Issue Briefs
U.S.-Japan Security Relations: The Tokyo Summit and BeyondRichard Halloran and other contributors, April 1996Issue Brief Number 13
The summit meeting between U.S. President Bill Clinton and Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto scheduled for April 16-18 in Tokyo comes at perhaps the lowest point in relations between their two nations since the end of World War II. Not only are Japan and America troubled by seemingly insoluble issues between them, but they confront menacing challenges throughout East Asia that they could address together but so far have not. Although successive administrations in Washington have called relations with Japan the "linchpin" of the American security posture in Asia, today that pin is in danger of being sheared off. The most emotional problem is the continuing presence of U.S. troops in Japan. The Okinawa rape case, in which three American servicemen have been convicted of raping a 12-year-old schoolgirl, has torn the cover off festering resentments. No nation welcomes foreign military forces for long, no matter how good the reason, and U.S. forces have been in Japan for 51 years. The governor of Okinawa, Masahide Ota, has demanded the withdrawal of all 27,000 American military people from the island over the next 20 years, and limiting their training and live-fire drills in the meantime. The U.S. ambassador to Japan, former Vice President Walter Mondale, has said, "We will be taking steps that will reduce the irritation substantially," but has pointed to the deployment of U.S. warships near Taiwan as a reason for maintaining bases in Japan. Neither have economic frictions been resolved, despite long, sometimes testy negotiations. Japan continues to run a large surplus in its trade with the U.S., although that has dropped in recent months. Added to that is a complicated issue of air rights and routes for American and Japanese airlines. And the Americans and Japanese have accused each other of economic espionage. Politically, President Clinton angered Japanese leaders last fall when he abruptly bowed out of both an Osaka meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum and a state visit to Japan that was to have followed. The White House said the president was needed in Washington to handle the federal budget crisis. Yet several weeks later, with the crisis still bubbling, President Clinton went to Ireland and Europe. Shortly after Prime Minister Hashimoto took office in January, he made a quick trip to California to meet Clinton, but that was little more than "aisatsu," a ritual protocol of introducing oneself. Richard L. Armitage, Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan Administration, recently raised yet another question when he asked what the U.S. and Japan would do as security partners should the need arise? Armitage argued that Washington and Tokyo couldn't wait for a crisis to arise before coordinating their responses. On this issue, two questions are particularly urgent: What will the U.S. and Japan do if China attacks Taiwan? And what will they do if North Korea attacks South Korea? Both are possible even if no immediate threat is on the horizon. Short of crises, there are any number of questions about whether Japan and the U.S. will cooperate in the unending campaign to bring peace and stability to East Asia. High on that list is the fate of Taiwan. Japan has been timid on this issue, with Prime Minister Hashimoto having told the Diet, or parliament, recently: "Japan's position is to seek restraint from parties on both sides." In Taiwan on March 23, for the first time in 5,000 years of Chinese history, a head of government was elected by direct vote. President Lee Teng-hui was returned to the office that he had won previously in a parliamentary vote, this time with 54 percent of the popular vote in a four-way race. More important, 76 percent of Taiwan's eligible voters went to the polls, a turnout that many democracies in the West or Japan can only envy. This adds legitimacy to the government not only in the eyes of the Taiwanese but in much of the world. Thus, Taiwan seems likely to surge ahead in its quest for greater international recognition, including a seat in the United Nations. That quest is certain to enrage Beijing, which sees Taiwan as a province of China and has threatened to use military force to recapture the island. Elsewhere, the U.S. and Japan have worked together to dissuade North Korea from acquiring nuclear arms. President Clinton and Prime Minister Hashimoto may discuss ways to continue that cooperation and perhaps to carry it over to other issues. Japan, along with South Korea, is a member of the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization seeking to implement the October 1994 nuclear agreement between the U.S. and North Korea. Japan and the U.S. have also coordinated their responses to North Korean requests for food to relieve spreading hunger caused by mismanagement and floods. Particularly vexing is the growing antagonism between South Korea and Japan, both allies of the U.S. and hosts to American military forces. The last round has Seoul and Tokyo in a tiff over rocky isles called Tok-do by Koreans and Takeshima by Japanese in what the Japanese call the Sea of Japan and the Koreans the East Sea. This quarrel between American allies, rooted in Japan's harsh colonial rule of Korea from 1910 to 1945, erodes U.S. power in Asia. President Clinton's last-minute decision to make a brief stopover to see President Kim Young Sam of South Korea on the island of Cheju-do has all the appearances of an after-thought that will not endear him to Koreans sensitive to everything connected with Japan. Nor will it make it any easier to patch up Japanese-Korean relations. Among other regional questions are what the U.S. and Japan could do to start a security dialogue in Northeast Asia, especially one focused on defusing the confrontations between China and Taiwan and between North Korea and South Korea. Secretary of Defense William Perry has proposed a conference among defense ministers in Asia and the Pacific to discuss just such issues. Japan has been silent on the proposal. Similarly unknown is what the U.S. and Japan could do to enhance discussions begun by the Association of Southeast Asian Nation's Regional Forum, the only multilateral security conference in that region but one that has promise for the future. Underlying many of these issues is a problem that Prime Minister Hashimoto alone can address: How can Japan overcome the still vibrating legacy of its responsibilities for aggression and atrocities in World War II? Most Asian nations profess to continue to hold Japan suspect and thus seek to limit its political and security role in Asia and the Pacific. Neither President Clinton and Prime Minister Hashimoto has yet articulated any great vision for Asia and the Pacific, which will most likely constrain them both. Clinton has talked about a "Pacific Community" for the 21st century, but that idea has been limited to rhetoric so far. At the same time, American credibility in Asia is in question because the U.S. is widely suspected of planning to withdraw from the region. The dispatch of the aircraft carriers Independence and Nimitz to the seas east of Taiwan during Chinese maneuvers before Taiwan's election may have tamped down that suspicion for a while. For his part, Hashimoto, in office only since January, has proclaimed no initiatives in foreign policy. His experience so far has been limited to facing down U.S. Trade Representative Mickey Kantor in negotiations over American auto exports to Japan. Politics at home will further constrain both Prime Minister Hashimoto and President Clinton. Ichiro Ozawa, the leader of the Shinshinto (New Frontier Party) that splintered off from the Liberal Democratic Party, is waiting to push Mr. Hashimoto out in an election that Japan must hold between this fall and next spring. Clinton, of course, has Republican Senator Bob Dole breathing down his neck in the race for the presidency in November. Both politicians are also hampered by perceptions of scandal. Hashimoto's unpopular problem of rescuing bankrupted mortgage companies has damaged his political standing, while Whitewater continues to trickle down on Mr. and Mrs. Clinton like the torture of a thousand raindrops. Since the end of World War II, U.S.-Japan relations have fallen into rather neat periods with evident turning points. From 1945 to 1952, the U.S. occupied defeated Japan and imposed democracy and its trappings on the Japanese, who made them their own. After the Treaty of San Francisco ended the state of war in April 1952, Japan remained mostly in the shadow of the U.S. Then, in 1960, demonstrations turned into riots when Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi rammed through the Diet an extension of the Mutual Security Treaty with the U.S. and several revisions intended to make it more acceptable to Japan. Those riots caused Kishi to cancel a state visit by President Dwight D. Eisenhower even as the president's plane was flying toward Japan. Edwin O. Reischauer, a Harvard scholar of Japan and later the U.S. ambassador to Tokyo, has called that Japan's declaration of independence from the U.S. Beginning in 1961, President John F. Kennedy, whose PT-109 torpedo boat had been run down by a Japanese destroyer in the South Pacific during World War II, took a special interest in Japan. He and Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda set about rebuilding good relations despite strong Japanese opposition to America's role in the Vietnam war. The reversion of the southern island of Okinawa, which had remained under American control after the Occupation, to Japan in 1972 improved relations even more. Prime Minister Eisaku Sato has said Japan saw that as the true end of World War II. In the early 1980s, however, relations soured and steadily worsened because of Japan's trade surpluses with the U.S. This was the era of Japan-bashing in the U.S. and an equal amount of America-bashing in Japan. There were also sea changes in Japan. Emperor Hirohito, who had been on the throne since 1926 and reigned over Japan during its militaristic days, died in 1989. This marked the beginning of the end of the wartime generation. Then, in 1993, the government of Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa fell and brought down the Liberal Democratic Party that had ruled Japan for all but a few months of the postwar period. This ushered in a period of shifting coalitions and political turmoil. Japan has since had four prime ministers in less than three years. In America, President Clinton, the first president born after World War II, took office in 1993 and changed the rules of engagement with Japan to emphasize economics over politics and security. Since then, Japanese and American trade negotiators have gone jaw to jaw although little has been resolved. Last summer, the president led the commemoration of the end of World War II. The prosaic ceremonies in Hawaii lacked the pageantry and purpose of those in Europe earlier, and the President seemed to miss an opportunity to set America's relations with Japan onto a constructive track. With the 50th anniversary of the end of the war now behind them, Japan and America are entering what a Japanese commentator has called the "Second Postwar Period." The Tokyo summit could be the kickoff of that period, but there are few signs that anything startling will be announced beyond a perfunctory reaffirmation of the mutual security treaty between Washington and Tokyo.
China and North Korea to the Fore The future of Taiwan was not among the priority items for either the U.S. or Japan when they first scheduled this month's summit. But both sides are likely to raise the issue now in the uneasy aftermath of the Taiwan elections and China's show of military force. Japan wants the U.S. to play a moderating role that will discourage Taipei from pursuing a United Nations seat while persuading Beijing that military muscle-flexing will only make President Lee Teng-hui more intransigent. Prime Minister Hashimoto is himself a hawk who sympathizes with the supporters of an independent Taiwan in his party's conservative wing. But the Japanese bureaucracy and most political and opinion leaders in Japan recognize that this is a politically dangerous objective as well as an unrealistic one. Instead, Hashimoto is likely to seek Japanese-U.S. cooperation in pushing Taiwan to negotiate flexibly with Beijing on a political settlement that retains Taiwan's autonomy while giving political recognition to a single Chinese identity in world affairs. North Korea is also likely to figure prominently in the summit, with President Clinton urging Japan to contribute more generously to the costs of the massive heavy oil shipments to the North promised in the 1994 North Korea-U.S. nuclear freeze agreement. Because Japan is already committed on a large scale to supporting the costs of constructing light water reactors Pyongyang will get under that agreement, it has resisted further commitments for the oil. However, the Clinton Administration faces a Republican Congress that is reluctant to appropriate funds for carrying out the nuclear freeze accord. To cover an overdue oil shipment that the U.S. was pledged to supply by March 1, Tokyo recently extended a credit to the tripartite Korean Energy Development Organization, in which the U.S., South Korea, and Japan all participate. But it has refused to make a direct contribution for the oil. Clinton is likely to warn Hashimoto that the nuclear freeze could collapse if Japan does not accept a continuing responsibility for the costs of the heavy oil. The U.S. argues that Japan has a stake in its neighbor North Korea, similar to the U.S. stake in Mexico, and that the tensions between the North and South make further South Korean contributions for the heavy oil unlikely.
Okinawa and the Military Equation The sentencing of three American servicemen for their brutal attack on an Okinawan schoolgirl last fall brought an extremely tragic incident to a just conclusion. It did not, however, solve the underlying problems between Okinawa and both the U.S. and Japanese central governments. The challenge for the two governments is to significantly reduce the U.S. military "footprint" in Okinawa without diminishing the credibility of U.S. security guarantees. They also must promote greater awareness among Okinawans of the importance of a meaningful U.S. presence to their own security. The bottom line: The U.S. must ask for no more land than it truly needs and be willing to accept less space than it desires. It must also be prepared to make meaningful adjustments to its sometimes disruptive operations and training procedures on Okinawa. Meanwhile, the people of Okinawa and the Japanese central government must be prepared to accept what the U.S. offers- and not just what they want - and they must also realize that the price of continued regional stability and economic prosperity includes burdens that all, including Okinawans, must bear. Both President Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto need to demonstrate that they have heard and are responding to legitimate Okinawan complaints. And both must do a better job of explaining the importance of the U.S. presence to the Okinawan people and to the broader Japanese and American publics. Ducking the issue will merely assure renewed crises in the future. Managing Okinawan concerns is just one of the challenges facing the Japanese and U.S. governments as they try to adjust and revitalize their strategic partnership in this new post-Cold War security environment, however. If the partners are to sustain their alliance into the 21st century, both governments must more clearly define their ability to react to future challenges beyond the immediate defense of Japan. As Ambassador Richard Armitage, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense, noted recently, "The most important issue in the current relationship is not how many forces or what weapons systems, but rather: What are the U.S. and Japan going to do as security partners should the need arise." This is a highly sensitive issue, given Japan's hesitancy to discuss "collective security." But refusing to discuss worst-case scenarios will make crises more likely and surely strain the alliance relationship. China poses a particularly difficult challenge in this regard. Care must be taken not to cast the future U.S.-Japan alliance in a "contain China" mold. At the same time, the two leaders have to express their mutual concern over Chinese saber-rattling (most recently vis-a-vis Taiwan) and also China's attempts to hedge on earlier Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty commitments. (The PRC now seeks an exemption for "peaceful nuclear explosions.") For both governments, the challenge now is to better articulate the continuing rationale behind the security alliance and the vital importance of Okinawan bases in this equation, even while making meaningful concessions that address Okinawan heart-felt concerns. While America's must reduce its "footprint," its security umbrella over Northeast Asia must be seen as secure and unwavering. This will require a renewed, reinvigorated alliance and a continued credible U.S. military presence in Okinawa and elsewhere in Japan.
The Domestic Challenge The most serious challenge to the bilateral alliance is the absence of leadership in both the U.S. and Japan. In Tokyo, and in most Asian capitals, Clinton's Washington appears increasingly self-centered and driven by domestic priorities. The so-called Nye report of February 1995 ("U.S. Security Strategy for the East Asia-Pacific Region") and Washington's show of force against China during Taiwan's presidential election this year temporarily reassured Washington's Asian allies that the U.S. would stay engaged in the post-Cold War Asia-Pacific. Nevertheless, they continue to wonder aloud - and with little confidence - about how to provide for their own security without a credible U.S. military presence in the region. They are assured even less by Clinton's inability to sustain his own domestic agenda . Has Japan stepped in to offer a viable alternative for the peace and stability of the region? Far from it; instead of offering a credible strategic vision for Japan and for Asia, Hashimoto has been mired in a political tug of war against his opposition leader Ichiro Ozawa over how to pay for tens of billions lost in bad housing loans during the Japanese bubble economy. In contrast to the tough negotiator image he crafted during the auto dispute with the U.S. last year, the prime minister is proving unable to handle the domestic challenges to U.S.-Japan security relations. The most political challenge to the alliance in Japan has come not from North Korea or China, but from the domestic dispute over the U.S. military presence. Okinawa Governor Maashide Ota has rejected Tokyo's demand that he sign an administrative order forcing landowners to allow the U.S. military to continue using their real estate. His defiance has wide support among the people of Okinawa, who resent the presence on their islands of the vast majority of the U.S. military bases in Japan. The resentment was fueled further by the rape of a young Okinawan girl by three U.S. soldiers. Although the soldiers have been found guilty and are now in prison, the incident has eroded popular Japanse support for the U.S.-Japan security alliance. At the conclusion of the Tokyo summit, Clinton and Hashimoto will no doubt issue a joint statement trumpeting the Japanese-American "global partnership" in the post-Cold War period. Their words will sound hollow unless they can both demonstrate that they are in charge at home.
Deep-Rooted Problems Last February, Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto flew to California to meet with U.S. President Bill Clinton. Now, in mid-April, the two leaders will renew their discussions in Tokyo. In these talks it appears to Chinese specialists on international relations that Japan and the U.S. are essentially trying to warm up cool relations. Each country has reasons to make this effort. For the U.S., especially in recent years, its capabilities are not equal to its ambition. To maintain its leadership role in the world, it needs cooperation from Japan and other allies. And for Japan to play an increasingly important role in international affairs it must rely on strong U.S. support. The two countries also share strategic interests. In Japan-China-U.S. triangular relations, Japan places more importance on its relations with the U.S. because China possesses nuclear weapons and is becoming stronger economically, and Russia is still quite unstable. Japan fears that if the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty is abolished some day and its security threatened, it will have to turn to the U.S. for help. For its part, the U.S. wants to contain China - whether it wants to admit this or not - or at least does not wish to see a strong and reunified China. To achieve this, the U.S. needs a security mechanism that includes Japan. Improved economic and trade relations of course benefit both countries as well. So it is quite natural for Japan and the U.S. to seek to improve their relations as a way to solve some domestic problems. Hashimoto and Clinton might also exchange views on Taiwan. During his own talk with Prime Minister Hashimoto on April 1, 1996, Chinese Vice-Premier Qian Qichen urged Japan to stick to bilateral accords. On the situation in the Taiwan Straits, he asked Japan to "understand the Chinese stand on the issue and never do things that will hinder China's reunification process and harm the feelings of the Chinese People." China hopes that Japan will better understand China's position on these issues and distance itself from the U.S. in problems involving Taiwan. During the Tokyo summit, Japan and the U.S. are also expected to coordinate their policies on Korea and other international issues. But despite the fact that relations and cooperation between the U.S. and Japan will improve, and the current friction will likely diminish, their deep-rooted conflicts and problems - such as trade, military bases, and mutual distrust - will not go away easily.
The Plutonium Dimension Nuclear policy probably won't be a top priority at the U.S.-Japan Summit in April. But two issues related to plutonium could become sensitive at any time in the near future. The first question is how to deal with radioactive plutonium from retired warheads, a topic that will on the agenda for both countries at the upcoming G-7 Nuclear Summit in Moscow on April 19-20. The U.S. is studying the feasibility of converting plutonium from retired warheads into fuel for reactors, along with other possibilities, such as mixing plutonium with radioactive waste for disposal. Japan's participation in helping the U.S. and Russia reduce excess weapons plutonium could be beneficial. Not only would this make the process of plutonium disposition more "transparent," but also neither the U.S. nor Russia has a commercial infrastructure for using the plutonium. But although Japan has pledged $100 million toward dismantling Russian warheads, it has not committed to accepting weapons plutonium, in part because this could seriously affect Japan's own civilian nuclear programs. The second issue is Japan's intention to recover plutonium from its own spent nuclear fuels to recycle in existing light water reactors and fast breeder reactors. This would reduce the dependence of Japan's nuclear program on imported fuel. The 1988 Japan-U.S. Agreement on the Peaceful Use of Nuclear Energy allows Japan to use plutonium for this purpose over the next 30 years, and the Clinton Administration's basic policy is "not to encourage civilian use of plutonium and reprocessing while maintaining existing commitments to programs in Europe and Japan." To recover about 30 tons of plutonium, Japan has sent spent fuels to England and France under existing commercial contracts. Japan needs to get the reprocessed fuels back from Europe, and the next shipment, for which Japan needs U.S. approval, is expected to take place soon. Japan expects to complete its own commercial-scale reprocessing plant, in Rokkasho, by about 2003. However, the MONJU accident could delay the whole reprocessing program and result in a larger plutonium surplus. Despite a "no plutonium surplus" policy for its civilian programs, Japan already has about 11 tons of stocks (7 tons in Europe and 4 tons in Japan). Recalling a Carter Administration policy that tried to stop its first reprocessing plant at Tokai in 1977, Japan remains sensitive to U.S. policy on plutonium use.
Energy and Security Energy issues are an increasingly important concern in the broad security outlooks of both Japan and the U.S. As reflected in recent articles like "Asia's Empty Gas Tank" (Foreign Affairs, March/April 1996) and "Drifting Toward Disaster" (Atlantic Monthly, April 1996), anxiety is growing about the future security of energy supplies and the potential for a future energy crisis. The energy issues most prominent in U.S.-Japan relations mix trade and security. The U.S. wants Japan to import more energy equipment from America, while Japan wants stronger assurances that the U.S. will protect Japan's oil supplies, especially with a long-term military presence. Soaring Asian energy demand raises the specter of vulnerability, whether a disruption arises in the Middle East oil fields or the sea lanes leading into East Asia. In both instances, the United States military is the ultimate guarantor of stable oil supplies. The U.S. regional military presence also lends stability in the context of territorial disputes in areas like the South China Sea and the Diaoyu Islands off Taiwan. Heightening these tensions is the possible existence of underground oil deposits in both regions. Certain adverse geopolitical effects could result from energy insecurity, especially the greater willingness on the part of China and other Asian countries to transfer military technology to oil producers like Iran to cozy up to them for future oil supplies. U.S.-Japan cooperation to transfer energy-efficient technology to China, for example, might reduce its motivations for allying with oil-rich political pariahs. But U.S.-Japan competition for equipment sales, among other political and economic disagreements, lessens the prospect of such effective cooperation.
The Global Beat, a resource center for journalists covering international news, is a service of The Center for War, Peace, and the News Media, a journalism training and assistance organization headquartered at the Department of Journalism and Mass
Communication of New York University.
The Global Beat is managed by the Center's Boston office. Send us an e-mail directly at rleavitt@tiac.net with any questions or suggestions about the site or our other programs. 
Human Rights | Big Event | Regional Security | Alt.Global Forum | Experts | Events | Publications |
