Asia News Digest
Japan Moves To Normalize Diplomatic Ties with North Korea
Japan is ready to resume talks on normalizing ties with North Korea, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Seiken Sugiura said on July 6, as a dramatic reunion between Japanese abductee Hitomi Soga and her family was to take place in Indonesia on July 9. Talks have been bogged down since U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney made accusations about North Korea's alleged secret uranium bomb in October 2002. Tokyo's Asahi Shimbun said on July 6 that the reunion will shift Japanese public opinion away from the fury against North Korea and toward diplomatic normalization.
Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi met Soga on her departure and also announced that North Korea has agreed to reopen investigations into the fate of 10 other missing Japanese never accounted for. North Korea "has promised to thoroughly reinvestigate the case of the 10 people," Sugiura said.
Koizumi Under Fire for Pandering to Bush on Iraq
"Prime Minister Koizumi's accusation that some Japanese media are 'anti-American' has shed light on another issue for voters to ponder when they cast their ballots on Sunday," Tokyo's leading daily Asahi News editorialized on July 6. "If the Prime Minister overreaches in his efforts to pander to the Bush Administration, he will create an America-phobic atmosphere among the Japanese public."
It seems Koizumi turned Japan's troops in Iraq over to Bush's new multinational force during a tête-à-tête with Bush at the G-8 summit in Georgia on June 10before discussing the subject with anyone in Japan. When the mainstream Asahi News and Mainichi Shimbun criticized Koizumi, he called them "anti-American."
"With less than a week before the Upper House elections, Koizumi faces his greatest test since he assumed office three years ago. Perhaps that explains his irritation," Asahi says. "Calling these newspapers 'anti-American' is not something we can take lying down. Joining the multinational force represents a major change that has important bearings on Japan's Constitution and this country's basic foreign policy. Changes of this magnitude simply cannot be made without Diet discussions."
Jacoby Report on Afghan Prisoner Abuse Complete
U.S. Brig. Gen. Charles Jacoby has handed over his report on prisoner abuse in jails at U.S. bases to the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. David Barno, for review. Jacoby is deputy operational commander under Barno. "As soon as we're complete with staffing, we'll be able to release portions of that report," said spokesman Major Jon Siepman.
Although the contents of Jacoby's report have not been made public, it is evident that he has addressed the widespread allegations of prisoner abuse by Americans in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, Duncan Campbell and Suzanne Goldenberg of the Guardian Unlimited are circulating an in-depth investigation, including interviews with the Afghan prisoners at the Bagram Air Base near Kabul. That investigation has uncovered widespread evidence of detainees facing beatings, sexual humiliation, and being kept for long periods in painful positions. Detainees who were not charged with any offense told The Guardian of American soldiers throwing stones at them as they defecated and of being stripped naked in front of large numbers of interrogators.
Badawi Blasts Iraq War Ahead of Visit to Washington
In a speech to diplomats on July 5, Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi criticized the United States, just two weeks before his first state visit to Washington, where he is scheduled to meet with President George W. Bush on July 19. In the speech, he said that the invasion of Iraq "shattered the confidence" of the world by showing that no country's sovereignty is safe from the most powerful nation.
He also said that military force had proved inadequate in destroying terrorist networks, and instead may be fuelling their growth. "There is uneasiness worldwide that a single country is globally dominating all their military, economic, political, and cultural dimensions of power," he said without naming any country.
U.S. Ambassador to Philippines in Proconsul Role
President Bush's ambassador to the Philippines elicited an angry response from Filipino President Gloria Arroyo-Macapagal's spokesman after Ambassador Francis Ricciardone insinuated that the Philippines government itself could unwittingly be assisting international terrorism by not cleaning out "terrorist camps." Ricciardone is pandering to the allegations against Manila that there exist terrorist camps run by Islamic militants tied to Jemmah Islamiyah.
Ricciardone said on July 6 that foreign militants had been able to set up shop in Mindanao because of the weak rule of law. Mindanao has been the scene of a more than 30-year battle between Manila and separatist movements of the indigenous Moro Muslim ethnic group.
The ambassador also criticized the government's failure to reach a peace accord with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, and used the occasion to announce a U.S. plan to redirect some of its $30-million development assistance to other projects in Mindanao.
Growing Productivity Gap Between Chinese Coast and Interior
A report by the Development Research Center of the State Council, a leading Chinese policy institute, says that there is no perspective on how to reverse the widening productivity gap between the Chinese east coast, and the interior.
In the early 1980s, the DRC had warned of the "collapse" of central China. This has not happened, but per capita GDP has gotten lower and lower there. In 1980, per capita GDP in central China was 88% of the national average. It fell to 83% in 1990, and was down to 75% by 2003, and now suffers an actual capital outflow.
Central China, according to the DRC report, has not capitalized on the foreign investment/processing trade investment which has brought the coastal regions into the "global production system." But, while there was a net capital inflow of more than 200 billion yuan to the eastern coastal areas in the 1990s, there was a net capital outflow from central China undermining its basic productive capabilities. Also, central China lacks the intensive urbanization of the east coast, and has "no strong economic center" to launch it.
North Korean Leader Wishes To Visit the South
North Korean leader Kim Jong-il has told Chinese leaders he wished to visit the South "at an appropriate time," Yonhap news agency quoted an aide to former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung as saying on July 3.
After a four-day trip by Kim Dae-jung to China, "It is something we learned from a high-level official in the Chinese government who met with Chairman Kim Jong-il during his China visit in April," Yonhap quoted the aide, Kim Han-jung, as saying. Kim Dae-jung on June 13 called strongly for the Northern Kim to visit Seoul, as outlined in the North-South 2000 declaration. This call was also echoed by the South's ruling Uri Party in late June, which urged Kim Jong-il to visit the South, as pledged four years ago.
But South Korean President Roh Hoo-hyun, under pressure from the neo-conservatives, has said the "appropriate time" would be only after an international standoff over Pyongyang's nuclear program begins to be resolved.
Karzai Under Intense Pressure To Hold Elections
The Bush Administration is exerting intense pressure on Kabul to hold Presidential and parliamentary elections next October, at the latest, to help President Bush is his quest re-election campaign. Despite the adverse conditions that prevail in Afghanistan, and the slow rate of voter registration, interim President Hamid Karzai met with United Nations officials on July 6 to schedule the country's first-ever general elections since the Second World War. As of July 9, President Karzai was unable to come up with a date.
Meanwhile, talks abound that Karzai would take the risk of holding the Presidential elections before Oct. 22, the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, but not the parliamentary elections. To organize the parliamentary elections is far more complicated, since it involves large numbers of candidates. It seems the parliamentary elections can only be held in the summer of 2005 at the earliest.
It is, however, still very much a matter of speculation that any Afghan elections can be held before November. Karzai has sought UN help, in the face of burgeoning security problems in the country. The continued existence of private militias belonging to opium warlords is a particular concern for the parliamentary polls. At the same time, some politicians and diplomats have expressed concern that powerful warlords may in fact want an early vote to consolidate their positions.
North Korea's Kim Jong-il Receives 'Personal Letter' from Putin
Russian President Putin had a "personal letter" delivered to North Korean leader Kim Jong-il during a rare meeting that the North Korean leader held with the Russian Foreign Minister Seregei Lavrov. Lavrov said "special attention was devoted to the peace settlement on the Korean Peninsula," according to a statement from the Kremlin. The letter to Kim, according to Russia's ITAR-Tass news agency, touched "on problems of bilateral cooperation and regional security."
|