By Tom Plate

Not that long ago, Japan was in the American doghouse — a menacing, steam-rolling superpower, its people viewed more with suspicion than affection.

Toyota and Honda were mercilessly running down U.S. manufacturers and putting car workers on unemployment lines; well-heeled Japanese multinational corporations were obnoxiously throwing their excess cash, of which they had plenty, at architectural icons such as Rockefeller Center and scarfing them up.

No longer. By American standards, that's ancient history. And so Japan, it seems, is back, at least in the eyes of Texas.

For Americans generally like their Japan downsized, if not actually down and out. These days it's struggling economically, it loyally boot-stepped behind the Iraq invasion, and it sports a spiffy prime minister who looks less like a back-room Japanese politician and more, well, American. Suddenly, the Japanese seem so much more likable.

And especially in the eyes of that Texan running America: For their prime minister is certainly getting the royal treatment from President Bush. This Friday, Junichiro Koizumi will be scarfing down not American monuments but Texas-size burgers.

Getting a "Crawford" is now the equivalent of knighthood for visiting foreign leaders. But there's more to this event than just ranch dressing. Asia could before long replace Europe in the mind of Washington as its primary regional ally were Asians to play their cards right.

Certainly Koizumi has, as far as most Bush officials are concerned; so, to a lesser extent, has new South Korean President Roh Moon-hyun, who got a royal reception in Washington last week — though no Crawford yet.

(The Bushies appreciate that he was a stand-up guy on Iraq but doubt that North Korea can be tamed by a nice-guy policy.)

So have Singapore's Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong and Australia's John Howard. Both countries will soon enjoy special trade agreements with the United States.

Put Japan, South Korea, Australia and Singapore together, and you have something: a combined population of about 200 million, a combined GNP of approximately $5 trillion (U.S.), and a whole bunch of military bases the United States can use. Who needs France and Germany?

Too fanciful? Remember that the Bush administration has shown how capable it is of changing a paradigm on a dime. And this is not the kind of administration that easily forgives and forgets.

The biggest winner in a pro-Asia tilt would probably be Koizumi. The mercurial P.M. already has a renewed uptick in the polls from his pro-U.S. Iraq stance, despite 70 percent of his countrymen opposing the U.S. invasion. He'll get a second spike from Crawford. Then he's off for a near-world diplomatic tour, including a stop in shaky Saudi Arabia and then perhaps China later.

The telegenic P.M. could then call a snap national election, solidify his hold on power and perhaps even put a blowtorch to his own encrusted party, which has turned the Koizumi economic reform program into a joke. But if Koizumi can turn the tables on the status quo lobby, he can also slam the door on the national political ambitions of Shintaro Ishihara, the entertaining but dangerous Tokyo governor who'd return Japan to the "good old days," which would probably include re-militarization and perhaps nuclearization. If Koizumi can hang in there and pull something like this off, he would do the region as well as his country a huge favor by keeping the fox from the hen house.

Ultimately Asia's regional stability and America's continuing prosperity depend on a recovered and healthy Japan.

The biggest loser in all of this could be China. The SARS crisis has revealed the cracks in its creaky political system. And there is an inevitable economic slowdown coming. Beijing needs to mend fences fast with Tokyo if it doesn't want to be left on the outside looking in at a new Japanese-American love affair.

Tom Plate, whose column appears regularly in The Honolulu Advertiser, is a professor at UCLA. Reach him at tplate@ucla.edu. He also has a spot on the Web.