After seeing the response to my recent post on the US-Japan alliance, I find it necessary to develop a few ideas further.First, MTC rightly points out that an alliance based on the partnership of Japanese conservatives and their counterparts in Washington is by no means doomed, because the organizations pushing this line "deal death as …
Tag: US-China-Japan strategic triangle
The alliance is dead, long live the alliance
Barack Obama's inauguration is just about a month away. His transition team is gradually filling in cabinet-level positions. His Asia and Japan policy teams are as of yet unknown, however, leaving Japanese elites to continue to fret about Japan's place on the Obama administration's agenda.They have good reason to worry.The reasons to worry have nothing …
Continue reading The alliance is dead, long live the alliance
Recommended Book: Asia, America, and The Transformation of Geopolitics, William Overholt
With the prime ministers of Japan and Australia, the US secretary of defense (and other defense ministers in the region), and the Republican presidential candidate issuing statements on the future of Asia over the past month, it has been a fascinating time to ponder the shape of the region over the coming years, especially as …
Building a new relationship in Shangri-La
Contrary to coverage of the Sino-US relationship that greeted the publication of the latest Pentagon report on Chinese military power, Secretary of Defense William Gates is in Singapore, setting out the terms of Sino-US security cooperation (and building on visits to China by General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Admiral …
The naval arms race in Asia continues
Back in April, Paul Kennedy, professor of history at Yale best known for his The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, had an op-ed in the IHT in which he discussed the meaning of the growing naval arms race in Northeast Asia in terms of the center of balance of the international system, with …
"We would…help them"
Having previously written about the strategic and political questions surrounding China's rumored aircraft carrier program, I found this VOA article (hat tip: China Digital Times) on Admiral Keating's visit to China fascinating.VOA reports that Keating discussed the operational difficulties of deploying and maintaining aircraft carriers with Vice Admiral Wu Shengli of the PLAN — but …
Towards a trilateral mechanism
Robert Zoellick, former deputy secretary of state and architect of the Bush administration's "responsible stakeholder" approach to Sino-US relations, has an op-ed in the FT -- subscription required -- in which he calls for a new "Shanghai Communiqué."He wrote:Chinese leaders place value on determining the principles that should guide policy. That is sound logic. Yet …
The first day of a new Sino-Japanese relationship?
So after years of the Sino-Japanese leg being the weakest in the US-Japan-China strategic triangle, it seems that Premier Wen's visit will go a long way towards strengthening the Sino-Japanese relationship to a level similar to the Sino-American relationship.Similar to the US Military's links with the PLA, Japanese Defense Minister Kyuma announced before Wen's arrival …
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Seen and heard this evening
Frank Jannuzi, Hitachi fellow, China expert, and Democratic staffer at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (on leave), spoke tonight at Temple University Japan on the second Armitage-Nye Report.I'm not going to give a full summary of his talk -- much of it was spelling out the thinking of the report's drafters and explaining the points …
Waiting for Wen
It seems that today is a China kind of day, as Chinese Premier Wen begins his three-day visit to Japan today.The much-quoted purpose of this trip is to "melt the ice" between Japan and China.Call me a skeptic, but I think I'm with the Carnegie Endowment's Minxin Pei, who wrote in an op-ed in the …
Tobias S. Harris 