Author: Norifumi Namatame, ANU
After North Korea tested its Taepodong I missile in 1998 over Japanese airspace, Japan made the decision to develop its ballistic missile defence (BMD) system in cooperation with the US.
The system comprises a mid-course phase (upper-tier) Standard Missile 3 Bloc IA system loaded onto four Aegis ships, and a 16-unit terminal phase (lower-tier) Patriot PAC-3 defence system, which has been deployed to four sites on Japanese soil. Read more…
Author: Tobias Harris, MIT
The Eurasia Group’s Ian Bremmer has an op-ed in the IHT in which he argues that despite widespread pessimism among Japanese regarding their country’s future, things may not be so bad. He suggests that the DPJ may well be learning to get along with business elites and bureaucrats, Japan and the US may be rebuilding their relationship after a remarkably bad year for the alliance, and, finally, the Japanese people have not taken to the streets in opposition to their government.
The first two arguments are more or less acceptable, although there is little to praise in how the Kan government prevaricated and ultimately failed to lead on the issue. Read more…
Author: Yoichi Funabashi, Asahi Shimbun
This month the Asia-Pacific region takes center stage in global diplomacy.
A Group of 20 summit meeting is being held in Seoul, followed by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum summit meeting in Yokohama.
U.S. President Barack Obama is also scheduled to visit India, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan in November.
A number of pressing issues will need to be tackled at those forums. Delegates must figure out whether a new international order can be created that would move from the framework established after World War II in which the Group of Seven advanced economies managed the world economy, to one that includes newly emerging economies such as China, India, Brazil, Turkey and South Africa. Read more…
Author: Aurelia George Mulgan, ADFA@UNSW
Japan’s new DPJ government initially set out to rebalance Japan’s relations between the United States and Asia by emphasising a more independent Asia-oriented diplomacy with an East Asian Community as the centrepiece.
Japanese rhetoric about the alliance has also changed: There was more talk of an ‘equal’ alliance and a security stance ‘equidistant’ between the United States and China. Read more…
Author: Sourabh Gupta, Samuels International
In the inflamed commentary that has followed the Chinese skipper’s collision with Japanese coast guard vessels in the East China Sea, there has perhaps been no more flawed a characterisation than portrayal of the incident exclusively through the lens of territoriality. In fact, considering the location of the clash — in coastal waters abutting the disputed Senkaku Islands — and the prior existence of mutually agreed disciplines (Sino-Japanese Fisheries Agreement of 1997) that seek to functionally quarantine Senkaku-related bilateral fisheries disputes from the charged accompanying issue of territorial title, portrayals of the incident have ranged from the naïve to the disingenuous.
This failure of analysis has not been limited exclusively to Western observers. Read more…
Author: David Envall, ANU
‘To lose one decade may be a misfortune…’ ran a recent article in The Economist, the unstated quip being that the next one was lost due to carelessness. Another ‘lost decade’ would further justify such dark humour and would also present the Asian region with a significant security challenge.
Japan’s economic decline is well established. That country’s stock market, which was just below 40,000 points in 1989, finished 2009 at just over 10,500. Read more…
Author: Amy King, Oxford
In its 50th year, the US-Japan Security Treaty has come under scrutiny in Washington and Tokyo.
Calls by former Japanese Prime Minister Hatoyama for a more equal place for Japan within the alliance, and the Hatoyama government’s fumbling over the Futenma base relocation, have caused tension in the bilateral relationship. At the same time, Hatoyama increased the rhetoric about building a more cooperative relationship with China, and is leading the charge for a stronger ‘East Asian Community’, which potentially excludes the United States. Read more…
Author: Tobias Harris, MIT
In the wake of its defeat the Kan government has made it patently clear that the Hatoyama government’s ‘ratification’ of the 2006 realignment plan was nothing of the sort — it is now saying that it will be impossible to complete negotiations before Okinawan gubernatorial election in November. The government once again is considering alternatives to the V-shaped runways to be built at Henoko bay, and is reluctant to impose a solution on the Okinawan people.
But, as the Wall Street Journal reports, American domestic politics is emerging as a new constraint on implementing the 2006 agreement. Both houses of Congress have voted to cut funding for the construction on Guam that is necessary to prepare the island to receive the 8,000 Marines and their dependants that according to the plan will move from Okinawa to Guam in 2014. Read more…
Author: Tobias Harris
Prime Minister Kan Naoto had his debut on the world stage at the G20 meeting in Toronto this week. While in Toronto he had his first meeting with US President Barack Obama.
As Reuters notes, Kan met with Obama for a half-hour, considerably more time than Hatoyama got when he visited Washington in April (when Hatoyama was infamously described as ‘loopy’). The two leaders apparently discussed their shared love of matcha ice cream, and the Japanese media looked for signs that the two were becoming pals, looking for evidence that the relationship between the US and Japan was back on track after the Hatoyama government ‘strained’ the bilateral relationship. Read more…
Author: Yoichi Funabashi, Asahi Shumbun
In hindsight, the April 12 conversation between outgoing Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and US President Barack Obama was a watershed.
Seated beside each other at a dinner held during the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, the two leaders talked for about 10 minutes mainly about relocating the US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma. Obama told Hatoyama he had not made any public comments until then because Hatoyama had said, ‘Trust me,’ when the two met last November. Read more…
Author: Tobias Harris, MIT
It may have taken a few months longer than I expected, but it appears that the Hatoyama government may have finally accommodated itself to the 2006 agreement on the realignment of US forces. The US and Japanese governments have reached an understanding regarding the future of Futenma following Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Tokyo.
The latest bilateral agreement largely reaffirms the 2006 roadmap: the Hatoyama government has agreed to the construction of a new runway somewhere in the vicinity of Camp Schwab at Henoko Bay, with the details regarding the precise location and the method of construction to be decided by President Obama’s visit to Japan in autumn. Read more…
Author: John Hemmings, RUSI
East Asia is dominated by the security triangle between the US, Japan and China. The US-Japan Alliance has greater aggregated economic and military might, but has been relatively static in recent years. Simultaneously, Chinese economic and military power is growing exponentially. In this context, growing Sino-Japanese political ties seem to indicate that Japan is considering its options.
Is a realignment in the security triangle taking place or are these developments merely cosmetic? Read more…
Author: Tobias Harris, MIT
Writing on the nuclear summit, Al Kamen, who pens a Beltway gossip column in the Washington Post, had the following to say about Japanese Prime Minister Hatoyama:
By far the biggest loser of the extravaganza was the hapless and (in the opinion of some Obama administration officials) increasingly loopy Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. He reportedly requested but got no bilat. The only consolation prize was that he got an ‘unofficial’ meeting during Monday night’s working dinner. Maybe somewhere between the main course and dessert? Read more…
Author: Tobias Harris, MIT
Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio returned home to Japan Wednesday after attending the Nuclear summit in Washington hosted by US President Barack Obama. Whatever significance the summit had for Obama’s diplomatic agenda, as far as US-Japan relations are concerned it was overshadowed by Futenma. Hatoyama’s self-imposed deadline of resolving the dispute by May is approaching, and there are few signs that his government will be able to reach a conclusion that satisfies the US and local communities in Okinawa by the end of next month. Indeed, on the eve of Hatoyama’s trip the government announced that it would be holding off on opening working-level talks with the US because it did not yet have a plan to present.
It is safe to say in terms of the process, the Hatoyama government’s approach to Futenma has failed. What explains the Hatoyama government’s disastrous performance on the Futenma issue? Read more…
