 | SECURITY AND DEFENSE
APRIL 15, 1996TRANSCRIPT |
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President Clinton began a tour of several East Asian cities Sunday. First is a trip to South Korea only weeks after tensions erupted between it and the communist North. Clinton will also visit Japan, where many are calling for the U.S. to limit its military presence. Elizabeth Farnsworth talks with three experts in Asian geopolitics.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: As President Clinton left the White House last night, top administration officials were stressing that this trip to South Korea and Japan would be different from previous Asian summits. Security and defense would be the main issues, not the trade disputes that have bedeviled U.S.-Japanese relations since the 1970's. On Friday, the President and top economic officials were saying
that immense progress had been made in opening Japanese markets to U.S. exports. PRESIDENT CLINTON: Today, exports to Japan support more than 800,000 good-paying American jobs, including 150,000 new ones since 1992.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The focus on security, rather than trade, is partly a result of recent 
The other recent crisis in East Asia, China's threats against Taiwan, has cooled since elections on that island March 23rd. To forestall any further moves towards Taiwanese independence, China carried out military exercises in the Taiwan Strait over a period of weeks last month. In response, the United States deployed two aircraft areas in the area. Dealing with China and the positioning of U.S. forces in Asia will be key topics when President Clinton reaches Japan on Tuesday. Just today, new details were released of an agreement signed Friday changing the deployment of some of the 47,000 American troops in Japan and especially in Okinawa. The troop issue has become more contentious in Japanese politics since the abduction and rape of a 13 year old Okinawan girl by three American servicemen last September. Large demonstrations have called for an end to the U.S./Japan security treaty. But the Japanese government of Premier Ryutaro Hashimoto instead worked out arrangements for redeploying some American troops and shutting down some military facilities on Okinawa. In all, Okinawa will get back about 20 percent of the land used by the U.S. for training and other operations.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Now we get three perspectives on the President's trip to Asia and U.S. policy in that region. Ayako Doi is a journal and editor of Japan Digest, a daily summary report of Japanese news published in Virginia. Joseph Nye is the former assistant secretary of defense in the Clinton administration. He is now dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He joins us from Boston. And Chalmers Johnson is an author and president of the Japan Policy Research Institute. He joins us from San Diego. Thank you all for being with us. Joseph Nye, you heard in the News Summary, and I will read you a little bit of this wire, we just have unconfirmed reports from both 
JOSEPH NYE, Former Pentagon Official: (Boston) I think it's a good idea. The difficulty will be to see whether the North Koreans will participate. They've been trying to break us away from the South Koreans, and in that sense, they've resisted things that include the South Koreans on an equal basis. So I think it's a good proposal, but it remains to be seen whether the North will actually accept it.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What about the South Koreans?
MR. NYE: I think the South Koreans are willing to have a dialogue on peace as long as they're treated coequally. What they're not willing to do is have a dialogue that the North Koreans initiate which is between the North and the U.S. only. And that's been the tactic that North Korea has been trying.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Chalmers Johnson, what do you think? And do you think? And do you think that the recent incursions into the demilitarized zone are about, were caused by North Korea's desire to deal directly with the United States, which is what some people say?
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Do you agree with Joseph Nye, that it's possible the North won't accept this, though, because they don't want to sit with the South Koreans and negotiate this peace?
MR. JOHNSON: That's possible, but I think the thing that has been achieved in this proposal is to bring in China and that China very likely might put important pressure on Pyongyang to join this. I believe that, that the North needs these negotiations and that the question of South Korea's presence may turn out to be less significant than we have feared.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: This would be a rather historic event.
MR. JOHNSON: It would be a breakthrough. It would be of tremendous importance. I'm glad to see that the President has taken this initiative.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Ayako Doi, how seriously was the, the North Korean--were the North Koreans incursions into the DMZ and the other problems of recent weeks taken in Japan? Anything that happens between North and South Korea would involve the U.S. military, which has bases in Japan, so it would involve Japan too.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Actually, this gets us into the whole question of the U.S.-Japan security alliance, and I wanted to ask you, Joseph Nye, speaking of historic agreements, these recent agreements in Japan that were announced Friday and then some of the details were released today, it does appear that the U.S. and Japan are working out ways to cooperate at least in peacekeeping and perhaps preparing the way to cooperate, if there is trouble in, in Asia, and this has always been an issue because of Japan's constitution, which forbids most Japanese military activity. Do you see this as a--what's happening right now as being very important?
MR. NYE: I think this is extremely important. Some years ago, Prime Minister Nakasone called Japan an unsinkable aircraft carrier. And certainly the U.S. forward presence in East Asia is welcomed by all countries in the region. The fact that this relationship is being reaffirmed, indeed, that President Clinton and Prime Minister Hashimoto are going to sign a joint security declaration saying that this is the basis for stability in East Asia after the Cold War, is indeed a great occasion and of primary significance for the period after the Cold War.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Make the case for us. Why are U.S. troops necessary after the Cold War and Japan and Korea?
MR. NYE: Well, unlike Europe, where you'll find that there are a lot of institutions such as the European Union and so forth, in East Asia, there is no glue that holds these countries together, and there are a great many historical disputes which could flame up or flare up even though the ideological divisions, the Cold War, are over. The fact that the Americans is the largest power in the world are willing to sort of hold the reins to keep order is profoundly important to economic growth in East Asia. Indeed, I've sometimes said that security is like oxygen. You don't need it--notice it until you begin to lose it. In that sense, the American presence is the oxygen that keeps the East Asian economic miracle flourishing, and that's directly beneficial to the United States, as the President said in the clip you heard earlier.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Chalmers Johnson, what do you think about that? Are U.S. troops still necessary in Japan?
MR. JOHNSON: I'm enormously skeptical of all that has been going on, that is to say the promise Futenma Marine Corps Air Station or the--
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: On Okinawa.
MR. JOHNSON: Yeah. On Okinawa, or the Northern territories to the island. These are the same promise that was made 23 years ago about the, the Nahad Docks. We claim that we will return things only if the Japanese will make alternative areas available, knowing that they're really not there. My feeling is that a breakthrough would mean withdraw the Third Marine Division. We do not need ground forces in East Asia. We need the Navy. It is--America's real capacity is, is the Seventh Fleet, is the ability to project power into the Taiwan Straits, into the South China Sea, into the sea lanes of Southeast Asia. We've threatened the continued existence of the Navy by having the ground forces there since they may lead to further incidents that will ultimately cause the Japanese to throw us out, as the Philippines did four years ago over our biggest base, biggest Naval base at Subic Bay. So, so far, it would be, I would like to believe that they are serious this time, but Futenma comes back five to seven years from now. That's ample time for the President, the ambassador, the Secretary of Defense, and Mr. Hashimoto all to have gone onto new jobs.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Why don't we need U.S. military ground forces in Japan or in Asia?
MR. JOHNSON: The--our official military doctrine right now, the Weinberger doctrine, says that will not use force except when we can see the end game. It was one of the issues that came up so significantly over the sending of troops to, to Bosnia. We are not going to use ground forces in any sort of contest with China. In the case of Korea, they're simply not needed, i.e., Korea today is defended by a 650,000-man army. Jiang Zemin, the president of China, made a state visit to Korea last November, probably greater for South Korea than, than anything the Americans are doing. Korea is today 20 times richer and twice as large as North Korea. North Korea is a failed Communist regime, an East Asian Romania, but the greatest real danger is its collapse, not its military adventurism. Our role there is to, is to provide nuclear defense. That is done from the Seventh Fleet. That's what should be emphasized in our policies. I'm afraid the Marines remain there simply because of inertia, vested interests in the military, and that they should be withdrawn. I'm afraid that these are just palliative measures that have been announced this far.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What do you think Ayako Doi, palliative measures, or will the closing of a major Marine air station in, in Okinawa remove some of the heat from the demonstrations and the demands for a greatly reduced U.S. presence in Japan?
MS. DOI: Well, at least for now. I mean, this will get the successful summit meeting going on okay this week. Nobody knows what will happen, whether it will really happen, or what it will do later on. I think--I'm not much of a military expert to say what kind or what level forces are needed to, to defend Japan or keep the stability of the region, but one of the things that ticked off the Okinawan people last Fall, after the rape and before President Clinton's cancelled visit to Japan in November was that, was the report that those two leaders were going to confirm that U.S. forces will remain at 100,000 troop level in Asia and 47,000 of them in Japan for the next 20 years. And that greatly upset the Okinawan people, and the rest of Japan as a result was made aware of the discontent of the Okinawan people of having to bear their--the burden of having to--having so many bases in their, their island, and, um, I think the good thing about the rape and China-Taiwan crisis is that it finally made the Japanese people--forced the Japanese people to think what are they going to do themselves, along with the U.S. forces under the security treaty to defend Japan and keep the stability of the region. And that's the question that the Japanese have never had to ask themselves during the Cold War.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: You mean, what would they be willing to do by themselves?
MS. DOI: Right.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: If the U.S. weren't there, or are they facing asking the U.S. to leave eventually?
MS. DOI: Well, I don't think--I think very few Japanese would say, leave, the United States, right now. Umm, they don't have the alternative yet. They haven't figured out what, what they would like to do. I think the most important thing about this Futenma agreement is that having, having had to ask the U.S. to give up their important Marine base, at least the Pentagon thought that it was a very important base--nobody thought that it was coming back so soon, but having forced the Americans to give it up, the Japanese government had put in in this agreement, in the same agreement that they will consider what, what facilities they can offer to facilitate the U.S. operation in time of crisis. And that's a--that's a very new thing.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Just now we only have a minute left. Can you respond to Chalmers Johnson's call to get ground troops out of Japan?
MR. NYE: Well, as long as North Korea has 1.1 million men, 2/3 of them right along the demilitarized zone, we have a clear and present danger. And when we force sized for that area, we just that we needed 100,000 troops forward based, and North Korea had a lot to do with it. They don't need to stay there 20 years. Nobody ever said the would stay 20 years. What we need in the short run is enough troops to counter the North Korean threat, and in the longer-term, enough presence to provide that sense of security and stability throughout the region. And the changes that have just been announced are going to make that possible. Those are real changes, not phony changes.
ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Thank you all very much.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/asia/clinton_trip_4-15.html
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