A Bet on Abe
Japan’s election is bad news for North Korea
JAPANESE Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s decisive reelection victory over the weekend finally offered some unalloyed good news for global efforts to counter the North Korean nuclear threat.
The hawkish premier’s party built on its parliamentary majority, and Abe credited his campaign to end Japan’s pacifism. “This was the first election in which we made constitutional change a main pillar of our policy platform,” he said Monday.
Abe has long called to amend Article 9 of the constitution, which bans a standing Japanese army. Since his first victory in 2006, he has tried to build a consensus to remove that restriction, dictated by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, commander of the US occupation force in Japan after the World War II victory.
Changing the constitution requires two-thirds majorities in both parliamentary houses and a referendum. Abe’s party and its coalition partner together hold such a majority.
It’ll still be an uphill battle. Polls show minority support for such a change, and Japanese pacifism is deeply engrained in the country’s postwar psyche. Yet, like the prospect of a hanging, North Korea’s endless provocations have concentrated the Japanese mind. Visiting the country in March, I landed just when Kim Jong-un lobbed four missiles at the Sea of Japan. It was too close for comfort.
The country was alarmed, but doves still dominated its politics. Several launches later, not to mention two nuclear tests, Japan’s hawks are now gaining ground.
Meanwhile, even in the absence of constitutional change, Abe widened the definition of self-defense, which the constitution allows, by reversing budget cuts to a force protecting the home island (which, in reality, is an army in all but name).
Remember: One of President Trump’s national-security goals is to push American allies to contribute more toward their own defense. So expect Trump to be all smiles when he launches an Asia trip in Tokyo in November. And, yes, expect tough statements on North Korea from both leaders.
Abe’s critics at home and abroad aren’t smiling. They charge him with being too close to America, while neglecting relations with China and South Korea, which, they say, could better counter Pyongyang’s antics.
Abe is “guilty” on all charges. Much to Beijing’s chagrin, 50,000 US troops are based on Japanese soil, including the Navy’s Seventh Fleet, a sizable Marine contingent and the largest combat wing of the US Air Force. And each year Japan pays $2 billion for hosting them.
China’s constant harassment and infringement of Japanesemanaged islands, not to mention competition between the two huge economies, contributes to cool Beijing-Tokyo relations. Unless Japan completely capitulates, the iciness will continue. And fraught Japan-South Korea relations aren’t improving.
Which leaves America as Japan’s closest ally.
Meanwhile, unless something gives, North Korea will soon have ballistic missiles that can carry a nuclear warhead and reach the United States, which further contributes to tight relations with Japan. Meeting with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts Monday in the Philippines, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said the Nork threat “has grown to an unprecedented, critical and imminent level.”
China, South Korea and the rest may agree, but they prescribe soft solutions.
Addressing Beijing’s Communist Party last week, President Xi Jinping declared his goal to surpass America as the preeminent global power. A North Korean collapse would work against that goal, as China would lose a buffer and a weapon and be surrounded by US allies.
True, Xi despises Kim Jong-un, and Beijing has (slowly) increased pressure on Pyongyang. But China’s strategic goal is to soon end such pressure with an Iran-like nuclear “freeze” agreement. Such an outcome would also suit South Korea’s dovish government.
Trump, on the other hand, is rightly skeptical that diplomacy with Pyongyang’s rogue regime would secure the region more than have past agreements, which the Kims so rudely violated. So is Abe.
As the North Korean crisis deepens, America needs at least one hawkish ally. Yes, we must remember how Japanese militarism threatened America in the past, but after seven decades of democracy and economic liberty, Tokyo is our most reliable ally in a region fast rising to the top of the threat charts.
Abe is, to put it in “Godfather” terms, our Asian “wartime consigliere.” His victory is ours, too.