By Tom Plate
With all eyes on a rising India, an awakened China and a roiling Islam, we tend to take good old, solid Japan (still the world's second largest economy, please don't forget) as a given. But that is a mistake: These are the times that try Japan's soul.
This brilliant, proud society - both ancient and modernized ― looks to be at yet another crossroads. The current Prime Minister, Taro Aso, has been ignominiously compelled to call a national election in August, even though all forecasts predict a possible landslide for the opposition: the Democratic Party of Japan.
If that happens, the long-leading Liberal Democratic Party that Aso temporarily heads would face the prospect of having itself become the opposition, at least for the foreseeable future. But this might be healthy for Japan: One true test of the vibrancy of a competitive democracy is the ability to make smooth transitions from one party to another.
Until now, Japan has been all but a one-party octopus rarely benefiting from muscular opposition. So rather than feeling diminished by the August calamity that everyone predicts, the LDP should take a longer, patriotic view and respect the right of the Japanese people to put them in their place, for the time being anyway.
Making exactly this point was none other than former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, the last LDP leader to serve out a full term - and surely the last one to show any real savvy as P.M. According to the authoritative Oriental Economist, the New York-based journal of contemporary Japan politics, the flashy but effective retired superstar was quoted as saying: ``Now is the toughest time for our party. But Japan is a democratic country, and it would be acceptable if we became an opposition party."
Right that wily Koizumi is yet again: Hope only that the current political establishment LDP takes his advice and doesn't try to stuff ballot boxes or cause other kinds of trouble, an intervention many critics understand to have befallen the recent Iranian election. The electoral integrity of Japanese democracy is not just a source of pride for Japan, but a measure of comfort and security for the rest of Asia.
Here's why: Its neighbors will never forget the feral Japanese expansionism during World War II that came to an end with massive American intervention. Even today, America's contribution in reconstructing Japan as a non-militaristic nation stands as a rock of stability ― and a lighthouse to reason ― in the sea of Asian geopolitics. That the Japanese people have so consistently re-certified a non-nuclear Japan with a low-profile military is not sufficiently appreciated worldwide. They deserve great credit.
But democracy sometimes produces change ― bad as well as good. Should the DPJ in fact come to power, its leaders may begin a serious review of Japan's military posture. It appears that neither the party itself nor Party Chief Yukio Hatoyama fully accepts that Japan must remain supinely defensive. And now they have a good reason to endorse a policy review: it's called North Korea.
Its aggressive missile testing and rhetoric rocketing makes it possible for Tokyo to revisit Japan's military needs without appearing to be 21st century warmongers in disguise. The missile tests from this otherwise isolated and confused socialist regime have sent searing chills up the backs of the Japanese people. They know for whom those missiles would presumably toll. And they're surely not for the Hawaiians.
The very fact that the unthinkable can now be openly thought should put new pressure on all responsible neighbors and allies not to take Japan's security concerns lightly. Thus, from China, Beijing needs to rethink its North Korean policy and make a pivotal, historic decision: How far down the road of loyalty to communist North Korea will it go if that policy triggers the remilitarization of Japan? Sure, we understand that Beijing fears shoving North Korea into destabilization that could be disruptive to the entire region. But look at it another way, Beijing: Suppose your caution winds up pushing Tokyo under a new government into a fearsome militaristic (not to mention nuclear) direction? How exactly would you have come out ahead?
For its part, America, still Japan's closest ally, needs to engage in sincere and aggressive triangular diplomacy. This means not de-prioritizing Japan, even in this age when China is all the rage. But sometimes you wonder whether the new Obama Administration gets the nuance: just consider the inexplicable appointment of California lawyer (and big-time Obama campaign fundraiser) John Roos as the new U.S. ambassador to Tokyo. I'm sorry, but this was lame. He was the best the United States could do for its most important Asian ally?
The Japanese claim they are ever so happy to receive, for once, a West Coast figure as America's ambassador. We certainly like West Coast figures, too, but there are plenty others here, of far greater stature, who would have seemed the more respectful choice for Tokyo. And notice that the Japanese are almost always polite, no matter how trying the situation. But for them, make no mistake about it: These are very trying times indeed.
Syndicated columnist and veteran journalist Tom Plate, author of ``Confessions of an American Media Man", is traveling in Asia again. He can be reached at platecolumn@gmail.com.