Japan's New Diplomacy

Micahel Green over at RCP writes about Kennth Pyle's new book on Japan's recent moves toward a more assertive foreign policy.

"Pyle demonstrates how Japanese elites have maintained an intense focus on maximizing the nation's autonomy, rank, and honor. He also shows how they have remained attentive to the distribution of international power and adopted the hegemonic powers' most successful practices. In reading this elegantly presented history, one comes to appreciate that Japan is not returning to its realist roots; it never left them."

Interesting review, talks a great deal aobut how Japan has adjusted its thinking with the end of the Cold War and the rise of China. Japan is far more willing to broaden its regional contacts, going as far afield as India and Australia to forge closer relations with fellow democracies. Green points out something that Pyle either misses or glosses over in critiquing US foreign policy, however; the US-Japanese relationship is (and probably should be) on par with the US-UK relationship, and it is in the US strategic interest to maintain close diplomatic and military ties and diplomatically engage China together, and the current administration takes the relationship very seriously, despite the US concentration on events in the Middle East. In fact, Green argues the relationship might be the closest it ever has been. I might be inclined to agree.