Gordan Chang, the anti-China polemicist writing at Commentary's Contentions blog, has a very different take than I on Mr. Abe's dangerously irresponsible community of Asian democracies.Abe's proposal, Chang thinks, is simply grand: "Is Tokyo becoming the leading proponent of a free world? Since July of last year, Japan, among the democracies ringing the Pacific Ocean, …
Tag: Japanese security policy
Japan rising watch
In Yokosuka on August 23rd, the Hyuga, the new JMSDF helicopter carrier, was named, and now it will undergo some finishing touches before entering service in 2009.According to Nikkei, its displacement is 13,500 tons and its length 197 meters. The deck can service three helicopters simultaneously. By comparison, the USS George H.W. Bush, also due …
Sankei pays tribute to the war dead by calling for a more activist Japan
In honor of the day of memorial for the end of the war on August 15, each of Japan's dailies has published an editorial marking the occasion.They are, in general, fairly innocuous: Yomiuri's discusses history and Yasukuni Shrine, Asahi's looks at relations with Asian neighbors. Sankei's editorial, however, single-handedly illustrates the fundamental incoherence of the …
Continue reading Sankei pays tribute to the war dead by calling for a more activist Japan
Ambassador Schieffer, stand down please
J. Thomas Schieffer, US ambassador to Japan, is continuing with his campaign to convince the DPJ to change its opposition to the extension of the anti-terror special measures law, giving interviews to major dailies on the spat between the US and the DPJ. (Mainichi interview here; Asahi interview here.)The message is more or less the …
Paradigm shift in the offing?
With political Japan in vacation mode, the decision by the DPJ leadership to oppose extension of the anti-terrorism special measures law continues to cast a shadow over the alliance. Defense Minister Koike's visit to Washington seems to have done little to ease American fears — her speech at CSIS, available online here, seems to contain …
Koike opens a second front
As the skirmishes over the extension of the anti-terror special measures law intensify, Defense Minister Koike Yuriko has decided to take the fight to Washington, DC at the same time that DPJ President Ozawa Ichiro met with US Ambassador Thomas Schieffer.On Wednesday morning, Koike met with US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who expressed his appreciation …
Bigger than the alliance
As noted in this post, much of the discussion surrounding the DPJ leadership's decision to oppose the extension of the anti-terrorism special measures law before it expires in November has focused on the impact on the US-Japan alliance of Japan's effective departure from coalition activities in and around Afghanistan.The debate has hinged in part on …
Missing the point on Japan’s normalization
Using the occasion of Japanese Air Self-Defense Force pilots participating in live-bombing exercises with the US in the Marianas, Norimitsu Onishi of the New York Times has a prominently featured article in today's edition (also on the front page, top of the fold of today's IHT) on Japan's shedding "military restraints."The NYT website also features …
Combating the China threat thesis
Japan's Ministry of Defense has issued its first white paper as the Ministry of Defense, and it seems that this year's edition is unique in its focus on China as a threat to Japan.And it seems that the Yomiuri Shimbun is quite pleased by this, according to its editorial today. Citing America's debate on the …
Why does Japan need a pipeline?
Prime Minister Abe, in this week's mail magazine, echoes some of the media coverage of his appointment of Koike Yuriko as the new defense minister in describing her as a "pipeline" to the US: "Koike-san has pipelines to ministers responsible for defense and foreign policy in other countries, and she is well versed in security …
Tobias S. Harris 