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The complicated US-Japan relationship
The US-Japan alliance is complex. But among other priorities, to rein in China, both countries need each other.
If you know anything about Rahm Emanuel, it's that speaking diplomatically may not be his forte. And yet, his current post demands it. The former White House chief of staff (called, in his day, a "pitbull") and the polarizing mayor of Chicago now serves as the US ambassador to Japan, one of the US' closest allies. Ian Bremmer was in Tokyo for an exclusive interview with Emanuel. And though the ambassador did his best to remain "diplomatic," there were flashes of the "pitbull" as well.
In a wide-ranging interview, the Ambassador discusses Japan's critical role as a key US ally in the Asia-Pacific and a bulwark against an ever-expanding China. Emanuel also discusses a recent trilateral meeting between the US, Japan, and South Korea at the Camp David presidential compound and the significance of these alliances in countering aggression and promoting diplomacy. Perhaps he is most wary of drifting out of his lane when commenting on wars in the Middle East and Europe. But he does touch on the polarization of the Israel-Palestine issue and the need for a moral grounding in addressing the conflict.
Watch GZERO World with Ian Bremmer every week on US public television (check local listings) and at gzeromedia.com/gzeroworld.
Podcast: Unpacking the complicated US-Japan relationship with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
Ian Bremmer is in Tokyo, Japan, to check in on America’s “pivot to Asia.” How’s that going? Given that neither Ukraine nor Israel is located in the Asia Pacific, it is not so great!
In 2011, then-President Obama announced on a trip to Australia that US foreign policy would be shifting its focus away from costly wars in the Middle East and towards strengthening partnerships in the Asia-Pacific to curb a rising China. Twelve years later, we’re still pivoting. But if we ever do get there, we will have to take Japan, one of our closest regional allies, along with us. To talk about US-Japan relations, as well as a whole host of sticky policy issues, foreign and domestic, Ian is joined by US Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel. Ian will also get his take on the Israel-Hamas war and the fighting in Ukraine.
Ian Explains: How is America's "Pivot to Asia" playing out?
Why can't the US seem to focus on the Asia-Pacific region instead of the Middle East?
In November 2011, President Barack Obama laid out his vision for America’s expanded role in the Asia-Pacific region, which soon became known as the "pivot to Asia.” American foreign policy, Obama announced, would be shifting its focus away from costly wars in the Middle East and towards strengthening partnerships in the Asia-Pacific to curb a rising China. In short, America’s 21st-century foreign policy would be pointed firmly to the East.
Fast-forward to 2023, and America’s “Pivot to Asia” is a little more complicated. The Israel-Hamas conflict, which could quite easily spiral into a larger regional war with the US and Iran, is only the latest example. And though not in the Middle East, the war in Ukraine remains one of the biggest and most expensive US foreign policy priorities. This is not, in short, the 21st-century foreign policy vision that President Obama had in mind.
And yet, if you talk to any American national security official, they’ll tell you that China’s rise remains Washington’s main national security challenge – after all, America’s biggest global rival is also one of its largest trade partners. That’s just one of the many reasons that President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping met at the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Forum in San Francisco last month.
If the US is ever going to fully “pivot to Asia,” they must bring Japan along for the ride.
So, will 2024 be the year that the United States government makes good on decade-old pivot-to-Asia promise?
Watch the upcoming episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer on US public television (check local listings) and at gzeromedia.com/gzeroworld.
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The pivot to nowhere?
Washington announced its “pivot to Asia” 10 years ago, believing that the future of international politics would be defined there. But a perpetual game of whack-a-mole, exemplified most recently in Ukraine, has occupied US foreign policy, making it impossible to “course correct” and counter China’s influence.
Much like Michael Corleone’s efforts to get out of the family business, only to get pulled back in, Washington’s been immersed in its own unsettled affairs rooted in the war on terror (Afghanistan), Donald Trump’s “America First” approach (Iran nuclear negotiations), and the residue of the Cold War (Russia vs Ukraine). These crises have diverted attention and resources away from a China-centric pivot to Asia. However, the war in Ukraine has highlighted America’s need to establish greater leverage over Beijing more than ever.
Step one? Ensuring China’s “no limits” friendship with Russia is, in fact, limited. Sadly, Friday’s meeting between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping – the first contact between the two most powerful men in the world since the war began – didn’t go as well as some suggested. Instead, Biden, who was expected to go in with guns hot amid reports that China was considering a request for military support from Putin “detailed what the implications and consequences would be if China provides material support to Russia,” said White House Press Sec. Jen Psaki.
But no breakthroughs were announced, and while China’s readout said it “stands for peace and opposes war,” it notably did not condemn Putin, and instead referred to abstract Chinese expressions: “He who tied the bell to the tiger must take it off” and “it takes two hands to clap,” suggesting that the US and NATO must deal directly with Russia.
Is Beijing’s deliberate fence-sitting over Russian aggression America’s fault? Washington sees China as its main challenger globally, yet the US has “taken itself off the playing field by receding from its traditional role as writer of rules and setter of standards,” says Evan A. Feigenbaum, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Two examples are the main trade agreements covering the Indo-Pacific region, the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. Neither includes India, the sixth-largest economy in the world and obvious “Indo” power, nor the US, the world’s largest economy and a self-declared “Pacific power.” In fact, the US opted out of RCEP negotiations and withdrew from the TPP in 2017.
So Feigenbaum believes Washington “has handicapped its own ‘rebalance’ to Asia by ceding the rule and standard-setting space not necessarily to Beijing but to a broader set of pan-Asian players.”
Those players include South Korea, with the recent return of conservative leadership that’s less deferential to China; the possible end of nuclear-armed Pakistan’s pro-Beijing (and newly pro-Moscow) government; and India, Washington’s beloved Quad partner, but one that is also fence-sitting on Russian aggression. These developments in the Indo-Pacific (and the upcoming Philippine election, which will sway Manila’s China policy) should be grabbing Washington’s attention.
But with a war in Europe, the Biden administration has even less room for leadership in Asia, which means these third parties listed above become even more important. “Because the United States will not have the luxury of simply focusing on China and the Indo-Pacific alone, this will put an even greater premium on coalitional strategies and third players in Asia,” Feigenbaum explains.
Despite the unpredictable challenges of a whack-a-mole foreign policy, the US may already be making progress in the coalition-building department. “It’s impossible to ignore cataclysmic global events,” says Sameer Lalwani, a senior fellow in Asia Strategy at the Stimson Center. “The Biden administration has carefully demonstrated leadership – whether on Afghanistan or Ukraine – while avoiding getting sucked into a new conflict that could distract its focus from China.”
Lalwani believes work is progressing on the Asia pivot. “The Biden administration seems plenty focused on the Indo-Pacific,” he says, “but that’s not going to look like bombastic summitry or Beijing suddenly bending at the knee.” Instead, it’ll be largely invisible but a “steady methodical process of regularly showing up in the region, rebuilding alliances, distributing vaccines, and enhancing and pooling each other's capabilities.”
A year into Biden’s maneuverings in the Indo-Pacific, the record shows some hits and misses. There’s the Quad, a security arrangement between the US, Japan, India and Australia, which shies away from declaring itself an alliance primarily because of India’s concerns for its strategic autonomy. There’s AUKUS, the security pact between Washington, London and Canberra, which has hit a nerve in Beijing, but it's only geared towards building up the Indo-Pacific’s frontlines against China through robust defense and deterrence.
In Ukraine, Washington has proven it can still assume a strong leadership role as needed. It beat the drum about a Russian invasion for months and led a unified allied response, which has led to crippling sanctions and a stronger NATO. “On display in Ukraine is the power of American training, military assistance, and the crushing power of financial sanctions when the US and its European and Asian allies act in lockstep,” says Lalwani. “The techno-democratic coalition the Biden administration has steadily built to implement significant export controls on Russia can now also be deployed for future challenges”
The lessons learned from Ukraine, he believes, “will have benefits far beyond European security.”
There won’t be a perfect moment for it, but the pivot to Asia must prevail. The Middle East will continue to fester. Europe will need help with the fallout from this war. But the largest challenge, China, will prove to be the most pervasive and persistent. Thus, the “strategic” bit of the pivot – public diplomacy, coalition building, defense transfers, trade regimes, technology sharing, military basing — will have to be imagined, calibrated and executed, but only if patience and perseverance is displayed in this and future administrations.
Did the War on Terror make the US safer?
For former US Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), 20 years after 9/11 the War on Terror has made the US and the world safer in some ways, but less safe in others. She shares her thoughts in an interview with Ian Bremmer, during which Harman also discusses why the US currently lacks a coherent national security strategy — and in fact hasn't had one since the end of the Cold War.