Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Volume 7, Number 2, Summer/Fall 2006

CIAO DATE: 08/07

Georgetown Journal of International Affairs

Common Values: A New Agenda for US-Japan Relations
Michael Green

Excerpt

Michael Green is senior adviser and Japan chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), as well as an associate professor of International Relations at Georgetown University.

Nicholas Szechenyi is a fellow and assistant director of the Japan chair at CSIS.

The U.S.-Japan alliance has undergone a quiet transformation in recent years, moving beyond ad hoc “alliance management” to establish a solid foundation for cooperation based on shared values and strategic interests. Given uncertainties about China’s growing economic and military power and mounting concerns about North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, the United States and Japan need this alliance now more than ever. During a speech in Kyoto last November, President Bush declared that the United States has common interests with Japan regarding economic and political freedom, interests that can be extended to other nations. These convergent values are the “glue” of the U.S.-Japan alliance; the question now is how to make them stick. The United States can start by encouraging Japan to advance values-based diplomacy to demonstrate the power of Japanese ideas, and establish a greater presence in humanitarian operations to express its readiness to put people forward to solve international challenges. Japan will also have to make the security relationship credible by following through on a commitment to implement proposed reforms. Furthermore, as economic powers committed to free markets, the United States and Japan should establish a new partnership on economic policy. By continuing to consult each other at high levels on the strategic principles of democracy, rule of law, and an open economy, the United States and Japan can send a message that values matter, and that the international community is well served by a U.S.-Japan alliance that promotes them.

Naturally Aligned

The origins of alliance transformation can be traced back to the mid-1990s when a group of Pentagon officials including Assistant Secretary Joseph Nye and Deputy Assistant Secretary Kurt Campbell bucked the Clinton administration’s hawkish trade approach to Japan to push for a “reaffirmation” and “redefinition” of the U.S.-Japan alliance. Their efforts produced the 1996 Joint Security Declaration between President Clinton and Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto that opened the way for a revision of the existing bilateral defense guidelines, enabling Japan to play a more active role not only in defending Japan’s home territory, but also in “situations in areas surrounding Japan.”1

Republican Asia strategists like Richard Armitage and James Kelly backed the efforts of Nye and Campbell, and during the 2000 election campaign Asia strategists from both camps cooperated to produce a bipartisan blueprint for Japan policy in the next term.2 The “Armitage-Nye Report” of October 2000 argued that it was time to break out of old mindsets and push for a more active security and economic role for Japan in the world. The report noted that Japan could no longer rely on “checkbook diplomacy” and should “recognize that international leadership involves risk-taking beyond its traditional donor role.”3 Addressing the U.S. government, the authors argued for an end to the traditional pattern of deciding strategy and then pressing Japan to deliver. The authors argued for including Japan at the beginning of every initiative to shape policy and strategy- a model of alliance management based loosely on the U.S.-U.K. alliance. It is hard to imagine the U.S. president trying to tackle a major problem in Europe or the Middle East without first consulting with the British prime minister. As such, the American president should act in Asia only after conferring with the prime minister in Japan. Some in the media misconstrued this rationale as an endorsement of a nuclear Japan, but the objective was for Japan to help shape common policies and not merely react to the dictates of the United States...

1Security Consultative Committee, The Guidelines for Japan-U.S. Defense Cooperation, 23 September 1997, 1.
2Essayist Michael Green was one of the authors.
3National Defense University, Institute for National Strategic Studies, The United States and Japan: Advancing Toward a Mature Partnership, 11 October 2000, 7.