Ampontan criticizes English-language media for their “[m]indlessly parroted assumptions based on conventional wisdom” that lead to their labeling Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo as a “nationalist.” The entry notes Abe’s hands-off approach thus far on the disputed island situations with Korea and Russia as evidence that he is no “hawkish nationalist.” Observing Japan, on the other hand, argues that, for a variety of reasons, Abe can reasonably be called a nationalist:

What makes Abe a nationalist has little if anything to do with his ideas about Japan’s place in the world and more to do with his vision of Japanese society. In short, Abe and his allies in the LDP want to use the state to recreate a more unified Japan as a means of coping with the problems Japan will face in the twenty-first century. What makes Abe a nationalist is his desire to forge (or re-forge) a kind of dynamic unity among the Japanese people, under the rule of the emperor, of course. As he said in his debate with Ozawa Ichiro this week, “If Japan’s long history, traditions and cultures can be likened to a tapestry that the Japanese people have been weaving, the emperor is the warp.”

An interesting question if we’re talking about Japanese nationalism in a historical sense is whether Abe or Koizumi is indeed the bigger nationalist. The nation-building (i.e. unifying) efforts by the Meiji government prominently featured the symbolism of the Yasukuni Shrine, and they used Yasukuni as a place to show off Japan’s new pride in regarding itself as a modern nation. The shrine was strategically located on a Kudan Hill, which then separated upper- and lower-class areas of Tokyo, with the idea of symbolizing unity. Kudan Hill is also conveniently right across the street from the Imperial Palace Grounds, lest you would forget how important the emperor was to the emerging Japanese nation-state. (An excellent source for the early history of the shrine is Akiko Takenaka’s dissertation on Meiji nationalist architecture: Takenaka-O’Brien, Akiko. “The Aesthetics of Mass Persuasion: War and Architectural Sites in Tokyo, 1868-1945.” Yale University, 2004.)

As we know, Koizumi spent much more time and international political capital than Abe has in paying tribute to Japan’s late 19th—early 20th century nationalism. But Abe has spent more energy on a more contemporary and more instrumental form of nationalism, the revision of Article 9. The rhetoric behind constitutional revision—especially among the people usually called “nationalists”—often invokes the desire for Japan to become a “normal state.”

Indeed, as currently constituted, Japan lacks one of the main characteristics of an independent sovereign state: the ability to use force or the threat of force as an instrument of foreign policy. The result is a relationship with the United States that puts its status somewhere in the area between protectorate and strategic ally. Though Japan could theoretically cast off U.S. ties without changing its constitution, the security environment makes this highly unlikely. Changing the constitution would, for better or for worse, strengthen Japan’s independence as a state.

So my verdict: People like Abe who favor constitutional revision are “practical nationalists,” whereas people like Koizumi who pay tribute to late 19th century nationalist traditions are “sentimental nationalists.”

If an English-language article about Koizumi Junichiro ever appeared without the word “maverick,” I didn’t notice. But now Abe Shinzo might get to be one of the cool kids too. Bono praised Japan for its anti-poverty funding in the ’90s and its aid in Southeast Asia after meeting Abe Wednesday. And he may have called the new prime minister “cool.”

“I’ve always seen George Bush looking at my sunglasses … and George Bush never put them on,” Bono said. “The last pope put them on, and Prime Minister Abe — very cool.”

Reuters asserts that Bono was calling Abe cool, but I think he might have been referring to the act of putting on the sunglasses, not the politician himself. One way or another, we know Bono locates Abe on the “cool” scale somewhere between Koizumi and Bush, because he said he was disappointed not to have discussed music with Abe as he had with the Maverick. Not to worry, Bono said, “Next meeting, I’ll get him on that.”

It is an imaginative exercise to read speculative accounts of Sino-Japanese relations from earlier in the Koizumi years. No one knew just how bad it would get in the public sphere, and I find that most writers at the time imagined the Koizumi administration and China’s new leadership under Hu Jintao beginning in 2002 would work it out better than they did.

Leave it to an empirical analysis to get a pretty good idea of what was going on. Ming Wan, writing in July 2003 in the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Asia Program Special Report [pdf], laid out a prescient assessment of the U.S. effect on Sino-Japanese relations and suggested the United States would be wise to work toward reduced China–Japan tensions.

We know what happened instead: Sino-Japanese diplomatic relations are at the height of dysfunction, and only now with Koizumi’s departure is there a feeling of hope, however muddled by Prime Minister Abe Shinzo’s support of Koizumi and the continued presence of the Koizumi’s inflammatory foreign minister Aso Taro.

Aside from his unheeded advice, Ming Wan presents some interesting statistical findings based on numerical measures of political, security, and economic ties. Among the findings in my notes after the jump:

He found statistically that: U.S–China cooperation has a strong positive correlation with U.S.–Japan ties but has no effect on the China–Japan relationship; “U.S.–Japan cooperation has a moderate negative correlation with China–Japan relations” and little impact on U.S.–China relations; and China–Japan cooperation does not have a significant effect on the two other bilaterals.

The essay is delightfully well-organized, so allow me to outline his points quickly

(more…)

The New York Times today took a whack at what Abe Shinzo should do as the new prime minister of Japan. The editorial is both reasonable and unambitious in urging Abe to work toward better relations with China and other nearby states. It ends:

Japan has a great deal to be proud of, including an increasingly vital democracy, a revived economy and the difficult but necessary economic reforms that Mr. Koizumi began to push through and that Mr. Abe will now need to take further. It does not need to glorify the darkest period of its recent history and the war criminals most responsible for that terrible aberration.

But on the way to a reasonable conclusion, the Times loses its way. Regarding Chinese anti-Japan sentiment, the editorial says “an ugly, but increasingly distant, history of Japanese aggression and war crimes stands in the way.” While all history is technically increasingly distant as time passes, history is only distant when it ceases to maintain a prominent position in popular consciousness. Japanese aggression is not distant in China; it is reinforced in the public sphere by the CCP, as Peter Hays Gries writes in China’s New Nationalism. This editorial would have us believe history is declining in importance.

Or would it? The writer still finds space to criticise Japanese textbooks for inaccurately reflecting the nation’s war aggression, despite the fact that most of the headlines coming out of the Japanese textbook controversy surround a book almost no one uses.

I wish the Times were more careful with its words when taking this essentially reasonable stand.

Bay Area friends will find an op-ed column I wrote in the San Jose Mercury News today (Sunday, Sept. 17, 2006). Here is the text as it appeared, reprinted by permission:

“U.S. should press Japan to mend fences with China”

By Graham Webster

When Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited Graceland with President George W. Bush this summer, Japanese-U.S. friendship took center stage. Koizumi, an avid Elvis fan whose suave hairstyle contributed to his maverick image at home, enjoyed a close relationship with Bush. But Koizumi’s tepid relations with China and other Asian nations pose a challenge to both Tokyo and Washington. His departure this week is an opportunity for a much-needed change.

Under Koizumi, Japan supported the invasion of Afghanistan and sent troops to Iraq, despite constitutional limits on military deployment. Koizumi’s team worked with the Bush administration on security in Taiwan and North Korea, and Japanese-U.S. economic ties are healthy.

But just as Koizumi strengthened cooperation with the United States, he slowed diplomatic relations with China to a virtual crawl through his uncompromising behavior on historical issues. Koizumi’s handling of the so-called “history problem” has been so ham-handed that Japan’s bid for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council last year resulted in dozens of anti-Japan demonstrations in China, including the largest single demonstration in Beijing since the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident.

The Chinese government was already fed up with Koizumi. Fulfilling a campaign promise to a right-wing interest group, Koizumi made five yearly visits to the controversial Yasukuni shrine, which honors Japan’s war dead since the 1860s, including 14 people convicted as Class A war criminals after World War II. The Chinese and South Korean governments have loudly chastised him for the visits, which they say are a nod to Japan’s imperialist past.

The Bush administration, preoccupied with anti-terrorism efforts and a troubled Iraq strategy, has stayed out of this dispute. Some say Bush’s failure to scold Koizumi on historical issues, while humoring his Elvis impersonation, was read as a snub in East Asia. But soon, everything might be “all shook up” in Japan. Shinzo Abe, who most agree will become prime minister this week, has defended Koizumi’s shrine visits, but he has made no promises to visit regularly. Indeed, seeing the opportunity to improve ties with China, he has already hinted that he might forgo a visit this fall to pave the way for a summit with Chinese President Hu Jintao in November.

Now it’s time for the United States to fully engage in the region. The White House should tell Abe that antagonizing Japan’s neighbors is not an option, and it should make sure China overhears. Then the administration should commit to greater engagement with China. Policy-makers concentrating on the Middle East need to be reminded that East Asia, too, is a vital region for America’s future. East Asia won’t wait for Washington to wake up.

If Japan mends ties with China and becomes more independent of the United States, American businesses may lose customers. Japan already trades more with China than with the United States, and a Japanese Cabinet minister last month found international support for an $80 million study toward an agreement to open up trade in Asia. The proposed agreement would include Japan, China, South Korea and Southeast Asian countries, as well as Australia, New Zealand and India. If it comes through, the accord would include more than 3 billion people, but Americans would be left out.

The position of the United States as a moral leader in the world is also in jeopardy. China is working to improve its image and turn itself into a regional leader. Privileged Southeast Asians, who for years have seen value in learning English or Japanese, are now considering Mandarin, and China is building the schools to teach them. The United States should be a driving force in Asia for human rights, but Washington must lead by example. The Bush administration’s treatment of detainees in Guantánamo Bay, and highly publicized crimes by U.S. forces at Abu Ghurayb and Al-Hadithah, undermine U.S. moral authority.

Finally, the world’s military balance may change. In the coming decades, both Japan and the United States are likely to face a more powerful China and perhaps even an end to unilateral U.S. dominance in the Pacific. But Japan and the United States will be more secure if both countries work with China and avoid any standoff over such potential flash points as Taiwan and the Korean Peninsula.

To maintain peace and prosperity in East Asia and at home, the United States must make the region a high priority. If we don’t, we ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog at Heartbreak Hotel.

GRAHAM WEBSTER is associate editor of CampusProgress.org, the youth-oriented magazine of the Center for American Progress in Washington. He wrote this article for the Mercury News.