Newsweek 21st September
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-207955148.html
There’s more to Japan’s new first couple than meet the eye. The prime minister’s wife, Miyuki Hatoyama, claims to have befriended Tom Cruise in a previous life when he was, apparently, Japanese. Meanwhile the prime minister himself has been behaving like the re-incarnation of a French intellectual.
The evidence is an article titled “A New Road for Japan” that Yukihiro Hatoyama contributed to a Japanese magazine just before the recent election. In terms that would be familiar to any Gauloise-puffing black turtleneck-wearing denizen of Paris’ left bank, the future prime minister lambasts “US-led globalization.”
Hatoyama warns that under “immoral” financial capitalism human dignity has been lost and people turned into accounting entries. But there is good news too. The era of US unilateralism is coming to an end “as a result of the failure of the Iraq war and the financial crisis.”
Referencing the construction of the EU, Hatoyama proposes the creation of an Asian political bloc, built around a single currency for the region. Domestically he recommends “a politics of fraternity” to protect Japanese citizens from “the winds of market fundamentalism.”
What about the future of the US-Japan military alliance? Hatoyama sees Japan as “caught between” the two great powers of China and the US. Though the US is a necessary counterweight for the time being, it has no role in Hatoyama’s East Asian version of the EU. Strikingly there is no hint of a communality of values between Japan and the US; no mention of democracy or human rights, let alone free trade.
When a summary of the article appeared in the foreign press, diplomats and alliance-managers on both sides moved quickly to calm the resulting brouhaha. Hatoyama’s comments had been taken out of context, we were told. It was a storm in a sake cup. The US-Japan relationship was as strong as ever..
The problem with that view is that Hatoyama’s article – a full-length English version is available on his website – is so obviously heartfelt. Furthermore there is nothing radical about his views, though the style was unusually cerebral for a Japanese politician. Similar opinions are common across the political spectrum, from the conservative wing of the Liberal Democratic Party to the social democratic wing of Hatoyama’s own DPJ.
Pessimism about US economic prospects is rife, and an Asian currency has long been dream of theministry of finance. Both the Japanese elite and the public are uncomfortable with the inroads of US-style turbo-charged financial capitalism, with its emphasis on shareholder value and massive differentials in remuneration. Nonetheless it was grudgingly accepted as part of the grand bargain that has tied the two countries together since the war.
The bargain worked like this. The US offered Japan the shelter of its nuclear umbrella and access to the world’s highest-spending consumers, ever ready to hoover up the latest gadgets produced by Japanese companies. In return Japan was an ever-loyal ally, willing to play the host to US military bases a few hunded miles off Soviet Union’s eastern flank .
The grand bargain lost its raison d’etre with the end of the cold war, but there were still enough common interests to keep it intact. Until now, that is. The global financial crisis has changed the world in ways that shake its foundations.
Firstly, the economics has changed. US consumers are tapped out, and Japan’s dependence on overseas demand has turned out to be a source of vulnerability. Energizing domestic demand is the new priority for Japan, just as rebuilding savings must be for the US.
Secondly, where’s the money? To put it bluntly, can a country in the fiscal condition of the post-crisis US afford far-flung and massively costly military commitments that have only vague justifications in terms of national interest? Or will the US gradually disengage, closing bases and leaving allies to handle their own security – as cash-strapped Britain did in the 1950s and 1960s? Japan has to think further ahead than the next electoral cycle. Unlike the US, it is in Asia for keeps.
Thirdly, there’s the new geopolitical map. As China’s economic presence grows, Japan will be tempted to hedge its bets, as Hatoyama hinted. And it may suspect that the US will do some triangulation of its own. Would the US really defend Japan’s interests at the cost of its own relationship with China? The twists and turns of US policy on North Korea – a minor iritant for the US, but a huge strategic challenge for Japan – give ample grounds for doubt.
Like it or not, these issues are not about to go away. We should be grateful to the French intellectual who has just taken over as Japanese prime minister for giving them an airing.