Iraq and Afghanistan

Today's paper describes a process of reorientation in Japanese strategic thinking. For many years Japan has seen itself as a junior and most pacific (no pun) partner of the United States in world affairs. Later, with the Japanese "miracle" that made it the second power economically in the world, Japan began to assert itself more. But this assertion took the form of seeing itself as an Asian power that could develop a more many-sided relationship with the world. This meant in the first place better relations with China. However, within a few years the Japanese leaders began to realize that China would soon pass them up, becoming the dominant power in Asia if not the world. Admiration of China began to change to fear of China (except for the business class that often sees things only in terms of a corporate pocketbook). The Japanese have also begun to resent the fact that the Chinese government continues to support, even perhaps instigate, Japan-bashing whenever sports teams or other peaceful missions visit China. The Japanese feel it is past time for the Chinese to still treat them as their WWII enemy.

So Japan has apparently decided to revivify their military and diplomatic relationships with the United States. Coincidentally, there is a strange pro-Korean cultural movement in Japan. Taken together, we may be able to glimpse the outlines of a new set of alliances forged by the rapid rise of China economically. One can hope that in coming out of its isolation Japan will also develop stronger ties with Russia and India ("the enemy of my enemy is my friend").

The problem for the world is a serious one. China represents a fourth of the world. It is growing at a great rate, but growing without the democratic, human rights, or environmental disciplines that have been incorporated into the development process elsewhere (yes, even in the United States). As it stands, China is the one country the United States does not have a clue as to how it will contain in the 21st century. Experts can talk all they want of "deterrence", but I suspect the Chinese have more usable deterrence now than we have — and ABM is not going to change that equation much.

Against the major threat of the USSR, we used NATO, an alliance of advanced states that taken together made our power seem much more credible. If not an explicit alliance, we will need something like NATO, perhaps based on Japan, in the environs of China. In this kind of environment, China can more acceptable grow and meld into an international system of states responding to similar economic and popular trends. Without such an environment, its leaders are likely to become too obsessed with their own power, provoking in turn obsessions in other states with the danger of China, an interplay of reactions that could have disastrous consequences for all.