Blossoms over beef: The ban remains the
same By Richard Hanson
TOKYO
- Spring cherry blossoms have a short shelf-life.
That was particularly clear last week as the
United States and Japan celebrated the 150th anniversary
of the signing of a historic Treaty of Amity and
Commerce. As the springtime pink and white petals fell
in Washington, so did a stillborn secret diplomatic
effort by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) to
break an impasse over Japan's ban on imports of US beef,
imposed last December after a case of mad-cow disease
(bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE) was discovered
in the US.
In a secret letter - which turned out
to be not all that secret - to Japanese Minister of
Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Yoshiyuki Kamei, US
Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman decided to take a
more conciliatory approach to ending the BSE-related ban
on beef. "Dear Minister Kamei," Veneman wrote,
"Greetings from Washington, where the cherry blossoms
are resplendent this week - thanks to a gift from your
government nearly one hundred years ago."
It was
a nice try, but on Friday Kamei turned down - "rejected"
being too undiplomatic a term - the proposal made to him
in the March 29 letter from Veneman. The proposal: "End
the impasse over BSE trade restrictions and return to
more normal trading patterns," she wrote.
As
part of this move, the US proposed to jointly ask the
Paris-based World Organization for Animal Health (OIE),
an international body, to serve as a venue to break the
deadlock over Tokyo's ban. The US also set out a time
frame that would bring about a first step by April 9,
with further steps to set up a panel of experts by April
14 and to convene a meeting for questions before April
26 in an agreeable location; the panel would provide
responses to the agreed-upon questions by April 30.
Failure fated from the start A
combination of things assured failure from the start, in
what can be described both as a sad lack of any sort of
coalition in Japan and an appreciation for how annoyed
Japanese government officials have been with the
handling of the BSE problem by US officials.
At
the end of January, when the second meeting between the
two sides was held in Tokyo, the United States and Japan
parted with the US side saying it would present
proposals at the next meeting to address Japan's
concerns, which included demands that the US test cattle
for BSE at the same or equivalent levels as they are
tested in Japan, where all beef cattle for slaughter are
put to the test. More recently, Japan imposed strict
controls on what are called specified risk materials
(SRMs), such as meat cuts near the spinal cord, where
mad-cow disease often lurks.
The US government
has rejected such extreme measures for its domestic
market, on the grounds that it has not proved to be good
science in coping with the spread of the disease. The
point, however, is that testing of this nature is
government policy in Japan, where the test-all regime
helped to restore consumer confidence in beef after a
series of mad-cow-disease outbreaks.
Two months
passed after the January meeting before the letter
arrived on March 29. During that time the USDA
concentrated on matters such as negotiating a partial
lifting of Mexico's ban on US beef. Mexico is the
second-largest importer of the product, while Japan is
by far the largest and most lucrative market for US
beef.
But while the lifting of Mexico's ban was
meant to reassure Japan of the quality of US beef,
Japan's confidence in the USDA's arguments was weakened
by other developments, in particular a criminal
investigation into the handling of the first US case of
BSE, which was discovered in a small town in Washington
state.
A secret letter that wasn't all that
secret Since the March 29 letdown, things have
begun to go wrong, and quickly.
First, it was
apparent that the letter to Kamei was not all that
secret, which is a big mistake in dealing with the
Japanese government bureaucracy. In addition to Japan's
Ministry of Agriculture, the USDA saw to it that copies
of the letter were delivered to the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs (MAFF), the Ministry of Health, Labor and
Welfare, and the Food Safety Council (in the Cabinet
Office).
Naturally, these four organizations
would be part of any response regarding the beef-imports
ban, having participated in the January meeting with the
USDA in Tokyo. What that meant was that the Veneman
letter could not be kept a secret for long. By last
Thursday, at a regular MAFF press conference, a reporter
asked about the letter.
The vice minister of
agriculture, Mamoru Ishihara, replied to the questions
saying that the United States had proposed approaching
the OIE. He also said he regretted that the US had not
followed up directly on the talks with Japan, which were
left hanging as a result, and he indicated that the
government was reviewing the request but was intending
to reject the proposal.
It is unclear how the
press received word of the letter so quickly, but
according to some officials, the journalists who asked
the questions and who knew about the letter may have
been coached by officials who opposed the OIE proposal,
the inclusion of which did in fact kill the idea and
lead to Japan's rejection.
Meanwhile back in
Washington, Secretary Veneman showed anger in responding
to the press reports. "We are disappointed that the
Japanese response to our proposal was conveyed through
the press instead of engaging in constructive dialogue
about the merits of the proposal," she said.
But
for now, what's done is done. Another proposal has
fallen flat and it seems the impasse will remain. And
between the US and Japan, the cherry blossoms given to
Washington nearly a century ago are the only thing that
will be blooming any time soon.
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