The first issue relates to the future of US global leadership. The world is watching the US presidential election closely for signs of the foreign policy path the next US president will take. While it is still a long road to the White House, the kind of divisive, and at times xenophobic, debate we have seen so far is damaging to the long-term credibility of US global leadership.
Continued US leadership is critical to maintain and strengthen liberal and free-market values as well as the stability and prosperity of East Asia. The United States, East Asia and the world need a US president with the stomach for strong global leadership based on deep cooperation and consultation with US allies and partners, rather than one who advocates unilateralist or isolationist thinking.
The second is mega-regional trade agreements including the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal reached in October 2015. In light of China’s efforts to launch the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, roll out the One Belt, One Road initiative and reach a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership with the ASEAN+6 nations, the TPP is critical to the future credibility of US regional leadership. The TPP is not simply a vehicle to facilitate increased trade, but a means to shape 21st-century rules for economic governance and to promote and entrench liberal free-market principles in Asia Pacific.
Indonesia’s decision in September 2015 to choose China over Japan to build a high-speed train line between Jakarta and Bandung is illustrative of what is at stake. The US$5.5 billion Chinese proposal was attractive given that it required neither financing nor a loan guarantee from the Indonesian government. But many questions remain regarding the transparency of the proposal and the ability of China to meet international standards, including on labour and environmental regulations.
It is thus critical that the United States, Japan and the broader international community engage with Chinese-led economic initiatives to help steer China toward a greater embrace of international best practices. The TPP has an open-accession clause to create a clear and transparent process through which other countries — including China, Indonesia and South Korea — can join in the future. The United States and Japan should actively promote the expansion of TPP membership, especially to these countries.
Third is the need to demilitarise the South China Sea. The construction of artificial landfill islands by China in the South China Sea has set back efforts to peacefully negotiate a diplomatic resolution to existing territorial disputes. The potential for the future construction on the artificial islands, as well as high-profile attempts by the People’s Liberation Army Navy to enforce no-fly zones, risks further militarising the South China Sea.
Further military build-up in the South China Sea will undoubtedly feed regional tensions and increase the risk of accidental conflict. Until a diplomatic resolution can be peacefully negotiated between China and the ASEAN countries, it is vital that all parties be alert to China’s incremental changes. At the same time, the United States and Japan must coordinate and cooperate to persuade China that freedom of navigation, in what is a vital sea route for international commerce and the energy security of East Asia, is in the shared interest of all.
The fourth challenge is that of North Korea. On 6 January 2016, North Korea tested a nuclear device for the fourth time — the second under Kim Jong-un’s leadership. This time, the international community must go beyond business-as-usual measures to deal with the North Korean nuclear program.
In order to truly alter North Korea’s behaviour, economic sanctions, including financial sanctions, will need to be strengthened. Beijing has a big role to play. Irrespective of its apparent change in attitude after the third North Korean nuclear test in 2013, China has continued to provide substantive assistance to North Korea. For any form of sanctions to be effective, though, the international community as a whole, including China and Russia, must fully back them.
South Korea, Japan and the United States must deepen cooperation and adopt a unified approach on sanctions policy as well as on joint contingency planning. The three nations also need to consult with China and Russia to form a united front to apply greater pressure on North Korea. An immediate restart of the denuclearisation process under the Six-Party Talks may be difficult, but without the right measures to pressure and isolate North Korea, nothing will be achieved.
Fifth, the United States and Japan should also coordinate their Russia policies. Since Vladimir Putin and Shinzo Abe both returned to power in 2012, the two leaders have shown a willingness to deal with the issue of the Northern Territories (referred to as the Southern Kuril Islands in Russia). But then Russia annexed Crimea in March 2014 and plans were put on hold.
Since then, Japan has stuck to its international obligations and imposed sanctions against Russia. But, if it appears that an acceptable agreement can be reached on the Northern Territories, an issue that has blocked the normalisation of Japan–Russia relations since the end of World War II, Japan will have no choice but to seize the opportunity. It is important that the United States and Japan maintain very close coordination and not allow Russia to utilise the Northern Territories issue to drive a wedge between them. They must also make clear to Russia that any Russo–Japanese cooperation to resolve the Northern Territories dispute will not translate into an acceptance of the annexation of Crimea.
The final key issue facing the US and Japan is that of US military bases in Okinawa. The battle between the Okinawa prefectural government and the Japanese central government regarding the relocation of the US Marine Corps Futenma Air Station has reached something of an impasse. While the United States might be happy to leave this to the Japanese government to deal with, ultimately the United States will also have to suffer the consequences of Okinawa’s local opposition.
Deep US–Japan consultations must continue, which should be conducted as part of regularised reviews of the US forward deployment structure and how it relates to US–Japan alliance goals. While a continued US forward deployment presence in Okinawa is critical, if the situation is not handled with due sensitivity for local Okinawan concerns, base protests will continue to be a thorn in the side of alliance relations.
The overall US forward deployment posture in East Asia should be evaluated in light of advances in new military technologies and the need to respond to regional security challenges in a dynamic way. A more evenly rotated distribution of US soldiers across the region would not only help reduce the burden on Okinawa over the long term, but also be strategically desirable in responding to a range of new threats.
The choices made now about how to deal with these six challenges will go a long way toward determining the future regional order. With deep and regularised consultations across all aspects of the alliance — including on security, economic, and diplomatic strategy — not only can the United States and Japan deepen the foundation of their cooperation, but they can also more effectively work together with China to steer its rise in a mutually beneficial direction.
Hitoshi Tanaka is a senior fellow at the Japan Center for International Exchange and chairman of the Institute for International Strategy at the Japan Research Institute, Ltd. He previously served as Japan’s deputy minister for foreign affairs.
This article is an extract from East Asia Insights Vol. 11 No. 1 February 2016, which is available in full here, and is reprinted with the kind permission of JCIE.
Thanks for a comprehensive and thoughtful analysis. While I agree with the overall thrust of the points made, I think some qualifying comments can be made.
First, the TPP may well offer many opportunities to the participants and future possible members as well as a counterbalance to China’s economic and trade initiatives. But trade pacts like these can also have negative consequences for local agricultural and other small businesses. Witness the problems that NAFTA created for farmers in Southern Mexico, for example. About 5000,000 farmers were forced out of business and ended up immigrating to the USA.
Second, Russo Japanese dialogue and possibly a peace settlement is certainly a good goal to strive for. But it is naive to even hope, let alone to expect, that Russia will give up even part of the Kurile Islands. With his dreams of a great Russia Putin will never do that!
Third, the struggles with locals in Okinawa over the base relocation are certainly important. Perhaps Obama and Abe might be convinced not to relocate but to shut down the base if the Philippines were to accept more US soldiers and planes on its territory? That would actually put the US military even closer to the South China Sea and relieve some of the pressure regarding Okinawa at the same time. That would be an interesting quiet discussion for Obama, Abe, and Aquino to have at the current ASEAN meeting, wouldn’t it?
Finally, North Korea clearly presents a vexing set of challenges. How much can/will China really alter Kim’s course of action? He seems determined to pursue nuclear weapons, etc no matter what China might do. China fears the collapse of the DPRK so much that I doubt it will join in wholeheartedly with sanctions.
It is, at best, an incomplete analysis of the current challenges for US-Japan cooperation in Asia as the author misses quite a few important issues:
1 The Fukushima nuclear meltdown is not fixed. The Tepco plants are pouring 300 tons of cesium137 and strontium90 contaminated water into the Pacific Ocean daily and will eventually kill ALL marine life there, right up to the West Coast of North America.
It is so bad that Mr Mitsuhei Murata, the former Japanese Ambassador to Switzerland, had written a letter to the IOC President to appeal to him to cancel the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2015/11/04/voices/time-come-honorable-retreat-tokyo-2020-fukushima/#.VsSSvUArfDc
2 “The TPP is not simply a vehicle to facilitate increased trade,…”
The Pacific Ocean is dying because of Fukushima and while the US is pivoting to the Asia Pacific, China is pivoting to Russia, Germany, UK, EU, Iran, ME, Africa and Eurasia, which will usher in the New Economic Renaissance in the future. The TPP will then be called the Tran Pacific Paradox.
3 “to help steer China toward a greater embrace of international best practices.”
By the same virtue, the international best practices also call for Japan to abide by Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution, (written by US General MacArthur to prevent Japan from going to war again), and Japan must not reinterpret it (as done by the Abe Cabinet) or amend it, as proposed by Abe.
4 “Third is the need to demilitarise the South China Sea.”
Japan needs to come clean and remind itself sincerely and the world that under the Sino-Japanese ‘Treaty of Peace’ signed on 28 April 1952, Japan already returned the Spratly and Paracel islands back to China, under the terms of the Potsdam Declaration and stop interfering in China’s sovereignty in the South China Sea.
China has a right to reclaim islands within her EEZ if Japan could reclaim the Okinotori Atoll, even though it was rejected by the U.N. Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS) and the US turned a blind eye as Japan is an ally, though a bitter enemy in WW2.
https://blog.hiddenharmonies.org/2012/05/18/japans-claim-to-okinotori-atoll-as-island-rejected-by-the-u-n/
5 There is no restriction of Freedom of Navigation in the SCS, as the bulk of the seaborne cargoes go to and from Chinese ports. Under the One Belt One Road projects, China will launch the multi-billion dollar Maritime Silk Road and a prerequisite is FON.
6 The only military activities were the US Navy sailing warships to harass China in the SCS. The US also flew a B52 nuclear bomber over Chinese islands.
That can only lead to miscalculations and to another senseless Pacific War, which could go nuclear from the start and that is MAD or Mutual Assured Destruction. Peace is a better option for all the people in Asia.
“Continued US leadership is critical to maintain and strengthen liberal and free-market values as well as the stability and prosperity of East Asia. The United States, East Asia and the world need a US president with the stomach for strong global leadership based on deep cooperation and consultation with US allies and partners, rather than one who advocates unilateralist or isolationist thinking.
What isolationist thinking, and liberal free market system by the USA? The USA government has supported a conservative, unregulated capitalist globalization free market system for the last 36 years particularly in the 8 years under George Bush, Jr., and look what happen in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2008 to places like Japan, South Korea, Iceland, and the USA?
The second is mega-regional trade agreements including the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) deal reached in October 2015. In light of China’s efforts to launch the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, roll out the One Belt, One Road initiative and reach a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership with the ASEAN+6 nations, the TPP is critical to the future credibility of US regional leadership. The TPP is not simply a vehicle to facilitate increased trade, but a means to shape 21st-century rules for economic governance and to promote and entrench liberal free-market principles in Asia Pacific”
Again, the only people that will benefit from the TTP are the corporations and the wealthy people. This is a conservative free market system. If the agreement was liberal, you would have job protections for the workers in the various countries particularly for American workers. We all know what NAFTA did for the American workers.