[asia-apec 982] Gerson on US-Japan Alliance

[BAYAN]

NOTE: This is the paper that Dr. Joseph Gerson would have presented in the
Roundtable Discussion on the U.S.-Japan Militarist Adenda in the
Asia-Pacific which was sponsored by BAYAN and the Japan-based Asia-Wide
Campaign (AWC).

>Redefined U.S.-Japanese Hegemonic Alliance
>Dr. Joseph Gerson
>
>Friends,

>	Our related struggles for economic security based on economic justice -
not globalization - and for peace based on human - not elite - security are
the
>fundamental challenges of our times. I am therefore sorry that previous
>commitments prevent me from joining you in this counter-APEC conference
>against economic globalization. I share the following pages which summarize
>U.S.-Japanese efforts to consolidate their regional hegemony in the coming
>decades as my small contribution to your work.
>	In the Asia-Pacific region, the U.S. seeks to simultaneously contain and
>engage China, to contain its ally and rival Japan, and to dominate the sea
>lanes and straits through which the region's trade and supplies of oil must
>travel (the "jugular vein" of Asia Pacific economies.) Toward this end the
>United States is playing Japan and China against one another by means of the
>redefinition of the U.S.-Japan alliance and the creation of a U.S.-Chinese
>"strategic partnership." 
>	During the Clinton years, the U.S.-Japan alliance has been transformed
>through the Nye Initiative, the "U.S.-Japan Alliance for the 21st Century"
>and the more recent "revision" of the U.S.-Japan Guidelines for Joint
>Military Operations.
>	 The alliance "redefinition" has gone essentially unreported and
undebated in the U.S. Although debate in Tokyo has been largely contained
by the LDP Government, some in the Japanese establishment as well as in the
political opposition have been deeply concerned. A senior LDP Diet member
warned of possible regression to "the days of the Imperial Rule Assistance
>Association."(1) Asahi Shimbun editorialized that like the 1960 treaty
>revision, the "redefinition" of the alliance has undermined Japanese
>democratic structures and values. U.S. and Japanese officials " Asahi
>Shinbum editorialized, "have circumvented the public and legislative debate
>necessary to formally amend the treaty. The alliance [has been] reworked
>into a mechanism to deploy U.S. military resources from Japan into a vast,
>ill-defined 'Asia-Pacific' region and to provide Japanese support for such
>deployment.... The Japan-U.S. Security Treaty has, for all intents and
>purposes been rewritten." (2) 
>	The "Review" of the Defense Guidelines, completed in September 1997, is
at its core a commitment to joint military operations in crises posing "a
>security threat to Japan." Such threats could include turmoil on the Korean
>peninsula, or military confrontations over Taiwan, South China Sea, the
>Malacca Strait and the Middle East. In response to numerous Chinese protests
>that the alliance's new scope of operations includes its "renegade" province
>Taiwan, Japanese officials and now its Defense White Paper respond that the
>framework is "conceptual" and "non geographic." 
>	The revised guidelines outline joint US-Japanese military cooperation
>during "normal" circumstances, to counter an armed attack against Japan, and
>in response to the so-called "situations in areas surrounding Japan." The
>report lists 40 examples of such cooperation including elements of the new
>ACSA agreement, provision of US military access to all SDF facilities and to
>all civilian ports and airports (even those such as Kobe whose local
>governments have declared their communities nuclear-free), intelligence
>sharing, and Japanese minesweeping operations in Japanese territorial waters.
>	The Japanese Left and constitutional scholars have protested arguing that
the Treaty revision breaks dangerous new ground by attempting to legitimate
Japan as a regional military power with global reach. Under the guise of a
"concept" that is "non geographic but situational" they warn that Japan is
assuming military responsibility for "situations" far beyond its shores.
>	Should the North Korean government collapse or China respond militarily
to a Taiwanese declaration of independence, we will likely witness the
Japanese
>military, serving at the United States' junior partner, returning to its
>former colonies. "Situations" that will have an important influence on
>Japan's peace and security could also include disturbances in the secure
>flow of Indonesian and Persian Gulf oil essential for the Japanese and other
>East Asian economies. While the Left increasingly refers to the Guidelines
>revison as a "war alliance", Asahi Shimbun reports that "the new Japan-US
>guidelines...represent Japan's commitment to involve itself more deeply in
>Washington's military strategy for the Asia Pacific region."(4) 
>	Even before the Japanese Diet has passed the enabling legislation, many
of the Review's unconstitutional recommendations are being implemented. U.S.
>spokesmen will admit to "lower level military-to-military planning" as
>provided for in the Review, but U.S. warships have also called at almost
>every Japanese port during the past year. The number of Japanese civilian
>airports used by US military aircraft has increased and, as mentioned
>earlier, Japan is participating in this summer's RIMPAC "collective
>security" war games.(5) 
>	Several other aspects of "The Review" should be noted. It reaffirms the
>U.S. commitment to defend Japan with nuclear weapons. On one hand, this
>seeks to provide "legitimacy" for U.S. forward deployment of the weapons and
>infrastructure essential to U.S. first strike nuclear threats. Less well
>understood is the second purpose of this provision. By placing Japan under
>and within the U.S. nuclear umbrella, Washington is staunching pressures
>which have increased with the Indian and Pakistani demonstration nuclear
>explosions, for Japan to become a nuclear weapons state, a nuclear armed
>Japan would functionally challenge U.S. regional dominance.  
>	What about Japan's "peace' constitution? Although popular support for the
constitution continues to restrain Japanese militarism, the Review nearly
>completes more than forty years of U.S. and LDP efforts to circumvent
>Article 9 in which the Japanese people "forever renounce war as a sovereign
>right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling
>international disputes." The Japanese government is thus increasingly
>unconstitutional. 
>	So advanced is this process that while some in the LDP's leadership urge
>more aggressive nonproliferation diplomacy in the wake of the Indian and
>Pakistani demonstration nuclear "tests", others have gone beyond traditional
>Japan Defense Agency statements that the Constitution permits Japan to
>possess tactical nuclear weapons. Cabinet Legislative Bureau director
>general, Masasuke Omori, informed the Diet on June 17 that Article 9 of the
>Japanese constitution makes the "use of nuclear weapons by Japan a
>hypothetical possibility as long as it was the minimum necessary for
>defending Japan." (6) 
>	 
>
>1.  "Struck off the record" Asahi Shimbun, April 16, 1997
>2.  "Constitutional scholars oppose Japan-U.S. guidelines" Asahi Shimbun,
>November 3, 1997
>3.  "The Guidelines for U.S.-Japan Defense Cooperation" Washington, D.C.:
>Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs), September 23,
>1997; "Summary of Japan-U.S.-defense guidelines, Asahi Evening News, Tokyo
>September 24, 1997; Guidelines to cover Taiwan/Govt to define defense
>cooperation's geographical scope, The Daily Yomiuri, April 27, 1998.
>4.  Asahi Shimbun, Op. Cit.
>5.  "U.S. military more active", Ashi Shimbun, April 6, 1998.
>Japan Press Service, Tokyo, June 22, 1998.
>