Japan’s New P.M. Reassures U.S. on Alliance
source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/04/world/asia/04japan.html
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TOKYO — Scrambling to mend fences with his country’s biggest ally, Japan’s next leader, Yukio Hatoyama, told the United States ambassador on Thursday that the American alliance was the basis of Japanese foreign policy, hours after he said the same thing by phone to President Obama.
In the phone call early Thursday morning with the White House, Mr. Hatoyama said he reassured Mr. Obama that he would not change the alliance with the United States. It was his first conversation with the president since his party defeated Japan’s long-governing incumbent party in Sunday’s landmark election.
“We reaffirmed that the Japan-U.S. alliance is the foundation” of Japanese foreign policy, Mr. Hatoyama told reporters.
Mr. Hatoyama was seeking to quell worries that his slightly left-of-center government, elected after more than a half-century of rule by the conservative, pro-American Liberal Democratic Party, will pull Japan away from the United States.
During the campaign, his party, the Democratic Party, promised to seek a more “equal partnership” with Washington and build closer ties with China and other Asia countries. But the biggest problems were caused by an essay by the Stanford-educated Mr. Hatoyama, published in the International Herald Tribune and on the Web site of The New York Times, that called Japan’s ailing economy a victim of American-led globalization.
The resulting stir in Washington confronted Mr. Hatoyama’s inexperienced government-in-waiting with its first crisis since the Democrats’ landslide victory on Sunday. American criticism of the essay was front-page news in major Japanese newspapers on Thursday, reflecting the still widely held sentiment here that Tokyo must stay close to the United States, especially with a fast-rising China and nuclear-armed North Korea nearby.
Mr. Hatoyama has tried to control the damage, stressing that he has no intention of fundamentally altering the alliance, although his party wants some minor changes to agreements covering the 50,000-strong American military presence. He has also said the essay was misunderstood, and not intended to be anti-American.
end of excerpt
Source: The New York Times Online
In the phone call early Thursday morning with the White House, Mr. Hatoyama said he reassured Mr. Obama that he would not change the alliance with the United States. It was his first conversation with the president since his party defeated Japan’s long-governing incumbent party in Sunday’s landmark election.
“We reaffirmed that the Japan-U.S. alliance is the foundation” of Japanese foreign policy, Mr. Hatoyama told reporters.
Mr. Hatoyama was seeking to quell worries that his slightly left-of-center government, elected after more than a half-century of rule by the conservative, pro-American Liberal Democratic Party, will pull Japan away from the United States.
During the campaign, his party, the Democratic Party, promised to seek a more “equal partnership” with Washington and build closer ties with China and other Asia countries. But the biggest problems were caused by an essay by the Stanford-educated Mr. Hatoyama, published in the International Herald Tribune and on the Web site of The New York Times, that called Japan’s ailing economy a victim of American-led globalization.
The resulting stir in Washington confronted Mr. Hatoyama’s inexperienced government-in-waiting with its first crisis since the Democrats’ landslide victory on Sunday. American criticism of the essay was front-page news in major Japanese newspapers on Thursday, reflecting the still widely held sentiment here that Tokyo must stay close to the United States, especially with a fast-rising China and nuclear-armed North Korea nearby.
Mr. Hatoyama has tried to control the damage, stressing that he has no intention of fundamentally altering the alliance, although his party wants some minor changes to agreements covering the 50,000-strong American military presence. He has also said the essay was misunderstood, and not intended to be anti-American.
end of excerpt
Source: The New York Times Online
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