Japan needs to be 'proactive' diplomatic player

Takehiko Kajita
Japan should take a more “proactive” diplomatic role as part of efforts to strengthen relations with the United States in the post-President George W Bush era, according to a seasoned U.S. expert on Japan.

“The first thing, I think, is that Japan needs to be proactive and this is the time to prepare,” said Kent Calder, director of the Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at John Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.

He said that so-called “Japan passing” is probably happening in the United States — an English phrase coined in Japan that means passing Japan by as a result of a decline in U.S. interest in the country.

“Japan is hugely important for the United States. It’s hugely important for the world. And yet, strangely enough, we are not hearing a lot about it,” he said.

“This is one of the great puzzles in Washington right now… I think ‘Japan passing’ is potentially a dangerous thing. We can’t afford not to be conscious of each other,” he said in his office in downtown Washington.

Calder, who served as special adviser to three U.S. ambassadors to Japan — Walter Mondale, Thomas Foley and Howard Baker — until 2001, cited energy efficiency and environmental protection as areas where Japan can make more of a contribution to the rest of the world.

He said this year’s Group of Eight summit, which Japan will host July 7-9 in the Lake Toya hot-spring resort in Hokkaido, “provides a good opportunity to start this out.”

“Japan has some of the best technology in the world for energy efficiency,” he said. “And on the environment, Japan is the only major nation of the major energy producers whose consumption in the last three years or so has gone done.”

The G-8 summit is expected to address energy efficiency and environmental protection as Tokyo has set climate change as one of the major topics on the agenda. The G-8 groups Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States.

Touching on the U.S. presidential election and its effects on Japan-U.S. relations, Calder said that if Democratic Sen. Barack Obama is elected, Japan will probably have more room for global cooperation with the United States.

An Obama presidency, he said, would likely herald a new era for U.S. diplomacy with possible policy shifts concerning Iran, North Korea and Cuba, which in turn could clear the way for Japan to play a more active role in the world.

“With Obama, the world will be much more fluid and Japan has been somewhat marginal on global diplomacy. So it’s an opportunity to move to the center of global diplomacy in a rather important way,” he said. “But this depends on how proactive Japan is willing to be.”

Calder said U.S. policy on Japan with Sen Hillary Clinton or Sen John McCain in the White House would be “conventional” and “not that much different from the status quo.”

McCain, an Arizona senator, is the Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting, while Obama, an Illinois senator, and Clinton, a New York senator and former first lady, remain in a dead heat for the Democratic nomination.

Calder rejected the idea widely accepted in Japan that U.S. administrations under Democratic presidents take a more confrontational approach to Japan than those under Republican presidents.

“I don’t believe that the Democratic Party is an enemy of Japan,” he said. “I think this is spread by certain people who have a vested interest in saying that.”

2 Comments

VoXman at 08:38 PM JST - 28th March

Japan is hugely important to the US Gov. But Americans in general are very provincial. So most don't know where Japan stands in the skeem of things.
OssanII at 01:54 AM JST - 2nd April

"Japan is hugely important to the US Gov. But Americans in general are very provincial. So most don't know where Japan stands in the skeem of things."

Not to mention...where Japan is.