The Traditional U.S.-Japanese Relationship Has Changed

U.S. Struggles To Keep Step With Japan's Shifting Foreign Policy -- Washington Post

When the Democratic Party of Japan roared to victory in August, unseating a party that had run Japan almost without interruption since the 1950s, Obama administration officials fanned out across Washington with an unexpected message, given their campaign embrace of change.

U.S. relations with Japan, the message went, were going to stay basically the same.

Yes, the DPJ had run on a promise of ending Japan's decades-old pattern of "passive" behavior in its dealings with the United States. Yes, a few days before his party's victory, Yukio Hatoyama, who would become Japan's new prime minister, launched a jeremiad against U.S.-style capitalism, and advanced a contradictory view of Asia in which the United States appeared at once welcome and unwanted. Still, administration officials argued, the U.S. security relationship with Japan -- which for almost 60 years was the cornerstone of U.S. policy in Asia -- would be business as usual.

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My Comment: The Japanese are a very nationalistic people .... a nationalism that they have kept under wraps since the end of the Second World War. But that is now all changing .... we should expect a more independent policy line from Japan in the future on both military/security and economic issues.

On the issue of U.S. forces stationed in Japan .... the majority of the Japanese people want them out. The how and when this will be done is being discussed now .... and the groundwork for the eventual departure of all U.S. forces from Japan proper are being laid now. But the first step will be Okinawa.