Jeffrey Bader, former senior director for Asia at the National Security Council earlier in the Obama administration, has drawn attention for remarks criticizing comments made by Abe Shinzō and other Japanese leaders about Japan's wartime past. As Kyodo reports:Bader...also warned the U.S. government could be more "vocal" if Japan reviewed past statements in which the …
Tag: US-Japan relations
The 2006 roadmap’s impasses
In the wake of its defeat the Kan government has made it patently clear that the Hatoyama government's "ratification" of the 2006 realignment plan was nothing of the sort — it is now saying that it will be impossible to complete negotiations before Okinawan gubernatorial election in November. The government once again is considering alternatives …
Why did Hatoyama go after Futenma first?
With little surprise, the Hatoyama government has decided to postpone a decision on the future of Futenma, after alienating both the Okinawan people and the US government with its indecisiveness on the issue. Reuters reports that after months of treating the end of May as the deadline for solving the dispute, the government has announced …
Washington continues to see Japan slipping away
Writing on the nuclear summit, Al Kamen, who pens a Beltway gossip column in the Washington Post, had the following to say about Hatoyama Yukio:By far the biggest loser of the extravaganza was the hapless and (in the opinion of some Obama administration officials) increasingly loopy Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. He reportedly requested but …
Continue reading Washington continues to see Japan slipping away
Why Hatoyama is failing on Futenma
Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio returned home to Japan Wednesday after attending the Nuclear summit in Washington hosted by US President Barack Obama. Whatever significance the summit had for Obama's diplomatic agenda, as far as US-Japan relations are concerned nukes were overshadowed by Futenma. Hatoyama's self-imposed deadline of resolving the dispute by May is approaching, and …
Ozawa will stay home
On a visit to Tokyo in February, Kurt Campbell, the US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, met with embattled DPJ secretary-general Ozawa Ichiro and extended an invitation to visit Washington. Ozawa said he would visit on the condition that he be able to meet with President Barack Obama. At the …
Professor Hatoyama holds forth
Before entering politics — the family business — Hatoyama Yukio was a fledging academic, a Stanford-educated engineer. His background as an academic is often on display when he delivers set piece addresses. He has a penchant for abstraction, for drawing upon broad principles and shying away from the nitty gritty details of policy. This tendency …
Time for the US to accept new realities
According to Helene Cooper of the New York Times, "President Obama will arrive in Tokyo on Friday, at a time when America’s relations with Japan are at their most contentious since the trade wars of the 1990s."Cooper then proceeds to list the ways in which the transition to the DPJ has made for a "more …
Waking up to a new alliance
The day of Barack Obama's first visit to Japan is approaching rapidly and the focus of the allies remains on the future of Futenma and the US-Japan agreement on the realignment of US forces in Japan.The Hatoyama government is still weighing its options — and Prime Minister Hatoyama has said on more than one occasion …
Okada diplomacy
Not even a week into the Hatoyama government, it is clear that Foreign Minister Okada Katsuya will be a force to be reckoned with in the new cabinet.Even before the government formed, Okada raised the alarm that the new national strategy bureau would encroach on his turf in foreign policy making — prompting Hatoyama Yukio …
Tobias S. Harris 