Lessons from Japan’s nuclear accident

Inside the central control room of the No. 6 reactor at the TEPCO nuclear power plant in Kariwa village in Kashiwazaki City, 26 March 2012, after it was taken off line. (Photo: AAP)

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…

Japan locks into China

hinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo (R) shakes hand with Japanese foreign minister Takeaki Matsumoto at the Zhongnanhai leaders compound in Beijing on July 4, 2011. (Photo: AAP)

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…

Japan must support liberal international order

JATAWTF - Tokyo 2008

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…

Japan-China relations stand at ground zero

An anti-China protest in Shibuya, Tokyo on October 2, 2010. (Photo: Flickr user 'ehnmark')

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…

Asia’s clouded horizon

Gen. Walter Sharp (C), commander of South Korea-US Combined Forces Command, and CFC Vice Commander Hwang Eui-don (R) offer flowers at an altar set up at the Navy Second Fleet Command in Pyeongtaek, south of Seoul, to honour the 46 sailors killed in the March sinking of the Cheonan naval ship. The vessel sank near the Yellow Sea border with North Korea after an unexplained explosion ripped it in two. (Photo: AAP Image/Yonhap)

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…

Global water security: Japan should play key role

People collect water from Oxfam tanks in Nowshera, as part of Oxfam's response to the Pakistan Floods. (Photo: Oxfam)

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…

Japan’s bond market has become a ticking bomb

International Monetary Fund's Deputy Managing Director, Takatoshi Kato (L) chairs the discussion - How Japan Recovered from its Banking Crisis: Possible Lessons for Today - with presenters Richard Koo (C), Nomura Research Institute, and Robert Dohner (R), Deputy Assistant Secretary for Asia at the US Department of the Treasury, during the 2009 International Monetary Fund's and World Bank's Annual Meetings at the International Congress Center in Istanbul, Turkey October 6, 2009. (Photo: IMF/Thomas Dooley)

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…

Dangers lurk in North Korea’s leadership transition

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il inspects a fruit farm in Pyongyang.

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…

Political games have no place in security policy

US President Barack Obama greets Japan's outgoing Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama (R) at the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington April 12, 2010. (Photo: Reuters)

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…

Japan-Korea FTA cornerstone of the East Asian Community

South Korean President Lee Myung-bak and Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama held a summit meeting at Cheong Wa Dae on Oct. 9, 2009. (Photo: Korea.net)

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…

Toyota, Japan Inc., needs strategic gear change

Toyota's IQ based electric vehicle, FT-EV, scheduled for production in late 2010, at Internationale Automobil-Ausstellung 2009 (IAA 2009). (Photo: Flickr user 'bindermichi')

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…

Urgent need for 21st century vision of US-Japan alliance

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Japan's Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada walk to a news conference after holding talks concerning U.S. military bases in Okinawa during her stopover in Kapolei, Hawaii, on January 12, 2010. (Photo: Reuters)

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…

Testing time in Japan for Hatoyama’s diplomatic skills

Japan's Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama (R) and Finance Minister Naoto Kan attend a lower house plenary session at Parliament in Tokyo, on January 18, 2010. (Photo: Reuters)

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…

A year of political transformation in Japan

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. (photo: AP Photo)

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…

Mr Obama visits Japan

An aerial view shows U.S. Marine's Futenma air station is seen between the urban area in Ginowan, southern Japanese island of Okinawa. (photo: Reuters)

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…