Creaky Alliance

November 12, 2009

Op-Ed Contributor

By MICHAEL AUSLIN

President Obama lands in Tokyo this week as U.S.-Japan relations hit their lowest point in years.

The president will meet with Japan’s new government, representing the first opposition party to take power in over a half-century. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party of Japan is finding little common ground early on with the Democratic president of the United States.

President Obama’s ability to smooth over some significant disagreements between the two allies may set the tone for the remainder of his administration. A failure to find common ground could lead both sides to feel less appetite for working with each other and more interest in reaching out to other nations in Asia, such as China.

At the core of the current contretemps is a 2006 agreement to move a Marine Corps Air Station out of its urban setting in Okinawa to a less populated part of the island. That is supposed to be followed by the relocation of thousands of U.S. Marines from Okinawa to Guam, and the return to Japanese control of other U.S. bases on the island.

All this has been under negotiation for years. Now the new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, is living up to campaign promises to reopen the agreement and try to move the new air base off Okinawa altogether. His government’s position earned a stinging rebuke from U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates in Tokyo last month, laying bare a growing antagonism between Washington and Tokyo.

To those paying close attention these past months, Mr. Gates’ salvo came as no surprise. Both sides have been talking past each other, as Washington assumed that Mr. Hatoyama’s stance was merely campaign rhetoric, while Tokyo believed that the State Department’s reassurances of listening to Japanese concerns meant that a real renegotiation was in the cards. A disagreement on such fundamental policy agreements cannot remain unsolved before a presidential visit; hence Mr. Gates’s stance.

Unfortunately, it appears that the Japanese government is split on the base issue, with some top officials flatly rejecting the notion that it will be solved before Air Force One touches down, while others, such as the foreign minister, seemingly acknowledging the inevitable Japanese acceptance of U.S. terms.

That does not bode well for a resolution before Mr. Obama’s visit and increases the spotlight on Mr. Hatoyama, who will have to make a decision that either reneges on campaign promises or risks deeply angering his closest ally.

The current blow-up reflects the slow drift of the U.S.-Japan alliance from the earlier part of this decade. The prime minister then, Junichiro Koizumi, eagerly waded into Washington’s wars after 2001, stepping out far ahead of many of his countrymen.

He also demonstrated that Japan could act on the global stage at a level more befitting its economic status. He and his successor, Shinzo Abe, failed to revise the post-World War II peace Constitution, but they may have over-convinced many in Washington that Japan had changed from its traditional post-war reluctance to be more assertive abroad.

Mr. Hatoyama came to power pledging a more “independent” Japan and a more equal alliance relationship. What he meant by that, however, was always unclear.

But his willingness to step back from old agreements, and a desire to create an East Asian Community centered on Japan, China and South Korea, is raising concerns in Washington over how closely the two long-time partners can work together in the coming years, as well as uncertainty over what role the alliance should play in an Asia increasingly influenced by China.

This is where the president’s trip is crucial, for the bureaucrats running the alliance will respond to their political leadership. If Messrs. Obama and Hatoyama agree to disagree, then both countries will likely put the relationship on the back burner and reach out to other players in Asia, possibly reshaping regional politics.

There are no reassurances that such a new approach would benefit either America or Japan more than the current arrangement. The two countries have long needed each other in Asia, giving America a strategically crucial position and Japan an invaluable defensive ally. They may soon test whether their shared interests can adapt to new conditions inside Japan and throughout Asia.

Michael Auslin is the director of Japan studies and a resident scholar in foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington