There was an awful lot of Schadenfreude within the Chinese communities worldwide in the wake of H121 Resolution, passed recently in the US House of Representatives that calls for unequivocal apologies by Japan over the so-called comfort women issue.

As far as China is concerned, the Beijing authorities have refrained from commenting on the resolution, for the Chinese leadership does not want to be seen as lending legitimacy to the act of the House. After all, there is no guarantee that US congressmen and women would not in future also initiate bills calling on China to own up to the human rights violations on its own turf, such as the shocking and merciless killing of the bare-handed students on the Tiananmen Square in 1989.

The official silence, however, has not stopped some individuals from expressing their joy at the passage of the resolution.

Cheng Yonghua, Chinese ambassador to Malaysia, praised the effort by the House of Representatives in a meeting with Chinese Malaysian businesspeople, while Tao Wenzhao, a researcher with the Institute of American Studies, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, has urged Japan to heed the resolution.

Before the bill was scheduled for a vote at the end of July this year, a group of rightwing Japanese politicians and academics purchased an advertorial in the Washington Times, categorically denying Japan's official responsibility over the wartime forced prostitution. Several Japanese officials also warned that the resolution could jeopardize the vitally important US-Japanese ties in the long run.

Or will it?

Cement ties

To me, the recent shift in Washington's decades-long ambivalence towards Japan's recalcitrance vis vis wartime atrocities has not made a dent in the US strategy in East Asia, in which Tokyo is an anchor partner playing an extremely crucial role. The strong criticism of the US over the comfort women issue may have fomented doubts about the sturdiness and sustainability of the symbiotic relationship, a closer look at it reveals that nothing has really changed, and there is no revision in sight.

Rather than regarding the resolution as a destabilizing factor in the US-Japan partnership, I tend to see it as an endeavour by the Americans to cement ties with their Japanese counterparts by making the latter aware of the need to address the historical issue so that it would cease to be manipulated by Asian countries in general and China in particular for domestic political gains. In short, any protracted dispute between Japan and its neighbours over history will only serve to undermine the greater security role that Washington would like Tokyo to play in the foreseeable future.

The US has long been accused of being pathetically silent on the historical reactionaries demonstrated by the successive Japanese governments. However, the comfort women issue is one that can no longer be ignored as it constitutes a war crime and a form of human rights violations in American and international opinions.

Everyone knows Japan has no independent foreign policy, and the US' continued silence would invariably be likened to a drunkard father failing to discipline his mischievous son. Since the rising revisionism in Japan can only be detrimental to the US strategy East of the Malacca Straits, Washington has had to make its stand clear in order to maintain its (decreasing) credibility in the eye of the regional countries.

If in doubt, just look at the constant reminders by the US for Japan to amend its pacifist Constitution to facilitate troop deployments beyond Japanese waters, and the reiteration of the Bush administration to secure a permanent seat for Japan at the UN Security Council.

The hawks in Washington will continue to grant Japan the status of a "Britain of the East" as envisaged by the first Armitage Report in 2000. When prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi successfully fulfilled this goal by aligning his country closely with the US in the latter's war on the Taliban in Afghanistan immediately after the 9/11 attacks, followed by the reckless adventure in Iraq in 2003. In both instances, the two countries rearranged their alliance system according to their own specific needs.

For the US, Afghanistan and Iraq provided pretexts under which it has secured a footstool in the much contested Middle East and the access to oil; as for the rightwing forces in Tokyo, they have seen their dream come true now that Japanese troops are stationed in foreign lands, ostensibly for humanitarian purposes.

Only viable safeguard

If the South Koreans are still reeling from the tragic lesson of being left to their own devices over the hostage crisis in Afghanistan while the Bush administration stood idly by despite their Seoul's military contributions, the Japanese are so consumed in insecurity that they are willing to trade anything for US "solidarity", come what may.
(At this critical juncture, rightwing leaders in Japan must be under the delusion that the moment has come for their nation to assume some kind of regional leadership blessed by the US. Perhaps someone should remind them the devil take the hindmost.)

Japan's National Defense Program Guideline for FY 2005 and After states in no uncertain terms that Tokyo will actively promote intelligence exchange and operational cooperation, including "areas surrounding Japan", as well as "efforts to make the stationing of US forces in Japan smooth and efficient".

Meanwhile, it goes without saying that Japan's stronger ties with the US are the only viable safeguard against any potential threat from China and North Korea. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, currently in deep waters following massive electoral losses, has not swerved from his nation's "unshakable alliance" with the Americans, especially now that the ballistic missile defence system in cooperation with the US, set out under the Araki Commission Report of 2004, entitled "The Vision for Future National Security and Defense Capabilities", has come to fruition.

In any case, the US and Japan will need each other more than ever since the end of WWII: from the rise of China as a regional power (and its saber-rattling rhetoric over Taiwan), the North Korea nuclear posture, to the increasingly belligerent and jingoistic Ahmadinejad of Iran, not to mention the quagmire in Iraq and the chaos in Afghanistan, and the fact that Japan is yet to resolve its territorial disputes with China, South Korea and Russia.

So, there may have been some fractures and bruises, but these will soon heal given the challenging geo-strategic realities.