The US President and Japan - A Primer

There is a strongly held belief on this side of the Pacific Ocean that, despite plentiful evidence to the contrary, US-Japan relations do better under Republican presidents than Democratic ones. The roots of this, as far as I have been able to ascertain, extend back to World War II. Conventional wisdom says that since Franklin Roosevelt was a Democrat and the Pacific War engagement with US troops started during his administration, the US Democratic Party has never really liked Japan to start with. The post-war occupation, led by Douglas McArthur and SCAP (Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers) under the administration of Harry Truman (who also ordered the use of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki) further reinforced this conception during its primary stages.

Despite the fact that the groundwork for the present US-Japan alliance was laid during Truman's 2nd term, and Japan was considered a vital staging point for US/UN-Allied troops during the Korean War. the common perception was that Japan's relationship with America matured during the Eisenhower years. In many ways, it did - SCAP was disbanded, Japan gradually fell under the US defensive umbrella, and the stage was set for Japan's rapid postwar economic expansion which lasted well into the 1980s.

With the Kennedy years occupied with the Soviet Union and the Cold War, Japan was considered a critical ally, but not an area of strategic focus. That status continued with the Johnson administration and its added concern over the escalating Vietnam conflict.

Although it would be easy to write a long thesis on how each successive US administration had different effects on the Japan-US relationship, this is a blog and I want to keep it readable. The short version is that even today, despite the total inept failure of the Bush years and the corresponding wane of American prestige here and around the world, if you spoke to the average Japanese guy in the street, a great many would be more comfortable with a McCain administration than an Obama presidency. (This is my experience only, speaking with people in Kangawa, Shizuoka, Aichi, Mie and Hyogo prefectures over the past nine months. Other accounts may, and probably will, vary.) The results are also split evenly among the "over 40/under 40" demographic. Predictably, the "over 40" folks tend to lean more Republican than the "under 40" who came of age and became internationally aware during the Clinton years.

Even though the Clinton years did a lot to move Japan-US relations forward and erase much of the "Japan bashing" of the 80s from public memory, I still remember speaking to Japanese citizens in the year 2000 expressing relief that Bush won/was granted the election over Gore.

It comes as no surprise, really. This is a country where the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (a misnomer if there ever was one!) has held rule for over 60 years, save for 10 months in 1995, when the Socialists briefly took power. Continuity and consistency hold heavy sway here and once something is ingrained in the national consciousness, correct or not, it often is very resistant to change. If a President Obama, at the end of a 2nd term in 2016, proved to skillfully balance the Japan-China relationship and leave both countries with stronger ties to the US, today's common preconceptions may be challenged.

(Editor's Note: If anyone knows more about this or has information to add/change, please tell me. While I try to vet my historic sources carefully, I am less than flawless. Thanks!)