Us Uruguayans call ourselves Easterns. That is how we were born, first as the Eastern Bank and then as the Eastern Republic of Uruguay. It is the nickname we proudly carry around the rest of the continent and the world. It gives us a certain identity, it builds culture, although sometimes it is a garb that can be used in diametrically opposed ways. Each one takes their Easterns quality as it best fits them, but nobody denies those 33 easterns who fought for our independence and from whom we learned as children in school.
Well, if we feel so Eastern, it would be good for us to learn a little more from those who are truly Eastern in the world: the Japanese. There are many lessons that can be taken from that country but there are two that come to mind in the current electoral times in Uruguay, when we are discussing our future and especially the present and the past: resilience and pragmatism.
I spent five days in Japan in late August and early September. I have a long-standing friendly relationship with the Japanese. I have already visited three times this Asian archipelago, which for Uruguayans is exactly in the other corner of the planet. I went to study journalism two decades ago, to promote the book “A Black Sheep to the Power: Confessions and Intimacies of José Mujica” eight years ago (which was translated into Japanese and has already sold nearly 80,000 copies there), and now to learn about Japan's geopolitical situation in a very troubled region.
A separate chapter is the landing, after about 30 hours of flight, in the millenary Japanese culture and its lifestyle, so different from ours, although with points in common. The tranquility that everything works and is on time, the importance of details, the subtlety in interpersonal relationships and kindness as a way of life, technology as an everyday thing, the neon lights, screens and colorful posters that shake the eye on the streets and highways, the millions and millions who live together almost without looking at each other, all that deserves a separate chapter.

But what is relevant in this case is how Japan, less than a century after being defeated in World War II, having suffered the attack of two atomic bombs and the invasion and occupation of one of its islands after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, being subjected time and again to natural disasters —earthquakes, tsunamis and typhoons— manages to recover and learn positively from each of these traumatic episodes. How, without eternal regrets or victimization, it manages to remain one of the most powerful and wealthy countries in the world.
Resilience is the main secret. But not just that. It has to be dressed in pragmatism and to optimism, no matter how painful the past may have been. It is not that it does not matter, it means that it has already happened and that what is built is based on and not embraced by what has already been. The natives of Okinawa province, which I visited for two days, have a concept for that: なんくるないさ (“nankuru naisa”), which means that “there is no problem that can stop us”. For so it is. The island of Okinawa, located two hours by plane south of Tokyo, suffered one of the worst land battles at the end of World War II after the American landing on March 26, 1945, which lasted until June 23, and then nearly three decades of U.S. occupation. Around 200,000 Japanese died, many of them resisting the American advance and hiding in caves, which were bombed. In one of them they even set up a war hospital staffed by young medical students who were killed by bombs thrown into the hiding place. A real tragedy that is commemorated with several memorials.
The American occupation ended in 1972, after arduous negotiations, but the United States still has two military bases in Okinawa, one of which is the largest in the entire Asian region. They are there, living side by side with the locals. They employ 3,200 Americans and 200 Japanese. They are part of the landscape and part of everyday life. Some complain about the noise of the airplanes or episodes of misconduct by soldiers, but the local people have understood that they can profit from it.
The Japanese government ambassador in Okinawa, Miyagawa Manabu, says that the island has programs to send local university students to study in the United States and that they maintain an open and constant dialogue with the authorities of that country to improve the living conditions of their fellow countrymen with respect to the bases. There are planned relocations on the horizon, there are other collaborations on the horizon, there are facts and not complaints against the United States. Reality rules.
The military in charge of air self-defense in Okinawa have a similar position. Their problem is not with the United States. They consider it an ally. What worries them is China's military advance and some recent incursions that that country has made into Japanese airspace without authorization.
The threats are different, they are new. Even though it was the Americans who razed everything to the ground when they entered Okinawa at the end of the Second World War. Even though they were also the ones who months later pressed the red button to drop two atomic bombs, one on Hiroshima and the other on Nagasaki. It is the present that is important to the Japanese for the future. A present in which they have no Armed Forces as a consequence of the peace agreements signed after their defeat in the last world war, although they do have self-defense forces and allies to rely on. First resilience and then the starkest pragmatism.

They have territorial disputes, over a group of islands, with three countries at the moment. They even have a museum in the center of Tokyo, financed by the government, where they explain to students and foreign visitors all those conflicts that have been dragging on for many decades, but which were accentuated after the defeat in the Second World War. To the north with Russia, to the east with South Korea and to the south, the most important, with China. They negotiate and negotiate with the governments of these countries but also resort, in some cases, to the International Court in The Hague. Firm position and perseverance, no regrets.
The main fear that everyone talks about off the record is the possibility that China may try to take over its neighboring island of Taiwan at some point in the not too distant future. To put it in context, they recall what happened with Russia and Ukraine and the political and military alliance the Russians have with the Chinese and North Korea.
 

For several Japanese hierarchs from both the Ministry of Defense and the Foreign Ministry who agree to speak, albeit carefully and without doing so publicly, Japan is experiencing one of the most tense moments since the end of the last world war. The region seems to be a volcano that is giving its first signs of a possible eruption.
China and Russia are shown doing military exercises together, some Chinese aircraft overfly the airspace of other countries for a few minutes generating alarm and North Korea continues doing nuclear tests and increasing its arsenal and shows it as a tiger showing its teeth. The air is foul with the aroma that usually precedes a storm. This is how the rulers, the specialists and also an important part of the population feel it.
That is why the United States. Japan has its largest, deepest and most extensive strategic alliance in the world with the United States. There is no other country with which it is such a partner and friend from the point of view of international politics. They maintain exchanges and mutual academic, economic, commercial and, above all, military exchanges and assistance. This last point is central and has been deepening since 1960, when the two countries signed the first alliance, with Okinawa still occupied by the Americans.
The visits of the main Japanese authorities to Washington and of the American ones to Tokyo are at least once a year and are commonplace in the middle management. It is as if a strategic airlift had been created between the two great powers that goes beyond the governments of the day, as a good state policy.
Does it change anything if Donald Trump or Kamala Harris wins the US elections in November? For all the Japanese government officials consulted, the answer is no, because the alliance is so solid and necessary that it transcends any ideological question. It is a defense strategy of survival beyond political ups and downs.
This is also the view of Professor Tetsuo Kotani of the Japan Institute of International Relations. The only thing that could change is that Trump could increase a little more the military budget in the Asian area, but it is a minor detail, because the pro-government Kamala Harris represents a government that has already concentrated its forces on the defense of Japan in the face of the increasingly worrisome regional threats.
The U.S.-Japan alliance is here to stay and grow, Kotani predicts. No memory of the horrors of World War II can weaken it. What's more, almost 90% of Japanese now feel the U.S. as a friend, not the executioner of their past. That's it. They recovered, as they did from the earthquakes, the tsunamis, the attacks. Again, it's about looking forward with pragmatism. It's a win-win relationship, says Kotani. The United States needs to have strong military bases in the region where several of its main enemies are concentrated and Japan needs its partner's military strength and also its deterrent atomic weapons, since they don't have them but North Korea, China and Russia do.
What is the secret? The past matters, but not to repeat it. What is done is done, no matter how painful it may be, and the goal is to get up and keep walking, even if it is hand in hand with the former enemy. The Japanese know that Uruguay is a serious country, with clear rules and that it remains stable in a difficult region. It even has similarities in that sense. But they feel that it is still involved in eternal discussions and that it has not been able to shake off the anchor of what decades ago hurt it from inside and outside.
On June 17, Uruguay will be honored at the Osaka Fair in Japan. Some ministers and perhaps even the future president of the Republic will surely travel. It would be a good opportunity for them to return from that trip at least a little more steeped in the Japanese lesson. With resilience and pragmatism, only a better future awaits us.