In dozens of conversations, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has counseled President Donald Trump to avoid making concessions to North Korea that could upset East Asia’s balance of power, including a military retreat from South Korea that would leave Tokyo alone on the front lines against China’s growing power.<\/b>
\nTOKYO (Reuters) – In dozens of conversations, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has counseled President Donald Trump to avoid making concessions to North Korea that could upset East Asia\u2019s balance of power, including a military retreat from South Korea that would leave Tokyo alone on the front lines against China\u2019s growing power.
\u201cThe big picture is that any withdrawal of U. S. forces from the peninsula would benefit China,\u201d said a source from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe\u2019s policy circle.
\u201cIn 10 years, the U. S. could be out of Korea and Taiwan could be like Hong Kong,\u201d he added, asking not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Any outcome from Trump\u2019s meeting with North Korea\u2019s Kim Jong Un in Singapore on Tuesday that makes that scenario more likely may force Japan to accelerate preparations to survive without U. S. military power, sources familiar with the nation\u2019s security planning told Reuters.
Already, Japan has reinforced islands along the edge of the East China Sea, sought new regional allies, such as Australia and India, to balance China\u2019s power and, more recently, made a diplomatic push to reduce tensions with Beijing. U. S. FORCES IN KOREA
U. S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday restated that Washington wants \u201ccomplete, verifiable and irreversible\u201d denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. But he added that the U. S. would work to guarantee Pyongyang\u2019s security if it abandoned a nuclear arsenal it says it built to deter U. S. aggression.
The United States has 28,500 troops in South Korea, a legacy of the Korean War. Japan hosts 50,000 U. S. military personnel, including the biggest overseas concentration of U. S. Marines, and an aircraft carrier strike group.
\u201cAny reduction in US force levels in Northeast Asia will be seen as a relative retreat by the US. This is one of China\u2019s key strategic objectives,\u201d said a former senior U. S. military commander in Asia. With no U. S. forces in Korea, \u201cthe US-Japan alliance really stands alone in Northeast Asia.\u201d
Japanese leaders see the same dynamic unfolding, and it has been a key part of Abe\u2019s message to the White House.
\u201cA U. S. military pull out from the Korean peninsula would create a power vacuum. The Pentagon understands this and Japan is also saying this to Trump,\u201d a senior Japanese defence ministry official said. FEAR OF CHINA
China says its intentions are peaceful and rejects any suggestion it harbors territorial ambitions in Asia.
Japan, nonetheless, fears China\u2019s growing strength. Its military is fed by annual defense spending increases that Tokyo, hemmed in by welfare spending to support a rapidly aging population, is unable to match.
Japan\u2019s military outlays have grown for the past six years, and a policy paper discussed by ruling Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers in May proposed Japan adopt a North Atlantic Treaty Organization-style commitment to spending 2 percent of GDP on defense.
Even at that level, however, Japan\u2019s military budget would still only be about half of what China plans to spend in 2018.
\u201cUnlike the 1930s, Japan cannot militarize and neither can it go nuclear. Japan has no option but to strengthen diplomacy,\u201d said the source from Abe\u2019s policy circle. \u201cAbe is a realist.\u201d
Abe\u2019s diplomacy push included a meeting last month in Tokyo with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, the first such visit to Japan since 2010. The two agreed to establish a security hotline to help defuse unexpected incidents. LINES OF COMMUNICATION
Throughout, Abe has stuck close to Trump to keep him committed to pressing Kim on denuclearization.
Abe met Trump in Washington on Thursday, the 31st time the two leaders have spoken since Trump took office, more than twice as often as he talked with President Barack Obama during the whole of his second term.
\u201cIn the last 18 months, we really spent many hours to discuss this issue. We shall never repeat the past mistakes,\u201d Abe said at a joint briefing with Trump following their latest tete-a-tete.
Abe said sanctions on Pyongyang should not ease until it agrees to complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization. Tokyo has also demanded that Kim reveal the fate of Japanese citizens abducted by North Korea to train its spies.
Japan will hold back economic assistance to North Korea, Abe has said, until all those issues are resolved.
Trump, who has suggested he wants to drop the term \u201cmaximum pressure,\u201d has focused more on trade.
\u201cThe Prime Minister and I have been working to expand our cooperation in a range of areas, including defense and commerce, which is what we discussed today,\u201d he said.
The Japanese public is more pessimistic than their U. S. counterparts about the prospects of the summit, according to a survey conducted in May and June by Japanese think tank Genron and the University of Maryland. They gathered 1,000 responses in Japan and 1,215 in the United States.
Only 6.2 percent of Japanese respondents agreed that the talks would deliver significant progress on denuclearization, compared with 21.8 percent of Americans in the survey.
Whatever the outcome of Trump\u2019s meeting with Kim on Tuesday, Abe will support Japan\u2019s U. S. ally, said Takahashi Kawakami, a professor at Tokyo\u2019s Takushoku University.
\u201cAbe can argue that denuclearization talks will take more time,\u201d said Kawakami. \u201cIt\u2019s unlikely to hurt his public approval at home, and it will give Trump a bump.\u201d<\/p>\n

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