Being Right

In case you doubted me about Ambassador Murata's likely reasons to expose a long-standing secret agreement between the U.S. and Japan, you might want to read the commentary below. As I noted in a previous post, assuring doubt about the U.S. commitment to Japan was his goal.

His friend and co-author of Between Friends, Hisahiko Okazaki, comes to his defense and clarifies what Murata hoped to achieve. It appears that "intellectual integrity" is the new linguist weapon of Japan's conservative nationalists. No more is it "historical truth." Their cause is now about their right to their opinions, no matter how illegal, hurtful, or wrong.

Again, this is a very dangerous tack by those who want to use any means to repeal Article 9 and advance Japan's rearmament. Whether it is pushing the United States on Japanese abductees of the North Koreans or the right to purchase F-22s, these conservatives hope to create a situation of distrust and discord. Like Holocaust deniers, they measure their success by the doubt they instill. Amb Okazaki. It should be noted, Okazaki considers himself a friend of the U.S.; and many believe him.

Later: Amb. Okazaki's essay further aligns itself with the supporters of former Air Self-Defense Force General Toshio Tamogami by welcoming possible prosecution of Amb. Murata for revealing a state secret. Okazaki notes: "If this case is brought to court, the substance of the secret – whether it is indeed a matter that needs to be kept confidential – will be examined. Blowing the whistle on anomalies in the bureaucracy does not violate the confidentiality obligation."

Tamogami and his friends were disappointed that the Diet did not debate his dismissal. They hoped for an airing of "historical truth." Amb. Murata's supporters appear to have hoped for a court case that would blow "the whistle on anomalies in the bureaucracy." In each case, these men were looking for legitimate public venues to air their views. And each seemed like a kamikaze mission where success is measured by its failure--an outrageous act of self-destruction in order sink a battleship or in these cases outrageous acts of career suicide to undermine the U.S.-Japan Alliance.

"Seiron" column: Do not let Murata's good intentions go to waste

SANKEI, July 7, 2009, page 7

By Hisahiko Okazaki, former ambassador to Thailand and Head of the Okazaki Institute

Disappointing follow-up response

When I read former Vice Foreign Minister Ryohei Murata's remarks on the nuclear issue in the newspaper, I was excited and hopeful that there would be new developments on this issue.

Although I have not contacted Mr. Murata, it is obvious that he sacrificed his own interest in making those remarks. Civil servants are obliged to maintain the secrecy of information they obtain in the course of performing their duties, and this rule applies even after retirement. Penalties of up to one year imprisonment can be imposed for violating this rule. It is evident that he chose to take the risk and tell the truth.

While such self-sacrifice is perhaps needed to change the government's rigid position over the years, I am disappointed that nothing has happened after the remarks were made.

Certainly the government is taking a "safe" position to make sure that nobody gets hurt. If the secret agreement [on the U.S. forces bringing nuclear weapons into Japan] does not really exist, there is no secret to keep, so no one has the obligation to keep the secret. Everything will be vanished into oblivion once again. However, such oblivion is only on the part of Japan. This does not hold water at all in the international community because the whole affair is like an ostrich hiding its head in the bush to flee from a hunter.

When I met the late Dr Edwin Reischauer (former U.S. ambassador to Japan), he was not indignant about "Foreign Minister Ohira's explicit promise" but was exasperated by the absurdity of the situation. Furthermore, the meeting [between Reischauer and Ohira in April 1963] has been confirmed by U.S. diplomatic documents subsequently. What I am worried about is that if Japan continues to carry on like this, it will be unable to engage in strategic dialogue with the United States to reinforce the bilateral alliance.

Statement does not breach the confidentiality obligation

In another article I wrote previously for this column, I mentioned that the Japan-U.S. strategic dialogue proposed by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage came to nothing while the U.S.-China strategic dialogue conducted under his successor Robert Zoellick was very successful. The U.S. side showed great enthusiasm for both dialogues, so it is not to blame for the failure of the Japan-U.S. talks.

Many people say that China is now more important for the U.S., so Japan will be abandoned. Such worries are completely unnecessary under the present situation as far as the U.S. side is concerned. Kurt Campbell has said that: "The best way to deal with China is to strengthen U.S. partnership with Japan as much as possible. That is the only option. Without such a foundation, nothing can be accomplished in Asia."

Here, what I am worried about is that Japan, due to its incompetence in strategic dialogue, may not be in a position to respond to the United States' good intentions.

In light of North Korea's nuclear armament, there have been noisy discussions about the effectiveness of the U.S. nuclear umbrella, or the so-called extended deterrence, for Japan. A discussion on nuclear strategy is inevitable between allies when they discuss military strategy. As a matter of fact, NATO's Nuclear Planning Group (NPG) regularly discusses nuclear strategy.

Needless to say, it is also desirable to have a similar venue for consultation and planning between Japan and the U.S. But how can common strategy be discussed when Japan continues to deny even something it once promised?

Whether Mr. Murata's remarks constitute a violation of his confidentiality obligation may be a trivial matter to him, but I think this is not a violation. If this case is brought to court, the substance of the secret – whether it is indeed a matter that needs to be kept confidential – will be examined. Blowing the whistle on anomalies in the bureaucracy does not violate the confidentiality obligation. In this case, the secret agreement has already been disclosed in U.S. diplomatic documents, so unless there are very special or overriding reasons, it does not need to be kept confidential.

Policies that will not tie hands in the future

What I had hoped after the Murata remarks was that the government would stop its temporizing statements soon and revert to intellectual integrity.

With the subsequent advancement in military technology, the impact of this issue on reality has diminished. The issue here is intellectual integrity that forms the foundation of the relationship of trust and strategic dialogue between allies. If Japan engages in honest strategic dialogue now, the conclusion may well be that unless there is a major change in the situation, port calls by U.S. ships carrying nuclear weapons will be unnecessary.

I look forward to a change in the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) government's position in the future.

In the case of a Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) administration, I pray that it will break away from the inertia of the LDP era, acknowledge the existence of the international commitment between Ohira and Reischauer, and show its intellectual integrity in creating a new venue for Japan-U.S. strategic consultations.

Soon after the inauguration of the new administration, the mass media will probably try to reconfirm the government positions upheld until now, including the interpretation of the three non-nuclear principles. I hope the DPJ will only say that it will not be bound by the prejudices of the LDP era and will make a comprehensive review as the need arises and not commit itself prematurely. Unless it is able to do so, having a system of two major political parties will be meaningless; and if it succeeds, the DPJ's victory will have historical significance.

Having been liberated from past positions, I hope that people of intellectual integrity, regardless of whether they are rightist or leftist in ideology, will no longer say things like "Japan has the right to collective self-defense but is unable to exercise it."

Between What Friends?

Why would a conservative nationalist, former Japanese Foreign Ministry official reveal a purported state secret that could undermine confidence in the US-Japan Alliance and the ruling LDP?

If this is a way to encourage a Japanese debate on nuclear weapons or to convince the US to sell Japan F-22, it is sure misguided. In reality, it is part of a convoluted Rightist strategy to repeal Article 9 and create a military independent of the United States.

On June 29^th, former Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Ryohei Murata asserted that there is a secret written accord between the Japanese and U.S. governments under which Japan approves port calls and passage through Japanese territorial waters by U.S. warships carrying nuclear weapons. He knows this, because as Administrative Vice Minister, it was his job to explain to the foreign minister the contents of an envelope that briefly outlined the agreement. The foreign minister then briefed the prime minister at his discretion.

A wink, nod, and the back of a napkin, that’s Cold War diplomacy for you.

Murata received the envelope containing the secret document from his predecessor. He said the contents were written in Japanese on a single piece of clerical stationery used in the Foreign Ministry in those days. He made no mention of signatures.

When asked why he is now acknowledging the existence of the secret agreement, Murata indicated that he was disturbed by the lies told in the Diet. "Successive administrative vice foreign ministers have conveyed the contents (of the secret agreement) to successive foreign ministers. But they have said in the Diet that nuclear weapons have not been brought [into Japan]. I think that [secrecy] is inappropriate," Murata said.

More inappropriate are Ambassador Murata’s views on the United States. Yes, ambassador, and it is odd that none of the press reports I have read mention that he was ambassador to the United States 1990-1992 and Germany 1992-94. He is not a fan of Americans and has long expressed these views.

In 1985, he co-authored, Between Friends, a book with two other less than enthusiastic Foreign Ministry supporters of the United States: Hiroshi Kitamura and Hisahiko Okazaki. Kitamura who had numerous posts in the US went on to become ambassador to the UK while Okazaki become ambassador to Thailand and then head of the Okazaki Institute that funded and encouraged all the men and research for the Armitage Report.

Murata wrote, and the others agreed, that Americans are "self-centered" and suffer from a "superiority complex" that makes them always "want to blame their problems on the other guy." He also contended that "it is inevitable for Americans to view with a certain amount of alarm a non-white nation rapidly overtaking them" in economic or technological strength.

In case you think that the Ambassador’s views have softened since 1985, you are mistaken. In a March 2002 article (pp67-69) published by the conservative journal Shokun!, Amb. Murata wrote:

Now with the 21st century starting, what the people of Japan need to do is to think and discuss how their nation can become "an ordinary country." This nation must do this because Japan is still "a country out of the ordinary" in spite of the fact that some 55 years have passed since its defeat in World War II.

Even before the war, Japan had been a country out of the ordinary, though in a different sense, and its defeat in the war brought about a change. But the pendulum of the change swung too far in other direction at that time, turning Japan into a country out of the ordinary in a reversed way. There were two major reasons why that happened.

First, the nation was shocked and shaken up tremendously by its very thorough defeat in the war, which was the first defeat in its history.

Second, the United States successfully emasculated Japan by carrying out large-scale and organized mind-control programs on the people of Japan. For instance, while taking steps to make it look that Japanese themselves chose to do so, the United States pushed on Japan a constitution with provisions that banned itself from having combat capabilities to defend itself -- something unprecedented. The United States asserted all the past acts of Japan were evil in the Tokyo trial [of war criminals] that even had lawyers attending. That was another clever case of effectuating mind-control on people. Censors the United States conducted in various forms, the education system it adopted, and interventions it made in domestic affairs were the additional cases of exercising the mind-control on Japanese people. Indeed, it is impossible to cite all the cases of such mind-control actions here.

Anyway, thus was produced the post-war idiosyncrasy of Japan that can be summarized as follows:

First, Japan has turned into an insensitive country that cannot see whether its rights as a sovereign are infringed or not. It turned into a country that was unable to see its national dignity and pride though it was an independent country.

Second, the people of the nation have come to believe that the exercise of force is something very evil and this thinking has made the nation very cowardly.…

The above along with other statements and memberships (he is an active adviser to the Nippon Foundation and a board member of the Japan Education Regeneration League) places Murata with the likes of Okazaki, Tamogami, and others who are sophisticated strategists working together to use any means to engender mistrust between Japan and the U.S. as well as its neighbors. They want to create the political necessity of aggressive rearmament and an independent, nuclear armed defense force. Murata’s declaration, I believe, must be seen as part of a larger campaign to discredit the U.S.-Japan alliance and the Japanese Constitution.

You can argue that the Japanese people do not agree with their goals or ideas, however, these men do have the ability and resources to create a lot of anxiety and doubt among their fellow citizens as well as Japan's allies and neighbors. These old men measure their success by the discord that they can create--if we allow them.

Alliance Managers Meet

If you are reading this you are clearly not a manager of the Japan-US alliance.

If you were, you would be in San Francisco at the 15th Annual Japan-US Security Seminar hosted by CSIS’s Pacific Forum and MOFA’s Japan Institute of International Affairs. This is a long weekend of presentations, discussions, and meals with a carefully selected group of mostly white men and honorary white men. It is all very serious business for those selected to manage the Japan-US relationship.

An invitation—and you can only go with an invitation—ensures your designation as an official Japan-US alliance/relationship manager. Note that the relationship is only defined by security and military interactions thus excluding many Japan experts familiar with contemporary Japanese society.

There are also serious and not so serious invitations. The serious invitations come with all expenses paid. If you are invited and not offered funding, you are not expected to attend, but to understand that they don’t want to get on your bad side.

Also invited (and funded) are a “young leaders” group of up and coming alliance managers. These young men (few are women) are nurtured and watched to ensure that they know how to talk the talk and walk the walk. They will be able to go back to their schools and think tanks and say, “the Gaimusho (showing off your Japanese) North American Bureau chief told me at the bar…” or “sharing the limo to the airport with Amb…”

Before these seminars had a formal designation, they were sponsored by the Okazaki Institute with a loose relationship with the Government of Japan. They served as the intellectual genesis of the Armitage Report. The Institute’s funding of research and meetings created a cadre of like-minded relationship managers in both the US and Japan. Amb. Hisahiko Okazaki is a quintessential conservative nationalist. He believes that Japan needs a “robust” military and that the peace Constitution remains because of Japan’s masochistic history. He has lots of friends in Washington.

It appears that the Okazaki Institute is fading like its aging namesake. From its list of sponsors you can surmise that its major funder was the Sasakawa family of foundations. It tends to be a pattern that one or multiple Sasakawa-backed foundations experiment with various foreign policy-oriented projects until these efforts are either deemed successful or not. I suspect it has something to do with deniable accountability. Once projects are successful, they are institutionalized and handed over to a more explicitly Japanese government-affiliated organization.

The Okazaki experiments nurtured the entire generation of Bush Administration Japan managers and weeded out those who disagreed. The result was the 7-page Armitage Report that set the "intellectual" foundation for emphasizing the military relationship with Japan. Thus, MOFA now funds and runs these annual gatherings on Japan-US security (note that Japan comes first in the title, this word order is nearly unheard of in programs in the US, no matter the funder).

In addition, after the Bush Administration’s Japan officials all left the government it was likely thought unseemly to reward these folks with money from a minor, albeit successful relationship-building project, such as the Okazaki’s. Tying up their time with meaningless research on essentially the same topic over and over and holding resort-sited conferences of now-senior, seasoned relationship managers needs more money and more prestigious funding sources such as corporations and government institutes.

But MOFA funding is not enough. The Pacific Forum took advantage in February of Harvard Professor Joe Nye’s (pictured above) putative nomination as Ambassador to Japan (this has yet to happen). Their Board of Governors dinner in Hawaii featured a speech by Nye and face-time with him. The dinner was to honor former assistant secretary of State Jim Kelley and to establish a Korean studies fellowship in his name.

Since no one is really sure if Mr. Kelley is breathing or not, he was not the highlight of the fundraiser. Indeed, an “anonymous” donor pledged a million dollars if a million was raised. I do not know if the goal was achieved. It is possible the Korean focus might have undercut some fundraising potentialities.

Anyway, I am not in San Francisco. When I asked some folks on the Hill why they were not there, they said they were too busy. When I asked a leading scholar on Japanese security why he was not even invited, he responded he would not have gone even if he were.

Updated 3/28/09