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3 New energy to Japan's
diplomacy By Hisane Masaki
TOKYO - The past week has seen an
unprecedented flurry of top-level Japanese
diplomacy aimed at ensuring the resource-poor
nation's energy security through stable supplies
of oil and other resources.
After
traveling to the United States for talks with
President George W Bush, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe
flew on to the oil-rich Middle
East, where he visited Saudi
Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar
and Egypt to strengthen bilateral relations. The
trips to the US and the Middle East were both his
first since assuming office last September. Abe
returned to Tokyo on Thursday.
Abe agreed
with leaders of the five Middle East nations to
strengthen bilateral relations with Japan on a
wide range of areas, including politics, culture
and environment as well as energy, trade and
investment. At a business forum in Riyadh, Abe
stressed his determination to build a
"multi-layered" relationship between Japan and
Saudi Arabia, going beyond the "oil-based" one.
Abe's visits to Saudi Arabia and Egypt
were the first by a Japanese premier in four
years. His visit to the UAE and Qatar were the
first by a top Japanese leader in 29 years. His
visit to Kuwait was the first ever by a Japanese
prime minister.
Meanwhile, Economy, Trade
and Industry Minister Akira Amari visited
Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan as well as Saudi Arabia
in the past week. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are
also rich in resources, including uranium. Amari's
trips to the two Central Asian nations came six
months after Abe's predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi,
became the first Japanese prime minister to visit
the region.
Japan imports almost all of
its oil, and is the world's third-largest oil
consumer after the US and China. Japan relies on
the Middle East for nearly 90% of its oil. The six
nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) -
Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and
Bahrain - alone supply about 75% of Japan's oil.
What was particularly noteworthy about Abe's
and Amari's journeys was the fact that they were
both accompanied by huge delegations of business
people. Abe was joined in his Middle East tour by
a delegation of about 180 business leaders, led by
Fujio Mitarai, chairman of the Japan Business
Federation (Keidanren), the nation's most powerful
business lobby. Mitarai is also Canon Inc
chairman.
Unlike many other countries,
Japan does not have a tradition of "top sales
diplomacy". Abe became the first Japanese leader
to be accompanied on an overseas trip by a
delegation of business leaders last November when
he visited Vietnam with some 130 corporate
executives, including Mitarai.
Amari was
also accompanied on his Central Asian tour by a
150-member government-private-sector delegation,
including top-level executives of trading houses
and energy-related firms. While Amari was in
Kazakhstan, the two sides clinched numerous
business deals that are expected to increase
dramatically the Central Asian nation's uranium
supplies to Japan.
Japan has recently
revved up its diplomatic drive for oil, gas and
other energy resources abroad in a bid to ensure
national energy security amid stubbornly high oil
prices and also in response to the increasingly
intensifying global rush for oil, gas and other
resources, led by China and India.
Chinese
President Hu Jintao had already visited Saudi
Arabia in April last year. Indian Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh also invited Saudi Arabia's King
Abdullah to Delhi in January last year, the first
trip to India by a Saudi king in 51 years.
Japan has recently begun to place priority
on concluding free-trade agreements (FTAs) with
resource-rich countries as a foreign-policy tool
to beef up relations with them and thereby ensure
its energy security through stable, long-term
supplies. Japan launched FTA negotiations with the
GCC last September, but later than China and India
did so.
South Korea also got a head start
over Japan in implementing its top-level diplomacy
toward the Middle East. President Roh Moo-hyun
made a tour of three GCC member nations - Saudi
Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar - in late March,
accompanied by an economic delegation of about 200
people. During the tour, Roh said his country will
open FTA negotiations with the GCC as early as
this year. The GCC is a customs union whose member
nations apply the same tariff rates in trade with
third parties.
Toward a stronger
partnership In their talks with Abe, the
GCC leaders pledged regular oil supplies to Japan.
Saudi Arabia, for example, "expressed its
intention to continue to assure stable oil supply
to Japan", according to a joint statement issued
after Abe's talks with Saudi leaders.
Qatar also "expressed its view that it
would keep supplying oil and natural gas ... to
Japan at an acceptable rate for both sides in a
stable manner" and "both sides reaffirmed to
develop the relations between the two countries in
the field of production and transport of oil and
LNG" (liquefied natural gas), according to a joint
statement issued after Abe's talks with Qatari
leaders.
Abe and leaders of Saudi Arabia,
the UAE, Kuwait and Qatar agreed to seek a
successful conclusion of FTA negotiations between
Japan and the six-nation GCC at the earliest
possible date. Japan and the GCC have so far held
two rounds of FTA
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