- Japan is a crucial ally.

Number one foreign investor in the United States for the last four years, Japan.

Number one foreign investor in Japan for the last four years: the United States of America.

[upbeat electronic music] - Hello and welcome to GZERO World.

I'm Ian Bremmer, and today I'm coming to you direct from Tokyo, Japan to talk about America's closest ally in the Asia Pacific, Japan.

Yes, Japan is the third largest global economy and in many respects their foreign policy mirrors that of the United States.

With a lot of political uncertainty back in the states, Japanese officials are plenty worried about how committed the Americans really are to them.

And to talk about all of that, I'm joined today by U.S.

Ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel.

And later I've got your Puppet Regime.

- Welcome to a new episode of "Felt on Film."

- But first, a word from the folks who help us keep the lights on.

- [Announcer] Funding for GZERO World is provided by our lead sponsor, Prologis.

- [Announcer] Every day all over the world Prologis helps businesses of all sizes lower their carbon footprint and scale their supply chains with a portfolio of logistics and real estate and an end-to-end solutions platform, addressing the critical initiatives of global logistics today.

Learn more at prologis.com - [Announcer] And by... - [Announcer] Cox Enterprises is proud to support GZERO.

We're working to improve lives in the areas of communications, automotive, clean tech, sustainable agriculture, and more.

Learn more at Cox.career/news.

- [Announcer] Additional funding provided by Jerry and Mary Joy Stead, Carnegie Corporation of New York.

And... [upbeat instrumental music] [upbeat bass music] - It's been a rough year, hasn't it?

So let me take you back to the Halcyon days of November 2011 when Adele's "Rolling in the Deep" was topping the music charts, and Charlie Sheen was having a public meltdown for the ages, #winning, #tigerblood.

But our story today takes place on the other side of the globe where then President Barack Obama was addressing Australia's parliament and laying out his vision for America's expanded role in the Asia Pacific.

- So here's what this region must know.

As we end today's wars, I have directed my national security team to make our presence and mission in the Asia Pacific a top priority.

- Obama's declaration soon became known as the, quote, "Pivot to Asia."

American foreign policy, Obama announced, would be shifting its focus away from costly wars in the Middle East and towards strengthening partnerships in the Asia Pacific in order to curb a rising China.

In short, America's 21st century foreign policy would be pointed firmly to the east.

Fast-forward to 2023 and I have some good news.

Charlie Sheen's career is now alive and well.

America's pivot to Asia?

Well that is a little more complicated like Michael Corleone in Godfather III.

I'm in a pop culture kind of mood today.

No matter how much the United States tries to leave behind 20th century wars, they keep getting pulled back in.

[crowd shouting] The Israel-Hamas conflict, which has been the top foreign policy in Washington for a couple months and counting now is only the latest example.

[artillery fires] And though not in the Middle East, the war in Ukraine remains one of the biggest and most expensive U.S. foreign policy priorities.

This is not, in short, the 21st century foreign policy vision that President Obama had in mind.

And yet if you talk to any American national security official, they'll tell you that China's rise remains Washington's main National security challenge.

After all, America's biggest global rival is also one of its largest trade partners, and that is just one of the many reasons that President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping met at the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Forum in San Francisco last month.

But I'm here in Tokyo, Japan, the world's third largest economy and the closest U.S. ally in the region.

Don't come at me, South Korea.

If the U.S. is ever going to fully pivot to Asia, they're going to have to bring Japan along for the ride.

And I've got some questions.

Will the U.S. ever be able to fully pivot towards Asia?

What's it like to be on the diplomatic front lines of that agenda?

And what role does the U.S. think Japan needs to play in all of this?

I'm joined now by a man uniquely suited to answer all of those questions, U.S.

Ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emanuel.

Here's our conversation.

Rahm Emanuel, really good to see you.

Thank you.

- Nice to see you.

- Yeah.

Sure.

So start with our home turf here, and explain just for a couple of minutes why Japan is such a critical ally of the United States in today's world?

- Well, one is in probably the most important area of the world in the sense of long-term over the arc of time dealing and confronting with China, Japan is your number one ally, not only in the region.

I would say one of your number one allies, principal allies in the world.

What Japan is doing is part of our greater what I call diplomatic and deterrence.

If you talk to two tactics, I think when you measure up the United States and our allies versus what I think China, Russia, Iran, one on the tactical side, we believe in deterrence and diplomacy.

They believe in aggression and repression, and you pretty much can see that play out across.

Second, as done in Camp David with the president in ROK in Japan.

- [Ian] Republic of Korea.

- Yeah, at the trilateral principles that were enunciated, we are looking about and talking about a future.

And you look at China, Russia, they are caught and captive by the 17th and 18th century in the past and trying to make amends for whatever happened or whatever sense of grievances they have.

So Japan is a crucial ally both on economic terms.

Just to bear it down, number one foreign investor in the United States for the last four years, Japan.

Number one foreign investor in Japan for the last four years is the United States of America.

Second, they're gonna go from the ninth to the third largest defense budget in the world in five years.

- It's meant to be about 2% of GDP is what they're moving towards, right?

- 2% percent.

And to Prime Minister Kishida's credit, that it's not fully appreciated.

He enunciates this months before there was a single tank on the Ukrainian border.

Here's where I think they're mentally.

You can basically describe the United States-Japan relationship over the last 50 years as alliance protection.

I think the next 50 years will be defined as alliance projection, about us as partners on economic terms, diplomatic terms, defense terms, security terms, working to project that alliance and its values and interests and its principles into the region.

And that's why Japan is very, very important.

And then having them fully embraced on this effort is key to our strategic goal.

It changes China's calculation.

- So would you say... Japan and the Republic of Korea had a pretty dysfunctional, even broken relationship a few years ago, export controls, big problems over history.

That has been facilitated in part by strong leadership from both countries, but also facilitated, as you say, by the United States.

Was that the most meaningful diplomatic breakthrough on the global stage that the Biden Administration's had in the last three years, in your view?

- Well, if it's not the most, it's definitely a close second, and I don't think... That's just my assessment.

I think that's the President's view.

He's quite proud.

One of the principle strategies of China is that the U.S.-Japan-ROK relationship can never get on the same page.

That changed on August 18th at Camp David.

So it fundamentally re-calibrated the calculations of China and it goes to our core strength.

We have allies.

China does not have allies.

We have allies.

All three countries in the last year wrote their new national security document unbelievably complimentary, unbelievably in sync with how they see the region.

And the other thing is it aligns the countries politically, diplomatically, and from a defense side capacity.

Since August 18th, there have been 18 separate trilateral gatherings, either heads of state, Secretary of State.

A weekend from now I'll be traveling to Korea for the National Security Advisors Trilateral meeting.

They've had on the defense side, on the intelligence side.

So it's an incredible activity on this.

Now look, here's my other thing, if I could take one moment to make this point.

- Yeah, sure.

- I think you and I can both agree, when you look at Europe, you look at the Middle East, kind of dark.

[laughs] It's complicated.

- Two major wars.

- Yeah.

- It's also, yeah.

- Look, the United States has a complicated relationship with Japan.

We have a complicated relationship with Korea.

Japan and Korea have a complicated relationship.

What stood out in Camp David were diplomacy dialogue in the future.

Trump, the past, kind of occupying and basically immobilizing leaders.

And to President Biden's great credit, and I think this goes to not all politics is just local, it's also personal.

He built up, I can say, right here in Japan, I can't say to the Korea situation, an incredible relationship with Prime Minister Kishida, which allowed him not to do the bare minimum but to extend himself.

And to get to that place, to Camp David, required leadership on all three leaders' side, but a comfort capacity by the two leaders in confidence in both President Biden and in the United States.

- Let me push you a little bit on something you said on the future of the Japan relationship.

You said in that last 50 years it was protection of alliances.

- Alliance protection versus alliance projection.

- You said the next 50 will be alliance projection.

I'm sure you've never said that before.

It's the first time on the show.

- It will be the first time with you.

- Okay, well that's good.

There you go.

[Rahm laughing] So is it not challenging in this environment of extraordinary political uncertainty in the United States, where allies all over the world are saying, "You can't be consistent from administration to administration."

How can you have confidence that the Americans are gonna be there after this electoral cycle?

How can you have confidence that the Americans can talk about 10, 20, 30 years down the road and the way that the Japanese have more comfort themselves?

- I will say this, and maybe this is my good fortune of being worked now in three administrations, this being my third, but also been in the legislative branch.

Outside of Israel, I don't know of another country that has this deep of bipartisan support as Japan.

Let me give you one reference.

Here in Japan, the President's been here twice, Vice President twice.

Speaker McCarthy's been here, Nancy Pelosi's been here, everybody in the cabinet's been here but four members, and over 102 members of the United States Congress, and there have been 20 governors in just the last year.

But that tells you how deep the support for Japan has become.

There's no state where Japan does not have a major company invested in and doing a major investment.

As reflective of what I said to you earlier, largest investor for this last four year.

So it has a deep well of support in the Congress, a deep well of support in strategic plan throughout the government, meaning on the national security side, on the commercial side, and on the diplomatic side.

I do think when they look at this, they understand that the roots of Japan from a bilateral relationship and the roots from Japan in a regional perspective run deep.

I think you can look at the United States politics, but you can also look at Japan's interests and where it lies in the United States, and that's a safe bet.

- But when Trump was president, he was pushing pretty hard on trade deficit: "I just want to do deals."

The strength of the alliance isn't necessarily so important.

Now he got along pretty well with Abe, but certainly I feel, from my conversations with Japanese leaders, that they are scared about 2024.

I'm sure they tell you that too privately.

What do you say to reassure them?

- Well, I mean... Because there's an interest.

And I look at that interest as so keenly aligned.

And it's aligned not just because of China and the region, because of economic, diplomatic and deterrence levels.

And I would talk about American politics, but they also have their politics.

Look, I just left a meeting with Korean leaders in the diplomatic area, and one person asked about elections.

I said, "Look, all three governments are gonna have elections."

Nobody knows how that turns out.

That said, the strategic interests have consistency.

The elections may fluctuate.

I don't believe they will in the United States, but strategic interests align.

- Okay, so I would push back that the level of uncertainty in Japanese elections in the future is somewhat restrained compared to that of the United States.

I suspect you agree with me.

Fair enough.

Okay, let's move on.

So on China, you said that China doesn't have allies, we have allies, we the United States have allies.

Now look, I know that the Chinese don't like you.

You're not paid for the Chinese to like you.

I think that's okay.

[Rahm laughs] - Well let me say this.

They're not getting their money's worth.

[both laughing] - Well, there you go.

So, question.

Would you say, in your view, do the Chinese have transactional relationships?

Let me just unpack that statement from you a little bit.

- There's more than one China.

And there's what I call the three C's: calm, conflict and charm.

Starting at the core, it's a relationship between the Communist Party and the people of China.

And that calm is rattling hard and it's the biggest kind of deterrence on them doing anything outside, because the economy, one indication, one model of this, outside of Ecuadorians, Venezuelans and Haitians, the number one people crossing the border in the United States are Chinese.

And these are middle class people fleeing.

- That tells you there's a lot of them, by the way.

I mean there is that.

- There is.

- It's not a percentage thing.

- But the high end is also fleeing to Singapore.

The largest real estate buyers here in Tokyo are Chinese.

Money and people are fleeing.

That calm is not calm.

It's a nightmare in the region.

You name me a country they're not in conflict with.

- Two border wars, conflicts with India, five missiles into Japan, CEZ.

Philippines constantly harassing their coast guard.

You just go through the region and Australia's flights, our flights, Navy ships just off in the South China Sea with the United States.

They have a problem with almost every country in the region in some capacity.

They don't have the alliances we have.

It is our strength.

And to President Biden's great credit, not just because I'm an ambassador appointed by him, he has rejuvenated and re-energized the notion of alliance.

You can see it in Europe, and you can see it in this region.

That brings a level of strength.

And China takes note of these relationships, not just on the diplomatic side, but on the security side, the defense side, and the deterrent side.

And actually it's a tremendous strength of ours, matched up against a tremendous weakness of theirs.

And when you're in an operation like this, you double down on your strengths and accentuate your opposition's weaknesses.

- So you were there in San Francisco for the APEC meeting and most importantly, when Biden met with Xi Jinping.

Certainly it feels like there was more progress in that meeting, those three meetings this time around than was expected or than we've seen previously in the Biden Administration.

Do you think we are seeing stabilization to a degree for a period of time in U.S.-China relations or not?

- Everybody...

It's fair for you to ask that.

It's a fair question.

I think, one, you don't need me for this.

This is self-evident.

The President went into that meeting with wind at his back.

China went in it with wind in its face.

I always said when I walked out of there, the beginning of APEC, they leave the meeting, President Xi goes to have a meeting with American CEOs who give him a standing ovation, hasn't said anything.

[crowd applauding] The president of the United States goes to a meeting and to an event to kick off and all the heads of state are there.

That tells you about alliances.

That tells you about the interests of China.

- It also tells you a little bit about American CEOs, but you probably don't want to go there.

- I'll go there.

- Okay.

- I think the American CEOs way too influential in American foreign policy in this region, way too influential, and I think it was amazing to me that they gave a standing ovation for very little acknowledgement, since none of them can staff their offices in China, because people will not move from America because of fear of them getting arrested.

President Xi's policies or China's Communist Party policies have put a massive chill on their own investments.

And I think the CEOs showed a lack of appreciation and understanding of the challenges that they face.

And we let our guard down, all of us.

So I don't blame them alone.

I blame us also, because we allowed too much of our national security interests to be commercialized.

And I think the President is self-correcting that.

- Before we close, I want to open the aperture with you a little bit, since you're not just Ambassador to Japan, you've got some thoughts on global issues and a lot of experience on them.

- Probably more global thoughts than I'm allowed.

[laughs] - Yeah, well I want to see how many I can get you to talk about anyway.

I'll put it in the context of we've been discussing a pivot to Asia for a long time, but that's a lot harder when Europe and the Middle East are as dark as you described it.

- I hate that whole term.

- [Ian] I don't believe you.

- If you're a superpower, you don't- - You play everywhere.

- Yeah, you have to.

- [Ian] But you have to prioritize as well.

- Sure.

- We're looking at these two wars.

- [Rahm] Yeah.

Unlike the U.S.-China relationship, which has interdependencies and guardrails, when I look at the Middle East war right now, when I look at the Russia-Ukraine war right now, I don't see those things.

I see both of them getting not resolved anytime soon, in fact, probably getting worse.

How do you respond to that?

- Let's take Ukraine first.

I think that's one of endurance.

And when you say resolved, I think our determination to stay the distance will have an impact, and so actually that tactic has strategic value.

Russia's interest in Ukraine, they will come, if we show our endurance level, will come to the conclusion the cost to Russia, not just at home but across the globe.

So I think that there's a cost pressure here.

Now the Middle East, as it relates to what's happening now, I think there's...

This is where I have to be careful, because there's real things happening in real time, but also I can't get out... No matter how much I would like to get out of my lane, I can't get out of my lane.

But I think on this, this is not just a Hamas-Israel issue, and this deals with something fundamental to the core of Israel security, and I think we're at a period of time, given what's happening in the north, what's happening in the south, being Lebanon border, Gaza and Syria, and then you can say the West Bank, I think we're at the beginning of something that's more longterm.

- Regional.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Not regional, but longterm in Israel's security, which is essential to our security interests.

- So I am hearing, and I want to make sure I got this right, that of these two conflicts, the one in the near to medium term you are more concerned about is in the Middle East.

- I am, because that has a potential to spiral and bring other players in that has a conflict.

I'm giving you just my view.

- Okay.

That's all I'm asking for.

- No, I know, but I want to be careful.

I don't see Russia's capacity, because I think that, when you look at the loss of life, loss of ammunition, loss of armor, that tells you the ability for this to spiral out into a NATO country, not that you shouldn't be nervous about it, but NATO has been activated in a way that we haven't seen in the last 15 years.

But given Iran, given Hezbollah, given the West Bank, but given Gaza Strip, given the Houthis in Yemen, it's a close quarter, and there's more than one player here.

- And there ain't no NATO in the Middle East.

- No, there is no NATO in the Middle East, but you can see the level of deterrence that the United States brought has had its own impact.

Now, if I could on a more...

I don't want to end on a negative.

[laughs] You look at this region, and this is an example where deterrence has had exactly that impact, and diplomacy has had exactly that impact.

You have exactly the same interests of revisionism, chasing something of the past, not dealing with the future.

And I think the President and the team that I'm a part of has made the most in the last three years of putting in place the core cornerstones and the core principles of our strategy of deterrence and diplomacy in combination with our allies, and it's having a real impact and made the most of what I think are major mistakes by the Chinese Communist Party in the last three years.

- Rahm Emanuel, thank you very much.

- Thank you.

[intriguing electronic music] - And now the Puppet Regime, where some of the world's worst people weigh in on some of the season's best movies.

- Welcome to a new episode of "Felt on Film," Puppet Regime's movie review show.

Today we're talking winter blockbusters with our panel of hardcore movie buffs.

MBS, let's start with you.

What movie is on your holiday season must-see list?

- Well, I heard Scorsese's "Killers of the Flower Moon" is great, but I mean there's literally no way I'm sitting through a four-hour movie.

- Ah, but you'd love it.

- I would?

- Well, it's an epic tale of brutal murders in oil country, a shady coverup, and a doomed investigation by the U.S. government.

- Sounds like you should sue Scorsese for plagiarism.

[all laughing] - Maybe I should.

- Hilarious.

All right, well, how about you, Mr. Putin?

Anything you're excited to see?

- Well, obviously representation is important, and as a five-foot tall horse enthusiast with imperial ambitions, I see myself in "Napoleon."

- Wow, strong choice.

But what's your take on the various historical inaccuracies in the film?

- Look, as Napoleon Bonaparte himself said, "History is a set of lies everyone agrees upon."

And I love it when everyone agrees upon lies, especially mine.

- True story.

[audience laughing] Okay, Kim Jong-Un, how about you?

What are you most excited to see this winter?

- It is Sofia Coppola's "Priscilla."

[audience gasps] - What?

Are you an Elvis freak?

- I knew it.

- Uh, for your information, the film is a very moving portrait of a deeply misunderstood public figure trapped by her passions and isolated in plain view from the world.

As such, it is a work that speaks to my own lived experience.

- Your own lived exper... Are you seriously comparing yourself to Priscilla Presley?

Is that actually what's happening here?

- Uh, are you seriously not comparing me to Priscilla Presley?

- And scene.

That does it for this episode of "Felt on Film."

Enjoy the season, and we'll see you at the movies.

♪ Puppet Regime ♪ - That's our show this week.

Come back next week.

And if you like what you've seen, or even if you didn't but you like that I'm just about as far away from you right now as humanly possible, why don't you check out gzeromedia.com?

[upbeat instrumental music] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music continues] [light electronic music] - [Announcer] Funding for GZERO World is provided by our lead sponsor, Prologis.

- [Announcer] Every day all over the world, Prologis helps businesses of all sizes lower their carbon footprint and scale their supply chains with a portfolio of logistics and real estate and an end-to-end solutions platform, addressing the critical initiatives of global logistics today.

Learn more at Prologis.com.

- [Announcer] And by... - [Announcer] Cox Enterprises is proud to support GZERO.

We're working to improve lives in the areas of communications, automotive, clean tech, sustainable agriculture, and more.

Learn more at Cox.career/news.

- [Announcer] Additional funding provided by Jerry and Mary Joy Stead, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and... [light instrumental music] [dynamic music]