Japan and South Korea Grow Closer

The Trump effect on Japan–South Korea relations

By Daniel Sneider, lecturer in East Asian studies at Stanford University, non-resident distinguished fellow at the Korea Economic Institute of America, and APP Member. 

First Published July 12, 2026 at the East Asian Forum.

The August 2023 Japan–South Korea–US trilateral summit at Camp David provided powerful impetus for Tokyo and Seoul to restore warm ties, an undertaking initiated by former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol.

The momentum in Japan–South Korea relations has continued, surviving changes in leadership in all three countries. Even the potentially disastrous pairing of a conservative nationalist government in Tokyo and a progressive administration in Seoul has not slowed the pace of the bilateral partnership’s deepening.

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and South Korean President Lee Jae-myung sit at two ends of the political spectrum, but their May 2026 meeting in Lee’s hometown of Andong on 18-19 May, was marked by a spirit of warmth. Even Lee’s critics, who feared that his long-held harsh views on the legacy of Japanese colonial rule would reverse progress, were pleased.

Former Korean Ambassador to Japan Shin Kak-soo was ‘quite impressed with how [Lee] handled South Korea–Japan relations after taking office’, noting that the meeting in Andong ‘went very well’ — a view shared by senior South Korean officials in off-the-record discussions.

This success can be credited to Japan and Korea’s shared challenges of hedging against both China and an unpredictable United States, with US President Donald Trump’s trade wars and military interventions sending shocks across both economies. Lee’s decision to avoid past sources of contention like wartime history issues with Japan can be read as a calculated effort to use closer ties with Tokyo to insulate South Korea from growing chaos in an unpredictable security environment.

The most powerful factor in this is the prospect of US withdrawal from global leadership under Trump 2.0. Another South Korean senior official noted off the record that South Korea and Japan have ‘shared anxieties about Washington’ and that ‘it is not about China’.

Senior South Korean officials are discussing the need for closer security ties with Japan in response to US retreat, including potentially finessing the territorial disputes by signing a non-aggression pact and moving towards a mutual defence treaty. While this would go beyond what most South Koreans would tolerate — and much less in Japan — its mere consideration is a remarkable sign of the impact of Trump-driven uncertainty.

This tightening is taking place without active US involvement at the highest level. While trilateral meetings are still being held among senior officials and statements are being issued with common views on regional and global security issues like North Korea, this is the product of institutional inertia created by former US president Joe Biden’s administration. There is no evidence of a connection between those official pronouncements and the White House and Trump has never expressed any interest in trilateral cooperation, nor is he eager to follow in Biden’s footsteps.

Despite the factors impelling closer ties, there are serious concerns in Seoul and Tokyo that the rhetoric of bilateral partnership has not been sufficiently reflected in concrete actions.

The most cited example of this is the potential admittance of South Korea to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, a move which could forge closer trade and investment alliances and counter US mercantilism. While Seoul has expressed its interest in joining, it has yet to formally apply. Domestic politics remain a constraint, reflected in the ongoing restrictions on the purchase of Japanese seafood due to the Fukushima nuclear accident and its aftermath.

A similar dynamic is visible in the arena of defence cooperation. Japanese Defence Minister Koizumi Shinjiro visited Seoul in June 2026 and reaffirmed tightening defence ties and trilateral cooperation with the United States. But he was unable to get Seoul to sign off on a long-sought military logistics pact which would institutionalise joint operations. Lee told reporters earlier in June that public sentiment on history issues were the obstacle to signing what would otherwise be a logical agreement.

Beyond immediate issues, two policy areas — China and North Korea — could also drive the neighbours apart.

Lee has been careful to maintain good ties with Beijing, both in the economic realm and in potentially seeking China’s help in dealing with North Korea. The divergence between Lee’s policy towards China and the hostile state of Japan–China relations was noted at the Andong meeting.

Both governments share a commitment to the eventual denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. But Lee seems ready to back a possible Trump summit with North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un which could offer de facto acceptance of North Korea’s nuclear status. Japan has always been fearful that this outcome could lead to a separation of the Korean peninsula from US extended deterrence commitments and leave Japan exposed to Pyongyang’s nuclear threat.

The relationship also remains marred by the lingering issues of wartime history and justice that have been carefully put aside but not resolved. Compensation cases against Japanese companies for wartime workers in Japanese mines and factories continue to make their way through South Korean courts. Takaichi has carefully avoided doing anything to inflame Seoul, but it would only take a visit to the controversial Yasukuni Shrine — something she did regularly for several decades — to relight the fires of South Korean patriotism.

For now, the path to improved ties looks open, thanks in large part to Trump and to a lesser extent to Chinese President Xi Jinping. But the question of how long it will remain so is far less certain.

Whither Russo-Japanese Relations?

By: Stephen Blank, Senior Fellow and resident Russia expert at the American Foreign Policy Council

First published in the Eurasia Daily Monitor, Jamestown Foundation, Volume: 12 Issue: 212, November 20, 2015

Although Russian President Vladimir Putin will not be visiting Japan this year or anytime soon (see EDM, October 9) and currently no agenda even exists for any such visit, Tokyo appears so desperate for reconciliation with Moscow that it has agreed to continue discussing the status of the disputed Kurile Islands and overall normalization of relations with Russia. Indeed, Putin invited Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe to Moscow instead, and Abe is apparently considering accepting. But if Japan follows this path, it will be venturing into dangerous diplomatic territory. As noted at a conference hosted by the Carnegie Endowment, on November 15, several Japanese analysts and policymakers harbor the belief that Russia may be prepared to return at least two of the Kurile Islands. Moreover, they contend that if Japan and Russia are able to come to some kind of agreement on the disputed territories, this could open the way for an overall, if gradual, rapprochement between Russia and the West, which would redound to Japan’s credit (Kyodo News Service, November 15, 16; Japan Times, November 17).

However, Tokyo’s persistent chasing after Moscow probably has not strengthened its cause or reputation. For one thing, it has likely reinforced Russia’s preconceptions that Japan needs Russia more than Russia needs Japan, even though the truth is arguably the exact opposite. But additionally, it has bolstered Russia’s seeming belief that it can bully Japan, insult it with impunity, and still gain its objectives (see EDM, July 31). Illustratively, in mid-September 2015, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told his Japanese counterpart, Fumio Kishida, that normalization was only possible if Japan first recognized the “historical realities” regarding the Kurile Islands (Japan Times, September 22).

Moscow has clearly demonstrated it would not negotiate on the island issue for as long as sanctions on Russia, which were passed by Tokyo and its Western partners in response to Putin’s aggression in Ukraine, remain in place. In other words, for Japan to receive any of its islands back, let alone regain sovereignty over them, the price it will probably have to pay would be breaking the West’s united front on sanctions. Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov, who oversees Russia’s Asian policies, said as much several months ago (Interfax, September 2). But that action, if taken, would place a landmine under Japan’s relations with its most important ally—the United States—and the West in general.

Putin has reportedly warned Abe that if he comes to Japan, the Russian leader must have concrete economic results to show for it (Nikkei Asian Review, September 15). And at the Putin-Abe meetings in September 2015, Putin pointedly referred to declining Russo-Japanese trade (Ajw.asahi.com, September 29). However, he also expressed his confidence that both states have a high potential for economic cooperation on a large number of joint projects (Kyodo, September 29). Similarly Sergei Naryshkin, the speaker of the State Duma (lower house of parliament) and a close aide to Putin, has stated that “Japan’s imposition of sanctions on Russia has become an obstacle to bilateral relations” (Kyodo, September 11).

Logically one should have concluded that no realistic prospect for normalizing Russo-Japanese relations exists. The evidence has been wide and varied, including Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s recent visit to the Kurile Islands; the new Russian plans for a military buildup there (see EDM, October 28); fresh insults directed against Tokyo in the wake of Japanese protests about those actions; the August 2015 Russo-Chinese naval maneuvers, which featured simulated amphibious landings (RT, August 16); as well as President Putin’s prominent presence in Beijing, in September, at the 70th anniversary celebration of the end of World War II, which was marked by a high level of anti-Japanese rhetoric (Xinhua, September 3). Moreover, during August–September 2015, almost every day featured a Japanese or Russian denunciation of the other government’s actions or speeches in regard to the Kurile Islands. Indeed, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs infuriated Tokyo by saying at one point that the Kurile Islands problem does not exist—i.e., that for Russia, there is no problem (Sputnik News, September 4). Neither was this the first time the Russian foreign ministry or other officials have simply denied the existence of the problem. Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, a known provocateur, exemplified such inflammatory rhetoric when, in August, he suggested that the Japanese government would be better off committing collective ritual suicide (hari-kiri) rather than continue to complain about Medvedev’s recent visit to the Kurile islands (Kyodo, August 25).

Even if Japan renounces the sanctions it imposed on Russia, it might still not receive the disputed islands back; and if Tokyo does eventually regain the Kuriles, it could well be in the form of a “gift” from Moscow that does not entail the full transfer of sovereignty to Japan. Such an outcome would thus be a poisoned chalice for the East Asian island country. Accordingly, if Japan were to indeed break the sanctions regime on Russia, it is difficult to see how such a step would translate into Tokyo becoming a broker for an East-West rapprochement. Nor would Japan dropping its sanctions be likely to contribute to geopolitically detaching Russia from China. Importantly, Japan would probably not receive anything other than a symbolic acknowledgement of territories whose symbolic value far outweighs their strategic utility for Tokyo. Rather, Tokyo would have isolated itself from its allies and shown Beijing that it can be pushed around simply for the sake of its “status.” 

Put another way, by agreeing to abandon sanctions in exchange for Moscow’s partial or conditional acceptance of Tokyo’s claim to the Kuriles, Japan would inadvertently be signaling to other governments in the region that it does not hold fast to the principle of the territorial inviolability of states. That would be an ominous precedent with regard to its claims to the Senkaku Islands, which are under a Chinese challenge. Ultimately then, the belief that Japan can break its alliance ties in order to gain some symbolic victories or economic opportunities represents not realism but wishful thinking. And in regard to Russia, wishful thinking is never enough.

The Shape of Japan to Come

by Alexis Dudden, a professor of history at the University of Connecticut and APP member

First published in The New York Times

January 16, 2015

TOKYO- Bolstered by his party's victory in Diet elections last month, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has renewed his vow to free Japan from the fetters of the past, especially its defeat in World War II. Mr. Abe and his supporters view the prevailing accounts of that era as "masochistic" and a hindrance to taking pride in what he calls the "new Japan." They propose to modify the article in Japan's Constitution that sates the Japanese people "forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation."

These aspirations have been laid out in a map of Japan that the Japanese Foreign Ministry published on its website last April, with translations in 12 languages. The map extends beyond Japan's internationally recognized boundaries, incorporating in the name of ryodo - or the "inherent territory" of Japan - many islands claimed by neighboring countries. Those lands, the argument goes, are integral to Japan's very being.

In fact, the Abe government's expansionist view undermines Japan's interests, both economic and strategic.

Ryodo promotes a notion of Japan's territory that circumvents history, particularly the history of how Japan laid claim to these islands in the first place - through imperial wars with China and Russia, through wars of conquest against Koreans, through the extermination or assimilation of indigenous peoples.

Partly as a result, Japan is embroiled in many territorial disputes. China and Taiwan contest the Senkaku Islands, which Beijing calls the Diaoyu and Taipei and Diaoyutai. South Korea claims Takeshima (calling it Dokdo) where it has stationed military police since 1954. Russia claims sovereignty over what Japanese know as the Northern Territories, four islands in the Kuril chain northeast of Hokkaido where Russians have lived since 1945, numbering about 20,000 today.

Under the terms of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), Japan already has access to vast fisheries and rides up to $3.6 trillion in seabed materials. The disputed islands would add much more.

'Inherent' Japan
Tokyo is more aggressively claiming island groups that have long been in territorial dispute. The government highlighted these 3 areas on a new map.

Sources: ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan: maritimeregions.org

According to some estimates, including by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the East China Sea holds 200 million barrels in proved and probable oil reserves (the world consumes around 90 million barrels of liquid fuels each day) and between 1 and 2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas (the United States consumed about 26 trillion cubic feet in 2013). Japan and China contest nearly 17 percent of the sea.

A volcano on one of the southern Kurils has rhenium, a rare-earth metal with a melting point that makes jet-engine designers dream. There are also vast quantities of untapped methane hydrate in the seabed between Japan and the Korean Peninsula. After gas was extracted from similar deposits elsewhere for the first time in 2013, a spokesman for the Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation said, "Japan could finally have an energy source to call its own."

The lure of such riches might seem like reason enough for resource-poor Japan to claim these territories. The government spent $250 billion on imported fuel in 2012. And the cost of decommissioning the nuclear reactors at Fukushima after the meltdown following the March 2011 tsunami is expected to reach at least $90 billion. 

Yet Japan risks losing access to many of these resources because of its brinksmanship. UNCLOS does not determine sovereignty over land, and it allows for joint development agreements in waters around contested territory. When disputes heat up, however, they naturally tend to scuttle any joint schemes.

In 2008 China and Japan agreed to explore together four gas fields in the East China Sea. But the project was scuttled the following year, after China went at it alone. Mr. Abe's maximalist policy only undermines the prospects that his development project could be revived, or that new ones involving Japan might be struck.

The costs of Mr. Abe's territorial revisionism are also strategic. Ryodo implicitly dismisses as partial the terms of the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty, which formally ended World War II between Japan and the Allies. The agreement redrew Japan from the massive empire it had become during the war - stretching from northern China to Guadalcanal - more or less into the country familiar today. (Some islands, notably Okinawa, reverted to Japan in the intervening years.) Many Japanese at the time, including Mr. Abe's grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi - who was accused of being a Class A war criminal -  were infuriated, claiming in particular that the Kurils were "essential" to the Japanese.

In a separate agreement that went into force at the same time, the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty of 1951, the United States would "maintain armed forces of its own in and about Japan" in order "to deter armed attack upon Japan." By the time the treaty was revised in 1960, Japan had acquired limited self-defense forces, and the two countries undertook various commitments in case of "an armed attack against either Party in the territories under the administration of Japan." These still stand today, hence the critical importance also for the U.S. government of properly defining what Japan is.

Officials in Washington and Tokyo are currently reviewing each side's responsibilities in the event of the threat of the peace and security of Japan. One fraught issue is the United States' dual obligation, under separate security arrangements, to defend both Japan and South Korea because one could attack the other over territory they both claim. In other words, the very notion of ryodo challenges the United States' postwar security commitments even as it risks triggering them.

Mr. Abe's revanchist view of the past is central to his vision of a future in which Japan "once again shines on the world's center stage." But it distorts history in a way that undermines the country's major interests and, arguably, its identity. The constitutional changes advocated by Mr. Abe's party include an "obligation" for citizens of Japan to "defend the nation's inherent territory, inherent seas and inherent skies," disputed islands and all. The proposed draft adds that, "All citizens must honor the Constitution," suggesting that failure to do so could endanger their rights, maybe their citizenship. In his bid to claim more for Japan, Mr. Abe may reap less.

Japan's Cautious Hawks

In Japan's Cautious Hawks: Why Tokyo Is Unlikely to Pursue an Aggressive Foreign Policy published in the March/April 2013 issue of Foreign Affairs, APP member and Columbia University Professor Gerald L. Curtis argues that even the ideological Prime Minister Abe will be pragmatic in his relations with China and the United States. He cannot afford, materially or politically, to do otherwise.

Here is the conclusion to his excellent piece:

YOU CAN'T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT

In assessing the current Japanese political scene and the possible strategic course that Tokyo might chart, it is important to remember that a right-of-center government and a polarized debate over foreign policy are nothing new in Japan's postwar history. Abe is one of the most ideological of Japan's postwar prime ministers, but so was his grandfather Nobusuke Kishi, who was a cabinet minister during World War II and prime minister from 1957 to 1960. Kishi wanted to revise the U.S.-imposed constitution and to undo other postwar reforms; these are his grandson's goals more than half a century later.

But Kishi was also a pragmatist who distinguished between the desirable and the possible. As prime minister, he focused his energies on the latter, negotiating with the Eisenhower administration a revised security treaty that remains the framework for the U.S.-Japanese alliance today. For Abe as well, ideology will not likely trump pragmatism. The key question to ask about Japan's future is not what kind of world Abe would like to see but what he and other Japanese leaders believe the country must do to survive in the world as they find it.

If Tokyo's foreign policy moves off in a new direction, what will drive it there is not an irrepressible Japanese desire to be a great power. Although some Japanese politicians voice that aspiration, they will gain the support of the public only if it becomes convinced that changes in the international situation require Japan to take a dramatically different approach from the one that has brought it peace and prosperity for decades.

The Japanese public remains risk averse; nearly 70 years after World War II, it has not forgotten the lessons of that era any more than other Asian nations have. And despite changes in the region, the realities of Japanese politics and of American power still favor a continuation of Japan's current strategy: maintaining the alliance with the United States; gradually expanding Japan's contribution to regional security; developing security dialogues with Australia, India, South Korea, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations; and deepening its engagement with China. China's growing economic clout and military power do present new challenges for Tokyo and Washington, but these challenges can be met without dividing Asia into two hostile camps. If Japanese policy changes in anything more than an incremental manner, it will be due to the failure of Washington to evolve a policy that sustains U.S. leadership while accommodating Chinese power.

Will the Abe government chart a new course for Japanese foreign policy? Only if the public comes to believe that the threat from China is so grave and the credibility of the United States' commitment to contain it is so weakened that Japan's survival is at stake. But if rational thinking prevails in Beijing, Tokyo, and Washington, the approach that has made Japan the linchpin of the United States' security strategy in Asia, stabilized the region, and brought Japan peace and prosperity is likely to persist.

Japan Week in Washington

ABE’S FOREIGN POLICY: PRAGMATIC REALISM OR EMOTIONAL NATIONALISM? 2/25, 12:30-1:45pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: Sigur Center, George Washington University. Speaker: Kazuhiko Togo, Professor and Director of the Institute for World Affairs, Kyoto Sangyo University.

UNDERSTANDING OUR CHALLENGES IN ENERGY, FOOD AND CLIMATE CHANGE: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE U.S. AND JAPAN. 2/25, 10:00-11:45am, Washington, DC. Sponsor: U.S.-Japan Research Institute (USJI). Speakers: Masahiko Gemma, Operating Adviser, U.S.-Japan Research Institute (USJI), Professor, Waseda University; Simla Tokgoz, Research Fellow, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI); Yacov Tsur, Ruth Ochberg Professor, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Harry de Gorter, Professor, Cornell University.

DISASTER RESILIENCE 2030: U.S. AND JAPAN. 2/25, 3:00-4:30pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: U.S.-Japan Research Institute (USJI). Speakers: Haruo Hayashi, Professor, Kyoto University; Carole Cameron, Director, International Affairs Division, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS); Norio Maki, Associate Professor, Kyoto University; Shingo Suzuki, Assistant Professor, Kyoto University; .

3.11: DISASTER AND CHANGE IN JAPAN. 2/26, 12:30-1:45pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: Sigur Center, GWU. Speaker: Richard Samuels, Ford International Professor of Political Science, MIT, author, 3.11: Disaster and Change in Japan.

THE KOREAN PENINSULA IN THE 21ST CENTURY. 2/26, 3:00-4:30pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: U.S.-Japan Research Institute (USJI); Organization for Asian Studies, Waseda University (OAS). Speakers: Maji Rhee, Professor, Waseda University; L. Gordon Flake, Executive Director, The Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation; Jason Fiske, Program Director, Thomas Jefferson School of Law; Sadaharu Kataoka, Professor, Waseda University.

THE U.S. PIVOT TO ASIA AND JAPAN, CHINA, AND KOREA – HOW CAN NEW LEADERS IN NORTHEAST ASIA MAINTAIN THE REGIONAL PEACE? (PART 1: AMERICA’S TPP, CJK’S TRILATERAL FTA, AND DOMESTIC ADJUSTMENT PROBLEMS). 2/28, 10:00-11:40am, Washington, DC. Sponsors: U.S.-Japan Research Institute (USJI); Waseda University Organization for Japan-US Studies (WOJUSS). Speakers: Takashi Terada, Professor, Doshisha University; Leonard Schoppa, Professor, Associate Dean for the College, University of Virginia; Junya Nishino, Associate Professor, Keio University.

INTRODUCTION TO THE PROJECT: THE ROLE OF THE U.S.-JAPAN ALLIANCE IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE EAST ASIAN COMMUNITY. 2/28, 2:00-3:30pm, Washington, DC. Sponsors: U.S.-Japan Research Institute (USJI) and Carnegie. Speakers: James L. Schoff, Senior Associate Asia Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Mike M. Mochizuki, Associate Dean for Academic Programs, Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, The George Washington University; James J. Przystup, Senior Research Fellow East Asia Group, National Defense University; Toru Oga, Associate Professor, Kyushu University.

TERRITORIAL TENSIONS IN NORTH EAST ASIA – LESSONS FROM GERMAN RECONCILIATION. 2/28, 2:00-4:30pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: American Institute for Contemporary German Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Speakers; Dr. Somei Kobayashi, Visiting Fellow at the East-West Center in Washington, DC; Dr. J.J. Suh, Associate Professor and Academic Adviser at the U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS, Johns Hopkins University; and Dr. Daqing Yang, Associate Professor of History and International Affairs at the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University. Comments will be provided by Dr. Lily Gardner Feldman, Harry & Helen Gray Senior Fellow and Director of the Society, Culture & Politics Program at AICGS.

ECONOMIC CONDITION IN JAPAN: BUSINESS SENTIMENT AND REAL FINANCIAL POSITIONS. 2/28, Noon-1:30pm, Lunch, Washington, DC. Sponsor: Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA (SPFUSA). Speakers: Dr. Cindy Yoshiko Shirata, Professor of International Business, Graduate School of Business Sciences, Tsukuba University, Tokyo, Japan; Takahiro Nanri, Director, SPFUSA.

THE U.S. PIVOT TO ASIA AND JAPAN, CHINA, AND KOREA- HOW CAN NEW LEADERS IN NORTHEAST ASIA MAINTAIN THE REGIONAL PEACE? (PART 2: MARITIME SECURITU IN EAST ASIA AND CJK PROBLEMS). 3/1, 10:00-11:40am, Washington, DC. Sponsors: U.S.-Japan Research Institute (USJI); Waseda University Organization for Japan-US Studies (WOJUSS). Speakers: Takashi Terada, Professor, Doshisha University; Chikako Ueki, Operating Adviser, U.S.-Japan Research Institute (USJI) / Professor, Waseda University; Mark Manyin, Specialist in Asian Affairs, Congressional Research Service (CRS); Scott A. Snyder, Senior Fellow for Korea Studies and Director of the Program on U.S.-Korea Policy, Council on Foreign Relations.

EVALUATING JAPANESE GROWTH AND REBIRTH STRATEGY; IS ABE INHERITING DPJ’S POLICY? 3/1, 2:00-3:30pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: U.S.-Japan Research Institute (USJI). Speakers: Keiji Nakatsuji, Operating Adviser, U.S.-Japan Research Institute (USJI) / Professor, Ritsumeikan University; Susan J. Pharr, Edwin O. Reischauer Professor of Japanese Politics, Harvard University; Tadashi Yokoyama, Counselor (Economic Affairs), Embassy of Japan in the United States.

JAPAN-KOREA RELATIONS. 3/5, 2:30-4:00pm, Washington, DC. Sponsor: American University Center for Asian Studies. Speaker: Sachio Nakato, Ritsumeikan University/American University.

February 22, 2013 Maps

Kuribayashi's Map

February 22nd, 71 years after President Franklin Roosevelt ordered General Douglas MacArthur out of the Philippines to ensure that he would not be captured by the invading Japanese, Japan remains a topic of concern in Washington.

In Japan, on the 22nd, nationalists will gather in Matsue, Shimane Prefecture to celebrate Takeshima Day. The event marks the incorporation on Feb. 22, 1905 of the rocky islands (Dokdo to the Koreans) in the Sea of Japan as Japanese territory. The ruling LDP is sending its executive acting secretary general, Hiroyuki Hosoda who is a Matsue native and its director of the LDP’s Youth Division former Prime Minister Koizumi's popular son Shinjiro Koizumi, who also attended the event last year. They will be accompanied by a record 18 Diet members. The Abe Administration, reneging on a promise not to send an official representative, plans to have Parliamentary Secretary Aiko Shimajiri from the Cabinet Office present.  She is elected from Okinawa. This would be the first time anyone from among the top three posts in a ministry will attend the ceremony since it began in 2006. Shimajiri is a member of the Diet members' group that promotes official visits to Yasukuni Shrine on August 15.

In New York City, Bonhams will hold an auction of items from the Pacific theatre of World War II. Offered for sale are items ranging from monuments and medals to ship models and samurai swords. Top lot is the original 1945 Iwo Jima Monument model unveiled in Washington in November 1945 and possibly the original Iwo Jima map used by Commander Tadamichi Kuribayashi for the defense of the island by the Imperial Japanese Army, February - March 1945. Kuribayashi's grandson, Yoshitaka Shindo, who is Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications in Abe's Cabinet. Shindo is well-known as an outspoken advocate for Japan's territorial rights and is one the legislators that landed on a Senkaku islet in August 2012. He was also one of the signatories of the November 4, 2012 FACTS advertorial in the New Jersey Start Ledger dismissing the claims of the Comfort Women as fabrications designed to dishonor Japan.

And in Washington Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will have his first meeting with U.S. President Barak Obama. Later in the day, at 4 o'clock, he will give a speech entitled Japan is Back in the basement of CSIS to selected and vetted Japan and Asia experts and CSIS contributors. He plans to map out his plan to revive Japan's economy.

Mixed views in Washington of Abe’s rebooted administration

By William L. Brooks, APP Senior Fellow, Adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University. He retired from the U.S. State Department in September 2009 after a 35-year career as a diplomat and research analyst. This article first appeared in the January 8, 2013 online Asahi Shimbun Asia & Japan Watch.


The return to power of the Liberal Democratic Party in the Dec. 16 Lower House election after three years of Democratic Party of Japan rule was more a voter repudiation of the DPJ's failed policies than an endorsement of the LDP's policy agenda.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, back in office for a second time, knows that if his party is to win the next election for the Upper House in July, he must regain the still-skeptical public's trust by quick and effective displays of policy energy.


Shinzo Abe at the Diet on Dec. 26 (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

To do so, he has scoped out an ambitious agenda covering both domestic and diplomatic policy fronts, including repairing strained relations with China and South Korea, and reclaiming a robust alliance with the United States.

Washington appreciates such momentum, and hopes that political stability has finally returned to Japan. But there is keen awareness that Abe's Achilles' heel remains his controversial revisionist views on Japan's war history, which could come back to haunt him if not kept in check.

Abe's top priority now will be to revive the ailing Japanese economy by overcoming the country's long-standing deflation. He has promised a bold monetary policy that includes setting an inflation target, implementing qualitative fiscal stimulation measures in the public sector, and devising a growth strategy that encourages private investment.

He also intends to accelerate the reconstruction of areas in northern Japan devastated by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, many of which remain desolate wastelands.

Having promised in the election campaign to "restore a reliable Japan-U.S. alliance," Abe intends to visit Washington as soon as possible for a summit meeting with President Barack Obama. He will seek to build a "relationship of trust" with the president, while reconfirming his administration's deep commitment to the bilateral alliance as the cornerstone of Japan's foreign policy. In outlining his policy agenda, Abe will focus on such trouble spots as North Korea and China, and express his commitment to resolve a long-festering issue in Okinawa, the controversial relocation of Marine Corps Air Station Futenma to another part of the prefecture.

It is a tradition for a newly elected Japanese leader to make an obligatory journey early on to Washington, but this one has a particularly large significance to Abe.

The bilateral relationship was greatly strained during the three years of DPJ rule, particularly during Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's nine months in office starting in September 2009, and the LDP now wants to reclaim what it believes is its rightful place as the long-standing manager of the alliance. During his first term in office, Obama witnessed growing political instability in Japan, with Cabinets falling, prime ministers changing every year, and policy gridlock in the Diet. There is likely to be skepticism in Washington that the LDP's election and Abe's return to power is not more of the same.

It would indeed help boost bilateral ties if Abe can bring with him progress on commitments that the DPJ before him could not keep, such as the long-delayed decision on whether Japan will join the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade pact. But at this juncture, Abe's initial encounter with Obama seems likely to be mainly statements of formal intentions rather than announcements of breakthroughs in pending issues.

Still, Abe's strategies for jump-starting the stalled economy, strengthening ties with the United States, and repairing deteriorating ties with China, South Korea and Russia will impress Washington. He also will please the Pentagon with his plans to enhance Japan's security posture in the region with an "integrated defense strategy" for the unified buildup of defense capabilities of the Ground, Maritime and Air Self-Defense Forces (SDF) based on long-range contingency scenarios.

Moreover, Abe has surrounded himself with a solid Cabinet filled with experienced policy experts, and he will tap the expertise of the bureaucracy and academia as needed. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry in particular will assist Abe on the industrial policy front. His foreign and defense ministers both have experience in Okinawa policy and can be expected to lend their hands to resolving serious U.S. base issues with that prefecture.

Because the next election--this time for the Upper House--is to be held in July, Abe has little time to convince Japan's fickle electorate that his ambitious agenda, starting with bold fiscal and monetary measures to stimulate the economy, will be effective.

Territorial disputes complicate U.S. relations with China, Japan

by William L. Brooks. APP Senior Fellow, Adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University
First published in the Asahi Shimbun Asia Japan Watch Online, December 3, 2012

The re-election of Barack Obama signals to Asia that America's "pivot" or "rebalancing" toward that region will move forward in the carefully constructed framework laid out during the president's first term.

But no matter who had won the presidential election, Obama or Mitt Romney, the major geostrategic policy issue in Asia would have been unchanged: how to deal with a rising China. The two candidates spent much time in the campaign accusing each other of being soft on China, portraying that country as an economic "threat" to the United States because it was "stealing jobs" from American workers. Such rhetoric will now fade. In their foreign policies, both Obama and Romney basically approach Asia and the China problem the same way.

A man burns a Japanese national flag during a demonstration in Guangzhou in south China's Guangdong Province on Sept. 18, 2012. Demonstrations were held across China as public anger grew against Tokyo's move to purchase some of the disputed Senkaku Islands in East China Sea from a private landowner.　(AP file photo)

From a security perspective, China's formal declaration at the 18th Communist Party Congress of its intention to become a "maritime power," with core interests that intersect the territorial waters of nations in the South and East China seas, may force the United States to accelerate a containment strategy laid out during Obama's first term in office. That strategy involves a reallocation of military resources to the region, such as moving U.S. Marines to Australia, a strengthening of existing alliances in the Asia-Pacific region, and building security ties with nations on China's periphery, such as India, Indonesia and Vietnam. The diplomatic agenda now even includes a recent historical first trip by Obama to Myanmar, once under China's sway. Washington's encirclement strategy of using diplomacy backed up by American military muscle in the region is intended to show China that its hegemonic intentions in the region will not be tolerated.

Japan's increasingly volatile territorial dispute with China complicates the Obama administration's policy intention to use diplomatic means to ultimately steer China away from becoming a potential threat or enemy and instead convince it to become a responsible partner for resolving crucial global issues. While recognizing the competitive aspects in the economic and security areas of the U.S.-China relationship, Washington aims to make sure that collaborative areas are always kept paramount. Under such an accommodation, China would not resort to intimidation or force in resolving its territorial disputes, and would accept the principle of freedom of navigation in regional waters. In broad terms, the United States seeks to ensure that China's rise does not destabilize the Asia-Pacific region, which would be of direct concern to American interests.

Turbulence in 2010, centered first on China's territorial claims in the South China Sea, was an unexpected development. It resulted in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issuing a strong statement at the July 2010 ASEAN ARF underscoring America's vital interests regarding freedom of navigation and pursuit of water claims without intimidation. Clinton intervened again in September on behalf of Japan when China escalated into a major diplomatic row a fishing boat incident in the East China Sea near the Senkakus, islands claimed by both countries. The secretary of state declared that the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty applies to the islands, which have been under Japan's effective control since the U.S. returned administrative rights over them to Japan in 1972 as part of the Okinawa reversion.

The summer of 2012 saw maritime disputes with China flare up across the South and East China seas. The Senkakus row erupted again in September when Japan's central government purchased three of the isles from their private owner, and even involved extensive riots and destruction of Japanese property in China. Chinese surveillance ships operating near the Senkaku Islands continue to square off against Japanese Coast Guard vessels, keeping tensions high and setting off fears that the standoff could escalate into a more serious conflict.

The incident set off a propaganda war aimed at the international community, with both governments appealing to world opinion regarding the legitimacy of their territorial claim. Beijing also made known its intention to officially revise and extend its continental shelf claim submission in the East China Sea to include the waters around the Senkakus, thus further irritating Tokyo. Although China has recently—and belatedly—tried to play down the island row, serious damage has been done to bilateral relations, taking its toll on tourism, business and other economic activities. Even events to commemorate the 40th anniversary of normalization of diplomatic relations in 1972 were canceled.

Washington has called for cooler heads to prevail, with a State Department spokesman saying that the United States does "not take a position on the sovereignty of the Senkakus" but expects "the two mature countries are fully capable of resolving" their territorial dispute. Washington's worst fear is being drawn into a war between China and Japan over the Senkakus. The U.S. military alliance with Japan is designed to guarantee peace and stability in the region through its deterrence capabilities. It is not intended to act as a lightning rod for conflict.

China's efforts to intimidate Japan by its excessive reaction to the territorial issue in 2010 and the well-orchestrated row in 2012, however, have produced just the opposite effect. Although Japan has remained relatively calm diplomatically, China's actions have riled up the normally complacent public and spurred saber-rattling by politicians on the right. Japan is not backing down.

Ironically, China, instead of driving a wedge between the U.S. and Japan by testing how far the U.S. will go in backing its ally, seems to be serving as a catalyst for reinvigorating the bilateral military relationship. It used to be provocations by North Korea that drove Japan closer to its ally the United States, but now it is China. Defense Minister Satoshi Morimoto has asked the United States for talks to revise the current set of defense cooperation guidelines to reflect the current security environment centered on China. The last set, inked in 1997, posited a contingency on the Korean Peninsula.

Japan's heightened concern about China's ascendancy in the region also explains the do-or-die desire of the administration of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda to have Japan join the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). This regional free-trade agreement is seen in Tokyo as a counter lever to China's growing economic influence. Japan, in effect, has bought into the U.S.'s China-encirclement policy.

It is unclear whether China under a new and untested leadership will respond by further raising the ante in this international game of poker, or--aware of the political and economic consequences--seek or accept some kind of accommodation in line with the U.S.'s strategic goals. What is certain, though, is that the Senkakus as a structural issue between Japan and China will not go away. It may be put on the back burner for a while by mutual agreement, as Deng Xiaoping managed to do in the 1970s, but the territorial issue is a card, increasingly risky, that China may be willing again to play in the future.

William L. Brooks, APP Senior Fellow, Adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University. He retired from the U.S. State Department in September 2009 after a 35-year career as a diplomat and research analyst.

Korea-Japan Standoff: Why Americans Should Care

Korea and Japan have spiraled into their worst relations in decades over tensions surrounding a few rocky islets in the ocean between them. Koreans call the islands "Dokdo" and Japanese know them as "Takeshima." Politicians in both countries assure supporters that these barely inhabited spits of land will be defended as theirs at all costs, and the respective foreign ministries have announced multi-million dollar ad campaigns to further publicize their claims.

This territorial dispute has flared with regularity since the collapse of the Japanese empire in 1945; most recently in 2008 when Washington's Bureau of Geographic Names surprisingly altered the islands' legal status in such a manner that only President George W. Bush's intervention could return it to where it was: intentionally blank. During the most recent fracas, Washington has issued its more standard response that America wants our allies to work this out amongst themselves; last week at the APEC meeting in Vladivostok, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton further directed Seoul and Tokyo to "lower the temperature" (subtitles read: "Get your acts together; we have bigger problems").

North Korea's unknowns coupled with China's militarization would seem to demand greater American attention in Northeast Asia, yet the reality is that these rocks deserve our immediate attention. There are over 200 recognized territorial contests in the world; Korea and Japan's dispute is the only one that obligates United States military involvement on both sides to defend one country from the other in the awful event of hostilities, a predicament that returns us to Washington's insistence that the problem is not ours. A little honesty from Washington about America's historical involvement in the standoff would go a long way to detoxify its potential for violence.

The touchstone for today's disputes is the American-crafted Treaty of Peace with Japan, known as the San Francisco Treaty for the location of its signing on September 8, 1951. The treaty formally ended Japan's war against the Allies and the victors' occupation of the country. It also delineated Japan's new territorial limits, officially dismantling the once massive Empire of Great Japan. Strangely absent in the treaty, though, is mention of the islands now causing such a ruckus, a condition made all the clearer by inclusion of the Kurils, which Japan nonetheless continues to contest, too, even though their Yalta gift from Roosevelt to Stalin is long proven.

Almost as soon as General MacArthur's occupying forces moved into the region in September 1945 Japanese interests ranging from fishermen's cooperatives to nostalgic imperialists lobbied to hold onto whatever they could of Japan's vanished reach. The islands now in question appeared regularly in occupation memos and maps with voices arguing each side's claim; overall, American military maps located the islands within U.S. Korean command, while State Department officials quoted Japanese concerns back to Washington to placate local politicians working for them.

By the time the San Francisco Treaty came about a new war was on -- the Korean War -- and the islands by then had new value to American pilots for target practice, becoming vital to American pilots lightening their payloads while returning south from runs over North Korea. Naming Korea's sovereign control seemed without doubt -- the treaty lists Ulleungdo 47 nautical miles to the east as Korean (under its old French name, Dagelet) -- yet the final 1951 document would table ownership to accommodate another concern: what if northern forces grabbed the rock closest to Japan and the island fell into communist Korean hands?

Tabling sovereignty over these tiny rocks made sense to American planners at the time, yet the treaty's absence of named ownership -- and American determination to avoid the subject since -- has allowed a relatively manageable disagreement to become a truly volatile situation.

Japan maintains that Korea has "illegally occupied" the islands since 1952 when Koreans sent patrol units to guard a lighthouse there. Since 2004, Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs website has explained its rationale equally in Japanese, English and Korean, among other languages: the San Francisco Treaty does not specifically name the islands Korean, thus the Allies did not not name it Japan's. Koreans respond quizzically that such logic would grant Japan claim to all of Korea's 3,000 additional outer islands.

To some, this may be further example of outdated images of Asian diplomatic opera buffa. Matters could not be more different, which Japan's lengthy justification demonstrates. Tokyo claims that its right to sovereignty over the islands today -- prime fishing grounds for anyone who could get there long before Korea and Japan even had their contemporary names -- derive from a 1905 Japanese Cabinet decision that incorporated the islands into the nation's growing empire. Woefully missing is explanation that Japan was beginning to colonize all of Korea at the time. The islands disputed today are shards of that history's early moments; to make it into anything else simply denies Japan's takeover of Korea.

At the end of June this year, Seoul and Tokyo tabled a military intelligence sharing agreement that Washington desperately seeks less than an hour before it was to be signed; many American pundits looked confused and wondered openly why "they" can't get over "it"? The answer is straightforward: until Japan fully confronts the history of its empire and war in Asia without relying on white-washed phrases of "sorrow and regret," no politician in Korea or anywhere else in the region would be able to stay in office should he or she promote something so obviously evocative of past atrocities as a "joint military intelligence pact."

The United States did not colonize Korea in 1905, but Washington marched America right through the door of this history through involvement in the decolonization process. Honest dialogue about this known history would demonstrate that Washington's desired pivot toward Asia is for the peace and stability of the region and world. Seoul and Tokyo are our allied democracies in a region rife with competing claims to the future; the history wars about a bloody past have been on their streets for over a decade and have gained tremendous intensity through the territorial disputes. Both nations should stop playing with fire: brinksmanship only fuels reactionary response. Meanwhile, Tokyo discredits any claim to global leadership while it persists in imagining an empty past.


By Alexis Dudden, professor of history at the University of Connecticut and APP Member and author of Troubled Apologies Among Japan, Korea, and the United States.
This article was originally published in the Huffington Post 9/14/2012 5:37 pm