Is Abe Starting to Treat the Obama Administration as a Lame Duck?

And is Joe Biden the Designated Whipping Boy?

There has always been an implicit contradiction between Shinzo Abe's declared desire to "bring Japan back" and the US wish to lead "Free Asia". The divergence of aims has been obscured by the eagerness of the US defense establishment to encourage Japan's increasing heft as a "security" "defense" "active pacifist"; well, let's just say "military" power, in order to add to the credibility of US hegemony in the Western Pacific, and Japan's awareness that US military backing - if properly exploited by invoking the US-Japan Security Treaty - can give Japan a significant leg up in its confrontation with the People's Republic of China.

The Abe administration has performed exactly as desired by American military strategists, both in its willingness, nay eagerness to build up its military and endorse the concept of "collective self defense", and on the highly contentious issue of shoving the Futenma airbase relocation down the throats of the resisting Okinawan people by a combination of financial blandishments and crude political pressure.

However, there are signs that the are tensions in the US-Japan romance, largely because the Obama administration is serious about exploiting the potential of its "honest broker" role to carve out a role for itself as the even-handed interlocutor between Japan and China - a role that the PRC is encouraging in order to drive a wedge between Tokyo and Washington - and is therefore not giving Prime Minister Shinzo Abe the full-throated support that he believes he needs and deserves.

Also, the Abe administration may consider the current moderate Asia policy of President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and Secretary of State John Kerry to be a fleeting, transitory dream of an administration entering its lame-duck phase, to be carefully defied in expectation of a more militant and pro-Japanese successor.

One of the less-noted ramifications of US Asia policy has been the marked divergence between US and Japanese responses to the Chinese declaration of its air defense identification zone or ADIZ in the East China Sea. Prime Minister Abe immediately jumped into Churchillian "this shall not stand" rhetoric and declared that no Japanese aircraft - including Japanese civilian carriers that had already declared their intention of complying with the Chinese declaration - would respect the ADIZ.

The United States, perhaps conscious that it maintains a ferociously defended ADIZ over North America, decided to defy the ADIZ only to affirm the right of United States military aircraft to fly anywhere they wanted outside of Chinese airspace, and sent two B-52s lumbering over from Guam into the ADIZ unannounced. The United States, however, did not recommend that US civilian carriers ignore the ADIZ. South Korea took advantage of the ruckus to expand its own ADIZ, which it apparently has been trying to do for a long time, gained the acquiescence of the PRC, and it appears that ROK civilian carriers now respect the zone.

This left Japan pretty much out on a limb by itself, a state of affairs that the Western press tactfully decided to ignore but that seems to have awakened some resentment towards the United States, perhaps by the Abe administration and certainly by its confront-China sympathizers in the US.

Although Prime Minister Abe had failed to summon up a united front against the PRC over the ADIZ, he took another crack at it at the global elite confab in Davos, Switzerland.

International affairs boffin Ian Bremmer and a suspiciously large contingent of think-tank poobahs were primed to love the speech (the text of which was, by Davos practice, not made available to the common herd), and they did.

First, Bremmer:

And Prime Minister Abe just came, he gave a great speech. Folks are optimistic about the economy. The one part of the speech that people were really concerned about was Japan-China. And understandably. He's criticizing the Chinese as being aggressive and militaristic. He compared Japan-China relations explicitly to relations between Germany and the UK in 1914, where the economic relations were good but the security tensions, let's say, were not so good. And we saw what happened there.

I wouldn't say that Abe was directly raising the specter of war, but he was saying that China is acting in a manner that's unacceptable and Japan won't tolerate it. [1]

Bremmer also implied that the PRC was taking advantage of a certain lack of American testicular fortitude on the China question:

So clearly the Chinese want to engage with Americans in a serious way. There are a lot of reasons for that. The US economy is picking up. But also they see a window here because all of the hawks on China are gone from the US administration. Hillary's gone, [former assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs] Kurt Campbell's gone, [former Treasury secretary Timothy] Geithner, much more focused on this region, is gone, and [former National Security Advisor Thomas] Donilon's gone. And so they see an opportunity with Biden effectively leading US-China relations right now to build the US-China relationship while really changing the rules on the ground with Japan.

Contemporaneously, two worthies from the Center for a New American Security, a "left of center" security think tank, declared their concern that peace might break out between the US and the PRC, and advocated for heightened tensions instead, with an assist from Japan and other Asian allies:

US officials have been careful to avoid provoking a China that appears increasingly willing to flex its newfound military muscle. Perhaps that's why Biden invoked his father's advice in warning on the eve of his Beijing visit that "the only conflict that is worse than one that is intended is one that is unintended". But an overemphasis on stability can be dangerous.

The point is simply that a country with the power of the USSR or China, unsatisfied with features of the existing order, motivated to do something to change it, and skeptical of the resolve of the United States, could well pursue a policy of coercion and brinkmanship, even under the shadow of nuclear weapons.

[T]he United States needs to inject a healthy degree of risk into Beijing's calculus, even as it searches for ways to cooperate with China. This does not mean abandoning engagement or trying to contain China, let alone fomenting conflict. But it does mean communicating that Beijing has less ability to control escalation than it seems to think. China must understand that attempts to roil the waters could result in precisely the kinds of costs and conflicts it seeks to avoid.

To make this work, the United States should pursue policies that actually elevate the risks - political, economic, or otherwise - to Beijing of acting assertively. ... [T]he US military needs capabilities and plans that not only prepare it for major war, but that also offer plausible, concrete options for responding to Chinese attempts to exploit America's perceived aversion to instability. Leaders throughout Asia will be watching. Too much caution, especially if China is clearly the initiator, may be read as US weakness, thereby perpetuating rather than diminishing China's incentives toward adventurism.

The United States can further raise the stakes by deepening its military ties with Japan ... [2]

Senator John McCain, whose confidant Roy Pflauch handles the Abe administration's careful and extensive informal outreach to the American right wing, also invoked the 1914 analogy during the confirmation hearings for new ambassador to the PRC, Max Baucus, an indication perhaps that Abe's allies in Washington are all determinedly singing from the same hymnal.

Wow, looks like everybody's ready to join Japan and stand up to China except that Chamberlain in VPOTUS clothing, Joe Biden! Well, almost everybody.

President Obama's relations with Prime Minister Abe are considered cool at best.

Abe, it should be pointed out, is an unreconstructed Cheneyite when it comes to admiration and emulation of Dick Cheney's Manichean worldview, especially where it pertains to China. (In passing, it might be noted that Cheney's loyal aide Scooter Libby introduced Abe for his September 2013 speech to the Hudson Institute).

Abe has also been insistent in his quiet outreach to Republican, hawkish, and anti-Obama elements in Washington, most recently in an effort to obtain US acquiescence for his Yasukuni shrine visit, and, as a result, is reportedly no particular friend of the White House, let alone the amiable and often-maligned as "soft on everything" Joe Biden.

Maybe the Obama team did not appreciate the implication that they had to stand beside Japan right now! 1914! (I guess World War II analogies are a bit awkward) - in an anti-PRC alliance, or risk getting tarred with the brush of appeasement, and made its displeasure known.

In any case, Abe quickly backpedaled on the 1914 analogy, lamely blaming the misunderstanding on an interpreter's interpolation and going into full-court spin mode. He didn't mean war was possible if the world didn't stand up to China. He meant war was impossible! Per Japan Times:

The government has repeatedly said that what Abe wanted to convey is that a war between Japan and China is not possible because it would cause devastation not only to the two countries but to the world as a whole.

"We will convey what the prime minister meant through diplomatic channels," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a press conference.

When meeting with journalists at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Abe was asked whether a war between Japan and China is conceivable, and in response he compared the current tensions between the countries to the rivalry between Britain and Germany in the years before World War I.

Abe called it a "similar situation", according to the Financial Times and some other media.

By Friday morning, the government had briefed the BBC about Abe's intention, a Foreign Ministry source said. The British public broadcaster was among the media outlets that were reporting intensely on the prime minister's comments. Tokyo will also brief Reuters soon, the source said.

Many media reports "left the impression that Abe had not denied (the possibility of) a military clash (between Japan and China) and this caused misapprehension," a different government source said. [3]

Then Abe jetted off to the welcoming environs of India, where he served as guest of honor at the Day of the Republic celebrations and concluded a passel of agreements - and there were no dissenting voices when it came to advancing an anti-PRC Japanese-Indian security alliance.

The trip was apparently arranged at the last minute and at the cost of Abe missing the preparations for the opening of the Diet. One is free to speculate that his disappointment at the hands of the Obama administration provoked him to make a statement that Japan was not by any means solely reliant on its US patron to make its way in 21st century Asia.

Abe described the Japan-India relationship as "the greatest potential of any bilateral relationship anywhere in the world". Insert crying bald eagle graphic here, since it's another indication that the Abe administration's rejection of the "victor's justice" of World War II is not just a matter of cheesing off China; it's a rejection of US diplomatic and security tutelage and an announcement that Japan will give priority to pursuing its own interests, instead of sacrificing them as America's loyal ally.

The visit was marked by an Indian pundit writing in the Nikkei Asia Review and explicitly making the case for an Indian-Japanese alliance to contain China and, in fact, touted security ties as the most stable foundation for economic ties.

As in:

Japan and India, natural allies strategically located on opposite flanks of the continent, have a pivotal role to play in ensuring a regional power equilibrium and safeguarding vital sea lanes in the wider Indo-Pacific region - an essential hub for global trade and energy supply. ... The logic for strategic collaboration is no less compelling. If China, India and Japan constitute Asia's scalene triangle - with China representing the longest Side A, India Side B, and Japan Side C - the sum of B and C will always be greater than A. It is thus little surprise that Japan and India are seeking to add strategic bulk to their quickly deepening relationship.

Indeed, the world's most stable economic partnerships, such as the Atlantic community and the Japan-US partnership, have been built on the bedrock of security collaboration. Economic ties lacking that strategic underpinning tend to be less stable and even volatile, as is apparent from China's economic relations with Japan, India, and the US.

The transformative India-Japan entente promises to positively shape Asia's power dynamics. [4]

Upon Abe's return to Tokyo, it was promptly leaked to the Kyodo news service that Vice President Biden had fruitlessly attempted to persuade Abe not to visit the Yasukuni Shrine in December.

This is an interesting state of affairs, since the previous version of the story was that Prime Minister Abe had received mixed messages from a mixed bag of formal and informal Japanese envoys in Washington on the official US government attitude toward his visit.

A one-hour phone call from VP Biden saying "Please don't go"; on the other is a pretty unambiguous message.

And, I might add, that Prime Minister Abe disregarding Biden's call and going to Yasukuni anyway is also a pretty clear message that he does not want to buy whatever Biden is selling.

As AFP put it: "But the news that personal overtures from Joe Biden, who has enjoyed a good working relationship with senior Japanese figures, were rejected will be an embarrassment to the White House."

It is possible that Abe believed that he deserved to be lobbied on this vital issue personally by President Obama and declined to heed American intentions out of pique; however, it's more likely that he wanted to make it clear that the United States is not going to receive automatic fealty from Japan on matters that Abe believes to be against Japan's interests.

Also, he may wish to send the message that a US administration that does not back Japan's China gambits to the hilt is no real ally - and no real leader of the Asian coalition.

It will be interesting to see whether Abe and his allies regard President Obama as a lame duck, and will concertedly criticize his China strategy - by attacking the convenient cut-out Joe Biden - while waiting for more a more militant administration come 2016, either under pivot architect-helmswoman and China-basher Hillary Clinton or a suitably anti-PRC Republican administration.

Key indicators of the Abe administration's attitude might include a spate of op-eds in the US that the Obama administration is too circumspect in confronting the PRC, and more than the usual sniggering at Vice President Biden as an amiable foreign-policy lightweight (the latter theme has been greatly assisted, in the media at least, by the PRC's high-handedness in refusing to provide visas for two New York Times correspondents assigned to China, despite the earnest presentations of Biden to the Beijing leadership.)

A more significant assertion of an independent Japanese regional policy in the waning years of the Obama administration would be unilateral contacts with North Korea, thereby breaking the PRC-ROK-US united front that is the hallmark of the current negotiations. Abe's chief cabinet secretary has already been called on to deny reports that Japanese envoys met with DPRK representatives in Hanoi.

Also, the Indian embassy in Pyongyang - potentially a eager and supportive cut-out for Prime Minister Abe, since direct Japanese diplomacy is hindered by the demand that the abductee issue be resolved first - and the DPRK regime have been suspiciously fulsome in their expressions of mutual regard. According to North Korean media, the Indian ambassador hosted a reception at the embassy for DPRK worthies and stated:

[I]ndia would value and boost the traditional friendly ties with the DPRK, hoping that the country would prosper and make dynamic progress.

He referred to the fact that the two countries, member nations of the Non-Aligned Movement, have common views on many international issues.

He hoped that tensions would be defused and Korea be reunified peacefully through dialogue, adding that India would send every possible support for this.

He said that the Indian people revere President Kim Il Sung and leader Kim Jong Il, eternal leaders of the Korean people.

Noting that Marshal Kim Jong Un, supreme leader of the Korean people, is paying deep attention to the development of the bilateral friendly relations, he expressed the belief that thanks to his wise leadership, the cause of building a thriving nation would be successfully accomplished. [5]

Anyway, expect surprises in the evolution of the Japanese security posture in its "near beyond". And, for the United States, don't assume that all the surprises will be pleasant ones.

Notes:
1. Ian Bremmer Explains What's REALLY Going On Between China And Japan And The One Issue No One Is Talking About, Business Insider, January 24, 2014.
2. Roiling the Waters, Foreign Policy, January 21, 2014.
3. Abe's remarks on WWI parallels to be clarified, Japan Times, January 24, 2014.
4. Japan and India: a transformative entente, Nikkei Asian Review, January 23, 2014.
5. Indian Ambassador Hosts Reception, KCNA, January 23, 2014.

Two Steps Forward Two Steps Back in Abe's Contain-China Initiative

The week started well with Abe in full regional statesman fig delivering a “China must be contained” speech at Davos (Yes, I know, nobody openly uses the "C" word, "containment" but if anyone can come up with a better descriptor, let me know).  Ian Bremmer and a significant contingent of think-tank poobahs seemed primed to love the speech, and they did.

First, Bremmer:

And Prime Minister Abe just came, he gave a great speech. Folks are optimistic about the economy. The one part of the speech that people were really concerned about was Japan-China. And understandably. He’s criticizing the Chinese as being aggressive and militaristic. He compared Japan-China relations explicitly to relations between Germany and the U.K in 1914, where the economic relations were good but the security tensions, let’s say, were not so good. And we saw what happened there.

I wouldn’t say that Abe was directly raising the specter of war, but he was saying that China is acting in a manner that’s unacceptable and Japan won’t tolerate it.

Bremmer also implied that the PRC was taking advantage of a certain lack of American testicular fortitude on the China question:

So clearly the Chinese want to engage with Americans in a serious way. There are a lot of reasons for that. The U.S. economy is picking up. But also they see a window here because all of the hawks on China are gone from the U.S. administration. Hillary’s gone, Kurt Campbell’s gone, Geithner much more focused on this region is gone, and Donilon’s gone. And so they see an opportunity with Biden effectively leading U.S.-China relations right now to build the U.S.-China relationship while really changing the rules on the ground with Japan.

Contemporaneously, two worthies from the Center for a New American Security, the “left of center” security think tank, declared their concern that peace might break out between the US and the PRC thanks to the same lack of testicular fortitude, and advocated for heightened tensions instead, with an assist from Japan and other Asian allies:

U.S. officials have been careful to avoid provoking a China that appears increasingly willing to flex its newfound military muscle. Perhaps that's why Biden invoked his father's advice in warning on the eve of his Beijing visit that "the only conflict that is worse than one that is intended is one that is unintended." But an overemphasis on stability can be dangerous.

The point is simply that a country with the power of the USSR or China, unsatisfied with features of the existing order, motivated to do something to change it, and skeptical of the resolve of the United States, could well pursue a policy of coercion and brinkmanship, even under the shadow of nuclear weapons.

...

[T]he United States needs to inject a healthy degree of risk into Beijing's calculus, even as it searches for ways to cooperate with China. This does not mean abandoning engagement or trying to contain China, let alone fomenting conflict. But it does mean communicating that Beijing has less ability to control escalation than it seems to think. China must understand that attempts to roil the waters could result in precisely the kinds of costs and conflicts it seeks to avoid.

To make this work, the United States should pursue policies that actually elevate the risks -- political, economic, or otherwise -- to Beijing of acting assertively.

…

[T]he U.S. military needs capabilities and plans that not only prepare it for major war, but that also offer plausible, concrete options for responding to Chinese attempts to exploit America's perceived aversion to instability. Leaders throughout Asia will be watching. Too much caution, especially if China is clearly the initiator, may be read as U.S. weakness, thereby perpetuating rather than diminishing China's incentives toward adventurism.

The United States can further raise the stakes by deepening its military ties with Japan…

Wow, looks like everybody’s ready to join Japan and stand up to China except that Chamberlain in VPOTUS clothing, Joe Biden!  Well, almost everybody.

Abe, it should be pointed out, is an unreconstructed Cheneyite when it comes to admiration and emulation of Dick Cheney’s Manichean worldview, especially where it pertains to China.  (In passing, it might be noted that Cheney's loyal aide Scooter Libby introduced Abe for his September 2013 speech to the Hudson Institute).  Abe has also been insistent in his quiet outreach to Republican, hawkish, and anti-Obama elements in Washington, most recently in an effort to obtain US acquiescence for the Yasukuni visit, and, as a result, is reportedly no particular friend of the White House, let alone the amiable and often-maligned as "soft on everything" Joe Biden.

Maybe the Obama team did not appreciate the implication that they had to stand beside Japan right now! 1914! (I guess WWII analogies are a bit awkward) in an anti-PRC alliance or risk getting tarred with the brush of appeasement, and made its displeasure known.

In any case, Abe quickly backpedaled on the 1914 analogy, lamely blaming the misunderstanding on an interpreter’s interpolation and going into full-court spin mode.  He didn't mean war was possible if the world didn't stand up to China.  He meant war was impossible!  Per Japan Times:

The government has repeatedly said that what Abe wanted to convey is that a war between Japan and China is not possible because it would cause devastation not only to the two countries but to the world as a whole.

“We will convey what the prime minister meant through diplomatic channels,” Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a press conference.

When meeting with journalists Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Abe was asked whether a war between Japan and China is conceivable, and in response he compared the current tensions between the countries to the rivalry between Britain and Germany in the years before World War I.

Abe called it a “similar situation,” according to the Financial Times and some other media.

By Friday morning, the government had briefed the BBC about Abe’s intention, a Foreign Ministry source said. The British public broadcaster was among the media outlets that were reporting intensely on the prime minister’s comments. Tokyo will also brief Reuters soon, the source said.

Many media reports “left the impression that Abe had not denied (the possibility of) a military clash (between Japan and China) and this caused misapprehension,” a different government source said.

Then Abe jetted off to the welcoming environs of India, where he served as guest of honor at the Day of the Republic celebrations and concluded a passel of agreements—and there were no dissenting voices when it came to advancing an anti-PRC Japanese-Indian security alliance. 

Abe described the Japan-India relationship as “the greatest potential of any bilateral relationship anywhere in the world”.  Insert crying bald eagle graphic here, since it's another indication that the Abe administration's rejection of the “victor’s justice” of World War II is not just a matter of cheesing off China; it’s a rejection of US diplomatic and security tutelage and an announcement that Japan will give priority to pursuing its own interests, instead of sacrificing them as America’s loyal ally.

The visit was marked by an Indian pundit writing in the Nikkei Asia Review, who explicitly made the case for an Indian-Japanese alliance to contain China and, in fact, touted security ties as the most stable foundation for economic ties.

As in:

Japan and India, natural allies strategically located on opposite flanks of the continent, have a pivotal role to play in ensuring a regional power equilibrium and safeguarding vital sea lanes in the wider Indo-Pacific region -- an essential hub for global trade and energy supply.

…

   The logic for strategic collaboration is no less compelling. If China, India and Japan constitute Asia's scalene triangle -- with China representing the longest Side A, India Side B, and Japan Side C -- the sum of B and C will always be greater than A. It is thus little surprise that Japan and India are seeking to add strategic bulk to their quickly deepening relationship.

     Indeed, the world's most stable economic partnerships, such as the Atlantic community and the Japan-U.S. partnership, have been built on the bedrock of security collaboration. Economic ties lacking that strategic underpinning tend to be less stable and even volatile, as is apparent from China's economic relations with Japan, India, and the U.S.

     The transformative India-Japan entente promises to positively shape Asia's power dynamics.

I might point out that the original Cheney recipe for Asia--endorsed by Abe in his first term in 2007--was a "diamond" of Japan, the United States, India, and Australia containing the PRC, so it looks like the geometry of Asian security is not exactly evolving in an Anglo direction, pivot notwithstanding.

This got me thinking about a variety of issues, some of which played out over Twitter (you can follow China Matters on Twitter @chinahand):

First, I understand why advocates of the Japan-India alliance want to make the “security” argument despite the fact that the two countries are rather far away from each other and have vastly different security priorities, even with determined efforts to define India as a Pacific power.  A tight security relationship purporting to contain the “Chinese menace” is a good basis for economic pushback against the PRC, especially for Japan, which would not only like to develop the Indian market as an alternative to the Chinese market, which is falling victim to the war of words between Beijing and Tokyo—it would like to go after markets in Vietnam, Myanmar, and Thailand at the PRC’s expense and with Indian help.

Second, containment is a shaky foundation for economic ties.  It’s zero sum, based on grabbing China’s pie instead of growing and sharing the whole regional pie among all the diners.  

Third, a doctrine of PRC containment will inevitably lead to initiatives, or the threat of initiatives, to mess with the PRC’s energy supplies from the Middle East in order to tame the Chinese dragon.  That is not a recipe for regional stability, reduced tensions, and economic growth, unless one is a fan of the militarized energy security policy the U.S. has been practicing in the Middle East for the last two decades.

Fourth, containment will probably bring out the worst in China, Japan, India, and the United States, empowering the defense/security industry and encouraging the pursuit of confrontational/deterrent/coercive military options instead of regional economic cooperation.

Fifth, it should be understood that Abe has placed his eggs in the polarization/contain China/zero-sum basket.  He has a vested interest in goosing the Chinese at Davos and elsewhere in order to justify and advance his strategy.  China is also happy to contribute to tensions in order to bring the United States into the fray as a restraining influence, but the key destabilizing factor is that Japan has decided that a strategy of confrontation with China is the happy high road to national renaissance.

Sixth, my sense (as an outsider to the august councils of the US government) is that the White House and the civilian leadership at the Pentagon are not enthusiasts for the Abe strategy and its implications for US leadership in Asia; but the uniformed services are all in, since the only plausible way to sustain a dominant US military position vis a vis China in East Asia is with the help of a Japan that is willing to pursue a confrontational policy with the PRC, twist the Okinawans' arms on basing, and take the lead in wrangling an anti-China alliance of the smaller Asian democracies.

Seventh, I have a certain admiration for the discipline and energy of Abe’s press management operation (though he might get a free ride from journalists irritated by the PRC’s authoritarian regime and its serial abuse of Western journalists).  When he opines that China must  “foster trusting international relations, not tensions”, nobody points out that Japan’s more assertive Asian profile relies on fostering tensions with China.  When a Kyodo poll shows across the board disapproval of collective self-defense, nuclear power, the new secrets law, and Abenomics, nobody picks it up, and Ian Bremmer instead says “Folks are optimistic about the [Japanese] economy” at Davos (I’ve reproduced the poll’s findings as an appendix to this post).

Eighth, on a side note, my current personal hobby horse is that Japan and India are working together to advance the Japanese agenda in North Korea, in order to take advantage of the tilt away from the PRC after the execution of Jang Song-thaek (and the rather hostile public PRC response, typified by the Chinese media’s willingness to pick up and thereby amplify stories like the notorious “Jang fed to dogs” hoax and the also somewhat dubiously sourced “Jang’s entire family executed” story now playing in the Western media thanks to Yonhap and sina.com). 

 Abe is limited in what he can do directly with the DPRK thanks to his emphasis on the abductee issue and the generally negative mood toward his administration on the peninsula. But I wouldn’t be surprised if he asked India to pitch in.

Admittedly, I don’t have a lot of data points for this (who does, when dealing with the DPRK), but I could not help but be struck by the appearance of not one but two instances of passionate adoration between the North Korean and Indian governments as recorded in the virtual pages of Rodong Sinmun, employing the encomia usually reserved for love-feasts between North Korea and Cuba and Venezuela.

Tale of a Tiger Mom in the 1940s

Amy Chua has attracted a lot of Internet heat for her chronicle of her drive for achievement at almost any cost in the child-rearing department in Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mom (famously refusing her daughter bathroom or water breaks until she mastered a tricky piano exercise).

Chua recently squirted some gasoline on the fire by revealing that her next book will argue that 

certain "cultural" (they avoid the words "racial" or "ethnic") groups succeed in the US. The list includes Jews, Cubans, Nigerians, Mormons, Indians, Iranians and Lebanese-Americans and the three traits they share, (the "triple package") are, apparently, "superiority complex, insecurity and impulse control".

Hmmm.  Chua's theories came to mind as I was reading Joseph Mitchell’s New Yorker nonfiction pieces collected in Up In the Old Hotel.  In “Evening with a Gifted Child,” written in 1940, Mitchell describes a visit with a beautiful nine year old child, Philippa Duke Schuyler.  Philippa had an IQ of 185, played the piano superbly, and in Mitchell’s eyes appeared perfect in every way.

Her father, George Schuyler, was African-American and journalist of note; her mother a white woman from Texas, Josephine Cogdell.  It appears that the mother believed that hybrid vigor—the exceptional performance of the offspring of diverse genetic lines—might apply to children as well as corn. This seems to have played a significant role in her determination to cross color lines and marry George Schuyler.  She also believed that Philippa should eat only raw foods—raw meat, raw fish, nuts—and no sugar.  Under her tutelage, Philippa maintained an exhaustive, not to say exhausting, curriculum of study, self-improvement, and achievement.

Josephine Schuyler took pains to disassociate herself from what we today might term “Tiger Mom” behavior, telling Mitchell: “Women often tell me, ‘You mustn’t push her!’  Their sympathy is misplaced.  If there’s any pushing done, she’s the one that does it.”

Philippa Schuyler enjoyed considerable success as a concert pianist and composer, and became an admired symbol of black achievement around the world.  She is remembered today by the Philippa Schuyler public school in Brooklyn, New York.

However, her career plateaued and she appears to have entered a period of emotional and sexual turmoil and racial ambivalence.  In a 1995 New York Times review of a biography of Schuyler, Composition in Black and White, by Kathryn Talalay, Phyllis Rose wrote:

[S]he came in the end to play the role of the tragic mulatto, at home nowhere, yearning to be "accepted as a person, not as a strange curiosity." She started passing for white in 1959, at first so she could travel in South Africa, later thinking that she might have a better career as a white performer. She invented another persona, Felipa Monterro y Schuyler, who was white, and as Miss Monterro played well-reviewed concerts in Europe and gave a lecture tour in America. Unsurprisingly, this deception proved too difficult to sustain.

And Philippa Schuyler also harbored, together with her affection, a resentment of her mother, the kind that Tiger Moms, deep in their hearts, perhaps dread more than anything else.  

"Do you realize what you are expecting of me?" she wrote her mother in 1960. "Are you aware of the pressures you put me under? Are you aware of the impossibilities you ask of me? To be a great pianist. To be a great composer. To be a great arranger. To be a great author. To be a great journalist. To always get marvelous reviews. To always pull off marvelous coups no one else could do. To get good photographs everywhere. . . . To always make money, and always keep within my budget. . . . To always be a great beauty. This is beyond human capability."

Having reinvented herself with some success as a journalist and advocate for conservative religious and social causes (her father became a resolute John Bircher, I daresay one of the few African-Americans in the organization) Philippa Schuyler died in a helicopter crash in Vietnam in 1967 at the age of 35. Devastated by her loss and in declining health, Josephine Schuyler committed suicide two years later.

Philippa Schuyler is the subject of a detailed and extensively illustrated appreciation at the music blog Overgrown Path.  The Internets also tell me that Alicia Keyes has been ruminating on a Philippa Schuyler biopic.

George Schuyler is the subject of a full length biography by Oscar Renal Williams.  Josephine Cogdell Schuyler’s story receives a sympathetic account in a recent book by Carla Kaplan on the “White Women of the Black Renaissance”.

On Amazon I found a memorial volume of Philippa Schuyler’s life written by her mother: Philippa, the beautiful American.

The description reads:

Josephine Schuyler's tribute to her prodigal daughter, published several years after Philippa's tragic death. … A musical prodigy, a journalist, an author, a world traveller, Philippa's life is American history, her last 10 years American legend. But, leaving a contrarian legacy too harsh to harness to any conventional narrative (she was a fundamentalist Catholic, her father hated Martin Luther King), her death left her father (journalism giant George Schuyler) and mother devastated and herself forgotten. Josephine committed suicide the month this was published. From a limited edition of 1000 copies. Large pamphlet of poetry and photographs. May 1969. With respect for her faith and beliefs, and in absolute awe of her achievements, Amen.

One can’t generalize about stories like this; nor should one trivialize them.  I’ll remember that—and Philippa Schuyler and Josephine and George Schuyler—the next time the Amy Chua tornado touches down.

Rectification of Names II: Let’s Call a Putsch a Putsch

As part of China Matters’ campaign to rectify names, most recently marked by the classification of current Japanese foreign policy as “Japan’s Military Restoration” I hereby decree that events in Egypt, Thailand, and the Ukraine are not revolutions—they are putsches.

A revolution, as its name implies, involves the overturn of an existing system of rule, usually authoritarian, in favor of a newly constituted system of rule, usually more democratic.

A putsch, on the other hand, involves a vociferous group using street action to overturn an elected government it finds disagreeable. 

Egypt 2013 was a putsch against an elected government by a critical mass of people in the streets and barracks who didn’t want the inconvenience of waiting a year or two for their crack at power through the ballot.

This ugly state of affairs has caused a certain amount of brainhurt for people infatuated with the vision of heroic, democracy-loving, and reliably liberal masses overthrowing authoritarian regimes.  

Juan Cole is trying to sell the overthrow of the Morsi presidency in Egypt as a “revocouption”, shoehorning a certain measure of legitimacy into the military’s coup by declaring it a continuation of the original revolution thanks to the street demonstrations against Morsi and the writing of a new constitution (and thereby writing the MB’s role in the overthrow of Mubarak out of the revolutionary official history).  No sale, oh mighty promoter of the Libyan intervention, which I suppose can rebranded as the “fuckupalotaboomboom” with that nation’s descent into chaos.

Currently, the popular mandate for the putsch against Morsi leans upon the rather slender reed that about 5% more Egyptians voted in the 2014 constitutional referendum boycotted by the MB (which passed by a Saddam Hussein-worthy 98.1%) than voted in the 2012 referendum boycotted by the anti-MBs.

A similar situation obtains in the Ukraine, where the opposition has decided a putsch is preferable to waiting for another election, especially when the West is unapologetically pitching in on behalf of the anti-government forces.  The bias of Europe and the United States for advancing their geostrategic interests at the expense of even paying lip service to the electoral process would be almost comical, but for the fact that some unsavory neo-nationalist outfits are being used as shock troops in order to soften up the shaken Ukrainian government.  It will be interesting to see how far observers go in oohing and aahing over apocalyptic cityscapes and Molotov-cocktail tossing/mace-wielding “activists” going up against The Man, as Belle Waring did in a cringe-worthy post (subsequently caveated) at Crooked Timber, if there is a prospect that such scenes might be re-enacted in their countries. 

As for Thailand, the Yellow Shirts specifically want to a) bring down the government b) foreclose the possibility of a new election they would almost certainly lose and c) convince the army to intervene on their side.  Doesn’t get more putschy than that.

When I went to school in an admittedly naïve and optimistic period of history, I was taught that respect for the electoral process by both winners and losers was paramount, because if the process was not respected then the country would just go to hell in a handbasket, just as is occurring in Egypt, Ukraine, and Thailand (and, for that matter, the United States in 1860).

Although I considered corrupt the entire process of the 2000 presidential recount, from the obvious finagling of the Florida Secretary of State to Supreme Court’s Bush v. Gore decision, once the Supreme Court had spoken I considered the case closed and I’m glad that Al Gore didn’t exhort me to take to the streets with my construction helmet, rebar club, and bottle of gasoline mixed with dish detergent  to overturn the outcome (though understandably the millions of people victimized by Bush’s reign of error, starting with the citizens of Iraq, might feel differently).  A few years later, the Democrats got their president, he got a chance to f*ck things up in his own special way, and agitation for an anti-government putsch still seems to be something of a fringe obsession inside the United States.

Overseas, it’s a different story.  The current trio of putsches has not elicited a lot of impassioned “gotta respect the electoral process” harrumphing from the US government or punditocracy.  In Ukraine, the US avidity for anti-government mischief is palpable; in Egypt, we don’t want to tick off the army and endanger the Egyptian pillar of Israel’s security arrangement; and in Thailand I don’t know what; maybe we’re just interested in staying on the Army’s good side over there.

At the bottom of it all, I suppose, is the idea that it doesn’t matter if it’s a color revolution or a putsch; local political unrest is just another potential tool for advancing and protecting US interests.  But it also gives some ammunition to the PRC government in arguing that the US is not interested in democracy (I might point out that the US is a republic, not a democracy, a distinction that 200 years of protection of wealth and property rights and de jure and de facto limits on popular sovereignty has shown to be non-trivial—relax, Tom Perkins!) or even elections; it’s just interested in getting its way.