ASIAN GOVERNMENTS

AND LEGAL SYSTEMS

THE US-JAPAN ALLIANCE

A BRIEF STRATEGIC HISTORY
By Michael J. Green

FROM ENEMIES TO ALLIES first and second largest contributors of funding to all major in-
When Emperor Hirohito announced the surrender of Japan to stitutions established after the war to promote economic
the United Nations on August 15, 1945, he exhorted his people growth and stability, including the World Bank, the Interna-
to “endure the unendurable.” The war with America had been tional Monetary Fund, and the United Nations. America’s
the most violent in either nation’s history. Racial hatred had close alliance with Japan put a picket fence of naval forces and
motivated both peoples. Japanese schoolchildren were taught economic aid that helped to block Soviet expansion in East
that Americans were devils and that they were spiritually weak Asia and to bring the Cold War to an end. More recently, the
and lazy. Americans lionized Admiral Bill Halsey, who fa- US and Japanese navies have worked side by side to provide
mously ordered his sailors and marines in the Pacific to “kill relief supplies to the December 2004 Asian tsunami survivors
more Japs.” Japanese-Americans on the West Coast were and to refuel ships involved with the fight against the Taliban
forced to abandon their homes and were sent to internment and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
camps by the US government, a move not even considered for
German or Italian Americans on the East Coast. After losing its APAN S ILEMMA J ‘ D :
island fortresses in the Pacific in 1944, Japan was subjected to How Much to Depend on America?
repeated fire bombings from US B-29s that left Tokyo, From the ashes of war and hate, Japan built a new relationship
Nagoya, Osaka, and other major cities as cratered and grey as with the world based on close alliance with the United States,
the surface of the moon. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed minimal military armament, and a focus on economic growth.
with nuclear weapons. Across East Asia, allied troops liberated But, Japan was not abandoning its national interests even after
prisoners of war and civilian captives of defeat. Throughout its history, Japan al-
the Japanese who were near starvation, While Japanese and ways tenaciously sought to maintain its
and then learned about atrocities against autonomy in the international system.
POWs and Chinese civilians by the no- American children were For 250 years before the arrival of Com-
torious chemical warfare unit 731. To- modore Matthew Perry’s “black ships”
ward the end of the war, Japanese
taught to hate each in Edo Harbor in 1853, the Japanese
women and girls were being trained with other seven decades ago, Shogunate did that through isolation. The
bamboo spears to fight to the death intrusion of the modern world meant that
against the invading Americans. After today public opinion Japan had to make strategic choices
the surrender, a corps of young women polls show that ninety- about how it would relate with other
was organized to sacrifice their bodies powers in the system. Japanese leaders
for the vengeful GI’s so that other one percent of American during the Meiji period chose to align
women might be spared. It had been a opinion leaders and sev- with the world’s major power and en-
very ugly war. tered into a bilateral treaty with Great
Yet in a transformation that defied enty-four percent of the Britain from 1902 to 1922. After an
expectations and spoke to the triumph of eighteen-year interlude in which various
the human spirit and the industriousness
general public feel Japan multilateral treaties failed to either pro-
and generosity of the Japanese and is a reliable ally. tect Japanese interests or prevent Japan-
American people, Japan emerged from ese expansion, Japan signed the axis pact
the ashes of war to become the world’s and aligned with the power it thought
second largest economy, and the closest American ally in the most dominant, Nazi Germany. After the war, the choice was
1
Pacific. While Japanese and American children were taught clear: Japan would ally with the world’s preeminent power once
to hate each other seven decades ago, today public opinion again—this time it was the United States. However, Japan had
polls show that ninety-one percent of American opinion lead- chosen its global alliances with Britain and Germany with the
ers and seventy-four percent of the general public feel Japan aim of retaining a free hand in Asia, particularly vis-a-vis China
is a reliable ally. Together the United States and Japan are the and the Korean peninsula.
Background photograph: Surrender of Japan, 2 September 1945. Navy carrier planes fly in formation over US and British fleets in Tokyo Bay during surrender ceremonies.
Source: Official US Navy Photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives.

25
 As Japan recovered
economically, the US

F
or the early post-war ple would accept, and to avoid entrapment in US confrontation
and Japan would be architects of Japan’s with other Asian states like China and Vietnam. But Yoshida
forced to adjust their new foreign policy— also left ambiguous the eventual future of the alliance rela-
led by the outspoken former tionship and Japan’s own long-term strategy. As he noted,
strategic bargain, usu- diplomat turned prime minis- “Japan should not continue to remain at a level where it de-
ter, Shigeru Yoshida—the pends on another country for its defense.”3 The strategic bar-
ally with the US ceding question was how to retain gain among the conservatives and with the US was made at a
more autonomy to that free hand under the time when the two nations’ power levels could not be com-
American system. In many pared. As Japan recovered economically, the US and Japan
Japan while Japan respects, these Japanese lead- would be forced to adjust their strategic bargain, usually with
picked up a larger bur- ers were dealing with a the US ceding more autonomy to Japan while Japan picked up
dilemma that smaller powers a larger burden for defense. While some of these adjustments
den for defense. While often face when allied with followed crises, they ultimately led to an alliance relationship
more powerful states. Thucy- that grew stronger over time.
some of these adjust- dides noted this during the
ments followed crises, Peloponnesian Wars over THE FIRST ADJUSTMENT :
two thousand years earlier, The 1960 Security Treaty Revision
they ultimately led to when he described the Japan had signed the September 8, 1951, US-Japan Security
an alliance relationship smaller Greek city-states’ Treaty while still under military occupation by US forces, and
dilemma striking a balance so therefore arguably agreed, under duress, to further stationing
that grew stronger that they were not so depend- of US forces. Moreover, the treaty allowed US forces to con-
over time. ent on powerful Athens that tinue playing a role in preserving domestic security within
they were “entrapped” in Japan. Eager to redress this inequity and establish sovereignty
wars they did not want, but at home, the government of Nobusuke Kishi pushed to revise
not so distant that they were “abandoned” in the face of power- the security treaty. Japan would allow the US to retain bases in
ful foes like Sparta. For the conservative Japanese elite like Japan for the security of the Far East, but Japan’s new Self-
Yoshida, this problem was compounded by the Japanese peo- Defense Forces, established in 1954, would take care of
ples’ war weariness, the dependence on America for economic national security until help was needed from the US and/or the
aid, and the risk that Japan’s scarred society might be vulnera- United Nations. As reasonable as that adjustment to the US-
ble to spreading communism. Japan alliance seems today, at the time it was deeply contro-
The conservatives around Yoshida had different visions for versial with Japan’s pacifist population. Before the treaty was
how to restore Japan’s position in the world: some wanted to approved by the Japanese Diet (parliament) in 1960, there had
build on American aid to turn Japan into an arsenal to fight com- been massive demonstrations on the streets of Tokyo that
munism; others wanted to maintain a non-military pacifist forced US President Eisenhower to cancel a planned trip to
stance, but under benevolent American protection. Yoshida Japan, and eventually forced Kishi to step down as Prime
brought these disparate groups together around alliance with the Minister. His successor, Hayato Ikeda, quickly changed the
United States in 1951. Those who wanted rearmament would subject by promising to double Japan’s national income in ten
not achieve it without US pressure and technical assistance. years. He did so in five years and the controversy about Japan’s
Those who wanted pacifism could not risk it in a dangerous alliance with the US subsided for a time.
Northeast Asia without a US security guarantee. As historian
John Dower noted in his own biography of Yoshida, “The THE SECOND ADJUSTMENT :
reconsolidation and recentralization of conservative authority After the Vietnam War
during the Yoshida era was inseparable from the strategic After successfully doubling its economic power in the decade
settlement reached between the United States and Japan.”2 of the 1960s, Japan had to contend with questions about the
For Yoshida, the answer to the Thucydidean dilemma of durability of American power in the wake of the North Viet-
entrapment versus autonomy lay in Article Nine of Japan’s new namese Tet Offensive in 1968. In addition, newly-elected US
Constitution, which states in the first clause that Japan re- President Richard Nixon pledged that under his new “Guam
nounces the right of war to resolve international disputes, and Doctrine,” Asian allies would have to start doing more to
in the second that Japan will not maintain air, ground, or naval defend themselves. Japanese politicians who had wanted to turn
forces for that purpose. Yoshida believed that eventually Com- their nation into an arsenal against communism saw an oppor-
munist China would pull away from the Soviet bloc and that tunity and agreed with then Defense Agency Director General
Japan needed a free hand to re-engage with Asia as it recovered and later Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone that Japan should
economically, while still keeping a solid foot in the Western double its defense budget to carry its share of the burden in
democratic camp. Article Nine of the Constitution allowed defending Asia. At a 1969 summit, Nixon also secured Prime
Japan to resist US pressure to arm more than the Japanese peo- Minister Eisaku Sat¬’s pledge that Japan had an explicit inter-

26 EDUCATION ABOUT ASIA Volume 12, Number 3 Winter 2007

 ASIAN GOVERNMENTS
AND LEGAL SYSTEMS

est in the security of the Korean Peninsula and the Taiwan defense role in Asia. Japan needed a clear Amer-
Strait. Sat¬, who was not eager to move too quickly away from ican commitment to help defend the home is-
Yoshida’s original framework for minimal defense efforts, had lands, and the Carter administration hoped it could
agreed to this formula to win Nixon’s promise to return the is- secure a Japanese commitment to play a larger role in support-
lands of Okinawa, which had been under American control ing US military operations in Korea or Taiwan. When the two
since the war. governments reached a bilateral agreement in the 1978 Defense
The world had never seen the specter of American retreat Guidelines, it was clear that the US would begin planning for the
the way it did in the late 1960s, which prompted the Japanese defense of Japan, but Japan was not ready to commit to playing
government to consider not only doubling the defense budget, any role in regional security. The pacifist undertow and fear of
but even its options for nuclear weapons.4 In the end, however, entrapment were still powerful forces in Japan.
the shift of responsibility to Japan and the readjustment of the However, because of the geography of the Japanese ar-
strategic bargain with the US stopped short of what hawks like chipelago—stretching like
Nakasone had hoped it would be. The future suddenly looked a picket fence across the . . . polls showed that
very different in 1972, when President Nixon opened a new Soviet Far East—the line
strategic engagement with the erstwhile US enemy, Communist between defense of the more Americans consid-
China. Japan did not want to be left behind, and business and home islands and regional ered the Japanese econ-
political leaders pushed to consolidate the close economic re- security was blurred. In
lationship with China that Yoshida was certain would come in fact, by strengthening its omy more of a threat
spite of the Cold War divide. While the US waited until 1979 ability to protect the straits
to establish formal diplomatic ties with Beijing, Japan rushed between its islands and the
than the Soviet Union’s
to normalize relations in 1972, within months of Nixon’s open- airspace overhead, Japan nuclear missiles.
ing to that nation. The opening of détente between the US and would bottle up the Soviet
the Soviet Union further reduced the attractiveness of a military military in the Sea of Okhotsk where the US Navy and Air
build-up along the lines proposed by Nakasone. While the US Force could attack them. This was exactly what the two gov-
returned Okinawa to Japan in 1972, the Japanese government ernments agreed to do, implicitly, in the 1982 Roles and Mis-
quickly moved away from Prime Minister Sat¬’s pledge to sions discussions, in the early years of the Reagan
President Nixon in 1969 that the security of Korea and Taiwan administration. While most Japanese citizens saw enhanced
are important to Japan. Meanwhile, in 1977, the Japanese gov- cooperation as a necessary thing to defend Japanese territory
ernment announced the “Fukuda Doctrine,” after Prime Min- in the face of Soviet military build-up, the Japanese Self-
ister Takeo Fukuda, which promised aid and cooperation with Defense Forces actually played a much larger role in the US
formerly colonized nations in Southeast Asia, including Amer- strategy to contain Soviet expansion, and to defeat the Soviets
ica’s recent enemy, Vietnam. in a global war should it come to that. This was achieved
without changing the Japanese Constitution or explicitly
THE THIRD ADJUSTMENT : accepting a role in the security of Asia—precisely because
The New Cold War geography had put the concept of “exclusively defensive
Détente did not last, of course, and neither did the equilibrium self defense” right in the way of the Soviet Union’s military
established in the US-Japan alliance in the 1970s. The Cold expansion.
War became hot again with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan Japan’s ability to contribute to US global strategy proved
and their client state Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia in 1979. invaluable at a time when the Japanese economy seemed poised
These aggressive moves on the international chessboard were to overtake that of the US. Americans felt in the 1980s that
accompanied by a build-up of Soviet ballistic missile sub- Japanese products were too inexpensive, and they wanted to
marines, bombers, and fighter jets in the Sea of Okhotsk, just reduce the huge imbalance growing between American and
north of Japan’s northern-most island Hokkaid¬. Operating in Japanese exports by increasing the value of the yen, which
the far east of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Backfire Bombers Japan agreed to in the 1985 Plaza Accord. Ironically, rather
could threaten critical sea lanes of communication across the than easing trade tension with Washington, the more valuable
Pacific. Soviet “boomers”—ballistic missile submarines—car- yen created negative headlines for Japan in the American press
ried missiles capable of firing over the Arctic and into Ameri- when Japanese companies used all their newfound wealth to
can cities. Japan still needed the United States, and increasingly buy icons like the Rockefeller Center in Manhattan and the
America needed Japan’s help containing this new threat. Pebble Beach Golf Club in California. Pundits warned of the
To move beyond the contentious debate that had started in “Buying of America,” and Democratic presidential candidate
the late 1960s about how much to remilitarize, the Japanese gov- Richard Gephardt asserted in a speech in 1988 that while the
ernment had prepared a National Defense Program Outline in US and the Soviet Union fought the Cold War, Japan was win-
1976. The Outline determined that Japan would focus only on ning. That same year, polls showed that more Americans con-
“exclusively defensive defense” of the home islands, and stop sidered the Japanese economy more of a threat than the Soviet
well short of earlier hawkish visions of an expanded Japanese Union’s nuclear missiles.

27
 When Emperor Hirohito
POST COLD WAR DRIFT AND THE died and the Berlin Wall and, more importantly,
came down, ending the causing the collapse of
FOURTH ADJUSTMENT the old Socialist left—
While few Japanese political leaders saw themselves engaged Cold War in 1989, the and the rise of a new
in an economic war with the US—and most worried more and more centrist Dem-
Japanese people sensed
about how to keep the US economy open to Japanese exports ocratic Party of Japan
than how to separate from America—the idea that Japan had that a new era was that could force real de-
new technological and economic power to shape the world bates in the Diet about
seemed logical in Tokyo. Japan’s economic growth rate in the dawning. . . . few antic- strategy. The rise of
late 1980s was on a trajectory to overtake the US GDP by 2005, ipated how different the “Heisei” Genera-
and the appreciation of the yen had put Japan in the position of tion (Heisei is the
top provider of official development assistance around the that era would be from Japanese name of the
world. From Kuala Lumpur to Nairobi to Taipei, developing the roaring successes of era begun after the
nations were looking at Japan’s model of controlled capitalism death of Hirohito) of
and import substitution as more appealing than the traditional the 1980s. politicians born after
Anglo-American laissez faire approach advocated by interna- the war also removed
tional institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank. It also old taboos about sensi-
helped fuel those countries’ enthusiasm for the Japanese model tive topics such as constitutional reform and led to a new as-
that many also were receiving more aid from Tokyo than they sertiveness about Japan’s right to move beyond the post-war
were from Washington or London. Japanese officials in inter- emphasis on war guilt.

I
national institutions began to argue the line advanced by Japan- nitially, Japanese strategic thinkers sought new outlets for
ese economist Eisuke Sakakibara, that Japan’s economy had their foreign policy in the “New World Order” proclaimed
“surpassed capitalism” and should be presented as an attrac- by President George Herbert Walker Bush in 1991. An LDP
tive alternative for countries to follow.5 Japan seemed poised to panel under Ichiro Ozawa produced a strategy paper in 1993
play a leading role in the world based on its economic success that focused on cooperation through the United Nations, which
in the post-Cold War world. It looked like the difficult question had played such a central role in the response to Saddam’s in-
of how far to rearm and how much to depend on the US for se- vasion of Iraq. In 1994, the government of Japan also published
curity might just be sidestepped by developing a new economic the “Higuchi Report” by an advisory panel that highlighted the
definition of national security. importance of peacekeeping operations and other UN activi-
When Emperor Hirohito died and the Berlin Wall came ties in Japanese security after the Cold War. Noting the central
down, ending the Cold War in 1989, the Japanese people role of the UN Security Council during the Iraq War, the Japan-
sensed that a new era was dawning. However, few anticipated ese government also began a sustained push for a permanent
how different that era would be from the roaring successes of UNSC seat. The UN had always been an important coordinate
the 1980s. The first surprise was the 1990–91 Gulf War—not for Japanese foreign policy and an arena where Japan could
because Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, since most Japanese play an independent role while still anchored in the US-cen-
thought the problem could be solved with economic adjust- tered international system. By the mid-1990s, however, it was
ments—but rather because the US mobilized an international becoming clear that the Gulf War was a unique case of Secu-
coalition to defeat Saddam with military power. Japan was left rity Council solidarity and that the UN system would not be
to watch from the sidelines, then asked to pick up the bill. The central to the post-Cold War order, as many had hoped.
Japanese government was pressed reluctantly into providing Meanwhile, the sudden rise of Chinese power shifted
$13 billion to support the war effort, but still was granted little Japanese strategic thinking back to Asia. Five decades earlier,
influence in the post-war settlement. Capturing the humiliation Yoshida had predicted correctly that China would move away
sensed by many Japanese was the Kuwaiti government’s post- from the Soviet Union based on commercial and cultural ties
war advertisement in US newspapers thanking the members of with Japan and other Asian powers. However, Yoshida and his
the coalition that had liberated them. Japan–which had con- followers failed to anticipate that economic interdependence
tributed money but no troops—was not listed. with China would fail to translate into strategic influence over
After finding that traditional military and diplomatic China. When Beijing flexed its muscles in 1995 and 1996 by
power still mattered and that the US retained the dominant testing nuclear weapons and bracketing Taiwan with missiles
share of power after the Cold War, the Japanese then discov- as a warning to the pro-independence forces on the island,
ered that their own economic model, which had turned into an Japan warned that bilateral economic ties could be hurt. The
enormous asset bubble, burst in 1990. The heady growth of the Chinese were unmoved by these arguments. Coupled with the
1970s and 1980s ended, setting the stage for a “lost decade” of discovery of North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs and the
deflation and poor economic growth. The end of the bipolar test of the North Korean NODONG missile over Japan in 1994,
Cold War structure also sent a tremor through Japanese do- these developments fueled a new realism and angst about
mestic politics, causing the LDP to briefly lose power in 1993 Japan’s strategic position in Asia.

28 EDUCATION ABOUT ASIA Volume 12, Number 3 Winter 2007

 ASIAN GOVERNMENTS
AND LEGAL SYSTEMS

T
he fourth major adjustment in the US-Japan alliance Koizumi and his government explained his
began in that context. In September 1994, two US sailors close support for America to the Japanese peo-
and a Marine on the island of Okinawa raped a young ple by arguing that Japan faced its own threats in
Japanese girl and sparked protests across Japan. Editorials and Asia and needed America’s help. He also emphasized that the
political leaders in Japan began asking whether the presence of US-Japan alliance was based not only on common interests,
so many US bases was worth the trouble (there were about but also on common values. In speeches to fellow Asian lead-
48,000 US troops in Japan at the time, with 18,000 concen- ers, Koizumi argued that the region must follow the path of
trated on the small island of Okinawa). After intense national democracy, rule of law, and good governance. His successor,
debate, the answer came back “yes.” In the wake of belligerent Shinz¬ Abe, emphasized that Japan would work for an “Arc of
moves by China and North Korea, opinion surveys showed a Freedom and Prosperity” in Asia. While some Japanese intel-
renewed appreciation by the Japanese public of the US-Japan lectuals argued that Japan was losing its traditional “Asian”
alliance and the need for US forces in Asia. In Washington, the values by emphasizing universal norms such as democracy,
Clinton administration—and particularly the Pentagon—also others countered that the rise of China, and Japan’s own eco-
came to realize how important the US-Japan alliance was to nomic reforms under Koizumi, made arguments about the
maintaining a stable balance in Asia as Chinese power grew. uniqueness of Japanese or Asian capitalism obsolete.
The US goal was not to contain China’s growth, but to ensure
that US engagement and cooperation with Beijing was backed Koizumi was one of the first world leaders
by strong US alliances in the region to dissuade China from
choosing paths other than cooperation. to tell President Bush that the world was
After a period of drift and inattention in the early 1990s,
the US and Japanese governments began an intensive review of
engaged in a global war against terrorism.
the alliance, which led to a joint declaration between President “You must win,” he wrote the President,
Bill Clinton and Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto in April
1996, “reaffirming” the US-Japan alliance and announcing ex- “and Japan will help.”
panded defense cooperation. Joint work on missile defense in
response to the North Korean threat was a central part of this
new cooperation. The two governments also agreed to revise THE NEXT ADJUSTMENT?
the original 1978 US-Japan Defense Guidelines to include co- The personal relationship between Bush and Koizumi was so
operation in the “areas surrounding Japan”—the first explicit close that many experts in both countries worried that the al-
move for US and Japanese forces to work together for the se- liance would drift apart again when new leaders took charge in
curity of Asia beyond the immediate Japanese home islands. Washington and Tokyo. When Prime Minister Abe suddenly
The Joint Security Declaration inaugurated a decade of resigned in September 2007, because the opposition Demo-
improved US-Japan alliance cooperation. At first, the focus was cratic Party (DPJ) of Japan had successfully blocked legisla-
on East Asia, but after Al Qaeda attacked the United States on tion keeping Japan’s maritime flotilla in the Indian Ocean as
September 11, 2001, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and part of the coalition against terror, the political crisis raised real
President George Bush brought the alliance to the global stage. concerns about whether Japan would continue its more as-
Conscious of Japan’s reactive and ineffective response to the sertive role in international security policy. The DPJ is likely to
first Gulf War, Koizumi’s government moved smartly to en- control the Upper House of the Diet at least until 2010 and has
sure that Japan showed the flag early in responding to the new a chance to unseat the ruling LDP-led coalition in elections
threat. Koizumi was one of the first world leaders to tell Pres- for the more powerful Lower House of the Diet before that.
ident Bush that the world was engaged in a global war against Mr. Abe’s successor, the older, more prudent and pragmatic
terrorism. “You must win,” he wrote the President, “and Japan Yasuo Fukuda, seemed destined to lower the temperature of
will help.” In an early symbolic move, Japanese destroyers es- some of Abe’s more ambitious plans to change the Constitution
corted the USS Kitty Hawk out of Tokyo Bay the week after and recognize Japan’s right of collective self-defense. Yet
the September 11 attack, flying the rising sun flag that most Fukuda was Koizumi’s lieutenant as Chief Cabinet Secretary
Americans had seen before only in World War II movies. when Japan first sent forces abroad after 9–11, and even though
Koizumi then passed legislation authorizing Japanese ships to he is less ideological than Abe, he is a pro-US-Japan alliance
refuel coalition forces operating against the Taliban and Al realist. Moreover, while Ozawa may be throwing up obstacles
Qaeda in Afghanistan. In Iraq, Japan sent a battalion of engi- to the government’s security policy and demanding UN man-
neers and other experts to ensure that Japan was contributing dates for any dispatch of Japanese forces abroad (meaning very
not only funds (which it did to the tune of $5 billion), but also few will go in the end), many of the younger DPJ members
people. Koizumi also got high marks in Washington for push- share Mr. Abe’s ambitious vision of Japan’s security policy.
ing through much needed structural reform in Japan’s lacklus- Even if there is a diversion of energy to domestic politics in
ter economy. By the time he left office in September 2006, Japan over the next few years, the overall trends that led to the
Japan’s economy was back on a more positive track. Koizumi and Abe era seem strong.

29
 The US-Japan alliance
will remain the most
Alliances—like mar- for its wartime activities on numerous occasions. The problem
important anchor for riages—grow hot and cold. is that for every apology there is a countermove by Japanese
Even America’s special rela- politicians to declare their conviction that Japan was not the
Japanese security. tionship with Britain has aggressor in the war—undercutting the original apology. But it
If Japan moves away been plagued by controver- would be inaccurate to say that Japan is isolated in Asia. BBC
sies ranging from the Suez international polls in 2006 and 2007 showed that a majority of
from that alliance, Canal to the war in Iraq. But Koreans and Chinese distrust Japan, but apart from the imme-
it will be because the structure of the US-Japan diate neighbors, Japan ranks highly around the world. In fact,
alliance looks sound. While in 2007 Japan tied with Canada as the most trusted country in
America has failed American and Japanese in- the world. In South and Southeast Asia, polls show that around
as an ally. terests may not line up per- ninety percent of respondents have a positive view of Japan.
fectly—Japan will always be Still, the difficulties over history with Korea and China do, un-
more interested in the North deniably, burden Japan’s diplomatic efforts in Asia.
Korean threat than the war on terrorism, for example—the re- Taken together, this paints a picture of a Japan that will
ality is that the United States and Japan need each other to solve continue to make pragmatic adaptation to its security environ-
their respective challenges. This is particularly true in the case ment as it has in the past. The US-Japan alliance will remain the
of China, where both the United States and Japan hope for good most important anchor for Japanese security. If Japan moves
relations, but cannot yet be confident that China will use its away from that alliance, it will be because America has failed
growing power as a force for peace and stability in the world. as an ally. But that seems unlikely, given the shared interests
Moreover, the evidence is strong that this is now an alliance both nations have in steering China to a more positive world
based on genuine trust between the Japanese and American role and preventing a North Korean nuclear breakout. Nor does
people and a growing sense of shared values. This is a re- the alliance depend on regional uncertainties or threats to
markable thing, given the hatred that colored America’s war Japanese interests alone. Japan and the US share a common in-
with Japan six decades ago. terest in the strength of the neo-liberal international order,
At the same time, there are still questions that could also be which has brought so much to Japanese democracy and eco-
raised about the durability of the US-Japan alliance. Some Amer- nomic growth. As a future American president focuses on
icans are asking whether the alliance with Japan should be ex- bringing the nation through the difficult but important business
panded, given China’s fear of containment and encirclement. in Iraq, America will need help from Japan and other like-
They warn of the risk of a “defense dilemma” where China minded nations to keep that neo-liberal order strong. In short,
would assume from US and Japanese actions that confrontation this is increasingly an alliance of mutual support. And those
is inevitable. Others argue that Japan’s difficulty coming to terms are the strongest alliances of all. n
with its own history could isolate Japan in Asia and ultimately
hurt the US by association. Still others warn that the assertive NOTES
Japan of Koizumi was an illusion and that Japan will continue 1. Embassy of Japan. Opinion Poll: 2007 US Image of Japan Study (Sum-
finding excuses to keep a low profile in international affairs. mary), June 25, 2007, http://www.us.emb-japan.go.jp/english/html/press-
The reality is complex on all of these issues. It is hard to releases/2007/0625.htm.
argue that Japan is militarist when one considers that Japan still 2. John Dower, Empire and Aftermath: Yoshida Shigeru and the Japanese Ex-
spends less than one percent of its GDP on defense, in contrast perience, 1878–1954 (Harvard East Asian Monographs, 1979), 369.
3. Ichiro Ozawa, Nihon Kaiz¬ Keikaku, Blueprint for a New Japan, (Kodan-
to China’s massive increase of ten to twenty percent per year sha, 1993), 109.
over the last decade. In addition, changes to Article Nine of the 4. See “[Nippon Shindansho] Dai 7-bu Hibaku Haruka ni / 1 Gaimush¬ ‘Kaku
Japanese Constitution sound revolutionary, but the proposals Heiki Seizo Nouryoku Wo’” (in Japanese), Mainichi Shimbun, morning
on the table would retain the first clause renouncing war, and edition, August 1, 1994, 1.
then update the second clause to acknowledge Japan’s right to 5. See Eisuke Sakakibara, Beyond Capitalism: The Japanese Model of Mar-
ket Economics (New York: United Press of America, 1993).
maintain its self defense forces and participate in collective de-
fense with allies. Moreover, Japan’s dispatch of forces to Iraq
was unprecedented in terms of exposing Japanese troops to
danger, but the Japanese troops were kept well away from ac- MICHAEL J. GREEN is Senior Advisor and Japan Chair at the Center for
tual combat and had a protective ring of British and Australian Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC, and Associate
troops around them to deal with any contingencies. But, it Professor of International Relations at the Edmund A. Walsh School of
would also be hard to argue that Japan has been reactive and Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Dr. Green served on the Na-
passive the way it was in response to the first Gulf War in tional Security Council Staff from 2001to 2003 as Director for Asian Af-
fairs responsible for Japan and Korea, and from 2004 to 2005 as Special
1990–91. Koizumi’s assertiveness in international affairs was Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Asian Affairs. He speaks
popular in Japan and future leaders will build on that example. fluent Japanese and is the author of Arming Japan (Columbia University
It would also be wrong to argue that Japan is ignoring his- Press, 1995) and Japan’s Reluctant Realism (Palgrave, 2001) in addition
tory, since the Japanese government has formally apologized to numerous articles and chapters on Japan and Asia.

30 EDUCATION ABOUT ASIA Volume 12, Number 3 Winter 2007