Washington Memo: Turning Bush-Abe Alliance Into Friendship

WASHINGTON, April 26 — When they met in Vietnam last November, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan presented President Bush with a little gift: a photograph of their grandfathers, playing golf on a course outside Washington with President Dwight D. Eisenhower. After lunch and a garden stroll, Mr. Bush said, I told the prime minister he needs to get over to the United States quickly.

Shinzo Abe’s grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, left, Senator Prescott Bush, the president’s grandfather, in shorts with club, and President Dwight D. Eisenhower, right, in an undated photo Mr. Abe gave to Mr. Bush.

On Thursday, Mr. Abe took the president up on his offer, arriving in Washington with his wife, Akie, for a two-day stay that is as much about fostering personal ties as diplomatic ones.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Abe have at least one thing in common: each comes from a political dynasty. Mr. Abes grandfather was prime minister; his father, foreign minister. Mr. Bushs grandfather was a senator; his father, the 41st president. But the two leaders are not nearly as close as President Bush was with Mr. Abes predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi, whose flamboyant personality and love of Elvis Presleys music captivated Mr. Bush.

So, with an eye toward a Japanese public that expects the new prime minister to get the same treatment as the old, the White House is taking pains to turn alliance into friendship, allowing the leaders plenty of time to talk substance — trade, global warming and nuclear disarmament in North Korea, among other matters — but also time to do a little male bonding.

To that end, no state dinner was planned for the Abes — just an intimate affair on Thursday night in the White House residence with the president and Mrs. Bush, the Japanese and American ambassadors and their wives, and the golfer Ben Crenshaw and his wife, Julie. (The Crenshaws, of Austin, Tex., are good friends of the Bushes, and the White House says the prime minister likes to golf.)

On Friday, the two leaders will head to Camp David, where they will hold their meetings — and greet a small pool of reporters, not the usual White House herd — in the peaceful setting of Mr. Bushs presidential cabin in the Catoctin Mountains in Maryland. Mr. Bush likes to ride his mountain bike there; Mr. Abe is not much of a bike rider, but he is a baseball fan, and Japanese officials said Thursday that they were hoping the prime minister and the president would get a chance to toss a ball around. It would be important symbolism, if only because Mr. Koizumi was at Camp David so much.

They really want an opportunity not to be constrained, if you will, by a very large state event to get to know each other much better, said Dennis Wilder, senior director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council, explaining the informal dinner. He said the president and first lady discovered personal chemistry between them and the Abes in Hanoi.

Most people develop personal chemistry in a matter of weeks, months or even years; world leaders have only hours, or maybe a day.

As Mr. Bush has discovered, there can be a risk to fast-track personal diplomacy; critics have never let him forget his 2001 comment about President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia: I looked the man in the eye, Mr. Bush said then, adding, I was able to get a sense of his soul.

Asia experts say the Bush-Koizumi bond was genuine. He and Koizumi were real friends, said Michael J. Green, a former senior director for Asian affairs at the National Security Council. Their summit meetings were substantive, but frankly, they talked about the stuff friends talk about.

The Bush-Koizumi bond culminated with the ultimate buddy road trip: a jaunt down rock n roll memory lane to Graceland, the Presley manse in Memphis, where the two frolicked amid gold records and gold lamé suits.

For Mr. Abe, who was chief cabinet secretary to Mr. Koizumi, and whose popularity at home is not nearly as high as that of his predecessor, that is a tough act to follow.

Abe-san both has a great burden and a great benefit, said Kurt Campbell, an Asia expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The benefit is that U.S.-Japan relations have been taken to another level, given the closeness of the relationship that existed between Koizumi and the president. But the burden is that he is following in the footsteps of a relationship that would be difficult to replicate, Mr. Campbell said.

Part of that is simply timing. Mr. Koizumi and Mr. Bush got to know each other early in Mr. Bushs presidency, before the White House was dragged down by the war in Iraq, and before efforts to end the North Korean nuclear buildup put a slight strain on United States relations with Japan.

At the same time, Mr. Abe did not help himself with Mr. Bush when he publicly denied that the Japanese military had coerced women into sexual slavery during World War II.

Mr. Abe subsequently explained himself in a phone call with the president. According to a Japanese official, he raised the issue in his meeting on Thursday with Congressional leaders, saying he wholeheartedly sympathized with former comfort women, as they were euphemistically known.

The White House has little interest in highlighting such differences. Japan is an important contributor to the rebuilding of Iraq, and Mr. Abe, like Mr. Koizumi before him, has a strong vision for a democratic Japan — a vision that dovetails nicely with Mr. Bushs freedom agenda.

The prime ministers sense of history may also appeal to Mr. Bush; Mr. Abes grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, advocated re-establishing Japan as a full security partner with the United States at a time when that idea was hugely unpopular, and was eventually forced to resign over it.

I think Abe has a very strong sense of destiny to implement the vision of Japan that his grandfather had, said Mr. Green, the former National Security Council official. I think that resonates with President Bush, who also has a very strong sense of his own roots.

Mr. Abe suggested as much in the inscription on the photo he gave Mr. Bush. To President Bush, it said, Our family friendship, from past to future. Shinzo Abe.

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