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Georgetown's Michael Green, who is indisputably one of the best American specialists on Japanese security policy, has a column at Washington Post Online that's worth a look. Green served on the National Security Council in W's first administration, and while he's more conservative than I am, I felt his appointment to the NSC was an outstanding choice.

Although I basically agree with the thrust of his column -- that Japan's behavior toward the military government in Burma/Myanmar has been disgraceful, and absolutely unbecoming an advanced industrial democracy -- he's not telling the full story in describing Japanese cooperation with America since 9/11. Yes, Koizumi went far beyond where most prime ministers would have in supporting Bush administration policies in Afghanistan and Iraq, and yes, nationalists like Chief Cabinet Secretary Abe Shinzo and Foreign Minister Aso Taro emphasize that Japan is a nation that respects the "rule of law." But their use of that language has not been interpreted by anyone in Japan as a statement that Japan's primary interest in Asian diplomacy ought to be in democratic change; instead, the term is primarily meant to gain rhetorical leverage during a period of China's inexorable rise in the region. And I have never met anyone (and believe me, my friends in Tokyo run the political gamut from hard left to far right) associate the terms "President Bush" and "democracy." Even the conservatives who argue that Japan needs to work closely with the United States are making claims based in part on realpolitik considerations of security and change in Asia, and also on deep resentment of China.

Green's absolutely right that trying to compete head-to-head on mercantile nationalist grounds with China is a losing strategy for Japan, and I share his disappointment with the Japanese government's stance. But cooperation with the Bush adminstration's "Global War on Terror" in the past few years has only deepened the ruling party's sense that Japan needs to be Machiavellian in its strategies. I wouldn't have been surprised by a decision seven years ago to avoid damaging relations with the SLORC regime, but I'm even less surprised now. As much as the Bush administration likes to speak of the legacy of the occupation of Japan and democratic change in Asia, I suspect that the consequences of the recent Koizumi-Bush cooperation will include a more nationalistic Japanese government that puts considerations of power and immediate advantage ahead of lofty -- and, to many conservatives, foreign-imposed -- notions of proper governance.