George Washington University's Henry Nau has an essay in Policy Review in which he discusses the challenges posed by debating foreign policy (via RealClearPolitics).I am posting largely without comment, but I want to note that Nau's question is something I've thought about for a while. Ideas about foreign policy depend much more on abstraction and …
Year: 2007
The heart of the matter
What Japan Thinks published the results of a survey by the Cabinet Office of what the Japanese people think about their society.In part two, posted here, the survey found that approximately 75% of respondents answered in the negative to the question "do you think the government takes into consideration its citizens' opinions and thoughts." The …
Asia’s Rip Van Winkle
Georgetown's Casimir Yost, director of Georgetown's Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, was in Tokyo last week giving a series of talks. I saw him at the US Embassy's Tokyo American Center on Friday.In the course of his talk, Yost made an interesting point about how the US has been distracted from Asia by Iraq, …
A gift to Bush?
Prime Minister Abe has announced the formation of a special study group chaired by former Japanese ambassador to the US Yanai Shunji to study rolling back restrictions on Japan's exercise of its right of collective self-defense in limited cases, including, according to the Yomiuri Shimbun, (1) the use of missile defense to destroy a ballistic …
I love the smell of nuance in the morning
Robert Koehler of The Marmot's Hole writes of a talk by Park Yu-ha, a Korean professor of Japanese literature, at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan, in which she argued that Koreans are also to blame for the comfort women system.And hence my problem with the congressional resolution condemning Japan and only Japan. History is …
The healing power of Dice-K?
Perhaps the baseball gods are smiling on the US-Japan relationship, with wunderkind Matsuzaka Daisuke's first start for the Red Sox a masterful performance.What better way for the allies to change the subject away from all that nastiness about comfort women and North Korean nuclear weapons? State Department spokesman and Red Sox fan Sean McCormack evidently, …
Support for constitution revision falls
At least that's what the latest Yomiuri Shimbun poll on constitution revision revealed.The results of the poll should serve as a reminder to the Abe Cabinet, Japan's neighbors, and the world at large that the politics of Japan's normalization are far from simple.While the survey has shown a consistent plurality in favor of constitution revision …
Lawless departs: an opportunity for change?
In this post from yesterday about Prime Minister Abe's visit to Washington at the end of the month, I mentioned that one factor in the Bush administration's inability to focus on advancing the process of redefining the US-Japan alliance is the lack of experienced Japan hands in senior positions.Now, according to OneFreeKorea, Richard Lawless, deputy …
Continue reading Lawless departs: an opportunity for change?
Fukuyama on democracy
Francis Fukuyama, in a brief essay posted at the Guardian, argues against connecting his "end of history" thesis with the Bush administration's foreign policy. (Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan)I can think of few contemporary ideas that have been more misunderstood than Fukuyama's argument in his original essay "The End of History?" in The National Interest and …
Comfort women, not on the agenda; how about drift?
So reports Jiji regarding the meeting between President Bush and Prime Minister Abe scheduled for the end of this month during Japan's Golden Week holidays.This is not altogether surprising; despite Ambassador Schieffer's voicing concerns about Abe's response to the congressional comfort women resolution (mentioned in this post), I would be shocked if the issue was …
Continue reading Comfort women, not on the agenda; how about drift?
Tobias S. Harris 