Japan’s new Asian role

By S.P.SETH

Japan’s Prime Minister, Yukio Hatoyama, is seeking to push his concept of a new East Asian community. The new government is keen to redefine Japan that is different from the ousted Liberal Democratic Party’s model.

And the one way they are doing is to refocus its primary role in an Asian context. This is where the East Asian community comes in to create an Asian version of the European Union.

There are, however, some problems here. First, there are already quite a few Asian forums engaged in regional cooperation.

The two that come to mind immediately are the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), and Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd of Australia is promoting another version of Asia-Pacific Community as an omnibus organization to deal with anything and everything.

Which means that a Hatoyama promoted East Asian regional community will need to cut through a plethora of existing organizations.

That might not be an insurmountable problem but it still is a difficult challenge.

At a more fundamental level, Hatoyama’s proposal is an independent initiative, apprenly without reference to or approval of the United States, Japan’s strategic ally.

Indeed, it doesn’t even include the United States.

Hatoyama has been critical of global capitalism. He is of the view that, “in the post-Cold War period, Japan has been continually buffeted by the winds of market fundamentalism in a US-led movement that is more usually called globalization.”

And this has brought about the global financial crisis.

Which has led many people to believe “that the era of US unilateralism may come to an end. It has also raised doubts about the permanence of the dollar as the key global currency.”

Hatoyama-proposed East Asian community will, therefore, have a common currency, like the euro zone, as an alternative to the dollar.

He first raised his proposal with President Hu Jintao of China last month. As Hatoyama reportedly recounted, “ I told him I would like to form an East Asian community by overcoming differences—among them a territorial dispute over oil and gas fields under the East China Sea.”

He added, “I said we should make it a sea of fraternity instead of a sea of disputes.”

In other words, Hatoyama primarily sees an East Asia Community as Sino-Japanese regional condominium.

Obviously, this would also include other countries from East and South East Asia. The United States wouldn’t be in it. India, Australia and New Zealand would be included, according to Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada.

Okada has indicated that the US might be included at a later date.

But the US doesn’t like to be excluded. Kurt Campbell, US assistant secretary of state, has said,”… the United States is going to be part of this party. We are an active player and we’re going to want an invitation as well.”

Which means that if Japan’s new government is excluding the United States, it is likely to create difficulties in its relations with the that country.

Already, the Hatoyama government’s insistence on a fundamental review of the US bases in Okinawa is creating complications.

The US Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, during his recent Japan visit, said that the alternatives to arrangements already negotiated “are either politically untenable or operationally unworkable.”

Tokyo will also soon end its refueling mission in the India Ocean for the war effort in Afghanistan.

However, there is no suggestion that the US-Japan security alliance is in any danger. Japan’s Foreign Minister, Katsuya Okada, has emphasized the importance of US-Japan relations.

He, however, believes that their alliance faces some “specific challenges.” And: “ We would like to solve the challenges in a positive manner.”

Japan is becoming a bit of a problem for the US for its insistence on creating an assertive space in its bilateral relationship with the United States.

The Washington Post recently quoted a senior State Department official as saying that “… the US had ‘grown comfortable’ thinking about Japan as a constant in US relations in Asia. It no longer is, he said, adding that the hardest thing right now is not China, it’s Japan.”

As for its East Asian community initiative, it didn’t initially excite China, but they were not opposed to it. But China is quite supportive now. As Hu Zhengyue, its assistant foreign minister, has said, “We believe that to establish an East Asian community is the future direction of promoting East Asian co-operation. It is the trend.”

In its present nebulous stage, China doesn’t have to worry about it too much. Initially, it will be for Japan to put some flesh on its proposal by way of its membership, charter and so on.

The exclusion of the United States will give China a predominant regional role. But the proposed inclusion of India might be a balancing exercise.

However, it would remain to be seen how China might react to India’s inclusion.

At the present stage, they don’t need to do much apart from generally supporting the concept of an East Asian community, with the prospect of further complicating US-Japan relations.

Even though Japan’s alliance with the United States is its ultimate security shield, especially against China’s rising power, the new government apparently thinks that a more equitable rearrangement of military ties will give Japan greater space and credibility as an Asian power.

The initiative for an East Asian community, without an American imprimatur, is a step in that direction.

There is also a sense that, as things stand, China is setting the pace in the reconfiguration of regional power. Japan, therefore, needs to take an independent initiative to stake its claim to reshape the new regional architecture.

And such reconfiguration would be based on cooperative regionalism for which Europe provides the model.

The European model looks like the test case where historical animosities, as between France and Germany, were subsumed. And the same could happen between China and Japan in an evolving East Asian community.

But there are important differences. The most important is that the European Community (and the NATO alliance) evolved against the backdrop of the Cold War, with the Soviet Union as a common political, strategic and ideological threat.

Asia-Pacific region doesn’t have any such cohesive imperative. A common danger is generally a very strong adhesive.

The second factor is that Asian countries are at different levels of economic development and with different political systems.

Third, Germany’s post-war political system and its leadership not only acknowledged the country’s war crimes but also comprehensively apologized on behalf of the German nation.

Through its political system and incorporation in the European Union (and membership of the NATO), Germany largely won the trust of its neighbors.

In the case of Japan, that sort of comprehensive apology for its war crimes has been lacking. Which is likely to raise questions from time to time.

Fourth, as China’s power and influence grows, its tendency will be to tame and/or subvert regional organizations to serve its national interests.

Therefore, an East Asian community of equal partners (on the lines of the European Community), is unlikely to eventuate.

Beijing would like it to be its own version of the East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere.

In the medium and long term, however, much will depend on the US political will and strategic commitment to remain engaged in the Asia-Pacific region.

In the ultimate analysis, it is the capacity of China’s political system to hold together the country that will determine the region’s new architecture.

And it will be a bold analyst who might put a wager on it in the midst of all sorts of reports of social unrest.