The Japanese media tells us that the White
House has begged off Prime Minister Abe’s bid for a January state visit, pleading
all-around busyness around the Obama reboot including the inauguration on the 21st.
Nikkei speculates that it’s the Obama
administration’s way of telling the Abe administration to make up its mind on
the TPP negotiations. Perhaps. It’s true that it would be little more than a
courtesy visit without a TPP negotiations commitment, problematic as the
Japanese government’s position on agriculture may be to the Obama
administration. Collective self-defense will remain under study for a while,
there’ll be absolutely no movement on Futenma well past the end of any
reasonable schedule for an eventual visit, and what does Obama have to gain by
telling Xi Jinping, “I’m with Shinzo”? The media reports that the foreign
minister is traveling to talk to State Secretary Hillary Clinton instead and
the administrative senior vice minister is being dispatched to handle the state
visit.
Meanwhile, Katsuhiro Kuroda Sankei’s long-time
correspondent in Seoul* reports
-- the Japanese ambassador in Seoul has
been bumped from the traditional second in line, behind the US ambassador, to receive
an audience with the new South Korean president to third, behind the Chinese
ambassador. And this, after the Abe administration downplayed the South Korean
decision to refuse the Japanese request to extradite the Chinese arsonist at
Yasukuni after he served his South Korean sentence for a similar incident in Seoul
and allow him to return to China. (To be fair to South Korea, it was the Seoul
High Court that ruled that it was a “political offense,” an act for which “[e]xtradition
shall not be granted under [t]he TREATY
[ON EXTRADITION BETWEEN JAPAN AND THE REPUBLIC OF KOREA,]” so the Korean government
acted appropriately in denying the Japanese request.) The Abe administration had
also had to take South Korea’s reportedly not-so-subtle protocol downgrade for special
envoy Koshiro Nukaga in stride.
All this is unlikely to change the Abe administration’s
behavior one or the other. My guess is that a further chilling of mutual
relations that leads to informal boycotts is likely to disproportionately harm
South Korea economically since Japanese exports are more under the hood, inside
the package, behind the factory wall than the consumer goods** and services—entertainment—that
at South Korea excels at. However, it will be harmful to Japan, too, and
visibly at that. Besides, the United States will be highly displeased, not to
mention most of the things that annoy South Koreas also annoy the Chinese, with
whom the Abe administration does not want a no-holds-barred confrontation. On
the other hand, there’s absolutely no reason to believe South Korea will side
with Japan on the Senkaku Islands if the Japanese government yields on Takeshima
and all the other history-related issues. As for North Korea, it’s first and
foremost South Korea’s problem.
If there’s going to be a Japanese
breakthrough at all on the Western front, it looks increasingly like it’s going
to come by way of Moscow. Do we need each other or what?***
* Reminder to Japanese-reading liberals
(no, I didn’t mean you): If you can get over his Sankei affiliation, Katsuhiro Kuroda is about as informed and
undogmatic in his reporting as they get, though Koreans will never agree to
that.
** You already know how Samsung
is dominating the non-iPhone smartphone market, but did you know that South
Korean instant ramen and distilled spirits command premiums in Japan and kimchee
imports show no visible discounts?So much for fear of Chinese vegetables, but
that’s another story.
*** No, I haven’t forgotten
about you, Matt.
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