The Japan Times Tuesday, May 31, 2016 9

opinion

donald Trump, the presumptive Repub-lican nominee in the united states pres-idential election, has repeatedly attacked Japan. Trump’s “Japan bash-ing” centers upon two main points.

The first is that Japan is profiting unfairly by using the weak yen as a weapon with which to ravage the u.s. market. On a related note, Trump has made a full-on attack of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, describing the free trade agreement as “a mortal threat to american manufacturing.”

Trump has also attacked Japan’s “free ride” under the u.s.-Japan security alli-ance. Trump says it is strange that the u.s. is obligated to come to Japan’s aid if Japan comes under attack from a third country, while Japan bears no such responsibility toward the u.s.

Trump’s words are a vivid reminder of the anti-Japan attacks spewed forth by american critics during Japan’s ascent as an economic powerhouse in the 1980s: theories regarding Japan’s “free ride” on defense and Japan’s essentially “alien” character.

Meanwhile, a small “Trump boom” is bubbling up in China, where Chinese bloggers appear to be deriving some sat-isfaction from Trump’s iconoclastic attacks on the american ruling class.

The university of Macao’s dingding Chen identifies two factors behind Trump’s popularity in China. First, it may reflect the desire of many Chinese for a similar figure, willing to take on the Chinese Communist Party leadership, to emerge in their own country. second, Trump’s Japan-bashing could weaken the u.s.-Japan alliance, thereby clearing the way for a more expansive u.s.-China relationship.

Many within the Republican Party have made rebuttals to Trump’s remarks regarding Japan’s “free riding:” “every year Japan allocates enormous sums to maintain u.s. military bases in Japan. Japan’s contribution is roughly equiva-lent to our annual budget for maintain-ing domestic bases,” says one. another contends, “Trump’s complaint that

Japan should pay us more for protection is really no different from the old Chi-nese tribute system.” Nevertheless, Trump’s passion for protectionism and his isolationist stance have captured the hearts of many americans.

as was the case in both world wars, the twin urges toward protectionism and isolationism emerge whenever the world economy stagnates, the interna-tional order breaks down, and domestic politics fissure. In the case of the u.s., this dual phenomenon also reflects the deep scars left by the Iraq War and the Lehman shock.

The administration of President Barack Obama sees the conclusion of the TPP agreement as a major achieve-ment of his presidency. The administra-tion has also made clear that it will adhere to the alliance with Japan and fulfill its obligations to defend the dis-puted senkaku islands, which are under the administration of Japan. On these two points, Obama differs from Trump.

However, Obama has maintained his cautious position of “leading from behind” when it comes to u.s. involve-ment in the Middle east, and declared that the u.s. will not act as the “world’s policeman.” Obama sees the world as “a tough, complicated, messy, mean place, and full of hardship and tragedy” (as he said in March in an interview for The atlantic). It is no wonder that americans would prefer to turn their backs on the outside world when their president repeatedly discusses his world view in such terms. Moreover, Obama has expressed his dissatisfaction with mea-ger British and French contributions to security efforts in the Middle east and europe, and has criticized Britain and France for “free riding.” On this point, the positions of Obama and Trump are quite similar.

Behind the “Trump phenomenon” is the general public’s deep distrust of the elite, which borders on hatred. In the eyes of the masses, the elite are not only corrupt, but incompetent. They are not only economic “winners” with preten-sions to a special, exclusive existence, but they look down upon the rest as “losers.” The Trump movement is one of destruction, fueled by these feelings of loss and alienation. It is also a form of american irredentism, which seeks to

restore the “real” america of the past.With the end of the Cold War, euro-

pean and american elites may have become careless in their treatment of the masses. This had been impossible during the Cold War period, as it would have run the risk of losing the common people to the forces of socialism. elites were thus forced to demonstrate respect and humility before the general public.

In the post-Cold War era of globaliza-tion, however, the new global elite may have lost this healthy form of self-restraint as they exult in their moment of triumph.

In the u.s., the Trump phenomenon threatens to weaken the domestic politi-cal base supporting the open, liberal and cooperative international order, which is rooted in a “free, non-discrimi-natory, multilateral” trade structure and the principle of “freedom of navigation.”

This will prove to be a serious chal-lenge for Japan, and for the Japan-u.s. alliance. In modern times, Japan has always prospered under the conditions of a liberal and cooperative interna-tional order.

This was true of the first two decades of the 20th century, during the anglo-Japanese alliance, and in the postwar era, under the Japan-u.s. security alli-ance. as a trading state and maritime nation, Japan has historically been most powerful — and successful in maintain-ing peaceful and stable diplomatic rela-tions — when it has deepened its ties of interdependence and expanded activi-ties in the outside world.

The enormous changes to the ameri-can political landscape have come just as this structure is being threatened by China’s “asian Monroe doctrine” and the Chinese offensive to gain control of the south China sea. even if Hillary Clinton, the leading democratic candi-date, ultimately wins the presidential race, her victory may nevertheless prompt a reconsideration of both the u.s. policy of a rebalance to the asia-Pacific and its TPP trade strategy.

Yoichi Funabashi is chairman of the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation and former editor-in-chief of the Asahi Shimbun. This is a translation of his column in the monthly Bungei Shunju.

Trump’s Japan-bashing and the security alliance

J.D. BindenagelWashington The GloBalisT

The domestic political disquiet over the refugees since the March 13 state elec-tions in Germany has not subsided. On the contrary, the debate about German identity and the chancellor’s gover-nance has grown more intense.

Chancellor angela Merkel has upset Germany’s european partners. They are wary of her curious mixture of profound ethics paired with determined self-assurance and high-handed decision making. It is increasingly hard to trust these decisions on faith alone.

In europe, Merkel’s Germany is seen as a rising power that needs to be tied down. Her defense of German euro pol-icy — “If the euro fails, europe fails” — is echoed in the demand for all eu countries to accept refugees.

at home, her administration is increasingly seen as opaque and closed. The dangerous fuse between these two dimensions is that her own party — not only her political base, which has long admired her steady hand, is now openly questioning her leadership and sense of realism, if not truthfulness.

somber recollections of earlier single-minded decisions for which Merkel bet on public acceptance of her wisdom begin piling up, such as when she announced the end of the military draft and an accelerated end to nuclear energy generation in Germany, after the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

The final straw that has led to this emerging break among her domestic supporters and her government is the debate over the flood of refugees from syria. It has become a political as well as constitutional crisis.

explaining the backlash is not easy. Few alternatives to her leadership are being discussed. Nevertheless, the con-versations I have had suggest their hope that the chancellor be promoted to u.N.

secretary-general to make way for a suc-cessor. One even suggested starting a website to promote the idea, but I have not seen it yet.

Germany must soon show results from initiatives to stop refugees before they arrive in europe. despite Germa-ny’s “checkbook” diplomacy in the european union with Turkey, its geo-economic strategy is found wanting in today’s myriad security crises.

That Germany can keep the refugees from europe is the truly gigantic bet Merkel has been making. Whatever the outcome, the civil war in syria and the refugees it creates will continue for years.

as the united states seeks to restore the lost art of economic statecraft, as Robert Blackwell and Jennifer Harris argue in the most recent Foreign affairs, Berlin is beefing up the German Federal defense Forces (Bundeswehr) to deploy to the Baltic states after supplying arms to the Pershmerga fighting the Islamic state group.

Germany supplied the third largest military deployment in afghanistan for a decade.

Germany’s role as a “shaping power” (Gestaltungsmacht) through economic networks has been a successful German goal in the eu and is applied to others, notably China.

steve szabo advances the argument that German firms shape geopolitical interests and strategic culture, but that the ukraine crisis opens the question of the return of geopolitical power, which Germany will have to exercise.

While for decades Germany has been seen as an economic giant and a politi-cal midget, these assessments have long been overtaken by Germany after unifi-cation.

yes, the aversion for military power and rejection that security policy could be used to promote economic interests was emphasized by the resignation of President Horst Kohler after he asserted

that role for the Bundeswehr.German reluctance to play a leading

role in european politics has ended as the nation’s leaders search for a more assertive, but responsible foreign policy.

The debate over German decisions to send the Bundeswehr into combat in afghanistan and support for the Pesh-merga in Iraq as well as increasing Bundeswehr deployments in the Baltics shifted German political attention toward geopolitics.

German politics and decision-making are a confusing mash-up of national pri-orities, historical burdens about debt, war, and legal imperatives and moral principles.

However, it is the debate over German identity — and whether it may be euro-pean — that has contributed to the frag-mentation of politics. German identity is ethical, not ethnic.

That proposition is being tested by the rise of populism in Germany that joins other parties in europe and in the u.s.

Merkel seeks to keep Germany embedded in the rule of law that has prevailed for more than six decades, buttressing by a reawakened constitu-tional identity for all Germans after uni-fication in 1990.

The constitution and Federal Consti-tutional Court have become active agents in German politics as the country debates more resolute steps to preserve and help shape the order based on the european union, NaTO and the united Nations.

The internal eu and German domes-tic debates are testing Merkel’s leader-ship as never before in the Federal Republic.

Retired U.S. career diplomat J.D. Bindenagel is a former U.S. ambassador and Henry Kissinger Professor for Governance and International Security at the University of Bonn. © The Globalist 2016

Is Chancellor angela Merkel on the brink?

Washington

donald Trump is headed toward the Republican Party’s presidential nomina-tion. He’s among the most pugnacious of candidates. Many of his political bat-tles could reduce his chance of getting elected president. But his fight with for-eign policy professionals might help. Given the disastrous course of u.s. for-eign policy in recent years, there’s little public support for more military adven-turism in the Middle east.

Trump clearly is out-of-step with the neoconservatives and militaristic nationalists who dominated the Repub-lican Party of late.

One of Trump’s most important pledges addressed personnel, not pol-icy. He declared: “My goal is to establish a foreign policy that will endure for sev-eral generations. That’s why I also look and have to look for talented experts with approaches and practical ideas, rather than surrounding myself with those who have perfect resumes but very little to brag about except responsi-bility for a long history of failed policies and continued losses at war. We have to look for new people.”

Trump may have been reacting against the open letter from 117 self-described members of “the Republican national security community,” including leading neoconservatives and right-leaning interventionists of other stripes. They denounced Trump as “fundamen-tally dishonest,” acting like “a racketeer,” being “hateful,” and having a vision that “is wildly inconsistent and unmoored in principle.”

Their critique contained some truth, but was fueled by Trump’s lack of enthu-siasm for new wars. In fact, a number of his GOP critics support Hillary Clinton, whose approach is largely indistinguish-able from that of George W. Bush.

Ironically, Clinton claims support of foreign leaders as an argument for her candidacy: “I’m having foreign leaders ask if they can endorse me to stop don-ald Trump.” But their backing reflects the fact that her interventionist policies serve the interests of other states far more than of america.

Indeed, subsidizing prosperous, pop-ulous allies and attempting to remake failed states provides little benefit to most americans, who do the dying and

paying. Clinton’s foreign support actu-ally reinforces Trump’s point: the need for an international policy that advances the interests of the american people.

Trump’s promise to ignore the usual foreign policy suspects also may reflect media coverage of some members of the very same policy elite publicly stating their willingness to serve Trump—though only reluctantly, of course. an unnamed GOP official told the Wash-ington Post: “Leaving any particular president completely alone and bereft from the best advice people could give him just doesn’t sound responsible.”

Of course, it’s all about advancing the national interest, and not gaining attrac-tive, influential, prestigious and career-enhancing jobs. No wonder Trump apparently sees no need for advice from such folks. author evan Thomas defended the “global corps of diplomats, worldly financiers and academics.” Thomas seemed to miss Trump’s point. Trump endorsed diplomacy, which would require the assistance of a variety of seasoned professionals. In fact, his policies would rely far more on negotia-tion than those of neoconservatives, who see war as a first resort.

Not needed, however, are such “advis-ers” with the reverse Midas Touch, whose counsel has proved to be uni-formly disastrous. Indeed, every recent intervention, such as Iraq, has created new problems, creating calls from the usual suspects for more military action.

Trump may be feeling especially dis-missive of those who never learn from their mistakes — like supporting the wars in Iraq and Libya, for instance. In august 2011, after the ouster of Moam-mar Gadhafi, anne-Marie slaughter cel-

ebrated the success in an article titled “Why Libya skeptics were proved badly wrong.” Once that country imploded and the Islamic state made an appear-ance, she dropped any discussion of who had been “proved badly wrong” by that conflict.

samantha Power later criticized the public for losing its faith in her strategy of constant war: “I think there is too much of, ‘Oh, look, this is what interven-tion has wrought’ … one has to be care-ful about overdrawing lessons.”

Of course, what she really sought was to avoid responsibility for supporting multiple foreign policy blunders. Con-sider what the Iraq invasion has wrought: thousands of american dead, bloody sectarian war, promiscuous sui-cide attacks, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed, trillions of dollars squan-dered, rise of the Islamic state, destruc-tion of the historic Christian community, dramatic increase in Ira-nian influence. No wonder Trump dis-claims any interest in listening to such people with such ideas.

There are many reasons to fear a Pres-ident Trump. However, he is right to dis-miss Washington’s interventionist foreign policy crowd. The resulting poli-cies would require the assistance of a variety of seasoned professionals, who have cost america and its allies precious lives, abundant wealth, international credibility and global influence. The next president should reject the same failed advisers with their same failed proposals.

Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute.

an isolationist Trump could save american lives

London

sixty-five years ago, what has become the european union was an embryo conceived in fear. It has been stealthily advanced from an economic to a politi-cal project, and it remains enveloped in a watery utopianism even as it becomes more dystopian. The eu’s economic stagnation — in some of the 28 member nations, youth unemployment approaches 50 percent — is exacerbated by its regulatory itch and the self-inflicted wound of the euro, a common currency for radically dissimilar nations. The eu is floundering amid mass migra-tion, the greatest threat to europe’s domestic tranquility since 1945.

The eu’s British enthusiasts, who actually are notably unenthusiastic, hope fear will move voters to affirm Brit-ain’s membership in this increasingly ramshackle and acrimonious associa-tion. a June 23 referendum will decide whether “Brexit” — Britain’s exit — occurs. americans should pay close attention because this debate concerns matters germane to their present and future.

The eu is the linear descendant of institution-building begun by people for whom european history seemed to be less Chartres and shakespeare than the somme and the Holocaust. after two world wars, or a 31-year war (1914-1945), european statesmen were terri-fied of europeans. under the leadership of two Frenchmen, Robert schuman and Jean Monnet, they created, in 1951, the european Coal and steel Commu-nity to put essential elements of indus-trial war under multinational control.

This begat, in 1957, the european eco-

nomic Community, aka the Common Market. Money, said emerson, is the prose of life. The eu is the culmination of a grand attempt to drain europe of grandeur, to make it permanently peaceful by making it prosaic — preoc-cupied and tranquilized by commerce. european unity has always been a sur-reptitious political project couched in economic categories.

Britain’s Remain side is timid and materialistic, saying little that is inspir-ing about remaining but much that is supposedly scary about leaving. The Leave campaign is salted with the revolt-against-elites spirit now ferment-ing in nations on both sides of the atlan-tic. The Remain camp relies heavily on dire predictions of economic wreckage that would follow Brexit — forecasts from the u.K. Treasury, the Interna-tional Monetary Fund, the Organization for economic Cooperation and devel-opment, etc. although none of these, in spring 2008, foresaw the crisis of autumn 2008, they now predict, with remarkable precision, economic dam-age to Britain’s economy, the world’s fifth largest, if it is detached from the stagnation of the eu. For example, the u.K. Treasury projects that Brexit would cost Britain 6.2 percent of GdP by 2030. This confirms the axiom that econo-mists prove their sense of humor by using decimal points.

Passion is disproportionately on the Leave side, which is why a low turnout will favor Brexit: Leavers are most likely to vote. Current polls show Remain slightly ahead, but Leave has a majority among persons over age 43, who also are most likely to vote.

The most conspicuous campaigner for Brexit is Boris Johnson, the two-term Conservative former mayor of London. He is an acquired taste, and some thoughtful people oppose Brexit because if it happens, Prime Minister david Cameron, who leads the Remain

campaign, might be replaced by John-son.

Johnson is frequently compared to donald Trump. Johnson, however, is educated (eton; an Oxford classics degree), intelligent, erudite (see his book on Roman europe), articulate and witty. (Johnson says the eu’s latest com-promise with Britain is “the biggest stitch up since the Bayeux Tapestry.” The British locution “stitch up” denotes something prearranged clandestinely.) so, Johnson’s only real resemblance to Trump, other than an odd mop of blond hair, is a penchant for flamboyant pro-nouncements, as when he said that Barack Obama opposes Brexit because Obama’s Kenyan background somehow disposes him against Britain. actually, Obama likes the european union’s approximation of american progres-sives’ aspirations. These include unac-countable administrators issuing diktats, and what one eu critic calls “trickle-down postmodernism” — the erasure of national traditions and other impediments to “harmonizing” homog-enized nations for the convenience of administrators.

Obama said Britain would go to “the back of the queue” regarding a u.s. trade agreement. surely, however, reaching an agreement with one nation is easier than with 28. Perhaps Obama has forgotten u.s. diplomat George Ken-nan’s axiom: The unlikelihood of a negotiation reaching agreement grows by the square of the number of parties taking part.

Brexit might spread a benign infec-tion, prompting similar reassertions of national sovereignty by other eu mem-bers. Hence June 23 is the most impor-tant european vote since 1945.

George F. Will writes a column on politics and domestic and foreign affairs. © 2016 Washington Post Writers Group

Britain at the crossroads as ‘Brexit’ vote looms

Yoichi Funabashi

DouG banDoW

GeorGe Will

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