End is nigh for era of US 'hero worship' says Yukio Hatoyama of Japan - Times Online
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As Japan lurches towards one of its biggest political upheavals since the war, the opposition party expected to take power by the end of this year has promised to break from decades of unquestioning support for American foreign policy.
The commitment, by a senior leader of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ), came as polls confirmed its seemingly unassailable lead over the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has held almost unbroken power for more than half a century. It suggests that historic changes may be in store for Japan as it struggles with a deep recession.
“Japan now needs to make a clear shift from diplomacy that follows the US lead to diplomacy based on multilateral co-operation,” Yukio Hatoyama, the DPJ's secretarygeneral, told a gathering of foreign investors in Tokyo yesterday. “We must view the Asia-Pacific region, where we have increasingly close ties with other countries, as the place where Japan will live as a nation.”
Mr Hatoyama, a founder of the DPJ who would be a senior minister in any future government, said that Japan's postwar military alliance with the US would continue, but predicted “the end of US-led globalism”.
He emphasised the need for political and economic integration with East Asia, especially China, and warned that, under a DPJ government, Japan would be as likely to criticise the US as to support it. He rejected the habit of past LDP governments of “virtually worship[ping] the United States in the belief that everything will be all right if Japan does whatever the United States does.
“I expect to see the world move from the age of US dominance to an age where power is spread across many countries,” he told the CLSA Japan Forum.
The US-Japanese alliance came at the expense of Japan's relations with its near neighbours in Asia, particularly South Korea and China.
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I for one think it's about time and makes perfect sense.