GEOGRAPHY
IS DESTINY
Statesmanship,
writes Pfaff, "tries to make realistic assessments of
power relationships and national interests. In the Chinese-American
case, its starting point has to be that China is where
it is, and the United States is on the opposite side of
the Pacific Ocean." This point was hardly made in the
"mainstream" Western media, where the idea that the Pacific
must be an American lake is unquestioned, except in the
commentary of Time magazine's Tony
Karon and a few others, who made the trenchant point
that Chinese spy planes trolling 70 miles from American
shores would certainly not have gone unchallenged by the
US military. Andrew
Sullivan, writing in the [London] Sunday Times,
emphasized the economic factor, but as an aside, made
the point that "there is also a strategic rivalry. The
two nations share an ocean, the Pacific, over which only
America has real hegemony. They are the natural superpowers
of the 21st century and, with the collapse of Russia,
no longer have a mutual enemy. So a readjustment is inevitable.
The question is when and how."
WHAT
ABOUT JAPAN?
Well,
yes, the two nations "share an ocean," but by conceding
that "only America has real hegemony," Sullivan does little
but imply the enormous imbalance in that relationship.
The reality is that China does not even enjoy "hegemony"
– good lord, are we stuck with this clunky
coinage as the ubiquitous foreign policy buzzword of the
Bush era? – over its own coastal waters, while US
dominance extends from the California coastline to the
South China Sea. Pfaff goes on to make the point that
China is not the only Eastasian country that has a beef
with us, raising the interesting issue of Japan:
"Since
1945 and the defeat of Japan, the United States has been
in the abnormal situation of effectively dominating Japan,
formerly East Asia's greatest power. The United States
keeps large military installations in Japan, where 21,000
U.S. troops are stationed. As a result of the Korean War,
Washington also now keeps a force of 36,000 in South Korea
– a country that US diplomacy had, in 1950, identified
as outside the zone of US security interest. This military
deployment has only remotely to do with the security of
the United States. Neither China nor Japan has now or
ever had an interest in conquering the United States.
Japan in 1940 wanted to drive the United States and the
European colonial powers out of the western Pacific, which
it considered its legitimate zone of interest."
UNHAPPY
ANNIVERSARY
Hear!
Hear!
"Abnormal" is putting it mildly. September will mark the
fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the
peace treaty with Japan, which, you'll note, stipulated
that the occupation of that country by Allied troops would
not exceed 90 days after the treaty went into effect,
but: "Nothing in this provision shall, however,
prevent the stationing or retention of foreign armed forces
in Japanese territory under or in consequence of any bilateral
or multilateral agreements which have been or may be made
between one or more of the Allied Powers, on the one hand,
and Japan on the other." That turned out to be a very
big but, as every Japanese government since the days of
the MacArthur Regency submissively went along with the
continuing occupation and the vassalage of Japan was extended
into the indefinite future. There are, however, some signs
that this passivity may be ending, and that China is not
the only rebel against the American Hegemon.
THE
SLEEPER WAKES
Pfaff
asks: as the only non-Asian actor in the Eastasian theater,
what exactly are American objectives in the region? The
US, the only foreign power, must leave Eastasia to China,
Japan, and their supporting cast of regional players:
"They can see this," avers Pfaff, "even if Washington
cannot." Or will not. "What the United States cannot reasonably
want is to exercise permanent power in the Far East,"
Pfaff continues, "against China's hostility, and eventually
that of Japan, which sooner or later will shake off its
subordination to the United States. However, that is a
long-term consideration, and Washington deals in the short-term."
If recent political, economic, and cultural developments
in Japan are any indication, however, the time-frame may
be much shorter-term than Pfaff or anyone now imagines.
Japan is waking up from half a century of sleep, jolted
into clarity by its ongoing and ever-deepening economic
crisis, shocked into remembering its sense of national
sovereignty and identity with something other than horror.
"MERDEKA!"
The
release of a new Japanese film, Merdeka (the Indonesian
word for "independence"), signals a U-turn in the direction
of Japanese political culture, from one centered on self-abnegation
and self-renunciation, to one based on the rediscovery
of their own tradition – and the truth about their
own history. Opening in Tokyo in May, Merdeka depicts
the selfless decision of more than 2,000 Japanese officers
and troops to stay behind in Indonesia after the Japanese
surrender in 1945, and help the Indonesian freedom-fighters
throw out the Dutch, who were determined to make a comeback.
The [London] Times cites Hideaki Kase, the conservative
Japanese commentator, and a co-producer of the movie,
as saying "This is the first film about Japan as the liberator
of Asia, with Indonesia as the setting." The
Times dryly informs us that "the makers hope
that China will protest about their latest film" to help
promote it, and a tone of barely-controlled outrage is
palpable throughout their report. The movie, we are told,
"challenges the conventional view of the Japanese as brutal
aggressors" who killed "millions." Furthermore, this sinister
movie "coincides with a campaign by a group of nationalists
rewriting history for schools by glossing over atrocities
by Japanese troops and depicting them as noble crusaders
for the independence of South-East Asia." In other words,
the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy has gone Japanese.
RISE
OF THE JAPANESE RIGHT
Since
the end of the (first) cold war, and the implosion of
the Soviet Empire, the ghost of Hitler has haunted the
Western imagination, the bogeyman whose reincarnation
has been proclaimed countless times since his death –
Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, even poor old Manuel
Noriega, all have been denounced by American Presidents
as Hitlerian, or even, in Saddam's case, "worse than Hitler."
Perhaps some day soon these same people will be denouncing
some future leader of Japan as "another Tojo" – an
inevitable epithet for any Japanese politician who dares
to challenge the Anglo-American orthodoxy that "the colonies"
were better off in the good old days, before independence.
None has arisen, as yet, to challenge the Americans, and
reassert Japanese national sovereignty, although there
are rumors that Shintaro
Ishihari, the governor of Tokyo, is considering a
run for Prime Minister if the ruling Liberal Democratic
Party fails to win a parliamentary majority in elections
to be held later this year. If such a "Japan first" nationalist
of Ishihara's stripe has a chance at the helm – something
that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago
– it will have much to do with the political and
cultural atmosphere created by the resurgent Japanese
Right.
A
PROPHECY FULFILLED
This
resurgence is dramatically displayed in Merdeka,
the story of a heroic Japanese officer devoted to the
independence of the Indonesian people, and which the Times
reluctantly concedes is "based on fact." When Japan took
Java, in the first weeks of 1942, Indonesians danced in
the streets, welcoming the Japanese army as the fulfillment
of a prophecy made by a twelfth-century Javanese king.
King Jayabaya foretold the day when white men would one
day establish their rule on Java and tyrannize the people
for many years – but they would be driven out by
the arrival of yellow men from the north. These yellow
men, Jayabaya predicted, would remain for one crop cycle,
and after that Java would be freed from foreign domination.
To most of the Javanese, Japan was a liberator: the prophecy
had been fulfilled. The Japanese not only freed Indonesian
nationalists from Dutch dungeons, but hired them on as
civil servants and administrators. In the waning days
of 1944, however, it was clear that Japan could not win
the war. The Japanese officially granted Indonesia its
independence on August 9, 1945, and the commander of Japan's
southeast Asian forces appointed future President Sukarno
as chairman of the preparatory committee for Indonesian
independence. As
one account of Indonesian history puts it, "With the
minor exception that three crops had been harvested, Jayabaya's
prophecy had been realized."
THE
EMPEROR SPEAKS
A
week later, Japan surrendered to the Allies. The British,
and the Dutch, moved to retake their "rightful" possessions
in Southeast Asia. Japanese forces had been recalled to
defend the homeland, but a few were determined to carry
out the pledge of honor made by their government, and
in a final heroic gesture of solidarity for their Asian
brothers, they stayed behind, and fought for Indonesian
independence against the West. Merdeka is their
story, and it naturally enrages the Times of London,
which somehow fails to mention British assistance to the
Dutch in this battle. Released by a major studio, and
starring popular actors, the movie opens with a statement
emblazoned on the screen: "The Greater East Asian War
was fought in self-defense." So said the Emperor Hirohito
in his 1941 declaration of war against the Allied powers,
as the noose around Japan's neck was tightening, and truer
words were never spoken.
DAY
OF DECEIT
A
series of embargoes had been declared by the Western powers,
as a protest against "Japanese imperialism" – this
from the same gang that had carved up China and feasted
on Southeast Asia! By imposing an oil embargo, a steel
embargo, and a rubber embargo, the US and Britain were
choking Hirohito's country to death: the first act of
war was not Pearl Harbor, but the crippling economic sanctions
that threatened to destroy Japan. As Charles
Callan Tansill's monumental history of prewar American-Japanese
diplomatic relations, Back Door to War, conclusively
proved – and later historians approvingly noted –
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was determined to maneuver the
Japanese into striking the first blow, and struggled mightily
to achieve that aim. As
Robert Stinnett shows, more recently, in Day
of Deceit, the President knew all about the impending
Japanese attack: a comprehensive plan existed to get us
into a shooting war with Japan, and, when they were finally
driven to it, we knew when and where in advance: the US,
it turns out, had deciphered the Japanese code, and intercepted
messages detailing the Pearl Harbor "sneak attack" were
decoded. The President had to have known about
it. If this book hasn't been translated into Japanese
yet, then it ought to be: a paperback edition in English
is coming out in May, and you can pre-order by following
the last link. I would highly recommend it, for it gives
a more realistic account of the origins of the Pacific
war than we are used to – and gives the reader the
background to understand the subsequent fate of the region.
TEXTBOOK
BATTLE
The
spirit that animates Merdeka extends even to the
Japanese educational system, where new textbooks have
been approved by the Ministry of Education that, for the
first time, expunge the myth of Japanese war guilt from
history books – over bitter protests from the two
Koreas and China, who vehemently demand that Japan must
kowtow forever for its alleged "war crimes." So far, at
least, the Japanese have refused to back down, and the
group of nationalist scholars who champion the new textbooks
have indignantly denounced such demands as intolerable
interference in Japan's internal affairs. As an indication
that popular opinion in Japan on this issue is undergoing
a transformation, there is the popularity of the graphic
novels of Yoshinori
Kobayashi, a well-known cartoonist, which debunk the
mythology of Japan's sole responsibility for the war:
he is popular especially among the youth. The new generation,
faced with the looming threat of China, and the unbridled
arrogance of the US, is likely to choose a third path:
the path of independence.
ACCIDENT
PRONE
The
Bush administration is widely believed to be tilting toward
giving Japan a much wider berth when it comes to providing
for its own defense, yet the signals from Washington are
hardly encouraging. The decision not to court-martial
the commander of the Greeneville is even more shocking
to the Japanese than the original incident, and will poison
relations between the two nations for some time to come.
Isn't it odd how yet another "accident," the "bumping"
of the US spy plane over the South China Sea, has defined
America's relations with a major Eastasian power in the
Bush era: it seems as if America is on a collision course
not only with China, but with virtually every country
in the region, Japan and the two Koreas included. It is
the curious case of the "accident"-prone superpower, that
trips over its own feet even as it tries to dominate the
world stage. A more pathetic – and more dangerous
– clumsiness would be hard to imagine.
WHO
LOST CHINA?
During
the 1930's, the Japanese proclaimed their intention to
create a "co-prosperity sphere" extending from Manchuko
(Manchuria) in the north, to Indonesia in the south: together,
the Asian peoples, led by Tokyo, would throw out the Western
colonialists. Asia for the Asians! In the US, however,
sympathy for the Chinese "freedom-fighters" of the Kuomintang
was obligatory among fashionable leftists, whose sympathies
were with the Chinese Communist Party (then allied with
Chiang Kai Shek's Nationalists in a single organization.)
The Communist Party in this country launched a very successful
campaign of solidarity with China, and support for the
boycott of Japanese goods and the embargo. The US State
Department, heavily infiltrated by Communists – including
FDR's top advisor, Harry Hopkins – then dumped the
Nationalists, and suddenly everyone was asking "Who lost
China?"
RETROSPECT
AND PROSPECT
In
retrospect, if we hadn't sided with the Communists and
their allies at every opportunity, and hadn't reflexively
opposed the Japanese, then perhaps China might not loom
quite so large on the world stage as it does today. These
days, a Japanese "co-prosperity sphere" in the region
doesn't sound like such a bad idea. But it can never happen
until and unless two events occur: 1) The US ends the
military occupation of Japan, dismantles its military
bases, and withdraws all its forces from Japanese territory,
and 2) The Japanese Constitution – written in poor
Japanese by Americans – must be changed to abolish
the section forbidding Japan from having a proper army.
This has been incrementally violated over the years, and
it is time to get rid of it altogether.
THE
COMING CRISIS
Whether
Japan can find the right leadership to lead it out of
its economic, political, and cultural dead-end is not
for me to say. The great problem besetting the country
is economic, which, as
the economist Jeffrey Herbener points out, is a perfect
illustration of the Austrian theory of the trade cycle
and the problems created by bank credit expansion. Whether
the resurgent Japanese Right can combine the principles
of economic liberalism with a foreign policy that puts
Japan first could prove as problematic as in the case
of American and European nationalists, neither of whom
shows any signs of understanding basic economic principles.
In Japan, however, where the villains of the Austrian
theory – the banks – are clearly exposed in
their villainy, there is a unique opportunity. The bad
loans wracked up by Japan's investment bankers, encouraged
and subsidized by Japan's central bank, are at last coming
due, and in spite of all efforts to stave off the economic
crisis, the moment of truth – that is, the moment
of extreme deflation – is about to arrive. What happens
then, politically and culturally, in Japan, is anyone's
guess, but my guess is that Washington isn't going to
like it.
|
