HOW TO SAVE THE U.S.-JAPAN ALLIANCE
http://www.heritage.org/Research/AsiaandthePacific/bg2308.cfm
By Bruce Klingner, Asian Studies Center, The Heritage Foundation
Reviewed by John Sylvester

Over several decades, United States policy towards Japan has been remarkably uncontroversial and consistent. With the advent of a new administration, however, every self-respecting Japan expert feels the need to give the newcomers his advice, as has Mr. Klingner in this thoughtful article. Though “the U.S.-Japan alliance remains crucial,” he describes it as “underperforming” and identifies steps that both countries’ leaders should take.

An immediate problem is that the new administration in Washington must now deal with Japan’s Democratic Party, an odd mixture of dissident conservatives and former Socialists, who have taken the helm in Tokyo. It came into office calling for more populist policies, including less dependence on ties with the U.S. -- notions from which it may have to back peddle hard as it faces the realities of a truculent North Korea and a more powerful, self-confident China.

The Japanese public, still shy of its military after the debacle of World War II, does not support an active security policy abroad. “Japan is a powerful nation that punches below its weight and exerts little international influence,” Klingner observes.  “Rather than implementing a strategic policy, Japan has followed a minimalist, cost-effective, and reactive approach designed to derive maximum security and economic benefits from its alliance with the U.S while providing the minimal necessary reciprocal gestures.”

The Japanese public seems to view resident U.S. forces as their Gurkhas, for whom they pay high costs for base maintenance in return for enabling their own competent Self Defense Forces to avoid anything dangerous. Japan is a “good” nation, causing few problems and favoring all good causes, but it is only partially a “responsible” nation. While generous with foreign aid, only grudgingly does it take responsibility for what occurs outside its own borders.

Klingner’s article deserves to be in the in-basket of East Asian policy officials of a new U.S. administration otherwise unsympathetic to Heritage Foundation views. The problems in getting Klingner’s good advice accepted will lie, however, more with the new Japanese government.