This week we look ahead to Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe’s visit to the United States. Longtime U.S.-Japan hands CSIS Japan Chair Dr. Michael Green and CSIS Simon Chair Matthew Goodman join the podcast to describe the state of the U.S.-Japan alliance and preview the agenda for the summit. Then we turn to the future of U.S. defense collaboration and security in Asia. CSIS Japan Chair Fellow Zack Cooper caught up with CSIS Kissinger Chair Dr. Kathleen Hicks and Dr. Michael Green to discuss their work on federated defense in Asia and countering coercion.
We also review the region’s news, profile Wang Qishan, and share our One to Watch. Hosted by Colm Quinn. Audio edited by Samuel Ellis. Produced by Jeffrey Bean.
To learn more on Federated Defense in Asia, read the post Dr. Hicks and Dr. Green wrote here.
We should look at Abe Shinzo’s trip to America in terms of whether he can achieve a “blue line” of accomplishments in partnership with America without falling below a “red line” of historical revisionism that will upset not only the Koreans, America’s allies, and Chinese but also many Americans, too.
First the blue line. Many powerful American interest groups want the TPP with Japan in it because it theoretically can pry open a market that is among the most advanced but which also has an incredible amount of protected sectors — agriculture and rice especially — and non-tariff barriers. Many defense and security interests want to end the Japanese “free ride” in which the Japanese are prepared to throw money at conflict areas but not military personnel and other assets despite having one of the strongest navies in the world and a highly capable Air Force (forget this Self-Defense Force terminology). This “free ride” would be replaced by an arrangement by which Japan continues to throw money but also puts boots on the ground and on decks and butts in cockpits. Most immediately this is justified as being aimed at North a Korea but increasingly explicitly this is aimed at China.
And America and Japan do want to acknowledge together that since the end of a World War II 70 years ago, Japan has had the most remarkable record in the world of developing a liberal democracy that has conscientiously pursued peace and prosperity and which has shared a considerable amount of its success with developing nations, including China and Korea incidentally.
Now for the red line. Abe Shinzo is too shrewd to offend America. The notion that he will perform as he did in Indonesia as well as in an earlier trip to Canberra is highly likely. He will invoke a memory that touches on Japanese actions in World War II, carefully evading words like aggression and invasion, and he will speak of his personal heart felt anguish and remorse and a vow that Japan will do all in its power to prevent such wide spread suffering ever again. Because the Congress has passed a resolution calling on Japan to refrain from historical revisionism on war time sexual slavery, Abe will likely use the words “human trafficking” to denounce violence against women that occurred during the 20th century — without specifically mentioning Japan’s major rounder the notion that “everybody was raping women” — and to call on international efforts to prevent such atrocities in these times. The Chinese and Koreans — and many American experts — will recognize such language as the weasel words that they are and denounce Abe’s tricky legerdemain. But most Americans who care about the subject will likely give Abe a passing mark, with some even praising Abe for his heart-felt remorse and expressing wonderment as to why Chinese and Koreans despise this visage of banality.