Japan and the United States: Ending the Unequal Partnership
The end of the Cold War also marks the end of a US-Japanese relationship in which the USA was the senior and Japan the junior partner. The political and economic dynamics of the two countries require a new definition of shared interests between equals. For the USA, this will require a clearer recognition that Japan has paid its debts and earned its parity. For the Japanese, it will require them to "remember two unpleasant and rarely voiced truths: they remain generally unpopular overseas, and the United States is still Japan's best friend, and perhaps at times its only friend".
Richard Holbrooke, former Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, is a managing director of Lehman Brothers. The views in this article are the author's alone.
Anniversaries sometimes impose their own almost arbitrary logic on events. Nowhere has this been more apparent than in the massive attention being paid in the United States to the fiftieth anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The television programs, articles and ceremonies-with the president himself presiding over one of them-have caused alarm among many Japanese, who fear that memories of that infamous day and the world war that followed will fuel anti-Japanese sentiment.
The anniversary itself will quickly pass. But serious strains between Japan and the United States will remain long after December 7, 1991, and they are likely to increase. What has been called America's most important single foreign relationship, one central to regional peace and global prosperity, has lately turned unhealthy and even nasty. While far from a breaking point, the U.S.-Japanese relationship is increasingly filled with friction, resentment and mutual recrimination.
For two decades nearly every study of this bilateral relationship has concluded that, as the two greatest economic powers in the world, Japan and the United States have a special responsibility to work together to address the planet's most pressing problems, with each nation taking the lead in specified areas. In pursuit of this goal President George Bush and former Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu talked frequently of a "global partnership" to deal with the world's problems, and the two governments have created numerous task forces and commissions to address these issues.
The effort to reduce some of the specific difficulties has made progress. The trade deficit between the two nations is decreasing. American exports to Japan have doubled in the last five years-in fact, American exports to Japan are almost as large as those to the United Kingdom, Germany and France combined. And Japan has already taken major steps toward accepting its responsibility to do more to help the rest of the world. Over the last three years, for example, the Japanese have been the biggest donor of aid to the Third World, supplying an impressive 22 percent of all funds flowing to developing countries in 1989 (although they have been criticized for making loans instead of grants, and imposing stiffer repayment terms than other nations).
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The most important bilateral relationship in the world today is that between the United States and Japan. It was only 44 years ago that our two countries were at war. In the short span of time since 1945 we have constructed an enormously complex relationship that touches all aspects of both societies and much of international human endeavor. The victor and vanquished of World War II have become the cornerstones of the international economic system, together producing almost 40 percent of the world's GNP. That all this has been accomplished in only four decades helps to explain why we find that there are still details to work out in managing this critical relationship.
As economic crisis plunges Asia into chaos, old wounds may reopen. The continent still fears Japan, thanks to its World War II brutalities. By refusing to apologize, Tokyo only makes matters worse. A power vacuum results: an unrepentant Japan will never be allowed to lead a suspicious Asia. Instead, flash points may ignite, and East Asia and even America could be dragged into a war. To defuse tensions, America must push its ally to show remorse and Japan must pay its World War II debts. In turn, China and Korea -- age-old enemies of Japan -- must learn to look forward, not back.
Japan faces its biggest foreign policy challenges since World War II. Its leaders must snap out of their deep funk to confront a rising China, a nuclear South Asia, a United States increasingly prone to Japan-bashing, and a world in economic free fall. Instead of sulking over the growing closeness of U.S.-China ties, Tokyo should take the initiative and propose trilateral dialogues with Beijing and Washington on a range of issues, especially Asian security, nuclear disarmament, and macroeconomic policy. Japan's pessimism threatens the world's prosperity. If Tokyo stays on the sidelines, the world will pass it by.

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