Friday News Roundup — July 19, 2024
Surely the past week has marked one of the most dramatic in recent American history. The assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump sent shockwaves around the country and through Washington, DC. While many of the details and the background and motivation of the shooter remain murky, the violent episode was seen by many as a sign of further erosion of civility and political life in the United States. In an article for The Fulcrum, CSPC President and CEO, Glenn Nye, takes a moment to reflect on the structural impediments standing in the way of less incendiary politics in the United States, both in the electoral system, but also in our public discourse and media landscape.
Peter Sparding is the Senior Vice President and Director of Policy.
A presidential assassination attempt offers a time to reflect
By Glenn Nye
In the wake of an assassination attempt on an American presidential candidate, we are right to take a moment to reflect on the current trajectory of our politics, as we reject violence as an acceptable path and look for ways to cool the kinds of political rhetoric that might radicalize Americans to the point of normalizing brute force in our politics.
Even though the motivations of the July 13 shooter are yet unclear, it’s worth taking a moment to try to reset ourselves and make an earnest effort to listen to our better angels. However, unless we change the way we reward politicians in our electoral system, it is very likely that the opportunity of this moment to calm our politics will be lost, like many others before it.
(Read the entire article at The Fulcrum)
America First and Japan
The Tokyo Mainichi Shimbun reports the victory of the Republican presidential candidate, Warren G. Harding, who won the 1920 US presidential election on the “America First’ platform (Photo Credit: Tokyo Mainichi Shimbun)
By Hidetoshi Azuma
The 2024 Republican National Convention (RNC) in Milwaukee ended yesterday rather with an air of orderliness following the failed assassination of the Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump less than a week earlier. With the candidacies of Trump and his Vice Presidential running mate, J. D. Vance, officially nominated by the Republican Party, the former US President appears inexorable in his reelection bid in stark contrast to the ailing incumbent rival struggling to even maintain his party support. While the election itself is far from over in the US, the rise of the Trump-Vance ticket evokes an eerie sense of déjà vu in Japan. Indeed, the recurring theme of isolationist nationalism cloaked in the America First rhetoric uttered by the GOP duo at the RNC signified the possible return of history, or, more precisely, the 1920s, in the US-Japan relationship. If Trump secures his reelection this November, his second presidency would open up a range of possibilities for the bilateral relationship just as his predecessor, Warren G. Harding, did in the 1920s under the banner of America First. If history is any guide, the second coming of America First may not necessarily turn out to be a boon for Japan, given Tokyo’s long-standing strategic passivity.
America First is a recurring mantra in US politics invoked to advance isolationist nationalism in foreign policy. Despite its earlier uses by the Know Nothings in the 1850s and President Woodrow Wilson during WWI to promote nativism and non-interventionism, respectively, Harding redefined American First by combining isolationism and nationalism. The upshot was his signature foreign policy, the Washington Naval Conference of 1921-22. Despite his putative aim of promoting international comity through disarmament, Harding’s real agenda was to advance American power in the Pacific amidst the growing war-weariness at home after WWI. At the time, Imperial Japan was a rising naval power allied with the British Empire and had recently annihilated the Imperial German Navy in Asia. Imperial Japan’s growing presence in the Pacific threatened America’s, especially in the Philippines and other regional islands. The outcome of the Washington Naval Conference, including the 5:5:3 naval tonnage ratio among the US, the British Empire, and Imperial Japan and even the abrogation of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, was a deal of the century for the US as it successfully undermined Japanese power without firing a shot. It even offered the world’s three foremost naval powers a relief from the simmering naval arms race, leading them to honor the Naval Holiday till 1936.
While Harding’s America First policy was a shrewd pursuit of both realism and restraint in exercising American power to craft a new balance of power, Imperial Japan hardly reciprocated his lofty vision for the post-WWI world. In fact, the deal made in Washington consigned Tokyo into a fierce factional strife over the unequal naval tonnage ratio. Indeed, the Naval Holiday crippled the Japanese shipbuilding industry, leading to a surge in unemployment in an economy sliding into recession. Unlike the US which could expand its economic activities across its large continent, Japan lacked such a privilege due to its small size. In other words, while Harding’s naval disarmament agenda may have imposed a moratorium from another great power war, it invited unintended consequences directly threatening Imperial Japan’s economic security. As a result, militarism became ascendant and particularly appealed to the disgruntled masses, leading to the consecutive assassination of three sitting prime ministers between 1921 and 1933. The Japanese militarists sought to boost Imperial Japan’s economic security by turning the island empire into a semi-continental power to capture new economic space, leading to its growing encroachment on Manchuria and, later, mainland China. Imperial Japan eventually withdrew itself from the Washington Naval Disarmament Treaty in 1936 and therefore embarked on a collision course with the US, culminating in the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.
Ironically, Washington’s departure from the America First doctrine laid the foundation for today’s US-Japan alliance. The US abandoned its America First policy after Pearl Harbor and became a full-fledged interventionist, internationalist power by 1945, culminating in General Douglas MacArthur’s occupation of post-WWII Japan. The US occupation of Japan implemented the total demilitarization of the defeated empire even by legally binding it to the American-drafted peace constitution. This led Japan to entirely depend on the US for its own national security in absence of armed forces. While the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951 de jure ended the US occupation of Japan, the US-Japan Security Treaty of 1951 de facto perpetuated it by recognizing the continued presence of the US Forces in Japan (USFJ) even in domestic policing of the newly-independent country. As a result, Japan could now focus its resources exclusively on economic reconstruction under the security shield of the world’s strongest military. In other words, the US essentially put Japan first and America second, however strategically sensible such an arrangement may have been at the time.
Remarkably, Washington continued to maintain its altruism toward Japan long after the defeated empire reemerged as the world’s second largest economy by the late 1960s. Ironically, this was largely because of the US-drafted Japanese constitution whose pacifism Tokyo weaponized time and time again to force Washington to perpetuate its defense commitment to Japan. Indeed, even the former prime minister Nobusuke Kishi, a fierce nationalist envisioning a strong, independent Japan, only agreed to remove the US role in Japan’s domestic policing in upgrading the US-Japan Security Treaty of 1951, leading the US to continue to defend Japan, not vice versa, in the event of an armed attack on either country. Kishi’s rationale was that the US-drafted Japanese constitution had bound Japan with virtually no room for flexibility in normalizing Japan’s security. His successors, particularly the former prime minister Kakuei Tanaka, exploited Kishi’s rationale for rejecting Washington’s security demands, such as the overseas deployment of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces (JSDF). The US remained unwavering in its security commitment to Japan despite the unequal division of labor. This even continued even during the US-Japan war in the 1980s in which Washington punished Japan economically without sacrificing their security relationship. While the end of the Cold War led the US to goad Japan into bearing a larger share of the security burden, Washington continued to honor the traditional bilateral security arrangement.
The rise of Trump in the second half of the 2010s resurrected the forgotten America First doctrine, threatening Tokyo’s strategic passivity. Trump’s transactional approach to security meant that Tokyo would no longer be able to exploit its dependence on the US for its own national security. In other words, the US would no longer put up with Japan’s self-serving agenda of strategic passivity, which was nothing more than an excuse for free-riding the US-Japan alliance. Fortunately for Japan, the then-Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe handled Trump so well that he averted the worst case scenario of a US withdrawal from the bilateral alliance treaty. Indeed, Abe’s bromance with Trump worked so well to Japan’s advantage that the Japanese prime minister essentially maintained the status quo during the tumultuous four years under Trump. The only impact of Trump’s America First policy on Tokyo was the rise of Japan’s economic security policy, which Abe launched in 2017 in response to the then-US president’s trade war with China. Moreover, the first Trump presidency did not fully promote America First’s isolationist nationalism largely due to the presence of interventionist, internationalist foreign policy hands, such as John Bolton. Ironically, Trump’s successor, Joe Biden, succeeded in fundamentally increasing Japan’s share of the security burden by persuading the incumbent Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida to double the country’s defense spending. Kishida even went out of his way to boost Japan’s security commitment by reforming the country’s national security strategy for the first time in ten years. Under Biden, the US-Japan alliance is at the height of its power inexorably in pursuit of the Free and Open Indo-Pacific.
The potential second Trump presidency, however, would likely lead to the primacy of America First above all else, overshadowing Tokyo’s security policy. Indeed, the growing consolidation of Trump’s ideological inner circle and his repeated America First rhetoric, such as the proposed partition of Ukraine, suggest a fundamental departure from even his own security policy during his first term. Indeed, he already signaled a much tougher transactional approach to security by demanding that Taiwan pay more for defense at his recent speech at the RNC. Vance echoed his boss, although he noted Taiwan’s importance over Ukraine. The emerging contour of Trump’s America First policy for his potential second term exacerbates Tokyo’s growing anxiety over long-term US security commitment to Japan. Tokyo has been preparing for a second Trump presidency by seeking to cultivate ties to the Trump campaign. Its efforts recently culminated in the former Japanese prime minister Taro Aso’s visit to Trump Tower for a private meeting with Trump this past April.
However, Tokyo’s “Trump-proofing” strategy does not fundamentally address the coming impact of Trump’s unbridled America First policy on Japan. Indeed, it is merely a continuation of Abe’s cultivation of Trump from several years ago. At the time, Abe’s charm offensive and Trump’s conventional-minded foreign policy hands worked miraculously to minimize the impact of Trump’s America First impulses. By contrast, Trump’s potential second term would likely bear an uncanny resemblance to Harding’s short-lived presidency a century ago. Japan handed a victory for America First by acquiescing in Harding’s proposed naval disarmament deal, but invited unintended consequences ultimately dooming its own fate. If history is any guide, America First is an ill omen for Japan. Tokyo’s lingering strategic passivity worked perfectly as long as the US put Japan first and America second. Its continued effectiveness would be highly questionable especially if Trump secures his reelection and puts his own country first before all else. To be sure, Trump’s America First policy could allow Japan to strike another deal of the century with the US and reset the bilateral security relationship once and for all. Yet, such forward thinking is tragically absent in Tokyo, and the memories of the 1920s would only serve to perpetuate its strategic passivity.
Hidetoshi Azuma is a Senior Fellow at CSPC.
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Violent clashes plague Chinese investments in Pakistan
China’s extensive investments in Pakistan, primarily through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), have been crucial in bolstering the Pakistani economy as well as in deepening the relationship between the two nations. Since the BRI was rolled out in 2015, China has committed around $60 billion to various projects in Pakistan, involving tens of thousands of Chinese workers. These projects, part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), include vital infrastructure, energy, and trade ventures, such as the deepwater port in Gwadar.
However, the security of these Chinese-funded projects has been jeopardized by a surge in militant violence. This violence, predominantly perpetrated by groups like the Pakistani Taliban, the Islamic State, and the Baluch Liberation Army, has specifically targeted Chinese nationals and assets. Attacks in recent months have underscored the heightened threat, with several high-profile incidents leading to the deaths of Chinese workers and Pakistani security personnel.
In response to these threats, Pakistan has significantly increased security measures. In various cities, including Karachi and Islamabad, new security barriers and checkpoints have been established, and special police units have been formed to protect Chinese workers. Additionally, Pakistan has launched “Azm-e-Istehkam,” an enhanced counterterrorism strategy aimed at addressing the rising violence and safeguarding Chinese investments.
Despite these efforts, the security situation remains precarious, impacting Beijing’s confidence in future investments. A recent visit by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to Beijing did not solidify any commitments for additional funding, indicating China’s growing concerns over the safety of its investments. While the Pakistani government has made strides in bolstering security, ongoing collaboration with China and international stakeholders is vital to ensure the long-term success and safety of the CPEC projects.
Saakshi Philip is a CSPC Intern.