Kan tries again on trade

When the DPJ was campaigning to unseat the LDP in 2009, its manifesto included a pledge to "conclude" a free-trade agreement with the United States. The agricultural lobby flexed its muscles, and shortly after releasing its manifesto the DPJ issued several "clarifications," changing its pledge to reach an FTA with US to a pledge to "begin negotiations." Kan Naoto insisted that it would not conclude any agreement that harmed Japan's farmers. While the party claimed otherwise, the issue was effectively dropped for the duration of the campaign and the DPJ's first year in power.

After his victory over Ozawa, Kan, now prime minister, brought the issue of trade openness back onto the agenda in the form of Japanese participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Simply put, Kan's initial attempt to clear the way for Japanese involvement in TPP was stymied by the agricultural sector — with help from members of the DPJ. The lobby argued that participation would devastate Japanese agriculture, and forced the government to make a weak commitment to "study" participation, a climb down considering the soaring rhetoric with which the PM announced that his government would study participation in his policy speech at the start of the autumn Diet session.

However, with the start of a new year and a new Diet session, Kan, far from being chastened by the earlier defeat at the hands of the agricultural lobby, is positioning his government to begin the campaign anew. As Corey Wallace notes, the "themes" of this reshuffle were tax and pensions reforms and TPP. Regarding TPP, the most significant change was the appointment of Kaieda Banri as minister of economy, trade, and industry. Moreover, Hachiro Yoshio, a former farmer, was replaced as Diet affairs chairman by Azumi Jun. Combined with Maehara Seiji's staying on at the foreign ministry — Maehara has repeatedly called attention to the importance of economic openness for Japanese foreign policy — Kan managed to put into place a team that will be committed to the fight for free trade. His cabinet quickly agreed to TPP participation as a basic policy of the latest Kan government.

The question is whether Kan will be able to translate this ambition into reality. At the very least, the Kan government (and the DPJ) appear to have found their purpose. After fumbling around in search of a major issue or two to devote its energies to, the DPJ-led government has decided to tackle two rather pressing issues, which, combined with the challenges in Japan's bilateral relationships, passing the budget and budget-related bills, and managing life as a de facto minority government will be more than enough to keep the Kan government occupied. 

But in pursuing an open Japan — Kan's New Year's message was devoted to his goal of a third opening, a "Heisei opening" that would mean not just a Japan open to more imports but open to cultural, intellectual, and social exchanges across borders  — the Kan government arguably faces an even steeper battle than Koizumi faced when he took on the postal system, meaning the postal workers and their allies in the LDP. Between the rural bias in parliamentary representation (which, given the size of the DPJ's parliamentary caucus, inevitably means that there will be battles within the DPJ), the opposition of local governments in rural areas throughout Japan, and the outsized power of Nokyo, the Kan government faces formidable and perhaps insurmountable obstacles to bringing Japan into TPP. 

A basic understanding of international political economy is that free trade falters because its costs are concentrated while its benefits are diffuse. Plenty of states have joined free-trade agreements, suggesting that this fundamental tenet may not be all that fundamental. But what can the Kan government do to overcome the determined resistance of the agricultural lobby and its allies? For starters, the government needs to build a coalition of its own to rival the anti-TPP coalition. Business peak organizations like Keidanren will be indispensable partners for the Kan government if it is as serious about TPP as it says it is. Given the frosty relations between the DPJ and big business, the "anti-business" planks of the DPJ's manifesto, and the party's ties with organized labor (and big business's traditional ties with LDP), building this coalition will take some work, although this meeting between Kaieda and Keidanren's Yonekura Hiromasa is an encouraging start.

But it will take more than the help of friendly interest groups for the government to succeed. Ultimately, TPP may be the first big test for the DPJ's parliamentary-cabinet system. On paper, the DPJ's new policymaking process ought to (1) enable the government to coordinate its strategy on TPP across the relevant ministries (METI, MAFF, MOFA, etc.), (2) keep all cabinet ministers on board with the policy, (3) silence opposition within the ruling party, and (4) make strong, direct appeals to the general public about the necessity of the government's program. It is not a perfect analogue, since the upper house, now controlled by the opposition parties, gives the opposition parties procedural weapons they lack in the UK. However, the Kan government still has considerable tools at its disposal. The question is whether it uses them. As Andy Sharp argues at The Diplomat, it may well take a Koizumi-style PR blitz for the Kan government to win on this issue. It needs to hammer home why TPP — and greater openness more generally — are good and necessary for Japan. The idea that trade policy is an arena where groups with "objective" interests derived from their position in the global economy is overstated. Even among urban residents, thought to be the natural constituency for free trade, support cannot be taken for granted. The policy will not sell itself; an pro-TPP interest coalition needs to be constructed. The government's plan to convene town halls across Japan in February and March to explain the benefits of the policy are a good first step. But more talk will be needed. And side payments in one form or another will be unavoidable.

There is considerable risk in taking on TPP at the same time that the government will be debating a consumption tax increase linked to pensions payments, which, if not handled properly, could produce public opposition that could overwhelm the patient work of building a consensus on TPP. Nevertheless, as the Kan government and the DPJ begin a new year in power, they seem to be finding their bearings on policy. This government may yet leave a positive legacy.

The wages of uncertainty

The exchange of fire between the North and South Korean militaries that left two ROK Marines dead and at least a dozen wounded (see the roundup at Wired’s Danger Room blog), following closely on the heels of revelations regarding a new North Korean uranium reprocessing facility, strengthens hopes that the US and Japan might be able look past Futenma and strengthen their security relationship. The relationship has, of course, had a bit more wind in its sails since the standoff between Japan and China over the maritime collision near the Senkakus.

Can we really draw a straight line from regional instability to closer security cooperation between the US and Japan? Arguably this logic has worked in the past, with North Korean provocations from 1994 onward stirring Japanese policymakers to bolster Japan’s capabilities and launch new bilateral initiatives with the US, ballistic missile defense being perhaps the most notable example. And there are signs that the DPJ-led government is remarkably more realist in its approach to the region than many expected. I think Foreign Minister Maehara Seiji spoke for many in the DPJ when he told an official Chinese foreign affairs publication that he is “by no means a hawk but a realist who values idealism.” The distinction between “hawk” and “realist” is meaningful and says a lot about the DPJ’s approach to foreign and security policy.

To be a hawk in Japanese politics is not just to support a certain set of policies: it is more a cultural identity than a policy stance. It is a worldview that, in addition to wanting to dismantle political and legal constraints on Japan’s security policy, questions the value of Japan’s postwar regime (that which former Prime Minister Abe Shinzō wanted to "leave behind"), supports revising the constitution (not just Article 9), opposes “masochistic” interpretations of history, and promotes traditionalist values. While they cite the threats posed by North Korea and China to justify their policies, the idea of Japan as a great power is valued in its own right — it is not driven by material considerations.

Meanwhile, to be a realist in Japan means much the same as it does in other countries: valuing the sober assessment of national interests, and thinking clearly about how best to secure those interests using the means available. While I think “realism” is often associated with a predisposition towards military capabilities and the use of force, it need not be. As Eric Heginbotham and Richard Samuels argued in a 1998 article in the journal International Security, postwar Japanese leaders have been “mercantile realists,” thinking of Japanese national interests in broader terms that prioritized Japan’s economic position.

The DPJ has thus far been far more realist in its foreign and security policies than has been generally recognized. Like earlier LDP governments it is working to maintain some sort of constructive relationship with China, however difficult, while building closer bilateral ties with other countries in the region that are also concerned about Japan’s rise. The government has signaled that it is willing to invest in Japan’s security, for example announcing last month that the MSDF will increase its purchase of new submarines from sixteen to more than twenty. As this post at Sigma1 notes there are signs that the government’s new National Defense Program Guidelines, which the DPJ has been considering since it took power, will contain a number of sensible proposals to enhance Japan’s security, including a relaxation of the arms exporting principles and relocation of SDF personnel from the north to the south. Is Japan “rearming”? Arguably not. But we are not seeing a passive and pacifist Japan either, despite the idea that the DPJ is “left wing.”

But what about the relationship with the United States? On the face of it, the dispute with the US over Futenma has shown the limits of the DPJ’s realist tendencies, allowing its position on the bases to be driven by domestic political considerations instead of the “national interest.” However, is it really in the interest of either Japan or the US to force bases on an unwilling Okinawan public? The point is not that the DPJ has been particularly sober minded in its approach to the issue, but that it is not altogether clear how the bases in Okinawa serve Japan’s interests, which leads to the larger question of how the US-Japan alliance can best serve the interests of both countries.

This is the big question hanging over the alliance, the question that the two countries may finally be in the process of addressing as they begin consultations in advance of a bilateral summit that is expected to be held sometime in the spring. Will North Korean provocations or Chinese maritime adventurism push the alliance in new directions? If anything, I think regional uncertainty reinforces the trend towards a “strong but limited” security relationship focused deterrence in and around Japan instead of more expansive or grandiose plans for the alliance. And given Okinawan opposition to US bases and the uncertainty regarding the US economy, the countries should be talking about politically and economically sustainable deterrent capabilities. 

As such, while developments in the region may lend a certain urgency to bilateral talks about the future of the alliance, it is unlikely that they will push the US-Japan alliance in a drastically different direction than it was already going.

Observing Japan, now on Twitter!

After having resisted Twitter, I've decided to try it. I'm not sure whether I'll stick with it, although I'm enjoying it so far.

You can find my Twitter feed here.

Why don't Japanese take to the streets?

The Eurasia Group's Ian Bremmer has an op-ed in the IHT in which he argues that despite widespread pessimism among Japanese regarding their country's future, things may not be so bad. Basically he suggests that the DPJ may well be learning to get along with business elites and bureaucrats, Japan and the US may be rebuilding their relationship after a remarkably bad year for the alliance, and, finally, the Japanese people have not taken to the streets in opposition to their government.

I'm not sure I buy his argument, at least not entirely. His first two arguments are more or less acceptable, although I find little to praise in how the Kan government prevaricated and ultimately failed to lead on the issue. And I don't think Japan's foreign relations follow the "China down, US up" pattern Bremmer suggests — the Kan government is no less committed to fixing relations with China than it is committed to maintaining a healthy relationship with the US, consistent with the DPJ's position that Japan is not in a position to choose between the US and China.

What I'm interested in is Bremmer's argument about the relative stability of Japanese politics as measured by the lack of demonstrations, riots, and rallies with people carrying signs likening the country's leader to various twentieth-century dictators. In this superficial sense he's right: over the past two decades Japan has seen none of the upsurge in extra-parliamentary politics that one would expect a country in dire economic straits to experience. Bremmer's argument — that two decades of stagnation — is perfectly reasonable. It is difficult to see how a deflationary economy would lead people to take to the streets, particularly without the benefits cuts that have produced demonstrations and riots in Western Europe. 

Would Japanese continue to abstain from extra-parliamentary politics if, say, the Kan government pursued austerity with the same zeal as the Cameron government? And if they would continue to stay out of the streets, why? What's so different about Japan that the Japanese people seem content to express their dissatisfaction in public opinion polls and in the voting booth (which they have done regularly for decades, for despite the LDP's success in general elections there is a history of the LDP being punished in local and upper house elections)? I don't know the answer, and I certainly can't hope to come up with the answer in a blog post. However, the decline of Japanese extra-parliamentary politics since the 1960s, particularly compared with other rich democracies, is one of the more interesting puzzles in postwar Japanese politics and I don't think this puzzle has an obvious answer.

Is it political culture, for example the lack of an anti-government subculture like in the United States? If so, what changed since the 1960s? The decline in the kind of organizations that might facilitate collective action (student groups, unions, etc.)? The lack of the kind of welfare benefits that, when cut, can cause to demonstrations in defense of the status quo? The result of a half-century of LDP rule, which habituated citizens and interest groups to a certain approach to politics that left little room for public demonstrations? 

If Japan is in fact more stable than other rich democracies, it would be helpful to understand why, not least because if Japan were to pursue benefit cuts in order to shrink the deficit, it might enable us to predict whether Japanese politics will continue to enjoy "relative domestic tranquility."

Selling free trade

Bogged down by an unfavorable political situation in Tokyo, the Kan government has few avenues for policy innovation. In recent weeks, however, it seems that the Kan government has decided to consider joining the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (TPP), a multilateral free trade agreement that currently includes only Chile, New Zealand, Singapore, and Brunei, but which the United States, Australia, Peru, Vietnam, and Malaysia are negotiating to enter.

The DPJ sent mixed signals on trade during the 2009 campaign: the initial draft of the party's manifesto stated that the party would "conclude" an FTA with the United States, but, criticized by farmers' groups, the party softened its proposal to "begin negotiations with the United States" and added a clause that it would only conclude an FTA with the US if domestic agricultural production could be safeguarded. Since the DPJ took power, trade has more or less vanished from the agenda — until now.

Following Kan's declaration in his policy speech that his government is considering TPP, Maehara Seiji, the foreign minister, has emerged as the government's leading advocate for greater trade openness, arguing in his speech earlier this month at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan that since Japan's foreign policy is only as effective as its economic strength, diplomacy that enhances Japan's economy should be the government's top priority. (To make the point he pointed to South Korea's superior competitiveness as something that Japan should emulate.) To that end, he outlined a three-pillared approach that included (1) building a free trade system, (2) diversifying sources of food and natural resources as a hedge against risk, and (3) ensuring that Japan has the technology and infrastructure necessary to export.

When it came to concrete proposals to expand free trade, however, Maehara balked. He said that taking steps to join the TPP would be a test for Japan, but did not promise anything. He talked about trade negotiations with the US either bilaterally or within a multilateral framework, but offered little in the way of specifics. Given the thorny politics of free trade in Japan, Maehara's circumspection comes as little surprise, and the debate that has occurred within the government since his speech has been similarly tentative. To this point the government is still collecting opinions on the matter and has not decided whether it will pursue negotiations to join the TPP. Genba Koichiro, head of the national strategy office, said that the government will make its decision late next week. It has the support of Maehara and Kaieda Banri, the minister for economic and fiscal policy, as well as Sengoku Yoshito, the chief cabinet secretary, who said that TPP could be coupled with measures to support farmers harmed by imports (the logic behind Sengoku arch-rival Ozawa's income support plans). But these advocates are of course opposed by the ministry of agriculture, forestry, and fisheries — and by Nokyo, the peak association for agricultural cooperations, whose chairman has declared the TPP will mean the destruction of Japanese agriculture. The PNP, the DPJ's partner in government, and the Social Democrats, its erstwhile partner, have also come out against TPP, and Hata Yuichiro, chair of the DPJ's upper house parliamentary strategy committee, has said that he opposes joining the trade agreement "at this time."

Given the opposition arrayed against TPP, it is perhaps wise that the Kan government has not committed to the policy and is instead floating trial balloons. However, I wonder if there will ever be a good time for a Japanese prime minister to pursue an ambitious trade agenda. By proceeding cautiously now, did the government simply give its opponents time to mobilize and thus ensure that once again the issue will be postponed? It strikes me that if Japan is ever to participate in an ambitious free trade agreement like TPP (or the hypothetical US-Japan FTA), the only way it will ever get done is if the prime minister owns the issue, building a coalition in favor of free trade and selling the policy to the public in the same way that Koizumi sold postal reform. As the political economist Helen Milner once wrote (I'm paraphrasing), for economists, the puzzle is why states would ever done anything other than free trade — for political scientists the puzzle is why states would ever practice anything but protectionism.

If the government decides next week to make joining TPP a priority, it better be prepared for a three-pronged fight: among political parties in the Diet (remember that the government needs to cobble together upper-house majorities to pass legislation), among interest groups, and in the court of public opinion. The trade agreement will not sell itself. The government will have to commit to it fully. Anything less and the government is likely to suffer yet another defeat.

After the showdown

Japanese Prime Minister Kan Naoto and Wen Jiabao, his Chinese counterpart, have met briefly in Brussels on the sideline of the ASEM summit, marking an end to the bilateral standoff following the collision between a Chinese trawler and Japanese Coast Guard vessels in the vicinity of the disputed Senkakus.

As expected, Japan and China reiterated the importance of the strategic, reciprocal partnership initiative. High-level talks and cultural exchanges will resume. All in all, it is difficult to say what has changed strategically as a result of the dispute. That China will fiercely resist any perceived change to the status quo in its maritime disputes? That China has greater leverage at its disposal? That countries — not just China — don't like having their nationals held by other countries, particularly when, Sourabh Gupta argues, there may have been little basis for Japan's holding the Chinese fishermen in the first place? 

Meanwhile, the conventional wisdom that the US is the biggest winner from the dispute is probably overstated. The allies will not find it any easier to resolve the Okinawa dispute, which continues to loom over the alliance. More importantly, however, the dispute appears to have merely reinforced the DPJ government's basic approach to China: having little choice but to forge a working political relationship with its neighbor, Japan will redouble its commitment to building constructive relations with China. In short, the dispute, rather than signaling that Japan must change course entirely, may simply lead the Kan government to try harder. 

The basic idea that has animated foreign policy under the DPJ from the day it took office — that Japan, living in a region dominated by a rising China and a declining but still powerful US, needs to find a way to navigate between and live with both power — remains intact.

That being said, the dispute with China has obviously had consequences within Japan, not least for the Kan government's public approval ratings. Despite having received a remarkable bump in his support after defeating Ozawa — nearly twenty percent in some polls — Kan's numbers are back to around fifty percent thanks to his government's perceived mishandling of the dispute. Peter Ennis makes a strong case that the Kan government actually handled the issue well, getting the assurances it needed out of the US while resisting Chinese pressure long enough for the government to claim that the captain's release was the result of a decision by the prosecutor's office in Naha and not the central government. But the Japanese people apparently do not see it the same way. In Yomiuri's poll, for example, eighty-three percent of respondents were not convinced by the prime minister's claim that there was not political intervention. The same poll found a ten-percent increase in the number of respondents who said foreign and security policy should be a top priority for the Kan government; in early August only four percent said it should be a top priority. Whether this change in the public mood is more than temporary remains to be seen, but the drop in the government's approval ratings give Kan that much less room to maneuver as the prime minister tries to coax the opposition parties to cooperate with the government.

Indeed, the LDP has rushed this issue to the top of the agenda as the autumn extraordinary session of the Diet begins. The party has declared that the "abrupt" release of the captain was the worst foreign policy failure in postwar history. The LDP is sure to build its response to the Kan government around this issue, together with the latest Ozawa indictment, meaning that the largest opposition party has two tangential issues with which to attack the government — with the sanction of the public, thanks to the public opinion polls showing that these issues matter — and put off talk of cooperation on an economic agenda. The LDP will of course get an assist from the Japanese media, particularly its more conservative precincts, which appear to have found their voice again after a dismal couple of years during which their issues vanished from the agenda as the global financial crisis unfolded and then the LDP was unseated by the DPJ.

The dispute with China not only has given ammunition to an LDP desperate to obstruct the Kan government and force an early election — it has also provided an opening for dissent within the DPJ, stirrings of which could be found in the petition signed by forty-three DPJ members, including Nagashima Akihisa, and submitted to Sengoku. The petition goes out of its way to soften its criticism of the government, but it does suggest that China policy could create some space between the government and the ruling party. However, since Kan's cabinet has been united on the issue, grumbling within the DPJ can be safely ignored for now.

So did Kan lose? I cannot agree with Ennis entirely that the government handled the dispute well. The government's biggest mistake was stressing that it was a matter for the Japanese legal system to handle. This stance may well have contributed to China's raising the stakes on the issue (because it could not accept this stance without tacitly acknowledging Japanese sovereignty) but it also ensured that the rule of law would be tarnished in the event of a Japanese climb down. If the Japanese government was indeed prepared to allow the legal process to run its course I suppose this position would have been acceptable, but I doubt that Tokyo really was prepared to wait that long (unless the Kan government was actually caught off guard by Beijing's response). The Kan government should have treated the issue like the diplomatic dispute it was from the very beginning instead of staking the credibility of Japanese institutions on the outcome. That it did so at least partially explains the public's opposition to the government's handling of the issue.

By holding out for as long as it did Japan may well have forced China to think twice about how hard it will push Japan in the future, perhaps won Japan more support from other countries locked in disputes with China, and provided an opportunity for Japan and other countries to take steps to mitigate China's economic leverage (as in the case of rare earth elements), but these gains may have come at the expense of Kan's credibility at home. Without public support, the prime minister, already the head of a de facto minority government, will find it that much more difficult to move an agenda centered on fixing Japan's economy, which in turn is critical to maintaining Japan's influence in the region (as argued by Maehara Seiji, Kan's foreign minister, at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan Tuesday). Whatever the medium-term benefits to Japan from the dispute, it may not have been worth the short-term costs for Kan.

The end of the "strategic, reciprocal" relationship?

Since Abe Shinzō succeeded Koizumi Junichirō in 2006, the focus of Japan's China policy has been the promotion of what has been called in official documents as a "strategic, reciprocal relationship" between Japan and China. Acknowledging the importance of the bilateral relationship for peace and stability in East Asia, the two countries agreed to build a political relationship based on mutual trust, increase cultural and educational exchange, bolster economic cooperation, and collaborate to build an East Asian order founded on openness, transparency, and inclusiveness.

As the showdown between Japan and China over the fate of the Chinese fisherman now in Japanese custody intensifies, it is worth asking what the process of "unfreezing" the Sino-Japanese relationship since 2006 has accomplished, and whether that process will survive this dispute — or whether this standoff marks the beginning of a new, uncertain period in the relationship.

With each passing day it becomes clearer that the answer to the first question is "not much." The two countries' leaders have talked more frequently and exchanged state visits. Japanese leaders have avoided the deliberately provocative actions regarding wartime history that led to the deep freeze in the first place. Chinese leaders have at various times acknowledged and praised Japan for its peaceful development during the postwar period. But arguably no progress has been made to defuse the truly potent issues in the relationship, starting with the Senkakus.

This dispute was a hard test for the "new" Sino-Japanese relationship, as it concerns important symbolic issues — sovereignty over the Senkakus and the incarceration by Japan of a Chinese national, an "abduction" of sorts in Chinese eyes — and is therefore precisely the kind of issue that appeals to Chinese insecurity about its regional and international status, making unlikely to be resolved by Tokyo's appeals to handle the issue calmly and without resorting to nationalistic posturing. Of course the strategic, reciprocal relationship failed the test. China has steadily applied pressure on Japan, canceling cultural and political exchanges and possibly banning the export of rare earth elements (although for the record, the Japanese government has not confirmed whether there is in fact an export ban and the Chinese government has denied that there is any such ban).

As important as the resumption of normal relations between Tokyo and Beijing has been, it is worth asking whether the "strategic, reciprocal" relationship agenda will ever result in the kind of bilateral relationship rooted in trust that would limit the ability of this kind of issue from escalating into a more serious crisis. As long as anti-Japanese sentiment remains widespread, making a hard line towards Japan in disputes politically expedient, as China's policymaking process remains opaque, making it difficult to know how or why decisions are made, and as China remains acutely sensitive to insults to its national pride, it seems unlikely that the underlying dynamics of the political relationship will change. The economic relationship will undoubtedly remain important, but it is unlikely that economic interdependence will spill over into the political relationship — in either country. While Bruce Einhorn argues at Business Week that Japan "can't afford" a fight with China, Daniel Drezner suggests that attempts by China to use economic links to exert pressure on Japan could very well backfire and lead Tokyo to dig in its heels. Contrary to Einhorn's presumption, the impact of economic interdependence on Sino-Japanese political ties is arguably negligible. If anything the impact has been negative, leading China to believe that it has more leverage over Japan than it might otherwise have.

What about the Kan government's response to this dispute? Peter Ennis notes that there has been no sign of disagreement between Kan, Chief Cabinet Secretary Sengoku Yoshito, and the new Foreign Minister Maehara Seiji, all of whom have not responded to Chinese pressure by upping the rhetorical ante or responding in kind. This stance suggests that far from hearing the "wake-up call" that Dan Twining believes China is sending to Japan, the Kan government remains committed to the "strategic, reciprocal" program, persisting in the belief that forbearance by Japan will bear fruit over the long term if it leads China to learn to trust its neighbors.

In other words, in the aftermath of this dispute the Kan government will likely recommit to the pursuit of constructive cooperation with China, however unlikely it is that this approach will produce tangible results in the short run. The DPJ will be criticized by people like Abe for being "not understanding international politics," but it is unlikely that it will change course in foreign policy, and certainly not in the direction favored by hawks in Washington. When considering Japan's approach to China it is necessary to note that while the Japanese public wants their government to stand up for Japan in disputes with China, Japanese citizens are not clamoring for defense spending increases to match China's military modernization program or more assertive diplomacy to contain China's growing influence. As such, the Kan government's response to China's posturing may not be herald a "new realism" in the DPJ's foreign policy thinking but is instead perfectly consistent with its approach since taking power last year. (I've argued repeatedly that, Hatoyama's woolly-headed rhetoric notwithstanding, the DPJ has been remarkably realist in its diplomatic maneuverings since the beginning of its tenure.)

In doing so, the Kan government will be gambling that over the long term engagement will work. Given how little has been accomplished since 2006, it is an unappealing gamble — but the alternatives are worse. Economic interdependence may not make political cooperation inevitable, but it means that the Japanese government has an interest in talking with China regularly. The approach pursued by Japanese governments since 2006 essentially means keeping the Sino-Japanese relationship in a holding pattern, finding areas to cooperate while maintaining the status quo over issues like the East China Sea, perhaps in the hope that over time China will become more satisfied and less predisposed to forcing changes in the status quo. It may be a foolish gamble, but the alternative, the creation of a de facto Asian NATO, would be far worse, providing hardliners in Beijing with signs of encirclement and virtually guaranteeing that China will not limit itself to small maritime "provocations." It would be a fine example of what Bismarck said of preventive war, "committing suicide for fear of death."

Despite being an unsatisfactory option, the "strategic, reciprocal" relationship may well here to stay.