Koizumi bows out with shrine visit that won't offend anyone

June 24, 2006
From Richard Lloyd Parry in Tokyo

WHEN Junichiro Koizumi, Japan’s Prime Minister, flies to North America next week, one engagement stands out above all others in his programme of summit diplomacy.

It is not the meetings on Iraq and bird flu with George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. It is not the state banquet at the White House or the visit to Arlington National Cemetery.

The key moment of this trip comes next Friday when the Prime Minister will board Air Force One and fly to Memphis, Tennessee.

There, accompanied by Mr and Mrs Bush, he will tour Gracelands, the former home of Elvis Presley and now a shrine to the man who had the same kind of impact on popular music as Mr Koizumi has had on Japanese politics.

This will be Mr Koizumi’s last visit to the United States before stepping down in September, and the Gracelands pilgrimage epitomises his style of leadership.

Before he came to power five years ago, the Japanese Prime Minister was traditionally the misfit of international diplomacy — the one sitting on the edge of the group photo, who spoke only when spoken to, and whose name everybody kept forgetting.

Mr Koizumi has brought to the job a sense of humour and flair for informality that have transformed the superficialities of Japanese diplomacy.

Meetings between US and Japanese leaders used to be earnest occasions, but when George and Junichiro (as they call one another) appear side by side, they behave like old friends.

Their personal rapport has brought their countries closer than at any time since the US postwar occupation of Japan, and led to historic changes in Japan’s engagement with the outside world.

After years of diplomatic underachievement, Japan under Mr Koizumi has moved closer to the international top tables. But many Japanese fear that they have paid an excessive price for their country’s newly elevated profile — the alienation and enmity of their nearest neighbours, China and South Korea.

When Mr Koizumi became Prime Minister in April 2001, he was not expected to have such an impact on international affairs. His passion was for domestic reform, but with the terrorist attacks on the US on September 11, 2001, he found himself faced with a crucial choice: how closely to ally himself with George Bush?

Public opinion was against involvement in the War on Terror, but Mr Koizumi ignored it, as he ignored majority opposition to the invasion of Iraq.

Instead, he pushed through legislation to allow Japanese troops to take their most active overseas role since the Second World War. Japanese sailors supported US and British warships off Afghanistan.

Five hundred Japanese troops were sent to carry out humanitarian work in southern Iraq after the invasion; it was announced last week that they would soon return home. Mr Koizumi joined Tony Blair and John Howard, thr Prime Minister of Australia, in the small group of leaders with whom Mr Bush seems to share a genuine trust.

This may have helped him in 2002 when he took the unexpected decision to fly to North Korea to meet its dictator, Kim Jong Il, and ask for the return of Japanese citizens abducted during the 1970s and 1980s. The Americans were attempting to isolate Pyongyang at the time, but if they were put out by Mr Koizumi’s boldness, they never hinted at it in public.

But the same question haunts Mr Koizumi as haunts Tony Blair: in return for your loyal support, what has George Bush done for you? For years Japan has been politely pressing its case for permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council as a dedicated UN member that pays a disproportionate amount of the organisation’s costs. Mr Koizumi’s Government aligned itself along with Brazil, Germany and India in the so-called Group of Four.

But last year, when the whole plan seemed to be moving forward, Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, abruptly announced that the US would not support it. This is an insignificant difficulty compared with Mr Koizumi’s biggest problem — the drastic decline of Japan’s relations with China and Korea.

It stems from a single and easily removable cause, the annual visit that the Prime Minister insists on making to Tokyo’s Yasukuni Shrine, where Japan’s war dead, including executed Class A war criminals, are worshipped as Shinto deities.

Mr Koizumi’s insistence that he goes there to pray for peace has done nothing to dissolve the rage of those populations once colonised by Japan.

Hu Jintao, the Chinese President, and Roh Moo Hyun, the South Korean President, both refuse to meet him. Japan’s organisation of top executives has given warning of the damage that the dispute threatens to do to the country’s businesses.

Yesterday Japan’s Supreme Court dismissed a claim for damages from Chinese and Korean plaintiffs for mental anguish caused by the Yasukuni visits. How quickly this damage can be repaired depends on who succeeds Koizumi — the leading contender, Shinzo Abe, has hinted that he may not go to the shrine.

But the harm to Japan is great and may well eclipse the gains that Mr Koizumi has brought to Japan by the exercise of his charm.

GOOD STATESMAN

US relations Japan has never been closer to, or more trusted by, the country that it relies on for its defence

US troops go home After long negotiations, 8,000 US Marines are to be removed from the island of Okinawa

Military revival After decades constrained by the "peace constitution", Japanese troops are taking part in overseas operations

Charisma He is the first Japanese prime minister whose name people can remember

POOR STATESMAN

Neighbours No postwar prime minister has been more hated or shunned by China and South Korea over the Yasukuni Shrine visits

UN Attempts to gain a permanent seat on the Security Council have been rebuffed by the US

North Korea Japan’s insistence on the return of its abducted citizens has prevented the normalisation of diplomatic relations

Stubbornness Mistrust caused by shrine visits will take a long time to overcome


MORE LINKS from The Times (London):

• June 18, 2006
Tokyo's PM goes on Presley pilgrimage

• June 2, 2006
Dress rehearsal on a catwalk reveals the politicians who want to be a model leader

• May 26, 2006
Premier's pilgrimage to King

FEATURE: Okinawa busy producing cool Kariyushi wear

NAHA, Japan, June 15 KYODO

Okinawa is now busy producing Kariyushi summer wear that is in great demand on the strength of the government-led Cool Biz casual wear campaign to help cut power consumption for air conditioning throughout Japan.

Similar to Hawaiian aloha shirts, Kariyushi wear consists of shirts that are uniquely designed and produced in Okinawa Prefecture. Kariyushi is an Okinawan word meaning happiness.

As a substitute for business attire, the cool shirts are worn without ties in Okinawa during the summer.

''The question is how we can boost Kariyushi wear's share of the Cool Biz market,'' said Keiichi Inamine, the governor of the prefecture.

Inamine served as a Kariyushi wear model in a fashion show for the Cool Biz campaign in Tokyo in May and presented Kariyushi wear to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, Environment Minister Yuriko Koike and other Cabinet members.

Since Koizumi initiated the Cool Biz campaign in fiscal 2005, Kariyushi wear shipments in the year that began in April last year shot up to 300,000 shirts from only 40,000 in fiscal 1997, said the Okinawa Apparel Sewing Industrial Association.

''Last year when Prime Minister Koizumi wore a Kariyushi shirt for the campaign, some 600 orders came in for shirts of exactly the same design,'' Inamine said.

Last year's Kariyushi wear fever turned around the prefecture's apparel industry. The number of Kariyushi-producing companies in the southwestern Japanese prefecture expanded quickly to 22 in fiscal 2005 from only six in fiscal 1997, it said.

On June 1, the first day of this year's Cool Biz campaign, the prime minister was again dressed in a Kariyushi shirt at the parliament.

''Kariyushi had been limited to open-neck shirts but has been diversified to include button-down versions that meet Tokyo styles,'' said Isao Iraha, managing director of the Okinawa apparel industry body.

The central government for its part is promoting Kariyushi shirts, indicating its willingness to improve its ties with Okinawa soured over the realignment of U.S. forces in Japan. Okinawa is host of the bulk of the U.S. military presence in Japan.

The Cabinet Office is undertaking the promotion on its website, introducing the history of Kariyushi wear as well as how to wear these shirts.

But Kariyushi wearers among central government officials are still limited to some 100 people in charge of Okinawa's development at the Cabinet Office.

Government officials tend to shy away from Kariyushi shirts that are rather flashy.

The Cabinet Office's Senior Vice Minister Chiken Kakazu, a lawmaker from Okinawa, said, ''Efforts should be made to develop shirts of more conservative designs.''

==Kyodo

Guam Integrated Military Development Plan

Guam Integrated Military Development Plan - Get more Business Documents

From: Deputy Commander, U.S. Pacific Command

Subj: Guam Integrated Military Development Plan

1. Attached is the Guam Integrated Military Development Plan (GIMDP) approved on 11 July 2006 by the Commander, U.S. Pacific Command. This document contains the operational force laydown requirements for military development expected to occur on Guam over the next decade and beyond. It includes those forces relocated from Okinawa under the United States - Japan Roadmap for Realignment Implementation of May 2006, and other forces being moved due to individual service actions.

2. This document is not a master plan and does not specify individual facility or infrastructure projects or direct service programming actions. Additional detailed service and joint planning will be required to develop these specific facility and infrastructure requirements. Further, the GIMDP does not imply or assume completed or planned budget or fiscal authorizations.

DANIEL P. LEAF
Lieutenant General, USAF

Cabinet OKs realignment plan

05/31/2006
THE ASAHI SHIMBUN

The Cabinet on Tuesday endorsed the U.S. military realignment plan in Japan, but the area most affected--Okinawa Prefecture--has yet to give its consent.

The plan is based on a final agreement reached between Tokyo and Washington earlier this month.

But with opposition in Okinawa still strong, implementation of the realignment could prove difficult.

One of the key pieces of the realignment plan is to relocate the functions of the sprawling U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture.

The initial plan approved by the Cabinet in 1999 was for a sea-based heliport off Henoko in Nago in the prefecture to take over the Futenma functions. That plan was scrapped in favor of a V-shaped runway on land at Henoko point.

But Okinawa Prefecture has opposed the V-shaped runway plan, insisting on a temporary heliport within Camp Schwab in Nago.

The plan endorsed by the Cabinet on Tuesday says the Futenma functions will be relocated--but no destination was given.

Okinawa Prefecture, home to 75 percent of all U.S. military bases in Japan, has also been pushing for promises of regional incentive measures from the central government. The Cabinet-endorsed plan offered no specifics, saying merely that measures will be implemented in fiscal 2006.

Okinawa Governor Keiichi Inamine on Tuesday said he remains opposed to the realignment plan.

"I understand the central government has its own ideas, but Okinawa has its own basic stand on the issue and will continue to make its position clear," Inamine told reporters in Tokyo.

"The issue of military bases requires the understanding of the people of Okinawa Prefecture and the local community. This is important if the government wants the plan to be effective," he said.

Tokyo plans to establish a council with local governments to discuss issues regarding the U.S. military realignment.

But Okinawa Prefecture has also opposed this idea.

"I cannot accept the Cabinet endorsement of the government plan (that involves the V-shaped runway at Henoko point), and I cannot attend a council that is based on such premises," Inamine said.

Yuriko Koike, state minister in charge of Okinawa issues, said at a Cabinet meeting, "I have been informed of opinions to the effect that the Okinawa prefectural and the Nago city governments cannot agree to the Cabinet decision."

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is expected to tell U.S. President George W. Bush of the Cabinet's approval at a June 29 summit in Washington. The two leaders will mutually confirm plans to implement the final agreement.

After the Cabinet meeting, Koizumi told Defense Agency Director-General Fukushiro Nukaga, "I'd like you to consult related local and municipal governments in a sincere manner, and try and implement the plan in concrete form."

The realignment will be implemented based on a five-point document signed by Nukaga and Inamine on May 11. One of the points was the central government's assurance that "dangerous factors" would be removed at Futenma.

The Defense Agency initially planned to compile a construction plan to build an alternative facility for the Futenma base by October.

But the agency instead will compile the plan "as soon as possible" because the Okinawa prefectural government has labeled as "unacceptable" the current plan to move the Futenma functions to Henoko point.

The realignment plan will also transfer 8,000 Marines from Okinawa Prefecture to Guam. (IHT/Asahi: May 31,2006)

Japan approves US troop pullout

May 30 07:26 AM US/Eastern

The Japanese cabinet approved an agreement with Washington to pull 8,000 US troops out of the country but faced renewed domestic criticism that the withdrawal did not go far enough.

The most sweeping move of troops in Japan in decades is part of what the US military calls a worldwide "realignment" to respond to new threats including global terrorism.

The cabinet approved a plan to pull out 8,000 of the more than 40,000 US troops from Japan, shifting them from the southern island of Okinawa to the US territory of Guam.

However, it skirted over intense controversies over both how much it should pay for the move and the status of a key US air base.

The close allies reached the initial realignment deal in October but negotiations dragged on for months amid a dispute over who would shoulder the cost.

Japan agreed in the end to provide 6.09 billion dollars out of the 10.27 billion-dollar bill, which includes building new housing in Guam.

But Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Tuesday that the amount was still open to negotiation.

"We need to research more thoroughly, while the calculation will need more time," Koizumi said. "It's not final yet."

Local media said Japan expedited the cabinet approval so it would take place before Koizumi meets US President George W. Bush next month on what will likely be his last trip to Washington before stepping down in September.

The cabinet also said Japan had not agreed on the status of Futenma air base, which has long been a source of grievances because of its location in a crowded urban area in Okinawa.

The draft plan called for Futenma's operations to be moved to an existing base in Okinawa, while residents have wanted the air station removed entirely from the province.

"We would like to continue sincere discussions and draw up the details while listening to the demands of local residents," Defense Agency Director-General Fukushiro Nukaga told reporters.

Okinawa Governor Keiichi Inamine criticized the cabinet approval, saying the final plan contradicted assurances given to the province, which hosts half of the US troops in Japan and 75 percent of their facilities.

"The documents we exchanged said that the plan would give substantial consideration to the local bodies but it turned out not to be substantial," Inamine said.

The plan also includes a transfer of 57 more warplanes to the western city of Iwakuni, whose residents overwhelmingly opposed the plan in a symbolic referendum.

"Not only in Okinawa but also in any prefectures, their governors and mayors wouldn't agree (to host US bases) with open arms," Foreign Minister Taro Aso said.

"We need to continue sincere discussions."

US troops are based here under a security alliance after World War II, when Japan was stripped of the right to maintain a military.

Under the realignment, the two nations would also improve their ballistic missile defense capabilities in light of concern about nearby North Korea.

Rear Admiral Charles Leidig Jr, the commander of the US naval forces in the Marianas region which includes Guam, said Monday that the realignment was meant to respond to new threats including global terrorism.

"What's important is if you were to look at where US forces are positioned in the Western Pacific, it's still in the same place at the end of World War II, primarily in Japan, Korea and Okinawa," he said in Saipan.

"What we're doing is reposturing our forces to make sure that they are properly positioned for the next century."

US-Japan military pact still strong, says Lawless

Posted on: Tuesday, 23 May 2006, 06:17 CDT

HAGATNA, Guam (Reuters) - Japan's increasing military role was indicative of U.S. support for a continued U.S.-Japan alliance, Richard Lawless, the U.S. deputy defense undersecretary for Asian and Pacific Affairs, said on Tuesday.

"Japan in effect has agreed to transform the alliance with us and assume more responsibility for the alliance -- more responsibility for roles, missions and capabilities," he told Reuters during a visit to the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam.

Lawless said the placement in 2008 of the George Washington nuclear-powered battle group in Japan was "another manifestation of our obligations to the alliance."

U.S. Marine units that will move to Guam would still play a role in the U.S.-Japan alliance, he said.

"Anywhere we're based in the Pacific ... provides a platform for us to execute our responsibilities," he said.

The visit by Lawless came after an agreement on May 1 between Japanese Defense Minister Fukushiro Nukaga and U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on how to split the costs of moving 8,000 U.S. Marines to Guam from Okinawa.

Guam was important in the new structure, Lawless said.

"It's a relocation of our forces from Okinawa, but it's really part and parcel of the entire global posture realignment, the so-called forward basing in the Pacific," he said.

The move of U.S. forces to Guam would be costly and for the long term, he told Reuters.

"When we began negotiating with the Japanese we decided what we wanted to put in Guam, with regards to the navy, the air force and the relocation of the Marines," he said.

He referred to "a very preliminary Guam master plan" now being finalized before it will be sent for approval to Pacific Command in July or August, and then to Congress.

The $6.09 billion the Japanese had agreed to fund would be "primarily in the area of actual construction of operational facilities," Lawless said, adding the money would also cover some infrastructure and family housing.

Within two to three years, Guam could expect to see "a huge amount of construction," he said.

Governor Felix Camacho said Guam recognized social concerns over the transfer of a large military force to the island.

"We've requested to have a seat at the table to bring up local issues," he said. "We're very sensitive to this and we want to make sure that it's beneficial not only for the nation, but for Guam and our people."

Lawless was also scheduled to meet members of the island's legislature and business community.

Besides 8,000 Marines and some 10,000 family members, Guam will also see an increase in navy assets and the military presence at Andersen Air Force Base, which will host unmanned Global Hawk surveillance planes and regional training facilities.

The U.S. fiscal 2007 defense budget includes $208 million in military construction projects for Guam.

In S. Korea, a Stubborn Stand Against U.S. Military Presence

By Anthony Faiola
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, May 21, 2006; A20

DAECHURI, South Korea -- Here in the marshy heartland of the Korean Peninsula, the rabble-rousing rice farmers of this tiny village are engaged in their own little war against the U.S. military.

With American forces in the midst of their largest regional realignment in decades, the farmlands of Daechuri have been condemned to make room for the expansion of a nearby U.S. base. While about half the residents have quietly accepted a lucrative cash-for-land deal being offered by the South Korean government, a core group of about 70 holdouts have rebuffed all efforts to buy them out.

Their refusals to make way for the base -- or give in to what many of the farmers are calling "American bullying" -- have won them instant hero status among some South Korean labor unions and student groups. Over the past several weeks, protesters have held the largest anti-American demonstrations in South Korea in four years, turning Daechuri into a symbol of their struggle to drive U.S. troops out of the country.

"We are sick of being treated like America's servants!" said Cho Sun Yeh, a fiery 90-year-old rice farmer. Her first home in the area was bulldozed to make room for a U.S. base during the 1950-53 Korean War. After the uneasy truce that left the peninsula divided into capitalist South and communist North, Cho and her husband built a new house a few hundred yards from the base's barbed wire fences.

It is from this home that Cho and her extended family of 17 are refusing to budge. "I am thankful for what the U.S. did to save us from the communists back then, but that was a long time ago and we have paid them enough thanks," she said. "I gave my land up once already, and I am not about to do it again. It is time for the U.S. to leave us alone."

The last stand at Daechuri underscores the significant hurdles that analysts say could set back by years the Pentagon's broad plan to realign American forces in the Pacific.

State-of-the-art military technologies and shifting geopolitical concerns have convinced the Pentagon that it can do with fewer troops and bases in East Asia's largest host countries, South Korea and Japan. In some respects, that strategy is giving anti-American groups in both nations a dose of what they want. In South Korea, plans call for a 33 percent reduction in the U.S. force, to 25,000 troops, and a consolidation of 104 widely scattered military installations into 10 regional hubs by 2008. In Japan, home to more than 50,000 American troops, 8,000 of the 18,000 Marines now based on Okinawa island will be relocated to the American territory of Guam by 2014.

But even as U.S. troops disappear from some communities, their presence is set to increase in others, where they are hardly being welcomed with open arms. Vocal anti-American activists are seizing the moment, calling for protracted demonstrations, insisting the United States pay a larger portion of the realignment costs and supporting politicians who favor even greater troop and base reductions.

"Both Korea and Japan are facing a similar situation," said Seong Ho Sheen, an international relations professor at Seoul National University. "Anti-U.S. anger and resentment are always there, but now you find these groups seeking to use the realignment to bring those sentiments to the surface in both countries."

Sheen and others say demonstrators' efforts have so far met with limited success. Although the protests in and around Daechuri are South Korea's largest in years, they have yet to generate national momentum and still pale in comparison with the wave of anti-American demonstrations that swept the country in 2002. Then, hundreds of thousands of South Koreans took to the streets after two teenage girls were run down and killed by a U.S. armored vehicle. The vehicle's two crew members were both acquitted of negligent homicide in a U.S. military court.

Recent opinion polls indicate that most South Koreans and Japanese still do not think it is time for the U.S. military to pack its bags entirely. Yet Asian and U.S. officials concede that the realignment is causing new friction -- particularly at the grass-roots level.

In Japan, the U.S. troop presence has been better tolerated than in most other host countries in Asia or Europe -- in part because the size and role of the country's own forces are limited by Japan's pacifist post-World War II constitution. But opposition has been fierce on a local level, particularly in Okinawa, home to the largest concentration of U.S. troops in the country.

That has been due in some part to crimes committed by U.S. servicemen stationed there and a sense that the American military operates above Japanese law. But opinion polls have shown that the huge costs Japan will bear as a result of the U.S. realignment are now generating resentment on a national level.

In recent weeks, Washington and Tokyo have reached broad agreement that Japan would shoulder nearly 60 percent -- or $6 billion -- of the cost of moving 8,000 U.S. Marines from Okinawa to Guam. But in late April, Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Richard P. Lawless shocked Japan by telling reporters in Washington that Tokyo's ultimate cost for the U.S. troop realignment could reach $26 billion.

"This used to be an Okinawa-only issue," said Teruo Onishi, an activist who helped organize a massive but peaceful demonstration against the U.S. military in Okinawa in March. "But now that the rest of Japan is seeing the huge amount we are being asked to pay, people are wondering whether it's really fair for Japanese tax dollars to fund the U.S. military's strategic objectives."

As part of the realignment in South Korea, the U.S. military will return 66 percent of the land it now occupies, including prime real estate in the heart of Seoul, the capital. Residents near the land vacated so far have expressed satisfaction with the drop in congestion and noise from military vehicles.

Still, officials in Seoul and Washington remain mired in tough negotiations over demands by South Korea's Environmental Ministry that the United States cover the costs of extensive and costly reforestation and cleanup.

U.S. officials in South Korea have declined to comment publicly on the anti-American demonstrations. In a statement, David Oten, a U.S. military spokesman in Seoul, said the United States remained "fully committed to completing consolidation as quickly as possible."

But the situation has tried the patience of some U.S. lawmakers. Last October, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) blasted South Korea for "historical amnesia." In a Senate hearing, Clinton added that South Koreans were losing their "understanding of the importance of our position there and what we have done over so many decades to provide them the freedom that they have enjoyed."

South Korean groups supporting the U.S. military presence have criticized the administration of President Roh Moo Hyun for taking too soft a line on the protesters at Daechuri, which is set to be absorbed by Camp Humphreys, the base that will become the new American command center in South Korea. The Seoul government has condemned violent protesters and made several dozen arrests. But it has also said that in a democracy, all voices, including anti-American ones, must be heard.

The holdouts have refused all incentives to leave -- including buyouts of about $170,000 per acre. Authorities say they plan to evict the farmers by force if they do not leave by October.

Farmer Cho says she will be waiting.

"This is my home," she said. "My memories are here, my life is here. I should not have to give that up for anyone."

Special correspondents Joohee Cho in Seoul and Sachiko Sakamaki in Tokyo contributed to this report.