Japan’s unlikeliest cheerleader is an American ambassador

By Gearoid Reidy

The US ambassador to Tokyo is known for not mincing his words. What has surprised, however, is his target: the folks back home.

“I have a message for all the experts back in Washington: You don’t know Japan of today,” Emanuel, a former Obama White House chief of staff, said in January, citing advice he was given before taking his post about the need to tread slowly and softly. “Their predictions of what the future of Japan would be were myths. Japan has busted every one of those myths.”

I usually avoid the Tokyo embassy scene but reached out to Emanuel because his take resonated. One of my great frustrations is with how Japan is perceived from outside, leading to what I have called a “comprehension gap” that reduces the country to stereotypes — or simply ignores it. Here was perhaps the first senior political figure I could recall making the same argument as mine, which is why I sought his perspective for my column to declare an end to Japan’s era of “lost decades.” (You can read the feature here.)

“It is a different Japan,” he agreed when we spoke last week. “The United States has to update the way it thinks about Japan.”

Previous ambassadors, assuming they had much of a profile at all, often spent more time telling their host nation what to do — an approach that could grate, given Japan’s history as a US-occupied nation and Tokyo’s desire to be treated as an equal partner.

Caroline Kennedy, the only recent envoy with a profile on par with Emanuel’s, ruffled feathers across the country when she criticized the Taiji dolphin hunt. Her office also issued a rare criticism of then-premier Shinzo Abe’s visit to Yasukuni Shrine in 2013, just weeks after she took over.

By contrast, Emanuel is effusive in his praise — indeed, at times he seems to go above and beyond and stray into active boosting of the current government, which might be more controversial if there were a more realistic prospect that Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party might lose power. (That still seems fanciful.)

I met the former Chicago mayor at the ambassador’s residence in Tokyo’s Akasaka district, beside the previously sleepy Toranomon quarter that has been transformed by a stunning redevelopment over the past decade. The historic low-rise residence, where Emperor Hirohito met with General Douglas MacArthur in 1945, is now surrounded by glass skyscrapers. It’s late Friday afternoon, and Emanuel seems to be feeling the effects of the week, having flown back to Washington for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s recent state visit. Nonetheless, he lights up while discussing achievements in boosting national and regional security — at least, as seen from Washington’s perspective — put in place by Kishida.

“The guy implemented the most radical changes — in two years, not 20, without a single protest,” he says. Emanuel lists the changes under the Kishida administration, including a relaxation of defense export rules, plans to raise national security spending to 2% of gross domestic product and add counterstrike capabilities, and the smoothing of ties with South Korea. Despite his long time in power, Abe faced greater difficulty enacting much smaller changes. Rahm contrasts the silence on Tokyo’s streets with protests in many democracies over varying domestic and international policies, from France to South Korea to the uproar in US universities.

“As a former chief of staff,” he says, “I’m kind of impressed.”

Kishida has benefited from the dramatic shift that has moved the US and China to strategic adversaries. When it comes to the subject of Beijing, we see the Emanuel that Japan might have expected when his appointment was first floated in the media — combative, hard-edged and distinctly undiplomatic.

He seems to enjoy needling China, and sometimes appears freer to speak about Beijing than his host country — such as his blasting of Chinese “hypocrisy” over the discharge of treated water from the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant. If reports last year that he was told by aides to Joe Biden to dial it back were true, the request was ineffective: Just this week, he tweeted about a “Chinese pattern of plunder” surrounding allegations of doping in Olympic swimming and spying on European companies.

Emanuel also likes to hold Japan as a mirror to his own country to show America where it’s gone wrong, frequently raising the example of spotting young children walking home from school, alone or in groups, without fear of violence.

If there’s one area he has strayed into controversy, however, it’s his support for LGBTQ rights: Nationalist netizens decry what they see as interference in Japan’s sovereignty with his calls for Japan to legalize same-sex marriage. Ironically, he’s also taken flak from the other side too, with his backing of 2023’s toothless legislation aimed at preventing LGBTQ discrimination.

Emanuel’s future in the country will depend on what’s being called “moshi Tora” in Japan, meaning “if Trump” — the prospect of the former US president triumphing in November’s election. Tokyo was caught badly off-guard by Donald Trump’s surprise victory in 2016, necessitating an ingratiating emergency trip to America by Abe to establish ties.

This week showed that Tokyo is taking no chances this time, with former Prime Minister Taro Aso dispatched to meet Trump in New York. Politically appointed ambassadors typically step down after a change in the White House — and Emanuel’s typically blunt work as a political commentator during the 2020 elections means any exception for him would seem unlikely.

For now, Emanuel’s the global cheerleader the Japanese badly need. He has a good story to tell — and he tells it better than most of Japan’s leaders. And he’s right about one thing: Regardless of who’s in the White House next year, America must update the way it sees its most vital Asian ally.