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Now for a New Foreign Policy from
London.
Alliance lets Japan, Britain influence America to change
(Published in The Japan Times and other Asian papers on March 26th 2005)
By DAVID HOWELL
NAGOYA/LONDON -- The UK-Japan 21st Century Group, set up two decades ago by
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone,
has been mulling over the foreign-policy dilemmas of the two countries at their
annual get-together.
At first sight, these appear to have considerable symmetry. The two nations both
now appear to face a giant strategic quandary about which way to go. In the
British case, the choice is said to be between Europe and America; in the
Japanese case, between China and America.
Deeper reflection suggests that things are not so simple, and that this is not
really the choice at all. The antithesis in both cases is false.
Consider the realities of the global situation that now have to be faced. Let us
call them the Big Facts:
Big Fact No. 1: The United States is by far the biggest and most powerful
military power the world has ever seen as well as the dominant, most successful
and dynamic economy on the planet. (So much for all the fashionable and now
discredited talk of a few years back about America in decline and so on). It is
not a conquering imperial power, as some suggest, but it certainly sees itself
as the guardian and promoter worldwide of democracy and freedom.
Big Fact No. 2: For all its size and power, America cannot manage affairs alone
and without friends. Big is also vulnerable, especially when the enemy is not so
much a state as a state of mind, a dedication to terror and killing that can
strike anywhere.
Big Fact No. 3: These friends, if they are true ones, need to be not just
compliant but restraining and constructively critical at times. Power always
corrupts and more than ever today America needs a friendly peer group to keep it
on track.
Big Fact No. 4: The European Union cannot fulfill this role. It is basically
anti-American. Washington may make polite noises about partnership with Europe,
but why should it listen to folk it knows to be fundamentally hostile? Even if
European views were united on the main global issues, which they are not, the EU
would not, and does not, carry any real weight with American policymakers.
Big Fact No. 5: China cannot fulfill this role either. China wants to rival
America and be the dominant power in Asia. It is showing its teeth by building
up its military weaponry and getting increasingly aggressive over Taiwan. Even
though the Americans and Chinese currently need each other economically, and
possibly in resolving such issues as North Korea, the two giants can never be
friends.
Big Fact No. 6: Japan and Britain are indeed America's best friends today, along
with Australia, New Zealand and one or two other countries in Central Europe.
They should work together, stick together and address mighty America in a
friendly but frank way.
Critics of this approach might say that surely Britain must work primarily with
its EU regional partners and surely Japan must get together somehow with its big
Asian neighbor, China. They would be right in economic and commercial terms but
wrong in geopolitical and security terms.
Of course it makes sense to aim for prosperous regional commerce, healthy
investment flows, low tariffs and fair-trade rules. And, of course, it makes
sense to have neighborhood policing and close collaboration with neighbors on
issues like environment, crime and immigration. Both the EU and the embryonic
East Asian Community can partially fulfill these regional roles.
But it makes even more sense to recognize the undeniable fact of America's
dominant power and to seek to influence the wielding of that colossal power in a
friendly and constructive way.
This is something China will never do and the leading EU states have shown they
cannot do. France has played almost no role at all in assisting American-led
policy in Iraq and the Middle East (except recently over Lebanon). German
leaders have fought a whole election on an anti-American ticket.
So, rather than facing a choice, both Japan and Britain face an obvious way
forward. As America's real best friends, they should form a cohesive and
intimate grouping -- a permanent, reliable and sturdy coalition of the willing.
If some of mighty America's attitudes and policies worry them they should say
so, and they will be listened to. They will have more influence than any other
blocs, institutions or alliances.
That is now much the best way toward global stability and balance in this
dangerously unstable 21st century.
David Howell, a former British Cabinet minister and chairman of the Commons
Foreign Affairs Committee, is now a member of the House of Lords.
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