Post by Admin on May 25, 2019 19:18:46 GMT
Flying nearly 7,000 miles is not President Donald Trump’s idea of a good time. But he departed for Japan on Friday giddily anticipating what he promised a day earlier would be “the biggest event they’ve had in over 200 years”: that is, his own meeting with the country’s new emperor.
While his hosts may not view Trump’s visit as quite so momentous, it is a crescendo in the remarkable campaign of flattery and cajoling waged by Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe.
Trump had not yet been inaugurated when Abe hopped on a plane, uninvited, to meet with the president-elect at Trump Tower. Since then, Abe has golfed with Trump three times; visited Mar-a-Lago twice; gifted him a golf club worth nearly $3,800; dropped in on First Lady Melania Trump’s birthday dinner; and even, according to Trump himself, nominated Trump for a Nobel Prize. The two leaders have had 10 personal meetings and spoken 30 other times. “That is absolutely unprecedented,” says a senior Trump administration official. Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Trump boasted that Abe had assured him of his state visit: “I am the guest, meaning the United States is the guest, but Prime Minister Abe said to me, very specifically, ‘You are the guest of honor. There’s only one guest of honor.’”
The Japanese media has taken copious note of the camaraderie. A Friday article in the Japan Times noted that on his last trip to Washington, Abe “was even offered the use of Trump’s personal restroom in the White House.”
Abe no doubt appreciates the bathroom privileges. But his relentless courtship of Trump seems—to say the least—off-brand for a leader who came to power by presenting himself as a resolute nationalist, retailing a vision of a strong Japan more than any leader in decades. Prostrating himself before Trump has put him in an awkward position. Trump is personally unpopular in Japan, and even apart from that, no one likes to see Japan’s prime minister bend his behavior, or travel schedule, around other leaders. “The Japanese public does not like our leader to entertain another country’s leader,” said Koji Murata, a professor of political science at Doshisha University in Kyoto.
So why the desperate overtures to the U.S. president? To understand Abe’s surprising relationship to Trump is to understand the deep insecurity that has developed in Japan in recent years. With its once-powerhouse economy long-stagnant, the world-historical rise of China, which Japan’s imperial army badly abused during the war, has stoked deep alarm. North Korea continues to develop nuclear weapons and missiles capable of delivering them to Japan—and relations with South Korea, the regional power best positioned to help Tokyo counterbalance these threats, are at their lowest point in many years. Even Russia harasses Japanese airspace as part of a dispute over contested northern islands.
Trump has only made this situation more precarious for Abe and his compatriots. With its pacifist constitution and a military far smaller than its status as the world’s third-largest economy would imply, Japan needs America’s protection—and finds itself staring across the Pacific at an erratic partner easily dismissive of longtime global commitments. The fear that the U.S.-Japan alliance could be in jeopardy was one I heard from numerous government officials and academics I met during a weeklong visit to Japan earlier this year. And, they say, Abe will do what he must to maintain it, whatever the cost to his personal pride.
While his hosts may not view Trump’s visit as quite so momentous, it is a crescendo in the remarkable campaign of flattery and cajoling waged by Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe.
Trump had not yet been inaugurated when Abe hopped on a plane, uninvited, to meet with the president-elect at Trump Tower. Since then, Abe has golfed with Trump three times; visited Mar-a-Lago twice; gifted him a golf club worth nearly $3,800; dropped in on First Lady Melania Trump’s birthday dinner; and even, according to Trump himself, nominated Trump for a Nobel Prize. The two leaders have had 10 personal meetings and spoken 30 other times. “That is absolutely unprecedented,” says a senior Trump administration official. Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Trump boasted that Abe had assured him of his state visit: “I am the guest, meaning the United States is the guest, but Prime Minister Abe said to me, very specifically, ‘You are the guest of honor. There’s only one guest of honor.’”
The Japanese media has taken copious note of the camaraderie. A Friday article in the Japan Times noted that on his last trip to Washington, Abe “was even offered the use of Trump’s personal restroom in the White House.”
Abe no doubt appreciates the bathroom privileges. But his relentless courtship of Trump seems—to say the least—off-brand for a leader who came to power by presenting himself as a resolute nationalist, retailing a vision of a strong Japan more than any leader in decades. Prostrating himself before Trump has put him in an awkward position. Trump is personally unpopular in Japan, and even apart from that, no one likes to see Japan’s prime minister bend his behavior, or travel schedule, around other leaders. “The Japanese public does not like our leader to entertain another country’s leader,” said Koji Murata, a professor of political science at Doshisha University in Kyoto.
So why the desperate overtures to the U.S. president? To understand Abe’s surprising relationship to Trump is to understand the deep insecurity that has developed in Japan in recent years. With its once-powerhouse economy long-stagnant, the world-historical rise of China, which Japan’s imperial army badly abused during the war, has stoked deep alarm. North Korea continues to develop nuclear weapons and missiles capable of delivering them to Japan—and relations with South Korea, the regional power best positioned to help Tokyo counterbalance these threats, are at their lowest point in many years. Even Russia harasses Japanese airspace as part of a dispute over contested northern islands.
Trump has only made this situation more precarious for Abe and his compatriots. With its pacifist constitution and a military far smaller than its status as the world’s third-largest economy would imply, Japan needs America’s protection—and finds itself staring across the Pacific at an erratic partner easily dismissive of longtime global commitments. The fear that the U.S.-Japan alliance could be in jeopardy was one I heard from numerous government officials and academics I met during a weeklong visit to Japan earlier this year. And, they say, Abe will do what he must to maintain it, whatever the cost to his personal pride.
