s***c
发帖数: 1926 | 1 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-25/trump-muses-privately-
about-ending-postwar-japan-defense-pact
President Donald Trump has recently mused to confidants about withdrawing
from a longstanding defense treaty with Japan that he thinks treats the U.S.
unfairly, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Trump regards the accord as too one-sided because it promises U.S aid if
Japan is ever attacked but doesn’t oblige Japan’s military to come to
America’s defense, the people said. The treaty, signed more than 60 years
ago, forms the foundation of the alliance between the countries that emerged
from World War Two.
Even so, the president hasn’t taken any steps toward pulling out of the
treaty, and administration officials said such a move is highly unlikely.
All of the people asked not to be identified discussing Trump’s private
conversations.
MacArthur On Board
Douglas MacArthur and Chester William Nimitz aboard the USS Missouri to sign
Japan’s formal surrender in Sept. 1945.Photographer: Keystone/Getty Images
Exiting the pact would jeopardize a postwar alliance that has helped
guarantee security in the Asia-Pacific, laying the foundation for the region
’s economic rise. It would also risk spurring a fresh nuclear arms race as
Japan would need to find another way to defend itself against threats from
China and North Korea. Under the terms of its surrender in World War Two,
Japan agreed to a pacifist constitution in which it renounced the right to
wage war.
Meeting With Abe
The president will make his second trip to Japan in a matter of weeks on
Wednesday when he travels for the Group of 20 summit in Osaka. He’s
expected to again meet with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who enjoys
as good a relationship with the mercurial and unpredictable American
president as any foreign leader.
Yet as with many U.S. allies, there are growing tensions between the
countries over Trump’s attitude toward trade. The president has said he may
enact tariffs on imports of foreign cars, calling them a threat to national
security -- an allegation called preposterous by automakers and many U.S.
lawmakers.
It’s unsettled in American law whether the president can withdraw from a
ratified treaty without congressional approval. President George W. Bush
withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 without lawmakers’
consent.
Read More: Okinawa Strongly Rejects U.S. Base Expansion in Referendum
Trump regards Japan’s repeated efforts to move a large U.S. military base
in Okinawa as a sort of land-grab, the people said, and has raised the idea
of seeking financial compensation for American forces to relocate. Trump’s
focus on the U.S. defense pact with Japan may foreshadow broader scrutiny of
American treaty obligations across the world, two people familiar with the
matter said.
The White House communications staff declined to comment Monday night.
The president has said in private conversations previously that he has Japan
’s back and is aware of the U.S.’s obligations under the treaty. But, as
with his stance on other multilateral agreements, he wants the relationship
to be more reciprocal.
JAPAN-US-DIPLOMACY
US President Donald Trump on the USS Wasp at the Yokosuka Naval Base on May
28.Photographer: Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
“The U.S.-Japan alliance has never been stronger,” Trump told sailors and
Marines last month aboard the USS Wasp, an amphibious assault ship at the
naval base in Yokosuka, shared by the U.S. and Japan’s Self-Defense Forces.
“This remarkable port is the only one in the world where an American naval
fleet and an allied naval fleet headquartered side by side, a testament to
the ironclad partnership between U.S. and Japanese forces,” he said.
At the same time, the president has long expressed skepticism of
arrangements such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the United
Nations. He withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement and
the Paris climate accord, both agreed by President Barack Obama, and has re-
negotiated the North American Free Trade Agreement.
The U.S. defense treaty with Japan was first signed in 1951 along with the
Treaty of San Francisco that officially ended World War Two. The defense
pact, revised in 1960, grants the U.S. the right to base military forces in
Japan in exchange for the promise that America will defend the island nation
if it’s ever attacked.
For decades after the war, Japan refrained from developing offensive
capabilities such as long-range bombers, aircraft carriers and nuclear
weapons. But Abe, a relatively hawkish leader, believes his nation should
take a more robust role in its own defense. He pushed through a
controversial interpretation of the constitution to allow Japanese forces to
come to the aid of allies.
Japan is buying advanced F-35 fighter planes from the U.S. and will fly some
of them off warships effectively refashioned as aircraft carriers, its
first since the war. In May, the country’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party
recommended the government eventually raise defense spending to about 2% of
gross domestic product, in line with NATO recommendations for its members
and a threshold Trump has said should be a minimum for U.S. allies.
‘Cornerstone of Peace’
There are presently about 54,000 U.S. military personnel based in Japan, a
permanent troop presence that allows the U.S. to more easily project force
across the Pacific. U.S. Forces, Japan, calls the arrangement “the
cornerstone of peace and security in the Pacific” on its website.
It isn’t clear how those forces would be affected if Trump withdrew from
the treaty. The president has frequently complained that U.S. allies hosting
American bases don’t pay enough money for what he considers a privilege,
and he could seek to negotiate a new or revised treaty that entails more
Japanese financial support for the U.S. military presence.
While the president did not refer to the base by name in his recent
conversations, there has been a running dispute surrounding Marine Corps Air
Station Futenma on Okinawa. The American presence has been controversial
for more than two decades, since three servicemen raped a 12-year-old
Okinawan girl in 1995. Local people still attribute the presence of the base
to higher rates of crime and accidents in the area, according to the
Council on Foreign Relations.
Read More: Trump Plans to Meet With Xi, Putin, Erdogan This Week at G-20
Withdrawing U.S. forces entirely from Japan would hand a strategic victory
to American adversaries China and North Korea.
James Carafano, vice president of foreign and defense policy studies at the
Heritage Foundation, said he doubts the U.S. will withdraw from the treaty
with Japan.
“There’s nothing that says we have to abide by treaties for all eternity,
” Carafano said. “I just doubt we will revisit U.S. policy on the U.S.-
Japan strategic alliance,” which he also referred to as the “cornerstone”
of U.S. foreign policy in Asia.
Abe reached a deal in 2013 with Obama to move the base out of Okinawa as
early as 2022 if a replacement could be constructed. But Trump believes the
land underneath the base is valuable for development, and has told
confidants the real estate could be worth about $10 billion, the people said.
He considers the situation another example of a wealthy country taking
advantage of the U.S., the people said. | l**a
发帖数: 11 | | d*****m
发帖数: 1 | | f********g
发帖数: 32 | | s***c
发帖数: 1926 | 5 大部分日本政客应该都希望假戏真做，挣脱锁链。
【在 f********g 的大作中提到】
: 真要终止了，估计日本在贸易争端上也要说不了
| m*********y
发帖数: 10616 | | C**********e
发帖数: 23303 | 7 倭寇乐死了
美军都撤走了恢复正常国家地位？
够呛 |
|
