Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Russian Translation by Andre Fesyun
Puzzle awaits G8 delegates
Spare a thought for the puzzle that will meet foreign delegations to the Group of Eight Summit in Hokkaido on July 7. On the one hand they will find a nation that organizes itself with clockwork perfection. Indeed, the summit organization will almost certainly be over-perfection, with every detail scripted and rehearsed to extremes.
But when it comes to foreign or economic policy, expect confusion and contradiction, also to extremes.
Take the foreign policy issue that dominates most Japanese minds: Tokyo's now frustrated hopes that Pyongyang would remain on U.S. terrorist nation lists until it returned a dozen or so Japanese citizens said to have been abducted two or more decades ago.
Even allowing for the attractive way Japan frets over any of its citizens in trouble abroad, its actions seem exaggerated. They involve the highly dubious DNA testing of bones, in a bid to prove Pyongyang is lying and to exploit the sorrow of grieving parents who believe their daughter is still alive. They require Japan to insist that any and all Japanese who have disappeared in North Korea are abductees when it is quite possible some may have other reasons to be there. They assume that only rigid confrontation can solve problems with North Korea, despite the historic 2002 abductee breakthrough to Pyongyang proving the virtues of careful diplomacy. And they have led Japan to try to delay the all-important denuclearization of North Korea over an issue that most others see as peripheral.
From North Korea the attention will probably move to Japan's territorial dispute with Moscow — ownership of four islands or island groups just to the east of Hokkaido. There, too, contradictions abound. One is the fact that Japan formally rejected all right, claim and title to most of the disputed territory in its 1951 San Francisco peace treaty. Another is that Japanese negotiators in the mid-1950s twice accepted a generous Moscow compromise that would have returned one disputed island (Shikotan) and the Habomai island group, only to have the compromise rejected by all-or-nothing domestic conservatives, encouraged by a Washington keen to have Japan continue the Cold War confrontation with Moscow.
Yet it was the same Washington that in 1951 almost certainly forced Japan to give up its legitimate rights to the disputed islands, as part of a secret U.N. deal with Moscow allowing the U.S. to use Guam as a military base — a fact that if admitted would greatly strengthen Tokyo's position. Instead, Tokyo prefers hardline economic reprisals against Moscow, even as it begs Moscow for supplies of gas.
Nor is it just Moscow. Japan's muddled, nationalistic hardline over territory leaves it at loggerheads with all its other neighbors — South Korea, China and Taiwan. That the dispute with Taiwan over the Senkaku islands should have led to a semi-formal break in relations is a much more serious setback for Japan's diplomacy than anyone in Japan seems to want to realize.
True, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda cannot be blamed for this confusion. He inherited these problems and is trying to make the best of things by focusing on global environment and world economic problems. But even here he is undercut by the past. He can hardly tell others how to run their economies when Japan's own economy remains crippled by past bad management — in particular the imposition of deflationary policies on a chronically deflated economy while rejecting the advice of some top U.S. economists pointing out how Japan can reflate without public debt problems.
Even Fukuda's one positive achievement — the recent agreement with Beijing to allow joint development of ocean gas fields close to but on the Chinese side of Japan's claimed economic exclusion zone (EEZ) in the East China Sea — could come under threat.
Tokyo has long insisted that only the median (equidistance) line between China and Japan can demarcate over-lapping EEZ claims. Beijing says the continental shelf, which runs close to Okinawa, should be the demarcation line. As a compromise it proposes joint oil and gas development between the rival claims — a seemingly reasonable proposal, particularly since any gas found will probably have to be taken to China for sale or processing anyway.
But for Japan's nationalistic rightwing, Beijing's continental shelf/joint development claim is illegal and proof of evil intent. This, despite the fact that an International Court ruling on EEZ demarcation principles has yet to be made, and there are important precedents for the Chinese continental shelf proposal, the latest being Canberra's joint development agreement with East Timor.
What's more, Japan has long had a Chinese-style agreement with South Korea, calling for joint development between rival median line and continental shelf claims in waters right alongside to those now in dispute with Tokyo. Few seem aware of this contradiction.
As a foreign policy moderate with some international experience, Fukuda could no doubt with time try to solve some of these problems. But already the rightwing is seeking his removal. Japan's strange mix of close and intelligent attention to practical problems at home and sloppy, ad hoc handling of abstract problems abroad and in the economy seems likely to be with us for some time.
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Russian Translation by Andre Fesyun
Puzzle awaits G8 delegates
Spare a thought for the puzzle that will meet foreign delegations to the Group of Eight Summit in Hokkaido on July 7. On the one hand they will find a nation that organizes itself with clockwork perfection. Indeed, the summit organization will almost certainly be over-perfection, with every detail scripted and rehearsed to extremes.
But when it comes to foreign or economic policy, expect confusion and contradiction, also to extremes.
Take the foreign policy issue that dominates most Japanese minds: Tokyo's now frustrated hopes that Pyongyang would remain on U.S. terrorist nation lists until it returned a dozen or so Japanese citizens said to have been abducted two or more decades ago.
Even allowing for the attractive way Japan frets over any of its citizens in trouble abroad, its actions seem exaggerated. They involve the highly dubious DNA testing of bones, in a bid to prove Pyongyang is lying and to exploit the sorrow of grieving parents who believe their daughter is still alive. They require Japan to insist that any and all Japanese who have disappeared in North Korea are abductees when it is quite possible some may have other reasons to be there. They assume that only rigid confrontation can solve problems with North Korea, despite the historic 2002 abductee breakthrough to Pyongyang proving the virtues of careful diplomacy. And they have led Japan to try to delay the all-important denuclearization of North Korea over an issue that most others see as peripheral.
From North Korea the attention will probably move to Japan's territorial dispute with Moscow — ownership of four islands or island groups just to the east of Hokkaido. There, too, contradictions abound. One is the fact that Japan formally rejected all right, claim and title to most of the disputed territory in its 1951 San Francisco peace treaty. Another is that Japanese negotiators in the mid-1950s twice accepted a generous Moscow compromise that would have returned one disputed island (Shikotan) and the Habomai island group, only to have the compromise rejected by all-or-nothing domestic conservatives, encouraged by a Washington keen to have Japan continue the Cold War confrontation with Moscow.
Yet it was the same Washington that in 1951 almost certainly forced Japan to give up its legitimate rights to the disputed islands, as part of a secret U.N. deal with Moscow allowing the U.S. to use Guam as a military base — a fact that if admitted would greatly strengthen Tokyo's position. Instead, Tokyo prefers hardline economic reprisals against Moscow, even as it begs Moscow for supplies of gas.
Nor is it just Moscow. Japan's muddled, nationalistic hardline over territory leaves it at loggerheads with all its other neighbors — South Korea, China and Taiwan. That the dispute with Taiwan over the Senkaku islands should have led to a semi-formal break in relations is a much more serious setback for Japan's diplomacy than anyone in Japan seems to want to realize.
True, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda cannot be blamed for this confusion. He inherited these problems and is trying to make the best of things by focusing on global environment and world economic problems. But even here he is undercut by the past. He can hardly tell others how to run their economies when Japan's own economy remains crippled by past bad management — in particular the imposition of deflationary policies on a chronically deflated economy while rejecting the advice of some top U.S. economists pointing out how Japan can reflate without public debt problems.
Even Fukuda's one positive achievement — the recent agreement with Beijing to allow joint development of ocean gas fields close to but on the Chinese side of Japan's claimed economic exclusion zone (EEZ) in the East China Sea — could come under threat.
Tokyo has long insisted that only the median (equidistance) line between China and Japan can demarcate over-lapping EEZ claims. Beijing says the continental shelf, which runs close to Okinawa, should be the demarcation line. As a compromise it proposes joint oil and gas development between the rival claims — a seemingly reasonable proposal, particularly since any gas found will probably have to be taken to China for sale or processing anyway.
But for Japan's nationalistic rightwing, Beijing's continental shelf/joint development claim is illegal and proof of evil intent. This, despite the fact that an International Court ruling on EEZ demarcation principles has yet to be made, and there are important precedents for the Chinese continental shelf proposal, the latest being Canberra's joint development agreement with East Timor.
What's more, Japan has long had a Chinese-style agreement with South Korea, calling for joint development between rival median line and continental shelf claims in waters right alongside to those now in dispute with Tokyo. Few seem aware of this contradiction.
As a foreign policy moderate with some international experience, Fukuda could no doubt with time try to solve some of these problems. But already the rightwing is seeking his removal. Japan's strange mix of close and intelligent attention to practical problems at home and sloppy, ad hoc handling of abstract problems abroad and in the economy seems likely to be with us for some time.
Discuss this Article
G8代表を待つパズル
7月7日北海道の洞爺湖サミットに集まる外国代表を待ち受けるパズルについてちょっと頭を貸して欲しい。彼らは一方で、秒読みのような正確さでことをオーガナイズする国と出会う。ほんとうに、サミットのオーガナイズは、あらゆる細部にいたるまで台本を作り極端なリハーサルが行われ、完璧すぎることはほぼ間違いない。
ところが、こと外交や経済政策となると、これまた究極の混乱と矛盾が見られる。
たとえば、ほとんどの日本人の頭がいっぱいになっている外交問題を見てみよう：それは、20年かそれ以上前に日本から拉致されたといわれる十数名の日本国民を返すまでは、アメリカは北朝鮮をそのテロ支援国家リストからはずさないでほしいという、いまでは裏切らてしまった願い。
外国でトラブルに遭遇したあらゆる日本人についていつもこの国が見せる評価すべき気遣いをよく承知していてさえ、この一連の日本の行動はやりすぎと見える。一つは、北朝鮮が嘘をついていることを照明しようと、また娘がまだ生きていると信じている被害者両親の悲しみを利用しようと行われた、非常に疑問が多い骨DNA鑑定である。また、北朝鮮で行方が分からなくなった日本人は、一部は他の理由でそこにいた可能性もあるのに、全て被拉致者であるとみなせとの要求である。2002年の対北朝鮮拉致問題解決の歴史的突破口を開いたのが周到な外交努力の成果だったにもかかわらず、強硬対決のみが問題を解決できるという立場を崩さない。そして日本が、肝心かなめの北朝鮮の非核化を遅らせても、他国の大半が周辺的とみなしている問題を優先させよと譲らない。
北海道での代表の関心は、北朝鮮の次は次第に、北海道のすぐ東方の４島あるいは４群島を巡るモスクワとの領土紛争に移るかもしれない。このケースも矛盾だらけである。一つは、かつて日本は１９５１年サンフランシスコ平和条約でこの紛争領域の大半についてすべての権利、権原、請求権を公式に放棄している。また一つは、１９５０年代央に日本の外交団は紛争中の一島シコタンとハボマイ群島を返そうというモスクワの大きな譲歩を、二度受けたのである。その譲歩は、オールオアナッシングを主張する国内の保守派によって、また日本とモスクワの冷戦対決を続けさせたいワシントンの強い意向を受けて、蹴られてしまった。
ところがこの同じワシントンが、アメリカがグアムを軍事基地として使用することを認めたモスクワとの国連秘密交渉の結果の一部を受けて、１９５１年に日本にこの問題の島々の合法的権利を放棄させるために圧力をかけたことはほぼ間違いない。― もし確認できれば、日本の立場を大いに強められる事実だ。だが日本は、そうする代わりに、一方ではモスクワからガスの供給を欲しくて懇願しながら、モスクワに対して強硬な経済報復を選んだ。
対モスクワばかりではない。泥沼化した、ナショナリスティックな強硬路線で、日本は他のすべての隣国― 韓国、中国、台湾― とけんかしている。尖閣諸島をめぐる台湾との紛争では台湾との関係が半公式的断絶状態になっていることは、日本でみんなが考えたいよりはるかに重大な日本外交の後退である。
この混乱は、たしかに、福田康夫首相の責任とはいえない。彼はこれらの問題を引き継いで、グローバルな国際経済問題に集中しながら、状況改善に最善の努力をしている。だがこの分野でも、過去が足かせになっている。自身の経済が過去のまちがった運営のために弱体化しているとき、他国に経済をどうすべきだなどといえる立場にない。（日本が公的債務問題を起こすことなくいかにして復帰することができるかを示した数名のアメリカのトップ・エコノミストのアドバイスを退けながら、慢性的にデフレ化している経済にデフレ政策を押し付けたまちがいである）
福田の一つのプラスの成果である、東シナ海の日本の主張する排他的経済水域（EEZ）に近いが中国サイドにある海底油田の共同開発を取り決めた最近の北京との合意でさえ、攻撃されるかもしれない。
日本政府は長い間、中国と日本のEEZ要求の重なり部分の境界を画定するもの中間線（等距離線）しかないと主張してきた。北京は沖縄近くを走る大陸棚が境界線となるべきだと主張、双方の主張の妥協として、中国は油田ガス田の共同開発を提案している。― これはとくに、そこで採掘されるガスはおそらくすべて中国に売られるか精製のため中国に運ばれるかのいずれかになると考えられるため、合理的な提案と思われる。
だが、日本のナショナリスティックな右派は、北京の大陸棚/共同開発提案は違法であり、悪意の証拠だと主張する。これはEEZ境界画定原則に対する国際司法裁判所の判定がいまだ下りていないこと、また中国主張の大陸棚提案に関する重大な先例がある―最近のものではオーストラリアが東チモールと共同開発で合意に至っている― という事実があるにもかかわらず、である。
さらに、日本はずっと以前から韓国と、この中国提案方式の合意ができており、いま東京ともめている場所のすぐ横の海域で 日韓でぶつかっている中間線主張と大陸棚主張の中間地域の共同開発を呼びかけているのである。この矛盾はほとんどだれも気付かないようだ。
国際的経験もある、外交政策穏健派として、福田は来るべき時にこれらの問題のいくつかの解決に着手することは可能だろう。だが右派はもうすでに福田降しに動いている。国内において現実問題への日本人のきめ細かい賢い配慮と、対外関係と経済の抽象的な問題に対するずさんな場当たり的対応という不思議なミックスは、まだ当分続くものと思われる。