Ilandes between them - Essay Example

Japan is a prominent affiliate for the US in several foreign policy subjects, especially when it comes to security priorities, from countering the growth of China within the region to responding to threats from North Korea. After the World War II, the alliance between US and Japan has long been a fix of the US security function within East Asia. This alliance eases the forward operations of nearly 49,000 US troops, as well as other US military resources based within Japan into the Asia-Pacific.

Therefore, if Japan makes a decision of becoming a member of the free trade agreement known as Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), it will turn out to be an even more crucial subject within the rebalancing strategy of the Obama Administration to Asia (Curtis). In the last seven years, Japan has fought to achieve political stability. Since 2007, Japan has seen six men becoming Prime Ministers, comprising of the present Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who in 2006-2007 held the same post. His Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) resumed authority in a landslide election held in December 2012.

Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), i.e. the present opposition, had governed for three turbulent years following their own watershed election win in 2009 (Curtis). The leaders in Japan encounter overwhelming responsibilities including a rising increasingly aggressive China, a feeble economy and overhauling from the destructive March 2011 earthquake, tsunami, as well as nuclear disaster. In the recent past, opposition dominion over a single chamber of parliament has deterred policymaking in Tokyo, thereby complicating the relations between US and Japan in spite of general shared national benefits.

Abe is improbable to pursue divisive initiatives prior to the coming national elections in July 2013, for the Diet, i.e. the Upper House of parliament (Curtis). Perhaps most radically, the US is going to be directly engaged in a military clash between Japan and China concerning the Senkaku/Diaoyu islets within the East China Sea. Previous comments and deeds on contentious historical concerns by Prime Minister Abe together with his cabinet have resulted in concerns that Tokyo is capable of upset regional dealing in ways that could end up harming US interests.

As a strong nationalist, Abe is currently under duress on the right by a newly created party flaunting its own hawkish opinions on national security. As a result, Abe’s approach to problems such as the alleged “comfort women” sex slaves during the World War II period, history textbooks, trips to the Yasukuni Shrine, which tributes to war dead of Japan, as well as assertions on a territorial conflict with South Korea, will be under scrutiny by not only the neighbors of Japan, but also by the US (Curtis).

Although the enormous and instantaneous humanitarian relief given by the US after the “triple disaster” in March 2011, bolstered the mutual alliance, difficult concerns remain especially those linked to the positioning of marines on Okinawa. In spite of Washington and Tokyo consenting to relocate the majority of marines from Okinawa into Guam, as well as other locations within the region, the two administrations were incapable of making