[/floatl]TOKYO (AFP)--U.S. President-elect Barack Obama plans to name influential academic Joseph Nye, best known for coining the phrase "soft power," as ambassador to Japan, a newspaper reported Thursday. The Asahi Shimbun, quoting unnamed sources in Washington, reported on its Web site that Obama wants to show commitment to the U.S.-Japan alliance by picking a high-profile ambassador well before taking office. In an opinion article last year, Nye wrote of a sense of "malaise" in relations between Tokyo and Washington, due in part to Japanese perceptions that the U.S. cared more about a rising China. Nye said the U.S. could make Japan "a much more equal and important ally" by focusing on soft power. He said Japan, officially a pacifist nation since the end of World War II, could join Washington in fighting new threats such as climate change and pandemics......This means full-blown friendly relation between U.S and China starts while making famous scholar take a seat of Japanese ambassador to relieve and deceive brando-loving Japs.
