Author: Yoichi Funabashi and Kay Kitazawa, Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation

A cataclysmic earthquake and tsunami crippled Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station on 11 March 2011, causing one of the most severe nuclear accidents in history.

The Independent Investigation Commission on the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident, a politically neutral panel established by the Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation, reviewed the emergency responses taken by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), Japanese government agencies and other relevant actors during the crisis. Read more…

Author: Yoichi Funabashi, Japan

Japan’s triple disaster has illuminated the country’s vulnerabilities. Tokyo Electric Power Co. (Tepco), the beleaguered operator of the Fukushima nuclear reactors, previously announced that it will take six to nine months to stabilise the still unstable reactors.

In the meantime, energy supply will continue to be disrupted. The bond market is starting to shake following the savage downgrading of Tepco corporate bonds, sparking fears for the collapse of the Japanese government bond. Read more…

Author: Yoichi Funabashi, Asahi Shimbun

This month the Asia-Pacific region takes center stage in global diplomacy.

A Group of 20 summit meeting is being held in Seoul, followed by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum summit meeting in Yokohama.

U.S. President Barack Obama is also scheduled to visit India, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan in November.

A number of pressing issues will need to be tackled at those forums. Delegates must figure out whether a new international order can be created that would move from the framework established after World War II in which the Group of Seven advanced economies managed the world economy, to one that includes newly emerging economies such as China, India, Brazil, Turkey and South Africa. Read more…

Author: Yoichi Funabashi, Asahi Shimbun

I have serious reservations about the way the Chinese government acted toward Japan over the incident involving a violation of territorial waters near the Senkaku Islands by a Chinese trawler, and especially, after the boat’s captain was arrested.

In Japan, public opinion has been highly critical of the government led by the Democratic Party of Japan, with its decisions described as ‘a national disgrace brought about through diplomatic defeat.’ Admittedly, many measures taken by the government were half-hearted, from the lack of any decision by prosecutors to indict the captain, to the handling of a Japan Coast Guard video of the collision between the trawler and two patrol vessels. Read more…

Author: Yoichi Funabashi, Asahi Shimbun

We are witnessing a ‘brave, grave new world’ – with the rise and fall of nations underway on a grand scale.

China’s rise and India’s advance are two of the most spectacular dynamics. The power shift to the Asia Pacific, however, will be a long transition, and Asia faces three major challenges over the next decade: First, the instability of the North Korean regime in the process of leadership succession and the eventual unification of the Korean peninsula; secondly, maritime security in the South China Sea, the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea; and third, energy and the environment. Read more…

Author: Yoichi Funabashi, Asahi Shimbun

The flooding in Pakistan has devastated much of the nation, from the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province in the northwest to regions downriver of the Indus, which cuts a north-south path through Punjab province in central Pakistan and Sindh province in the south.

More than 1,600 people have died and some 20 million people have been displaced. The flood damage has affected about one-fifth of Pakistan’s territory. Read more…

Author: Yoichi Funabashi, Asahi Shimbun

A recent entry in the popular blog of Harvard University economics professor Greg Mankiw was titled, ‘Are bonds sexy?’.

After Mankiw’s comment, ‘The Japanese government wants its citizens to think so,’ the blog links to a wire service report about an ad placed by the Finance Ministry in June to attract individual investors to buy fixed-rate, three-year bonds. The ad features five young women, with the message, ‘I want my future husband to be diligent about money.’ Read more…

Author: Yoichi Funabashi, Asahi Shimbun

Ever since North Korean leader Kim Jong Il suffered a stroke in August 2008, efforts have accelerated to ensure a smooth transition in power to Kim Jong Un, his third son.

However, many difficulties await Kim Jong Un, who is only 27.

The biggest hurdle will be dealing with the military. Read more…

Author: Yoichi Funabashi, Asahi Shumbun

In hindsight, the April 12 conversation between outgoing Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and US President Barack Obama was a watershed.

Seated beside each other at a dinner held during the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, the two leaders talked for about 10 minutes mainly about relocating the US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma. Obama told Hatoyama he had not made any public comments until then because Hatoyama had said, ‘Trust me,’ when the two met last November. Read more…

Author: Yoichi Funabashi

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has recently told Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada that there are three key policy issues in the area of diplomacy that he intends to tackle while he is in office.

They are: Pressing ahead with his proposal to create an East Asian Community, signing a free trade agreement with South Korea and resolving the thorny Northern Territories dispute with Russia. Read more…

Author: Yoichi Funabashi

I was in Washington, DC recently while congressional hearings were held into the massive recalls announced by Toyota Motor Corp. I sensed that public sentiment in the United States was rapidly becoming critical of the auto giant, which is now a synonym with lemons.

An article published in the New York Times on February 21 under the headline, ‘Doubts raised on book’s tale of atom bomb’, drove home the point to me. The newspaper noted that the author of ‘The Last Train From Hiroshima,’ Charles Pelegrino, used quotes from an individual who falsely claimed he was a last-minute substitute on an observation plane that accompanied the Enola Gay on its mission to destroy Hiroshima by atomic bombing. An expert is quoted in the article as saying, ‘This book is a Toyota. The publisher should recall it, issue an apology and fix the parts that endanger the historical record.’ Read more…

Author: Yoichi Funabashi

To mark the 50th anniversary this year of the signing of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, the two governments have declared their intention to ‘deepen’ the alliance. They aim to create a new vision for the alliance by November, when U.S. President Barack Obama plans to visit Japan.
But Japan-U.S. relations are experiencing a rocky patch, mainly due to Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s decision to re-examine from scratch a 2006 agreement on the relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Okinawa Prefecture. In the United States, an increasingly critical perception has taken hold over what the Hatoyama administration is trying to achieve.

In an editorial on 28 January, The New York Times noted ‘there are worrying signs that many of Japan’s new leaders and its postwar generation don’t understand the full value of the security partnership.’ Read more…

Author: Yoichi Funabashi

This year will be the crucial test of whether the administration led by the Democratic Party of Japan can develop into a vigorous, staying force. Its greatest challenges lie in the areas of diplomacy and national security.

On January 4th, in his first news conference of the year, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said, ‘About half of domestic politics is, in a sense, taken up by foreign affairs and national security.’ Read more…

Author: Yoichi Funabashi

The rise to power of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) after half a century of almost uninterrupted rule by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) could bring profound changes to Japan.

One change will surely be generational: the new leaders, including Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, will be the first with little memory of World War II. Read more…

Author: Funabashi Yoichi, Asahi

With U.S. President Barack Obama scheduled to arrive Friday for a two-day visit, Tokyo and Washington are still fumbling to get on the same wavelength.

Although Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has repeatedly stressed that his government’s diplomacy would be centered on the alliance with the United States, many in the Obama camp have their doubts. Read more…