Authors: Richard Nixon
While it is crucial that Japan and the United States sustain their bilateral partnership, recent tensions have weakened the
strong bonds between us. Some Japan-bashers in America argue that we should no longer foot the bill for Japan's defense. Some America-bashers in Japan argue that America is a corrupt society that should not serve as an economic or political model. They believe Japan should break its ties with America and go it alone. Security concerns once hid these tensions. Now, with these restraints lifted, political and economic differences are transcending security issues. When nations become friends primarily because they have a common enemy, they tend to quarrel with each other when they no longer have an enemy to unite them.
The Yoshida policy that served Japan so well during the Cold War is now obsolete. Japan's economy, which was one thirteenth the size of America's economy in 1953, has grown to half the size of our economy today. Lee Kwan Yew foresaw Japan's changing role in 1967 when he told me, “The Japanese inevitably will again play a major role in the world. They are a great people. They cannot and should not be satisfied with a world role that limits them to making better transistor radios and sewing machines, and teaching other Asians how to grow rice.” Japan, then a middleweight economic power, is now the top contender in the heavyweight economic championship. The time has come for it to play a foreign policy role commensurate with its economic power.
There is wide disagreement about what that role should be. Some suggest that with the disappearance of a nuclear-armed and aggressive Soviet Union, the U.S. security guarantee has lost its value to Japan. Others say that with the rise of pacifism in Japan, its neighbors no longer fear its presence in the region. Both of these arguments are flawed. As Japan's leaders look at their neighbors in East Asia, they see a Russia that is no longer communist but still a nuclear superpower, a nuclear-armed China rapidly becoming a military and economic giant, and a belligerent North Korean regime frantically trying to acquire nuclear weapons. As Japan's neighbors look eastward, they see a
resurgent Japan that they believe might someday view the rest of Asia as its prey.
For Japan to rearm or to acquire nuclear weapons is politically unacceptable at home and abroad. The lingering concern in Europe about a potential military threat from Germany is infinitesimal compared with the fear in Asia that Japan might again become a major military power. North and South Korea, the Philippines, China, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Indonesia have one thing in common: All have been enemies of Japan in the past and fear that they could become enemies of Japan in the future. If Japan decided to increase its military forces above the level necessary to defend its home islands, all the countries that suffered under Japanese occupation before and during World War II would increase their defense spending. Such an arms race would make the U.S.-Soviet competition pale by comparison.
Japan's own people are also deeply ambivalent about remilitarization. Japan is the only nation that has suffered the devastation of nuclear weapons. Even those too young to remember World War II would strongly oppose Japan's acquiring them. Many Japanese believe that the same factors of territorial aggrandizement and regional dominance that characterized the Japanese culture in the 1930s could resurface in Japan and drive the country to reassert its power in Asia. They also recognize that any gain made in repairing relations with neighboring countries would vanish overnight if Japan adopted a more aggressive foreign policy.
Still, Japan is no longer a military pygmy. It has assumed 50 percent of the costs of stationing U.S. forces on its soil, developed a 240,000-man Self-Defense Force to protect its territory, and built a powerful navy to keep its sea lanes safe from hostile threats. While Japan spends only 1 percent of its GNP on defense, it spends almost the same amount in absolute terms as many of our Western European allies because its economy is so much larger.
Political candidates in the United States have found that a
surefire cheer line is to say that Japan is rich enough now to provide for its own defense and that we should “bring the boys home.” Apart from its obvious demagoguery, this statement is dangerously wrong. If the United States withdrew its troops from forward bases in the Pacific Rim, Tokyo would face two unappealing choices. It could arm itself with nuclear weapons, which would trigger volcanic regional instability. It could ally itself with either Russia or China, which would tilt the balance of power in Asia and destroy prospects for regional cooperation. Without the U.S. security shield, Tokyo would be forced to take action that would benefit no one and disturb everyone.
If the United States did not play a role, the Pacific triangle of Japan, China, and Russia would be as unstable as a three-legged stool. The cost to the United States of continuing to play a balancing role in Asia is infinitely less than the price we would pay if we withdrew now and had to return later to stabilize the relationships among these three great, potentially aggressive powers. While it is important to maintain American forces in Europe, it is indispensable to maintain the present level of American forces in Asia.
It is politically unfeasible for Japan to increase its defense budget, but Japan's leaders should substantially increase their foreign aid budget so that its total national security burdenâthe combination of defense spending and foreign aidâis similar to our own as a percentage of GNP. Japan's $II billion foreign aid budget is equal to that of the United States, but its spending for defense plus foreign aid equals only 1.5 percent of its GNP, compared with the 4.5 percent of GNP the United States spends for defense and foreign aid. In expanding its foreign aid budget, Japan should take decisive steps to counter the widely held impression that its economic assistance programs are designed not to aid others but to aid Japan.
Japan's perception problem was described graphically to me in 1985 by a Southeast Asian statesman who, while not anti-Japanese, was concerned about the impact of Japanese foreign
aid in his country. “The trouble with the Japanese when they provide foreign aid is that they act like semiconductors,” he said. “They take everything in and give nothing in return.”
Japan should use aid and investment to promote not just its narrow economic interests but also its broader national security interest in peace, economic progress, and political stability throughout Asia. While no aid program can be justified unless it serves the interests of the donor nation, it will not be effective unless it also serves the interests of the nation receiving aid.
In increasing and redirecting its foreign aid programs, Japan should become the major contributor of aid to Russia, the other former Soviet states, and the nations of Eastern Europe. Any immediate economic return would be small, but such aid would represent a long-term investment in peace and the region's economic progress. All free nations have a huge stake in the survival of a nonaggressive, democratic government in Russia and in stable governments in the other newly independent former Soviet states. Yet while South Korea has pledged $3 billion and has delivered $1.5 billion in bilateral aid to Russia, Japan has pledged $3 billion and delivered only $1 billion, even though its GNP is twelve times South Korea's.
Russia's refusal to return Japan's four northern islands, which were seized by Stalin at the end of World War II, is the main obstacle to Japan's increasing aid to Russia. Following the example of the United States, which returned Okinawa to the Japanese during my administration in 1972, Russia should return these islands to Japan without conditions. For Japan to link aid to Russia to the return of the islands would be politically and strategically stupid. Should Yeltsin's government be overthrown by hard-line Russian nationalists, the Japanese would never get the islands back. With the Yeltsin government still in power, Japan should simultaneously negotiate the return of the islands and develop a broad-based economic assistance plan for Russia and for other Soviet republics. Japan has started to move in this direction, but not vigorously enough in view of the crisis in Russia.
Middle East stability is another vital Japanese interest. Japan should be the major contributor of aid to Arab states as they seek peace with Israel after forty-five years of war. The United States could get along without Persian Gulf oil. Japan could not. Yet during the Persian Gulf War, Japan barely managed to contribute noncombat naval forces and medical personnel. Japan will not win a seat at the table among leading world powers unless it finds ways to use its economic power for political effect. Supporting the Arab-Israeli peace process financially as well as diplomatically is an ideal opportunity. Another is more generous participation in international peacekeeping operations in Asia and elsewhere. Like the Germans, the Japanese have refused to provide military personnel for U.N. peacekeeping operations on the grounds that their constitution limits the use of their armed forces to the defense of the home islands. This line sounds increasingly like a self-serving rationalization. No one should expect the wealthy Japanese to supply foreign aid and peacekeeping support on demand, like cash at an automatic teller machine. No one should expect them to do other than act according to their interests, as great nations must do. But if they want to be taken seriously in the world and to share fully in the fruits of global stability, they must use their vast power to promote the interests of other countries as well as their own.
We should continue to support Japan's application for a Security Council seat if it demonstrates a willingness to share the risks and burdens of membership. Over time, membership in the world's most exclusive diplomatic club will impel Japan to take a more responsible internationalist perspective across the boardâbroadening its foreign aid program, contributing both financial support and manpower to peacekeeping efforts, and, perhaps most important, taking more energetic steps to reduce the subtle institutional and cultural barriers to foreign investments and imports.
By far the most neuralgic issues in U.S.-Japanese relations are economic. Mobilizing domestic support in both countries behind strong U.S.-Japanese security ties will be impossible unless
we are able to reduce trade tensions. Complaints about Japanese trade practices have led some in the United States to the exaggerated view that Japan is turning America into its economic colony. This is not true. Japanese firms own only 23.1 percent of all foreign-owned businesses in the United States, compared with 22.6 percent owned by the British, 14.6 percent by the Dutch, and 7.0 percent by the Germans. Too often the popular culture and perceptions about politics and public policy lag far behind reality. One of 1993's popular movies,
Rising Sun,
stressed Japanese technological excellence and economic rapaciousness, while at the same time analysts were hailing the dramatic increase in the quality of Detroit's new models and documenting the decline in the sales of Japanese cars in the United States. Moreover, the movie opened just as Japan's recession, after four years of falling corporate profits, hit new depths and several of its larger companies announced plans to abandon the concept of guaranteed lifetime employment. It is, of course, the height of naïveté to expect Hollywood's distorting prism to depict America accurately. Unfortunately, movies, television, and popular music have an enormous impact on our nation's perception of itself and its position in the world.
None of this is to deny that we have an economic problem in our relationships with Japan. It lies not in the seizing of our assets by the Japanese but in the current account imbalance. Our trade deficit with Japan has grown from $10 billion in 1980 to $51 billion in 1992. Exchange-rate fluctuations, countercyclical economic trends, large budget deficits, and differing savings and growth rates are among the real causes of this imbalance. Unfortunately, politicians on both sides of the Pacific exploit U.S.-Japanese trade problems to score political points on the home front. Just as America cannot blame its deficit problems on Japan, the Japanese cannot blame global economic downturns on America's fiscal policies.
Our economic relationship will grow only if we both make concessions on certain issues. We must accept responsibility for
the part of the trade deficit that results from uncompetitive American goods and the effects of our budget deficit. We should not place tariffs on Japanese goods, but we should work with our European allies at trade talks and G-7 economic meetings to convince Japan that it must open its markets to our goods. We should retaliate against the Japanese only if they do nothing to address unfair trade practices that clearly penalize American firms.
Japan should start on its own to lower its trade barriers and reduce its tariffs. Measures such as reforming its monopolistic and anticompetitive pricing system would help to improve Pacific trade competition. The willingness of the Japanese government to make concessions in its rice markets represents a good symbolic start, but the future of U.S.-Japanese relations depends on far more cooperation to prevent unfair trade practices from blowing up into a full-scale trade war.
While the trade deficit does not have the economic impact in the United States that Japan's critics claim, the political impact is undeniable. As long as Japan's markets are not as open as ours, relations between the United States and Japan will suffer, especially in economic hard times. To many, it appears that Japan is refusing to play by the rules. In fact, it is playing by its own rules. They are not necessarily wrong, but they are a powerful disincentive to the development of a stable working relationship between our two countries.
Many politicians and commentators have made virtual careers out of warning Americans against the rising peril of Japan. Their efforts have been constructive to the extent that they have helped awaken us to the vital importance of competing more vigorously. But they are counterproductive when they begin to breed fear and hostility. The late John Connally, who early in his career served as an aide to FDR, once told me of a fascinating meeting that he and several other young Democrats had with the President during World War II. Roosevelt hugely enjoyed giving
political advice to his young protégés. As the meeting ended he tilted back his chair, gestured expansively with his cigarette holder, and said, “Boys, always rememberâto be a success in politics, it helps to have an enemy.”