上周，一位日本高层官员坐在位于东京的办公室里，指着一本最近出版的《日本崛起》(Japan Rising)说道：“我会时不时看看那本书，给自己打气。”人们不难理解他为何这样说。眼下，日本已经有了那种没落的感觉。
中国即将超越日本，成为全球第二大经济体。日本债务与国内生产总值(GDP)的比例，已达到令人生畏的180%——轻松（却也令人不安地）拔得全球富国中的头筹；而且该国尚无降低负债的可靠方案。曾作为日本质量象征的丰田汽车(Toyota)，如今陷入了一场安全与公关梦魇。去年，日本经济萎缩了5%以上。而民众曾对鸠山由纪夫(Yukio Hatoyama)领导下的改革主义政府寄予的厚望，已很快消散。去年夏季当选首相的鸠山，支持率正不断下降，日本企业与公职部门似乎都急于让这个无能的粗材下台。
日本如何应对这种新的软弱感——尽管它可能被夸大了——将事关整个世界。由于日本的规模和战略重要性，该国对于美国的太平洋战略和中国的地缘政治考量至关重要。
当鸠山政府针对本国的新环境作出调整时，几乎是在不经意间，掀起了一场关于日美同盟价值的论战。一些驻东京的西方观察员思忖，或许日本会又一次遵循其历史政策——通过与强国结盟，来适应全球政治的变化。在一战之前，日本与英国有着一种特殊的关系。在两次世界大战的间隔期间，日本与德国结成了盟友。而1945年以来，则一直紧紧粘着美国。或许，眼下日本正为与中国建立一种新的“特殊关系”做铺垫？
当鸠山的民主党(Democratic Party of Japan)去年8月份上台时，打破了半个多世纪以来自民党(Liberal Democratic Party)几乎连续执政的历史。民主党急于在几乎所有方面表现出自己与自民党的不同，外交政策上也不例外。在上周的一次采访中，日本外相冈田克也(Katsuya Okada)表示，自民党追随美国政策“过于紧密”。他表示：“从现在开始，将会是亚洲的时代。”这位外相补充称，关于日本在中美之间做选择的言论毫无意义，日美友好关系与日中关系仍将存在“质的差别”。但一些民主党人士已呼吁施行与中美“等距离”的政策。
鸠山政府的早期政策，证实了人们的感觉：即某些事情正在酝酿之中。民主党想迁移美军在冲绳岛上的一个重要军事基地——此举惊动并惹恼了美国人，同时也对美日安保条约以及大约5万名驻日美军的未来提出了疑问。
如果冲绳岛纠纷是一起孤立事件，我们某种程度上或许会把它视为一个偶发事件，源自于一个竞选承诺——这也的确是实情。但鸠山似乎已特意证实：形势正发生变化。在鸠山就职前夕，他在《纽约时报》(The New York Times)上撰文抨击了美国资本主义的失败，称之为“无节制的市场原教旨主义”，并暗示美国已陷入不可挽回的衰落。这位日本新首相还谈到了建立新东亚共同体，其中包括中国、但不包括美国，并效仿欧盟(EU)早期的模式。
日本正逐渐疏远美国、并亲近中国的感觉，在去年12月份得到了证实。当时，民主党最具影响力的人物小泽一郎(Ichiro Ozawa)率领一个600多人的代表团访问北京，其中包括143名国会议员。中国国家主席胡锦涛与代表团成员一一微笑合影。此后不久，当被视为胡锦涛接班人的习近平访问东京时，他很快就被安排与天皇会面——这打破了此类会晤通常需要提前30天通知的惯例。
那么，鸠山的用意何在？日本政界有一种不安的猜测，即连首相自己可能也不真正清楚。据说，鸠山常常会在尚未真正思考透彻的情况下，提出一些石破天惊的方案——无论是在气候变化，还是在冲绳岛问题上。
鸠山的含糊，意味着那种认为日本已坚决改变其战后与美国之间特殊关系的说法，可能有些过火了。但尽管如此，从长期来看，日本无疑面临着一个至关重要的战略抉择。
选择之一是，假设中国正逐渐取代美国在亚太地区的主宰地位，所以，（日本）将努力与中国政府建立一种亲密得多的关系。另一种选择是，进一步密切与美国之间的关系，同时与亚太地区其它民主国家（如印度、澳大利亚）建立更为亲密的关系，即对中国权力施行“软遏制”这一并未言明的政策。
目前，日本打算与中美两国均保持良好关系是一种明智做法。而从长期来看，日本可能会面临一个不太舒服的选择。
译者/何黎
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001031719
Sitting in his office in Tokyo last week, a senior official pointed to a recently published volume called “Japan Rising”. “I look at that book every now and then to cheer myself up,” he said. It is easy to understand why. Right now, Japan has got that sinking feeling.
China is about to overtake Japan as the world's second-largest economy. The country's national debt has hit an awesome 180 per cent of gross domestic product, (un)comfortably the highest in the world among rich countries – and there is no credible plan in place to hack it back. Toyota, a company that used to embody Japan's reputation for quality, is enmeshed in a safety and public relations nightmare. Last year, the Japanese economy shrank by more than 5 per cent. And the high hopes that surrounded the reformist government of Yukio Hatoyama, the prime minister who was elected last summer, have quickly dissipated. Mr Hatoyama's approval ratings are sinking and the Japanese business and civil service establishment seem eager to dismiss him as an ineffectual clown.
How Japan reacts to this new sense of weakness – exaggerated though it may be – will matter to the whole world. The country's size and strategic importance make it critical to America's Pacific strategy and to China's geopolitical calculations.
As it adapts to Japan's new circumstances the Hatoyama government has, almost unwittingly, initiated a debate about the value of Japan's alliance with the US. Some western observers in Tokyo muse that perhaps Japan is once again following its historic policy of adapting to shifts in global politics by aligning itself with great powers. Before the first world war the country had a special relationship with Britain. In the inter-war period Japan allied itself with Germany. Since 1945, it has stuck closely to America. Perhaps the ground is being prepared for a new “special relationship” with China?
When Mr Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan took power last August, it broke more than 50 years of almost continuous administration by the Liberal Democratic Party. The DPJ is keen to differentiate itself from the LDP in almost every respect, and foreign policy is no exception. In an interview last week, Katsuya Okada, Japan's foreign minister, said that the LDP followed US foreign policy “too closely”. “From now onwards,” says Mr Okada, “this will be the age of Asia.” The foreign minister adds that talk of Japan choosing between China and the US is meaningless, and that Japan's friendship with America will remain “qualitatively different” from its relations with China. But some DPJ party members have called for a policy of “equidistance” between China and the US.
The early policies of the Hatoyama government have confirmed the impression that something is afoot. The DPJ wants to move a vital US military base on the island of Okinawa– a move that has alarmed and angered the Americans and raised questions about the future of the US-Japan security treaty, and of the 50,000 or so US troops stationed in Japan.
If the Okinawa dispute was an isolated incident it might be taken as a bit of an accident, stemming as it did from a campaign promise. But Mr Hatoyama seems to have gone out of his way to confirm that things are changing. In an article for the New York Times, published just before he took office, he decried the failures of American capitalism – what he called “unrestrained market fundamentalism” – and implied that the US is in irreversible decline. The new Japanese prime minister has also spoken of establishing a new East Asian community, including China but excluding the US, and modelled on the early versions of the European Union.
The impression of a tilt away from America and towards China was confirmed last December when Ichiro Ozawa, the dominant figure in the DPJ, led a delegation of more than 600 Japanese to Beijing, including 143 parliamentarians. Hu Jintao, the Chinese president, posed smilingly for photos with every one of them. When Xi Jinping, tipped to be Mr Hu's successor, visited Tokyo shortly afterwards, he was rushed in to see the emperor – the usual requirement that 30 days notice be given for such a visit was waived.
So what is Mr Hatoyama up to? The uneasy suspicion in Tokyo is that even the prime minister himself may not really know. Mr Hatoyama, it is said, often proposes grand- sounding schemes – whether on climate change or Okinawa – without really thinking them through.
The prime minister's vagueness means that it is probably overdoing it to suggest that Japan is definitively shifting away from its postwar special relationship with the US. But, nonetheless, over the long term the country clearly faces a crucial strategic choice.
One option would be to assume that China is gradually going to displace the US as the dominant power in the Asia-Pacific region and, therefore, to try to cultivate a much warmer relationship with the government in Beijing. The alternative would be to hug the US even closer and to cultivate warmer relations with other democratic nations in the region, such as India and Australia, in what would be an undeclared policy of “soft containment” of Chinese power.
For the moment, it makes sense for Japan to aim for good relations with both the US and China. In the long run, Japan is likely to face an uncomfortable choice.
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