China and Trump Are Making Japan Nervous Tokyo is committed to the Pacific alliance. Can Washington get its act together? By Walter Russell Mead
https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-and-trump-are-making-japan-nervous-11568673770
People often say the center of gravity in American foreign policy has shifted to the Indo-Pacific. But what exactly does that mean for America’s alliances and priorities? Many Americans have been slow to understand the critical importance that Japan now plays in American strategy. Australia, Vietnam, Taiwan, Indonesia, Singapore and the rest all have roles to play, but without the economic, political and military assets Japan brings to the table, America’s Asia policy cannot succeed.
Fortunately for the U.S., Japan is committed. Japanese policy makers by and large understand that China’s rise is a global challenge perhaps on the scale of the Cold War—and that Japan is in the path of the storm. The country cannot defend its security and independence without a strong and effective alliance with the U.S.
The Trump presidency has in some ways fortified the relationship. The greater attention to the Indo-Pacific, the military buildup and the more aggressive approach to China on both trade and geopolitical issues are widely applauded in Japan.
Yet Mr. Trump has also caused sleepless nights in Tokyo. The president’s abandonment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, his sometimes startling diplomacy with North Korea, his hard bargaining on trade and over Japan’s financial contributions to the U.S. military presence there have neither enhanced Japanese respect for American acumen nor convinced Tokyo that the U.S. is committed to the alliance.
If Mr. Trump is re-elected, policy makers here wonder, what would that mean for Japan? Would a second Trump term see a continuation of aggressive policies to reduce American trade deficits? Will the president withdraw U.S. troops from the country? What endgame does the administration have in mind for the meetings with Kim Jong Un ? And while broadly welcoming America’s newly hawkish approach to China, Japan also has important economic interests there. Will Mr. Trump’s decision-making on trade and China policy take Japanese concerns and priorities into account?
But it isn’t just Mr. Trump. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren also worry the Japanese. What would happen to the U.S. defense budget under a left-liberal American president, and what would that mean for American commitments in the Far East?
Japan’s concerns are natural and legitimate. American foreign policy is caught between two very different eras in world history. Looking backward, there was a generation after the Cold War in which the U.S. stood supreme or nearly so in world affairs, facing no peer competitors and able to set the international agenda pretty much as it pleased. With no significant adversaries beyond the inchoate force of jihadist violence, the U.S. could afford to irritate and even alienate allies.
But looking ahead, there is the prospect of a long and difficult struggle with China over the shape of the Indo-Pacific order. Like the Cold War, this will require disciplined alliance-building and military competition.
The Trump administration is looking both ways. On the one hand, concerns about China are leading it to reach out across the Indo-Pacific region, building alliances for a new and dangerous era. On the other hand, Mr. Trump’s penchant for unilateralism, for hard-edged trade negotiations with allies as well as adversaries—and for a transactional foreign policy rooted in one-off deals as opposed to building strong alliances and habits of cooperation—look backward.
The neoisolationist wing of the Trump administration and its counterpart among left-wing Democrats share a common worldview: If the U.S. faces no great-power threats and has no powerful rivals, they ask, why should it invest so heavily in military alliances and order-building?
But China’s rise is focusing American minds and discrediting this approach. Over time, public opinion is likely to embrace and even demand a more focused and strategic foreign policy. That means the more mature and forward-looking elements of the Trump foreign policy in Asia are likely to persist under both Republican and Democratic administrations, while the more erratic elements in both parties are likely to lose influence. Americans will increasingly appreciate the value of strategic assets like the alliance with Japan—the third-largest economy in the world, a major source of aid and infrastructure spending across Asia and Africa, and a key economic and political competitor with Beijing.
The view from Tokyo is that the U.S. has begun to put the Indo-Pacific at the center of its foreign policy but hasn’t yet developed a coherent strategy for success. Asia, meanwhile, is changing rapidly as Beijing becomes bolder and more powerful. Japan is threatened by North Korea’s missile program and facing the full force of Chinese economic and political assertiveness. The great question is whether the U.S. can get its act together before China changes the rules of the game.
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