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Tactical move lies beneath Friday’s frivolity; clowning crafted to buttress persona

The chemistry between President Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has been the stuff of a warm and fuzzy, 1950s-era beach blanket flick.

Koizumi strutted and gyrated as if he had channeled Elvis while a bemused Bush looked on from Graceland’s shrine-like confines on Friday.

However, beyond the pomp and pompadours, the Memphis visit was a carefully orchestrated symbol of thanks to an outgoing leader of the world’s second largest economy for supporting Bush on issues like the war in Iraq and terrorism.

It’s also a tactical move for Bush who, while cultivating close relationships with now-departing heads of state, finds himself besieged with criticism on domestic and international fronts.

Likewise, Koizumi’s theatrical warbling of Elvis tunes and flirting with Lisa Marie Presley were more about maintaining his affable public persona as he hammed it up for the press pool.

“I don’t think he’s doing this because he likes … music and he and Bush get along,” said James Auer, director of Vanderbilt University’s Center for U.S.-Japan Studies and Cooperation. “He’s doing this because it’s in Japan’s best interests.”

Ironically, both nations’ mutual interests were strengthened just after the Sept. 11 attacks when Japan supported the United States by backing efforts in Afghanistan and sending 600 peacekeeping troops to Iraq.

Koizumi who, like Bush, had only been in office a few months, found a kindred spirit in the man he compares to Gary Cooper in “High Noon.”

During their Memphis visit, the two goofed around in the mansion’s famous Jungle Room and posed for pictures near Elvis’ pink Cadillac.

“Their friendship has been buttressed by their common ground,” said Yinan He, a professor of security studies at Seton Hall’s Whitehead School of Diplomacy and International Relations in New Jersey. “They’re both young, relatively speaking. They’re both more unilateral in their approach, and they’re both conservative.”

To be sure, both nations have benefited from Bush and Koizumi’s friendship.

The United States. supported Japan’s bid to become a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. Japan headed up efforts to finance reconstruction in Iraq and dispatched ships to the Indian Ocean to refuel U.S. and other ally craft.

“Bush likes to say (Japan and the U.S.) have a very current common interest in promoting stability, freedom and democracy,” Auer said.

The flip side of such a close relationship has meant a more ambivalent stance on such issues as Japan’s ban on U.S. beef, a recently resolved point of contention.

“The Bush administration has not pushed them as hard as they could have on that,” He said.

Bush has been largely mum on Koizumi’s controversial visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, which commemorates the Japanese killed during World War II, including war criminals.

Such gestures are being scrutinized more closely as Bush enters the autumn of of his presidency and Koizumi exits stage left.

Political experts on both sides of the ocean have speculated what this parting of ways will mean in term of future relations between the two nations.

In the meantime, both leaders’ stance on North Korea’s nuclear weapons efforts, rather than their Memphis-bound roadtrip, provides perhaps a long-lasting symbol of commonality.

“It is a signal to North Korea,” He said.

“The two leaders will stand together against any sort of threat.”