Rahm Emmanuel in Japan, goes rogue on China
Responsible Statecraft
DANIEL LARISON
SEP 22, 2023
Emanuel was always a curious choice for a prominent diplomatic post, given his record as a crude, knife-fighting political operative, but in recent weeks he outdid himself with his trolling comments about China. When the then-defense minister, Li Shangfu, had not been seen in public for several weeks, Emanuel tweeted a mocking reference to Agatha Christie’s "And Then There Were None" as he called attention to the growing list of top Chinese officials removed from their positions over the last few months.
This briefly earned the ambassador some favorable coverage back home, including a report in The Wall Street Journal last week that billed him as a “warrior diplomat,” but like the so-called wolf warrior tactics that Emanuel has been imitating it ended up backfiring on him.
The ambassador’s social media antics have done nothing to advance U.S. interests, and it is hard to see how it benefits Japan or the U.S.-Japanese relationship to have our ambassador in Tokyo flinging insults at a neighboring country. As the NBC News report said, a “second administration official said for Emanuel to make these comments makes no sense and does not advance U.S. strategic goals with China or with the Asia-Pacific region.”
The U.S. doesn’t send its ambassadors abroad so that they can play at being the ugly American for online clout, but lately that seems to be what Emanuel thinks his job is.
Great article. I would add two things. First, Rahmbo's slant if you will is to deliberately undermine any sort of diplomatic reconciliation with China. This is totally consistent with the Congressional drift back in the states. Sometimes its seems the Whitehouse can't decide which way it wants to go. Or is the old horse soldier speaks with forked tongue routine? Blinken goes one way then another. Typically he likes to chastise and lecture the Chinese. Biden says one thing, then another. Then Congress does something or says something concerning China policy that is the opposite of some less provocative or conciliatory statement temporarily expressed by the administration.
Secondly, even if Rahm's inexperience, lack of appropriate temperament for diplomacy, and his wild egoism weren't all there already, the political environment he operates in Japan, has other detrimental influences. The US military (INDOPACCOM) dominates the relations between the US and China. This is the social/political milieu as well for American officials living overseas in Asia. So essentially, when you're looking at US foreign policy in East Asia, you're looking at what the major military command there wants. (Trump was the only one who tried to make his own policy there, which had some other defects). In terms of the domestic political environment in Japan, the embassy is dealing with the LDP government, which while reputed to be dominated by the US, is actually far right and currently predisposed to revisionist views of its position in Asia, and expresses a desire to resume a "normal military" like other states. This means doubling their defense budget and acquiring all sorts of offensive strike weapons. In other words, Japan is returning to its former militaristic perspective. This is true particularly of some of the leadership in the dominant factions of the LDP, if not the entire LDP rank and file. Japanese pacifism and the "peace constitution" are passe and being trashed by the ruling party.
The political environment that the US embassy in Japan is a part of, is a militaristic far right hotbed of extremist views concerning China, North Korea, South Korea, Taiwan, the East China Sea, Russia, the South China Sea, and every other relevant foreign policy issue. It's an echo chamber that drives itself to more and more extreme views on the world situation and what our policies and those of our allies in the region should be. The US establishment really doesn't get it, that diplomacy and militarism are qualitatively different. That's why they thought not too long ago, that the former PACCOM commander Harry Harris would make a suitable ambassador to Seoul. He did little but offend the politicians he interacted with in South Korea, because they weren't (at that time) far right ideologues like himself or adequately subservient to US demands. The current South Korean administration fits right in now with the US/Japanese far right ideology. In South Korea they call it the "new right" ideology.
The Korean take on the Kennedy/Biden hero Yoon Suk-yeol. https://t.co/QtreCYq3eZ
— Tim Shorrock (@TimothyS) September 21, 2023
The political persecution of Democratic Party leader Lee Jae-myung in South Korea is taking place precisely because he would return South Korea to policies based on putting the interests of the Republic of Korea first, and returning to the nationalist aspiration for independence from foreign domination. Lee ended his hunger strike on its 24th day to face yet another judicial hearing next week on whether he should be jailed pretrial on what are fabricated charges. He also needs to return to his parliamentary duties in effort to reform the nomination process for party candidates in the next election. This so those within his own party that voted to allow the government to jail him, could be identified and kept off the ballot.
The demonstration on Thursday outside the National Assembly building during the vote on Lee's legislative immunity during session, was in the tens of thousands. Police efforts to restrict the crowd with barricades were contested by numerous men in the demo of all ages, off and on, all day long. The administration's reaction to these frequent demonstrations was to consider crowd control remedies, including blocking subway exits leading to assembly venues, potentially using water cannon (previously ruled unconstitutional) which have not been used yet, and granting police immunity/indemnity in situations where they might incidentally injure or kill demonstrators. A a metal worker was seriously injured by police earlier this year and another trade union rep burned himself to death in front of a court house. A dusk to dawn ban on assemblies is being considered by the National Police Agency. The ban is currently from midnight to dawn. The former is regarded as unconstitutional as a matter of law. So the administration is trying to get by with half a loaf, midnight to six am, which many attorneys regard as also unconstitutional. I had wondered what had happened to the metal worker labor union demonstrations lately, some of their permit applications had been denied. From Thursday's demo in support of Lee Jae-myung in front of the National Assembly building-
Took a couple of screen shots of today's candlelight movement demonstration (below). The size was difficult to evaluate because of their confinement to only two lanes of traffic and no overhead cameras. I estimate it was in the tens of thousands. The organizers said 20 thousand. The police said 3 thousand which is a joke. It assembled between Namdaemun and City Hall, and ultimately marched to Samgakchi plaza near the Yongsan presidential office and back to Namdaemun. Listened to the speech of the former Justice Minister Chu Mi-ae, who described the former administration's failure to decrypt Han Dong-hun's Apple hand phone with his (alleged) incriminating fabrication of charges against Yoo Shi-min, another former minister, as a coup d'etat. Han had discussed with Channel A News reporter, the means to fabricate charges of financial corruption against Yoo, a popular spokesperson, and public figure on the left.
The failure to decrypt Han's phone led to the dismissal of the charges against Han Dong-hun for "lack of evidence." This ushered in the now a seemingly unchallengeable press-prosecution-president collusion dictatorship currently running South Korea. Han, the current Justice Minister under Yoon, is a despicable character acting as the enforcer for Yoon.
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