Word: hatoyama
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...That wasn't enough to satisfy Hatoyama. During the election campaign, he promised the Okinawans that the air base would be shifted off the island entirely, and since taking office he has effectively shelved the 2006 accord and reopened negotiations with the U.S. After months of waffling and breaking self-imposed deadlines, it's not clear exactly what Hatoyama will propose to Washington, but he told reporters in late March, "I personally should like to consider a path to relocate the air station outside Okinawa...
...Concern in the U.S. about Hatoyama has been further heightened by his overtures to China. The two Asian giants have had icy, even confrontational, relations in recent years, due to lingering anger among Chinese over Japan's brutal invasion of their country in the 1930s and 1940s. But Hatoyama has defused tensions by promising not to visit Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine, which is dedicated to Japanese war dead, including some convicted World War II war criminals. Regular visits by Hatoyama's predecessors had been a regular irritant in Japan-China relations. In contrast to Gates' testy visit, Japanese officials rolled...
...Hatoyama denies that. He told TIME, "The Japan-U.S. relationship is the most important relationship for Japan's diplomacy," and that his government "is working to create an environment in which Japan will firmly support the U.S. presence in Asia." He also makes clear that by forging warmer ties with China, he's not downgrading the alliance with the U.S. "We are always watchful of the rapidly rising military capability [of China]," he says, but "closer economic ties between China and Japan will be beneficial for the prosperity of the world and for stability in Asia." Better relations between...
...that way, Hatoyama's new foreign policy may be simply acknowledging the changing global balance of power. "Everyone understands that Japan's foreign policy is going to have to accommodate China," says Smith, of the Council on Foreign Relations. "Japan lives right next door." But that fact will also make it difficult for Japan to drift too far from its close alliance with the U.S. Hatoyama "is trying to move Japan closer to Asia to get more autonomy from the U.S.," explains Ellis Krauss, a professor of Japanese politics at the University of California at San Diego. But Japan...
...Hatoyama would not necessarily disagree with any of that. He insists, after all, that he does not see "any contradiction" between close ties with the U.S. and with Asian powers. There is no reason to doubt he means what he says. But this isn't the mid-1950s. Anyone who thinks the balance of power in Asia is not changing - and with it the strength of the U.S., even among its old allies - hasn't been there lately...