Page 4 of 5 Challenges ahead for
premier By Hisane Masaki
and reconstruction in Iraq, and repairing
relations with China and South Korea.
On
the economic diplomatic front, Japan will face the
task of accelerating free-trade agreements with
trading partners, including the opening of such
negotiations with Vietnam, India and Australia
early in the new year, while playing its part, as
the world's second-largest economy, in
kick-starting stalled global trade talks
at
the World Trade Organization.
On North
Korea and Iraq, Japan is closely watching how, if
any, the US administration of President George W
Bush will tweak its policy on the countries it
once labeled an "axis of evil" along with Iran, in
the face of a Democratic Party-controlled US
Congress.
The six-party talks on North
Korea's nuclear program resumed in Beijing on
December 18 after a hiatus of 13 months. But no
significant progress is expected any time soon.
The nuclear talks, which are hosted by China and
also include the US, Japan, Russia, South Korea
and North Korea, had stalled in November 2005
after Pyongyang pulled out in protest over US
financial sanctions.
North Korea conducted
a nuclear test on October 9, triggering
international alarm and condemnation and inviting
financial and arms sanctions at the United
Nations. At the end of that month, Pyongyang
agreed to restart the six-party talks. But it took
nearly two months actually to resume the talks
because of sharp differences, especially between
the US and North Korea.
Japan and the US
have taken a tough approach toward North Korea,
while China, Russia and South Korea have advocated
a softer stance. Japan and the US have no
diplomatic relations with the Stalinist state led
by Kim Jong-il. Prime Minister Abe is a staunch
hardliner on North Korea, citing its abduction of
Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s to train
spies.
Japanese officials are determined
to maintain strong unity and close policy
coordination with the US in dealing with the North
Korea nuclear issue. Some people in Japan wonder
what changes, if any, will come in the US policy
toward North Korea in the wake of the Democratic
Party's control of both houses of Congress in the
mid-term elections in early November, and
anti-North Korea hardliner John Bolton's
resignation as US ambassador to the United
Nations, which was announced in early December.
When they met in mid-November on the
sidelines of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
(APEC) summit in Hanoi, Prime Minister Abe and
President Bush reaffirmed that the two countries
should accelerate cooperation in building a
missile defense system in response to North
Korea's nuclear test. Their foreign and defense
ministers are expected to agree to expedite
deployment of interceptors when they meet for a
"two plus two" meeting in the US, probably in
mid-January.
Abe is as much a staunch
proponent as his predecessor, Koizumi, of a
sturdier Japan-US alliance. In the wake of North
Korea's October 9 nuclear test, the Abe government
has begun to consider stretching the boundaries of
the postwar pacifist constitution to make it
possible for Japan to strike North Korean
ballistic missiles heading to the US.
This
move has sparked a constitutional controversy in
Japan. In 2003, the Koizumi government issued an
official statement that Japan cannot shoot down
missiles bound for the US because doing so would
be tantamount to collective defense - or coming to
the military aid of an ally under attack - banned
under the constitution.
Also high on Abe's
agenda is to ensure steady progress toward a full
implementation of the agreements reached between
Tokyo and Washington in May 2005 on the
realignment of US bases and forces on Japanese
soil. The agreements call for, among other things,
the transfer of some 8,000 US marines from the
southern Japanese island of Okinawa to US
territory Guam and the relocation of the US Marine
Corps's Futenma Air Station from Ginowan in
southern Okinawa to Camp Schwab in northern
Okinawa, both by 2014.
On Iraq, Japan is
closely watching what new Iraq policy President
Bush will unveil in January, after recommendations
in early December by the Iraq Study Group, headed
by former US secretary of state James Baker and
former congressman Lee Hamilton. Any change in US
policy would affect the Japanese SDF's operations
in Iraq.
Japan enacted a special four-year
law in July 2003 to enable the dispatch of SDF
troops to Iraq, the first SDF mission to a combat
zone after World War II. Non-combat Ground SDF
troops were deployed in the southern city of
Samawah on a humanitarian and reconstruction
mission, such as medical assistance, water
purification and repair of roads, schools and
other infrastructure.
Although about 600
GSDF troops stationed in Samawah withdrew from
Iraq in July, the Air SDF unit based in Kuwait is
continuing its mission. ASDF members began
airlifts from their base in Kuwait to certain
airports in Iraq in March 2004 using C-130
transport aircraft, initially to support GSDF
troops in Samawah. They are now transporting
personnel and supplies for the UN and the
multinational forces.
The special law is
to expire next July. Defense Agency director
general Fumio Kyuma has said the special law needs
to be extended to allow the ASDF to continue its
mission as part of reconstruction assistance to
Iraq.
Japan's relations with China and
South Korea are on the mend after Abe's whirlwind
tour of the two Asian neighbors in early October,
immediately after stepping into the shoes of
Koizumi as Japanese leader.
Japan's
relations with China and South Korea had plunged
to their lowest points in decades, because of
Koizumi's repeated visits to the war-related
Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo and other issues
