Japan’s ‘Best Friend’ Needs the Agility to Accord Respect and Allow for Change

Washington would like the world to read its lips. “The best friend of Japan is the United States,” Secretary of State Colin Powell told the visiting Japanese foreign minister recently. The same message will, no doubt, be conveyed to Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi when he meets President Bush at Camp David on Saturday.

Newly appointed in April, Koizumi enjoys the highest ratings of any postwar Japanese prime minister (over 80%) and is a strong advocate of political and economic change. Americans welcome him for his language (he talks “deregulation” and “debt reduction”), looks (colorful suits, free-flowing coif) and actions (quick on his feet, innovative; he has even launched a new E-magazine).

What should we expect on this, the 50th anniversary of the security alliance between the U.S. and Japan? The Bush administration is eager to meet Japan’s new champion of reform and, after the unfortunate distraction of the Chinese downing of a U.S. plane over Hainan island, to refocus American attention in Asia.

But what does it mean to be Japan’s “best friend”? Koizumi and his countrymen are grappling with a serious problem. It is not economic decline or political turmoil. These things the Japanese can, with effort, control. What they cannot command, however, is U.S. respect. Political and economic distress have troubled Tokyo over the past decade. But U.S. unilateralism has plagued Japan since Commodore Matthew Perry demanded commercial intercourse at gunpoint in 1853.

The most egregious symbol of U.S. unilateralism today is the U.S.-Japan security alliance, for it reflects the lopsided character of the military occupation under which it was conceived. Begun for the “defense of Japan,” it justifies 47,000 American military personnel in Japan, who are regularly deployed elsewhere (including the Persian Gulf) according to U.S. strategic priorities. It sanctions the largest number of U.S. military bases on the soil of any U.S. ally, many in prime urban, agricultural or coastal areas off limits to local or national legal jurisdiction. It comes at enormous Japanese expense--more than $2 billion annually and the highest incidence of sexual assault of all American military installations abroad.

When Koizumi comes to Washington, then, he will bring much more than promises of reform. He will convey the general Japanese hope for change in U.S.-Japanese relations. That hope reaches far beyond the island of Okinawa. Japan seeks U.S. respect for a Japanese voice in national and regional security.

Don’t be surprised if that voice is different from our own. For example, Japan has long considered Taiwan an “internal” Chinese problem. And Koizumi recently raised doubts about American proposals for national missile defense. Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka asked Powell to consider shifting Marine Corps exercises on Okinawa elsewhere. Such direct comments reflect a gathering political momentum generated in part by economic instability and political turmoil, but mostly by resentment against half a century of overwhelming American influence in Japanese domestic and foreign affairs.

In briefing Japanese reporters after her Washington visit, Tanaka made no mention of the United States as Japan’s “best friend.” She stressed, rather, Powell’s pledge to “reduce the burden [of U.S. forces] on Japan to the lowest level.” Tokyo values continued cooperation with the U.S. in regional security. But it would like to welcome U.S. forces on its territory on its own terms.

Washington should take advantage of the ruling party’s current inclination for gradual change. Failure to do so will increase the political momentum in Japan for more drastic measures and threaten an implosion of the alliance. That would be a tragic end to a half-century of mutually beneficial ties.