The US and Japan are engaged in the most far-reaching deliberations about their alliance since they revised their mutual security treaty in 1960 -- discussions that envision a greatly enhanced role for Japan in the common defense.
A revitalized US-Japan alliance is certain to draw objections from China, with which both the US and Japan have prickly relations, and from North Korea, which may have acquired nuclear arms and once threatened Japan and US forces in Asia with a "nuclear sea of fire."
The prospect of a stronger US-Japan alliance has alarmed South Korea, from which the US plans to withdraw one-third of its 37,000 troops there. Koreans complain that the US is reducing its commitment to South Korea in favor of expanded relations with Japan, which most Koreans still dislike even though Japan's harsh occupation of Korea ended 60 years ago.
These US-Japan negotiations didn't start with a fundamental revision of security relations in mind. Rather, they have evolved as the consequence of two separate but converging movements, one in the US, the other in Japan.
Under President George W. Bush, the US has begun a worldwide realignment of military forces to make them more flexible and effective in responding to contingencies. In Japan and Korea, that means eliminating outdated headquarters and consolidating operational controls into a new command arrangement in Japan.
Under Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, Japan is in the midst of a searching debate on security that has been illuminated by a commission headed by a prominent business executive, Hiroshi Araki of Tokyo Electric Power. The commission has called on Japan to forge an "integrated security strategy" through "strategic consultations" with the US.
American officials said that, once they started talking with the Japanese about US deployments in Asia, it became apparent that both governments needed to agree on a "strategic context" before deciding on headquarters, troop dispositions and base issues.
The architect of the realignment, Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith, calls the prospective changes a "combined transformation." In Tokyo to continue the negotiations, he told reporters, "we are going to have increased capability to work with Japan on security concerns that directly relate to Japan," whether in Asia or elsewhere.
closer ties
Among US military leaders, an advocate of closer US-Japan security coordination is Lieutenant General Wallace Gregson, former commander of US Marine forces in Japan and now commander of all Marine forces in the Pacific. He has spent more time posted in Japan than many top US officers.
In response to a query, Gregson noted: "I have advocated in the past greater combined training for our forces, combined operations where appropriate, and even combined basing."
At his headquarters in Hawaii, he said: "I think we're on the first step of a period of unprecedented cooperation and collaboration between our two nations."
Feith, the Pentagon's number three official, said a US objective in repositioning forces was to make contingency plans more timely. Moving the Army's First Corps headquarters from the state of Washington to Camp Zama, southwest of Tokyo, would put it in the region in which it would operate.
The US already has the Third Marine Expeditionary Force headquarters in Okinawa, will consolidate an aviation command at the Fifth Air Force in Yokota, west of Tokyo, and has the Seventh Fleet headquarters in Yokosuka, south of Tokyo. Having those commands relatively close to one another is intended to improve joint war planning and operations.
Asked about South Korean anxieties, Feith said: "They are not being neglected."
US forces remaining in South Korea will not only help to defend South Korea but will be available for contingencies elsewhere. Feith asserted that having American troops locked into any country in which they are based "just doesn't make any sense."
"The American people cannot afford separate armies, separate armed forces for South Korea, for Japan, and for every other country where we might be located," he contended. Other officials said, however, that dismantling the command structure in Seoul set up during the Korean War would be delayed to assuage Korean fears.
Whether the US-Japan discussions would result in a new document was not clear even though the Araki commission recommended that Japan and the US devise a fresh "Joint Declaration on Security" and revise defense guidelines drawn up in 1997.
Feith said that had not been decided. He said the US-Japan security treaty "provides a reasonable degree of flexibility the way well-written treaties tend to do."
Even so, he left open the possibility that it could be reinterpreted or revised.
A series of strong earthquakes in Hualien County not only caused severe damage in Taiwan, but also revealed that China’s power has permeated everywhere. A Taiwanese woman posted on the Internet that she found clips of the earthquake — which were recorded by the security camera in her home — on the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu. It is spine-chilling that the problem might be because the security camera was manufactured in China. China has widely collected information, infringed upon public privacy and raised information security threats through various social media platforms, as well as telecommunication and security equipment. Several former TikTok employees revealed
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
At the same time as more than 30 military aircraft were detected near Taiwan — one of the highest daily incursions this year — with some flying as close as 37 nautical miles (69kms) from the northern city of Keelung, China announced a limited and selected relaxation of restrictions on Taiwanese agricultural exports and tourism, upon receiving a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) delegation led by KMT legislative caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅崑萁). This demonstrates the two-faced gimmick of China’s “united front” strategy. Despite the strongest earthquake to hit the nation in 25 years striking Hualien on April 3, which caused
In the 2022 book Danger Zone: The Coming Conflict with China, academics Hal Brands and Michael Beckley warned, against conventional wisdom, that it was not a rising China that the US and its allies had to fear, but a declining China. This is because “peaking powers” — nations at the peak of their relative power and staring over the precipice of decline — are particularly dangerous, as they might believe they only have a narrow window of opportunity to grab what they can before decline sets in, they said. The tailwinds that propelled China’s spectacular economic rise over the past