Why Japan isn't panicking about Trump's foreign policy

Japan Times

2 days ago

My friend leaned back, perplexed. 'The Japanese don't seem very concerned about Trump,' he said, equal parts question and comment. 'At least, compared to the Europeans.'
I checked the impulse to boot up the lecture on Japanese insecurity and Tokyo's hedging. and pondered his statement. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that he might be right.
After all, the official line from the Japanese government is that the relationship is good. In March, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi expressed 'full confidence' that the U.S. will fulfill its obligations under the mutual security treaty and defend Japan, 'using all available capabilities, including nuclear ones.' That statement came after Trump again questioned the pact, claiming that the U.S. was obliged to defend Japan while Tokyo had no such responsibility.
Late last month, after a quickly arranged phone call with Trump — at the request of the U.S. — a senior official from the Prime Minister's Office speculated in the Mainichi Shimbun that Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is 'becoming increasingly confident that he and Trump have chemistry,' a key factor in a relationship dominated by a decision-maker like the U.S. president.
Hideshi Tokuchi, a former senior Japanese defense official, provided the backdrop for that optimism in a paper written after Ishiba's February visit to Washington. He explained that the alliance with the U.S. is 'indispensable' for Japan, 'the only reasonable and realistic option.' He quoted Koji Murata, a longtime student of the alliance at Doshisha University, who encouraged the Japanese to 'avoid making self-fulfilling prophesies' and 'to hold an optimistic attitude in the long term.'
Murata in turn cited former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who famously concluded that 'Americans often make mistakes, but they always come back by correcting themselves. That is the resilience of the U.S. It is wrong to ignore the American power for course correction.'
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth provided some assurance in remarks to the Shangri-La Dialogue last weekend in Singapore. Hegseth's SLD speech was the first systematic explanation of the Trump administration's policy about the region and it echoed Japanese thinking. Hegseth said the Indo-Pacific was the United States' 'priority theater' and 'we are here to stay.' Indeed, 'We will continue to be an Indo-Pacific nation — with Indo-Pacific interests — for generations to come.'
He called out China for seeking to become 'a hegemonic power,' which through 'its massive military build-up and growing willingness to use military force to achieve its goals, including gray-zone tactics and hybrid warfare... has demonstrated that it wants to fundamentally alter the region's status quo.' He warned of a 'real' threat to invade Taiwan.
Hegseth promised that the U.S. 'will not be pushed out of this critical region and we will not let our allies and partners be subordinated and intimidated.' He endorsed 'America's great allies and defense partners' that deter adversaries and 'execute peace through strength.'
While he warned of 'uncomfortable and tough conversations' — a reference to demands to further increase defense spending — Hegseth promised that 'We will stand with you and work alongside you.' Ultimately, 'No one should doubt America's commitment to our Indo-Pacific allies and partners.'
To prove that wasn't empty rhetoric, Hegseth then met counterparts from Japan, Australia and the Philippines in the second official gathering of 'the Squad,' a group launched at the SLD two years ago. He called the group the most 'strategically positioned to manifest deterrence, to bring about peace.' The statement released after that discussion noted the group's 'serious concern about dangerous conduct by China' and outlined concrete steps they were taking to counter it and to promote regional peace and stability. (Great reporting by Gabriel Dominguez and Jesse Johnson provides details from Hegseth's speech and the Squad meeting.)
Still uncertain, I surveyed smarter folks than I and they agreed: Japan isn't as worried as the Europeans when it comes to Trump and U.S. security commitments — and with good reason. Most line up behind a Japanese security scholar, anonymous because of his work with the government, who echoed Tokuchi that the baseline for Tokyo is that it can't face China without the U.S. and therefore 'it has no other option but to do everything to promote ties with the U.S. whoever is the president.'
They also credit U.S. actions to date. Administration officials insist that the Indo-Pacific is a priority theater and unlike their visits to Europe, there are no fireworks when they visit this region. When Hegseth visited Japan in March, his meetings with Ishiba and Defense Minister Gen Nakatani went well, with officials finding common ground and no reports of 'frank discussions,' diplomatic lingo for tension, friction or disagreements.
Hegseth's SLD speech is the first extended statement about U.S. policy and it checked all the boxes. My scholar friend explained that 'Japanese have trepidations that something big may come but until then they stick to the same set of policies that they have been pursuing since before the Trump administration.'
Yoichiro Sato, a professor at Ritsumeikan University, offered another reason for the calm: 'The Japanese side seems to be getting a lot of assurances from the U.S. through their highly personal channels of defense zoku (contacts).'
Sato then served up a third, more prosaic, explanation. Appearing to be worried, he said, Tokyo would give away important leverage in tariff negotiations.
The most compelling argument, one made by all my interlocutors, is that Japan has done a lot to consolidate the alliance and establish itself as an ally and partner worth defending. Corey Wallace, associate professor at Kanagawa University, explained it well. 'There is a feeling of having greater room for maneuver should Japan be faced with tough choices about the alliance and its national security direction compared to 2016.' Key to this process has been the three national security documents released in 2022 — the National Security Strategy, the National Defense Strategy and the Defense Buildup Program — that allow the country to play a bigger role in regional security and defense.
Wallace noted that 'Not only has Japan made important strides since the beginning of Trump 1.0 in terms of spending more and beefing up the Self-Defense Forces, improving capabilities and even enhanced command elements, but Japanese leaders are more sanguine about being able to push through further changes should they be needed.'
Wallace highlighted another critical development: the weave of relationships that Japan has created. Strategic partnerships have become more prominent. At SLD, Defense Minister Nakatani explained the 'One Cooperative Effort Among Nations' (OCEAN) concept for defense partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region. OCEAN will allow countries with shared values to 'have a panoramic perspective of the entire Indo-Pacific and bring new value and benefits to the region.' Defense cooperation is part of the package. (OCEAN is reportedly the newest iteration of the 'one theater' concept I discussed a few weeks ago.)
As Wallace explained, 'Japanese leaders feel Japan is establishing itself within a wider security framework/network that might afford it some options and 'room for maneuver.''
Convinced? Color me skeptical. First, my sources distinguished economic and security issues. Their emphasis was on the latter, where there is agreement between the two strategic and bureaucratic communities. Japan is insistent, too, on separating the two. U.S. thinking may not be so neat and clean; indeed, Trump insists that allies take advantage of U.S. security expenditures to create their economic advantage.
Second, there is the hold that Japan has on Trump. One of the few constants in his policy pronouncements — since the 1980s — is the assertion that Japan has exploited U.S. largesse and is the source of U.S. economic troubles.
Finally, for all the convergence in strategic thinking, Trump has also been reluctant to shed blood in pursuit of foreign policy. He has railed against a foreign policy elite that launched forever wars and meddles in distant affairs. He likes measures that don't risk U.S. lives, such as drone attacks. That renders deterrence a bit shaky.
Nor is it clear that Trump's contest with China extends to the military realm, although his national security advisers see the competition in that way. He frames the U.S.-China relationship in economic terms, mostly in the terms of trade. Combine this outlook with his reticence about bloodshed and a source of Japanese confidence dissipates.
To my mind, then, Japan should be worried. But my friend was right — thus far, it isn't.
Brad Glosserman is a senior adviser at Pacific Forum. His new book on the geopolitics of high-tech is expected to come out from Hurst Publishers this fall.