 Hello everyone, welcome to Looking to the East. I'm your host, Steve Zercher. We have a very special episode today based on news just as of last week. The ambassador to Japan has been nominated by Professor, by President Biden. His name is Rahm Emanuel. Some of you are I'm sure are familiar with him. We're going to talk now about the pros and cons of this nomination, whether he'll actually be confirmed and what the consequences will be for the Japan-U.S. relationship if he indeed does become ambassador sometime later this year. So thank you very much for joining the show. We really appreciate it. I have a very special group of people all related to my university, Kansai Gaidai in one form or other. Let me start with Paul Scott. Paul Scott's a professor of political science, PhD from Virginia. Professor Emeritus from Kansai Gaidai University. He's on the upper left corner. Then we have Jerry Maseki, who's a Kansai Gaidai graduate and JDMA from Washington University in St. Louis, wonderful school, great baseball team as well. He's joining us. He's a Chicago resident for a number of years. We have Johnson Portu in the lower left. Johnson's PhD from Michigan, undergraduate Berkeley, also a professor at Kansai Gaidai University. And last but certainly not least, we have the acknowledged expert on diplomacy because the S.Y. Kim has a PhD in diplomacy from the Tufts School, Tutcher School of Diplomacy. He is also a professor at Kansai Gaidai University. So thank you very much guys for participating in today's show and discussing this interesting news. So let me start with you, Paul, just a couple of minute response. What did you think when you read this a few days ago? What was your immediate reaction to this nomination? Surprise on a number of levels that I wondered why President Biden would go back again to the Obama administration and take someone who has no experience in diplomacy and was as also very tainted at a variety of levels, both the murder of Laquan McDonald, as well as I'm not accusing Mr. Ramo financial irregularities, but he was certainly involved in making an awful lot of money in a very short period of time. $16 million in two years to be exact after he left the Obama administration. That may come up as a financial disclosure statement that has to be made for ambassadors as well. So that may come up. Interesting. I was surprised. Okay, Jerry, you lived in Chicago. You're familiar with Chicago politics. You previously had been involved in the effort to have Obama become president within the Democratic Party. So I'm sure you're familiar with Ram and his history. What was your response when the news broke? Actually, I think I sent you the news and you responded to me. What did you think? Yes, I did. And thank you very much, Steve, for the pleasure to be with you. So I was also surprised at the same time, maybe a little bit happier or more excited about the nomination. Look, I think that it's a bold choice. It's definitely a bold choice. It isn't someone that someone would automatically think would be the ambassador to Japan, but Robin Manuel has, he's an extremely intelligent man and while he, of course, like many politicians has certain issues in his past that people may bring up as time goes on, he does have a reputation for getting things done. I mean, this is a person who is very, very, and has been very, very involved in politics for quite a long time from the Clinton administration through the Obama administration. He is very close to the Democratic inner circle. And so, you know, I think it has the possibility, we'll see, you know, we'll have to see, but it has the possibility to actually be quite a good dick. We'll see how it goes. So my reaction was also surprised, but perhaps a bit more optimistic. Okay, interesting. Johnson, what were your thoughts when you heard this? Actually, I first found out about it on a Twitter feed and there's a lot of academics on Twitter that are probably not gonna be invited to the embassy from what I saw, but my initial reaction was kind of potentially a missed opportunity, but I usually don't like first reactions. I like to think about things a little bit slowly. And so I started thinking about what are they actually trying to maximize? What is the kind of calculus in that decision? And so there are a number of good points or positive points for why he might be a good choice, but there was also some reservations that I have. And Dr. Scott had mentioned a couple of those in terms of training, diplomacy, and so on. So I'm still kind of unpacking my thoughts on this. But a missed opportunity in that there are probably many other candidates potentially that would be better? Well, if I think about it, I'm trying to think what are they trying to maximize? And if we think about what is a bad ambassador versus a good ambassador, what are some variables? Well, things like intelligence, right? So IQ, he has that. Things in terms of his closeness to the White House, he has that. Things in terms of his negotiating skills, he has that. But when it comes to training, when it comes to his experience, that's really what gives me pause. That's a big question mark. And it's like there are a lot of other people that have similar qualities that Emmanuel has, but also the experience. Part of it though also is a function of who's going to be advising him and whether or not he's actually gonna listen to these people with experience. And then I don't have that information as to whether or not he can do that. So initially, I think it's maybe a good choice with a big question mark basically. Thank you. That's why I don't know as a part of your PhD or your studies currently, do you look specifically at the selection of the ambassador as a part of the diplomacy relationship between the United States and Japan? I know you are focused on the Japan-U.S. relationship and they teach courses on the history of that. But is this something that you pay particular close attention to? And then also what was your reaction when you heard this? Well, in general, I pay attention to that and with the historical context. And it's not unusual for U.S. president to appoint political appointee to Japan. More prominent U.S. ambassador to Japan has been political appointees even before the World War II and since then onwards. And my initial response was as long as he can, Emmanuel can restrain his tendency to outburst and confront, then he has a potential to make success. The reason being that he has great access to the president, Biden, whom he knows personally well and his views will be listened to. And in my view that President Biden had some agenda when appointing him, some reason, because United States-Japan relationship will be very crucially important. As perhaps quite as important as U.S.-China relations. U.S.-China relations will be more confrontational, obviously, but U.S.-Japan relations, Japan should do something to support very proactively United States. And then Japan has great reputation or notoriety of euphemism. On the one hand, superficially say yes, but do not deliver that. But Mr. Emmanuel has great reputation as well as notoriety to get things done. But how to do that? He should use euphemism and then learn the language of diplomatic communication, which should be clear but very moderate with a greater moderation, not outburst or direct talk. That's my first response. Okay. All right, thank you all for those initial responses. Let me just, for those of you that are listening, viewing and maybe are not familiar with Rahm Emanuel, although I suspect most of you are. Just very briefly, his background I put together, he emerged into the political world as a congressman from Chicago. And during that time, as Jury mentioned, he was a legislative aide to the Clinton administration. So that's where he began to climb the ladder into the inner circle, which all of you talk about that he is a part of. And to the point that Obama chose him as the chief of staff, and I remember when that decision was made, and that was quite controversial too, that he was selected for that role. And to Jury's point, he, according to Obama in his recent book, he was particularly effective in getting the agenda carried out that Obama had laid out for him. But basically Obama went through the list of everything he asked Emanuel to do as chief of staff. He served for two years in that role. And Obama said basically he accomplished everything. Of course, the major thing is the Obama healthcare plan, which Emanuel was able to get through Congress. And that was no easy task whatsoever. And then after that, he became the mayor of Chicago. And that I think is where the liberal establishment progressive folks are the most upset with him. He's 61 years old. He is a triathlete, so he's an active athlete. If you see a picture of him, you notice that he's very thin and that's why. I did a little bit of research on his nicknames. He has a variety of nicknames that he has picked up, some of which I cannot actually mention on air, but one of them is the rominator. So kind of the emperor, there are a lot of themes about the emperor. And then one that's particular to Japan, this was published before the nomination obviously, is top ramen. So maybe, I don't know, maybe the Japanese press will pick up on that nickname when he does become the ambassador, if indeed that does happen. So that's a very brief background about him. So let's go ahead and open up the discussion here. You guys have touched on the two issues that I picked up in the reviews of this nomination. There seems to be two factors. One is that he clearly is a power within the Democratic Party. He's a very good buddy of David Axelrod, who was the guy who helped Obama become president. Axelrod helped, I can't remember specifically, but they're both Jewish and when Ron got married, it was in the Jewish faith and Axelrod served as a strategic position to make sure that the marriage occurred. He was, it was an honorable position. So there's that kind of tight connection between the two of them. But on the other hand, he has a reputation for speaking without thinking, even in Obama's book, after the elections, the midterm elections where the Democrats got wiped out, Emmanuel was going out around in Washington, DC and saying, I told the president not to do this, I told the president not to do this. So he was actually criticizing Obama after Obama was defeated or the Democratic Party was defeated in the midterm election. So let me just throw it out to you guys. These two factors, sounds like you basically agree with them. Some of you have already commented about that. And how do you think that he would be able to manage these two things or how would Japan respond to this? The fact that he's an insider, but yet he's clearly not what we would consider to be a diplomat. So I'll just throw it out to all of you, just speak up whomever would like to comment on that. Yeah, Steve, I'll maybe just start off if it's okay. Yes, please do. You know, the common denominator, you mentioned three people just now, Obama, Axelrod and Emmanuel. The common denominator of all those is the state of Illinois and Chicago, now for those who are familiar with US politics or local politics, Chicago is has a very, very unique political culture that goes back a number of decades. There was a famous mayor, daily two of them actually, Rom actually was also involved in the latter daily administrative. So there's a very big Illinois connection. Now as far as him not being a diplomatic, I think it was mentioned by Professor Kim earlier. The United States, I mean, normally it's political appointees, right? Who are, who are coming back to Japan. These are high profile people that put Japan on the map in the public consciousness through the notoriety of the ambassador. These are not professional diplomats normally, right? So I think that, as was also said earlier, because Rom Emmanuel has very close ties to the Democratic Party and the president, that's what's gonna be valuable mostly for the US-Japan relationship. So I'll leave it there and let someone else give their opinion as well. If I may, I think you're completely correct his relationship with the Democratic Party. But traditionally maybe you're completely right again that who is appointed, political appointees and also fundraisers. And what happens with Rom is that he's both. He raised a tremendous amount of money for Obama. Again, from Chicago sources, many of them. I heard, I know also a tremendous amount of money for Mr. Clinton. I got a figure of $72 million. Wow. No, you know, I did my, I just looked at this and now there are Obama and for Biden. So these things overlap, but you know, what where negotiating a trade agreement and there has to be a trade agreement that will be or should be negotiating during the Biden administration. That's different than negotiating security, freedom of navigation in the seas, China, North Korea at that level. So that's a different skill set, I think. And so the trade function, sure, but the peace and security section, that is extremely delicate and very, very sensitive. I agree, if I agree with Provost Scott completely and then when it comes to security issues, the new Mr. Immanuel should take into account that there is something what he could do as ambassador at what he could not, because it's basically interstate relations or very sensitive issue. And then ambassador role is also pretty much constrained. It would be rather the Washington DC's senior desk officers in the State Department or White House's National Security Council members who will decide. Ambassador role would be more like a facilitator and a communicator while EP become too ambitious and try to get things done with his strong initiative utilizing his verbal skills, it may generate great tension. And for instance, Japan on the one hand would try to remain very loyal to United States, but would always want to backtrack when it comes to the confrontation, joining confrontation with China being dreaded. Japan would not want to be dragged by United States in a course of military confrontation with China, although all alliance agreement and other things would make it a smooth cooperation. Japan is ready to do that. But still domestic policy in Japan and Japan's own interests would keep Japan to be somewhat reluctant. So ambassador should play very subtle game and greater communicator and facilitator. That's my view, yeah. I'm gonna say something that three members on the panel are probably going to disagree with. And that is that international relations is just the culmination of domestic politics or continuation rather of domestic politics. And I like to say that because I study comparative politics and I are light. But in reality, obviously it's the interplay between international relations and domestic politics. And it seems like domestic politics is really geared the decision for who is going to be the ambassador. The other thing, Professor Kim would probably agree that diplomacy might be a little bit more art than science. And it's gonna be interesting to see how Emanuel actually handles this in terms of diplomacy and negotiating and basically facilitating cooperation on a number of different levels between the US and Japan and also the South Korea, China, Russia issue. Yeah, one thing guys that I'm a little concerned about over my years of being here in Japan, there seems to be a heightened sensitivity on the part of the Japanese government and the Japanese population in general to criticism from the embassy of anything having to do with Japanese policy. So I remember when Carolyn Kennedy was the ambassador, she made some mild criticism of the Japanese government and the response was just so strong. Or maybe it was because of the Japanese public view of her, she of course was probably the most famous ambassador in terms of notoriety because of the connection with the Kennedy administration. So I'm a little concerned that if Ram goes into this role if he, even if he doesn't mean to criticize Japan indirectly, maybe he's being, maybe in an American sense sarcastic, there's a risk for Japan to misinterpret how that comment is made. Do you guys share that concern? First of all, do you agree with me that Japan seems to be hyper sensitive to things that we say about them and about their policies and so forth as a country? Well, I don't know whether, yeah. Yeah, go ahead, please. No, sorry, yeah. I don't know whether I would use the word hyper sensitive, but look, they certainly are always cognizant and will always want to understand particularly where the United States is coming from on any given issue. That's definitely true. I wouldn't call it hyper sensitive, but they certainly are paying attention. As far as whether Ram is gonna be sort of the bull in the China shop, this is a very politically astute individual, okay? He has been around for decades and while, yes, he is known as someone who is quite headstrong and someone who has not shy to give his opinion. I think he is smart and experienced enough to adjust his attitude accordingly. And as long as he has good advisors around him, I think he'll be able to navigate and walk that line quite well. Okay, Paul, are you about to say something? Just gonna add that for all of us who spent most of our lives in Japan, one of the challenges is to find the centers of power, who's really in charge. And that takes a lot of skill to develop those networks and time, it takes time. And exactly what JD and others have been talking about is certainly for domestic politics in the US, he can go in forcefully that may not work in Japan as well, or I think will not. You know, one more minute. If I went through a list of post-war American ambassadors in US Japan, I would most likely say that there's Mondale and Foley and Baker and Caroline Kennedy, but maybe the one that is loved the most or respected the most is Mike Mansfield, who always said, and it was repeated so many times, the most important bilateral relationship bar none is US Japan. And Japanese love that. And people kept on saying that long after it was true. So this is what the Japanese want, is they're gonna compare Ram to the ambassador, the US ambassador to China, which is Nicholas Burns, a career diplomat, tremendously astute at the diplomatic level. Interesting. I mean, really quick on that, when a lot of people, what I was seeing on Twitter, a lot of people were comparing the choice for the ambassador to China, Burns versus the choice for Japan, and I think that was a lot of the sense of potentially a missed opportunity and taking China seriously in terms of foreign policy, at least that's how I read it, and not so much in the case of Japan, yep. All right, guys, we're running short on time. We just have about five minutes left. So I'd like you to get the crystal balls, Johnson, maybe off the back shelf there. I'm sure you have it there along with your books there in the background. And looking to the future, assuming that Ram gets through, the senatorians and so forth, probably he will, although there could be some pushback from both the US and the US, there could be some pushback from both the right wing and the left wing on him, but let's assume he gets through and he becomes ambassador to Japan. So maybe just in a minute or so each of you could let me know what, do you think he'll be a good ambassador? And also, let me know how long do you think he'll be in place, because the last ambassador, Hagerty, who Jerry and I have both met through the ACCJ activity, he left after a couple of years and Trump never nominated anyone to replace him. So basically we had a year and a half, two years with no ambassador. So let's say you're looking into the future, will this be a good choice? Will he end up being a good ambassador overall, given what we've discussed? And how long do you think he'll be in place, which is an important consideration? Why don't I start again with you, Paul? It's an impossible question to answer. Okay. It depends on who controls the narrative here. And whether or not what the Japanese are looking for, what Washington is looking for, what Congress is looking for, because Congress is deeply involved in trade and there has to be a trade agreement. And US, who's the biggest investor in the United States? Japan, who's America's, but fourth largest trade partner or third? Japan, this is serious stuff. This is big money here at stake and peace and security in the Indo-Pacific region. So you'll have to be careful. All right. Thank you, Paul. Sherry, what do you think? Yeah, I'm optimistic. Again, I thought it's a bold pick that I think could turn out actually quite well, very well. Again, he has, with Rahm Emanuel, Japan has a direct pipeline to the president of the United States. So I think it could turn out very well. As for how long he'll be there, that's more difficult. If a cabinet position were to open up, I mean, there are various things. Sure. Yeah, I think with Hagerty we learned this is a stepping stone to his run for Senate in Tennessee, which he eventually did win. So he's now a senator there. Yeah. So that's a little bit harder to predict. But I think, as with everything else he's done, Rahm Emanuel will put a lot of effort and energy into the job. All right, Johnson? Look, I don't think I have enough data to assign a good probability to this. All right. And I want to be optimistic. And I also want to be invited to the emphasis. I'm going to tell you, I don't know. I wish I had better information. And if he gets confirmed, we're going to get more and more data as we improve for. So I hope it is a wonderfully fantastic choice. That's what I hope. All right. So that's why last word is with you. Yeah. What is your educated guess as to what will happen? I'm cautiously optimistic, but there will be a lot of sensitive issues he will be dealing with, like potential Japan's change of its constitution to take more proactive role. But there is a very thin margin American ambassador could speak about those issues, such a sensitive issue. And I noticed that he had until high school, he was active the ballet performer. Yes, that's right. So the promise has a lot to do with the music and words and ballet, things like that. Rather than very politically, making it politically infighting. So he may take, draw on his early experience as a performance dancer while working the thin rope of diplomacy. And then the reason why I become a bit cautiously optimistic is also you want to make a success with this. And it is such a strong political instinct and sensibility. If he make good use of that while making best use of his steps of advice because he will be supported by excellent group of career state department officials in Tokyo Embassy, then he will make a success. So I'm cautiously optimistic as long as he learns moderation and maintains some calm in diplomatic practice. Excellent. Well, that's a very positive note to end on. Thank you all. This is so interesting. I appreciate all of you contributing and being a part of this program. 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