☆☆◎●EDITORIALS
These reforms were designed to attack thevested interests of politicians, bureaucrats
and businesses. Abe vowed to inherit Koizumi’s reform agenda. In fact, however, he has
been increasingly distancing himself from radical structural changes.
Last autumn, Abe allowed the reinstatementof former Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers who were expelled from the party after
voting against the privatization of postal services—Koizumi’s signature reform initiative.
Late last year, Abe took another misguided
step. His own initiative to reform the program to earmark certain tax revenues for road
construction was badly watered down because of his easy compromise with opponents.
Since then, Abe has made no notable reform
proposal. He has set no specific target for reducing public works spending in the budget
for the next fiscal year. Abe has also been
moving gradually back to the old tradition of
bureaucratic control on policymaking.
The latest economic policy outline should
be seen as a clear signal that Abe wants toveer away from the path of structural reform
set by his predecessor. Indeed, Koizumi’s reforms have also produced some unwelcome
side effects. One is a sharp increase in thenumber of low-paid nonregular workers without any prospect of pay hikes. The Abe administration has responded to this problem
by launching a second chance program tosupport these workers in their efforts to findregular jobs.
But Abe’s approval ratings among people
in the 25-35 age group—the main target of thisprogram—are particularly low. That’s not simply because the measures under the program
are insufficient. Criticism about Abe’s backtracking on his reform promises is quite strong
among these people. In the Lower House election in the autumn of 2005, which revolved
around the issue of postal privatization, voters in this age group strongly supported Koizumi’s reform drive, helping the LDP to win an
overwhelming victory. The exact opposite is
now happening.
The policy outline is actually a list of the
Abe government’s economic policy promises for the Upper House election. How will
voters deliver a verdict on his program atpolls in July?
—The Asahi Shimbun, June 20

Confusion in Palestine
Japan should effort to urge reconciliation.
Palestinian autonomy is on the verge of collapse amid the latest escalation of armed conflict between the two main Palestinianfactions—the Movement for the National Liberation of Palestine (Fatah) and the extremist
Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas). A
state of emergency was declared last week,
followed by the dismissal of Prime Minister
Ismail Haniyeh of the Palestine National Authority. The crisis is deepening.
After Hamas seized control of Gaza on the
Egypitian border, President Mahmoud Abbas,
a Fatah, based in the West Bank and appointed
an emergency cabinet that did not include asingle Hamas-affiliated member. But Hamas
declared the president’s decision “worthless,”
and the feuding factions have since been facing off each other from Gaza and the WestBank.
The current conflict traces its origins to thePalestinian Legislative Council elections ofJanuary 2006, in which Hamas won a majority. Since the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority in 1994, this was thefirst time that Fatah lost its political monopoly. Conflict continued to deepen in the ensuing months between Fatah and the new
Hamas regime. The United States and European Union applied pressure on the Hamas
government by withdrawing aid. In March
Hamas and Fatah formed a coalition government through Saudi Arabia’s mediation, but
this did not thaw the United States and Europe.
Since the latest escalation of the Palestiniancrisis, the United States and Europe havecome to Abbas’ support, lifting sanctions
against Palestine and proclaiming the resumption of aid. For these Western powers,
the elimination of Hamas from the new government was a welcome development. However, we think the U.S. and European decision
is tantamount to cement Palestine’s divisionand may only aggravate the crisis.
For one, we can forecast that Fatah, withthe backing of the United States and Europe,
will turn to heavier offensive in the WestBank to drive out Hamas. But Hamas are fairly well entrenched in the West Bank, and wefear there will be even more bloodshed.
Secondly, should Hamas-controlled Gaza
be blockaded into isolation, starvation andother humanitarian crises will grow even more
serious. Such an outcome could well kindle
anti-American and anti-European sentiments
throughout the Islamic world. Hamas continues to refuse to acknowledge Israel’s statehood, having rejected the Oslo Accords of1993 that essentially aimed for peaceful coexistence between Palestinians and Israelis.
We can understand the irritation of the United States and Europe that this faction has
come into power in Palestine.
However, we must not forget that Hamas
were voted by democratic elections. Fatahlost the elections because the public did nottrust Fatah politicians who profiteered fromforeign aid and were deeply engaged in other forms of corruption.
Alvaro de Soto, who stepped down lastmonth as the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process,stated in his confidential report that the United Nations should have employed dialogue
to urge the Hamas government to change,
and that had matters been handled properly,
there was the possibility of Hamas going forthe realistic policy of coexistence with Israel.
De Soto’s point is that true stability cannot
be attained unless the popular support Hamas
has is taken into consideration. We agree.
Palestine is the root of Mideast conflict.
Confusion in Palestine affects not only theentire Mideast region, but the Islamic world
as well. Any further aggravation of the crisis
will give al-Qaida and other Islamist extremists a perfect chance to promote their cause,and this in turn could scatter new seeds ofcrisis around the world.
We renew our call to influential Arab nations, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, to approach both of the two Palestinian factions
to advance reconciliation. And Japan, too,should step up its diplomatic efforts to urge

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25

Japan’s needs its own experts in Washington

It seems more oriented to garnering votes.

P

Thursday, June 21, 2007

POINT OF VIEW/ Robert DujarricEconomic policy outline
rime Minister Shinzo Abe must surely realize it is not possible to achieve
his policy vision of creating a “beautiful country” without implementing
painful reforms. On Tuesday, theCabinet endorsed its first annual economic and fiscal policy outline.
However, it does not offer a road map
pointing to the inevitable increase in the public burden to support an aging society. Nordoes it offer detailed descriptions of agricultural and other domestic reforms that are indispensable for negotiating an economic
partnership agreement with the United Statesand Europe. Such pacts should be key elements in the government’s policy efforts todeal with globalization.
In contrast, the outline contains plenty ofconsiderations to local areas possibly aimed
at garnering votes in the upcoming Upper
House election: a program to allow taxpayers to pay part of their local income taxes tomunicipalities of their choice—their home
towns, for instance—and the creation of anew organization to revitalize local economies.
The character of the outline is symbolized
by a change of its official name. The annual
policy statements issued under the previous
government were titled, “Basic principles concerning economic and fiscal policy management and structural reform.” But the title has
been changed to “Basic principles concerning economic and fiscal policy reform.” Theelimination of the phrase “structural reform”
from the title speaks volumes about what Abe
is really thinking.
Structural reform was the major policy slogan of Abe’s predecessor, Junichiro Koizumi.
Claiming there could be no economic growth
without reform, Koizumi urged the nation toaccept the pains that necessary reforms would
entail.
In order to help the nation exit the quagmire of prolonged economic malaise—a period
called a “lost decade”—it is necessary to takereform measures based on a long-term perspective, no matter how painful they may be
at first, to strengthen the basic fabric of the nation’s ailing economy.
Koizumi’s bold reform agenda focused oncleaning up the bad debt mess in the banking sector and promoting deregulation of industries and privatization of public enterprises.

The Asahi Shimbun

Opinion

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The Asahi Shimbun

Japan thinks that it has been sidelined in the six-party talks on North
Korea’s nuclear program, according tosome reports.
Some sources believe the departureof old Japan hands such as former U.S.
Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and Michael Green, a former
senior director for Asian affairs at the
National Security Council, from the
U.S. side is one reason.
As these friends of Japan have left,
one of the George W. Bush administration’s newest top officials, Treasury
Secretary Henry Paulson, is noted forhaving much greater interest in China than Japan. Meanwhile, Robert Zoellick, well-known for his focus on China
as a stakeholder in world affairs, is returning to Washington as head of theWorld Bank. And none of the powerful Democratic leaders in Congress
have any expertise in Japan.
Japanese officials are thus concerned
the loss of such personal connections
will weaken the nation’s ties with theUnited States.
This reflects a flaw in the Japan-U.S.
relationship. For small countries, nothaving personal connections in Washington means they cannot easily access senior officials there. But Japanis a $5 trillion (about 600 trillion yen)economy that is vital to U.S. power in
Asia. It should not need intermediaries
to reach the top of the U.S. adminis-

tration. Other major U.S. allies such as
Germany and Britain do not rely on
their American “friends.”
So, why does Japan need friends?
First, Japan is not a Western nation.
Germany, like Japan, is a large economy and a major U.S. ally. But Germans find it easier than Japanese towork with Americans. They are Westerners, and their country has helped
shape American culture for centuries.
Therefore, unlike the Japanese, they
do not feel they must hire “friends” tobridge the trans-Oceanic gap.
Second, Japanese society relies onintermediaries and “fixers” who use
their connections to sort out problems.
This contrasts with the more direct
approach of Americans.
But Japan should realize that depending on Japan hands has disadvantages. Some friends, like Richard
Armitage, have had impressive titles
but a deputy secretary is neither a top
decision maker nor someone with easy
access to the president.
Moreover, Armitage, who had refused to work for Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld, was close to Colin
Powell, who was never a member ofthe Bush inner circle. The real heavyweights in foreign policy in the United States government are the president,
his closest confidantes, and sometimes
the vice president and a few Cabinet
secretaries. Key senators and congressmen can also play leading roles.
Many of these men and women arepoliticians or political operatives whose
primary focus iselectoral politics,
rather than foreign
affairs.
Moreover, when
the secretaries andthe most senior advisers are area specialists, they are notRobert DujarricJapan experts.
In fact, there are
few Japan specialists in America. And,even during World War II and theCold War, Japan has never been a No.
1 priority for the United States in thesame way that Germany and Europe,
the Soviet Union and now Southwest
Asia and China, were.
Expertise in Japan is just not the roadto the pinnacle of U.S. policy-making
circles.
Instead of relying on Japan hands,
Tokyo needs a multi-stage strategy tostrength its position in the UnitedStates. First, Tokyo should feel more
confident about its importance to theUnited States and stop being overly
concerned about the replacement ofworking-level officials in Washington.
Second, Japan needs a larger cadre of
officials who can operate in America
and enable it to bypass intermediaries.
During my more than a decade in
Washington, I observed that many
Japanese officials and scholars there
focused primarily on cementing contact

with individuals who dealt with Japanand East Asia.
Moreover, except for the diplomatic corps and a few ministries, many
officials sent by Japanese ministries
and agencies arrive in the United States
without sufficient familiarity with
American culture and politics to be effective. Once in America, they work
very hard, but they are at a great disadvantage.
In recent years, I have noticed that
Chinese officials and academics whocome to the United States are sometimes better prepared to engage Americans than their Japanese counterparts.
Once Japan has its own cadre of“America hands,” it will be able tobroaden its network there and interact directly with Americans without
relying on “sherpas.”
Third, another area on which Japan
should focus is American academia.
Numerous professors from Asia andEurope teach in the United States, but
few Japanese are among them. America’s future leaders are taught by Indians, Chinese, and Europeans, but notby Japanese.
Thus, America’s elite is more familiar with the rest of Asia than withJapan. Japan needs to export its professors to teach politics, history andeconomics at U.S. universities.

they are quickly organised by Thaicrews. Some are sent to work in unsupervised factories at shockingly low
wages. Others are exploited in agricultural, domestic, fishing, construction and other jobs. And they aresupposedly the lucky ones, sometimes
herded into barbed-wire enclosuresby employees.
Young girls and women have been
forced into brothels, held by gangs.
In the case of the Burmese, they are
doubly harmed, because their government offers no aid to even thecases of alleged slave wages andservitude.
The picture in Thailand is not entirely bleak. Authorities are aware asnever before—not just to the problem of human trafficking but of its
long tail of negative consequences.
Sweatshop factories and labour means
Thai economic conditions improveslower or not at all. No one is sure
how many illegal migrants are in
Thailand, even to the closest 100,000,
and that creates a potential security
nightmare. It is far from clear that
Cambodian Muslims are fuelling theviolence in the South, but the lack ofborder controls means there is no

way to weed out criminals or terrorists.
Thailand itself has been exploited,as a nation. Its open borders and welcome of foreigners has meant thatmean-spirited outlaws have been able
to use Thailand as a transit point for
their trafficking. Thailand has becomea magnet, for example, for passport
forgers and sellers. Some illegal migrants from neighbouring countries
have stayed in Thailand, using fakeor corrupt papers to try to act as legal immigrants or even as Thai citizens. The security implications are
staggering.
Just over a year ago, Thailand hosted a three-day international conference on the problem of humantrafficking and how to slow it. Thenminister of social development andhuman security Watana Muangsook
said he was confident that neighbourly agreement would eventually
prove effective against this problem.
He may be right, but one hopes thegovernment and security apparatus
will not just sit around waiting.
In the year since the six-nation
meeting, precious few results havebeen seen. Human trafficking de-

The author heads the Institute of Contemporary Japanese Studies at Temple
University Japan in Tokyo.

Inhuman trafficking
If there was good news out of theannual report on international humantrafficking last week, it was only thatthe problem is not getting obviously
worse. The country reports by the
US State Department, including on
America itself, still paint a bleak picture. Slavery continues to exist; there
is no other name for what occurs in
far too many places, including theUnited States. Thailand, for a number of reasons, is all things to humantraffickers—source, destination andtransit country.
Human trafficking is an unsupportable practice, and by definitiona human rights violation. As in war,
the least able suffer the most. Womenand children are not just moved
across borders by procurers andcriminal gangs. They are constantly
abused, consistently exploited andcontinuously in danger. By now,
every country has heard shocking stories of the mistreatment of would-be
refugees, hopeful economic migrants
and people seeking a better life. The
US report, which seems credible, lists
Thailand and the majority of world
nations as a so-called “Tier 2” country, meaning it is dedicated in prin-ciple to ending the problem, but stilllacking some determination andmeans.
In this regard, the Thai media’s
contribution to solving human trafficking has been spotty. The press
and broadcasters have often picked
up on cases of abuse of Thai citizens
overseas. But it has been less interested in the terrible conditions ofsome illegal migrants in Thailand,
and in following up obvious cases ofwhat amount to slavery of Thais
overseas. Last December, for example,
Bahrain officials and the Thai embassy began a desultory investigationof a prostitution ring. Thai women
were clearly held in bondage, against
all international laws. The government in Manama and the Thai authorities were quick to deny that a
Thai police unit on its way to findout what was going on and who wasbehind what amounted to a slavery
ring. The question surely was: Why
did Thai authorities not investigate
this case of trafficking?
The US report said that Burmese
and other people from neighbouring
countries sneak into Thailand voluntarily seeking work. Then, though,Weakening Hamas could backfire on Western powers
It is saddening and ironic that Western countries, who claim to be thechampions of democracy, have been
all out to oust a democratically elected government just because they do
not agree with its political platforms.
This is what has happened to Palestine’s Hamas, which won the parliamentary election last year, although
it is partly responsible itself for theongoing misery.
Shortly after Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas dissolved the Hamasled cabinet, including Prime Minister
Ismail Haniyeh, and set up his own
cabinet on Sunday, Western countries
and Israel pledged to resume financial aid and return Palestinian tax
money to Israel’s coffers.
The European Union announced
Monday its plan to resume direct aid
to newly appointed Prime Minister
Salam Fayyad’s Cabinet. The Bush administration intends to resume direct
assistance to Abbas’ secular government this week.

Meanwhile, Ehud Olmert, Israel’s
prime minister, said he would sendback Palestine’s frozen tax revenues.
The West embargoed Hamas’ government because it refused to recognize Israel and to stop using violencein its struggle to bring independence
to Palestine.
Millions of Palestinians will suffer
more after the open war between theHamas militias and Abbas’ Fatah militias. Hamas now controls the Gaza
Strip, while Fatah controls the WestBank. Israel and its supporters will
isolate Gaza to put pressure on Hamas.
Israel takes the greatest advantage
from the Palestinian civil war at theminimum cost. And in the short term,
Western countries will feel relieved
because Hamas, which they havebranded a terrorist organization, haslost government control. Those countries who preach the Vox Populi Vox
Dei (“the people’s voice is the voiceof God”) credo have also supported
Abbas’ undemocratic methods in alien-

ating his political foe.
But as the U.S.-led war on terror has
resulted in the rise of more fertile
breeding grounds for terrorists, theefforts to eliminate Hamas politicallyand economically will backfire. Global terrorism is likely to loom large because of the West’s determination toprotect its interests at all costs, at theexpense of the Palestinians.
Hamas itself has taken a confrontational approach against Israel. Its persistent refusal to recognize Israel’s
existence is not only unacceptable but
also unrealistic. An independent Palestine can not deny the geographicalfact that Israel is a close neighbor andno one can change the map.
The ongoing war between Hamas
and Fatah will only create moretragedy for the people.
It is very true that Israel and its supporters will use all necessary means
to weaken Hamas and Fatah. But it is
to be expected. Therefore, it is thePalestinian leaders themselves whoshould take the blame for this war,
not their common enemies.
What can the international community, including the predominantly
Muslim nations, do to end this civil
war? To be frank this is a very complicated issue, as evident in the failure of several Arab initiatives to bringlasting peace between Hamas and Fatah. It is unlikely that the two warringgroups will make peace with strong
international assistance and cooperation.
The Palestinian leaders need to remember that the world will question
their pledge to lead their people to anindependent Palestine if at the sametime they are not even able to overcome disputes among themselves.
Western countries may feel relieved
because they can easily achieve theirintention to weaken Hamas. But what
they claim as a success may backfire
on them because more terror will approach their front doors.
—Jakarta Post editorial, June 19

VOX POPULI, VOX DEI

Abe’s public vow will come back to haunt him
According to a survey by a major
watch maker, if a person making abusiness phone call is put on hold,the longest time that person will tolerate waiting is about 30 seconds.
Any longer than that produces irritation.
Yet many people making calls to
the Social Insurance Agency’s pension hot line last week failed to connect at all. It makes one wonder just
how many people were left feelingextremely angry.
Perhaps that had something to dowith the results of the latest Asahi
Shimbun opinion poll on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Cabinet.
Thought the prime minister has de-clared, “We will check all pension
records for every single person, andpay all the pensions that need to be
paid,” 67 percent of respondents said
they do not trust him to follow
through with the promise. This was
far more than the 25 percent who said
they do trust Abe.
The British novelist George Eliot(1819-80) wrote, “Our words havewings, but fly not where we would.”
These words must really resonate
with the prime minister.
Although he spoke in an attempt
to put people’s minds at rest, hiswords failed to convince many voters.
For the first time, his Cabinet’s disapproval rate rose above the halfway

mark, hitting 51 percent of respondents. This casts dark clouds overthe upcoming Upper House election.
It also indicates that Abe’s choice offocusing on amending the Constitution, the education system and other lofty aims was a big mistake.
Suddenly this week, the Diet was
all in an uproar over the mishandlingof the pension system.
“It will take one year to cross-checkthe data,” Abe shouted. “We will getto the bottom of who is responsible.”Yet when we are forced to wait,
we get irritable. And while timesometimes flies quickly, it also makes
us forget things. Someone once
likened this forgetfulness to the way

a traveling circus folds up its tents
and disappears overnight.
I hear that already within the Liberal Democratic Party, some are cynically joking about the pension fiasco,
saying, “Once the elections are over,the public will be wondering, ‘What
was the fuss all about?’”
Once the elections are over, will
the curtain fall on the nation’s pension troubles as quickly as at a departing circus? Not likely. Those
responsible won’t be let off the hookquite so easily. The prime ministerhas made a vow to the public. I doubt
his words will suddenly sprout wings
and fly away.
—The Asahi Shimbun, June 20