With friends like these

“You’ve betrayed Vietnam. Someday you’re going to sell out Taiwan. And we’re going to be around when you get tired of Israel.”
- President Hafez al-Assad of Syria to U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger

“America is harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend.”
- attributed to Professor Bernard Lewis

WITH THE EXCEPTION OF GREAT BRITAIN, Japan has been America’s most dependable ally since the end of the Second World War. To take the point further, Japanese conduct in that time might well be used as a model for the behavior of the ideal national ally.

After its defeat in that disastrous war, it has embraced liberal, free-market democracy and conducted itself in an exemplary manner abroad. The country followed the American lead to become one of the most generous providers of foreign aid today, and some years has been the world’s leading aid donor. Much of this aid, particularly the assistance distributed in Asia, goes unnoticed in the West.

Japan has supported every major American diplomatic initiative for more than half a century. It has continued to uphold the Security Treaty between the two countries despite varying degrees of domestic opposition. Sometimes, this comes at great political cost to its government officials, as former Prime Minister Kishi Nobusuke discovered in 1960.

It still hosts American military bases, which requires both enormous financial outlays and the willingness to ward off internal criticism. For example, about 34,000 American service personnel are stationed in Japan, and another 5 to 6,000 are employed by the Department of Defense. The Japanese provide the land for U.S. military bases rent free and pay 217.3 billion yen (US$ 2.144 billion) of their costs.

Some of those bases had to be relocated because of local opposition to their presence, especially in Okinawa; Japan will foot the bill for the new construction work. Some Marines will be moved to Guam; Japan will pay $6.09 billion of the $10.27 billion required for the facilities and infrastructure development resulting from relocation. Japan also has had to provide $900 million in local subsidies to offset the criticism of both the public and local politicians.

In addition, the Japanese are the second-largest donor for the rebuilding of Iraq, after the U.S.–at American insistence.

How is this Japanese loyalty repaid?

It gets stiffed. Not every once in a while, but regularly.

And it just happened again.

Former Prime Minister Fukuda Yasuo visited the U.S. during his recent year in office and asked President Bush for reassurance that it would not remove North Korea from the list of nations sponsoring terrorism absent further help from Pyeongyang in resolving the issue of the fate of Japanese citizens they held prisoner.

For years, North Korean agents infiltrated Japanese territory and abducted ordinary Japanese citizens from remote, seaside locations and spirited them away to North Korea to work as language and cultural instructors. They even kidnapped a 13-year-old girl on her way home from school. The North allowed a few of the unfortunates to return to Japan, but provided patently false information on the fate and whereabouts of the remainder.

The perpetually self-absorbed Uncle Sam failed to realize that for many Japanese this issue was just as important as the circumstances of the roughly 2,500 American POW-MIAs thought to have been held in Vietnam at the end of the Vietnamese War. As in Japan, that issue was also kept alive—for 30 years—through the efforts of family members. Its own experience should have meant that America would be that much more sensitive to Japanese concerns.

During Prime Minister Fukuda’s visit, President Bush stood next to him and said:

“I’m going to tell the Japanese people once again: We will not forget this issue. I understand, Mr. Prime Minister, how important the issue is to the Japanese people, and we will not forget the Japanese abductees, nor their families.”

Perhaps Mr. Bush didn’t forget the abductees, but he didn’t take Japanese concerns about them—or their concerns about national security—very seriously when he capitulated to North Korea and removed the country from its list of states that sponsor terrorism.

He also forgot about common courtesy. Mr. Bush didn’t bother to consult with Japanese Prime Minster Aso Taro beforehand. He informed him of the decision just 30 minutes before it was announced at about 11:00 p.m. Japan time.

And that was only after an urgent request from American Ambassador Thomas Schieffer.

Just the day before, a high-ranking Foreign Ministry official had said that reports of an imminent delisting were “completely incorrect.” In short, America’s best friends were the last to know.

But Mr. Bush also made sure to ask the Japanese prime minister to express his sympathies again to the abductees’ families, and said he really wanted to help resolve the issue.

Meanwhile, the United States has blithely asked Japan to fork over food aid to North Korea as humanitarian assistance. That is unlikely to happen.

Here’s what else is unlikely to happen: Full North Korean compliance with American requests. Part of the new deal with Pyeongyang includes visits to sites involved with the country’s production of nuclear material—but only those sites the North declared last June. Inspections of other sites, such as those suspected to be the location of an enriched uranium program, will require “mutual consent”.

It would be a waste of time to speculate on the likelihood that mutual consent will ever be achieved.

Why is this important? The terms of the U.S.-Japan security alliance call for the U.S. to defend Japan in case of attack. There are missiles in North Korea aimed at Japan right now, as missiles in the Soviet Union were aimed at the U.S. during the Cold War. Those weapons can easily reach Japan, a country the North Koreans have threatened to turn into a sea of fire.

Pyeongyang’s political leadership was none too stable when Kim Jong-il was in good health and in charge. It can only grow more undependable in the days ahead.

Japan is powerless to take any steps to prevent North Korean aggression. The Americans made sure of that in 1945 when they deprived the Japanese of the legal authority to conduct preemptive defense. They reserve that right for themselves.

This cavalier American attitude towards its ally is not a recent phenomenon. Indeed, it sometimes seems to be the rule rather than the exception.

For years the Japanese government held the line on establishing diplomatic relations with Red China, even though normalized relations were in its financial interest, and Japanese businessman and politicians had clamored for it since the 1950s. Instead, the U.S. actively prevented it.

When the U.S. finally recognized the Chinese on its own, it did not bother to inform or consult with Japan in advance. The Japanese were stuck with a policy they never wanted to begin with. President Richard Nixon’s explanation was that a mature alliance did not need to focus on “superficial public events”.

By that time, Zbigniew Brzezinski, later to be President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor, was already on record for criticizing the Japanese Foreign Ministry as “the Asian Department of the United States State Department”.

In the early 80s, the United States refused to allow Japan access to its advanced navigational system for military aircraft, citing security reasons. The Japanese were forced to develop their own system for the American-built aircraft, and eventually produced hardware superior to the American system. The U.S. then demanded that the Japanese share theirs and threatened to reduce military assistance to them if they did not.

When U.S. President Bill Clinton visited China in 1998, he bowed to Chinese demands that he not visit Japan. (This was two years after Chinese military intelligence officials had funneled money to President Clinton and his Democratic Party in the form of political contributions.) Mr. Clinton’s administration had already irritated Japan by trying to manipulate the yen as an instrument of trade policy, which helped to blunt a Japanese economic recovery just as it was getting under way.

The leader of what was presumed to be the world’s only superpower thus snubbed its premier ally in the Eastern Hemisphere to avoid displeasing the Chinese.

During George W. Bush’s first term as President, then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice was reported to have hinted there would be no objections if China increased its nuclear arsenal as long as Beijing stopped opposing the U.S. missile defense program.

What is Japan supposed to do if the guarantor of its defense strengthens the position of potential threats to that defense?

The Americans were upset when the primary Japanese opposition party forced the government to suspend its naval mission to supply fuel to US-led forces in Afghanistan after its mandate expired on 1 November last year after six years. During that time, the Japanese had provided free fuel and water worth about 22 billion yen to U.S. and other coalition ships patrolling the Indian Ocean for drug runners, gun smugglers and suspected terrorists.

Yet again, the Americans were oblivious to the domestic situation of its ally. The Japanese were trying to come to terms with a divided and gridlocked legislature for the first time in their history, and the opposition Democratic Party of Japan unwisely chose the refueling mission to confront the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in the Diet in a failed effort to force an election.

During the debate in Japan, the question arose regarding how much of the fuel it supplied to the U.S. was later diverted to the military effort in Iraq. The Japanese government asked the American government for this information. The Americans refused to provide any.

At the same time, America demanded that Japan stop its whaling fleet from catching any whales during its annual scientific expedition to the South Pacific. Said a U.S. State Department spokesman:

“We call on Japan to refrain from conducting this year’s hunt, especially with respect to humpback and fin whales…While recognizing Japan’s legal rights under the whaling convention to conduct this hunt, we note that non-lethal research techniques are available to provide nearly all relevant data on whale populations.”

Events last year were a near disaster for the bilateral relationship, of course, after the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution criticizing Japan for what it termed was Japan’s failure to address the comfort women problem of World War II. Japanese across the political spectrum—even those on the left, who would never dream of soft-pedaling their country’s behavior during the first half of the 20th century—were appalled at the lack of understanding, not to mention tact, exhibited by the American legislators. Everyone in Japan realized that the primary motivation for the measure was to satisfy the vested interests of a few American politicians supported by the Korean-American and Chinese-American lobby in a quid pro quo arrangement, as well as indulge the strain of Little Jack Horner politics (“What a good boy am I”) characteristic of some politicians on the left.

In other words, campaign cash and the opportunity for a day of self-congratulation were more important considerations than the international humiliation of a loyal ally.

When speculation arose that Prime Minister Abe Shinzo might renounce the Kono Statement, which was an apology and partial acceptance of responsibility for Japanese behavior, not only the American lower house, but the White House itself, pressured the Japanese to modify their stance. A note was sent to Mr. Abe through Ambassador Schieffer warning the Japanese prime minister to cease and desist.

For leverage, they threatened to withdraw American support for Japan against North Korea regarding the abduction issue.

What was it that Mr. Bush later told Prime Minister Fukuda?

“I’m going to tell the Japanese people once again: We will not forget this issue. I understand, Mr. Prime Minister, how important the issue is to the Japanese people, and we will not forget the Japanese abductees, nor their families.”

Well, he kept his promise not to forget, didn’t he?

Backed into a corner, Mr. Abe stated that he would stand by the Kono Statement.

Now imagine how the Japanese felt when the House’s move to pass a similar resolution concerning the Turkish massacre of Armenians was quashed because of fears it would jeopardize Turkish-American relations. Among those who spoke out against that resolution were Mr. Brzezinski, Ms. Rice, and Mr. Carter. Mass media outlets also criticized the resolution, though none of them had any such qualms when the resolution against Japan was up for debate.

Japan Ambassador Kato Ryozo said passage of the comfort woman resolution “will almost certainly have lasting and harmful effects on the deep friendship, close trust and wide-ranging cooperation our two nations now enjoy.”

Mr. Kato was sharply criticized for his statement, but his assertion cannot be easily gainsaid. It might be a little while longer, however, for the repercussions of the resolution to become manifest in the relationship.

On some occasions, the Americans can’t be depended on to fulfill its ordinary obligations. For example, last year the two allies finally resolved a dispute dating from 1998 regarding the American refusal to pay rent on its embassy property in Tokyo.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Japan Michael Mansfield used to say that the Japanese-American alliance was “The most important bilateral relationship, bar none.”

But the United States government has never acted as if it believed it.

One of these days, the Japanese government might stop believing it too.