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Tom Engelhardt's latest www.tomdispatch.com newsletter contains an article by Australian scholar Gavan McCormack describing how Japan has had a larger role than most realize in enabling the new neo-con inspired US foreign policy. McCormack makes the point that because of Japanese fears of a possible military confrontation between Japan and North Korea and their reliance on the US to come to their aid in such a confrontation, the current Japanese PM believes he has no choice but to ask, "How high?" when the Bush gang says jump.
As the US economy strains under the weight of the chronic deficits and growing burden of administering its global empire, Tokyo's aid grows in importance. Since the end of the Cold War, Japan has contributed a staggering sum in subsidies for imperial America, including more than $70 billion in "support costs" for the American bases in Japan (especially on the island of Okinawa) and another $90 billion in post September 11 "rear support" for the anti-terror coalition.
When Washington demanded additional "billions" for rebuilding Iraq, Koizumi promised $5 billion, far in excess of the amounts pledged by any other ally. Under ever greater pressure from Washington the Japanese government indicated its readiness to forego the recovery of a large part of the vast debt, somewhere between $3 billion and $7 billion, owed it by the government of Iraq.
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The American pressures are relentless. Proconsuls from Washington regularly fly into Tokyo with new instructions. Japan is called upon (in the words of the "Armitage Report" of October 2000) to revise its constitution, to expand its defense horizon in order to support "coalition" operations as a fully-fledged NATO-style partner, and to become the "Britain of the Far East." While the relationship is conventionally represented simply as one of U.S. "protection" for Japan, from Washington's perspective the emphasis is actually somewhat different. For the Bush administration, what remains fundamental and vital is that Japan "continue to rely on US protection." Any attempt to substitute for that "protection" an entente with China and a degree of independence would, in the words of a RAND corporation report, "deal a fatal blow to U.S. political and military influence in East Asia." The thought that Japan might one day begin to "walk its own walk," intent on becoming not the Britain but the Japan of the Far East is an inside-the-Beltway nightmare comparable to, if not worse than, the assaults of September 11.
If, for the time being, Japan has indeed become a "player" in the American game, there can be no mistaking who the captain and coach of the team is, and no doubting the deadly seriousness of the game. Asked about Japan's position as war with Iraq loomed in February 2003, the head of the LDP's Policy Research Council, Kyuma Fumio, said, "I think has no choice. After all, it is like an American state." Sooner or later, Koizumi and his government must understand that a price will have to be paid for their commitments. Armitage made that quite clear, though in terms of Australia not Japan, back in September 2001. Speaking to an Australian audience, he suggested that what he meant by "alliance" was a relationship in which "Australian sons and daughters … would be willing to die to help defend the United States. That's what an alliance means." Armitage, or for that matter Koizumi, has yet to spell out a Japanese version of that bottom line. But after the boots and the billions, will certainly come the calls for blood.
www.nationinstitute.org/tomdispatch/index.mhtml?pid=1322
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