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Updated Saturday, November 14, 2009 12:17 am TWN, By Sheila A. Smith, Special to The Washington Post

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Reshaping U.S.-Japan partnership

The Hatoyama government started off badly with the Obama administration by announcing its interest in amending the policies associated with the U.S. military presence in Japan. The prime minister's suggestion to move a Marine airfield off Okinawa sparked deep misgivings in Washington. But Defense Secretary Robert Gates' blunt tone in a Tokyo news conference last month, when he called moving the air station off the island “politically untenable and operationally unworkable,” shocked many Japanese.

The president has an opportunity to change how Tokyo and Washington work together. First, while both Obama and Hatoyama have noted the value of the diplomatic partnership, they must acknowledge that the U.S.-Japan relationship is no longer based on Cold War understandings but, rather, on its ability to deliver solutions to contemporary problems. The relationship cannot remain static or isolated from the tremendous global and regional changes afoot. They should not attempt to build the alliance's agenda in one visit, but in the course of the coming year. Obama will return to Japan in November 2010, when Japan hosts the next Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting. Allowing for real discourse on how to transform our alliance would relieve the pressure on this visit to mark the resolution to all bilateral problems and relieve pressure on a fledgling government trying to accomplish too much. The two leaders should raise their sights considerably; this is simply not the time for messy politics or policy tantrums.

The president and the prime minister must demonstrate the power of the partnership between the world's two largest national economies and most technologically advanced societies. Their talks should focus on generating economic growth and stabilizing global financial markets; invigorating the global climate-change effort and capitalizing on new technologies to reduce carbon levels; and discussing how their nations can motivate the global nonproliferation and disarmament effort while providing for Japan's strategic needs in a nuclear world.

Transition jitters and the legacies of predecessors must be set aside. This visit is the moment for two heads of state to make good on their claims that this relationship is a priority. They should get to work designing an effective and forward-looking partnership.

The writer is senior fellow for Japan studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

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