> The Wall Street Journal
> June 28, 2005
> PAGE ONE
> Altered States Breaking Taboos, Japan Redefines Its Role With
> China New Breed of Leaders Sheds Traditional Passiveness And
> Promotes Harder Line A Rap CD's 'Call to Reform'
> By MARTIN FACKLER
> Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
> June 28, 2005
> TOKYO -- Ten years ago, when Chinese navy ships were spotted in
> waters between Japan and China, a newly elected lawmaker named
> Keizo Takemi warned that the Chinese were surveying energy
> resources also claimed by Japan. He was ignored by senior
> colleagues, who said they wanted to keep smooth ties with
> Beijing.
> This year, as China prepares to drill for natural gas below that
> same part of the East China Sea, Japan is reacting very
> differently. Mr. Takemi, now a leader on foreign affairs in
> parliament, put together a response that was surprisingly robust
> by Japanese standards: In March, Tokyo announced it will launch a
> rival drilling effort, to be protected by Japan's high-tech
> military if necessary.
> "Our nation's sovereign rights are at stake," says Mr. Takemi, 53
> years old.
> Relations between Japan and China are at their tensest level in
> decades. One cause has been Chinese outrage over visits by
> Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to a religious shrine
> that commemorates Japan's war dead, including people convicted of
> war crimes against China and other Allied countries. In Japan,
> there has been rising anxiety about China's growing economic and
> political strength. But behind the scenes in Tokyo, another factor
> has also altered ties between Asia's two biggest powers: the
> emergence of a new generation of leaders with new notions about
> Japan's role in the world.
> These younger lawmakers, most in their 40s and 50s, want their
> nation to be more assertive. They are also willing to break old
> taboos about shows of military force, something Japan long avoided
> for fear of conjuring memories of World War II aggression. That's
> a big change from their predecessors, who avoided confrontation
> with China, instead showering it with billions of dollars in
> development aid out of guilt over Japan's brutal 1930s invasion.
> Memories are still raw in China of the Japanese attack, which
> historians say caused fighting and famine that killed millions of
> Chinese civilians.
> The younger lawmakers in the Diet, Japan's parliament, are more
> likely to view China as a rival than a former war victim. Many
> have vowed to end what they see as their nation's traditional
> kowtowing to China. They have almost shut off the aid spigot, and
> they are pushing Japan to respond more aggressively to perceived
> slights from Beijing.
> A CENTURY OF CONFLICT
> The generational change could eventually lead Japan to shed its
> traditional passiveness in its dealings with the rest of the world
> as well. Many younger lawmakers say they want their country to be
> a more active partner of the U.S., even in military operations
> like Iraq.
> "The younger generation is more willing to voice nationalist
> ideas," says Michael Auslin, a professor specializing in Japanese
> diplomacy at Yale University. "They don't want to come in second
> to China, though they still haven't figured out how to take a
> leadership role."
> The immediate result has been a willingness to challenge China
> that would have been unthinkable just a decade ago. When a Chinese
> nuclear attack submarine entered Japanese waters last fall, Tokyo
> chased it with destroyers and aircraft in one of its biggest
> military operations since World War II. When China announced it
> wanted to help build a pipeline to buy Russian oil, Japan suddenly
> offered Moscow a richer deal to try to win the oil for itself. In
> April, as Chinese protesters stoned Japanese businesses amid
> demands that Japan apologize for its 1930s invasion, Tokyo replied
> with demands of its own that China apologize and pay for the
> damages.
> These more assertive gestures have proven popular with voters
> here, who in recent years have shifted noticeably toward the right
> and a more nationalistic stand in foreign affairs. A big reason
> for the shift is fear and envy of China, whose roaring export
> engine seems to be stealing jobs at a time of economic uncertainty
> for Japan.
> The amount of Chinese-made goods flowing into Japan has tripled
> since 1995, a time when Japan's overall growth was flat because of
> a stubborn banking crisis and glut in factory capacity.
> The younger lawmakers say they don't want to paint China as an
> enemy, but want to redefine the relationship to reflect the
> realities of China's rapid economic and political emergence.
> Unlike their predecessors, who left the details of foreign policy
> to the mandarins in Japan's powerful bureaucracy, these younger
> lawmakers are taking policy into their own hands, drawing up
> strategies and legislation. Also unlike their predecessors, who
> followed a traditional career path through Japan's education
> system, many hold graduate degrees from top U.S. universities, and
> have adopted a more outspoken American political style.
> "A new breed has appeared in the Diet," says Ichita Yamamoto, a
> 47-year-old upper house member who studied under former U.S.
> Secretary of State Madeleine Albright while earning a master's in
> foreign policy at Georgetown University in the early 1980s. "We
> have no illusions about China. China is an economic opportunity,
> but it is also a threat."
> Mr. Yamamoto has emerged as a vocal advocate of a changed
> approach toward China. A thin, energetic man with a boyish face,
> he exemplifies the new style of politics in Tokyo. In 2003, he
> released his own CD, titled "Reform Songs," on which he sings rap
> songs, including one urging Japan to overcome the past and build a
> new relationship with the rest of Asia. "A call to reform that I
> want to heed!" says an endorsement on the CD's cover by Prime
> Minister Koizumi.
> "Japan has been too wishy-washy in foreign affairs," says Mr.
> Yamamoto. "It's OK to clash with other countries when necessary."
> When he was first elected to the Diet in 1995, the older
> generation of parliamentarians left policymaking largely to the
> Foreign Ministry, which was dominated by "China School" diplomats
> who had built their careers on maintaining wrinkle-free ties with
> China. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party's Foreign Affairs
> Division, a committee of lawmakers, was a sleepy affair in which
> ministry diplomats showed up to explain their policies to a
> half-dozen Diet members.
> Then, starting in the late 1990s, a series of spats erupted with
> China, including one in 2002 when Chinese military police entered
> a Japanese consulate to seize North Korean defectors. That served
> as a wake-up call to the Japanese public about China's rise. More
> and more young lawmakers grew critical of traditional China policy
> as voters in their districts voiced anger at Chinese actions,
> lawmakers say.
> By 2000, debates were heating up at the LDP's foreign-affairs
> committee, held about once a week at party headquarters in
> central Tokyo during the fall budget-writing season, say Mr.
> Yamamoto and others. Soon, the room was packed with as many as 60
> lawmakers, many forced to stand, as they faced half a dozen
> Foreign Ministry officials seated behind a table.
> One hot-button issue was development aid to China, which has
> totaled 3.34 trillion yen, or about $30 billion, since it started
> in 1979. A growing number of lawmakers called for halting the aid,
> saying it was being used to strengthen a rising economic rival and
> potential military threat. They also pointed out that China's
> incomes were on the rise -- though they remain just a fraction of
> Japan's -- and that China had started giving money to other poorer
> countries. But bureaucrats and senior LDP members warned that
> China was still a developing country and cutting aid would hurt
> ties.
> Mr. Yamamoto and others say the tide began to turn in their favor
> as younger lawmakers heavily outnumbered older ones. He recalls
> one meeting last fall when it was clear the consensus of opinion
> among lawmakers in the room, and in the ruling party as a whole,
> had swung in favor of ending most aid to China.
> "Why do we need this for a country that can put up satellites?"
> one lawmaker demanded of the Foreign Ministry officials present.
> Mr. Yamamoto says he warned the bureaucrats against opposing the
> lawmakers: "This is a political decision. Don't try to block us."
> In March, the LDP voted to phase out most aid to China by 2008,
> when Beijing will host the Summer Olympics.
> "Those who opposed development aid to China became more vocal and
> ended up swaying the others against us," said one Foreign
> Ministry official who was present.
> The Foreign Ministry also lost its staunchest supporters with the
> disappearance of the older generation of lawmakers. Now in their
> 60s and 70s, many have retired. Others have fallen victim in
> recent years to a political fight within the ruling party, as
> Prime Minister Koizumi has steadily gained in a struggle for
> control of the LDP against the old guard.
> The dwindling number of older LDP politicians has been left fuming
> on the sidelines. One is Takeshi Noda, 63, a second-generation
> lawmaker who fought to continue aid to China, which he said was
> still needed to assuage Chinese anger over the war.
> Mr. Noda, who first joined the Diet in 1972, the year Japan
> established diplomatic ties with China's communist government,
> says he feels a personal stake in China relations. His father,
> former Diet member Takeo Noda, played a key role in
> re-establishment of relations with Beijing. The elder Mr. Noda
> held talks with Chinese leaders Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai,
> including a secret trip to China during a 1959 border war between
> China and India to try to broker peace, his son says. The younger
> Mr. Noda says he too has made several trips to China, the first in
> 1974.
> "We had to overcome a deep resentment of Japan because of the
> war," Mr. Noda says. "In Chinese, there is a saying: doing
> something hard is like filling a well. My father's generation and
> my generation filled that well." He blames Mr. Koizumi for leading
> a nationalist turn among lawmakers, whom he says are simply
> pandering to public opinion.
> Mr. Koizumi has helped set an antagonistic tone toward China by
> insisting on making annual visits to Yasukuni Shrine in central
> Tokyo, which honors Japanese soldiers fallen in wars since Japan
> emerged from feudalism in the mid-19th century. China, South Korea
> and other former victims of Japanese aggression complain loudly
> because Yasukuni also honors the souls of war criminals executed
> by the Allies after World War II. Outrage over Mr. Koizumi's
> annual visits to Yasukuni was one cause of April's anti-Japanese
> riots in Chinese cities. But Mr. Koizumi persists, partly because
> the visits have proven popular among conservative voters, who make
> up a core support group of the LDP.
> One goal of the new generation of lawmakers has been to wrest
> control of policy from bureaucrats in the Foreign Ministry. Among
> the most successful has been Mr. Takemi, who has emerged as a
> leading voice in the new line toward China. Mr. Takemi's pet issue
> has been the East China Sea, between Shanghai and the Japanese
> island of Okinawa, where both countries make overlapping claims to
> economic rights.
> Mr. Takemi says it wasn't until two years ago that his ideas
> started to get attention in the LDP. In 2003, Mr. Takemi created a
> working group of 26 LDP lawmakers to formulate policy
> recommendations. To lessen dependence on China experts in the
> Foreign Ministry, Mr. Takemi, himself a former professor of
> international affairs who was a visiting scholar at Harvard
> University, added a staff of three university and think-tank
> researchers.
> He says the real wake-up call came last year, when China started
> building an offshore platform in disputed waters to drill for
> natural gas. The platform will start extracting natural gas as
> early as this summer, says builder China National Offshore Oil
> Corp. Japan dispatched its own survey ship to the area, which
> Chinese ships tried to block. Interest in Tokyo was suddenly so
> high that in March, Mr. Takemi led a multipartisan group of 14
> young lawmakers on an inspection of the East China Sea aboard a
> Japanese Coast Guard plane. "When we saw how huge the Chinese
> drilling platform was, we realized we needed to act right away to
> start drilling, too," Mr. Takemi says.
> A week later, he guided the drafting of a three-page "emergency
> proposal" that recommended Japanese drilling. The recommendation
> won quick endorsement by the Koizumi Cabinet, which ordered the
> trade ministry to act on it. Beijing has criticized Japan's
> actions, saying they infringed upon China's sovereignty.
> "In the old days, the bureaucrats drew up policy," Mr. Takemi
> says. "Now, we make the decisions, and they have to implement
> them."
> Write to Martin Fackler at
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