Category Archives: Japan

History, Japan, United States

Barack Obama and his work to heal the divisions with Japan

THE UNITED STATES & JAPAN

Intro: It has taken some considerable time with a lot of delicate negotiations, but it looks as if Barack Obama has cemented for his country a much better relationship with Japan. That legacy must be held in tack.

More than seventy years have passed since the infamous and devastating aerial attack on Pearl Harbor by Japanese forces. The attack imperilled more than 2,000 Americans and drew the United States directly into the Second World War.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has now become the first Japanese leader to make a public visit to the memorial for those killed in the bombing, and the first to the visit the Hawaiian naval base since 1951.

This momentous visit comes seven months after President Obama’s historic trip to Hiroshima, when he became the first sitting American president to visit the site where his predecessors authorised the dropping of a nuclear bomb in 1945. During the intervening years, the world has changed dramatically since the Pearl Harbor raid and it may seem inconceivable that we would ever again be at war with Japan. Two countries who are now close allies lies in stark contrast to the bitterest of enemies they once were. The significance of these recent gestures, however, cannot be underestimated.

Mr Obama’s presidency which will shortly come to an end will be largely remembered for his impressive skills within international diplomacy. Yet, it has taken his full eight years in office to create and cement this new understanding and heal the wounds that have been festering for many decades.

Of concern for many now is what may happen when he departs the White House next month and is replaced by Donald Trump. Mr Trump will be sworn in as the 45th president of the United States on January 20, 2017. Let’s all hope it doesn’t take him any more than a few minutes to undermine and unravel an important bilateral relationship – one that has taken a good part of a century of careful work and stewardship to piece together.

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Foreign Affairs, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, United Nations, United States

Restraining Pyongyang has become problematic

NORTH KOREA

North Korea’s fifth nuclear test: The seismic activity amounted to a total of 5.3 on the Richter scale.

North Korea’s fifth nuclear test: The seismic activity amounted to a total of 5.3 on the Richter scale.

Intro: North Korea’s increasingly forceful stance is making the international community extremely nervous

Some said it was just a matter of time until North Korea carried out another nuclear test. Kim Jong Un, who inherited power from his father in 2011, has accelerated the pace of nuclear bomb testing and the firing of ballistic missiles. Pyongyang would not have been pleased earlier this year with the imposition of new sanctions and would have been agitated with stern talks last week at the ASEAN summit. On September 9th, a national holiday that celebrates the founding of North Korea’s communist regime by Mr Kim’s grandfather, the country announced it had carried out its fifth test.

Troubling. Not least because of the force of the test. The explosion appeared to be at least 10 kilotons, and perhaps as many as 30, making it by far the most powerful device North Korea has yet tested. It triggered an earthquake with a magnitude of 5.3, alerting South Korea of the event before its troublesome neighbour confirmed it.

North Korea’s increasingly forceful stance is making the international community extremely nervous. Intelligence suggests the country has a stockpile of some 20 devices to which one is being added every six weeks. The earlier underground detonation carried out in January almost certainly was not the hydrogen bomb that North Korea had claimed, but that was followed by a series of missile tests. The claim in Pyongyang that it can now send a missile to America may be bluster, but it could almost certainly strike targets in both South Korea and Japan.

Of more concern is the question of whether North Korea can miniaturise a nuclear warhead that could be attached to one of those missiles, and robust enough to endure a trajectory that would take it into space and back. The North boasts that this is now possible, although analysts and observers are sceptical of this claim. But there is no doubt that North Korea is making rapid progress in the development of its nuclear programme. It has clearly become a priority for Mr Kim, who seems to be devoting even more of his country’s relatively meagre resources to it than his father did.

Japan and those in other neighbouring states have become increasingly anxious. They are concerned that the young Mr Kim is far less predictable than his father. While the strength of his grip on the regime is unknown, three of North Korea’s five nuclear tests have been carried out during his five-year rule. This suggests he remains adamant in projecting strength domestically. That might be because he feels insecure, but might equally reflect self-confidence.

The United States, Japan and South Korea have responded with predictably harsh statements. Even China, North Korea’s closest ally, said it ‘resolutely’ condemned the test. Despite Barack Obama having made nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament a personal priority, having pushed for a nuclear deal with Iran and visiting Hiroshima (one of the two Japanese cities on which America dropped nuclear bombs during the second world war), there is worrying little that America and its allies can do to restrain Mr Kim.

In response to the test in January, the United Nations tightened sanctions on North Korea in March. New measures include a somewhat leaky ban on exports of coal and other minerals, one of North Korea’s main sources of foreign exchange. The U.S. added further sanctions of its own in July, specifically naming and citing Mr Kim. Yet, none of these measures have appeared to change Mr Kim’s behaviour for the better, and is quite likely to have infuriated him still further.

Exhorting China to put more pressure on North Korea will be the main strategy of the triumvirate (America, Japan and South Korea), since the North Korean regime relies on China for its economic survival.

The Chinese government has become increasingly frustrated by Mr Kim – it voted in favour of the UN sanctions this year, though it has not always applied them rigorously. It is concerned that the collapse of Mr Kim’s regime might bring American troops to its frontier on the South Korean peninsula, along with a flood of refugees. China’s relations with America and its allies in Asia are also not at their best at the moment. It is disgruntled over the agreement between South Korea and America to host THAAD, a missile defence system, and has been unsettled over issues in the South and East China Seas. The West’s best hope of restraining North Korea is not only proving to be a slender one but hugely problematic.

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China, Economic, Foreign Affairs, Japan, Society, United States

A bilateral trade agreement between Japan and America looms…

TRADE AGREEMENT

Intro: But why is this potential agreement being treated as a weapon? It shouldn’t be used to contain China

Congressional leaders in America rarely agree on anything, but last week some good news stemmed from Washington. A bipartisan bill has been presented to Congress which, if passed, would for the first time in many years give the president ‘fast-track’ authority when negotiating trade deals. A huge trade deal looms, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and the bill would provide a major boost for its prospects. It would bind America with 11 economies (including Japan but not China) around the Pacific Rim. The TPP is being mightily embraced. As Japan’s Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, heads to Washington for a much anticipated trip – including an invitation to address a joint session of Congress – Mr Abe claimed that America and Japan were close to agreeing the terms of a bilateral agreement on trade.

However, there are two major caveats. First, ‘fast track’, formerly known as Trade Promotion Authority, may still fall foul of Congress. And second, Japan may not make any serious cuts to tariffs that protect its farmers. Yet, underlying this potential trade agreement is that both have been too quick to cast the TPP as a weapon in its desire to contain China.

Flanked by Japan and America, the TPP would link countries which make up 40% of global GDP. That could boost world trade and output by as much as $220 billion a year by 2025. It is aimed at reforming difficult areas such as intellectual property, state-owned firms and environmental and labour standards. It would link economies that lie at different ends of the spectrum of development – from Vietnam to Australia.

But, crucially, the TPP will not happen without fast track, which forces Congress into a yes/no vote on any pending trade deal (avoiding the risk that it will be amended into oblivion). And the passage of fast track will no-doubt face a lot of scepticism from congressional Democrats. There are those who will be implacably opposed, whilst others will want America to have a bigger arsenal with which to fight against unfair traders. Driven by a conviction that China artificially holds its currency down and destroys American jobs, some, such as the New York senator Charles Schumer, remain determined that fast track should include a provision that would make sure any specific trade deal included sanctions on currency manipulation.

Attaching a currency-manipulation clause to trade deals is a poor idea. Not only are they hard to define but the addition of such clauses makes reaching an agreement less likely. But Mr Schumer’s demands are hard to ignore given that the Obama administration has already, mistakenly, directly pitched TPP as a counterbalance to an assertive China.

While Mr Abe has also committed his country to joining the TPP on strategic grounds, the same mistaken logic of counterbalancing China looks set to cause problems in Japan. For example, Mr Abe is a born admirer of free trade. When he first entered negotiations, some of his backers believed that, by playing the China card, Japan would be spared from making real concessions: that America would care more about a pact that excluded China than about prising open Japan’s most protected markets, particularly rice.

Japan will want to keep tariffs high. The best it may offer will be to allow in a fixed quota of tariff-free rice from the other TPP members (including America).

If the China-containment logic prevails and leads to a minimalist agreement, then the economic gains from TPP will be slim. That was never TPP’s aim, but by having real value to set high new standards for world trade. That requires the boldest possible agreement.

In the long run, the world must surely gain if China joins the pact. Yet, the rhetoric makes trade negotiations sound like a contest. It shouldn’t be that way. This is a battle where the more you give away the more you win.

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