The time for choosing approaches

North Korea has indicated that in order for the six-party talks to go forward, the US will have to remove North Korea from its list of state supporters of terrorism. That demand, of course, is aimed squarely at US-Japan cooperation on the abductions issue, because Japan is adamant that so long as North Korea fails to account for its abductions of Japanese citizens, it must continue to wear the scarlet letter of state sponsor of terrorism.

Given that the Japanese government has indicated that it will not compromise — no progress on abductions, then no cooperation in energy support — to advance the denuclearization talks, given that Prime Minister Abe has no room to maneuver on the abductions issue, the choice that must be made increasingly is the US government's to make.

I've recently resolved that I'm going to read Abe's book from start to finish, however interminably boring or weird it might be. One thing I have learned from this reading (I'm about halfway through) is that however important I thought the abductions issue was to him before, I underestimated. The abductions issue is central to understanding Abe Shinzo's rise to power, and essential to understanding how he thinks of himself.

Talking about his efforts to raise awareness of the issue early in his career as a politician, he strikes a Churchillian note, talking about how even within the LDP there was little awareness of the issue. Abe and his coterie were but a small minority, crying out against the prevailing consensus on North Korea. But they persevered, and now they are in control of Japanese foreign policy. There will be no talk of aid to North Korea without resolution of this issue. This issue, which is insignificant to every country involved in the six-party talks except Japan, is the undisputed heart of this government's view of the North Korea problem; missiles and nuclear weapons raise public awareness, but apparently the government considers resolving those problems secondary to the abductions problem.

If an actual agreement with North Korea is possibly — or more realistically, a status quo that will stabilize the Korean peninsula until the death of Kim Jong Il and the end of the DPRK — should the US balk on the basis of the Japanese position on abductions? It would be one thing if the Japanese government was holding back simply out of concern that Pyongyang's word could not be taken in good faith and thus the six-party talks could not be expected to secure Japan. That's an entirely reasonable position, and susceptible to change in the event that North Korea actually made good faith efforts to comply (however unlikely).

But Japan has put the US in the position of having to choose between pursuing an agreement on denuclearization, however chimerical, and "abandoning" its ally. This at the same time that Japan already feels betrayed by the US thanks to those — this phrase courtesy of an article in this month's issue of Will — "anti-Japan fascists" in the US Congress and their comfort women resolution. So yes, Ambassador Kato, the alliance may be set to suffer, entirely from self-inflicted wounds that were foreseeable and preventable. But then, why would an ambassador want to try to foresee and prevent bilateral difficulties? I cannot say that I'm surprised by the overlap between the six-party talks and the comfort women resolution (I said as much here) — but that makes this whole fiasco that much more aggravating, because it was so eminently foreseeable.

The reality is that the alliance is not, in fact, under attack from a two-pronged offensive waged by Chris Hill and Mike Honda; rather, it is suffering, perhaps has always been suffering, from manic depression, swinging between ecstatic highs ("the best ever") and mournful lows, because it has never been normalized, because Japan has been protected for so long by friends in Washington. Now those friends have retreated from power.

The reality is that the US is doing what it thinks is right in both cases. In a normal alliance, there would be no problem explaining that and having a discussion about how to coordinate interests or, if necessary, how exactly to agree to disagree. Instead at each possible moment when the US and Japan could have discussed this, the governments fell back on tired rhetoric about how strong the alliance is today. So the US must also bear some blame for this mess, not for the comfort women resolution, but for laziness in failing to ensure that Japan understands American needs in the six-party talks and in failing to prevent Tokyo from overreacting to the congressional resolution.

But Japan better wake up soon, because I have a pretty good idea of the choice the US is going to make if a deal emerges that Hill feels confident bringing back to Washington as a trophy. He was quoted in Asahi (article linked above) as saying, "If there's denuclearization, anything is possible."

Please explain, ambassador

Ambassador Kato Ryozo, facing the passage of the non-binding comfort women resolution by the House of Representatives, has reportedly sent a "blunt" letter to the House leadership warning about "lasting and harmful effects on the deep friendship, close trust and wide-ranging cooperation our two nations now enjoy."

(The Washington Post article breaking the story does not note whether he explained what harmful effects he foresees. If anyone has the text of this letter, or knows where to find it, I would be much obliged.)

Assuming that Ambassador Kato has not added any details to his dire warnings about how this resolution will harm the US-Japan relationship, I renew the question I asked when Ambassador Kato tried to scare the House Foreign Affairs Committee into voting against the resolution: is that a prediction or a threat?

As I noted then, Americans, public and elite alike, are generally sanguine about the state of the US-Japan relationship, and US elites seem to have no problem separating this thorny historical issue from the relationship. So it seems that if there is to be trouble after the passage of this resolution, it will not be emanating from the US. That leaves Japan.

So, Ambassador Kato, which is it? Are you warning that the Japanese government considers this an unfriendly act and will respond in kind? Or are you warning that it will inflame Japanese public opinion and undermine public support for the US-Japan relationship? Both are manageable, indeed, avoidable, if only Tokyo were capable of some perspective on this issue, instead of immediately becoming defensive, attempting to squash the resolution by whatever means necessary, and making dire predictions about worsening US-Japan relations (it must be the fault of those Democrats in Congress!).

Whatever the case may be, if there is one lesson that Americans should draw from this episode, in combination with the Kyuma affair, it is that clearly the US-Japan relationship has a long way to go before it can be called "normal" — and that there are plenty of history issues between the US and Japan that have yet to be properly confronted.

Is that a prediction or a threat?

For the second time in the past week, the Japanese media has noted concern that the comfort women resolution will worsen US-Japan relations.

Last week, Kato Ryozo, Japan's ambassador to the US, warned, "This resolution, which is not grounded in objectivity, is not good for US-Japan relations."

Now Mainichi reports that in New York on Monday, on the eve of the scheduled passage of the resolution in the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, a group of Japanese-American leaders expressed their concerns about the resolution. Irene Hirano, head of the Japanese American National Museum, is quoted as saying, "When relations between the two countries worsen, the first to feel its effects are Japanese-Americans."

Both reports strike me as drastically out of proportion to reality. How exactly will relations worsen? What will be the practical impact of this resolution? Will the US somehow be less reluctant to cooperate with Japan on security? Will the US somehow be less inclined to engage in trade negotiations with Japan? No, the problem does not seem to be on the American side, which seems to recognize that allies can disagree without undermining an otherwise close relationship. In fact, MOFA conducted a poll of the American public and American elites in February and March this year, measuring the extent to which each group thought US-Japan relations were good. The survey found that 67% of respondents from the population at large thought US-Japan relations were good, while 86% of elite respondents answered in the affirmative. This was, of course, around the time that the comfort women issue blew up. And yet an overwhelming majority of elites surveyed still felt confident in the health of the US-Japan relationship.

Hence my question in the title. When Ambassador Kato talks of the resolution worsening US-Japan relations — in the face of overwhelming US contentment with the state of the relationship — is he making a threat, hinting at a more combative turn in Japan's stance in the relationship? Or is he making a prophecy as to how his compatriots will react to their government's being criticized by the US Congress? It seems to me that instead of assuming that the resolution will worsen relations, it is appropriate to ask whether Congress's passage of the resolution will worsen US-Japan relations, and if so, how and why. And if relations are to worsen as a result of Japanese defensiveness, then it is appropriate to consider how Japan can become less susceptible to overreacting in the face of relatively insignificant turbulence like the comfort women resolution.