TOKYO —
While Japan’s peers in Europe and elsewhere have voiced alarm over U. S. President Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration and refugees, Tokyo has responded with near silence.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has eschewed any criticism of Friday’s order, which barred nationals of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States for 90 days, halted the U. S. refugee program for 120 days and suspended indefinitely the intake of refugees from war-torn Syria.
Abe has said he is “not in a position to comment” on the move.
“It is up to (individual) countries to decide how they want to control immigration,” he told an upper house budgetary committee Tuesday.
Abe’s tepid response chiefly reflects his reluctance to upset Trump before confirming the president’s commitment to the Japan-U. S. security alliance, said Katsuyuki Yakushiji, a professor at Toyo University’s department of media and communications.
Trump’s issuing of the order nearly overlapped with a telephone call with Abe, in which the leaders agreed to meet in Washington on Feb 10 for their first face-to-face talks since Trump took office on Jan. 20.
Trump’s election on an “America First” platform has prompted concern he could leave Japan to fend for itself in the face of the nuclear and missile threat from North Korea and China’s expansionary activities at sea. Under the current bilateral security treaty the United States is required to “act to meet the common danger” if Japan comes under armed attack.
“Abe has made much of the need to strengthen the Japan-U. S. alliance with Trump, so he has to try to get along with him for now, even though no one in Japan is voicing support for the executive order,” Yakushiji said.
Yakushiji said Abe has made the judgment that his Japanese voting base feels closer to security and economic issues than the plight of refugees or ethnic or religious minorities.
“Japanese people, on the whole, aren’t fond of Trump and don’t think he will last the full four years in office…but for various historical reasons, there is a lack of sensitivity here to human rights issues that don’t involve fellow Japanese people,” he said.
