Opinion Neutral Japan?

In his comments published last week in ‘New York Times’,the next prime minister of Japan,Yukio Hatoyama,was sharply critical of the United States and called for a more ‘independent’ foreign policy that is focused on improving ties with the Asian neighbours.

“How should Japan maintain it’s political and economic independence and protect its national interest when caught between the United States,which is fighting to retain its position as the world’s dominant power,and China,which is seeking ways to become dominant?”

Although Hatoyama did not answer the question directly,he was in fact establishing some kind of equivalence between America and China after sixty years of alliance with the former. Clearly,Hatoyama is heralding a tectonic shift in Japan’s world view.

Hatoyama’s veiled answer should be worrisome for the United States — distance Tokyo a bit from Washington and draw closer to Beijing. Hatoyama has also talked of redefining the terms of American military presence in Japan and ending Tokyo’s logistical support to US military operations in Afghanistan.

China stands to benefit from even the slightest widening of the gap between Tokyo and Washington. For six decades the US-Japan alliance has been the dagger pointed at the heart of China. All Beijing now needs to do is to keep Tokyo in good humour and encourage the growing perception there that Japan’s future lies with China rather than America.

China’s Nehru

All those in India,especially the Congressmen and liberal intelligentsia,who crave for a return to ‘Nehruvian’ foreign policy should spare a moment to know China’s views on India’s first prime minister.

An article last month in the People’s Daily,the official paper of Chinese Communist Party,appearing under the name of Li Hongmei holds Jawaharlal Nehru responsible for the major problems in Sino-Indian relations. After arguing that the McMahon line between India and Tibet was an imperialist plot,Li says that Nehru “not only took over the legacy of British imperialist strategic perceptions of security,but turned out even more arrogant and irrational on boundary issues than the British Raj,interfering many times in China’s Tibet affairs”.

Li goes on to declare that Nehru’s ‘unceasing forward policy’ and ‘occupation of Tawang and other Chinese territories south of the McMahon Line’ provoked the 1962 war. He also argues that Nehru’s ‘rearmament of India’ after 1962 defeat is at the source of the ‘long-term confrontation between the two countries”.

To be fair,Li also underlines China’s genuine affection for Rajiv Gandhi who reversed India’s ‘Nehruvian’ policy on the border conflict and put the two countries on the road towards normalisation in 1988.

Rahul’s China

A high-powered delegation of the CCP,headed by a politburo member Zhang Gaoli,is traveling this week in Nepal,Maldives and Sri Lanka. The tour is at the invitation of the government of Nepal,the Maldivian Democratic Party,and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party.

Instead of resenting the CCP’s outreach to India’s neighbours and ceding Delhi’s China ties to the bureaucracy,the Congress Party must begin an honest political conversation with the CCP on the many problems that are enveloping the bilateral relationship.

It could start by deploying the party’s general secretary,Rahul Gandhi to engage the next generation of Chinese leaders that will take charge in a couple of years. As rising China poses new challenges to India,the Congress cannot simply return to either Jawaharlal or Rajiv. May be Rahul will help the Congress devise a new equilibrium with China that is more appropriate to our time and circumstance.

The writer is the Henry A. Kissinger Chair in Foreign Policy and International Relations at the Kluge Center in the Library of Congress,Washington.