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The Koizumi-Bush barbecue
summit
By Axel Berkofsky
America's friends are getting invited to US
President George W Bush's ranch for no-necktie, mainly
off-the-record meetings in Crawford, Texas. Japanese
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who late last week
visited Bush for what both governments called a
"US-Japan summit", "deserved" the invitation too,
claimed Japan's conservative press.
Koizumi's
invitation to Texas was a "reward" for Japan's support
for the US invading Iraq, cheered the Yomiuri Shimbun,
indicating that only a chosen few get to barbecue with
the Bushes in the Texan wilderness.
Back on the
home front, the critics complained that visiting the
Bushes in Texas was a distraction from Japan's economic
mess. "The sentiment that the country has to unite to
counter the North Korean threat is saving Koizumi. There
are many criticisms of his economic policies. But he was
saved by his decision to support Bush in the Iraq war.
He was saved by diplomacy he's not even good at,"
Hisayuki Miyake, a Japanese political analyst, was
quoted as saying in the Washington Post recently.
Party-spoilers, though, were not invited to
Texas and Koizumi was clearly enjoying the 10 hours of
"no-necktie time" with Bush. In addition to discussing
North Korea, Iraq and Japan's economic woos beside the
pool on Bush's ranch, the two leaders even found the
time to talk about the prospects of peace between Israel
and the Palestinians.
Quite an agenda for a
two-hour talk between allies. The remaining eight hours
of Koizumi's stay were filled with Bush driving his
friend around his ranch, smiling into the cameras and
Koizumi staying overnight.
Diplomacy Texas-style
can indeed be fun as it turned out, especially since
both leaders seem to agree on everything. North Korea
will have to "behave" or face "serious consequences",
Japan's economy will have to be sorted out (or face
collapse) and Japan will play an "important role" in
postwar Iraq.
Bush and Koizumi agreed to find a
"peaceful solution" to the crisis on the Korean
Peninsula although "peaceful" economic sanctions and
naval blockade cutting off North Korea's supply lines as
far as the US is concerned.
North Korea for its
part announced repeatedly that economic sanctions will
be considered a "declaration of war" and Koizumi, too,
was seemingly less enthusiastic about sanctions after
leaving Texas. On his way to visit Cairo last Saturday,
he said that Japan has no "immediate plans" to impose
economic sanctions although he will stick with his
previously announced "dialogue and pressure" approach to
North Korea. "Japan will deal strictly with illicit
imports and drug smuggling into Japan," he said,
indicating that Japan's coast guard will keep North
Korean smuggler ships from intruding in Japanese waters
one or another.
"Dialogue and pressure worked
already," cheered Japan's policymakers back home in the
meantime.
Over the weekend, North Korea
reportedly accepted a US demand to include Japan and
South Korea in the next round of talks on North Korea's
nukes. So far, Pyongyang has refused to talk to Japan
and South Korea on its nukes, requesting food and cash
from both countries instead.
In case Pyongyang
should once again turn to saber-rattling tactics,
however, the Japanese government already has the
legislation for imposing economic sanctions in place. A
revision of Japan's Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade
Law to stop trade with and financial remittances to
North Korea is already on the table, but Koizumi, at
least for now, has decided to let North Koreans living
in Japan continue to transfer cash to the North.
Japanese yen are a vital source of income and
foreign currency for Pyongyang, although Japan's North
Korea hardliners fear that the ongoing Japanese cash
supply would make North Korea even more dangerous than
it already is.
A Koizumi trip to the United
States, however, wouldn't be complete without a verbal
blunder confirming to his ally Bush that he can be
counted on as far as belligerency toward North Korea is
concerned. Like the country's defense hawks before him,
he suggested that Japan has the right to attack "another
country" (North Korea) preemptively if there is
"sufficient proof" that Pyongyang is about to launch a
ballistic missile attack or worse.
In return for
Japan's belligerency and support for the US hardline
approach toward North Korea, Bush announced that he
would make the unresolved issue of Japanese citizens
abducted to North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s a matter
close to his heart. "The United States will stand
squarely with Japan until all Japanese citizens
kidnapped by North Korea are fully accounted for," he
promised.
The chill-out atmosphere in Crawford
aside, the meeting in Texas went beyond another photo
opportunity with Bush as far as Koizumi is concerned.
The prime minister, it seemed, seized the moment
and Bush's tapping him on the shoulder to prepare
policymakers and the public back home for what is next
on Japan's foreign and security agenda.
While
Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs decided to "remain
cautious" about a dispatch of Japanese military to Iraq,
the prime minister promised the US president to submit a
law authorizing the deployment of his military to Iraq
as "early as possible".
If that is not early
enough, Koizumi even hinted at the possibility of using
and reinterpreting existing laws. "After closely
examining a UN resolution, we'll consider whether a new
legislation is necessary or whether the existing laws
are sufficient."
Time to submit a new bill to
the Diet is running out for the government and if
Koizumi decides to dispatch troops to Iraq any time
soon, he will have to submit a bill before the end of
the current Diet session on June 18. The bill, likely to
cause the usual and mostly incomprehensible
controversies between ruling coalition and opposition,
will hardly make it through both chambers of the Diet by
then - although the government could order to extend the
session beyond June.
Either way, the US wants to
see a Japanese presence in Iraq and there is still a
huge bill to pay for rebuilding the country. Japan so
far has supported Iraq's reconstruction with a modest
US$50 million although the US is reportedly planning to
let Japan pay up to 20 percent of the reconstruction
costs.
Some within the ruling Liberal Democratic
Party, skeptical of their prime minister's obsession to
please Washington at all costs, urge Koizumi to turn to
the home front taking care of Japan's ailing economy
instead. Reshuffling the cabinet and efforts to solve
the problems of the ailing economy should be on the
agenda before anything else, many in the party complain.
Koizumi, as usual, remained unimpressed and
hinted at the possibility of dispatching a "survey
team", including Self-Defense Force (SDF) personnel, to
Iraq checking out whether the country is already "safe
enough" to deploy Japanese troops.
If eventually
sent to Iraq, Japanese troops could be involved in
medical, sanitary and transport missions although the
military wants to be prepared for military action as
well. This week, the Defense Agency urged the government
to ease the restrictions on the use of arms to ensure
that soldiers are allowed to fire up when being shot at.
So far, Japanese soldiers are not allowed to defend
troops from other nations and are authorized to use
military force only for individual self-defense when
abroad.
Back in Japan from his visits in Egypt
and Saudi Arabia over the weekend, the prime minister on
Monday endorsed his government's plans to launch another
pair of spy satellites into orbit in September checking
on North Korea's nuclear and military facilities.
The first pair of high-tech eyes made in Japan
was launched on March 28 and unlike on that occasion,
the government this time abstained from trying to
explain that the satellites were mainly launched to make
the weather forecasts more reliable.
(Copyright
2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved.
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