SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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29–883PDF
2006
JAPAN'S RELATIONSHIP WITH ITS NEIGHBORS: BACK TO THE FUTURE?
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
SEPTEMBER 14, 2006
Serial No. 109–227
Printed for the use of the Committee on International Relations
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.house.gov/international—relations
COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
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HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois, Chairman
JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey,
Vice Chairman
DAN BURTON, Indiana
ELTON GALLEGLY, California
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida
DANA ROHRABACHER, California
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California
PETER T. KING, New York
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
THOMAS G. TANCREDO, Colorado
RON PAUL, Texas
DARRELL ISSA, California
JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia
MARK GREEN, Wisconsin
JERRY WELLER, Illinois
MIKE PENCE, Indiana
THADDEUS G. McCOTTER, Michigan
KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida
JOE WILSON, South Carolina
JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
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J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina
CONNIE MACK, Florida
JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska
MICHAEL McCAUL, Texas
TED POE, Texas
TOM LANTOS, California
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York
ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American Samoa
DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
BRAD SHERMAN, California
ROBERT WEXLER, Florida
ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
BARBARA LEE, California
JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon
SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada
GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California
ADAM B. SCHIFF, California
DIANE E. WATSON, California
ADAM SMITH, Washington
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BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky
DENNIS A. CARDOZA, California
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
THOMAS E. MOONEY, SR., Staff Director/General Counsel
ROBERT R. KING, Democratic Staff Director
DENNIS HALPIN, Professional Staff Member
JEAN CARROLL, Full Committee Hearing Coordinator
C O N T E N T S
WITNESSES
Michael J. Green, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
Ms. Mindy Kotler, Director, Asia Policy Point
Kurt Campbell, Ph.D., Senior Vice President, Henry A. Kissinger Chair in National Security, and Director of International Security Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies
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Ms. Yuki Tatsumi, Research Fellow, The Henry L. Stimson Center
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Michael J. Green, Ph.D.: Prepared statement
Ms. Mindy Kotler: Prepared statement
Kurt Campbell, Ph.D.: Prepared statement
Ms. Yuki Tatsumi: Prepared statement
APPENDIX
Material Submitted for the Hearing Record
JAPAN'S RELATIONSHIP WITH ITS NEIGHBORS: BACK TO THE FUTURE?
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2006
House of Representatives,
Committee on International Relations,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 11:03, a.m., in room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Henry J. Hyde (Chairman of the Committee) presiding.
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Chairman HYDE. The Committee will come to order.
Welcome to our illustrious panel of experts. And let me extend sincere congratulations to the Imperial family and the people of Japan on the occasion of last week's birth of the little prince in Tokyo.
I recently returned from a 2-week fact-finding mission in the Asia-Pacific region, and the area I first encountered more than six decades ago as a young naval officer. Our delegation made a stop most poignantly in the Solomon Islands on August 16, the 61st anniversary of the end of World War II. It was in the Solomons at Guadalcanal that a horrific 6-month battle raged in 1942 and 1943. We laid a wreath there on August 15th to honor those who fell.
Abraham Lincoln of Illinois stated in his Gettysburg Address, ''The world will little note and long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did hear.'' So the world took little note of our modest wreath laying in Guadalcanal. What is more significant, however, is that there were few other events to mark this important anniversary. Americans should ponder whether over a half century since the September 11th anniversary we just commemorated will also draw only passing attention from a few historians. In Japan, by contrast, the prime minister visited a shrine to honor his nation's war dead on August 15th. This caused some disquietude among Japan's neighbors because that shrine also honors some convicted war criminals.
While the eyes of the world turned to conflicts in other regions, all appears calm on the surface of this region, washed by the waters of the Pacific Ocean, unparalleled prosperity has arisen in the post-war years.
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The Pacific has become the major waterway over which the world's commerce flows. Yet even a brief visit to the region reveals that turbulent undercurrents lie just below this Pacific surface.
Whether a rising China will become a responsible stakeholder remains an open question. The ability of old rivals, Japan and China, to find living space without bumping into each other is an emotionally charged issue. North Korea, as it reminded all Americans with its 4th of July missile launches, remains a major source of regional instability, and maintaining the peace in the Taiwan Strait is a constraint challenge for us all.
All of these sources of tension in the Asia-Pacific region require that we and our allies forge a united front; however, sadly, our history keeps getting in the way. Our two major allies in East Asia, Japan and the Republic of Korea, have never joined in a common alliance. At a time when the increasing North Korean nuclear threat casts a long shadow over the entire region, it is not in the national interest of the United States to have our key allies at odds with each other.
It was curious when, following the recent North Korea missile launch, some leaders in Seoul chose to lay the blame for provocation at Tokyo's doorstep rather than pointing the finger where it belonged, the menacing dictator in Pyongyang.
Something needs to be done to address the critical issues at hand given the immensity of the stakes involved, not only to regional piece, but also to the prosperity of the world. Something needs to be done so that Japan, the second largest donor to the United Nations, can take its proper place as a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Something needs to be done so that there is wholehearted regional support for an immense task ahead, the reunification of the Korean Peninsula. Something needs to be done so there is a full accounting of abductees from Japan, South Korea and other countries forcibly taken to North Korea. This last issue has been a particular human rights concern of our Committee. We approved a resolution, which overwhelmingly passed the full House. Japan is our good and trusted ally; the Republic of Korea is our good and trusted ally. The United States needs both of them, and needs them to fully cooperate on these and other issues.
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Thus, the question we wish to address today is, why has Europe been able to bury a contentious past while East Asia has not? Why has Europe risen from the ashes of war to form NATO, establish a European Union, even introduce a common currency, while East Asia lacks even fundamental regional security and economic institutions?
The history of 20th century Europe, including the history of the Holocaust, was surely no less bitter than that of the 20th century Asia, yet European nations which were victims of the Nazis were able to join forces with former axis powers to present a united front against the Soviets threat during the Cold War. While Europe has moved beyond its troubled past, in Asia, it always seems to be back to the future. Specifically, the Arbitrage Report on the United States-Japan relationship issued by a bipartisan group of experts in 2000 suggested that Japan could play a key role similar to that played by Great Britain as an ally of the United States. A major difference, of course, is that Great Britain does not have a series of territorial disputes and unresolved historic issues, with virtually all of her neighbors such as exists between Japan and Russia, the Koreas, Japan and Taiwan. Is it sound policy to put all of America's Asia-Pacific eggs into the Japanese basket as long as these historic and territorial issues remain unresolved?
Let me add, as a member of the World War II generation, that I have no doubt that the truth of what happened during the Second War will and must prevail. It is troubling to those of my generation to learn that Yushukan Museum in Tokyo is teaching younger generations of Japanese that the Second World War in Asia was launched by Tokyo to free the peoples of Asia and the Pacific from the yolk of western imperialism. I just visited Korea, the Philippines, Singapore, the Solomon Islands, and I can tell you that while some spoke frankly of bitter experiences remembered during the Japanese occupation, not one person in any of these countries told any member of our delegation that they fondly remembered the Imperial Japanese Army as liberators. The history being taught at this museum is not based on the facts, and it should be corrected.
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We face immense challenges ahead in the Asia-Pacific region. When the story of this new century is finally recorded, the Middle East will not likely take center stage in the history books, despite our present necessary focus on this region. The history of the 21st century will likely be written mainly in China, India, Japan, and a unified Korea. The stakes in East Asia thus are great. The unity of our friends in the region is essential. We simply cannot continue to allow history to impede us as a roadblock to destiny.
Now I welcome opening remarks from my friend, Mr. Lantos, the Ranking Democratic Member.
Mr. LANTOS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
And before I say a few words about the subject of our hearing, let me pay public tribute to your courageous military service in Asia. And let me express both my admiration for your very thoughtful and significant opening statement, and our regret that your historical perspective and geostrategic view will be missing from this body in the future.
Chairman HYDE. Thank you very much.
Mr. LANTOS. Sixty-one years ago this month, General Douglas MacArthur accepted the unconditional surrender of the Japanese Government, formally bringing World War II to an end.
Few aboard that USS Missouri that September day would ever have imagined that 6 decades later, the United States and Japan would be the closest of allies, sharing a deep and abiding commitment to international security, democracy and the rule of law.
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Mr. Chairman, this is exactly the miraculous transformation in the bilateral relationship of the two great nations over the past 61 years. In fact, relations today between the United States and Japan have never been stronger, and have only been bolstered under the leadership of Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi. But it would be a profound mistake to keep the United States-Japan relationship on autopilot. In a few short days the ruling liberal democratic party will choose a new prime minister. Decisions made by Japan's new leader will have a profound effect on our bilateral relationship and upon Japan's role in Northeast Asia. We must step up our dialog with Japan in the months and years ahead and not rest on our laurels.
As we commemorate the fifth anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attack this week, we must remember Japan's unprecedented cooperation with our nation in the aftermath of September 11th. Japan provided logistical support for United States military operations against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. The dispatch of Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Forces was the first such deployment since World War II. And when it came to Afghan relief and reconstruction, while many countries hid behind the door as the United States passed the tin cup, Japan became the third largest donor country.
The Japanese Government provided extensive reconstruction support in Iraq and deployed 600 military personnel there to distribute humanitarian aid and to carry out reconstruction.
Most important, in terms of the future security of Northeast Asia, the United States and Japan have coordinated closely a North Korea policy in the context of the Six Party Talks. Japan strongly supports our primary objective in these multinational discussions, a nuclear free Korean Peninsula. And the United States has indicated that North Korea must return all those Japanese citizens who were kidnapped by Pyongyang days ago.
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It should, therefore, come as no surprise that I strongly support Japan's bid to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, particularly as Japan contributes 19 percent of the UN's annual budget. I also believe that we must work closely with Japan to ensure that it can play an increased international and regional leadership role in the security arena.
In light of our shared commitments and history of close cooperation, I count myself as a strong friend of Japan, and I believe it is incumbent upon friends to speak frankly to each other. Japan's failure to deal honestly with its past does great disservice to the nation of Japan, offends the other key players in Northeast Asia, and undermines America's own national security interests by exacerbating regional tensions.
The most egregious example of Japan's historical amnesia is the practice of Japanese prime ministers visiting the Yasukuni shrine. As a survivor of World War II, I fully understand by Japanese leaders wish to pay homage to Japanese who die in service of their nation, any leader of a free and democratic nation would do so. But for the survivors of World War II in Asia and America, visits to the Yasukuni Shrine where 14 class A war criminals are interred would be the equivalent of laying a wreath at the graves of Himmler, Rudolph Hess and Herman Greer in Germany.
My message to the incoming Japanese prime minister is very simple; paying one's respects to war criminals is morally bankrupt and unworthy of a great nation such as Japan. This practice must end. The Japanese Government has also approved textbooks which deny the Rape of Nanking, and imply that Japan was simply trying to protect other Asian nations from imperialism by launching World War II. I understand that only a few schools actually use these revisionist textbooks, but the fact that the Japanese Government approves them for use speaks loudly to the countries of Northeast Asia. Those who deny history are surely bound to repeat it, and this practice must also end.
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I strongly believe that Japan has a greater role to play in a new security framework for Northeast Asia and the international community, but it will be difficult to achieve these important and urgent goals as long as Japanese leaders go out of their way to offend Korea and China.
Mr. Chairman, the Yasukuni Shrine visits and the revisionist Japanese textbooks are not the centerpiece of our bilateral relationship. Our shared commitment to democracy and the rule of law binds our nations together. But as we look forward to the next 6 decades of United States-Japan relations, it is eminently clear that everyone's best interests, with the exception of right-wing Japanese ultra nationalists would be served by Japan's willingness frankly and openly to deal with its past.
With respect to your rhetorical question, Mr. Chairman, as to why Europe has been able to overcome a very ugly history and move toward a united Europe with a common currency and a whole set of common institutions, I suspect the answer lies in a very simple formula. The European nations are all political democracies, and when the nations of Northeast Asia, including China, will become democracies, we can look forward to a similarly favorable development.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman HYDE. Thank you very much, Mr. Lantos.
The Chair will recognize Members for brief opening statements, and the Chair is pleased to recognize Mr. Leach from Iowa.
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Mr. LEACH. Mr. Chairman, I have a long statement that I would like to have permission to place in the record.
Chairman HYDE. Without objection.
Mr. LEACH. I would like to make one brief comment.
Chairman HYDE. Surely.
Mr. LEACH. Following on the two extraordinary statements that have been just given. Let me just stress that the circumstance that history is more controversial than current events underscores that people in public life in all countries are obligated to appeal to the higher rather than lower instincts of the body politic. And whether the issues be domestic or international, contemporary or historical, the temptation to appeal to the darker side of human nature has to be avoided. And it strikes me that this responsibility might be more important than the judgments reflected on any issue of the day. And this applies particularly to the issues in the Pacific. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman HYDE. Thank you, Mr. Leach.
The gentlelady from California, Ms. Lee.
Ms. LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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Let me thank you and Ranking Member Lantos for convening this very important hearing, and thank our witnesses for being here.
While the terror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki still occupies a significant place in our collective memories, it is unfortunate from my perspective that in the ensuing 60-plus years the world has become a more dangerous and complex place. Yet it is against the backdrop of increased tensions in the region and the world that Japan has continued to abide by its article 9 commitments in the Japanese Constitution, which essentially says that it seeks to resolve disputes through diplomacy and negotiations. This is, quite frankly, highly commendable and quite frankly inspiring at a time of war and strife.
I had the opportunity to visit Japan a few years ago and was very impressed by the vibrant spirit and the passionate commitment to peace and justice of the Japanese people. I met with many survivors of the nuclear bomb attacks, and I tell you, after this meeting and this visit, there is no way that I could not be totally committed to nuclear nonproliferation efforts wherever we believe that nuclear bombs could raise their ugly head. So I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about all of the challenges, security challenges which Japan faces, but also how the United States can support and strengthen our important relationship also with its neighbors, in addition to the United States.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman HYDE. Thank you.
The gentleman from California, Mr. Rohrabacher.
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Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And again, I applaud your leadership on this issue and also on the many other challenges we face. Your knowledge of the past and your vision for the future serves our country well, and it has been my honor to serve with you here in the United States Congress.
We need to have a perspective on this. You know, there is a song in California which surfers know very well called Don't Look Back. Well, clearly we do have to look back sometimes, but our perspective should mainly be on the future and not the past. There are some people that have a motive in trying to keep us looking backwards. The Chinese regime in Beijing, which is a dictatorship, wants to drive a wedge between the United States and Japan, and they would like us to focus on the past. Let us remember and let us remind those people in Beijing who hold power, who are so outraged by the Japanese behavior sometimes that they think is insensitivity. Yes, the Japanese committed sins against the Chinese people, but let us remember that the Chinese Communist regime that currently holds power his committed these very same sins, and more people were murdered by Mao Zedong than were killed by Japanese troops in World War II and leading up to the World War II.
So while we recognize these historical facts, we should focus on the present and the future. In the present, Japan is not a dictatorship like it is in Beijing, that the Japanese Government is indeed an example of democracy and tolerance and openness that could serve Asia very well. And they are also tremendous partners with the United States.
We have with us today, Mr. Chairman, a member of the British Parliament, Douglas Carswell, who is visiting us. And I can think of no stronger allies than the British and the Japanese in trying to build a better world today. Both in Afghanistan and elsewhere they have served us as partners and are trying to build a better world. In the future, if we are to have a better world, it will depend on a strong friendship with Japan. And I would suggest that, yes, we hope they will be more sensitive to some of the things that happened in World War II, and we need to be sensitive about the fact that they lost many people in World War II as well who were not combatants. We need to get beyond that and build a better future. And I think one thing we could do would be to support the Japanese in their endeavor to have a permanent seat in the United Nation's Security Council; they have earned it, they are that type of influence in the world; we need to be Japan's best friend, so we can build a better and more peaceful and prosperous world. Thank you very much.
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Chairman HYDE. Thank you. Mr. Chandler of Kentucky.
Mr. CHANDLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you all calling this very, very important hearing. And it is interesting for me to hear some of the statements about the past versus the present. I think both the past and the present are both important, and the future as well.
In my own district in Kentucky, we have an interesting relationship with Japan. We have a small town, Harrisburg Kentucky, which suffered greatly, lost a lot of its citizens in World War II in the Baton Death March, and as a result, you can imagine the high feeling there in that small town. Since that time, though, we have seen an incredible relationship, an incredibly positive relationship built up in our state with Japan. We have an enormous amount of money invested by the Japanese in our state, we are very proud of that investment. And quite frankly, we have done a tremendous job of moving on.
And Japan has become a tremendous ally for the United States of America. This needs to be recognized. And it is extremely important that we understand the importance, the economic importance and economic relationship that we have with Japan and that relationship is built upon, and that we also understand Japan's connection and Japan's relationships with other countries in its region.
We, of course, know very much about what has happened with North Korea, the missile test that the North Koreans engaged in recently. And it is crucial, I think, for the United States of America to understand and be prepared for the events that may take place in the East, in the Far East. We have a tendency to focus on the Middle East, but issues in the Pacific are also extremely important. And I applaud you for holding this hearing so that we can discuss those issues in greater detail.
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Thank you very much.
Chairman HYDE. Thank you, Mr. Chandler.
Mr. Wilson of South Carolina.
Mr. WILSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I wanted to be here today to thank you for putting this hearing together and thank the Japanese people for their assistance in the global war on terrorism and the commitment of troops to Iraq, Afghanistan. I have actually met some of the troops firsthand. And so we are in a common global war. It would be somewhat easy for Japan to maybe not acknowledge that they are a part of it, but, of course, they are, we all are. And I appreciate that.
Additionally, I have had the extraordinary opportunity to visit Pyongyang, North Korea. I know the threat and challenge that is to Northeast Asia and the role that Japan can play. Actually, to me, China should be playing the role of providing stability.
And I want to join with Congressman Chandler in recognizing the extraordinary Japanese investment in my home State of South Carolina. We have thousands of jobs that have been created due to Japanese investment.
Also, I also like to always extend a warm invitation for Japanese tourists. We have many golf courses at Myrtle Beach and the home district. I represent Hilton Head Island, we have many golf courses and Japanese terrorists are welcome. Thank you.
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Chairman HYDE. Thank you for that commercial.
The gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Tancredo.
Mr. TANCREDO. No statement.
Chairman HYDE. Thank you.
Well, we welcome Dr. Michael Green, who currently is an associate professor at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Prior to his current position, Dr. Green worked at the National Security Council, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Department of Defense.
Also joining us is Ms. Mindy Kotler, the founder and director of Asia Policy Point, which is a research center examining United States policy relationships with Japan and other countries of Northeast Asia. Members of the APP are scholars, policy officials, analysts and journalists who follow the region.
Dr. Kurt Campbell has a long history of public service. Among his honors are Department of Defense metals for distinguished public service and for outstanding public service. He is both Senior Vice-President Henry A. Kissinger Chair in National Security and Director of International Security Program at CSIS.
The last member of our panel is Ms. Yuki Tatsumi, who is a research fellow at the Henry L. Stimson Center, as well as an adjunct fellow with the International Security Program at CSIS, that is the Center For Strategic Intelligence Studies.
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Prior to these positions, Ms. Tatsumi served at the Embassy of Japan as the Special Assistant For Political Affairs.
Thank you all for joining us today. Dr. Green, would you proceed with a 5-minute summary of your testimony. The full text will be made a part of the record.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL J. GREEN, PH.D., ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, EDMUND A. WALSH SCHOOL OF FOREIGN SERVICE, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And let me join the many voices who are thanking you for your service to the country from the time you went to the Pacific to your leadership on this Committee.
The Committee asked me to look at Japan's tense relations in its neighborhood and to consider what this says about Japan's role as an ally and role in the world. And my testimony goes into this, but I think the Members of the Committee have explained how Japan is a stakeholder, a generous stakeholder, an active stakeholder in the international system, and there is not much I would add to there.
I would call the Committee's attention, though, to the fact that this is broadly recognized in the world; Japan is hardly an isolated nation. A recent poll of the United States showed that more Americans think we have common values with Japan than we do with Britain. And our guests can be reassured it was only 1 or 2 percentage points over Britain, but it was quite stunning to see that more Americans see common values with Japan now.
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The Southeast Asians recently responded to a Gallup Poll that came out last week. Over 90 percent of those polled in Southeast Asia said Japan is a friend. Between 70 and 90 percent of the respondents from each country said Japan is a trustworthy and reliable country in Asia. The BBC in March did a poll globally; they polled 33 countries and they asked what countries play a positive role in the world. The result wasn't too good for us, but it was quite impressive for Japan, Japan came in number one. 31 of 33 countries around the world had majorities who said Japan plays a positive role.
So I think we are fortunate to have Japan as an ally, we can count on a lot more leadership from Japan, and I think the Members are right to strongly stand by Japan's bid for the Security Council seat that they are seeking and deserve.
Two countries in that BBC poll had majorities that responded that Japan is not a positive force in the world, and the Members will not be surprised to learn that those countries were China and the Republic of Korea. Seventy-one percent of Chinese said Japan is not a force for good, 54 percent of South Koreans. I think we need to look at those two relationships in particular and we need to separate them because the dynamics are very different.
In China, the focus is often on the prime minister's controversial Yasukuni visits, but that is as much symptom as cause. Most post-war prime ministers have gone to Yasukuni, but the Chinese response to Koizumi has been unusually intense and ferocious, and part of that is because the feelings are still very strong. The Chinese leaders 30 years ago said it would take three generations for this to be forgotten.
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A part of it is that nationalism in Asia is more powerful as a force because of the Internet and so forth, but a lot of it, I think, is because of the structure of international politics in Northeast Asia. Japan and China are powerful now at the same time, essentially for the first time in history. They both have somewhat different visions for the future of Asia, they both want to play a leadership role, and they are in competition. China is blocking Japan's bid for the Security Council seat, Chinese vessels are in Japanese waters, Japan is pushing for a regional integration process that would emphasize democracy and rule of law; China has a different vision.
That is the source of much of the problem. It is reflected in the opinion polls about Yasukuni. Where most Japanese don't say they want to glorify the past or change the record, most of them say they want to honor the 2 million Japanese who died and they don't want China to tell them what to do. So a lot of this is face and test of wills.
It is a problem, but it is not a problem we can easily fix and it is not a problem that the leaders in the country are ignoring. Mr. Abe is expected to win and become prime minister. The Chinese, very smartly, are not boxing him in on Yasukuni, they are not telling him what to do. They are building a little room for him to maneuver.
He is saying positive things about China. The underlying rivalry won't go away, but I think that the leaders of the countries are trying to work some sort of modus vivendi and equilibrium, which is a healthy sign.
Korea is quite different. I don't think that Japan-Korea relations are set for rivalry in a structural way the way Japan and China are. In 1998, Kim Dae Jung and Prime Minister Obuchi released a statement, Obuchi apologized, Kim Dae Jung welcomed a larger role of Japan, and there was a real flourishing of Japan-Korea cooperation. It lasted essentially until 2004, after, by the way, several visits by Prime Minister Koizumi to Yasukuni. And the relationship started falling apart on the territorial issue of Tokdo and Takeshima, which has fueled this rivalry. It got caught up in the domestic politics of both countries.
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But I think in the case of Japan and Korea, two democracies, two allies of the United States, where in the past strong leadership has put this relationship on a positive track, it is different from China, and I think there is a lot of room for the two countries to start working together based on a common agenda they have.
The history issue is not going to go away easily, it is not something we are going to solve from the United States. We have to remember that China trades more with Japan than Japan trades now with the United States, so there is greater interdependence. But Asia is a complex mix of rivalry, of interdependence, of nationalism, of Pan-Asianism, and the issue won't be solved quickly, it deserves our attention, but the Asian leaders themselves are in many ways going to have to handle this themselves, with the United States keeping a steady hand, strong relations with our allies, reminding them we want them to have good relations, building leadership on issues like North Korea, and taking the perspective that Congressman Lantos mentioned, which is, this is not Europe, this is not an Asia free and whole, Germany is not Japan, and France and China are certainly not the same countries, France is a democracy.
The Chinese Premiere Zhou Enlai is right, it is going to take a long time. We should keep a steady hand on the tiller and demonstrate United States leadership in a very broad way, but not try to intervene, in my view, and solve these specific historical issues. Thank you.
Chairman HYDE. Thank you very much, Dr. Green.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Green follows:]
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PREPARED STATEMENT OF MICHAEL J. GREEN, PH.D., ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, EDMUND A. WALSH SCHOOL OF FOREIGN SERVICE, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the Committee for inviting me to testify on this important subject and to take this opportunity to thank you for your many years of distinguished service to our country.
The Committee has asked me to address the tensions between Japan and China and Japan and the Republic of Korea and to assess whether these tensions cast doubt on Japan's reliability as an ally or our own ability to maintain peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region.
JAPAN AS A RELIABLE ALLY AND STAKEHOLDER
Let me first address the question of Japan's international role, because I think it is important to note at the outset that the United States and the world are increasingly coming to rely on an active Japanese role in the maintenance of international peace, stability and development. After the United States, Japan is the second largest provider of funds to the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and official overseas development assistance. Japan is a crucial partner in the war on terror, having provided steady naval support and reconstruction funding for operations in Afghanistan. Japan's Self Defense Forces have been on the ground in Iraq doing reconstruction work and the Japanese government was one of the first to pledge significant financial support to Iraq; a pledge of $500 billion that prompted other governments in the Gulf to follow suit. Japan has lost a senior and distinguished diplomat in Iraq, but has remained steadfast in helping the new Iraqi government get on its feet.
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In Asia Japan is the leading provider of development assistance, both grants and loans, and Japan spends almost $5 billion per year to host U.S. forces that provide stability to the region and an indispensable strategic asset to protect U.S. interests. As the region explores some form of integration or ''East Asian Community,'' Japan has emerged as the main champion of a new regional order based on inclusion of the United States and promotion of democracy and the rule of law. This has brought Japan into competition with China and other nations that prefer an Asian order that limits the influence of the United States and protects member states from interference in their ''internal affairs'' on issues such as human rights or protection of intellectual property. As this debate has grown, Japan has found common cause with other democracies in the region and has significantly expanded strategic dialogue and cooperation with India and Australia, in particular. Indeed, the Australian government is reportedly exploring a formal security pact with Japan and a series of new regional initiatives are expected when Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visits Tokyo at the end of this year.
In travels throughout Europe and South Asia I have seen first hand the benefit of an active Japanese international role. In Kuwait in 2004 I chanced to meet a platoon of Ground Self Defense Forces just back from a deployment in Samwah, Iraq. They were tired, dirty and covered with desert dust—but they were clearly proud of their mission to help develop water purification plants for local Iraqis. In a remote part of the Pakistan near the Kyhber pass in September last year I visited the first and only modern school building established as an alternative to the dozens of Madrassas that often radicalize young Pakistani men. Hanging above this new school building was a crudely drawn but large Japanese flag with the words ''Thank you Japan.'' It turns out that the school was built by a joint USAID-Japanese initiative under the U.S.-Japan Strategic Development Initiative. I learned from our USAID director that Japan has committed to help build many more such schools along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.
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It is because of this record of contribution to international peace and stability that in polls today 91% of American ''opinion leaders'' and 69% of the general public consider Japan to be a reliable ally (in the same Foreign Ministry poll 96% of opinion leaders and 78% of the general public in the United States said that Japan shares our common values—a higher number than Great Britain received). Japan's image is also positive on the international level. The BBC released a poll in March of this year in which majorities in 31 of 33 countries around the world credited Japan with contributing positively to the international community. That was more recognition than any other country in the world received, including the United States, Great Britain, China and the Nordic countries. Only two countries had majorities that responded negatively about Japan's role in the world. Not surprisingly, those were China (71% negative view) and the Republic of Korea (54% negative view). The BBC poll did not cover Southeast Asia extensively, but a Gallup/Yomiuri/Hankook Ilbo poll released on September 4 demonstrated that more than 90% of people in Southeast Asian nations felt that their countries had a good relationship with Japan and between 70 and 90% said that Japan is a trustworthy nation.
Far from being isolated, Japan probably has broad respect and support in the world today than at any point in its history. Nevertheless, there is a clear problem between Japan and China and Japan and Korea and that is the crux of the Committee's concern today. I think the two bilateral relationships are different in character and I would like to examine them each in turn and then return to the question of what role the United States might play to enhance stability among the major states of Northeast Asia.
JAPAN'S RELATIONS WITH CHINA
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As the BBC poll suggests, tensions between Japan and China are deeper and likely to be more enduring than those between Japan and Korea. The focus of the U.S. media has been on the controversial visits of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to the Yasukuni Shrine memorializing Japan's war dead, but that is as much symptom as cause. To understand the real source of tensions between Japan and China, it is necessary to look first at the structural factors. Simply put, Japan and China are being forced to adjust to comparable levels of national power for the first time since China was defeated by a rising Japan in 1895. Neither Tokyo nor Beijing anticipated such a situation. Throughout the post-war period, Japanese leaders assumed that engagement with the Peoples Republic of China would lead to economic convergence between the two nations with Japan as the ''head flying geese'' because of its more advanced economy. Chinese leaders, in contrast, assumed that Japan would remain focused on economic activities and not become a rival for strategic influence. Over the past decade, each nation has come to realize that their expectations of the other were wrong and that the levers they had hoped would allow them to shape the others' behavior (economic aid for Japan and the history card for China) no longer suffice.
The resulting rivalry has been manifest in a number of areas. Last year China actively worked to organize opposition to Japan's bid for a permanent UN Security Council seat. China has opposed Japanese participation in U.S.-led multilateral discussions on Iran and has tried to marginalize Japan's influence in the Six Party Talks on North Korea. Chinese surface combatants and submarines have expanded their operations in waters claimed by Japan. In response, Japan's Defense Agency has begun shifting its air and naval forces to the southern islands near Taiwan and the Japan Defense Agency has begun highlighting the uncertainties caused by China's non-transparent defense build-up.
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It is in the context of this shifting strategic game that the tensions over history must be understood. Koizumi is not the first Japanese Prime Minister to visit Yasukuni; indeed, most post-war Prime Ministers went before him. And far from promoting an anti-China foreign policy, Koizumi has expressed an almost sunny optimism about the long-term future of the Japan-China relationship, disagreeing with those who would portray China's rise as a threat to Japan. He has also conveyed deep remorse and apology for Japan's historical transgressions on a number of occasions, including a 2001 statement at the Marco Polo bridge in China where the Sino-Japanese war began in 1937.
I believe Prime Minister Koizumi's insistence on worshiping at Yasukuni is based on his personal conviction that the relatives of millions of Japanese war dead deserve to have the Prime Minister honor their loss. But perhaps more important to Koizumi is his determination not to let China dictate the terms of how Japan recognizes its past. There is no question that Japan pays a diplomatic price for these shrine visits and public opinion in Japan is divided on whether the visits are worth that price or are even appropriate in the first place, but the issue cannot be explained with simplistic assertions that Koizumi is playing a nationalist card to gain popularity.
Similarly, arguments that Japan is forgetting its own history and somehow returning to prewar patterns of belligerence are also far off the mark. The Japanese live in a very dangerous neighborhood. North Korea has developed nuclear weapons and is expanding its arsenal of both bombs and missiles and China's military is operating ever closer to Japanese territory. Japan's main response has been to strengthen alliance ties with the United States, expand missile defense cooperation and urge the UN Security Council to put pressure on North Korea. Japan has not increased defense spending above 1% of GDP (and is unlikely to do so because of budget pressures) or begun work on new offensive weapons systems. Even proposals for Constitutional revision within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party retain the first clause of Article Nine renouncing war. Japan is certainly more nationalistic than in the past, but what is most striking about Japan's new ''realism'' is how reluctant and restrained it has been. One need only ask how the American public would have reacted to Canada developing nuclear weapons and kidnapping U.S. citizens, while Mexico increased its military budget at close to 15% a year to realize that there is still a strong undertow of pacifism in Japan.
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It is also important to remember that Japan and China have never had greater economic interdependence than they do today. For the last two years Japan has traded more with China than with the United States and there is no sign that Japanese companies intend to pull back from investing in China (though they are diversifying somewhat to India and Southeast Asia).
There is evidence that Chinese leaders recognize this economic interdependence and the risk to their own position of letting tensions with Japan over history go much further. Previous anti-Japanese student demonstrations in the 1980s quickly turned into anti-government demonstrations and while the Chinese leadership sees advantage in anti-Japanese patriotism, they also know the risks. Unlike his predecessor, Jiang Zemin, Chinese President Hu Jintao does not have a personal animosity towards the Japanese. Hu tried to find a way out of the impasse over history last year by declaring a readiness to meet with Koizumi if he would promise not to go back to Yasukuni. That failed, of course, because it looked like precisely the kind of dictation from Beijing on history that Koizumi and his government are determined to put in the past.
I have found over the past six months that counterparts in both China and Japan have essentially acknowledged their governments' tactical mishandling of the history issues without coming out and saying so explicitly. For example, Beijing has criticized Koizumi's most recent August visit to the shrine, but not tried to box in his expected successor, Shinzo Abe, with specific demands or conditions for summits. For his part, Abe has expressed a readiness to stabilize ties with China and Korea and the betting in Tokyo is that his first foreign visits will be to those countries, if he wins election as expected next week.
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The underlying strategic factors that are driving Sino-Japanese rivalry are unlikely to disappear. A clean Franco-German style resolution of the history issue in the near-term is unlikely. Japan is not German and China is not France—a democracy integrated into a Europe whole and free. Chinese Premiere Zhou Enlai said in the 1970s that Sino-Japanese relations would not move beyond the damaging memories of the war for at least three generations, which still sounds about right. However, there is reason to expect that both Tokyo and Beijing will add more nuance and caution to their treatment of controversial historical and territorial issues over the coming months and that will contribute to a more stable equilibrium in their bilateral relationship.
JAPAN'S RELATIONS WITH THE REPUBLIC OF KOREA
In contrast to Japan-China relations, the problems in Japan-Korea relations are more recent and not the result of a steady and predictable shift towards strategic rivalry over the past decade. Until recently, relations were on a positive track. In October 1998 former ROK President Kim Dae Jung and former Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi issued a joint statement in Tokyo in which Obuchi expressed deep remorse and apology for Japan's treatment of Korea and Kim welcomed Japan playing a larger role in Asian and international affairs. The Korean side ended a ban on Japanese cultural products and negotiations began on a bilateral free trade agreement. Korean culture, and especially Korean daytime TV dramas, became hugely popular in Japan. The United States, Japan and the ROK also instituted regular trilateral defense meetings and the Trilateral Coordination and Oversight Group (TCOG) on North Korea.
These trends continued into the Koizumi-Roh Moo Hyun era without interruption, even after Koizumi began his annual trips to Yasukuni in 2001. However, the political relationship between Japan and Korea quickly deteriorated in March 2004 when Japan's Shimane Prefecture passed a local bill claiming the Liancourt Islands (Tokdo in Korean and Takeshima in Japanese) as Japanese territory. While few Japanese outside of Takeshima or the Foreign Ministry knew much about these islands, the challenge to Korean sovereignty conjured up memories of past Japanese transgressions and ignited public opinion in Korea. As the conservative Grand National Party pursued impeachment hearings against President Roh and the progressive camp counterattacked with National Assembly investigations of the conservatives' wartime collaboration with the Japanese, the history issue became even more volatile. The increasing divergence between Tokyo's hard line on the North Korean nuclear program and Seoul's efforts at expanded engagement with Pyongyang has also added to the negative dynamic.
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As a result, Japan-Korea summits have been chilly or non-existent, the TCOG and U.S.-Japan-ROK defense trilaterals have stalled, the Japan-Korea FTA negotiations are at an impasse, and well-meaning officials in both Japan and the Republic of Korea appear uncertain regarding how they can put their bilateral relationship back on the positive track that lasted from 1998 until 2004.
There is no structural or geostrategic reason why Japan-Korea relations should continue to deteriorate. Both nations share common values as democracies and common interests in a strong U.S. presence in Asia and a denuclearized peninsula. Opinion polls published by the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses in March of this year indicate that many more Koreans view China as their long-term security challenge rather than Japan (38% said China versus 28% pointing to Japan). Despite the stalled negotiations on an FTA, Japanese and Korean steel companies are forming unprecedented alliances to deal with competition from China and the majority of business leaders in Seoul and Tokyo want and expect the negotiations to reopen at some point.
Nevertheless, the near-term effect of a breakdown in Japan-Korea strategic cooperation is worrisome because of the comfort it gives North Korea as Pyongyang works its way up the nuclear escalation ladder towards a possible nuclear test. Since the initiation of the TCOG in 1998, the evidence is strong that close U.S.-Japan-ROK coordination on North Korea spurs China to use its influence on Pyongyang and checks North Korean efforts to divide its neighbors. Moreover, in contrast to Tokyo and Beijing's carefully choreographed efforts to re-stabilize relations, there is no evidence that senior Japanese or Korean political leaders are trying to do the same for their bilateral ties. For these reasons, there is a greater urgency in the Japan-Korea case than with Japan-China relations, but also greater room for the United States to play a positive role.
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THE UNITED STATES ROLE
What should the United States do? In the case of Japan-China relations I believe it would be tremendously counterproductive to attempt any official brokering between the two nations on sensitive history issues. Zhou Enlai was right to point out the futility of trying to force a conclusion to the historical animosity between Japan and China. The Chinese inability to come to terms with its own historical record under the Communist Party means that Beijing has little room to seek an enduring solution with Tokyo on the past. Given the Japanese peoples' resentment of other governments' telling them how to address the past, U.S. pressure would simply invite a backlash and make it harder for the Japanese to find a way to honor their war dead without damaging relations with neighbors. In fact, there is a healthy discussion now underway in Japan, including detailed exposes in the conservative Yomiuri Shimbun describing how Japan entered into the war with China. Had the United States tried intervening on this issue, we would have been the lead story and become an obstacle to serious a discussion within Japan.
Efforts in the U.S. courts and the Congress to force Japan to pay compensation for acts during the war have also been counterproductive. The unequivocal position of the administration and the courts that the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty settled all claims from the war is simply not going to change. Meanwhile, the threat of litigation stymies efforts by those in Japan at the high levels who do want to take more proactive measures to address continuing legacies of Japan's wartime record without putting themselves at risk of endless litigation.
Moreover, it would be a mistake for the United States to try to strike a balance between Japan and China. Many of the issues that are driving Sino-Japanese tensions are issues where we have a common stake with Japan, whether it is the PLA military build-up, the nature of Asia's future institutional architecture, or the North Korean nuclear problem. Not only can the United States pursue a strong alliance with Japan and good relations with China at the same time, the United States needs a strong alliance with Japan as the backdrop for building a more stable strategy of engagement with China.
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What can be done? First, it is important for the United States to be clear with both Tokyo and Beijing that our interests are not served by tension between Japan and China. Second, the United States as a friend and ally can and should challenge the Japanese government to explain its strategy for improving relations with China without attempting to micromanage that relationship from Washington. Third, the United States can set the stage for cooperation between Japan and China on issues ranging from energy to the Six Party Talks. One good example is the newly inaugurated Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate that has brought together cabinet-level representatives from the United States, Japan, China, Australia, Korea and India to cooperate on development of clean, sustainable energy resources. Finally, scholars and legislatures can contribute to Chinese and Japanese dialogue on the range of issues that vex their relationship—speaking not for the U.S. government but as part of an open-ended discussion that is sometimes much more difficult for Chinese and Japanese scholars to manage on their own. Kurt Campbell and I have both participated in a number of such trilateral exercises outside of government and I think we both find them productive.
In terms of Japan-Korea relations, the United States can probably afford to be more proactive because both nations are allies that share our values and because the underlying strategic sources of tension are not as deep or enduring as they are between Japan and China. To begin with, the administration could do more to reinvigorate the TCOG process, which serves all three parties by bringing our North Korea strategies and tactics into closer alignment. The Department of Defense should parallel that effort by seeking Tokyo and Seoul's consent to return to regular defense trilateral meetings (this would also be a helpful deterrent signal to North Korea at a critical juncture). At all levels the administration should be encouraging Japanese and Korean counterparts to be more proactive in seeking win-win solutions to the territorial and other bilateral issues that challenge them, but without trying in any way to broker a solution to the territorial problems (the United States has wisely avoided that role around the world for years). Finally, think tanks and universities are far more invested in U.S.-Japan-China dialogue than U.S.-Japan-ROK projects and that should change. I would note that there is an ongoing trilateral legislative exchange that puts the U.S. Congress ahead of the academic community in fostering stronger ties between Japan and Korea.
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The bottom line is that the United States should not panic about the political tensions among the major powers in Northeast Asia, just as we should not panic about discussions of an East Asia Community that would somehow brings them all together and exclude us. Asia today is a complicated mix of nationalism, pan-Asianism, economic interdependence and rivalry. But each decade more Asian powers are choosing the path of democracy, good governance and a commitment to improving all their peoples' welfare. With the exceptions of Burma and North Korea, the entire region continues to look to the United States to sustain these positive trends. This is precisely the time to stand strongly with allies like Japan that share our values and interests.
Chairman HYDE. Ms. Kotler.
STATEMENT OF MS. MINDY KOTLER, DIRECTOR, ASIA POLICY POINT
Ms. KOTLER. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to testify today before this Committee on Japan's contemporary relations with its neighbors.
If I may, I would like to first submit for the record three essays on Japan that reflect my discussion of how the Sino-Japanese relationship may affect the United States-Japan alliance.
Japanese and Chinese hold strikingly similar opinions of each other, both are negative. Since the normalization of Japan's post-war relations with China in 1978, opinion surveys document that clear deterioration of good will after nearly two decades of good relations. This trend has accelerated over the last 10 years, especially after the contentious 1998 visit of Chinese President Jiang Zemin, and the start of Japan's recession.
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Most noticeable is how much the line of trust tracks a rise of internal, social, economic anxieties in both countries. Most troubling is how closely increasing animosity between the two countries follows Washington's focus on developing a strong security alliance with Japan.
In the late 1970s, nearly 70 percent of the Japanese surveyed felt positively toward China, but today nearly 70 percent holds an opposite negative view. This reversal of good will is mirrored in China by nearly the same percentages as in Japan. In 2006, neither nation has a good impression of the other, each feels little affinity toward the other citizens.
The two countries at first appear perfect opposites; one is a managed, mature capitalist democracy, the other is a developing market economy overseen by Communist oligarchy, but there are many similarities as well. Both are Asian societies forced into nation states by foreign ideologies. Both have citizens with weak national identities and leaderships that aspire to build stronger ones. Both are confronting inward looking individualist trends that distance their citizens from the state. Both societies are struggling with expanding personal responsibilities after a period of rigid conformity.
Both economies are grappling with the dislocations caused by free market capitalism after years of state planning and guaranteed employment. In short, both China and Japan witnessed a decade of wrenching social change. It is in this context that the mutual ill will has grown. For both China and Japan, the primary issue is one of domestic discontent in security not fully addressed by the state.
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Income, inequality and crime topped the concerns of the average person in both countries. Thus, the Chinese and Japanese share a unique period in their nation-building. Their central governments are faltering in their ability to provide social stability and cohesion, a sense of safety and material well-being. The result is a new emotional nationalism. Its hallmark is that leaders in both Tokyo and Beijing are looking inward and defining security by making Chineseness or Japaneseness a civic rather than ethnic quality. It is the national and international security that both societies are seeking it to clarify.
Citizens and leaders alike see the decline of traditional social relationships and moral degradation as the source of their country's problems. Over and over in the speeches of Chinese and Japanese elites, you read the same phrases on the importance of rebuilding a harmonious principled society. There is a yearning for a time when things were better, or they seemed so.
Oddly, for both countries, that better time is the period that began with the Sino-Japanese conflict in 1931 and that ends with World War II in 1945. Many Japanese leaders are wistful for the glory days of imperial Japan and the victories of the Greater East Asian War. Chinese leaders find compelling the heroic saga of struggle in the war against Japanese aggression. Each sees these times to be nobler of purpose and clearer of duty. Against this backdrop, the Yasukuni War Memorial looms large in the consciousness of both the Chinese and Japanese, created in the mid 19th century to commemorate those combatants who died fighting for the Emperor, the shrine was central to establishing a variant of Shintoism as a state ideology defining citizenship in Japan. The Yasukuni glorifies death in war for one's country. Thus, the shrine symbolizes the success of the Imperial order for the Japanese. While for the Chinese, and to a large extent the South Koreans, the shrine's continued existence denies their success in defeating the Imperialist invaders.
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It is in this volatile mix of emotions and social change that the U.S.-Japan Security Alliance exists. Currently, severe constitutional restrictions prevent the full deployment of the already formidable Japan Self-Defense Forces. Promises made by many prime ministers to the Governments of Asia that Japan would never again become a military power reinforce this constitutional restraint. Encouraged by the United States, however, Japan is now on a course toward military normalization and greater international involvement.
The new emotional nationalism of Asia changes how the United States-Japan alliance is perceived in the region. For both Japan and China, nation-building now takes precedence over alliance building or regional stability. Japan's conservatives use the pressures of the new alliance to resurrect old state symbols, marshal pride, and the Japanese Army and Navy.
China's conservatives point to the same alliance to draw the country together to fight the familiar threats of so-called foreign imperialism, and to modernize their military.
Japan's new campaign to be the ''thought leader'' of Asia further stokes China's fears. The Chinese believe that Japan's unresolved wartime historical issues, especially the shrine, undermine any Japanese leadership.
Current Sino-Japanese tensions reflect each other's country's domestic stresses more than they do in an inherent regional strategic competition or rivalry. The Chinese and the Japanese want to restore and confirm pride and prestige to their people. Before trust can be established, a sense of emotional well-being or security must first be confirmed within each society. For the United States, the strength of the United States-Japan alliance rests in a better understanding of the tensions created by this new nationalism.
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Mr. Chairman, to rephrase a Chinese proverb, Japan and China have different beds, but the same dreams and the same nightmares.
Thank you very much.
Chairman HYDE. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Kotler follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF MS. MINDY KOTLER, DIRECTOR, ASIA POLICY POINT
Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to testify on Japan's contemporary relations with its neighbors. If I may, I would like to first submit, for the record, three essays on Japan that reflect well my discussion of how the Sino-Japanese relationship may affect the U.S.-Japan Alliance.
Japanese and Chinese hold strikingly similar opinions of each other—both are negative. Since the normalization of Japan's postwar relations with China in 1978, opinion surveys document a clear deterioration of goodwill after nearly two decades of good relations. This trend has accelerated over the past ten years, especially after the contentious 1998 visit of Chinese President Jiang Zemin and the start of Japan's recession. Most noticeable is how much the decline of trust tracks the rise of internal socio-economic anxieties in both countries. Most troubling is how closely increasing animosity between the two countries follows Washington's focus on developing a strong security alliance with Japan.
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In the late 1970s, nearly 70 percent of the Japanese surveyed felt positively toward China, but today nearly 70 percent hold an opposite, negative view. This reversal of goodwill is mirrored in China by nearly the same percentages as in Japan. In 2006, neither nation has a good impression of the other; each feels little affinity toward the other's citizens. [See attached charts]
The two countries, at first, appear perfect opposites. One is a managed, mature capitalist democracy and the other is a developing market economy overseen by a Communist oligarchy. But there are many similarities as well. Both are ancient societies forged into nation-states by foreign ideologies. Both have citizens with weak national identities and leaderships that aspire to build stronger ones. Both are confronting inward-looking, individualist trends that distance their citizens from the state. Both societies are struggling with expanding personal responsibilities after a period of rigid conformity. Both economies are grappling with the dislocations caused by free market capitalism after years of state planning and guaranteed employment. In short, both China and Japan have witnessed a decade of social change brought about by rapidly transforming economies in an era of globalization.
If you were to ask which country had a
Widening disparity between the rich and the poor, the haves and have-nots
Dramatic income inequality
Inadequate social safety net and job security
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Disaffected youth, high youth unemployment
Social dislocation and ennui
Bureaucratic incompetence and cover up
Growing gap between rural and urban economies
Rising crime and corruption
The answer is, both do.
It is in this context that mutual ill-will has grown. For both China and Japan the primary issue is one of domestic discontent and insecurity not fully addressed by the state. Income inequality and crime top the concerns of the average person in both countries. Thus, the Chinese and Japanese share a unique period in their nation-building. Their central governments are faltering in their ability to provide social stability and cohesion—a sense of safety and material well-being.
The result is a new emotional nationalism. Its hallmark is that leaders in both Tokyo and Beijing are looking inward and defining security by making Chineseness or Japaneseness a civic, rather than an ethnic quality. It is the ''national'' in national security that both societies are seeking to clarify.
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Citizens and leaders alike see moral degeneration as the source of their country's problems. Rapid economic change has restructured traditional social relationships. Over and over in the speeches of Japanese and Chinese elites you read the same phrases on the importance of rebuilding a harmonious, principled society. There is a yearning for a time when things were better, or at least seemed so.
Oddly, for both countries, that ''better'' time is the period that began with the Sino-Japanese conflict in 1931 and that ends with World War II in 1945. Many Japanese leaders are wistful for the glory days of Imperial Japan and the victories of the Greater East Asian War. Chinese leaders find compelling the heroic saga of struggle in the War against Japanese Aggression. Each sees these times to be nobler of purpose and clearer of duty than those of today. Opinion leaders in both countries advocate a form of ''patriotic education'' in order to relive their pasts to regain their futures.
Interestingly, both see nobility in the retelling of what ultimately were ''failures.'' In identifying themselves as ''victims'' of the Pacific War, Chinese and Japanese find proof of their moral sincerity. As capitalism transforms their economies, many see themselves as losers, as victims economically as well as politically. Against this backdrop, the Yasukuni Shrine war memorial looms large in the consciousness of both the Chinese and Japanese. Created in the mid-19th century to commemorate those combatants who died fighting for the Emperor, the Shrine was central to establishing a variant of Shintoism as a state ideology defining citizenship in Japan. Yasukuni glorifies death in war for one's country. Thus, the Shrine symbolizes the success of the Imperial order for Japanese, while for Chinese and to a large extent to the South Koreans, the Shrine's continued existence denies their success in defeating the Japanese Imperialist invaders.
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It is in this volatile mix of emotions and social change that the U.S.-Japan Security Alliance exists. Currently, severe Constitutional restrictions prevent the full deployment of the already formidable Japan Self Defense Forces. Promises made by many prime ministers to the governments of Asia that Japan would never again become a major military power reinforce this constitutional restraint. Encouraged by the U.S., however, Japan is now on course toward military normalization and greater international involvement.
The new emotional nationalism of Asia changes how the U.S.-Japan Alliance is perceived in the region. For both Japan and China, nation-building now takes precedence over alliance building or regional stability. Japan's conservatives use the pressures of the new Alliance to resurrect old state symbols, martial pride, and the Japanese Army and Navy. China's conservatives point to the same Alliance to draw the country together to fight the familiar threats of so-called foreign imperialism and to modernize their military. Japan's new campaign to be the ''thought leader'' of Asia further stokes China's fears. The Chinese believe that Japan's unresolved wartime historical issues undermine any Japanese leadership.
Current Sino-Japanese tensions reflect each country's domestic stresses more than they do any inherent regional strategic competition. The Chinese and Japanese people are beset with anxieties about their future. Issues of inequality dominate the political discourse in each country. Their leaders want to restore and confirm pride and prestige to their people. Before trust can be established, a sense of emotional well-being or security must first be confirmed within each society. The increasing economic interdependency between China and Japan is fast taking a backseat to the rhetoric of patriotism, however ill-defined. For the United States, the strength of the U.S.-Japan Alliance rests in a better understanding of the tensions created by this new nationalism.
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To rephrase a Chinese proverb, China and Japan have different beds, but the same dreams and the same nightmares.
SINO-JAPANESE RECONCILIATION
At an August 2006 conference hosted by the Australian National University on Sino-Japanese Reconciliation (http://www.china-japan-reconciliation.blogspot.com), I proposed the following confidence building measures. Ways must be found to make the future less frightening and insecure. The first measures then must be immediate, tangible, and mutually understandable. This is the definition of sincere.
1. Japan needs to come to terms with loss of the War and confirm its commitment to democracy. Toward this end:
a.
Legislation similar to that in Germany that restricts hate speech, denial of wartime misdeeds, and protects those who try to educate about the war are important. For example, ensuring police protection of the comfort women museum in Tokyo would be a powerful symbol. This museum, the Woman's Active Museum on War and Peace (http://www.wam-peace.org/), receives daily threats. Also, removing the uyoku trucks and people from the grounds and vicinity of the Yasukuni Shrine would be another major step.
b.
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A national day of remembrance should be established, similar to Memorial Day in the US or ANZAC day in Australia. This makes no one location more sacred and no group of people more bereaved than another.
c.
A government restitution commission similar to those in Germany and Austria should be established to address grievances by comfort women, POWs, slave laborers, non-Japanese nuclear victims, Japanese orphans left in China, and others. Legalistic solutions to these issues have engendered contempt and distrust. Prime Minister's Koizumi's example of restitution to the Japanese emigrants to the Dominican Republic is a good one.
d.
Memorials to the victims of the war should be created that school children can visit. Examples include: plaques at the docks where the Hellships and Korean laborers arrived; an interactive museum created from one of the Mitsubishi (i.e., Battleship Island) or Mitsui mines, and greater recognition of the Juganji Buddhist temple near Osaka that holds annual memorial services for foreign POW dead.
2. China and Japan must recognize that the time of empire is over. As the Europeans have learned, borders change and principalities come and go. Lingering historical claims over islets and boundaries are formulas for trouble and opportunities for demagogues. Every effort should be made toward practical, ahistoric resolutions to all territorial disputes. Allies of both countries need to indicate that they will not support or defend every territorial claim.
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3. China needs to show appreciation for Japan's efforts and seek ways to reassure Japan of its intentions. China, too, needs to confront its wartime history. Not all Chinese were freedom fighters or heroic. Popular culture should be encouraged to present a more balanced picture of Japan and Japanese history. China also needs to take the high ground and not react to every provocative action by Japan. Japanese leaders need to understand that they are now on the world stage. They must measure their words and understand that there are sensitivities outside the islands.
4. Japan must end its rhetoric of being Asia's ''Thought Leader.'' This campaign recalls other less benign Japanese efforts to lead Asia. It is neither appreciated nor well-received by other democracies in the region. It is also not true.
The Yasukuni Shrine seems to be a separate issue. It is symbolic of all that is wrong with the Sino/Korean-Japanese relationship. More important, it is a Japanese issue representing all of Japan's unresolved national identity and war angst. It is a world of mythic history and state religion. In many respects, however, it may be on its way to being resolved.
The recent, subtle but clear involvement of the Imperial House will go far to define the role of Yasukuni in Japan. After all, the Shrine was created by and for the Imperial House to glorify death in war for the Emperor. It is his job to depoliticize the memorial.
As many scholars note, Shinto is theologically unbound. If there is a consensus that the 14 Class A War Criminals (crimes against peace) should be dis-enshrined, it can and will happen. More difficult is to decide whether Yasukuni is a religious or state site. There are excellent arguments for both. In either case, the Yushukan (war museum) must be removed or substantially altered. The argument that the site is private falls apart when claims that it is a national place of mourning are also made.
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It is very important to recognize that official visits to the Shrine are equally offensive to the Japanese people and Americans, British, Australians and others. The Yasukuni Shrine states clearly that it repudiates the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal and perpetrates the fiction that the Hull Document was meant to trick Japan into World War II. In fact, the convicted and enshrined Class A, B, and C war criminals at Yasukuni are referred to as the ''martyrs of Showa.'' Japan's conservatives use the Shrine as a way to tacitly distance themselves from the U.S. and from U.S. policy. In many respects, the Shrine is a slap at Washington.
Another important issue is that Yasukuni's focus on the glorious dead from the Greater East Asian War ignores the fact that the Shrine is for all those Japanese who died in military service to their country since the civil war in the mid-19th Century. The emphasis on the Pacific War, slighting other conflicts and those who sacrificed in them adds to the alarm of Yasukuni's critics.
In its current form, the Yasukuni Shrine ignores the strength and triumph of postwar Japan. Yasukuni glorifies death in war, as one becomes a god when enshrined there. Yasukuni rites preserve the memory of a war in which all deaths were selfless acts of bravery on behalf of the imperial institution; of a war which was ever noble and glorious. Moreover, not all Japanese combatants are enshrined and some classes of Japanese are not allowed to be enshrined. Finally, no one who died in ''military'' service to their nation after the Pacific War can be considered for enshrinement. In effect, Yasukuni triages the dead to support a particular view of Japanese nationhood that is remote from today's postwar modern, democratic Japan.
To ''modernize'' the Shrine, in addition to dis-enshrining all the convicted war criminals, may be to discuss the acceptability of the Prime Minister or Emperor visiting the Chinriesha Shrine at Yasukuni. This Shrine enshrines all those who fought against the Japanese empire including all allied combatants of WW II. It is to pacify their souls. Although they are enshrined collectively (the main shrine at Yasukuni only enshrines identified, named individuals) they receive, twice daily, Shinto rites and have their own festival on July 13. For now, the Chinriesha is fenced off and to the side of main shrine. It is hidden. The symbolism of the Chinriesha being unfenced, recognized, and guarded against right-wing fanatics has promise as a dramatic symbol of reconciliation. Noted Shinto scholar Dr. John Breen, finds that ''The Chinreisha has the capacity to recall a more nuanced past, a past of perpetrators and of victims, of winners and losers, of horror as well as heroism''—of what war is all about.
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RECOMMENDED READING
Breen, John. ''Yasukuni—Rekishi Kioku no Keisei to Soushitsu'' [Yasukuni—Formation and Loss of Historical Memories]. SEKAI (September 2006): pp.147–158.
Breen, John. ''Yasukuni Shrine: Ritual and Memory.'' Japan Focus (3 June 2005), available at: http://www.japanfocus.org/products/details/2060
Gries, Peter. China's New Nationalism: Pride, Politics, and Diplomacy. University of California Press, 2004.
Hardacre, Helen. Shinto and the State, 1868–1988 (Studies in Church and State). Princeton University Press; Reprint edition (August 12, 1991).
Nelson, John. ''Social Memory as Ritual Practice: Commemorating Spirits of the Military Dead at Yasukuni Shinto Shrine.'' Journal of Asian Studies 62, 2003. Available at www.pacificrim.usfca.edu/research/yasukuni—nelson.pdf
OECD, Economic Survey of Japan, 2006, Policy Brief, July 2006, p. 8, available at http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/50/23/37148463.pdf
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Chairman HYDE. Dr. Campbell.
STATEMENT OF KURT CAMPBELL, PH.D., SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, HENRY A. KISSINGER CHAIR IN NATIONAL SECURITY, AND DIRECTOR OF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY PROGRAM, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
Mr. CAMPBELL. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And also thank you, Ranking Member, Mr. Lantos.
Let me also commend you, Mr. Chairman, for taking the delegation to Guadalcanal. I visited a lot of the same sites a couple months before you, and I think it is wonderful that you remind Americans and people of the Asia-Pacific of our shared heritage.
It is a subject of another discussion, but what worries me is I view many of these sacred places on Pacific islands with major prospects of global climate change. In 50 years, I am not sure many of those places are actually going to be above water, but that is a subject for another time.
I also want to commend the group for calling a hearing on Asia. It is always important when Washington turns its attention away from desperate issues, hard struggles in the Middle East and Iraq and Afghanistan and focus on the dynamic situation that is developing in Asia today. And I will tell you my own sense is that after a period of a little bit of indecision, it seems to me that over the course of the next generation the United States is going to face two overwhelming challenges. One is the global war on terrorism, and we see that, we are involved in that on a daily basis, Iraq is now part of that. And secondly, the rise of China.
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I would say personally that no country in history has risen to great power status faster than China has, even faster than the United States between 1900 and 1920. And an indisputable ingredient in China's rise is American preoccupation away from Asia.
And that is a hard fact and that is a bipartisan fact. We have not been focused as a nation on the critical realities of the Asia-Pacific region. And I think, in fact, American inattention is one of the biggest problems that we have to deal with, as opposed to some of the issues that I think have been very usefully put on the agenda today.
I want to associate myself both with the service of Mike Green as senior director at the National Security Council, and I like very much what he had to say, I am not going to repeat it. I will say it seems to me that if you look at Asia and you go around Asia today and you talk to people quietly, it reminds me very much of a book I read to my children, Snow White. And in it—my children are 4 and 6—the queen goes to the mayor one day and says who is the most beautiful maiden in the land. And it is like the United States going around in Asia saying who is the great power of Asia.
And I think Asians tend to be polite, I don't think they like to tell Americans bad news. By my experience, traveling around Asia more recently, is that China has made enormous inroads in terms of its soft power and its position, largely while we have been preoccupied away. Asians recognize that once the current unpleasantness in the Middle East is over in 10 or 15 years, we will return to Asia in force and we will have regular speeches of the kind that the President has been giving every day on Iraq and the Middle East and talking and thinking more about Asia. But what people worry about is in the interim, that Asia will change dramatically. And as the old story says, you can't go home again.
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And so what I am worried about and what I think people generally are worried about is that American preoccupation has, in fact, engendered a series of developments in Northeast Asia that are contrary to American security interests.
Now, again, I appreciate the Committee having a hearing about problems associated with history, but if you ask me to list very quickly what are the real problems of Northeast Asia, the most important ones that demand immediate attention, they are, number one, the worries about American inattention. Number two, a really troubled relationship between the United States and South Korea, our second most important ally; I don't recall a time when relations are as bad as they are today. Third, North Korea has more nuclear weapons than it had 5 or 10 years ago, and they are building more, and with no real plan in sight for what to do about it. A dramatic China on the march, both militarily and strategically, and somewhat to my surprise, a relationship between the United States and Taiwan that is also probably as bad as it has ever been.
Now, amid that general picture, Mr. Chairman—and also, I would just add quickly, a Russia that is increasingly looking to the Pacific and a little bit unhelpfully——
Chairman HYDE. If I could interrupt you. The point you are making about the frayed relationships between South Korea and the United States, we just returned within the last 3 weeks from visiting South Korea and spent some time with the President, he was here yesterday, spent some time reaching out. I got the impression that while there are some bumps in the road, there wasn't hostility or any even adversarial relationship between South Korea and the United States.
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I put a wreath at the statue of MacArthur at Incheon, and I didn't get the attitude that there was any—there are some differences, of course, over in North Korea; I think the President of Korea has a different view toward how to solve that; the July 4th launching may have shaken him somewhat. But I really hope you are not correct. You may well be. I don't say a policy develops from one trip to a country. You are an expert, but I hope you are wrong.
Mr. CAMPBELL. Let me just say Mr. Chairman, I think the most recent visit and efforts on both sides have certainly suggested that there is a recognition in both capitals that the relationship has seen better days. I worry about the defense side, I worry about efforts to take more United States forces off the Korean Peninsula. I am a little worried that we have some problems about how we perceive how to deal with North Korea. And I do know that there are attitudes of some officials in both camps in both Seoul and Washington that are not kindly toward the other. So I hope that your trip and other efforts have improved these general trends, but myself, I continue to be a little anxious.
My point, though, Mr. Chairman, is amid this general framework of enormous strategic challenge, I would say one of the brightest spots has been what we have seen between the United States and Japan. An enormous improvement in relations, Japan has been supportive of the United States in almost every effort, and I think we have heard that echoed throughout the halls. We can have our bipartisan or partisan critiques about Iraq or Afghanistan, but I think that there is unified agreement on both sides of the House that basically what we have seen in terms of improvement of United States-Japan relations is quite important and it advances our own strategic interests.
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I think what Mike Green said is what we have to all hope for, is that the next Japanese prime minister that is about to assume position in office recognizes that improving relations in the neighborhood is job number one. And I think that there is actually an historic opportunity for the Japanese prime minister to do a kind of mix into China. And we are going to see that his efforts will be, at least at the outset, to make sure that relations that have also been fractured between South Korea and China will be improved.
Now I think the United States role in that is to encourage Japan along this path. I do not believe it is in United States interest to have Japan spending too much time domestically on issues like Yasukuni, which ultimately, although it is Japan's business, ultimately hurts Japan's diplomacy, causes them to lose air speed and altitude in a way that is not in America's strategic interests. So my hope is over the next several months we are going to see some improvement on these issues. But overall, if you ask me what is the best news story in Asia right now, it is the role of the United States-Japan partnership, and it is the heavy lifting that Japan has done in a whole host of regions around the world over the course of the last several years.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Campbell follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF KURT CAMPBELL, PH.D., SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, HENRY A. KISSINGER CHAIR IN NATIONAL SECURITY, AND DIRECTOR OF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY PROGRAM, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
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Asia is experiencing a period of dramatic tumult and change and the United States now confronts an extraordinarily dynamic northeast Asian region with a rising China; a resurgent Japan; an increasingly adventurous North Korea and alienated Republic of Korea; and a more Pacifically focused (and often unhelpful) Russia. Competition for petroleum, power, prestige have created an increasingly volatile political climate with the United States—arguably the most important piece of Asia's strategic jigsaw—essentially preoccupied away from the region at a time of enormous consequence.
After a protracted period of uncertainty, concerning the nature of the foreign policy challenges that are likely to confront the nation over the course of first half of the 21st Century, twin challenges are finally coming into sharper relief. For the next generation, Americans will be confronted by two overriding challenges in the conduct of American foreign policy: how to more effectively wage a long, twilight struggle against violent Islamic fundamentalists and at the same time cope with the rise to great power status of China. Each task, taken on its own, would be daunting and consuming, but coming concurrently as they inevitably will. These challenges are likely to be close to overwhelming for a government apparatus and national mindset better suited to single minded efforts.
This is the first time in the nation's history that foreign policymakers have had to cope with two such vexing and dissimilar challenges simultaneously. While it is true that during World War II we fought on two fronts in the Atlantic and Pacific against two very different foes—Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan—the military power employed to defeat the Axis was largely fungible and the tactics employed on each front were similar, adjusting for the inevitable variations of geography and terrain. Then, during the Cold War, the undeniable shaping experience of this generation of foreign policy and national security practitioners, the United States faced one organizing foreign policy challenge coming from the Soviet Union. This era is now undeniably over, as the U.S. confronts two extremely varied sets of demands, one driven by stateless Jihadist warriors and the other by a rising commercial, political, and military giant in the East.
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Ever since the galvanizing attacks of 9/11, the United States has in turn attacked (literally) the problem of violent Jihadism, primarily through the application of military power in Afghanistan and Iraq (the latter now inextricably linked to the terror matrix, largely as a consequence of American actions). The mostly unanticipated demands of the martial campaigns in the Middle East have had a corollary consequence beyond simply bogging down in unforgiving urban battlefields. The United States has been almost inevitably preoccupied away from the rapidly changing strategic landscape of Asia at a time when China is making enormous strides in its military modernization, commercial conquests, diplomatic inroads, and application of soft power. Rarely in history has a rising power gained such prominence in the international system, largely as a consequence of the actions of—and at the expense of—the dominant power, in this case the United States. Current American talking points continue to stress the need to ''manage'' China's emergence as a dominant power, but it is perhaps more apt to describe China as a country that is increasingly attempting to manage American perceptions and actions while China seeks to consolidate its new found gains globally.
In the midst of this American preoccupation away from Asia, the ghosts of Asia's past are now threatening to imperil the region's promising future—a future that holds considerable consequences for western, and particularly U.S., economic and security interests in the region.
Over the past year, a series of incidents between Japan and China have sent relations between the powers plummeting. Among other developments, bitterness has been fuelled by the Japanese curtailment of bilateral assistance; repeated trips by senior Japanese politicians to Yasukuni Shrine to honor Japan's war-dead; the condoning, if not orchestration, by Beijing of public demonstrations against Japan; Japan's production of textbooks that gloss over burdensome historical facts; and greater military vigilance on both sides. All point to prospects for an even more serious rift between Tokyo and Beijing. The hope is that a new Japanese Prime Minister, coupled with a suddenly more engaging and less publicly critical China, will lead to a lessening of tensions and even a rapprochement between Tokyo and Beijing. Perhaps a newly installed Prime Minister Abe, in a bit of Asian theater, may decide to make his first overseas visit to China; a Japanese version of Nixon to China. But there is a very real worry that conversely, through a number of anticipated or inadvertent steps, China and Japan could see their relations worsen suddenly in the months ahead.
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This deterioration of relations could pave a treacherous path for the U.S. in the region. If trade and investment between these two leading economies and U.S. trading partners were disrupted, Asian economic growth would be undermined and the ripple effect would certainly be felt in the U.S. On the security front, Sino-Japanese tensions that could escalate into real conflict—perhaps over the tiny but strategically placed Senkaku-Diaoyutai islands—would put the US in a delicate position between its closest ally and the region's other big power. While some suggest that the depth of economic ties will help curb a crisis, there is enough volatility at the political level to suggest that an unintended rupture is indeed possible.
It is therefore necessary, if not urgent, for Washington to work more actively towards rapprochement and better co-operation between the three dominant states of the Asia-Pacific region: China, Japan and the U.S. The U.S. has generally been content to conduct the lion's share of diplomacy at the bilateral level in Asia or stand by and watch the proliferation of the ''Asia-only'' gatherings in the region that ignore or exclude us.
Indeed, the United States has been content to work towards a very strong U.S.-Japan relationship and a quite durable Sino-American interaction simultaneously while generally accepting, without comment or involvement, a badly deteriorating Sino-Japanese relationship. This ultimately cannot be in the larger strategic interests of the U.S., and efforts should be taken foster improved ties between Japan and China.
Ultimately, it is remarkable how little strategic interaction there is between Tokyo and Beijing. Japan and China are especially furtive about exposing themselves in any high-stakes diplomacy involving the U.S. and the other power, and there is little momentum in Washington to extend the reach of its relationships in Asia beyond the bilateral level. But it is the U.S. that should augment its current strategy with a trilateral component. As a first step, the U.S. should call for a high-level meeting between Washington, Tokyo and Beijing. Such a trilateral meeting could be an important part of an emerging Asian diplomatic mosaic of interconnecting and overlapping institutions that if nothing else, creates ample opportunity for dialogue.
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Critics of the trilateral idea warn that the U.S. should be mindful about creating a regional architecture that alienates other neighbors (particularly South Korea in this case), and must avoid giving China a forum that could enhance its regional prestige. This overlooks the primary point: it is in America's national security interest to ensure, and play a proactive role in, positive Sino-Japanese relations.
The U.S. has a clear interest in Japan being reconciled more honestly with its past, not as a favor to China but in recognition that latent anxiety toward Tokyo runs deep in some quarters of Asia. The issue of remembering and respecting Japan's war sacrifices is an inordinately complex issue that roils Japan's domestic politics and confounds her pundits, but it also the case that the Yasakuni issue has led to Japan losing some altitude and airspeed in the advancement of their important diplomatic work around Asia. The truth is, with the US engaged largely elsewhere, America needs Japan to be all that it can be in multilateral institutions and diplomatic gatherings to help augment the pursuit of our shared interests and values.
At the same time, the U.S. need not worry that trilateral initiatives would give China too much clout in Asia. While America has been focusing on regions such as Afghanistan and Iraq, China has been busy establishing itself as the next great power on the world scene. Beijing does not need U.S. help to enhance its regional stature; it is doing this on its own. The question, therefore, is not whether China will be a great power, but how the U.S. will help influence the direction that China takes in its new role. A U.S.-Sino- Japan strategic summit could go a long way toward promoting a co-operative, constructive China, rather than a challenging one.
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The U.S., China and Japan have many mutual interests, including: a growing need for secure energy supplies; a common front in the war on terror; a goal of a nuclear-free Korean peninsula; a desire to solve territorial disputes peacefully; an interest in seeing Asian economic growth and prosperity continue; and an overriding need to reassure the other states of Asia that the enormous Asia-Pacific region is big enough for Japan, China and the U.S. to coexist and prosper. Helping to define and shape the rules of the road for the Pacific century is a noble and important effort and one in which the U.S. should take the lead. Now is the time for the U.S. to get off the sidelines of big power diplomacy in Asia and bring the big three together.
Chairman HYDE. Thank you, Dr. Campbell.
Ms. Tatsumi.
STATEMENT OF MS. YUKI TATSUMI, RESEARCH FELLOW, THE HENRY L. STIMSON CENTER
Ms. TATSUMI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Congressman Lantos, Members of the Committee, it is a great honor to testify before you this morning.
Given an upcoming leadership change in Tokyo in roughly a week, now is a particularly good time to reflect on where Japan stands on various issues. In doing so, I do believe though that it is useful to reflect on some of the recent internal developments in Japan on the issues that have raised concerns in the last few years.
In the interest of time, I would like to highlight a few things in my full testify today that I submitted to the Committee.
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First, the political developments in Japan for the last 5 years can really not be looked at in a vacuum. Rather, they need to be looked at as a part of Japan's ongoing attempt to seek its new identity, not as an isolated series of events. Japan embarks on this new endeavor after its humiliating experience during the Gulf War in the early 1990s and this effort still continues today.
Secondly, I do acknowledge that Mr. Koizumi's time in office raised concern over the issues, such as Japan's view of its wartime legacy, Japan's relations with its immediate neighbors, and the rise of nationalism in Japan. However, I would point out that the debates on these issues within Japan are still evolving. For instance, most Japanese do not subscribe to the view that glorifies Japan's military past. At the same time, it is oh, so clear that Japan has not come to a national consensus on who was responsible for leading Japan down that path. I would argue, actually, that Mr. Koizumi's repeated visits to the Yasukuni Shrine have actually triggered a process of self-reflection in Japan on this very, very important issue. This is a very healthy development as Japan will not be able to move forward without reaching a closure on its past as a nation.
Let me also say a few words on the rise of nationalism. It is an exaggeration to argue that the Japanese populist as a whole is quickly embracing an inward looking and balanced trend of nationalism. In fact, I would argue that the nationalism that most Japanese identify with is closer to the patriotism that we see in this country today. For most Japanese, nationalism means love for the country and being proud of being Japanese. And this also equals their increasing desire to see Japan share a due level of responsibility in the international community.
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Third. It is premature to make a judgment on Shinzo Abe and what kind of a prime minister he will become. While there is some uncertainty regarding obvious personal views on certain issues, to what degrees his personal views will be reflected on his policy still remains unknown. In fact, Mr. Abe's rise to power can create a real opportunity for Japan's regional diplomacy as Dr. Campbell and Dr. Green mentioned. Mr. Abe is arguably in the best political position in today's Japan to reach out to Beijing and Seoul.
There is also a good chance that Mr. Abe seeks to emulate his grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, as a prime minister and embrace his political style of conservative and pragmatism. If he does so, the coming month can present a real opportunity for improving Japan's relationship with China and Republic of Korea.
Finally, the United States can do a great deal in empowering the silent majority in Japan who want to see Japan expand its role in the international community, while remain committed to seek reconciliation with its immediate neighbors. The United States can do so by staying on message that has the following elements when communicating to Japan. Number one. Japan is an essential partner of the United States. Number two, the United States understands that Japan is still in the process of searching for its proper role in the world. Number three, the United States supports Japan's aspiration to play a greater role in world affairs.
And number four, Japan's essentiality as a partner makes it very important for Washington that Japan has a positive and constructive relationship with Beijing and Seoul.
I would like to conclude by also stressing that Congress can also play a very important role in this course through a more robust legislative exchange between the Congress and the national diet of Japan. Members can communicate these messages, as well as their concerns that have been raised already in this room, directly to Japanese lawmakers using this framework. By engaging in such a dialogue, Members can also reassure their Japanese counterparts that the United States considers Japan as an important partner, and that while Japan can does not interfere with domestic affairs in Japan, it also has a strong interest in how Tokyo addresses certain issues as well.
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As I say, I do believe this will go a long way in empowering the silent majority of moderates in Japan, and thereby ensuring the change in political leadership from Koizumi to Abe, and thereafter, will bring about changes in Japan that allow it to be a positive and proactive player in the Asia and beyond.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman HYDE. Thank you very much, Ms. Tatsumi.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Tatsumi follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF MS. YUKI TATSUMI, RESEARCH FELLOW, THE HENRY L. STIMSON CENTER
Chairman Hyde, Congressman Lantos, Members of the Committee, it is a great honor to testify before you today on the subject of Japan's relationship with its neighbors. While the United States has a deep interest in recent developments in the Middle East, promoting US interests in Asia also remains a key US foreign and security policy priority. In order to sustain US leadership in this region, it is important that the United States pays close attention to relationships among key players in this region. In this context, it is natural that the United States maintains an interest in how this vital American ally relates to its neighbors, including the domestic factors that shape Japan's approaches to its neighbors.
The Committee could not have scheduled this hearing at a better time. As the Members may well be aware, Japan has undergone a great deal of change since Prime Minister Koizumi took office five years ago. To be sure, some of the changes he brought benefited US-Japan relations greatly. At the same time, Koizumi triggered developments that have raised concerns among Japan's neighbors as well as in some quarters in the United States. At minimum, many share the view that Japan's relationships with its immediate neighbors have come under considerable strain under Koizumi's watch.
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As it looks almost certain that Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe will succeed Mr. Koizumi in roughly a week, now is a particularly opportune time to reflect on where Japan stands on various issues. When trying to answer questions regarding Japan's relationship with its neighbors, I believe it is useful to observe recent internal developments in Japan that have had a direct impact on its regional diplomacy.
In today's testimony, therefore, I would like to do four things. First, I would like to set the context of what we have been witnessing in Japan for the last five years. Second, I would like to discuss the developments that have been raising concerns among Japan's neighbors and some quarters in this country. These issues include attitudes of Japanese toward their nation's wartime past, Japan's relations with its China and the Republic of Korea, and the rise of nationalism in Japan. Third, I will discuss my view on how the upcoming change in the Japanese political leadership may affect these issues. Finally, I will conclude by saying a few words on what the United States can do to help ensure that the anticipated leadership change in Tokyo will lead to a positive outcome of these debates within Japan.
I. WHERE IS JAPAN TODAY? (THE CONTEXT)
The political developments in Japan for the last five years cannot be looked at in a vacuum. In my view, Japan is still in the middle of a journey to find its rightful place in the international community. This journey, which began in earnest with Japan's humiliating experience during the 1990–91 Gulf War, still continues today.
The 1990–91 Gulf War was a watershed event for Japan. As Members may well remember, Japan's extremely slow response to the international effort of liberating Kuwait from the invasion by Iraq brought severe criticism against Japan. This experience made Japan painfully aware that economic success alone would not buy it respect.
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Japan also quickly began to realize that the security situation in East Asia had become less certain with the disappearance of an overarching Soviet threat. While the end of the Cold War ended the political divide in Europe, the division in East Asia remained—the Korean Peninsula remained divided, and no resolution of the cross-Strait issues was in sight. The 1993–94 North Korean nuclear crisis, the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis, the 1998 North Korean Taepodong missile launch, and the 1999 and 2000 incursions by North Korean spy ships into Japanese territorial waters all made Japan feel increasingly vulnerable in the post-Cold War security environment.
Internally, public confidence in the governing system that had been in place in Japan since the end of World War II rapidly began to erode. A series of scandals that involved Japanese political leaders and senior government officials greatly disillusioned the public. The Japanese government's ability to manage crises was brought under severe scrutiny at the time of the 1995 Hanshin-Awaji earthquake, further lowering public confidence in the government. Economic stagnation that began with the bursting of Japan's bubble economy of the 1980s further damaged public confidence in the government's ability to take effective measures to save the country from its economic downturn.
Furthermore, as Japan seeks to make a greater international contribution, it has become clear that the issues that Japan failed to address during the Cold War are handicapping Japan's ability to do more in international arena today. One example is Japan's effort to send the Japan Self-Defense Forces (JSDF) for non-combatant overseas multinational military operations. Domestically, the constitutional limitation on Japan's use of force and the interpretation that prohibits Japan from exercising the right of collective self-defense became major obstacles. Externally, the perception—particularly that among Japan's immediate neighbors—that Japan had not come to terms with its history prevented the emergence of political environment in East Asia that welcomed Japan's effort in this area.
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Therefore, it would be fair to say that Japan found itself somewhat lost in the post-Cold War world. Domestically, the political and economic systems that had brought Japan stability and prosperity during the Cold War ceased to be as functional in the evolving post-Cold War environment. Externally, Japan faced the reality that economic wealth alone would not allow Japan to command the respect in the international community that it thought it deserved—yet, breaking out of its Cold War-era mold turned out to be difficult because of the issues Japan had not fully addressed during the Cold War. A sense of vulnerability, uncertainty, disillusionment, and stagnation was simmering in Japan, without any consensus about a vision of a new Japan.
It is in this context that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi took office in April 2001. For better or for worse, Koizumi was seen as an agent for change. In the eyes of the public, the qualities he brought to his position—leadership and decisiveness—were considered qualities that were missing in Japanese leadership during the 1990s but that were necessary to lead Japan out of its stagnation. This is why the developments under the Koizumi government need to be looked at as a part of Japan's ongoing attempt to seek its new identity, not as an isolated series of events.
II. ISSUES OF CONCERN—RECENT DEVELOPMENTS
Few dispute the proposition that Japan has undergone a great deal of change under Koizumi's watch. On the one hand, many of the changes were positive. For instance, the economic and structural reforms that were implemented by his government, although not as comprehensive and thorough as was initially promised, nevertheless helped Japan to revitalize its economy after a decade of stagnation. Capitalizing on his close personal relationship with President Bush, Koizumi was also successful in strengthening Japan's relationship with the United States, particularly in the security realm.
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On the other hand, Koizumi's time in office witnessed the rise of new concerns. Among those that have attracted most attention are: Japan's view of its wartime legacy signified by the debate over Koizumi's visit to the Yasukuni Shrine; Japan's relations with China and the Republic of Korea; and the rise of nationalism in Japan.
Japan's view of its wartime legacy
The debate over Japan's attitude in resolving issues related to its wartime past has existed throughout Japan's postwar history. However, Koizumi's repeated visits to Yasukuni Shrine have brought unprecedented intensity to this debate. Critics say that Koizumi's visits to the Yasukuni Shrine have empowered those in Japan who reject the conventional view of the history and who glorify Japan's aggressive behavior in Asia during the first half of the 20th century. Koizumi has countered these critics by asserting that his visits are meant to renew his vow for peace by paying respects to those who lost their lives during World War II. The museum located within Yasukuni Shrine's compound called Yushu-kan has also become the subject of criticism for the questionable views of the pre-1945 history that it presents. But Koizumi has also asserted that he does not agree with the views that are represented by the museum.
The issue with the history textbooks that are used in Japanese schools is another controversial issue. In April 2006, the textbooks approved by the Japanese government for local school districts to choose among included one written and published by a group that are said to subscribe to the view that minimizes Japan's conduct between 1900 and1945. Although this was not the first such instance of approval of a controversial textbook, this triggered strong criticism both from Beijing and Seoul, leading to large-scale anti-Japan protests in these countries.
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Ultimately, the issue here is how Japan sees itself in the history of the first half of the 20th century. Does it abide by the conventional view that Japan, driven by a territorial ambition and reckless militarism, became the aggressor in Asia until its ambition was finally defeated by the Allied Powers in 1945? Or does it subscribe to an alternative view of the history that whitewashes Japan's wartime past and justifies its conduct in part as an act of self-defense and in part as a pattern of large-power behavior no different from what other nations had done?
An opinion poll on the issues specifically related to the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunals conducted in May 2006 by the Asahi Shimbun, one of three major Japanese newspapers, provides us with some useful insights. First, the poll indicates that most Japanese do not subscribe to the view that glorifies Japan's militarist past—the poll shows that very few Japanese (merely seven percent) see World War II as a war of self-defense for Japan.
At the same time, this poll also reveals that Japan has not yet come to a national consensus on who was responsible for leading Japan down the path of militarist expansion and eventually to the devastation of World War II. The poll indicates that the public opinion is divided when asked who was responsible for the war. Over 50% of respondents attribute extremely heavy responsibility to the military leadership at the time. Close to 50% also think that political leaders at the time were heavily responsible for the war. Yet, close to 40% of the respondents also attribute ''some'' responsibility to the Emperor and media. Almost 70% of the poll re