Economic Interests
By: Stokes, Bruce, National Journal, 6/24/2006
In Japanese tradition, visitors bring omiyage, or presents, for their hosts. When outgoing Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi arrives in Washington this month, the figurative gift he will bring President Bush is a double-edged samurai sword that symbolizes the prime minister's five-year tenure.
One side of that blade has cut sharply in favor of the United States. During Koizumi's time, U.S.-Japan security ties have never been closer, delivering unprecedented Japanese cooperation in the American-led war on terrorism. Koizumi presided over a Japanese economic revival, long a U.S. objective. But the other side of the sword has cut the wrong way. Koizumi bequeaths Bush ominously deteriorated Japanese relations with China. Most important, despite his image as a political and economic reformer, it is not clear that the changes Koizumi has wrought in Japan society are sustainable or will work to American advantage in the long run.
In the end, said Kevin Nealer, a principal in the Scowcroft Group, an international business advisory firm, "Koizumi's legacy itself is evanescent. It is not obvious how the next iteration of Japanese leadership enshrines or deepens it."
Because Koizumi came to power after Japan had run through seven prime ministers in a decade, his "longevity was both good for Japan and for U.S.-Japan relations," said Edward Lincoln, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "It gave us both more time to do things."
Possibly the most significant bilateral accomplishment was Japan's shouldering of unprecedented international security responsibilities, symbolized by, but not limited to, Tokyo's dispatch of 550 troops to Iraq.
But on June 20, Koizumi announced he was withdrawing those troops. Furthermore, through his repeated visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, a memorial that honors, among others, convicted Japanese war criminals, "Koizumi has put his finger deep into a sore" and has antagonized China, said Mindy Kotler, director of Asia Policy Point, a Washington research center. "Any prime minister would have had a difficult time with China," because of inherent Chinese-Japanese economic and diplomatic competition in the region, argues Michael Green, the Japan chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. But Koizumi's actions afforded Beijing an excuse to whip up anti-Japanese sentiment, and so complicated U.S. efforts to manage events in Asia.
The recent emergence of the Japanese economy from more than a decade of stagnation has been a godsend for a United States weary of being the sole global economic engine. Japan could grow by 3.2 percent this year, faster than Europe, according to a recent Morgan Stanley projection. "How much of this Koizumi deserves credit for is uncertain; his reform efforts were overrated," said Lincoln, who credits much of Japan's revival to commercial banks finally shedding their nonperforming loans and private industry trimming payrolls.
Koizumi's likely successors are not expected to backtrack on his reforms, such as a phased-in privatization of the Japanese postal savings system. But none of them is personally identified with his changes. And, with Koizumi offstage, Tokyo's powerful bureaucracy can be expected to reassert itself.
The broader issue in U.S.-Japan relations, speculated Steve Clemons, director of the American strategy program at the New America Foundation, "is, what will Japanese society look like in the future?" Koizumi's political legacy may be his demonstrating that a prime minister could build a successful political base on young, urban voters, Nealer said. This group formed an exalted sense of Japan's place in the world during the heady "bubble economy" of the 1980s, and then they were personally battered by hard times in the 1990s. These 30- and 40-somethings are not saddled with their parents' inferiority complex vis-à-vis the United States. And they support Japan's hard-nosed international pursuit of its economic and strategic self-interest.
This new-style nationalism threatens to cause the United States heartburn, most immediately over dealing with Iran. Japan is heavily dependent on Iranian oil and thus leery of the looming international confrontation with Tehran. It is hard to see Japan's pivotal new political class falling in line behind U.S.-led economic sanctions against Iran that promise only pain for the Japanese.
Junichiro Koizumi has been a prime minister like none other in Japan's postwar history. And his tenure has been good for the United States. But whether history will treat his legacy as all beneficial is in doubt.
In Japanese tradition, visitors bring omiyage, or presents, for their hosts. When outgoing Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi arrives in Washington this month, the figurative gift he will bring President Bush is a double-edged samurai sword that symbolizes the prime minister's five-year tenure.
One side of that blade has cut sharply in favor of the United States. During Koizumi's time, U.S.-Japan security ties have never been closer, delivering unprecedented Japanese cooperation in the American-led war on terrorism. Koizumi presided over a Japanese economic revival, long a U.S. objective. But the other side of the sword has cut the wrong way. Koizumi bequeaths Bush ominously deteriorated Japanese relations with China. Most important, despite his image as a political and economic reformer, it is not clear that the changes Koizumi has wrought in Japan society are sustainable or will work to American advantage in the long run.
In the end, said Kevin Nealer, a principal in the Scowcroft Group, an international business advisory firm, "Koizumi's legacy itself is evanescent. It is not obvious how the next iteration of Japanese leadership enshrines or deepens it."
Because Koizumi came to power after Japan had run through seven prime ministers in a decade, his "longevity was both good for Japan and for U.S.-Japan relations," said Edward Lincoln, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "It gave us both more time to do things."
Possibly the most significant bilateral accomplishment was Japan's shouldering of unprecedented international security responsibilities, symbolized by, but not limited to, Tokyo's dispatch of 550 troops to Iraq.
But on June 20, Koizumi announced he was withdrawing those troops. Furthermore, through his repeated visits to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, a memorial that honors, among others, convicted Japanese war criminals, "Koizumi has put his finger deep into a sore" and has antagonized China, said Mindy Kotler, director of Asia Policy Point, a Washington research center. "Any prime minister would have had a difficult time with China," because of inherent Chinese-Japanese economic and diplomatic competition in the region, argues Michael Green, the Japan chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. But Koizumi's actions afforded Beijing an excuse to whip up anti-Japanese sentiment, and so complicated U.S. efforts to manage events in Asia.
The recent emergence of the Japanese economy from more than a decade of stagnation has been a godsend for a United States weary of being the sole global economic engine. Japan could grow by 3.2 percent this year, faster than Europe, according to a recent Morgan Stanley projection. "How much of this Koizumi deserves credit for is uncertain; his reform efforts were overrated," said Lincoln, who credits much of Japan's revival to commercial banks finally shedding their nonperforming loans and private industry trimming payrolls.
Koizumi's likely successors are not expected to backtrack on his reforms, such as a phased-in privatization of the Japanese postal savings system. But none of them is personally identified with his changes. And, with Koizumi offstage, Tokyo's powerful bureaucracy can be expected to reassert itself.
The broader issue in U.S.-Japan relations, speculated Steve Clemons, director of the American strategy program at the New America Foundation, "is, what will Japanese society look like in the future?" Koizumi's political legacy may be his demonstrating that a prime minister could build a successful political base on young, urban voters, Nealer said. This group formed an exalted sense of Japan's place in the world during the heady "bubble economy" of the 1980s, and then they were personally battered by hard times in the 1990s. These 30- and 40-somethings are not saddled with their parents' inferiority complex vis-à-vis the United States. And they support Japan's hard-nosed international pursuit of its economic and strategic self-interest.
This new-style nationalism threatens to cause the United States heartburn, most immediately over dealing with Iran. Japan is heavily dependent on Iranian oil and thus leery of the looming international confrontation with Tehran. It is hard to see Japan's pivotal new political class falling in line behind U.S.-led economic sanctions against Iran that promise only pain for the Japanese.
Junichiro Koizumi has been a prime minister like none other in Japan's postwar history. And his tenure has been good for the United States. But whether history will treat his legacy as all beneficial is in doubt.
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