☆☆◎●EDITORIALS
its plan for fiscal reconstruction could collapse when the economy cannot live up tosuch expectations.
At a news conference after the Cabinet
reshuffle, Yosano said the government may
need to reassess the feasibility of the fiscal
target.
“The Cabinet may have to look again into
whether a primary surplus can really beachieved (in fiscal 2011) while rethinking
some of the assumptions,” he said.
If Yosano, as the new chief architect of
economic policy, is trying to increase thechances of the fiscal reform plan’s successin a policy based firmly on his economic
tenets and more conservative growth projections, we support him.
But changing these projections will be very
difficult. If the government doesn’t count on
a natural increase in its tax receipts due toeconomic growth, it must consider further
spending cuts or tax hikes.
However, a growing number of ruling party politicians, with an eye on the next Lower House election, want to end thegovernment’s campaign to trim public works
and social security expenditures.
A sweeping overhaul of the nation’s tax
system, including the consumption tax, is
indispensable for securing necessary tax revenue. But this is also a tough political challenge, with the Upper House now controlled
by the opposition camp led by Minshuto(Democratic Party of Japan). The government cannot enact any legislation for tax reform without the support of the opposition
parties.
Putting the nation’s public finances backin shape is a task that can be accomplishedonly through bipartisan cooperation between
the ruling and opposition camps. Fortunately,
there is consensus between the LDP and
Minshuto over the target of a primary surplus
in fiscal 2011.
The two parties should agree to work together to make that happen and bind themselves to the target by passing a Diet
resolution or a bill.
After that, the parties should take suchpriority measures as scrapping tax incentives for securities investments or freeing
up tax revenues earmarked for road construction for general use. That would set thestage for radical reforms of the entire tax
system including consumption tax and thesocial security system.
—The Asahi Shimbun, Aug. 30

Korean hostages
Crisis hurt reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan.
t long last, the crisis over South Koreans being held hostage in
Afghanistan is moving toward asettlement. The South Korean government has been negotiating with
the Taliban, which formerly ruled thelandlocked country, to release the remaining captives. Some have already been
freed, and the rest are likely to be released
in a phased manner.
In mid-July, Taliban militia forces seized
23 volunteers of a South Korean Protestantchurch. During this time, two men, including
a priest, were killed and two were released.
There was growing anxiety for the safety of
the remaining hostages as the crisis wore on.
We are delighted that the remaining hostages
will soon be allowed to go home. The hostagecrisis, however, had a major impact on efforts
to help with Afghanistan’s reconstruction. It
also provided a serious lesson for people involved in such work.
In exchange for the return of the hostages,
the South Korean government announced thatit had agreed to withdraw its troops by theend of the year and stop Christian missionary
work in Afghanistan. As the withdrawal of
troops had already been decided, this hardly
amounts to a concession on the part of Seoul.
The suspension of missionary work is also a
reasonable measure, given that Afghans are
predominantly adherers of Islam.
What does remain unclear is what othernegotiations went on behind the scenes. Although the South Korean government has refused to offer details, Afghan government
sources have admitted that the Taliban side
had demanded a ransom. In past hostage situations involving foreign nations, it is said
that ransoms were also paid. In this case, it ispossible that a large amount of cash changed
hands.
Since the lives of many hostages were atA

stake, we can understand it would have beendifficult to refuse point-blank to pay a ransom. The problem is that paying a ransom
could encourage similar incidents. We areworried that the settlement could have a negative impact and expose United Nations officials and personnel of nongovernmentalorganizations engaged in relief activities in
Afghanistan to greater danger.
Still, international efforts to help Afghanistan
to get back on its feet must not slow down.
Afghanistan is the starting point of the war
on terror and we must help it recover so thatit remains stable and free.
Unlike the situation in Iraq, the international community is united in its effort to reconstruct Afghanistan. It has held conferences
for reconstruction support in Tokyo, Berlinand London and injected huge amounts ofaid. Japan has also spent more than $1.2 billion(about 140 billion yen) for the cause. The reconstruction of infrastructure in urban areas
has made considerable progress. From now
on, detailed support for rural communities isneeded. In fact, we are about to enter a crucial stage of reconstruction and this is no time
to start stalling.
In providing support, we must refrain frommaking conspicuous moves as foreigners. We
should strive to build a relationship of trustwith local residents and take care not to trample on religious feelings or cause friction inother areas. It is only through such consideration that we can reduce the risks.
For now, we have no choice but to rely on
the International Security and Assistance Forcemainly comprised of European forces and the
U.S.-led “coalition of the willing” to maintainpeace and order in Afghanistan. In the meantime, Afghan national forces and police should
be rebuilt so that relief workers can move
more freely and safely.
—The Asahi Shimbun, Aug. 30

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21

Biggest threat continues to be ignored by Abe

Growth projections should be more conservative.

M

Friday, August 31, 2007

POINT OF VIEW/ Robert Dujarric

New economic policy
onday’s Cabinet reshuffle haschanged key members of Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe’s economic
policy team, including the chiefarchitect. Hidenao Nakagawa, whoplayed that role during the firstyear of the Abe administration as
the Liberal Democratic Party’s secretarygeneral, has left the post. Now, the job has
apparently been taken over by Kaoru Yosano,the new chief Cabinet secretary.
Nakagawa and Yosano agree on the shortterm goal of achieving a primary balance
surplus—meaning all government outlays
other than net interest are covered by tax
revenue—in fiscal 2011. But they disagree on
how to achieve the target.
Nakagawa has been a leading championof a strategy aimed at stoking economic
growth as the best cure for the budget deficit.
Yosano, in contrast, has been focusing more
on fiscal rectitude and calling for measures
to ensure steady progress based on moreconservative growth projections.
The economic and fiscal policy outline announced in July last year by the former administration of Junichiro Koizumi set thedirection for the government’s economic
management. It contains an important compromise between the two policymakers,
namely a forecast of average annual nominal
growth at 3 percent in the years to fiscal
2011.
When the policy was announced, Nakagawa was the LDP’s Policy Research Council chairman, while Yosano was state ministerin charge of economic and fiscal policy. The
two men were both responsible for developing the policy outline.
We have criticized this projection as an
example of wishful thinking.
Proponents of the pro-growth economic
policy maintain that continued economic expansion will increase tax revenues from businesses and other sources. That will make iteasier to improve fiscal conditions and finance social security spending for the aging
population, including expenditures on public health care and pension programs. This isalso a rosy scenario for taxpayers and companies.
In actuality, however, Japan’s nominal grossdomestic product decreased for two years
in a row from fiscal 2001 and posted paltry
growth of around 1 percent in the following
years. If the government bases its economic policies on optimistic growth forecasts,

The Asahi Shimbun

Opinion

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Special to The Asahi Shimbun

It has been almost one year since
Shinzo Abe became prime minister.
In light of the LDP’s humiliating defeat in the Upper House election in
July, the mood in the Kantei (thePrime Minister’s Official Residence)as the new Cabinet gathers may becloser to that of a wake than of a celebration. But as Abe finishes his firstyear in office, how should we assess
his performance?
Unlike many politicians Abe did
not appeal to voters by highlighting
bread-and-butter issues. His mainconcern has been with breaking awayfrom the “postwar regime.” His other signature issue has been the abduction of Japanese citizens by North
Korea. One year later, what has heachieved?
Putting an end to the “postwar
regime” is an ill-defined term. In
Abe’s mind, the phrase seems to imply turning society toward a moreconservative and patriotic direction.
For some Japanese, the postwar
regime consists of ill-advised foreign
implants imposed by the U.S. Occupation on Japan after World War II.
They, therefore, wish to remove
them. Another goal is to give Japanese security policy more leeway byloosening some of the constitutional limits on the use of military force.
Abe’s agenda to fulfill this aim includes revising the Constitution, inparticular Article 9 (the renunciationof war clause).
Making Japanese education more
patriotic has been another plank ofhis platform. This fits with anothergoal of ending the postwar regime,
which is to counter the “masochisticview” of Japanese history. The prime
minister himself has been ambiguous
on history.
Nevertheless, some of his statements and his courtesy call on theson of Judge Radhabinod Pal, the only member of the Tokyo war crimes
tribunal who voted to acquit all thosestanding trial, and a relative of Subhash Chandra Bose, an Indian in theservice of Nazi Germany and imperial
Japan during World War II, indicatethat Abe disagrees with the official
postwar view that condemns the actions of imperial Japan during thewar.
Unfortunately for the prime minister, Japanese voters are satisfied
with the postwar order. Even if they
are unhappy with economic conditions, they do not appear to see thepresent Constitution as the source of
their problems. There are many voters who favor constitutional amendments or want more patriotism insociety; but they care more aboutpensions, health care and other pocketbook issues.
The Upper House election was aclear statement from the public thatthey do not share the Abe’s priorities. It does not indicate that the electorate rejected his views but clearlyshows that voters were not on top of
their agenda when went to the ballot box.
Besides his long-standing interestin changing the Constitution, Abe has
been the point man on the abduction

issue. He haschampioned thecause of the families of Japanese
whom North Korean agents seized.
It was always difficult to see how
this tragedy could
be solved.
It is very difficult Robert Dujarricgiven the nature of
the abductions topredict how North Korea could freethe victims. Abe’s only hope was thatpressure on Pyongyang might freesome of the abductees or provide
compensation to the victims. For thispolicy to have some hopes of succeeding, the Abe administration needed the support of the United States,
a reasonable assumption given President George W. Bush’s repeated condemnation of Kim Jong Il.
But in February 2007 the UnitedStates adopted a softer policy toward
the North, signing a landmark agreement with Pyongyang on denuclearization. This has left Japan
isolated against a new coalition ofChina, South Korea and the UnitedStates, who support cooperation(some would say appeasement) toward North Korea. At this stage, thechanges of making progress on theabduction issue are, therefore, close
to zero.
Another task facing Abe when hesucceeded Junichiro Koizumi was tomend relations with China. In thisregard, he has made progress. Despite his own revisionist views on

the past, Abe has so far abided by
the Chinese wish for him to stayaway from Yasukuni Shrine. But the
Sino-Japanese relationship is far more
complex than just Yasukuni.
But by ending the self-destructive
Koizumi tradition of pilgrimages to
Yasukuni, Abe has helped strengthen Japan’s position vis-a-vis China.
By doing so he has also avoided further damage to Japan’s image
throughout the world, including in
the United States.
Despite a new law on education,
Abe appears to have failed in his bid
to break away from the postwar
regime, nor has he achieved muchfor the victims of North Korea. He
has, however, improved relations with
Beijing. But at the one-year mark,what is striking are the challenges
which the prime minister has not
dealt with. Japan’s major predicament
is not the postwar regime. It is thedemographic death spiral.
Yet, like his predecessors, Abe has
shown little interest in figuring out
how women can better contribute to
the economy nor has he proposed
any radical new thinking on immigration, which the country needs. In
this sense, like most LDP and Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan)
politicians, Abe has declined to show
leadership in the face of the greatest
threat to the welfare of the Japanesepeople.
The author is director of the Institute of Contemporary Japanese Studies at Temple University’s Japan
Campus in Tokyo.

More incentives needed to fight climate change
The fight against global warming hasreceived some unexpected supporters:
Australia and the United States, theonly two developed countries that haveso far refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.
Australian Prime Minister John
Howard has said his country will seek
to guide some of the world’s biggest
polluters to a new consensus on tackling climate change at next week’s
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation(APEC) forum in Sydney.
Later in September, U.S. President
George W. Bush will organize a gathering in Washington of the world’s 15
biggest polluters, including the UnitedStates, China and India, to find a common ground for a United Nations conference in Bali, Indonesia, in December.
The conference is expected to initiate
talks on a new deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
Although the two leaders remain
critical of the Kyoto Protocol, at least
they recognize the danger of climatechange, and have agreed to send theirdelegations to the Bali meeting.
Few Indonesians realize we are already the third-largest emitter of green-house gasses in the world after theUnited States and China.
According to the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reportissued last year, Indonesia emitted 2.5
billion tons of carbon dioxide annually, as compared to about 5 billion tons
from China and 6 billion tons fromthe United States.
Unlike China and the United States,
where much of the emissions comefrom the energy sector, Indonesia’s
greenhouse gases are largely generated by land-use conversion.
We are converting our forests intoplantations and our peatland into rice
fields—such as the failed 1-millionhectare rice field project in Kalimantan under President Suharto.
Deforestation has been a problem
in Indonesia since Suharto’s rise topower in the late 1960s, when he started to exploit forest resources on a massive scale. After just a decade, they
became the largest source of foreignexchange for the country after oil andgas.
But this exploitation has come at a
price. According to some estimates,
40 million hectares of forest have dis-appeared in the past 30 years. Now
our forests cover around 100 million
hectares of land, compared to morethan 140 million hectares in the 1960s.
If Indonesia could stop deforestation, especially in peatland areas, itwould contribute significantly to global efforts to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
The problem is that there is no global mechanism in place that would compensate such efforts.
All we have at present are voluntary acts of assistance from concernedcountries such as Australia and Germany, which have extended grants toIndonesia to fight deforestation.
On a global scale, however, the incentives are just not there yet. The
Kyoto Protocol, the only available global arrangement to fight global warming,
does not include reduced emissions
from deforestation (RED) in its carbon trade regime, which allows companies in developed countries—mainly
in Japan and Europe—to trade off business-related carbon emissions for emission cuts achieved elsewhere.
Last year, the value of carbon credits reached $30 billion (3.47 trillionyen), representing a reduction of only 1.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide.
Imagine if we could have traded our 2billion tons of emissions from landuse conversions; we would have pocketed about $40 billion.
As the host of the upcoming U.N.
conference on climate change in Bali
in December, we are in a better position to propose the inclusion of RED
into any future arrangements beyond
Kyoto.
All efforts must be mobilized tostrengthen our position on RED sowhen it is tabled at the Bali meeting,
the RED proposal will already be ripe
for adoption into the new global
arrangement.
We could argue that by promoting
RED into the global mechanism to fightglobal warming, we are not only protecting our forests and peatlands, butalso helping broaden the menu of
choices now available for countries.
The choices will no longer be limited
to areas such as financing “clean andgreen” hydroelectric or wind power,
but also financing reduced emissions
from deforestation.
—Jakarta Post editorial, Aug. 29

Champions of democracy must lead by example
It’s time for the People’s Alliance for
Democracy (PAD) to form a politicalparty. Can there be a better way for
PAD to support democracy than by actually standing before the people in anelection?
The group was formed with one goal:
To get rid of Thaksin Shinawatra by
any means necessary. They marchedthrough Bangkok’s streets last year,with publisher Sondhi Limthongkul
shouting: “Thaksin get out!” at every
chance.
Finally the military gave PAD its
wish in September when it used guns
to depose the unpopular ruler. The alliance subsequently announced that its
services were no longer needed.
But things did not go exactly asplanned during the past year. While
the government finally managed to issue an arrest warrant for Thaksin, it
does not guarantee a conviction. Even

if there was a conviction, it could bemonths away. In the meantime, votersin the Northeast, who comprised
Thaksin’s political base, roundly rejected the military’s Constitution on
Aug. 19.
Now, former Thai Rak Thai members have regrouped under the bannerof the People’s Power Party (PPP), andthey are likely to make a strong showing in the election scheduled for December.
The prospect of Thaksin loyalists
winning the election—which has led
to speculation that Thaksin himself
may eventually return to take revenge
on those who ousted him—prompted
core leaders of PAD to say the alliancemight regroup.
Suriyasai Katasila, secretary-generalof the Campaign for Popular Democracy and a leader of PAD, said last
week: “The PAD and the public forgedan alliance to bring down the Thaksinregime and free the country from intervention. We shall keep watch andset ourselves a task [when necessary].”
While public participation in civilsociety is always welcome, these arestill scary words. Just like the soldiers
who launched the coup last September, Suriyasai claims to speak for “thepublic” with absolutely no mandate.
Furthermore, he implies that a victory for pro-Thaksin MPs would somehow harm democracy.
PAD designated itself democracy’s
watchdog, but betrayed those principles immediately by supportingThaksin’s undemocratic ouster. Many
former PAD members have since
played prominent roles in the military
government and its various committees.
That’s why PAD and others who
claim to speak on behalf of “the people”

should join the parliamentary process.
Since Thaksin dissolved Parliament in
February 2006, Thai politics has beenmarred by extra-parliamentary activities. From PAD ultimatums, to the military coup, to the constitutionalchanges, to the countless laws passedby the National Legislative Assembly,
to the clashes between police and United Front of Democracy Against Dictatorship members outside of Privy
Council president Prem Tinsulanonda’s house, the broader Thai public has
sat on the sidelines.
The PAD has every right to campaign against the PPP, but it would beundermining the democratic institutions it claims to uphold if it launchedstreet protests against a PPP victory.
If democracy is to take root, thenparties should fight battles by the rulesof Parliament instead of in the streets.
—Bangkok Post editorial, Aug. 29

VOX POPULI, VOX DEITime to rethink our cool response to ‘namako’
The Spratly Islands in the South
China Sea have a long history of territorial disputes, with China, Vietnam
and others laying claim to them. I
heard that China will never give up
the islands because they are home tobirds called swiftlets, whose nests are
considered a great delicacy.
Of course I can not confirm thisopinion. But it may be plausible that
China values some delicacy more than
the seabed resources around the islands due to the Chinese people’s passion for food. As the old joke goes, atable is about the only four-leggedthing that Chinese people wouldn’teat, and that they would eat anythingthat flies, except a plane.

The latest object of Chinese culinary obsession is said to be namako,or sea cucumber imported from Japan.
At a well-known restaurant in Beijing,for instance, a popular dish is braised
namako, seasoned liberally with green
onions and aromatic herbs.
A colleague of mine, a specialist on
Chinese matters, tells me this restaurant has its namako offerings on display, sorted by origin and grade, forpatrons to choose from. The spot ofhonor is reserved for expensive, topgrade imports from Japan, and all wellheeled patrons are said to order these.
These sea creatures are decidedly
not a pretty sight. But as they are believed to be good for the stamina andas a beauty aid, people are apparently willing to fork over a pretty penny
for them.
Sea cucumbers are also expensive.
The prices of Japanese exports in dehydrated form are said to have soared
fivefold in the last five years.
Poachers are reportedly scrambling
for their share. This has made overfishing a real concern, as not much
is known about the ecology of namako.
The novelist Natsume Soseki (18671916) once wrote of this low-profile,unassuming creature: “What is it/
That makes namako shrink in modesty?”
In Japan, namako is usually relegat-

ed to the status of a side-dish ingredient. Su-namako (namako soaked invinegar) is sliced raw namako servedwith sweet vinegar. Konowata is salted and fermented namako intestines.
For Japanese fans of namako, thelatter’s spectacular rise to stardom in
China must be somewhat bittersweet.
The best season for enjoying namako is winter. “Honcho Shokkan,” afood encyclopedia of sorts publishedin 17th-century Japan, extols namako as“a very cool, clean and subtly beautiful thing, the finest food to eat.”
Some people cannot bear to stomach
namako, but maybe it’s time to giveit a try.
—The Asahi Shimbun, Aug. 30