Honest-ish Abe talks up Obama's pivot

As addresses by foreign leaders go, Shinzo Abe's was less than rousing. Bibi Netanyahu got more ovations per paragraph than Mr Abe's entire speech. But the Japanese prime minister's agenda has a higher chance of success. His speech - the first by a Japanese leader to both houses of Congress - had two explicit aims. The first was to talk up the US military rebalancing to Asia. The second was to boost chances of a conclusion to the Trans-Pacific Partnership. To judge by what he said, Mr Abe is making more progress on the military dimension. He offered among the most robust endorsements by any Asian leader of Barack Obama's "pivot to Asia".

Though Mr Abe never said "China" or "containment", strengthening the US-Japan hedge against a rising China was his implicit theme. Yet he was far more specific on the military details of how that would be accomplished. Those among sceptical US lawmakers looking for detailed pledges from Japan on dismantling barriers to American beef, rice or vehicles would have been disappointed. Mr Abe added nothing to the vague pledges he and Mr Obama used in their White House press conference on Tuesday. There had been a hope that Mr Abe's US trip would push the TPP talks towards a clinching moment. His speech will only add to the concern that we are still awaiting breakthroughs on TPP. Mr Abe's most notable comment was a veiled reference to China when he said the 12-nation deal should build a market "free from the arbitrary intentions of any nation".

Mr Abe was far more direct about the demand for more US military hardware than he was about its goods and services. In this respect, he was continuing in the tradition of his predecessors. Yet there was a far more militaristic tinge to his narrative. Japan, he said, would support America's Asia rebalancing "first, last and throughout". He set out in detail his efforts to water down the US-framed Japanese constitution to permit its self-defence forces a more overt role. Japan would build a new "credible deterrence" that would enable it to co-operate more fully with US forces in the region. It would pump money into an upgrade of the US base in Guam (more than $2bn). Tokyo was also deepening military ties with India and Australia, which are the two of the largest bulwarks against China's creeping expansionism. He also set out his principles on the "state of Asian waters" - a response to Beijing's hyperactivity in the South China Sea.

To American ears, Mr Abe's words were those of a strong ally, regretful of its militaristic past on the eve of the 70th anniversary of the end of the war in the Pacific. He made strong - if precedented - references to Japanese regret over the US lives felled in Bataan, Corregidor, and the Coral Sea. But to Japan's Asian neighbours, Mr Abe offered nothing new. There was no advance on previous apologies over Japan's treatment of second world war "comfort women" or reassurances that he would reverse the trend towards historical revisionism in Japanese textbooks. In that sense, Mr Abe's speech was disappointing. It also points up the limits to his support for Mr Obama's Asia pivot. The US rebalancing hinges on the America-Japan alliance. Yet it is also limited by it. Until Japan is accepted as a fully repentant power by its neighbours, including China, Mr Abe's utility as a US ally will be double-edged.

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