“It’s a gap between the kind of personal reaction that I myself received from my American friends and the somewhat ceremonial, rhetorical statements that Mr. Obama makes… I was taken aback. I have yet to feel any personal feeling coming from Mr. Obama himself,” said Yoshi Komuri, editor-at-large of Sankei Shimbun, one of Japan’s leading newspapers.
“It seems a bit remote, too official, that’s my personal opinion.”
Andrew Gordon, director of Harvard’s Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, said Obama’s handling of the Japan crisis so far was appropriate, but it would be wise now for him to make a greater overture to one of his country’s most important allies and trading partners.
“Even compared to what people were thinking Friday or Saturday, by Tuesday this is a considerably graver event, so for Obama to do something – in public and visibly – probably wouldn’t be a bad idea, whether that’s Obama going to visit the Japanese Embassy or inviting the ambassador to the White House …to sort of lay out some ongoing commitment,” he said.
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