THIS is a bad moment for Japan and a bad moment for the US-Japan relationship. Therefore it is a very bad moment for Australia.
It is not that Yukio Hatoyama is a real loss as prime minister. A few weeks ago, I was in Japan and was astonished at how many senior Japanese had such a low opinion of their prime minister. He was regarded as a lightweight and a flake.
But for Washington, it is Japan, not China, which has taken up most of their time, and given them most cause for concern, among all their East Asian relationships, since Barack Obama took office.
China is China – obdurate, difficult, unco-operative on currency issues, barely co-operative on Iran and North Korea, resolutely uninterested in multilateralism on climate change.
North Korea is North Korea – spooky, scary, militaristic as ever.
But Japan for a time seemed not to be Japan, or at least not the Japan that has been the US’s closest Asian ally for six decades, and it may still not be. The most senior figures in the Obama administration are determined not to go down in history as the government that “lost” Japan.
The fact that Hatoyama resigned over his complete inability to solve the issue of what happens to the giant US marine base in Okinawa will send out red alert signs in Washington.
This is a very dangerous passage in US-Japan relations.
The US understands that its entire position in Asia depends on the reliability and durability of its alliance with Japan. Many Japanese understand this too. Very late, Hatoyama came to understand it as well. It is difficult to imagine that any Japanese leader could have handled the base issue more poorly than Hatoyama did.
Before the last election, he promised to move the base off Okinawa altogether. This was a foolish and unnecessary promise. The previous Japanese government had spent a decade negotiating a compromise with the US. Some marines would go to Guam, some would stay on Okinawa at a new, more distant location.
When you visit Okinawa, it’s hard to see what the fuss is all about. It has a lower per capita income than the rest of Japan, but still a much higher income than almost anywhere else in the world. And Okinawa makes good money out of hosting the US bases.
Much of the Okinawan frustration with the US presence is really a disguised frustration with mainland Japanese, from whom they regard themselves as ethnically and culturally distinct. And far from the US bases being an oppressive presence, the thing that strikes you about Okinawa is its beauty and spaciousness, especially compared with the urban grime of much of Japan.
The formerly ruling Liberal Democratic Party was in such spectacular disrepute by the time of the last election that Hatoyama had no need to make this promise. He would have won the election easily anyway. But doing so greatly raised the expectations of Okinawans and of his reluctant coalition partners on the Left.
Then when he got to office, he looked into the black box of permanent government truths and found the US alliance was absolutely central to Japan’s security, and the Americans felt they already had a binding agreement with the Japanese government. This feeling was reinforced by North Korea’s recent military adventurism.
But even with this, Hatoyama couldn’t take a trick. He imposed silly deadlines on himself, which he couldn’t meet. He kept expectations high. His sense of reality, never all that strong, seemed to have zipped off to Venus with has astral travelling wife, Miyuki.
Now the base, and everything it represents, faces challenges from all sides. The anti-base Okinawans will be emboldened by having scored a prime ministerial scalp. The ruling Democratic Party is gravely damaged, but the LDP is in no condition to come back to office any time soon.
And here’s another danger. Although the US recognises the centrality of the Japan relationship to their overall position in Asia, the marines will not enjoy staying where they are not welcome. Within the cavernous reaches of US service politics, if the marines start to think the base is more trouble than it’s worth, that could really spell curtains for a central part of Asian security as we have known it.
We can only hope Hatoyama’s successor manages this issue better than Hatoyama did.
One consolation is that he couldn’t manage it any worse.
Be the first to comment