Two prominent leaders of the Middle East headed abroad last weekend, canvassing support from the international community. Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad went on a tour of Venezuela, Nicaragua and Ecuador, the “red rain land” of Latin America, while Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert headed for China.

[In recent weeks Japan Focus has highlighted tensions in the US-China relationship, notably Richard Tanter's account of The New American-led Security Architecture in the Asia Pacific and Paul Rogers' The United States, China and Africa. M K Bhadrakumar's geostrategic analysis approaches the issues from an alternative perspective which highlights the weakness of the China-Russia relationship, and a comprehensive deepening of US-China ties. Japan Focus.]

The following text appears as chapter 8 in the just published book Client State: Japan in the American Embrace (New York and London, Verso), and is reproduced here by kind permission of the publishers.

When the European Union and China agreed to cooperate to develop the E.U. Galileo Satellite System in 2003, the United States reacted with strong skepticism since Washington was against the sharing of sensitive dual-use technology (with civilian and military applications) with China. In the past, the United States had tried unsuccessfully to impede the European Union's ability to set up Galileo, which is an alternative to the U.S.-established Global Positioning System (G.P.S.). At the time, U.S. analysts questioned why Brussels was spending money (3.6 billion euros) to duplicate an existing system that was available “for free,” and why it was eager to accept Chinese participation in the program.

The surprise film success in the United States in the summer of 2005 was March of the Penguins, a French-made nature documentary on the heroic mating habits of the emperor penguin in Antarctica. The American religious right endorsed the film with particular enthusiasm, celebrating the traditional family values demonstrated by the birds in their long, slow march from the sea to their breeding grounds and back again. Churches booked movie houses and organized visits for their congregations. Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, announced that the “Penguins are really an ideal example of monogamy,” and other neo-conservative commentators reflected on the penguins' devoted child-rearing practices and penchant for familial sacrifice. March of the Penguins became the second-highest grossing documentary ever made, eclipsed only by Fahrenheit 9/1l, a film that also has something to say about family values and sacrifice. For American audiences that cared to make the connection, the pro-nature fable and the anti-war exposé came together around conceptions of globalism and isolation, as well as of family and hardship.

Richard Weitz in “The Sino-Russian Arms Dilemma,” clarifies important elements of strategic dimensions of their deepening and expanding relationship. In previous articles, notably

[Intended to console the souls of victims and usher in the busy “Year of Minamata 2006,” a taiko drum concert was held on New Year's Eve on land reclaimed from Minamata Bay, atop the tons of mercury-contaminated sludge and sealed containers of poisoned fish now entombed in concrete. May 1 will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the official discovery of Minamata disease, the horrific neurological disorder caused by the organic mercury that Chisso Corp. discharged into the bay until 1968. The commemorative logo and posters were chosen through public design competitions, and there will be new books, museum exhibits and international forums. The emphasis is on education and healing, as this is supposed to be the year that Minamata and the nation finally put the industrial pollution disaster behind them.

A presidential election will be held in South Korea at the end of next year to choose a successor to Roh Moo Hyun, leader of the Uri Party, who is due to step down in February 2008.

While it is rather early to talk about his replacement, I recently led a Japan National Press Club mission to South Korea to observe the situation and to meet with the leading contenders for the presidency.

The sad saga of Fukushima, with its recurrent revelations of incompetence and obfuscation, carries on. Among the latest, as related in detail in this July 31 Reuters article, are radioactive releases into the sea, unexplained ventings of steam, and the lack of a credible plan to deal with a daily 400-tonne influx of groundwater. Tokyo Electric, or TEPCO, is clearly unable or unwilling to devote the resources necessary to resolve this crisis, which will continue for decades. As United Nations University research fellow Christopher Hobson argues, the only solution is for the government to take over.

Japanese translation is available

Who are the victims of Japan's great 3.11 earthquake-tsunami-nuclear meltdown? This journal has documented the heavy price paid by the more than 20,000 who died in the tsunami, the hundreds of thousands driven from their homes by the combination of tsunami and meltdown, and the nuclear workers who have fought to bring the radiation at the Tepco plants under control at risk of their lives. Roger Witherspoon extends this analysis to the US servicemen and women of Operation Tomodachi who were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation with little preparation or protection. And in many cases with no access to medical care after completing their terms of service. Some of them are now suing Tepco for lying to the US government and Navy in a hope of recovering damages and treatment, as described and documented below. This is the first of two major articles on their plight and their fight. Asia-Pacific Journal

In early August, the Asahi Shimbun retracted some stories that it published in the 1990s about the wartime “comfort women”. According to the newspaper, the most egregious mistakes involved articles based on claims by Yoshida Seiji concerning his personal involvement in the forced mobilization of young Korean women from Jeju Island to be used as sex slaves in brothels run by the Japanese army.

Dominion From Sea to Sea differs from my other books in that it does not have so much to say about Korea or East Asia. Obviously my books on the Korean War have Korean history as the centerpiece, and even my book of essays, Parallax Visions: Making Sense of American-East Asian Relation, is a Korea-centric examination of U.S. relations with China, Japan and Korea. Nevertheless, this new book could not have been written without the years of experience since I first landed in Seoul in 1967. East Asia's history in the modern period, and its relationship with the United States, gave me an optic that was indispensable for examining America's relationship not just toward East Asia, but to the world. It is an optic that differs radically from most American orientations toward the foreign.

When a 12-year-old Okinawan schoolgirl was raped by three U.S. soldiers in the autumn of 1995, I was governor of Okinawa Prefecture. In my address to the people of Okinawa, I said, “I apologize to you all for failing to protect the girl's human rights and dignity.”

Like the Gulf War of 1991, the Iraq War of 2003 sent tremors through Japan's foreign policy establishment in the face of widespread Japanese opposition to the U.S. invasion, and particularly to U.S. invasion in the absence of an authorizing U.N. resolution. This article, written on the eve of invasion, explores the Japanese government decision to support the U.S. war despite its deep misgivings and considers the implications for eroding Japan's constitutionally enshrined no war principles. The author particularly emphasizes Japan's dependence on the U.S. in light of the crisis in Japan-North Korea relations that surfaced simultaneous with the road to war in Iraq. “Japanese Foreign Policy in Light of the Iraq War,” by Yakushiji Katsuyuki, was published in Aera on April 5, 2003.

Tokyo's outspoken governor Ishihara Shintaro says his country, which suffered history's only nuclear attack, should build nuclear weapons to counter the threat from fast-rising China.

In an interview with The Irish Times, Ishihara said Japan could develop nukes within a year and send a strong message to the world. “All our enemies: China, North Korea and Russia - all close neighbors - have nuclear weapons. Is there another country in the world in a similar situation?”

Fifty years ago, the Canadian diplomat and noted Japan scholar, Herbert Norman, committed suicide, stepping off the roof of a nine-storey building in downtown Cairo. Canadian ambassador to Egypt at the time, Norman was 47 years old and his death on April 4, 1957 provoked a crisis in Canada-U.S. relations.

Believe me that I am never a eulogist of Japanese militarism, because I have many differences with it. But I can not help accepting as a Japanese what Japan is doing now under the circumstances, because I see no other way to show our minds to China. Of course when China stops fighting, and we receive her friendly hands, neither grudge nor ill feeling will remain in our minds. Perhaps with some sense of repentance, we will then proceed together on the great work of reconstructing the new world in Asia.