Tag: Japan

The China-Japan Tango, Talks, and Time

Japanese Anti-China protests. Photo: Al Jazeera/flickr

Professor Dong Wang (“China-Japan Relations-Now What?”) is to be applauded for distilling a number of frictions bedeviling the China-Japan relationship, identifying root causes of these frictions, and making a number of policy proposals. Even so, other issues require consideration if Sino-Japanese relations are to be put on a sounder footing, a goal to which all should aspire given the fallout of a true bilateral deep freeze or, worse, militarized conflict. First, policymakers in both countries need to understand that “their” tango includes more countries than just themselves. Second, they need to appreciate that talks are insufficient and may even be counterproductive. Third, they need to strive for more wide-ranging and creative options to deal with the history (time) problem.

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Not Beyond Hope: Japan and TPP

 

Shinzo Abe speaking in 2012

George Bernard Shaw called second marriage “the triumph of hope over experience.” In restoring the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its leader Abe Shinzo to power last month, Japanese voters seemed to be sending the opposite message: after three years of vesting their hopes in the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) with disappointing results, they opted to fall back on the LDP’s greater experience in governing.

Abe himself seems to have learned from his previous, unhappy experience as prime minister in 2006–2007. In his first public remarks after taking back the job in late December, he said, “There is no future for a country which has given up on growth.” The sentiment marked a refreshing change not just from the DPJ’s focus on austerity, but from Abe’s own disinterest in economic affairs during his earlier tenure in office. An older and wiser Abe is right to pay more attention to Japan’s economic health – and right that more growth is what the patient needs – but his policy prescriptions to date will not be enough to produce the lasting recovery he is hoping for.

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North Korea’s Blackmail Missile

Korea
Korea. Photo: jon.t/flickr.

TOKYO – The Unha-3 rocket launched from Sohae in North Korea on the morning of December 12 passed through Japanese air space over the island of Okinawa 12 minutes later, and crashed into the Pacific Ocean roughly 300 kilometers east of the Philippines. The launch could be considered a mild surprise, because South Korean intelligence sources had suggested that it had been canceled.

More surprising was the success of the launch, which makes North Korea the tenth member of the world’s “Space Club” (the ninth member was Iran, which successfully launched its Safir rocket in 2008). The Unha-3, a three-stage rocket weighing 92 tons, follows the Unha-2, which failed spectacularly in 2009, so the evident progress that North Korea has made in its missile technology in such a short period has shocked governments around the world.

The United Nations Security Council responded by debating a resolution on strengthening sanctions against North Korea. Only China – no surprise – opposed new sanctions, stressing that “actions that heighten tension on the Korean Peninsula should not be taken.” China has agreed to Security Council resolutions against Iran on several occasions, but it has backed sanctions against North Korea on only two, both coming after the North conducted nuclear tests (in 2006 and 2009).

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Japan’s Nationalist Turn

Anti-China protests in Tokyo. Photo: Taka@PPRS/flickr

TOKYO – Japan has been in the news lately, owing to its dispute with China over six square kilometers of barren islets in the East China Sea that Japan calls the Senkakus and China calls the Diaoyu Islands. The rival claims date back to the late nineteenth century, but the recent flare-up, which led to widespread anti-Japanese demonstrations in China, started in September when Japan’s government purchased three of the tiny islets from their private Japanese owner.

Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has said that he decided to purchase the islands for the Japanese central government to prevent Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara from purchasing them with municipal funds. Ishihara, who has since resigned from office to launch a new political party, is well known for nationalist provocation, and Noda feared that he would try to occupy the islands or find other ways to use them to provoke China and whip up popular support in Japan. Top Chinese officials, however, did not accept Noda’s explanation, and interpreted the purchase as proof that Japan is trying to disrupt the status quo.

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India, Japan and the US Step on the Gas

Obama and Singh participate at Hyderabad House, New Delhi.
President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh participate in a bilateral meeting at Hyderabad House in New Delhi, India, Nov. 8, 2010.

The third trilateral dialogue between India, Japan and the United States was held in New Delhi on 29 October 2012. This series of dialogues began on 19 December 2011 in Washington DC, with a second held in Tokyo on 23 April 2012. The Indian delegation at the New Delhi meeting was led by the Joint Secretary for East Asia in India’s Ministry of External Affairs, Gautam Bambawale, the Japanese delegation by the Deputy Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs, Kenji Hiramatsu, and the US delegation by Robert Blake, the Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia.

The three countries discussed a wide variety of issues from the prospects of cooperation between the three countries in Myanmar, Africa and Afghanistan, as well as ways and means to pool their resources in the fight against piracy.

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