This is John Bachelor speaking with colleague Grant Newsom about the new leader of Japan,

Shigu Isheba, former defense minister. Grant Newsom, United States Marine Corps Retired Intelligence Officer, author of When China Attacks

A Warning to America, has reservations about Ishiba's credibility as a man to join the coalitions arrayed in defense of East Asia from

the Chinese predator. Here's Grant Newsom reservations.

More of this later tonight.

He does have a reputation, as I said about being a defense expert, apparently based on the fact

he was the defense minister which in Japan

doesn't always mean a whole lot and on having a lot of model aircraft and

military hardware on display in his office.

But I sometimes wonder if he's quite the expert that he thinks he is.

And some have also said that he's actually fairly close to China in ways that one can imagine.

So put all this together and one does have some concerns that the progress the momentum that we've had in the last few years

under Kishida and his predecessors and Prime Minister Abbe

as I said it may tend to drift, particularly if Ishiba picks a fight over things like the

status of forces agreement and the fact that he thinks America does not give Japan the respect it deserves.

He says he wants the relationship

to be like the one between the United Kingdom

and the United States.

You know, that's not a bad objective.

But he also says that Japan should be free to set up its own strategies,

to do what it wants, and not have to listen to everything the Americans say.

Well the British don't listen to everything we say either.

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