Hard to imagine in the past; but run that scenario today by a senior Japanese official accompanying the prime minister, as I did last week, and you get this astonishing, direct reply: “It’s an absolute; you can count on it. We would be absolutely on board.” When that tidbit was passed on to Asia expert Rachel Swanger, acting director of Rand’s Center for Asia-Pacific Policy, she responded: “That could be a significant shift.”

To be sure, a chief goal of the Obuchi mission to the United States this week was to achieve a better public relations showing for Japan’s premier than did China’s Premier Zhu Rongji last month when he visited the states. Diplomacy is no simple Ping-Pong game, of course, but clearly the Japanese have won this matchup, even with a prime minister once compared in excitement level to “cold pizza.” Zhu’s personal brilliance could not overcome the anti-China sentiment growing in the U.S. Congress.

Beijing needs to note well this tale of two high-level state visits. Its flamboyant, one-on-one diplomacy with Washington only makes sense when Tokyo’s own diplomacy is insular and inept, which, until relatively recently, has been too much the case. Obuchi, the former foreign minister, looks to do things somewhat differently. That possibility alone ought to shake up Beijing and compel it to reexamine its current emphasis on a brand of bilateral diplomacy that tilts toward Washington, sometimes pointedly at Tokyo’s expense. And Washington, with its frequent Japan-bashing, also sometimes behaves as if it can best move forward in Asia by leaving Japan out. Both strategies are misconceived. For starters, Beijing and Washington should add a slice of cold pizza to their diplomatic fare. There’s something to be said for the slow-but-steady Obuchi style.