www射-国产免费一级-欧美福利-亚洲成人福利-成人一区在线观看-亚州成人

US EUROPE AFRICA ASIA 中文
World / Opinions

Quality matters in US-Japan ties

By Go Ito (China Daily) Updated: 2014-04-23 06:57

To maintain security, one usually has only two options. The first is to strengthen oneself, and the second is to look for powerful partners to maintain a stronger position vis-a-vis others. In international relations, the former means building defense capabilities so that one state can attack another to maintain its security, while the latter uses a variety of security alignments, including entering alliances.

US President Barack Obama is on a three-day visit to Japan starting Wednesday and will discuss issues relating to Asia, including security, economic partnerships and international crises.

In September last year, Obama said on TV that the US would no longer act as a world policeman. Since then the US has been reluctant to act against authoritarian political leaders and terrorists. Because of this, leaders who considered the US an unjust policeman have hardened their stance against the US. This fact is evident in the recent cases in Syria and Ukraine - the US president lost the time to resolve these conflicts during his consultations with Congress.

We are entering a new age of more complicated, turbulent international relations where there will be no leader or at least a weak leader who lacks sufficient capability to stand against sources of threat.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is likely to tell Obama that Japan is now ready to make greater contributions to international peace and stability if the restrictions on its collective self-defense rights are lifted and the National Security Council gets to function freely by devising a new "Defense Program Outline".

At their talks, Obama and Abe will recognize the strength of the US-Japan security alliance and the need for both countries to address ambiguous international configurations in Asia such as the nuclear issue of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, China's rapid military rise and its related maritime issues.

Abe will emphasize the global aspect of Japan's ties with the US, although Obama will like to lessen the global overstretch of the US' provision of security. In this sense, both leaders have a common interest in maintaining security in the region, but their methods of doing may be opposite.

Abe seems quite future-oriented, but his "global face" cannot be separated from his motto of freeing Japan from the postwar international restrictions. It implies that Japan, which lost the Pacific War, should recover its confidence and regain its honorable status. Abe thinks that, despite its huge contribution to the international community, Japan has been directed by the countries which won the war, and that such an unequal relationship between victors and vanquished should be rectified.

The ultimate purpose of Abe's diplomacy is to revise Article 9 of the Constitution, which he thinks was forced upon Japan under US occupation in the late 1940s. Thus, Abe's famous phrase at his February 2013 meeting with Obama - "Japan is back" - entails not just an economic, but also a historical importance that Japan's surrender in the Pacific War should become only a part of the new world order, because in the long term Japan's primacy over other Asian countries in various fields should be acknowledged.

Therefore, the Obama-Abe meeting will not come up with any bizarre arrangement for the new stage of the US-Japan security alliance. Both leaders will seek to understand the domestic difficulties they face on the political and economic fronts, but Japan will need the US for the defense of "Senkaku Islands" (called Diaoyu Islands in China) if China starts a conflict over their sovereignty. The US, too, will need Japan, because its possible withdrawal from the region has to be "compensated" by Japan's military operations in the more global context. In other words, both countries are now in the same boat, although facing different directions.

What is more important is that instead of making just mechanical adjustments to the alliance, the two leaders should search for common ground and shared values in their relationship. In terms of functional interests, China has now become a big economic partner of the US. But Abe tends to think that Japan has employed a method different from China in approaching the US. "Shared values" cannot be established in one day, and whether Obama and Abe strike a "personal rapport" will be crucial for crisis management in the region in the future.

The author is a professor of international relations at Meiji University, Tokyo.

Trudeau visits Sina Weibo
May gets little gasp as EU extends deadline for sufficient progress in Brexit talks
Ethiopian FM urges strengthened Ethiopia-China ties
Yemen's ex-president Saleh, relatives killed by Houthis
Most Popular
Hot Topics

...
主站蜘蛛池模板: 欧美 亚洲 丝袜 清纯 中文 | 亚洲成人自拍 | 亚洲在线视频免费 | 久久99一区 | 性刺激欧美三级在线现看中文 | 亚洲天堂小视频 | 欧美精品一区二区三区免费观看 | 欧美综合一区二区三区 | 欧美日韩亚洲国产精品 | 免费狼人久久香蕉网 | 18videosex性欧美69超高清 | 欧美亚洲国产成人综合在线 | 87精品福利视频在线观看 | 国产日韩精品在线 | 免费人成黄页网站在线观看国产 | 玖玖精品 | 欧美成a| 国产欧美日韩一区 | 成年性午夜免费视频网站不卡 | 岛国大片在线播放高清 | 日韩精品久久一区二区三区 | 久久99这里只有精品国产 | 日韩毛片免费在线观看 | 免费一级肉体全黄毛片 | 久久久久久久久久久久福利 | 国产欧美一区二区三区免费看 | 亚洲haose在线观看 | 日本免费高清一区 | 国产在线高清不卡免费播放 | 中文字幕亚洲精品第一区 | 免费国产a | 97在线视频观看 | shkd在线观看 | 成人免费高清视频网址 | 红色记忆 | 一级做a爱片久久毛片 | 99久国产 | 免费看黄色的网址 | 国产a级午夜毛片 | 亚洲人成影院午夜网站 | 欧美一区二区三区免费看 |