The Asia-Pacific strategy: revelation from movies

Pacific Rim is a 2014 fiction movie starring Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, Robert Kazinsky, Max Martini, and Ron Perlman. The background of this movie set in the 2020s, there is a lot of monsters “kaijiu” emerged from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. For winning the war of battling with the monsters, people create the Jaegers, the gigantic robot controlled by at least two pilots and their minds are connected with each other by the technology. This movie’s photography began on 2011 and finished in 2012, including 3-D and IMAX 3D. This movie received a lot of positive reviews,especially in China. It earned 411 million totally.

In the movie, we can see many elements of Japan, for example, the commander of the Earth Defense Force talked with the G7, Japan is in the seven countries. On the other hand, the female lead is a Japanese,who is the assistance of the chief commander. Also, the name of the monster is kaijiu, which is a Japanese word. Importantly, the countries which has their own gigantic robot are Australia, Japan, America, Russia and China.

Warner Bros. Pictures

Nowadays, in the global politics, the Asia-Pacific is becoming more and more important. China, Japan and Australia is important in the situation of the Asia-Pacific. In the whole movie, Japan is a good helper of America, China, Russian Australian are the supporting roles.

We can find the similar political elements in a lot of movies, taking the popular movie”Gozilla 2014”as an example, the Japanese scientist consultant of United States Navy is an important role in the movie.

On Tuesday, Japan said that it would hold a bilateral military exercise in November with United States for improving the island defense capabilities.With the political issues happening about the dispute over the islands, the Japanese Self-Defense Force is becoming more close with the US Force than before.

For more information,
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/japan-america-forging-global-alliance-11539

Russia, the another important role in the Asia-Pacific strategy, has a subtle relationship with Japan, In previous 6 months, Japanese fighter jets often countered Russian Air Force. In Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s eyes, meeting the challenge from China is more important. Thus, Shinzo Abe eases the diplomatic tensions. However, the cooperation between Russia and China has became Shinzo Abe's concern.

Different with Russia, in the important roles of Asia-Pacific strategy, Australia has a stronger alliance with Japan. Japan helps Australia to build submarines. In July, we can see the violation of the Japan's arms export ban, the transfer of defence equipment and technology agreement was signed by Shinzo Abe and the Prime Minister of Australia Tony Abbott.

For China, the evidence of the pacific ambition of Japan was mainly about the dispute of the island called Diaoyu Island by China and Senkaku Island by Japan. In fact, this issue was put on table in 2012. The United States always stand on the Japan’s side. “US-Japan Alliance is the foundation for not only our security in Asia-Pacific region but also for the region as a whole and we have continued to strengthen, we are looking for the whole range of issues that are challenging at this time.” said the US president Obama. Yet, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said:” what I need to point out is that the so-called US-Japan alliance is a bilateral arrangement from the Cold War.”

Coming to the movie” Pacific Rim”, Jie Fang Daily, one of the biggest the major newspaper in China, has an article said that the movie try to support the concept of Asia-Pacific strategy of US. Yet, some critics said that the movie is just describing the reality, the US-Japan alliance is true and there is no reason why the movie cannot express that.

No matter what the pubic opinion is, the cooperation between Japan and US has a long history. After the World War II, Japan was occupied by the Allied Powers and then Japan became an independent country again and the formation of the alliance was happened in 1952. Japan started to be an important ally of the United States.