September 21, 2009
Once Slave to Luxury, Japan Catches Thrift Bug
By HIROKO TABUCHI
TOKYO — Not long ago, many Japanese bought so many $100 melons and $1,000 handbags that this was the only country in the world where luxury products were considered mass market.
Even through the economic stagnation of Japan’s so-called lost decade, which began in the early 1990s, Japanese consumers sustained that reputation. But this recession has done something that earlier declines could not: turned the Japanese into Wal-Mart shoppers.
In seven years operating in Japan, through a subsidiary called Seiyu, Wal-Mart Stores has never turned a profit. But sales have risen every month since November, and this year, the retailer expects to make a profit.
That is an understatement. Across the board, discount retailers are reporting increases in revenue — while just about everyone else is experiencing declines, in some cases, by double digits.
As a result, the luxury boutiques, once almighty here, are reeling.
Sales at LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, makers of what has long been Japan’s favorite handbag, plunged 20 percent in the first six months of 2009. In December, as the global economic crisis unfolded, Louis Vuitton canceled plans for what would have been a fancy new Tokyo store.
In the 1970s and ’80s, and even as the economy limped through the ’90s, a wide group of consumers spent generously on Louis Vuitton bags and Hermès scarves — even at the expense of holidays, travel and, sometimes, meals and rent.
Now, the Japanese luxury market, worth $15 billion to $20 billion, has been among the hardest hit by the global economic crisis, according to a report by the consulting firm McKinsey & Company. Retail analysts, economists and consumers all say that the change could be a permanent one. A new generation of Japanese fashionistas does not even aspire to luxury brands; they are happy to mix and match treasures found in a flurry of secondhand clothing stores that have sprung up across Japan.
“I’m not drawn to Louis Vuitton at all,” said Izumi Hiranuma, 19.
“People used to feel they needed a Louis Vuitton to fit in,” she said. “But younger girls don’t think like that anymore.”
In the new environment, cheap is chic, whatever the product.
In supermarket aisles, sales of lowly common vegetables — like bean sprouts, onions and local mushrooms — are up. (Bean sprouts, which sell for as little as 25 cents a bag, are a particularly good substitute for cabbage, which can go for about $4 a head.)
And instead of melons, Japanese shoppers are buying cheap bananas, pushing imports up to records.
“I’ve cut down on fruit since last year, because of the cost,” said Maki Kudo, 36, a homemaker shopping at a Keikyu supermarket in central Tokyo. “Instead of brands, I now look much more at cost.”
Thrift is being expressed even in unlikely measures like umbrella sales, which have spiked as more Japanese opt to brave rainy weather on foot rather than hail a taxi, according to a survey by the Dai-Ichi Life Research Institute.
In 2008, average household spending fell a record 69,509 yen, or $762, to 3.5 million yen, or $38,475, from a year earlier, and is expected to fall again this year, said Toshihiro Nagahama, chief economist at Dai-Ichi Life.
Underlying Japan’s accelerating frugality is a “deflationary gap” of 40 trillion yen in the Japanese economy, a situation where total demand falls short of what an economy produces. When this happens, companies cut prices, but since they still do not make money, they have to lay off workers. Fewer workers mean still less demand, creating a vicious circle, and prices fall further.
The dismal economy encourages thrift, too. Unemployment is at a record high of 5.7 percent, compared with 9.7 percent in the United States. A troubled government pension system, as well as ballooning government debt, has driven a widespread fear of the future, prompting people to save, not spend.
The Democratic Party, which rode a wave of discontent over the economy to electoral victory last month, has pledged to increase household incomes through tax breaks and generous subsidies for families with children. But economists here worry that the deflationary cycle could prove hard to break as competitive price-cutting rages.
A heated price war has erupted, for instance, in the already cut-rate category of “imitation” beers, a poor man’s brew made with soy or pea protein instead of barley and hops.
In July, Seven & I Holdings Company, which runs the 7-Eleven chain, introduced a new line of imitation beer for $1.35 a can; the same month, the Aeon shopping center brought out its own beer beverage for about $1.09. The Daiei supermarket chain then lowered prices on its beer to less than a dollar.
U.G. — the sibling brand of Uniqlo, the global clothing retailer known for its low-cost fleeces and T-shirts — started a jeans war when it introduced pants for 990 yen this year. Aeon soon followed suit with jeans selling for 880 yen.
Seiyu, the wholly owned Wal-Mart subsidiary, says it plans to sell similarly priced jeans this year.
Of course, for some retailers the circle is more virtuous than vicious.
Thrift has propelled Hanjiro, a secondhand clothing store chain popular among young Japanese, to 19 stores, from just one store in 1992. When Hanjiro opened a new store in Saitama, which borders Tokyo, in April, about 1,000 eager young fans lined up for a door-buster 290-yen T-shirt special. Of course, frugality is good for Wal-Mart, which posted better-than-expected second-quarter earnings last month. Japanese consumers are snapping up Seiyu’s $6 bottles of wine — sourced through Wal-Mart’s international network — as well as $86 suits and $87 bicycles.
In fact, Seiyu has ignited a price war of its own, with its “bento” lunch-in-a-box of rice and grilled salmon for 298 yen. Abandoning a custom here for supermarkets to make their bento boxes on site, Seiyu cut costs by assembling the lunches at a centralized factory.
Seiyu bet that Japan’s frugal consumers would not care about the change, as long as the bentos were cheap. Seiyu was right; the bentos have set off a line of copycat supermarket bentos.
“Price is No. 1 in my mind,” said Chie Kawano, an elderly shopper at Seiyu’s Akabane store in northern Tokyo, a bento box in her basket. “I don’t need anything fancy.”
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
Sunday, November 15, 2009
What The Future Holds When China Rules
November 15, 2009
Goldman Sachs projects that China will overtake the United States as the world's largest economy by 2027. British author Martin Jacques, whose new book is called When China Rules the World, believes that Americans are woefully unprepared for this shift.
He joined NPR's Guy Raz to discuss the issue, and he started by reading an excerpt from his new book:
"The mainstream Western attitude has held that, in its fundamentals, the world will be relatively little changed by China's rise. This is based on three key assumptions: that China's challenge will be primarily economic in nature; that China will in due course become a typical Western nation; and that the international system will remain broadly as it now is, with China acquiescing in the status quo and becoming a compliant member of the international community. Each of these assumptions is misconceived. The rise of China will change the world in the most profound ways."
Jacques' perspective is informed by having watched the decline of the British Empire over the course of his life, something he calls a "dislocating and disorientating experience."
"The history of humanity is the rise and fall of countries and civilizations and so on, so nothing is cast in stone," he says. "And the United States has enjoyed actually quite a long period in the sun, ever since certainly 1945."
This shift, he says, has less to do with the United States, and more to do with the extraordinary transformation in China.
While he does see China displacing the United States as the world's foremost superpower, he doesn't believe this change will happen in the immediate term. He points to the fact that much of the Chinese population is still living and working in the countryside. But as the nation modernizes, it will increasingly be a contender on the world stage.
Asked if he thinks it would be good for the world to be ruled by China, rather than by the United States, Jacques says in some ways, yes.
"For the last 200 years, essentially the world has been a very undemocratic place. Because a relatively small sliver of humanity, i.e., those that populate the West, have had a hugely disproportionate say in world affairs," says Jacques. "Now the rival of China and India and Brazil and so on ... is transforming the prospects for these people."
This trend, he says, represents "the most remarkable democratization that the world has seen in the last 200 years."
Excerpt: 'When China Rules The World'
by Martin Jacques
Since 1945 the United States has been the world's dominant power. Even during the Cold War its economy was far more advanced than, and more than twice as large as, that of the Soviet Union, while its military capability and technological sophistication were much superior. Following the Second World War, the US was the prime mover in the creation of a range of multinational and global institutions, such as the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and NATO, which were testament to its new-found global power and authority. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 greatly enhanced America's pre-eminent position, eliminating its main adversary and resulting in the territories and countries of the former Soviet bloc opening their markets and turning in many cases to the US for aid and support.
Never before, not even in the heyday of the British Empire, had a nation's power enjoyed such a wide reach. The dollar became the world's preferred currency, with most trade being conducted in it and most reserves held in it. The US dominated all the key global institutions bar the UN, and enjoyed a military presence in every part of the world. Its global position seemed unassailable, and at the turn of the millennium terms like 'hyperpower' and 'unipolarity' were coined to describe what appeared to be a new and unique form of power.
The baton of pre-eminence, before being passed to the United States, had been held by Europe, especially the major European nations like Britain, France and Germany, and previously, to a much lesser extent, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands. From the beginning of Britain's Industrial Revolution in the late eighteenth century until the mid twentieth century, Europe was to shape global history in a most profound manner. The engine of Europe's dynamism was industrialization and its mode of expansion colonial conquest. Even as Europe's position began to decline after the First World War, and precipitously after 1945, the fact that America, the new rising power, was a product of European civilization served as a source of empathy and affinity between the Old World and the New World, giving rise to ties which found expression in the idea of the West while serving to mitigate the effects of latent imperial rivalry between Britain and the United States. For over two centuries the West, first in the form of Europe and subsequently the United States, has dominated the world.
We are now witnessing an historic change which, though still relatively in its infancy, is destined to transform the world. The developed world — which for over a century has meant the West (namely, the United States, Canada, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand) plus Japan — is rapidly being overhauled in terms of economic size by the developing world.
In 2001 the developed countries accounted for just over half the world's GDP, compared with around 60 per cent in 1973. It will be a long time, of course, before even the most advanced of the developing countries acquires the economic and technological sophistication of the developed, but because they collectively account for the overwhelming majority of the world's population and their economic growth rate has been rather greater than that of the developed world, their rise has already resulted in a significant shift in the balance of global economic power. There have been several contemporary illustrations of this realignment. After declining for over two decades, commodity prices began to increase around the turn of the century, driven by buoyant economic growth in the developing world, above all from China, until the onset of a global recession reversed this trend, at least in the short run.
Meanwhile, the stellar economic performance of the East Asian economies, with their resulting huge trade surpluses, has enormously swollen their foreign exchange reserves. A proportion of these have been invested, notably in the case of China and Singapore, in state-controlled sovereign wealth funds whose purpose is to seek profitable investments in other countries, including the West. Commodity-producing countries, notably the oil-rich states in the Middle East, have similarly invested part of their newly expanded income in such funds.
Sovereign wealth funds acquired powerful new leverage as a result of the credit crunch, commanding resources which the major Western financial institutions palpably lacked. The meltdown of some of Wall Street's largest financial institutions in September 2008 underlined the shift in economic power from the West, with some of the fallen giants seeking support from sovereign wealth funds and the US government stepping in to save the mortgage titans Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae partly in order to reassure countries like China, which had invested huge sums of money in them: if they had withdrawn these, it would almost certainly have precipitated a collapse in the value of the dollar. The financial crisis has graphically illustrated the disparity between an East Asia cash-rich from decades of surpluses and a United States cash-poor following many years of deficits.
According to projections by Goldman Sachs, the three largest economies in the world by 2050 will be China, followed by a closely matched America and India some way behind, and then Brazil, Mexico, Russia and Indonesia. Only two European countries feature in the top ten, namely the UK and Germany in ninth and tenth place respectively. Of the present G7, only four appear in the top ten. In similar forecasts, PricewaterhouseCoopers suggest that the Brazilian economy could be larger than Japan's, and that the Russian, Mexican and Indonesian economies could each be bigger than the German, French and UK economies by 2050. If these projections, or something similar, are borne out in practice, then during the next four decades the world will come to look like a very different place indeed.
Excerpted from When China Rules The World by Martin Jacques. Published by The Penguin Press. All rights reserved.
Goldman Sachs projects that China will overtake the United States as the world's largest economy by 2027. British author Martin Jacques, whose new book is called When China Rules the World, believes that Americans are woefully unprepared for this shift.
He joined NPR's Guy Raz to discuss the issue, and he started by reading an excerpt from his new book:
"The mainstream Western attitude has held that, in its fundamentals, the world will be relatively little changed by China's rise. This is based on three key assumptions: that China's challenge will be primarily economic in nature; that China will in due course become a typical Western nation; and that the international system will remain broadly as it now is, with China acquiescing in the status quo and becoming a compliant member of the international community. Each of these assumptions is misconceived. The rise of China will change the world in the most profound ways."
Jacques' perspective is informed by having watched the decline of the British Empire over the course of his life, something he calls a "dislocating and disorientating experience."
"The history of humanity is the rise and fall of countries and civilizations and so on, so nothing is cast in stone," he says. "And the United States has enjoyed actually quite a long period in the sun, ever since certainly 1945."
This shift, he says, has less to do with the United States, and more to do with the extraordinary transformation in China.
While he does see China displacing the United States as the world's foremost superpower, he doesn't believe this change will happen in the immediate term. He points to the fact that much of the Chinese population is still living and working in the countryside. But as the nation modernizes, it will increasingly be a contender on the world stage.
Asked if he thinks it would be good for the world to be ruled by China, rather than by the United States, Jacques says in some ways, yes.
"For the last 200 years, essentially the world has been a very undemocratic place. Because a relatively small sliver of humanity, i.e., those that populate the West, have had a hugely disproportionate say in world affairs," says Jacques. "Now the rival of China and India and Brazil and so on ... is transforming the prospects for these people."
This trend, he says, represents "the most remarkable democratization that the world has seen in the last 200 years."
Excerpt: 'When China Rules The World'
by Martin Jacques
Since 1945 the United States has been the world's dominant power. Even during the Cold War its economy was far more advanced than, and more than twice as large as, that of the Soviet Union, while its military capability and technological sophistication were much superior. Following the Second World War, the US was the prime mover in the creation of a range of multinational and global institutions, such as the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and NATO, which were testament to its new-found global power and authority. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 greatly enhanced America's pre-eminent position, eliminating its main adversary and resulting in the territories and countries of the former Soviet bloc opening their markets and turning in many cases to the US for aid and support.
Never before, not even in the heyday of the British Empire, had a nation's power enjoyed such a wide reach. The dollar became the world's preferred currency, with most trade being conducted in it and most reserves held in it. The US dominated all the key global institutions bar the UN, and enjoyed a military presence in every part of the world. Its global position seemed unassailable, and at the turn of the millennium terms like 'hyperpower' and 'unipolarity' were coined to describe what appeared to be a new and unique form of power.
The baton of pre-eminence, before being passed to the United States, had been held by Europe, especially the major European nations like Britain, France and Germany, and previously, to a much lesser extent, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands. From the beginning of Britain's Industrial Revolution in the late eighteenth century until the mid twentieth century, Europe was to shape global history in a most profound manner. The engine of Europe's dynamism was industrialization and its mode of expansion colonial conquest. Even as Europe's position began to decline after the First World War, and precipitously after 1945, the fact that America, the new rising power, was a product of European civilization served as a source of empathy and affinity between the Old World and the New World, giving rise to ties which found expression in the idea of the West while serving to mitigate the effects of latent imperial rivalry between Britain and the United States. For over two centuries the West, first in the form of Europe and subsequently the United States, has dominated the world.
We are now witnessing an historic change which, though still relatively in its infancy, is destined to transform the world. The developed world — which for over a century has meant the West (namely, the United States, Canada, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand) plus Japan — is rapidly being overhauled in terms of economic size by the developing world.
In 2001 the developed countries accounted for just over half the world's GDP, compared with around 60 per cent in 1973. It will be a long time, of course, before even the most advanced of the developing countries acquires the economic and technological sophistication of the developed, but because they collectively account for the overwhelming majority of the world's population and their economic growth rate has been rather greater than that of the developed world, their rise has already resulted in a significant shift in the balance of global economic power. There have been several contemporary illustrations of this realignment. After declining for over two decades, commodity prices began to increase around the turn of the century, driven by buoyant economic growth in the developing world, above all from China, until the onset of a global recession reversed this trend, at least in the short run.
Meanwhile, the stellar economic performance of the East Asian economies, with their resulting huge trade surpluses, has enormously swollen their foreign exchange reserves. A proportion of these have been invested, notably in the case of China and Singapore, in state-controlled sovereign wealth funds whose purpose is to seek profitable investments in other countries, including the West. Commodity-producing countries, notably the oil-rich states in the Middle East, have similarly invested part of their newly expanded income in such funds.
Sovereign wealth funds acquired powerful new leverage as a result of the credit crunch, commanding resources which the major Western financial institutions palpably lacked. The meltdown of some of Wall Street's largest financial institutions in September 2008 underlined the shift in economic power from the West, with some of the fallen giants seeking support from sovereign wealth funds and the US government stepping in to save the mortgage titans Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae partly in order to reassure countries like China, which had invested huge sums of money in them: if they had withdrawn these, it would almost certainly have precipitated a collapse in the value of the dollar. The financial crisis has graphically illustrated the disparity between an East Asia cash-rich from decades of surpluses and a United States cash-poor following many years of deficits.
According to projections by Goldman Sachs, the three largest economies in the world by 2050 will be China, followed by a closely matched America and India some way behind, and then Brazil, Mexico, Russia and Indonesia. Only two European countries feature in the top ten, namely the UK and Germany in ninth and tenth place respectively. Of the present G7, only four appear in the top ten. In similar forecasts, PricewaterhouseCoopers suggest that the Brazilian economy could be larger than Japan's, and that the Russian, Mexican and Indonesian economies could each be bigger than the German, French and UK economies by 2050. If these projections, or something similar, are borne out in practice, then during the next four decades the world will come to look like a very different place indeed.
Excerpted from When China Rules The World by Martin Jacques. Published by The Penguin Press. All rights reserved.
China’s Role as Lender Alters Obama’s Visit
November 15, 2009
China’s Role as Lender Alters Obama’s Visit
By HELENE COOPER, MICHAEL WINES and DAVID E. SANGER
When President Obama visits China for the first time on Sunday, he will, in many ways, be assuming the role of profligate spender coming to pay his respects to his banker.
That stark fact — China is the largest foreign lender to the United States — has changed the core of the relationship between the United States and the only country with a reasonable chance of challenging its status as the world’s sole superpower.
The result: unlike his immediate predecessors, who publicly pushed and prodded China to follow the Western model and become more open politically and economically, Mr. Obama will be spending less time exhorting Beijing and more time reassuring it.
In a July meeting, Chinese officials asked their American counterparts detailed questions about the health care legislation making its way through Congress. The president’s budget director, Peter R. Orszag, answered most of their questions. But the Chinese were not particularly interested in the public option or universal care for all Americans.
“They wanted to know, in painstaking detail, how the health care plan would affect the deficit,” one participant in the conversation recalled. Chinese officials expect that they will help finance whatever Congress and the White House settle on, mostly through buying Treasury debt, and like any banker, they wanted evidence that the United States had a plan to pay them back.
It is a long way from the days when President George W. Bush hectored China about currency manipulation, or when President Bill Clinton exhorted the Chinese to improve human rights.
Mr. Obama has struck a mollifying note with China. He pointedly singled out the emerging dynamic at play between the United States and China during a wide-ranging speech in Tokyo on Saturday that was meant to outline a new American relationship with Asia.
“The United States does not seek to contain China,” Mr. Obama said. “On the contrary, the rise of a strong, prosperous China can be a source of strength for the community of nations.”
He alluded to human rights but did not get specific. “We will not agree on every issue,” he said, “and the United States will never waver in speaking up for the fundamental values that we hold dear — and that includes respect for the religion and cultures of all people.”
White House officials have been working for months to make sure that Mr. Obama’s three-day visit to Shanghai and Beijing conveys a conciliatory image. For instance, in June, the White House told the Dalai Lama that while Mr. Obama would meet him at some point, he would not do so in October, when the Tibetan spiritual leader visited Washington, because it was too close to Mr. Obama’s visit to China.
Greeting the Dalai Lama, whom China condemns as a separatist, weeks before Mr. Obama’s first presidential trip to the country could alienate Beijing, administration officials said. Every president since George H. W. Bush in 1991 has met the Dalai Lama when he visited Washington, usually in private encounters at the White House, although in 2007 George W. Bush became the first president to welcome him publicly, bestowing the Congressional Gold Medal on him at the Capitol. Mr. Obama met the Dalai Lama as a senator.
Similarly, while he was campaigning for the presidency, Mr. Obama several times accused China of manipulating its currency, an allegation that the current Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, repeated during his confirmation hearings. But in April, the Treasury Department retreated from that criticism, issuing a report that said China was not manipulating its currency to increase its exports.
While American officials said privately that they remained frustrated that China’s currency policies lowered the cost of Chinese goods and made American products more expensive in foreign markets, they said that they were relieved that China was fighting the global recession with an enormous fiscal stimulus program to spur domestic growth, and added that now was not the time to antagonize Beijing.
China is not viewed as a trouble spot for the United States. But this administration, like its predecessor, has had difficulty grappling with a rising power that seems eager to avoid direct clashes with the United States but affects its interests in many areas, including currency policy, nuclear proliferation, climate change and military spending.
In that regard, two members of Mr. Obama’s foreign policy team said that the United States’ interactions with the Chinese had been far too narrow in past years, focusing on counterterrorism and North Korea. Too little was done, they said, to address China’s energy and environmental policies, or its expansion of influence in Southeast Asia, South Asia and Africa, where China has invested heavily and used billions of dollars in aid to advance its political influence.
One hint of the Obama administration’s new approach came in a speech this fall by James B. Steinberg, the deputy secretary of state, who has deep roots in China policy. He argued that China needed to adopt a policy of “strategic reassurance” to the rest of the world, a phrase that appeared intended to be the successor to the framework of the Bush era, when China was urged to embrace a role as a “responsible stakeholder.”
“Strategic reassurance rests on a core, if tacit, bargain,” Mr. Steinberg said. “Just as we and our allies must make clear that we are prepared to welcome China’s ‘arrival,’ ” he argued, the Chinese “must reassure the rest of the world that its development and growing global role will not come at the expense of security and well-being of others.”
The Chinese reaction has been mixed, at best. The official China Daily newspaper ran a column just before Mr. Obama’s arrival suggesting that the United States needed to provide some assurance of its own — to “respect China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” code words for entirely backing away from the issues of how China deals with Taiwan and Tibet.
In the United States, the phrase “strategic reassurance” has been attacked by conservative commentators, who argue that any reassurance that the United States provides to China would be an acknowledgment of a decline in American power.
In an op-ed article in The Washington Post, the analysts Robert Kagan and Dan Blumenthal argued that the policy had echoes of Europe “ceding the Western Hemisphere to American hegemony” a century ago. “Lingering behind this concept is an assumption of America’s inevitable decline,” they wrote. White House officials shot back, insisting that it is China that needs to do the reassurance, not the United States.
In China, Mr. Obama will meet with local political leaders and will host an American-style town hall meeting with students in Shanghai. He will then spend two days in Beijing meeting with President Hu Jintao.
It seems unlikely that Mr. Obama will get the same celebrity-type reception in Beijing that he received in Cairo, Ghana, Paris and London. China seems mostly immune to the Obama fever that swept other parts of the world, and the Chinese are growing more confident that their country has the wherewithal to compete with the United States on the world stage, analysts say.
“Obama is still a positive guy, and all over the world most people think he’s more energetic, more sincere, than Bush, more a reformist,” said Shi Yinhong, a professor and an expert on United States-China relations at People’s University in Beijing. “But in China, Obama’s popularity is less than in Europe, than Japan or Southeast Asia.” In China, he said, “there is no worship of Obama.”
For instance, during the Bush and Clinton years, China might release a few political dissidents on the eve of a visit by the president as a good-will gesture. This time, American officials say, they do not expect any similar gestures, although they say that Mr. Obama will raise human rights issues privately with Mr. Hu.
“This time China will agree to have a human rights dialogue with the U.S. on some cases,” Mr. Shi said, but “the arguments have changed compared to the past. Now we say, ‘We are a different country, we have our own system, our own culture.’ ”
Helene Cooper reported from Singapore, Michael Wines from Beijing, and David E. Sanger from Washington.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
China’s Role as Lender Alters Obama’s Visit
By HELENE COOPER, MICHAEL WINES and DAVID E. SANGER
When President Obama visits China for the first time on Sunday, he will, in many ways, be assuming the role of profligate spender coming to pay his respects to his banker.
That stark fact — China is the largest foreign lender to the United States — has changed the core of the relationship between the United States and the only country with a reasonable chance of challenging its status as the world’s sole superpower.
The result: unlike his immediate predecessors, who publicly pushed and prodded China to follow the Western model and become more open politically and economically, Mr. Obama will be spending less time exhorting Beijing and more time reassuring it.
In a July meeting, Chinese officials asked their American counterparts detailed questions about the health care legislation making its way through Congress. The president’s budget director, Peter R. Orszag, answered most of their questions. But the Chinese were not particularly interested in the public option or universal care for all Americans.
“They wanted to know, in painstaking detail, how the health care plan would affect the deficit,” one participant in the conversation recalled. Chinese officials expect that they will help finance whatever Congress and the White House settle on, mostly through buying Treasury debt, and like any banker, they wanted evidence that the United States had a plan to pay them back.
It is a long way from the days when President George W. Bush hectored China about currency manipulation, or when President Bill Clinton exhorted the Chinese to improve human rights.
Mr. Obama has struck a mollifying note with China. He pointedly singled out the emerging dynamic at play between the United States and China during a wide-ranging speech in Tokyo on Saturday that was meant to outline a new American relationship with Asia.
“The United States does not seek to contain China,” Mr. Obama said. “On the contrary, the rise of a strong, prosperous China can be a source of strength for the community of nations.”
He alluded to human rights but did not get specific. “We will not agree on every issue,” he said, “and the United States will never waver in speaking up for the fundamental values that we hold dear — and that includes respect for the religion and cultures of all people.”
White House officials have been working for months to make sure that Mr. Obama’s three-day visit to Shanghai and Beijing conveys a conciliatory image. For instance, in June, the White House told the Dalai Lama that while Mr. Obama would meet him at some point, he would not do so in October, when the Tibetan spiritual leader visited Washington, because it was too close to Mr. Obama’s visit to China.
Greeting the Dalai Lama, whom China condemns as a separatist, weeks before Mr. Obama’s first presidential trip to the country could alienate Beijing, administration officials said. Every president since George H. W. Bush in 1991 has met the Dalai Lama when he visited Washington, usually in private encounters at the White House, although in 2007 George W. Bush became the first president to welcome him publicly, bestowing the Congressional Gold Medal on him at the Capitol. Mr. Obama met the Dalai Lama as a senator.
Similarly, while he was campaigning for the presidency, Mr. Obama several times accused China of manipulating its currency, an allegation that the current Treasury secretary, Timothy F. Geithner, repeated during his confirmation hearings. But in April, the Treasury Department retreated from that criticism, issuing a report that said China was not manipulating its currency to increase its exports.
While American officials said privately that they remained frustrated that China’s currency policies lowered the cost of Chinese goods and made American products more expensive in foreign markets, they said that they were relieved that China was fighting the global recession with an enormous fiscal stimulus program to spur domestic growth, and added that now was not the time to antagonize Beijing.
China is not viewed as a trouble spot for the United States. But this administration, like its predecessor, has had difficulty grappling with a rising power that seems eager to avoid direct clashes with the United States but affects its interests in many areas, including currency policy, nuclear proliferation, climate change and military spending.
In that regard, two members of Mr. Obama’s foreign policy team said that the United States’ interactions with the Chinese had been far too narrow in past years, focusing on counterterrorism and North Korea. Too little was done, they said, to address China’s energy and environmental policies, or its expansion of influence in Southeast Asia, South Asia and Africa, where China has invested heavily and used billions of dollars in aid to advance its political influence.
One hint of the Obama administration’s new approach came in a speech this fall by James B. Steinberg, the deputy secretary of state, who has deep roots in China policy. He argued that China needed to adopt a policy of “strategic reassurance” to the rest of the world, a phrase that appeared intended to be the successor to the framework of the Bush era, when China was urged to embrace a role as a “responsible stakeholder.”
“Strategic reassurance rests on a core, if tacit, bargain,” Mr. Steinberg said. “Just as we and our allies must make clear that we are prepared to welcome China’s ‘arrival,’ ” he argued, the Chinese “must reassure the rest of the world that its development and growing global role will not come at the expense of security and well-being of others.”
The Chinese reaction has been mixed, at best. The official China Daily newspaper ran a column just before Mr. Obama’s arrival suggesting that the United States needed to provide some assurance of its own — to “respect China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” code words for entirely backing away from the issues of how China deals with Taiwan and Tibet.
In the United States, the phrase “strategic reassurance” has been attacked by conservative commentators, who argue that any reassurance that the United States provides to China would be an acknowledgment of a decline in American power.
In an op-ed article in The Washington Post, the analysts Robert Kagan and Dan Blumenthal argued that the policy had echoes of Europe “ceding the Western Hemisphere to American hegemony” a century ago. “Lingering behind this concept is an assumption of America’s inevitable decline,” they wrote. White House officials shot back, insisting that it is China that needs to do the reassurance, not the United States.
In China, Mr. Obama will meet with local political leaders and will host an American-style town hall meeting with students in Shanghai. He will then spend two days in Beijing meeting with President Hu Jintao.
It seems unlikely that Mr. Obama will get the same celebrity-type reception in Beijing that he received in Cairo, Ghana, Paris and London. China seems mostly immune to the Obama fever that swept other parts of the world, and the Chinese are growing more confident that their country has the wherewithal to compete with the United States on the world stage, analysts say.
“Obama is still a positive guy, and all over the world most people think he’s more energetic, more sincere, than Bush, more a reformist,” said Shi Yinhong, a professor and an expert on United States-China relations at People’s University in Beijing. “But in China, Obama’s popularity is less than in Europe, than Japan or Southeast Asia.” In China, he said, “there is no worship of Obama.”
For instance, during the Bush and Clinton years, China might release a few political dissidents on the eve of a visit by the president as a good-will gesture. This time, American officials say, they do not expect any similar gestures, although they say that Mr. Obama will raise human rights issues privately with Mr. Hu.
“This time China will agree to have a human rights dialogue with the U.S. on some cases,” Mr. Shi said, but “the arguments have changed compared to the past. Now we say, ‘We are a different country, we have our own system, our own culture.’ ”
Helene Cooper reported from Singapore, Michael Wines from Beijing, and David E. Sanger from Washington.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
oneworld Yokoso/Visit Japan Fare
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JAMES R. LILLEY, 81, U.S. ambassador to China served during crackdown at Tiananmen Square
By John Pomfret
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 14, 2009
James R. Lilley, 81, a longtime CIA operative in Asia who served as ambassador to China during the Tiananmen Square crackdown and was regarded as one of the most pragmatic voices on the modern Sino-American relationship, died Nov. 12 at Sibley Memorial Hospital. He had complications related to prostate cancer.
Mr. Lilley, born in China, the son of an oilman and a schoolteacher, had a storied career as an intelligence officer in Asia. Gruff with a no-nonsense manner and a keen eye for detail that peppered his reports from the field, Mr. Lilley was singular in the fractious world of China-watching in that he was respected by both Communist China and Taiwan and across the political spectrum at home. Alone among U.S. officials, Mr. Lilley served as a U.S. ambassador to China and as the top American representative to Taiwan.
"Because he was raised in China, Jim Lilley had the ability to view China as an ordinary country with no romanticism about his views," said J. Stapleton Roy, who succeeded him as ambassador to China in 1991. "On the one hand, he could be very critical of China. On the other hand, he could weigh in when you weren't expecting it with a defense of our relationship with China."
The height of the public portion of Mr. Lilley's career came during the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. Because of a close relationship with then-President George H.W. Bush -- Mr. Lilley had served as the CIA station chief in the U.S. mission in Beijing when Bush was chief of mission during the early 1970s -- his graphic reports about the dramatic events unfolding in Beijing were often sent directly to the president.
Mr. Lilley was a harsh critic of the crackdown. He housed top Chinese dissident Fang Lizhi in the embassy for a year and a month before the Chinese allowed Fang to leave for the United States. But Mr. Lilley also played a critical role in arranging a secret trip by two senior U.S. officials to Beijing after the crackdown to assure China that the United States valued its relationship with Beijing.
James Roderick Lilley was born Jan. 15, 1928, in Qingdao, a resort in Shandong province famed for its German-run brewery and its white sand beaches. He had an idyllic childhood in an international community, with a Chinese nanny who attended to his every need. Mr. Lilley idolized his eldest brother, Frank, whom he would follow to Yale and also into the U.S. Army.
Mr. Lilley was an 18-year-old serving at Fort Dix, N.J., when he learned that Frank had committed suicide in 1946 at a U.S. military base outside Hiroshima, Japan. Mr. Lilley dedicated his 2004 memoir, "China Hands," to his brother who "died young and pure so that we could carry on."
Mr. Lilley joined the CIA in 1951. Three years later, he married Sally Booth. The District resident survives, along with the couple's children, Jeffrey Lilley of Silver Spring, Doug Lilley of the District and Michael Lilley of Rumson, N.J.; a sister; and six grandchildren.
Mr. Lilley started his career, he wrote, "as a foot soldier in America's covert efforts to keep Asia from being dominated by Communist China." He helped insert agents into China, gathered intelligence in Hong Kong and battled against the Communist takeover in Laos. He served as ambassador to South Korea, among other posts.
Mr. Lilley was involved in bureaucratic battles that resonate today. In the early 1980s as chief of the American Institute in Taiwan, the de facto U.S. Embassy there, Mr. Lilley clashed with State Department officials over arms sales to Taiwan. Senior State Department officials wanted to bend to Chinese pressure and agree to a cutoff date; Mr. Lilley thought this was unwise and represented an unnecessary present to Beijing.
In the end, the Reagan administration agreed in a letter to the Chinese government that "there would naturally be a decrease in the need for arms by Taiwan," a clause that has bedeviled U.S. relations with China each time Washington agrees to sell Taiwan another batch of weapons.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, November 14, 2009
James R. Lilley, 81, a longtime CIA operative in Asia who served as ambassador to China during the Tiananmen Square crackdown and was regarded as one of the most pragmatic voices on the modern Sino-American relationship, died Nov. 12 at Sibley Memorial Hospital. He had complications related to prostate cancer.
Mr. Lilley, born in China, the son of an oilman and a schoolteacher, had a storied career as an intelligence officer in Asia. Gruff with a no-nonsense manner and a keen eye for detail that peppered his reports from the field, Mr. Lilley was singular in the fractious world of China-watching in that he was respected by both Communist China and Taiwan and across the political spectrum at home. Alone among U.S. officials, Mr. Lilley served as a U.S. ambassador to China and as the top American representative to Taiwan.
"Because he was raised in China, Jim Lilley had the ability to view China as an ordinary country with no romanticism about his views," said J. Stapleton Roy, who succeeded him as ambassador to China in 1991. "On the one hand, he could be very critical of China. On the other hand, he could weigh in when you weren't expecting it with a defense of our relationship with China."
The height of the public portion of Mr. Lilley's career came during the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. Because of a close relationship with then-President George H.W. Bush -- Mr. Lilley had served as the CIA station chief in the U.S. mission in Beijing when Bush was chief of mission during the early 1970s -- his graphic reports about the dramatic events unfolding in Beijing were often sent directly to the president.
Mr. Lilley was a harsh critic of the crackdown. He housed top Chinese dissident Fang Lizhi in the embassy for a year and a month before the Chinese allowed Fang to leave for the United States. But Mr. Lilley also played a critical role in arranging a secret trip by two senior U.S. officials to Beijing after the crackdown to assure China that the United States valued its relationship with Beijing.
James Roderick Lilley was born Jan. 15, 1928, in Qingdao, a resort in Shandong province famed for its German-run brewery and its white sand beaches. He had an idyllic childhood in an international community, with a Chinese nanny who attended to his every need. Mr. Lilley idolized his eldest brother, Frank, whom he would follow to Yale and also into the U.S. Army.
Mr. Lilley was an 18-year-old serving at Fort Dix, N.J., when he learned that Frank had committed suicide in 1946 at a U.S. military base outside Hiroshima, Japan. Mr. Lilley dedicated his 2004 memoir, "China Hands," to his brother who "died young and pure so that we could carry on."
Mr. Lilley joined the CIA in 1951. Three years later, he married Sally Booth. The District resident survives, along with the couple's children, Jeffrey Lilley of Silver Spring, Doug Lilley of the District and Michael Lilley of Rumson, N.J.; a sister; and six grandchildren.
Mr. Lilley started his career, he wrote, "as a foot soldier in America's covert efforts to keep Asia from being dominated by Communist China." He helped insert agents into China, gathered intelligence in Hong Kong and battled against the Communist takeover in Laos. He served as ambassador to South Korea, among other posts.
Mr. Lilley was involved in bureaucratic battles that resonate today. In the early 1980s as chief of the American Institute in Taiwan, the de facto U.S. Embassy there, Mr. Lilley clashed with State Department officials over arms sales to Taiwan. Senior State Department officials wanted to bend to Chinese pressure and agree to a cutoff date; Mr. Lilley thought this was unwise and represented an unnecessary present to Beijing.
In the end, the Reagan administration agreed in a letter to the Chinese government that "there would naturally be a decrease in the need for arms by Taiwan," a clause that has bedeviled U.S. relations with China each time Washington agrees to sell Taiwan another batch of weapons.
China, Russia presidents hail relations
By by (AFP) – 1 day ago
SINGAPORE — The presidents of historically mistrustful neighbours China and Russia Saturday hailed the strength of Sino-Russian ties as they met on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific summit in Singapore.
"Your visit to Russia this summer was a big success, we managed to discuss all issues," Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao, referring to Hu's trip to Moscow in June.
Hu said that every meeting between the two heads of state "is very positive, plays an important role for Russia-Chinese relations, for our cooperation."
A statement released by China's foreign ministry after the meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum quoted Hu calling for even closer ties.
Hu told Medvedev the two sides should "increase cooperation and coordination on important international and regional issues" and "make all efforts toward pragmatic cooperation," the statement said.
Hu singled out the two sides' growing energy ties, urging further "cooperation in natural gas, nuclear power and other major spheres on a basis of mutual benefit and win-win outcomes." The statement gave no details.
Russia is seeking new buyers of its vast energy reserves as traditional European consumers have been looking to reduce their dependence on Russian gas, while China seeks new energy resources to fuel its growing economy.
The two nations signed a major agreement in October that would see about 70 billion cubic metres of natural gas sent to China each year.
The talks between the two leaders comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to put behind them the rivalries of the Cold War, a period when the two main Communist powers eyed each other with suspicion.
They have ended a decades-long dispute over their 4,300-kilometre (2,700-mile) border and have played up the importance of trade between Russia's Far East region and northwestern China.
But bilateral trade has taken a major hit amid the economic crisis with Russian-Chinese trade turnover plunging almost 35 percent in the first nine months of 2009 from the year earlier, Russian officials have said.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.
SINGAPORE — The presidents of historically mistrustful neighbours China and Russia Saturday hailed the strength of Sino-Russian ties as they met on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific summit in Singapore.
"Your visit to Russia this summer was a big success, we managed to discuss all issues," Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao, referring to Hu's trip to Moscow in June.
Hu said that every meeting between the two heads of state "is very positive, plays an important role for Russia-Chinese relations, for our cooperation."
A statement released by China's foreign ministry after the meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum quoted Hu calling for even closer ties.
Hu told Medvedev the two sides should "increase cooperation and coordination on important international and regional issues" and "make all efforts toward pragmatic cooperation," the statement said.
Hu singled out the two sides' growing energy ties, urging further "cooperation in natural gas, nuclear power and other major spheres on a basis of mutual benefit and win-win outcomes." The statement gave no details.
Russia is seeking new buyers of its vast energy reserves as traditional European consumers have been looking to reduce their dependence on Russian gas, while China seeks new energy resources to fuel its growing economy.
The two nations signed a major agreement in October that would see about 70 billion cubic metres of natural gas sent to China each year.
The talks between the two leaders comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to put behind them the rivalries of the Cold War, a period when the two main Communist powers eyed each other with suspicion.
They have ended a decades-long dispute over their 4,300-kilometre (2,700-mile) border and have played up the importance of trade between Russia's Far East region and northwestern China.
But bilateral trade has taken a major hit amid the economic crisis with Russian-Chinese trade turnover plunging almost 35 percent in the first nine months of 2009 from the year earlier, Russian officials have said.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.
Obama's 'strong message' in Tokyo speech on North Korean abductions pleases families
TOKYO
McClatchey-Tribune
President Barack Obama earned plaudits from the families of Japanese abducted by North Korean agents for sending "a strong message" on the abduction issue during his speech in Tokyo on Saturday.
"(North Korea's) full normalization with its neighbors can only come if Japanese families receive a full accounting of those who have been abducted," Obama said during his 30-minute speech on Asian diplomacy.
Relatives of the abductees, including Shigeru Yokota, whose daughter was taken by North Korean agents in 1977, took heart from Obama's comments.
"I believe his speech sent a clear message to North Korea," said Yokota, 77.
"His message (on the abduction issue) was strong and firm," Yokota's wife, Sakie, 73, said.
The Yokotas and Shigeo Iizuka, chairman of the Association of the Families of Victims Kidnapped by North Korea, were seated near the front of the venue. When Obama mentioned the abductees' families, Sakie nodded several times with tears in her eyes.
The three had been hoping to meet privately with Obama, but were unable to do so. Nevertheless, Sakie was full of praise for Obama's speech.
"I could sense (Obama's) sincerity toward human rights and love, along with the abduction issue. I hope the Japanese government will stand with Mr. Obama and work to resolve the issue," Sakie said.
Iizuka had hoped to meet with Obama during his trip to the United States in April, but was not able to do so. He was mostly pleased with what he heard.
"I could see (Obama) brims with confidence. He spoke directly and with clarity," said Iizuka, 71.
"I thought he should've spent more time talking about the abduction issue. However, he said he'll stand firm against North Korea," Iizuka added. "I was relieved to hear that."
Obama arrived a few minutes late shortly after 10 a.m. at Suntory Hall in Minato Ward. About 1,800 attendees welcomed Obama with a standing ovation as the president stood smiling behind the podium.
Obama warmed up the audience further by saying, "Arigato."
Some members of the audience were busy taking photos of Obama, while others took notes.
Meanwhile, Obama stressed the United States and Japan must work together to bring about a world free of nuclear weapons.
Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue said he was "deeply impressed" by Obama's speech.
"I listened as a representative of the cities struck by the atomic bombs," Taue said. "I believe (Obama) will visit the bombed cities in the near future. I sincerely hope he'll meet with survivors of the atomic attacks."
McClatchey-Tribune
President Barack Obama earned plaudits from the families of Japanese abducted by North Korean agents for sending "a strong message" on the abduction issue during his speech in Tokyo on Saturday.
"(North Korea's) full normalization with its neighbors can only come if Japanese families receive a full accounting of those who have been abducted," Obama said during his 30-minute speech on Asian diplomacy.
Relatives of the abductees, including Shigeru Yokota, whose daughter was taken by North Korean agents in 1977, took heart from Obama's comments.
"I believe his speech sent a clear message to North Korea," said Yokota, 77.
"His message (on the abduction issue) was strong and firm," Yokota's wife, Sakie, 73, said.
The Yokotas and Shigeo Iizuka, chairman of the Association of the Families of Victims Kidnapped by North Korea, were seated near the front of the venue. When Obama mentioned the abductees' families, Sakie nodded several times with tears in her eyes.
The three had been hoping to meet privately with Obama, but were unable to do so. Nevertheless, Sakie was full of praise for Obama's speech.
"I could sense (Obama's) sincerity toward human rights and love, along with the abduction issue. I hope the Japanese government will stand with Mr. Obama and work to resolve the issue," Sakie said.
Iizuka had hoped to meet with Obama during his trip to the United States in April, but was not able to do so. He was mostly pleased with what he heard.
"I could see (Obama) brims with confidence. He spoke directly and with clarity," said Iizuka, 71.
"I thought he should've spent more time talking about the abduction issue. However, he said he'll stand firm against North Korea," Iizuka added. "I was relieved to hear that."
Obama arrived a few minutes late shortly after 10 a.m. at Suntory Hall in Minato Ward. About 1,800 attendees welcomed Obama with a standing ovation as the president stood smiling behind the podium.
Obama warmed up the audience further by saying, "Arigato."
Some members of the audience were busy taking photos of Obama, while others took notes.
Meanwhile, Obama stressed the United States and Japan must work together to bring about a world free of nuclear weapons.
Nagasaki Mayor Tomihisa Taue said he was "deeply impressed" by Obama's speech.
"I listened as a representative of the cities struck by the atomic bombs," Taue said. "I believe (Obama) will visit the bombed cities in the near future. I sincerely hope he'll meet with survivors of the atomic attacks."
In binge-tolerant Japan, alcoholism not seen as disease
Sun Nov 15, 2009 11:20pm EST
By Yoko Kubota
TOKYO (Reuters Life!) - When Japanese civil servant Yoshiyuki Takeuchi saw himself lagging behind his peers at work, alcohol was the only thing he felt he could turn to, becoming the latest victim of an addiction poorly understood in Japan.
"People who started after me would go further in their careers just because they finished college," said Takeuchi, 50, who had to quit university as his family couldn't afford it.
"I tried to stop that sense of 'why always me?' by drinking."
As liquor consumption grew sixfold over the last 50 years in Japan to match its economic affluence, alcoholism became a growing but poorly grasped problem.
Alcoholic beverages are readily available at convenience stores and vending machines, liquor ads are often on evening television and building work ties by going drinking is common.
Katsuya Maruyama of Kurihama Alcoholism Center, a leading hospital for treating alcohol dependency, said Japan is too tolerant when it comes to drinking too much, which makes it hard for both society and alcoholics to realize they have a problem.
"There is no proper teaching on how alcohol can be dangerous, so no one knows alcoholism as a disease," he said.
That was how Takeuchi felt when he returned to work after six months in the hospital. Demoted and ignored by nearly everyone for a year, he said: "There was no understanding."
The economic loss from drinking problems tops 6.6 trillion yen ($73 billion) a year, data from Tokyo Medical and Dental University showed.
Some 800,000 people, or 0.6 percent of the population, are estimated to be alcoholics, a separate medical study found. While the rate is smaller than that of the United States or Europe, it is rising as more women and elderly become alcoholics.
"The problem is that dealing with alcohol has not been systematized in Japan," Maruyama said.
HIGH PROFILE
Some experts say recent high-profile cases could help raise recognition that alcoholism is a serious illness.
The death in October of 56-year-old Shoichi Nakagawa, an ex-finance minister who quit after being forced to deny he was drunk at a G7 news conference in February, dominated the media.
Some reports said he may have mixed alcohol with sleeping pills, and doctors have said he likely suffered from alcoholism.
Prince Tomohito, the 63-year-year old cousin of the emperor, told the country in 2007 that he was an alcoholic.
"Alcoholics were seen as people with personality problems," said Tetsutaro Tatsuki of self-help group All Nippon Abstinence Association.
"They were proof that it is not an illness just for a handful of people, but that anyone could become alcoholic."
Some experts said Nakagawa's death was a lost opportunity to show that recovering from alcoholism is possible.
"This is a society that is indulgent on alcohol, but it is also a society in which once someone fails, then that person ... is excluded," said Tomomi Imanari of National Citizens' Association on Alcohol and Drug Problems, a non-profit group.
Prevention and intervention are the weak points, and even medical professionals often do not understand that merely fixing physical ailments caused by alcoholism will not stop them from drinking, experts say.
Many also seek support in self-help groups.
On a recent Saturday evening, 87 people gathered at a meeting of the All Nippon Abstinence Association's Tokyo branch, taking turns stating their names and sharing their past. Members are also encouraged to share the dangers of alcohol.
"If I can do things for others and not drink for myself, life would be richer," said civil servant Takeuchi, sober for 10 years. "I don't want to live like a slave to alcohol anymore."
(Editing by Miral Fahmy)
© Thomson Reuters 2009. All rights reserved.
By Yoko Kubota
TOKYO (Reuters Life!) - When Japanese civil servant Yoshiyuki Takeuchi saw himself lagging behind his peers at work, alcohol was the only thing he felt he could turn to, becoming the latest victim of an addiction poorly understood in Japan.
"People who started after me would go further in their careers just because they finished college," said Takeuchi, 50, who had to quit university as his family couldn't afford it.
"I tried to stop that sense of 'why always me?' by drinking."
As liquor consumption grew sixfold over the last 50 years in Japan to match its economic affluence, alcoholism became a growing but poorly grasped problem.
Alcoholic beverages are readily available at convenience stores and vending machines, liquor ads are often on evening television and building work ties by going drinking is common.
Katsuya Maruyama of Kurihama Alcoholism Center, a leading hospital for treating alcohol dependency, said Japan is too tolerant when it comes to drinking too much, which makes it hard for both society and alcoholics to realize they have a problem.
"There is no proper teaching on how alcohol can be dangerous, so no one knows alcoholism as a disease," he said.
That was how Takeuchi felt when he returned to work after six months in the hospital. Demoted and ignored by nearly everyone for a year, he said: "There was no understanding."
The economic loss from drinking problems tops 6.6 trillion yen ($73 billion) a year, data from Tokyo Medical and Dental University showed.
Some 800,000 people, or 0.6 percent of the population, are estimated to be alcoholics, a separate medical study found. While the rate is smaller than that of the United States or Europe, it is rising as more women and elderly become alcoholics.
"The problem is that dealing with alcohol has not been systematized in Japan," Maruyama said.
HIGH PROFILE
Some experts say recent high-profile cases could help raise recognition that alcoholism is a serious illness.
The death in October of 56-year-old Shoichi Nakagawa, an ex-finance minister who quit after being forced to deny he was drunk at a G7 news conference in February, dominated the media.
Some reports said he may have mixed alcohol with sleeping pills, and doctors have said he likely suffered from alcoholism.
Prince Tomohito, the 63-year-year old cousin of the emperor, told the country in 2007 that he was an alcoholic.
"Alcoholics were seen as people with personality problems," said Tetsutaro Tatsuki of self-help group All Nippon Abstinence Association.
"They were proof that it is not an illness just for a handful of people, but that anyone could become alcoholic."
Some experts said Nakagawa's death was a lost opportunity to show that recovering from alcoholism is possible.
"This is a society that is indulgent on alcohol, but it is also a society in which once someone fails, then that person ... is excluded," said Tomomi Imanari of National Citizens' Association on Alcohol and Drug Problems, a non-profit group.
Prevention and intervention are the weak points, and even medical professionals often do not understand that merely fixing physical ailments caused by alcoholism will not stop them from drinking, experts say.
Many also seek support in self-help groups.
On a recent Saturday evening, 87 people gathered at a meeting of the All Nippon Abstinence Association's Tokyo branch, taking turns stating their names and sharing their past. Members are also encouraged to share the dangers of alcohol.
"If I can do things for others and not drink for myself, life would be richer," said civil servant Takeuchi, sober for 10 years. "I don't want to live like a slave to alcohol anymore."
(Editing by Miral Fahmy)
© Thomson Reuters 2009. All rights reserved.
Chinese-Americans see Obama's trip in unique light
Chinese-Americans see Obama's trip in unique light
By JESSE WASHINGTON (AP) – 10 hours ago
As President Barack Obama visits China seeking to balance a seesawing relationship, Chinese-Americans embody the challenges facing the giants of East and West.
They have as many different feelings about their ancestral home — hope, indifference, pride, pain — as there are characters in the Chinese language. Yet many share a conviction that is both logical and personal: The destinies of China and America are inseparable.
"Each one is dependent on the other to make their economy strong," said David Zhang, a New York City physician who immigrated to America at age 25. "The U.S. cannot leave China, and China cannot leave the U.S. It's symbiotic, like an organism."
The Great Recession has bound the two nations even tighter, and given China greater influence. America borrowed unprecedented sums to resuscitate itself. China, which needs American consumers to fuel its growth, supplied much of that cash and is America's largest foreign lender.
"It's like that little brother you always used to pick on, and now he's lending you money," said Nanci Zhang (no relation to David), a 22-year-old Los Angeles resident. "But you can't quite conceive of one brother without the other."
Nanci Zhang was born in Beijing and moved with her parents to the United States when she was 3. In her American schools, she remembers China's long history being celebrated while its present was ignored. Now she sees her homeland coming to America's economic rescue, and "it's kind of validating."
About three million U.S. residents are of Chinese descent, according to a 2008 Census estimate. About a third were born here, a third are naturalized citizens, and a third have arrived in the past few years, said Cheng Li, a China scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.
David Zhang came to America in 1985 looking for freedom and opportunity. "What I dream of here I couldn't even dream of in China: cars, a house, a good, decent job. I could dream that here, and I realized it. Now in China, all these things we accomplished, they have accomplished."
Zhang, a pathologist at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan and president of the Association of Chinese American Physicians, leads regular delegations of American doctors to his homeland. He collaborates with China on cancer research and clinical trials and is urging his hospital to enter the Chinese health care market.
"As Chinese physicians, we meet with the (Mount Sinai) board of trustees regularly. Ten years ago you don't even dare speak to them," he said.
Yet many Chinese-Americans fear that China's rise could create a backlash. They still have painful memories of Vincent Chin, the Chinese-American beaten to death in 1982 by two unemployed Detroit autoworkers as Japanese cars were beginning to decimate the American auto industry.
"That kind of hate crime, senseless hate crimes, would happen if the countries' relations are not very good. So on a personal level, Chinese-Americans are always very anxious," said Min Zhou, a sociology professor at UCLA and author of "Contemporary Chinese America." "
As China's economy has grown, she said, "sometimes I would hear people say, even jokingly, 'Oh, you're taking our jobs away.' When I hear this, I feel, 'Who am I? I'm American.'"
Chinese-Americans also are acutely aware of China's problems, such as pervasive pollution, widespread rural poverty and repression by the Communist government.
"I don't feel like China is stable. It has so many problems, I feel like it's ready to explode at any time," said Amy Yuan Zhou, no relation to the professor, a 23-year-old UCLA postgraduate student who moved to America when she was 4.
Those problems have been a longtime source of tension with America, especially with U.S. criticism of China's record on human rights and Chinese retorts about American hypocrisy due to its racial problems.
Now America's first black president is forging a new image of inclusion, which could exert a subtle pressure on China to do the same.
"An African-American president, that itself speaks loud," said Li, the Brookings scholar. He said a Chinese minister of foreign affairs was asked at a recent press conference if he could imagine a minority as president of China, but did not answer.
Li hoped that Obama's trip could mark a turning point, from American finger-pointing to a more respectful and cooperative exchange: "The 21st-century world requires a constructive relationship."
Another turning point for some was the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. "The distance between us seemed to shrink," said UCLA professor Zhou. "That's pretty profound for me."
"My parents liked seeing Chinese people succeed on a wider stage, especially in athletics," said Nanci Zhang, the Los Angeles resident. "You and I both know what the Chinese are known for, things like physics and chemistry."
So which country did she cheer for?
"The better one," she laughed, without elaborating.
Perhaps she couldn't. America took home the most medals: 110, including 36 golds. China was next with 100 medals — including a leading 51 golds.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Jesse Washington covers race and ethnicity for The Associated Press
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
By JESSE WASHINGTON (AP) – 10 hours ago
As President Barack Obama visits China seeking to balance a seesawing relationship, Chinese-Americans embody the challenges facing the giants of East and West.
They have as many different feelings about their ancestral home — hope, indifference, pride, pain — as there are characters in the Chinese language. Yet many share a conviction that is both logical and personal: The destinies of China and America are inseparable.
"Each one is dependent on the other to make their economy strong," said David Zhang, a New York City physician who immigrated to America at age 25. "The U.S. cannot leave China, and China cannot leave the U.S. It's symbiotic, like an organism."
The Great Recession has bound the two nations even tighter, and given China greater influence. America borrowed unprecedented sums to resuscitate itself. China, which needs American consumers to fuel its growth, supplied much of that cash and is America's largest foreign lender.
"It's like that little brother you always used to pick on, and now he's lending you money," said Nanci Zhang (no relation to David), a 22-year-old Los Angeles resident. "But you can't quite conceive of one brother without the other."
Nanci Zhang was born in Beijing and moved with her parents to the United States when she was 3. In her American schools, she remembers China's long history being celebrated while its present was ignored. Now she sees her homeland coming to America's economic rescue, and "it's kind of validating."
About three million U.S. residents are of Chinese descent, according to a 2008 Census estimate. About a third were born here, a third are naturalized citizens, and a third have arrived in the past few years, said Cheng Li, a China scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.
David Zhang came to America in 1985 looking for freedom and opportunity. "What I dream of here I couldn't even dream of in China: cars, a house, a good, decent job. I could dream that here, and I realized it. Now in China, all these things we accomplished, they have accomplished."
Zhang, a pathologist at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan and president of the Association of Chinese American Physicians, leads regular delegations of American doctors to his homeland. He collaborates with China on cancer research and clinical trials and is urging his hospital to enter the Chinese health care market.
"As Chinese physicians, we meet with the (Mount Sinai) board of trustees regularly. Ten years ago you don't even dare speak to them," he said.
Yet many Chinese-Americans fear that China's rise could create a backlash. They still have painful memories of Vincent Chin, the Chinese-American beaten to death in 1982 by two unemployed Detroit autoworkers as Japanese cars were beginning to decimate the American auto industry.
"That kind of hate crime, senseless hate crimes, would happen if the countries' relations are not very good. So on a personal level, Chinese-Americans are always very anxious," said Min Zhou, a sociology professor at UCLA and author of "Contemporary Chinese America." "
As China's economy has grown, she said, "sometimes I would hear people say, even jokingly, 'Oh, you're taking our jobs away.' When I hear this, I feel, 'Who am I? I'm American.'"
Chinese-Americans also are acutely aware of China's problems, such as pervasive pollution, widespread rural poverty and repression by the Communist government.
"I don't feel like China is stable. It has so many problems, I feel like it's ready to explode at any time," said Amy Yuan Zhou, no relation to the professor, a 23-year-old UCLA postgraduate student who moved to America when she was 4.
Those problems have been a longtime source of tension with America, especially with U.S. criticism of China's record on human rights and Chinese retorts about American hypocrisy due to its racial problems.
Now America's first black president is forging a new image of inclusion, which could exert a subtle pressure on China to do the same.
"An African-American president, that itself speaks loud," said Li, the Brookings scholar. He said a Chinese minister of foreign affairs was asked at a recent press conference if he could imagine a minority as president of China, but did not answer.
Li hoped that Obama's trip could mark a turning point, from American finger-pointing to a more respectful and cooperative exchange: "The 21st-century world requires a constructive relationship."
Another turning point for some was the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. "The distance between us seemed to shrink," said UCLA professor Zhou. "That's pretty profound for me."
"My parents liked seeing Chinese people succeed on a wider stage, especially in athletics," said Nanci Zhang, the Los Angeles resident. "You and I both know what the Chinese are known for, things like physics and chemistry."
So which country did she cheer for?
"The better one," she laughed, without elaborating.
Perhaps she couldn't. America took home the most medals: 110, including 36 golds. China was next with 100 medals — including a leading 51 golds.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Jesse Washington covers race and ethnicity for The Associated Press
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
US Secretary of State Praises China Relationship
By Michael Bowman
Washington
15 November 2009
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says America's relationship with China is positive and cooperative, and can be made even more productive. Clinton spoke as President Barack Obama began his first official trip to China.
President Obama's trip comes at a time when China holds massive amounts of U.S. national debt and Washington and Beijing are attempting to work together on thorny issues ranging from climate change to nuclear proliferation.
Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press" program, Secretary of State Clinton said the United States and China have common interests that extend far beyond trade and financial matters. "The Chinese have stood with us in the sanctions against North Korea. The Chinese are part of the P5-plus-1 [multinational] effort to try to engage Iran on its nuclear program. We are seeing signs of a cooperative relationship," she said.
Clinton added that the United States must reign in deficit spending so that it relies less on China to finance is ballooning national debt.
President Obama is in Shanghai, where he is to meet city leaders and university students later Monday. He then travels to Beijing for talks with Chinese leaders that will continue through Wednesday.
President Obama's Asia-Pacific tour comes as his administration continues to weigh its options on the future of America's engagement in Afghanistan. Secretary Clinton says the overriding concern regarding Afghanistan is U.S. national security.
In another U.S. television interview [on ABC], she said Afghan President Hamid Karzai must do more to crack down on corruption if he wants continued civilian aid from Washington. She said she wants Afghan ministries to be held accountable for their use of funds provided by the United States.
Washington
15 November 2009
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says America's relationship with China is positive and cooperative, and can be made even more productive. Clinton spoke as President Barack Obama began his first official trip to China.
President Obama's trip comes at a time when China holds massive amounts of U.S. national debt and Washington and Beijing are attempting to work together on thorny issues ranging from climate change to nuclear proliferation.
Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press" program, Secretary of State Clinton said the United States and China have common interests that extend far beyond trade and financial matters. "The Chinese have stood with us in the sanctions against North Korea. The Chinese are part of the P5-plus-1 [multinational] effort to try to engage Iran on its nuclear program. We are seeing signs of a cooperative relationship," she said.
Clinton added that the United States must reign in deficit spending so that it relies less on China to finance is ballooning national debt.
President Obama is in Shanghai, where he is to meet city leaders and university students later Monday. He then travels to Beijing for talks with Chinese leaders that will continue through Wednesday.
President Obama's Asia-Pacific tour comes as his administration continues to weigh its options on the future of America's engagement in Afghanistan. Secretary Clinton says the overriding concern regarding Afghanistan is U.S. national security.
In another U.S. television interview [on ABC], she said Afghan President Hamid Karzai must do more to crack down on corruption if he wants continued civilian aid from Washington. She said she wants Afghan ministries to be held accountable for their use of funds provided by the United States.
Concerns Rise Around Obama Trip
NOVEMBER 16, 2009.
Concerns Rise Around Obama Trip
By JONATHAN WEISMAN
SHANGHAI -- President Barack Obama arrived here late Sunday to press China on issues from climate change to economic restructuring, amid rising concerns that his first swing through Asia as president will yield more disappointment than progress on trade, human rights, national security and environmental concerns.
A flurry of actions in Singapore this weekend raised more questions than they resolved on a broad sweep of issues confronting both sides of the Pacific. On Sunday, leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum dropped efforts to reach a binding international climate-change agreement in Copenhagen next month, settling instead for what they called a political framework for future negotiations.
Mr. Obama became the first president to meet with the entire Association of Southeast Asian Nations, including the military junta of Myanmar, and White House officials say he personally demanded the country's leaders release political prisoners, including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. But Mr. Obama failed to secure any mention of political prisoners in an ASEAN communiqué.
The U.S. and Russia now appear unlikely to complete a nuclear arms reduction accord by Dec. 5, when the current Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty expires. Mr. Obama met for closed-door consultations with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, but National Security Council Russia specialist Michael McFaul said major issues remain, and the two countries are working out a "bridging agreement" to extend previous arms-ratification rules.
On trade, the U.S. president committed this weekend to re-engage the Trans Pacific Partnership, a fledgling free trade alliance in the region. But a presidential shift in tone toward more trade engagement will face its real test Thursday when Mr. Obama visits South Korea to discuss a free trade agreement with that country that remains stuck.
More on APECAgreement on Currencies Evades APEC Heads U.S. Signals Shift on Asia Trade China Real Time: White House Strive for Uncensored Event Obama in ChinaChina Real Time: Questions for Obama China Real Time: Rights Groups Flood Obama With Advice Read more from China Real Time Report.
.
And on Iran, Messers. Obama and Medvedev were left to warn leaders of the Islamic Republic once again that "time is running out." Iran has yet to agree to a Russian offer to provide nuclear material for research in exchange for the closure of a nuclear reactor that western powers say could be used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.
Half way through his Asian tour, Mr. Obama is confronting the limits of engagement and personal charm.
International efforts to combat climate change took a significant blow when the leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum conceded a binding international treaty won't be reached when the United Nations convenes in Copenhagen in three weeks. Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen flew to Singapore Saturday night to deliver a new, down-sized proposal to lock world leaders into further talks.
"Even if we may not hammer out the last dot's of a legally binding instrument, I do believe a political binding agreement with specific commitment to mitigation and finance provides a strong basis for immediate action in the years to come," Mr. Rasmussen told APEC leaders at a hastily convened meeting organized by Mexican President Felipe Calderón and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd Sunday morning.
The election of Mr. Obama, a believer in strict limits on greenhouse gas emissions, had raised hopes among environmentalists that Copenhagen would produce a tough, binding treaty to follow the Kyoto Accords of 1997. The landslide victory of Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan brought to power a new government pledging deeper emissions cuts than its predecessor. And Chinese President Hu Jintao proposed in September to adopt what he called "carbon intensity targets," the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere per unit of economic output. Emissions from surging economics like China's would continue to rise but at a slower rate.
But political opposition in the U.S. Congress over Mr. Obama's climate-change proposals and continuing resistance among developing countries to binding emission reduction targets slowed consensus ahead of the Copenhagen summit.
Mr. Rasmussen laid out in some detail his goals for the Copenhagen summit. He said leaders should produce a five- to eight-page text with "precise language" committing developed countries to reductions of emissions thought to be warming the planet, with provisions on adapting to warmer temperatures, financing adaptation and combating climate change in poor countries, and technological development and diffusion. It would include pledges of immediate financing for early action.
"We are not aiming to let anyone off the hook," Mr. Rasmussen told the leaders. "We are trying to create a framework that will allow everybody to commit."
But the leaders didn't say when a final summit would be convened to ratify a real treaty.
"There are two choices that we face, given where things are. One was to have a political declaration to say 'We tried. We didn't achieve an agreement and we'll keep on trying.' and the other was to see if we could reach accord as the Danish prime minister laid out," said Michael Froman, White House deputy national security adviser for international economics..
Mr. Obama, in a speech Sunday, took his appeal for a new world economic order to the leaders of Asia that must help make it happen. He said the United States would strive to consume less, save more and restructure its economy around trade and exports. But he appealed to Asian nations to make their own economies more dependent on domestic consumption that U.S. profligacy.
White House officials say a similar message will be delivered in Shanghai and Beijing, but it is unclear how hard the U.S. president can press Beijing to allow the Chinese yuan to appreciate. At the APEC summit, leaders "until the last moment" tried to secure a commitment to stabilize foreign-exchange markers, according to a top adviser to an APEC head of state. But disagreements between the U.S. and Chinese delegations kept any commitment on currency out of the APEC final statement.
A more valuable yuan would empower Chinese consumers to buy, while making Chinese exports less attractive to U.S. consumers. But Washington cannot afford to anger China, which it needs to float a U.S. budget deficit that reached $176.4 billion in October alone, a monthly record.
Indeed, the Asia trip is exposing the limits of Mr. Obama's policy of engagement. The U.S. president met with ASEAN, declaring that efforts to marginalize the government of Myanmar had failed. Human rights groups had hoped a communiqué out of the meeting would call for the release of Ms. Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest. Instead, it made a cryptic reference to a previous ASEAN foreign ministers communiqué that called for her release. Sunday's statement did say that 2010 elections in Myanmar must be "free, fair, inclusive and transparent."
The failure to single out Ms. Suu Kyi was "another blow" to dissidents who want more pressure on the Myanmar junta, said Soe Aung, a spokesman for the Forum for Democracy in Burma, a Thailand-based organization. "We keep saying again and again that the U.S. should not send a mixed signal to the regime."
A White House official said the president never expected the leaders of Myanmar to accept any mention of the Nobel Laureate opposition leader but did press for a mention of political prisoners.
U.S. officials had taken pains to reduce expectations for the meeting, which was part of a new initiative by the Obama administration to improve its ties with Southeast Asia and increase interaction with the Myanmar government. The U.S. imposes stiff sanctions on the country, also known as Burma. But many analysts view those sanctions as a failure as Myanmar has expanded trade with China and other Asian nations, and U.S. officials now believe they might have more influence over the country's leaders if they talk with them more regularly.
Myanmar's military has controlled the country since 1962, and is accused of widespread human rights violations while overseeing an economy that remains one of the least-developed in Asia. The country's profile has risen over the last year, however, amid reports of growing ties with North Korea. The regime plans to hold elections next year, the first since 1990, in a bid to boost its international reputation. But the U.S. and others contend the results cannot be fair unless Ms. Suu Kyi and her supporters – who won the last vote – are allowed to participate.
—Costas Paris contributed to this article.
Write to Jonathan Weisman at jonathan.weisman@wsj.com
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A10
Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Concerns Rise Around Obama Trip
By JONATHAN WEISMAN
SHANGHAI -- President Barack Obama arrived here late Sunday to press China on issues from climate change to economic restructuring, amid rising concerns that his first swing through Asia as president will yield more disappointment than progress on trade, human rights, national security and environmental concerns.
A flurry of actions in Singapore this weekend raised more questions than they resolved on a broad sweep of issues confronting both sides of the Pacific. On Sunday, leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum dropped efforts to reach a binding international climate-change agreement in Copenhagen next month, settling instead for what they called a political framework for future negotiations.
Mr. Obama became the first president to meet with the entire Association of Southeast Asian Nations, including the military junta of Myanmar, and White House officials say he personally demanded the country's leaders release political prisoners, including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. But Mr. Obama failed to secure any mention of political prisoners in an ASEAN communiqué.
The U.S. and Russia now appear unlikely to complete a nuclear arms reduction accord by Dec. 5, when the current Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty expires. Mr. Obama met for closed-door consultations with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, but National Security Council Russia specialist Michael McFaul said major issues remain, and the two countries are working out a "bridging agreement" to extend previous arms-ratification rules.
On trade, the U.S. president committed this weekend to re-engage the Trans Pacific Partnership, a fledgling free trade alliance in the region. But a presidential shift in tone toward more trade engagement will face its real test Thursday when Mr. Obama visits South Korea to discuss a free trade agreement with that country that remains stuck.
More on APECAgreement on Currencies Evades APEC Heads U.S. Signals Shift on Asia Trade China Real Time: White House Strive for Uncensored Event Obama in ChinaChina Real Time: Questions for Obama China Real Time: Rights Groups Flood Obama With Advice Read more from China Real Time Report.
.
And on Iran, Messers. Obama and Medvedev were left to warn leaders of the Islamic Republic once again that "time is running out." Iran has yet to agree to a Russian offer to provide nuclear material for research in exchange for the closure of a nuclear reactor that western powers say could be used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.
Half way through his Asian tour, Mr. Obama is confronting the limits of engagement and personal charm.
International efforts to combat climate change took a significant blow when the leaders of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum conceded a binding international treaty won't be reached when the United Nations convenes in Copenhagen in three weeks. Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen flew to Singapore Saturday night to deliver a new, down-sized proposal to lock world leaders into further talks.
"Even if we may not hammer out the last dot's of a legally binding instrument, I do believe a political binding agreement with specific commitment to mitigation and finance provides a strong basis for immediate action in the years to come," Mr. Rasmussen told APEC leaders at a hastily convened meeting organized by Mexican President Felipe Calderón and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd Sunday morning.
The election of Mr. Obama, a believer in strict limits on greenhouse gas emissions, had raised hopes among environmentalists that Copenhagen would produce a tough, binding treaty to follow the Kyoto Accords of 1997. The landslide victory of Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama's Democratic Party of Japan brought to power a new government pledging deeper emissions cuts than its predecessor. And Chinese President Hu Jintao proposed in September to adopt what he called "carbon intensity targets," the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere per unit of economic output. Emissions from surging economics like China's would continue to rise but at a slower rate.
But political opposition in the U.S. Congress over Mr. Obama's climate-change proposals and continuing resistance among developing countries to binding emission reduction targets slowed consensus ahead of the Copenhagen summit.
Mr. Rasmussen laid out in some detail his goals for the Copenhagen summit. He said leaders should produce a five- to eight-page text with "precise language" committing developed countries to reductions of emissions thought to be warming the planet, with provisions on adapting to warmer temperatures, financing adaptation and combating climate change in poor countries, and technological development and diffusion. It would include pledges of immediate financing for early action.
"We are not aiming to let anyone off the hook," Mr. Rasmussen told the leaders. "We are trying to create a framework that will allow everybody to commit."
But the leaders didn't say when a final summit would be convened to ratify a real treaty.
"There are two choices that we face, given where things are. One was to have a political declaration to say 'We tried. We didn't achieve an agreement and we'll keep on trying.' and the other was to see if we could reach accord as the Danish prime minister laid out," said Michael Froman, White House deputy national security adviser for international economics..
Mr. Obama, in a speech Sunday, took his appeal for a new world economic order to the leaders of Asia that must help make it happen. He said the United States would strive to consume less, save more and restructure its economy around trade and exports. But he appealed to Asian nations to make their own economies more dependent on domestic consumption that U.S. profligacy.
White House officials say a similar message will be delivered in Shanghai and Beijing, but it is unclear how hard the U.S. president can press Beijing to allow the Chinese yuan to appreciate. At the APEC summit, leaders "until the last moment" tried to secure a commitment to stabilize foreign-exchange markers, according to a top adviser to an APEC head of state. But disagreements between the U.S. and Chinese delegations kept any commitment on currency out of the APEC final statement.
A more valuable yuan would empower Chinese consumers to buy, while making Chinese exports less attractive to U.S. consumers. But Washington cannot afford to anger China, which it needs to float a U.S. budget deficit that reached $176.4 billion in October alone, a monthly record.
Indeed, the Asia trip is exposing the limits of Mr. Obama's policy of engagement. The U.S. president met with ASEAN, declaring that efforts to marginalize the government of Myanmar had failed. Human rights groups had hoped a communiqué out of the meeting would call for the release of Ms. Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest. Instead, it made a cryptic reference to a previous ASEAN foreign ministers communiqué that called for her release. Sunday's statement did say that 2010 elections in Myanmar must be "free, fair, inclusive and transparent."
The failure to single out Ms. Suu Kyi was "another blow" to dissidents who want more pressure on the Myanmar junta, said Soe Aung, a spokesman for the Forum for Democracy in Burma, a Thailand-based organization. "We keep saying again and again that the U.S. should not send a mixed signal to the regime."
A White House official said the president never expected the leaders of Myanmar to accept any mention of the Nobel Laureate opposition leader but did press for a mention of political prisoners.
U.S. officials had taken pains to reduce expectations for the meeting, which was part of a new initiative by the Obama administration to improve its ties with Southeast Asia and increase interaction with the Myanmar government. The U.S. imposes stiff sanctions on the country, also known as Burma. But many analysts view those sanctions as a failure as Myanmar has expanded trade with China and other Asian nations, and U.S. officials now believe they might have more influence over the country's leaders if they talk with them more regularly.
Myanmar's military has controlled the country since 1962, and is accused of widespread human rights violations while overseeing an economy that remains one of the least-developed in Asia. The country's profile has risen over the last year, however, amid reports of growing ties with North Korea. The regime plans to hold elections next year, the first since 1990, in a bid to boost its international reputation. But the U.S. and others contend the results cannot be fair unless Ms. Suu Kyi and her supporters – who won the last vote – are allowed to participate.
—Costas Paris contributed to this article.
Write to Jonathan Weisman at jonathan.weisman@wsj.com
Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A10
Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
How Obama Can Shape Asia's Rise
OPINION ASIA
NOVEMBER 15, 2009, 1:53 P.M. ET.
How Obama Can Shape Asia's Rise
Engaging Japan and Korea is key.
By CHUNG MIN LEE
Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, President Barack Obama's Asia tour will conclude this week with a visit to South Korea—the world's last Cold War frontier. Even as he ponders critical next steps in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, the president in Asia faces a region on the cusp of fundamental change. More so than any of Mr. Obama's predecessors, how his administration chooses to help shape Asia's rise throughout the first quarter of the 21st century is going to have a critical impact on America's own future as a superpower.
For the first time in world history, three major regions—North America, continental Europe and East Asia—are sharing the world stage. This is possible in no small part because the U.S. engineered the post-World War II pacification and reconstruction of Germany and Japan. Indeed, the eventual formation of the European Union and Asia's rise over the past half century would have been impossible without two critical ingredients: America's security umbrella and the opening of its markets to European and Asian goods. Having created this tripolar world, the U.S. and especially President Obama now need to focus on three core issues to shape the world for the next half century.
First, the world's and Asia's long-term prosperity and stability depend increasingly on China's role as a viable stakeholder. This will depend in turn on the nature of China's engagement with the U.S. and the strategically consequential powers of Asia such as Japan, India, Indonesia, South Korea and Australia. China has replaced the U.S. as the biggest trading partner for many of Asia's leading economies. It also is growing more assertive of its territorial claims, for instance with the Spratly and Paracel islands in the South China Sea, and Beijing is more willing to send its navy further afield.
No Asian country is entirely comfortable with an increasingly powerful China. The region's advanced market economies and rapidly emerging powers such as India, Indonesia and Vietnam are wary of an overbearing China. The U.S. can play a useful role as a counterbalance even as it expands cooperation with China. Despite China's trading importance, the U.S. has in Asia what China does not: direct security ties with the region's key players and five decades of political trust. President Obama should seek ways to strengthen, rather than weaken, America's linkages with its Pacific allies.
This will involve a combination of strengthening America's existing Asian alliances; expanding freedom and democracy across the region by stressing the importance of human rights and ensuring the inclusion of democratization as a key agenda in the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations and other regional forums; and multipronged engagement with China commensurate with its growing influence but also aimed at advancing its social and political responsibilities at home and abroad. If NATO played a critical role in sustaining global prosperity and stability during the Cold War, America's Asian allies are going to play an equally significant role in the years to come.
Second, from a U.S. as well as a regional perspective, one of the most important bilateral relationships in East Asia is the Korean-Japanese partnership. Next year will mark the 100th anniversary of Korea's colonization by Japan. Significant historical disputes exist but it's time to move forward. South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has refused to exploit sporadic tensions in the Korean-Japanese relationship for political purposes and has expended political capital to ensure a closer partnership across the political, economic and even security sectors. As an expression of his commitment to fundamentally resetting his ties with Korea, Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama chose Seoul as his first foreign destination last month.
Maintaining a robust U.S.-Japan alliance is crucial to buttressing stronger ties between Korea and Japan since the U.S. serves as a common security denominator for Seoul and Tokyo. The Korean-Japanese relationship was traditionally the weakest link in the U.S.-Japan-Korea triangle but that's no longer the case. As President Obama reconfigures strategic linkages with Prime Minister Hatoyama, he should bear in mind the powerful synergy that flows from this critical and comprehensive trilateral democratic partnership.
Third, Mr. Obama needs to address the situation on the Korean peninsula, which stands at a historical tipping point. The North Korean nuclear threat continues to dominate the security agenda but far greater change lies over the horizon—the day when all Koreans on both sides of the 38th parallel can live in freedom. Managing such a transition on the peninsula is going to entail the closest of coordination between Korea and the U.S. and robust confidence building with all of its neighbors, but especially with China. Mr. Obama and Mr. Lee should begin a concerted dialogue on a range of possible outcomes on the peninsula but also share their visions and strategies for a unified Korea with key regional players.
All these steps will be challenging for all sides, as the dynamic between America and Korea shows. Seoul is playing a greater role in the Group of 20 economic summits and will host the 2010 meeting, redeploying forces to Afghanistan, and increasing overseas development assistance. But to play a constructive part in the future alliance with the U.S., Seoul has to support more fully democratic institutions in Asia by providing concrete financial and diplomatic assistance, and must step up economic reforms at home to boost its prosperity. As for Washington, continuing to delay the passage of the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement for myopic political interests will only elevate unnecessary tensions.
When U.S. President-elect Dwight Eisenhower visited Korea in the midst of war in 1952, he could never have imagined how America's alliances would transform the face of Asia and Korea. As President Obama travels through Asia, one of the leading barometers of America's continuing influence over the next two to three decades surely resides in how he chooses to manage America's Asian alliances.
Mr. Lee is dean of the Graduate School of International Studies at Yonsei University in Seoul.
Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
NOVEMBER 15, 2009, 1:53 P.M. ET.
How Obama Can Shape Asia's Rise
Engaging Japan and Korea is key.
By CHUNG MIN LEE
Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, President Barack Obama's Asia tour will conclude this week with a visit to South Korea—the world's last Cold War frontier. Even as he ponders critical next steps in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, the president in Asia faces a region on the cusp of fundamental change. More so than any of Mr. Obama's predecessors, how his administration chooses to help shape Asia's rise throughout the first quarter of the 21st century is going to have a critical impact on America's own future as a superpower.
For the first time in world history, three major regions—North America, continental Europe and East Asia—are sharing the world stage. This is possible in no small part because the U.S. engineered the post-World War II pacification and reconstruction of Germany and Japan. Indeed, the eventual formation of the European Union and Asia's rise over the past half century would have been impossible without two critical ingredients: America's security umbrella and the opening of its markets to European and Asian goods. Having created this tripolar world, the U.S. and especially President Obama now need to focus on three core issues to shape the world for the next half century.
First, the world's and Asia's long-term prosperity and stability depend increasingly on China's role as a viable stakeholder. This will depend in turn on the nature of China's engagement with the U.S. and the strategically consequential powers of Asia such as Japan, India, Indonesia, South Korea and Australia. China has replaced the U.S. as the biggest trading partner for many of Asia's leading economies. It also is growing more assertive of its territorial claims, for instance with the Spratly and Paracel islands in the South China Sea, and Beijing is more willing to send its navy further afield.
No Asian country is entirely comfortable with an increasingly powerful China. The region's advanced market economies and rapidly emerging powers such as India, Indonesia and Vietnam are wary of an overbearing China. The U.S. can play a useful role as a counterbalance even as it expands cooperation with China. Despite China's trading importance, the U.S. has in Asia what China does not: direct security ties with the region's key players and five decades of political trust. President Obama should seek ways to strengthen, rather than weaken, America's linkages with its Pacific allies.
This will involve a combination of strengthening America's existing Asian alliances; expanding freedom and democracy across the region by stressing the importance of human rights and ensuring the inclusion of democratization as a key agenda in the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations and other regional forums; and multipronged engagement with China commensurate with its growing influence but also aimed at advancing its social and political responsibilities at home and abroad. If NATO played a critical role in sustaining global prosperity and stability during the Cold War, America's Asian allies are going to play an equally significant role in the years to come.
Second, from a U.S. as well as a regional perspective, one of the most important bilateral relationships in East Asia is the Korean-Japanese partnership. Next year will mark the 100th anniversary of Korea's colonization by Japan. Significant historical disputes exist but it's time to move forward. South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has refused to exploit sporadic tensions in the Korean-Japanese relationship for political purposes and has expended political capital to ensure a closer partnership across the political, economic and even security sectors. As an expression of his commitment to fundamentally resetting his ties with Korea, Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama chose Seoul as his first foreign destination last month.
Maintaining a robust U.S.-Japan alliance is crucial to buttressing stronger ties between Korea and Japan since the U.S. serves as a common security denominator for Seoul and Tokyo. The Korean-Japanese relationship was traditionally the weakest link in the U.S.-Japan-Korea triangle but that's no longer the case. As President Obama reconfigures strategic linkages with Prime Minister Hatoyama, he should bear in mind the powerful synergy that flows from this critical and comprehensive trilateral democratic partnership.
Third, Mr. Obama needs to address the situation on the Korean peninsula, which stands at a historical tipping point. The North Korean nuclear threat continues to dominate the security agenda but far greater change lies over the horizon—the day when all Koreans on both sides of the 38th parallel can live in freedom. Managing such a transition on the peninsula is going to entail the closest of coordination between Korea and the U.S. and robust confidence building with all of its neighbors, but especially with China. Mr. Obama and Mr. Lee should begin a concerted dialogue on a range of possible outcomes on the peninsula but also share their visions and strategies for a unified Korea with key regional players.
All these steps will be challenging for all sides, as the dynamic between America and Korea shows. Seoul is playing a greater role in the Group of 20 economic summits and will host the 2010 meeting, redeploying forces to Afghanistan, and increasing overseas development assistance. But to play a constructive part in the future alliance with the U.S., Seoul has to support more fully democratic institutions in Asia by providing concrete financial and diplomatic assistance, and must step up economic reforms at home to boost its prosperity. As for Washington, continuing to delay the passage of the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement for myopic political interests will only elevate unnecessary tensions.
When U.S. President-elect Dwight Eisenhower visited Korea in the midst of war in 1952, he could never have imagined how America's alliances would transform the face of Asia and Korea. As President Obama travels through Asia, one of the leading barometers of America's continuing influence over the next two to three decades surely resides in how he chooses to manage America's Asian alliances.
Mr. Lee is dean of the Graduate School of International Studies at Yonsei University in Seoul.
Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
In China, Obama to Press for Tough Stance on Iran
November 16, 2009
In China, Obama to Press for Tough Stance on Iran
By HELENE COOPER and DAVID BARBOZA
SHANGHAI — President Obama, fresh from making progress in his efforts to get Russia on board for possible tough new sanctions against Iran, arrived in China on Sunday, where he will attempt the even more difficult task of prodding China’s leaders to get tough on Iran.
Making his first trip to China, Mr. Obama landed in Shanghai during a late-night downpour and was set to begin three days of meetings to discuss climate change, North Korea and the global economic crisis with President Hu Jintao.
The economic negotiating began even before Mr. Obama touched down. China’s top banking regulator, Liu Mingkang, sharply criticized United States policy on Sunday, saying the weakening dollar and low interest rates were contributing to global speculation in stocks and real estate, endangering the global recovery and inflating asset prices, The Associated Press reported.
China holds more than $2.2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, much of it in dollars, and has increasingly expressed concern that the value of its investments is deteriorating.
But for Mr. Obama, one of the top priorities here will be to try to get Mr. Hu close to the spot where Russia, the other permanent member of the United Nations Security Council reluctant to impose sanctions on Iran, appears to have arrived.
After an hourlong meeting in Singapore on Sunday afternoon, Mr. Obama managed to get President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia to express dissatisfaction with Iran’s response to a nuclear offer made by world powers, raising the prospect that sanctions may be the next step in the West’s continuing effort to rein in Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
The leaders, meeting on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific summit meeting in Singapore, also made progress in efforts to negotiate a replacement for a key arms control treaty between the United States and Russia that is set to expire in December, administration officials said.
While White House officials acknowledged on Sunday that there was no way a new agreement to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or Start, would be ratified by the legislatures of either country even if it was completed by the end of the year, they said that they expected to at least reach an interim “bridge” agreement that would preserve the status quo until a new agreement was reached.
Sunday afternoon’s session was the fifth bilateral meeting with Mr. Medvedev since Mr. Obama took office vowing to repair America’s relationship with Russia, and administration officials expressed satisfaction with their progress so far.
“The reset button has worked,” Mr. Obama said after the meeting, alluding to the administration’s early promise to press a “reset” button in America’s relationship with Russia after several years of bickering over a host of issues like missile defense and the status of Kosovo.
With Start set to expire soon, the Obama administration is searching for ways to keep inspectors in Russia — or it risks losing eyes on the world’s second most formidable nuclear arsenal for the first time in decades.
Under Start, the United States is allowed a maximum of 30 inspectors in Russia to monitor compliance with the treaty. Russia likewise has interests in finding a bridge mechanism to continue its similar right to inspections in the United States.
On Iran, Mr. Obama and Mr. Medvedev discussed a timetable for imposing sanctions if Tehran and the West do not reach an accord soon on a proposal in which Iran would send its stockpile of enriched uranium out of the country for either temporary safekeeping or reprocessing into fuel rods, administration officials said.
“Unfortunately, so far at least, Iran appears to have been unable to say yes to what everyone acknowledges is a creative and constructive approach,” Mr. Obama said. “We are running out of time with respect to that approach.”
More significant, Mr. Medvedev also alluded to running out of patience. He said that while the negotiation with Iran was continuing, “we are not completely happy about its pace. If something does not work, there are other means to move the process further.”
Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, said that the United States had set an internal deadline of the end of the year.
During Mr. Obama’s trip, his first to Asia as president, he has taken to referring to himself as “America’s first Pacific president,” a term he first used during a speech in Tokyo on Saturday morning.
Mr. Obama drew some fire from conservative American bloggers who accused him of going too far to reassure Asian leaders: they complained that he should not have bowed to Emperor Akihito of Japan when he went to the emperor’s residence for lunch.
“During his meetings and his speech in Tokyo, the president observed protocol and enhanced the status of American interests in Japan and across Asia,” said an administration official traveling with the president, who spoke on the condition of anonymity according to protocol. “Those who suggest otherwise are way off base and only looking to score political points.”
On Sunday, Mr. Obama became the first American president to meet with Myanmar’s military leaders when he attended a summit meeting of the Southeast Asian group Asean, held on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation talks in Singapore. Mr. Obama, who has made his willingness to engage with adversaries one of his foreign policy hallmarks, sat four places away from Gen. Thein Sein, the prime minister of Myanmar, at the meeting table on Sunday afternoon.
After the talks, the group issued a joint statement that called for Myanmar’s elections scheduled for next year to be free and fair. But the statement did not call for the release of the Myanmar opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. White House officials said that Mr. Obama made a point of demanding her release when he made a speech to Asean members.
Since Myanmar is a member of Asean, there was never much chance that the organization’s joint statement would call for the release of Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi or other political prisoners unless Myanmar’s military leaders agreed to that first.
Early Monday afternoon, Mr. Obama entered an auditorium on the top floor of Shanghai’s Museum of Science and Technology to give an audience of 500 a taste of what Americans have endured for the past several years: a town hall event. .
Mr. Obama referred to Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement to talk about how far America has come, and said America’s struggles with inequality explained why the United States would speak out for core principles like access to information and freedom of movement.
“These are all things that you should know about America,” he said. “This is my first time traveling to China and I’m excited to see this majestic country.”
Brian Knowlton contributed reporting from Washington.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
In China, Obama to Press for Tough Stance on Iran
By HELENE COOPER and DAVID BARBOZA
SHANGHAI — President Obama, fresh from making progress in his efforts to get Russia on board for possible tough new sanctions against Iran, arrived in China on Sunday, where he will attempt the even more difficult task of prodding China’s leaders to get tough on Iran.
Making his first trip to China, Mr. Obama landed in Shanghai during a late-night downpour and was set to begin three days of meetings to discuss climate change, North Korea and the global economic crisis with President Hu Jintao.
The economic negotiating began even before Mr. Obama touched down. China’s top banking regulator, Liu Mingkang, sharply criticized United States policy on Sunday, saying the weakening dollar and low interest rates were contributing to global speculation in stocks and real estate, endangering the global recovery and inflating asset prices, The Associated Press reported.
China holds more than $2.2 trillion in foreign exchange reserves, much of it in dollars, and has increasingly expressed concern that the value of its investments is deteriorating.
But for Mr. Obama, one of the top priorities here will be to try to get Mr. Hu close to the spot where Russia, the other permanent member of the United Nations Security Council reluctant to impose sanctions on Iran, appears to have arrived.
After an hourlong meeting in Singapore on Sunday afternoon, Mr. Obama managed to get President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia to express dissatisfaction with Iran’s response to a nuclear offer made by world powers, raising the prospect that sanctions may be the next step in the West’s continuing effort to rein in Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
The leaders, meeting on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific summit meeting in Singapore, also made progress in efforts to negotiate a replacement for a key arms control treaty between the United States and Russia that is set to expire in December, administration officials said.
While White House officials acknowledged on Sunday that there was no way a new agreement to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or Start, would be ratified by the legislatures of either country even if it was completed by the end of the year, they said that they expected to at least reach an interim “bridge” agreement that would preserve the status quo until a new agreement was reached.
Sunday afternoon’s session was the fifth bilateral meeting with Mr. Medvedev since Mr. Obama took office vowing to repair America’s relationship with Russia, and administration officials expressed satisfaction with their progress so far.
“The reset button has worked,” Mr. Obama said after the meeting, alluding to the administration’s early promise to press a “reset” button in America’s relationship with Russia after several years of bickering over a host of issues like missile defense and the status of Kosovo.
With Start set to expire soon, the Obama administration is searching for ways to keep inspectors in Russia — or it risks losing eyes on the world’s second most formidable nuclear arsenal for the first time in decades.
Under Start, the United States is allowed a maximum of 30 inspectors in Russia to monitor compliance with the treaty. Russia likewise has interests in finding a bridge mechanism to continue its similar right to inspections in the United States.
On Iran, Mr. Obama and Mr. Medvedev discussed a timetable for imposing sanctions if Tehran and the West do not reach an accord soon on a proposal in which Iran would send its stockpile of enriched uranium out of the country for either temporary safekeeping or reprocessing into fuel rods, administration officials said.
“Unfortunately, so far at least, Iran appears to have been unable to say yes to what everyone acknowledges is a creative and constructive approach,” Mr. Obama said. “We are running out of time with respect to that approach.”
More significant, Mr. Medvedev also alluded to running out of patience. He said that while the negotiation with Iran was continuing, “we are not completely happy about its pace. If something does not work, there are other means to move the process further.”
Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, said that the United States had set an internal deadline of the end of the year.
During Mr. Obama’s trip, his first to Asia as president, he has taken to referring to himself as “America’s first Pacific president,” a term he first used during a speech in Tokyo on Saturday morning.
Mr. Obama drew some fire from conservative American bloggers who accused him of going too far to reassure Asian leaders: they complained that he should not have bowed to Emperor Akihito of Japan when he went to the emperor’s residence for lunch.
“During his meetings and his speech in Tokyo, the president observed protocol and enhanced the status of American interests in Japan and across Asia,” said an administration official traveling with the president, who spoke on the condition of anonymity according to protocol. “Those who suggest otherwise are way off base and only looking to score political points.”
On Sunday, Mr. Obama became the first American president to meet with Myanmar’s military leaders when he attended a summit meeting of the Southeast Asian group Asean, held on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation talks in Singapore. Mr. Obama, who has made his willingness to engage with adversaries one of his foreign policy hallmarks, sat four places away from Gen. Thein Sein, the prime minister of Myanmar, at the meeting table on Sunday afternoon.
After the talks, the group issued a joint statement that called for Myanmar’s elections scheduled for next year to be free and fair. But the statement did not call for the release of the Myanmar opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. White House officials said that Mr. Obama made a point of demanding her release when he made a speech to Asean members.
Since Myanmar is a member of Asean, there was never much chance that the organization’s joint statement would call for the release of Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi or other political prisoners unless Myanmar’s military leaders agreed to that first.
Early Monday afternoon, Mr. Obama entered an auditorium on the top floor of Shanghai’s Museum of Science and Technology to give an audience of 500 a taste of what Americans have endured for the past several years: a town hall event. .
Mr. Obama referred to Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement to talk about how far America has come, and said America’s struggles with inequality explained why the United States would speak out for core principles like access to information and freedom of movement.
“These are all things that you should know about America,” he said. “This is my first time traveling to China and I’m excited to see this majestic country.”
Brian Knowlton contributed reporting from Washington.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
Obama Begins First Visit to China
November 16, 2009
Obama Begins First Visit to China
By DAVID BARBOZA
SHANGHAI — President Obama arrived here late Sunday on the third leg of his four-nation trip to Asia, where he is working to strengthen ties in the region.
After meeting with world leaders in Japan and Singapore, the president is beginning his first visit to China, where he will have a chance to see for himself this country’s spectacular rise.
The president and his advisers, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, are expected to discuss a wide range of issues with China’s leaders, including North Korea, terrorism, the environment, human rights and the fragile state of the global economy.
The president is expected to praise Beijing for its efforts to stimulate its economy, aiding a global recovery that is now gathering steam. But he is also expected to press Beijing to allow its currency to appreciate and to speed up market reforms and give American companies greater access to its market, which could bolster American exports and help create jobs in the United States.
The three-day visit to China comes after the president traveled to Japan and Singapore, where on Sunday he attended an Asia-Pacific economic summit meeting. During those stops, President Obama pledged to forge closer ties with Japan, a longtime ally, and in a speech in Tokyo said that he did not fear China’s rise but welcomed it.
In Singapore on Sunday, the president met world leaders, including President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia and suggested the two nations might agree to sanctions against Iran because of the slow progress it had made in negotiations over its uranium enrichment facility.
Now, the president will get his first glimpse of China, which after a sharp slowdown last year and early this year, is in the midst of another growth spurt. The country’s economy is likely to grow by about8 percent, by far the best performing major economy, accounting for much of the world’s economic growth this year. The country’s real estate and stock markets are once again booming, and hot initial public stock offerings are luring frenzied investors to play in the financial markets.
China’s exports have suffered through a sharp slowdown, down more than 20 percent from a year ago, when China racked up a huge trade surplus with the rest of the world. But this year China is expected to surpass Germany as the world’s biggest exporter, and record a trade surplus in excess of $200 billion.
Trade tensions with the United States have eased significantly over the past year, largely because of a large drop in imports from China. But American labor unions and some members of Congress continue to press for trade sanctions, arguing that China manipulates its currency to gain an unfair advantage, costing America jobs.
Other economists, however, contend that the currency is a false issue, noting that only 18 percent of America’s imports come from China and that many of those are simply assembled in China, using parts from around the world. Many of China’s biggest exporters to the United States are American and European companies that operate factories here.
The president arrived on Air Force One at about 11:15 p.m. during a cold rain, and drove through the center of Shanghai, China’s richest and flashiest city, past skyscrapers and bright streets that advertised Chinese brands like Li Ning sportswear, but also Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Prada.
On Monday, the president is scheduled to meet Shanghai’s leaders, and then hold what is being billed as a town hall meeting with “future leaders of China,” mostly university students. Mr. Obama is expected to take questions from the young people, but also to field questions submitted through the Internet. The meeting is expected to be broadcast live inside China, according to several Chinese journalists, and also on the White House Web site, www.whitehouse.gov.
Administration officials say the president is eager to interact directly with the country’s young people, with questions unfiltered by the government.
Later Monday, the president will fly to Beijing, where he will hold high-level meetings with President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. He is also scheduled to attend a state dinner and to visit a section of the Great Wall.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
Obama Begins First Visit to China
By DAVID BARBOZA
SHANGHAI — President Obama arrived here late Sunday on the third leg of his four-nation trip to Asia, where he is working to strengthen ties in the region.
After meeting with world leaders in Japan and Singapore, the president is beginning his first visit to China, where he will have a chance to see for himself this country’s spectacular rise.
The president and his advisers, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, are expected to discuss a wide range of issues with China’s leaders, including North Korea, terrorism, the environment, human rights and the fragile state of the global economy.
The president is expected to praise Beijing for its efforts to stimulate its economy, aiding a global recovery that is now gathering steam. But he is also expected to press Beijing to allow its currency to appreciate and to speed up market reforms and give American companies greater access to its market, which could bolster American exports and help create jobs in the United States.
The three-day visit to China comes after the president traveled to Japan and Singapore, where on Sunday he attended an Asia-Pacific economic summit meeting. During those stops, President Obama pledged to forge closer ties with Japan, a longtime ally, and in a speech in Tokyo said that he did not fear China’s rise but welcomed it.
In Singapore on Sunday, the president met world leaders, including President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia and suggested the two nations might agree to sanctions against Iran because of the slow progress it had made in negotiations over its uranium enrichment facility.
Now, the president will get his first glimpse of China, which after a sharp slowdown last year and early this year, is in the midst of another growth spurt. The country’s economy is likely to grow by about8 percent, by far the best performing major economy, accounting for much of the world’s economic growth this year. The country’s real estate and stock markets are once again booming, and hot initial public stock offerings are luring frenzied investors to play in the financial markets.
China’s exports have suffered through a sharp slowdown, down more than 20 percent from a year ago, when China racked up a huge trade surplus with the rest of the world. But this year China is expected to surpass Germany as the world’s biggest exporter, and record a trade surplus in excess of $200 billion.
Trade tensions with the United States have eased significantly over the past year, largely because of a large drop in imports from China. But American labor unions and some members of Congress continue to press for trade sanctions, arguing that China manipulates its currency to gain an unfair advantage, costing America jobs.
Other economists, however, contend that the currency is a false issue, noting that only 18 percent of America’s imports come from China and that many of those are simply assembled in China, using parts from around the world. Many of China’s biggest exporters to the United States are American and European companies that operate factories here.
The president arrived on Air Force One at about 11:15 p.m. during a cold rain, and drove through the center of Shanghai, China’s richest and flashiest city, past skyscrapers and bright streets that advertised Chinese brands like Li Ning sportswear, but also Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Prada.
On Monday, the president is scheduled to meet Shanghai’s leaders, and then hold what is being billed as a town hall meeting with “future leaders of China,” mostly university students. Mr. Obama is expected to take questions from the young people, but also to field questions submitted through the Internet. The meeting is expected to be broadcast live inside China, according to several Chinese journalists, and also on the White House Web site, www.whitehouse.gov.
Administration officials say the president is eager to interact directly with the country’s young people, with questions unfiltered by the government.
Later Monday, the president will fly to Beijing, where he will hold high-level meetings with President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. He is also scheduled to attend a state dinner and to visit a section of the Great Wall.
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
Chinese students, netizens and shops welcome Obama to Shanghai
Some Chinese want to find out what the president's views are on serious issues. Others just want to make some money selling kitschy souvenirs.
By Jean Yung
12:38 PM PST, November 15, 2009
Reporting from Shanghai
Among students, shopkeepers and Internet users, President Obama's visit to Shanghai has been among the most anticipated by a foreign leader to China in recent years.
"I have a very good impression of Obama," said Shanghai resident Jiang Heting, 21. "Even though I've read that some Americans disapprove of how he's handling the economic crisis, I still like him very much."
They also recognize China's growing power and influence in the international stage.
"This is the first time that China and America will talk as equals," said Zhang Shun, a student at East China University of Political Science and Law.
Obama arrived here today as part of his weeklong swing through Asia, the heart of which will be nearly three days in China. Later today in Shanghai, China's commercial capital, Obama is scheduled to take questions from students in a town-hall-style meeting that is expected to be broadcast live in the city and on the White House website.
The state-run International Herald Leader newspaper teamed up with online discussion forum Tianya Club and collected more than 3,000 questions for the president from netizens over the last month. The submissions touched upon such diverse topics as America's ability to repay its debt and the president's love for basketball.
At the same time, some Chinese bloggers are waging a "Tear Down This Firewall" campaign, hoping that the president will address the issue of freedom of speech on the Internet.
"To what degree he can help Chinese netizens break down the 'Great Firewall of China' is still uncertain," blogger Zhang Ping said. "I feel that some Chinese netizens have set their hopes too high and am afraid that they'll be disappointed."
Zhang left his position as deputy editor of China's Southern Metropolis Weekly in 2008 after writing an opinion piece on Tibet for the Financial Times.
Some banned foreign websites such as Picasa have recently been unblocked, though YouTube, Blogspot, Facebook and Twitter are still accessible only through a proxy.
For many business owners, Obama's arrival has been a source of profit. Shirts, bags and shoes carrying the president's image have popped up like wildflowers at street stalls and small shops.
Madame Tussauds wax museum in Shanghai replaced the statue of Chinese track superstar Liu Xiang in its lobby with an Obama wax figure Friday, attracting flocks of people taking turns at a photograph.
Beijing artist Liu Bolin created a bronze statue of Obama as a tribute to his popularity.
A Beijing entrepreneur's "Oba Mao" T-shirts and bags that feature Obama's face superimposed over that of Mao Tse-tung in a 1940s Red Guard uniform have been hot sellers with tourists ever since the president was elected.
But some shopkeepers got calls last week from the Beijing municipal government demanding a temporary halt on selling the shirts until the president's visit is over, a local paper reported.
According to the paper, one stall operator said three inspection officers visited him in person to make sure the T-shirts were off the shelf.
Yung is a special correspondent.
Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times
By Jean Yung
12:38 PM PST, November 15, 2009
Reporting from Shanghai
Among students, shopkeepers and Internet users, President Obama's visit to Shanghai has been among the most anticipated by a foreign leader to China in recent years.
"I have a very good impression of Obama," said Shanghai resident Jiang Heting, 21. "Even though I've read that some Americans disapprove of how he's handling the economic crisis, I still like him very much."
They also recognize China's growing power and influence in the international stage.
"This is the first time that China and America will talk as equals," said Zhang Shun, a student at East China University of Political Science and Law.
Obama arrived here today as part of his weeklong swing through Asia, the heart of which will be nearly three days in China. Later today in Shanghai, China's commercial capital, Obama is scheduled to take questions from students in a town-hall-style meeting that is expected to be broadcast live in the city and on the White House website.
The state-run International Herald Leader newspaper teamed up with online discussion forum Tianya Club and collected more than 3,000 questions for the president from netizens over the last month. The submissions touched upon such diverse topics as America's ability to repay its debt and the president's love for basketball.
At the same time, some Chinese bloggers are waging a "Tear Down This Firewall" campaign, hoping that the president will address the issue of freedom of speech on the Internet.
"To what degree he can help Chinese netizens break down the 'Great Firewall of China' is still uncertain," blogger Zhang Ping said. "I feel that some Chinese netizens have set their hopes too high and am afraid that they'll be disappointed."
Zhang left his position as deputy editor of China's Southern Metropolis Weekly in 2008 after writing an opinion piece on Tibet for the Financial Times.
Some banned foreign websites such as Picasa have recently been unblocked, though YouTube, Blogspot, Facebook and Twitter are still accessible only through a proxy.
For many business owners, Obama's arrival has been a source of profit. Shirts, bags and shoes carrying the president's image have popped up like wildflowers at street stalls and small shops.
Madame Tussauds wax museum in Shanghai replaced the statue of Chinese track superstar Liu Xiang in its lobby with an Obama wax figure Friday, attracting flocks of people taking turns at a photograph.
Beijing artist Liu Bolin created a bronze statue of Obama as a tribute to his popularity.
A Beijing entrepreneur's "Oba Mao" T-shirts and bags that feature Obama's face superimposed over that of Mao Tse-tung in a 1940s Red Guard uniform have been hot sellers with tourists ever since the president was elected.
But some shopkeepers got calls last week from the Beijing municipal government demanding a temporary halt on selling the shirts until the president's visit is over, a local paper reported.
According to the paper, one stall operator said three inspection officers visited him in person to make sure the T-shirts were off the shelf.
Yung is a special correspondent.
Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times
In First Visit to China, Obama Walks a Tightrope
In First Visit to China, Obama Walks a Tightrope
Walking a fine line: Obama seeks Chinese help on global problems while supporting human rights
By JENNIFER LOVEN
The Associated Press
SHANGHAI
President Barack Obama sought a political balance Monday on his first trip to China, seeking help on urgent global problems while weighing if and when to raise concerns over human rights.
Obama's agenda began with talks with local politicians and, in one of the marquee events of his weeklong Asian trip, he was to conduct an American-style town hall with Chinese university students.
The president's first stop in Shanghai was the tranquil grounds of the Xijiao State Guest House, where he met with the city's mayor for about a half-hour and had lunch.
"Both of the countries have benefited greatly from the progress we have made over the last two decades," Obama said as the two sides' vast delegations were arrayed in a giant meeting room.
Thirty years after the start of diplomatic relations between the United States and China, the ties are growing — but remain mixed on virtually every front.
The two nations are working together more than ever on battling global warming, but they still differ deeply over hard targets for reductions in the greenhouse-gas emissions that cause it. China has supported sterner sanctions to halt North Korea's nuclear weapons program, but it still balks at getting more aggressive about reining in Iran's uranium enrichment.
Obama arrived in Shanghai late at night, in a driving rain, hustling through a phalanx of umbrella-holding dignitaries to reach his limousine. He was to end his day in Beijing.
China is a huge and lucrative market for American goods and services, and yet it has a giant trade surplus with the U.S. that, like a raft of other economic issues, is a bone of contention between the two governments. The two militaries have increased their contacts, but clashes still happen and the U.S. remains worried about a dramatic buildup in what is already the largest standing army in the world.
Amid all that, Obama has adopted a pragmatic approach that stresses the positive, sometimes earning him criticism for being too soft on Beijing, particularly in the area of human rights abuses and what the U.S. regards as an undervalued Chinese currency that disadvantages U.S. products.
Obama recognizes that a rising China, as the world's third-largest economy on the way to becoming the second and the largest foreign holder of U.S. debt, has shifted the dynamic more toward one of equals. For instance, Chinese questions about how Washington spending policies will affect the already soaring U.S. deficit and the safety of Chinese investments now must be answered by Washington.
Second, Obama wants not to anger Beijing, but to encourage it to pair its growing economic and political clout with greater leadership in solving some of the most urgent global problems, including a sagging economy, warming planet and the spread of dangerous weapons.
Obama has talked warmly toward China, particularly in the days leading up to his visit.
"The United States does not seek to contain China," Obama said in a speech from Tokyo on Saturday. "On the contrary, the rise of a strong, prosperous China can be a source of strength for the community of nations."
One test of the line Obama is walking on China will be human rights, including religious freedom in the officially atheist nation. Aides said in advance that Obama would raise several human rights issues privately with Chinese leaders, including President Hu.
But it was unlikely he would repeat those messages too stridently in public, out of concern for angering his hosts. Even before arriving in China, for example, he declined to get specific about human rights concerns with China in his Tokyo speech and eschewed the traditional presidential meeting with the Dalai Lama while he was in Washington in June.
Obama said he would see the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader later, a decision welcomed by Chinese officials who pressure foreign governments not to meet with the Dalai Lama and spurn Tibetans' desires for autonomy from Chinese rule.
The White House hoped Monday's town hall meeting with Chinese university students would allow Obama to telegraph U.S. values — through its successes and failures — to the widest Chinese audience possible.
But those hopes will have their limits in communist-ruled, tightly controlled China. The particulars of the town hall, including whether it could even be called one, were the subject of delicate negotiations between the White House and the Chinese up to the last minute. It remained unclear, for instance, whether — and how broadly — it would be broadcast on television and how much of a hand the central government had in choosing those allowed to question the U.S. president.
Obama deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said Obama would call at random on several of those in the audience, to be made up of hundreds of students hand-picked by the department heads of Shanghai-area universities, and would also answer questions solicited in advance by the White House from "various sources on the Internet."
Even if the event is only aired on China's main English-language TV channel, which has very few viewers, the White House will stream the conversation live on http://www.whitehouse.gov, an unblocked site in China.
From Shanghai, Obama was to be off to the capital of Beijing for the pomp and substance of a two-day state visit hosted for Obama by Hu.
Obama's China visit features the only sightseeing of his high-intensity Asian journey. He will visit the Forbidden City, home of former emperors in Beijing, and the centuries-old Great Wall outside of the city. Visiting a country's noted landmarks is considered a sign of respect in the world of diplomacy. But Obama aides also have learned that finding some tourist time serves to both calm and energize their boss amid the always grueling schedule of a foreign trip.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Copyright © 2009 ABC News Internet Ventures
Walking a fine line: Obama seeks Chinese help on global problems while supporting human rights
By JENNIFER LOVEN
The Associated Press
SHANGHAI
President Barack Obama sought a political balance Monday on his first trip to China, seeking help on urgent global problems while weighing if and when to raise concerns over human rights.
Obama's agenda began with talks with local politicians and, in one of the marquee events of his weeklong Asian trip, he was to conduct an American-style town hall with Chinese university students.
The president's first stop in Shanghai was the tranquil grounds of the Xijiao State Guest House, where he met with the city's mayor for about a half-hour and had lunch.
"Both of the countries have benefited greatly from the progress we have made over the last two decades," Obama said as the two sides' vast delegations were arrayed in a giant meeting room.
Thirty years after the start of diplomatic relations between the United States and China, the ties are growing — but remain mixed on virtually every front.
The two nations are working together more than ever on battling global warming, but they still differ deeply over hard targets for reductions in the greenhouse-gas emissions that cause it. China has supported sterner sanctions to halt North Korea's nuclear weapons program, but it still balks at getting more aggressive about reining in Iran's uranium enrichment.
Obama arrived in Shanghai late at night, in a driving rain, hustling through a phalanx of umbrella-holding dignitaries to reach his limousine. He was to end his day in Beijing.
China is a huge and lucrative market for American goods and services, and yet it has a giant trade surplus with the U.S. that, like a raft of other economic issues, is a bone of contention between the two governments. The two militaries have increased their contacts, but clashes still happen and the U.S. remains worried about a dramatic buildup in what is already the largest standing army in the world.
Amid all that, Obama has adopted a pragmatic approach that stresses the positive, sometimes earning him criticism for being too soft on Beijing, particularly in the area of human rights abuses and what the U.S. regards as an undervalued Chinese currency that disadvantages U.S. products.
Obama recognizes that a rising China, as the world's third-largest economy on the way to becoming the second and the largest foreign holder of U.S. debt, has shifted the dynamic more toward one of equals. For instance, Chinese questions about how Washington spending policies will affect the already soaring U.S. deficit and the safety of Chinese investments now must be answered by Washington.
Second, Obama wants not to anger Beijing, but to encourage it to pair its growing economic and political clout with greater leadership in solving some of the most urgent global problems, including a sagging economy, warming planet and the spread of dangerous weapons.
Obama has talked warmly toward China, particularly in the days leading up to his visit.
"The United States does not seek to contain China," Obama said in a speech from Tokyo on Saturday. "On the contrary, the rise of a strong, prosperous China can be a source of strength for the community of nations."
One test of the line Obama is walking on China will be human rights, including religious freedom in the officially atheist nation. Aides said in advance that Obama would raise several human rights issues privately with Chinese leaders, including President Hu.
But it was unlikely he would repeat those messages too stridently in public, out of concern for angering his hosts. Even before arriving in China, for example, he declined to get specific about human rights concerns with China in his Tokyo speech and eschewed the traditional presidential meeting with the Dalai Lama while he was in Washington in June.
Obama said he would see the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader later, a decision welcomed by Chinese officials who pressure foreign governments not to meet with the Dalai Lama and spurn Tibetans' desires for autonomy from Chinese rule.
The White House hoped Monday's town hall meeting with Chinese university students would allow Obama to telegraph U.S. values — through its successes and failures — to the widest Chinese audience possible.
But those hopes will have their limits in communist-ruled, tightly controlled China. The particulars of the town hall, including whether it could even be called one, were the subject of delicate negotiations between the White House and the Chinese up to the last minute. It remained unclear, for instance, whether — and how broadly — it would be broadcast on television and how much of a hand the central government had in choosing those allowed to question the U.S. president.
Obama deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said Obama would call at random on several of those in the audience, to be made up of hundreds of students hand-picked by the department heads of Shanghai-area universities, and would also answer questions solicited in advance by the White House from "various sources on the Internet."
Even if the event is only aired on China's main English-language TV channel, which has very few viewers, the White House will stream the conversation live on http://www.whitehouse.gov, an unblocked site in China.
From Shanghai, Obama was to be off to the capital of Beijing for the pomp and substance of a two-day state visit hosted for Obama by Hu.
Obama's China visit features the only sightseeing of his high-intensity Asian journey. He will visit the Forbidden City, home of former emperors in Beijing, and the centuries-old Great Wall outside of the city. Visiting a country's noted landmarks is considered a sign of respect in the world of diplomacy. But Obama aides also have learned that finding some tourist time serves to both calm and energize their boss amid the always grueling schedule of a foreign trip.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Copyright © 2009 ABC News Internet Ventures
Locals are sidelined as US and Japan battle over Okinawa
Sat, Nov 14, 2009
The people of Okinawa now know that campaign pledges are empty promises, writes DAVID McNEILL in Tokyo
THEY COME bearing liberal dreams, the leaders of the world's two largest economies, popular reforming politicians propelled into office on the promise of sweeping change. Few places offer a better example of the dangers of betraying those dreams than Japan.
US president Barack Obama and Japan's prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, met in Tokyo yesterday to exchange a now-standard affirmation of warm ties and to pledge co-operation on climate change and their battered economies.
Lurking in the background, however, is a simmering row over Japan's powerful US military presence, which could rupture the security alliance binding the two countries for half a century.
The burden of supporting the alliance mostly falls on Okinawa, Japan's subtropical southernmost prefecture, which hosts three- quarters of the entire US military presence in Japan.
Sixty-four years since they waded ashore during the Battle of Okinawa - one of the bloodiest of the second World War - US bases still occupy about a fifth of the main island, within striking distance of North Korea and China.
The US facilities include Futenma, a giant marine air base in the centre of densely populated Ginowan city. Noise, pollution, military crimes and the fear of fatal accidents are constant irritants.
Local people talk routinely of being an outpost of empire.
"Futenma is one of the most dangerous bases in the world and should be closed immediately," said Yonekichi Shinzato, a member of Okinawa's local parliament.
Hatoyama's Democratic Party swept aside the conservative Liberal Democrats (LDP) in September, ending half a century of almost unbroken US-friendly rule and promising to strike for greater independence from Washington.
Pre-election tough talk included a "drastic" reduction in Okinawa's unequal burden and the promised relocation of Futenma off the island, or even outside Japan, but the realities of power seem to have weakened his resolve.
"During the election campaign, I stated that we would relocate outside Okinawa," Hatoyama said yesterday. "The Okinawans have high expectations . . . so we will make every effort to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. I hope the solution will strengthen the alliance."
Japanese defence secretary Toshimi Kitazawa has accepted that moving the base will be "difficult". To enforce the point, Washington unleashed a diplomatic barrage on Japan culminating in a blunt October statement by US defence secretary Robert Gates that the debate on Futenma was over and it was "time to move on".
Washington and Tokyo measure Okinawa's unhappiness by the size of anti-base demonstrations. Last weekend more than 20,000 people came out to demand that Hatoyama fulfil his pledges.
In 1995, larger protests after the rape and beating of a 12-year- old girl by two marines and a sailor forced the US and Japan to promise to return Futenma - with extraordinary conditions.
A replacement base would have to be constructed off the coast of Heneko - one of Okinawa's most pristine and environmentally rich areas.
The Guam Treaty also called for 8,000 of the island's 25,000 US troops to be shipped out of Okinawa to Guam at a cost to Japanese taxpayers of $6.09 billion (€4.08 billion).
The treaty, pushed through the Diet in May by the dying LDP administration, ignored Okinawans and many have reacted with fury. Despite years of dispute on Okinawa over the bases, polls show opinion hardening against the government.
Expecting liberal change from Obama, many have been surprised at the vehemence of his administration, especially when Gates cracked the whip again, calling Heneko the linchpin without which all deals were off.
That leaves Hatoyama in a dilemma: concede US demands and he risks appearing weak and detonating the anger that simmers beneath Okinawa; reject them and he incurs the wrath of Washington.
© 2009 The Irish Times
The people of Okinawa now know that campaign pledges are empty promises, writes DAVID McNEILL in Tokyo
THEY COME bearing liberal dreams, the leaders of the world's two largest economies, popular reforming politicians propelled into office on the promise of sweeping change. Few places offer a better example of the dangers of betraying those dreams than Japan.
US president Barack Obama and Japan's prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama, met in Tokyo yesterday to exchange a now-standard affirmation of warm ties and to pledge co-operation on climate change and their battered economies.
Lurking in the background, however, is a simmering row over Japan's powerful US military presence, which could rupture the security alliance binding the two countries for half a century.
The burden of supporting the alliance mostly falls on Okinawa, Japan's subtropical southernmost prefecture, which hosts three- quarters of the entire US military presence in Japan.
Sixty-four years since they waded ashore during the Battle of Okinawa - one of the bloodiest of the second World War - US bases still occupy about a fifth of the main island, within striking distance of North Korea and China.
The US facilities include Futenma, a giant marine air base in the centre of densely populated Ginowan city. Noise, pollution, military crimes and the fear of fatal accidents are constant irritants.
Local people talk routinely of being an outpost of empire.
"Futenma is one of the most dangerous bases in the world and should be closed immediately," said Yonekichi Shinzato, a member of Okinawa's local parliament.
Hatoyama's Democratic Party swept aside the conservative Liberal Democrats (LDP) in September, ending half a century of almost unbroken US-friendly rule and promising to strike for greater independence from Washington.
Pre-election tough talk included a "drastic" reduction in Okinawa's unequal burden and the promised relocation of Futenma off the island, or even outside Japan, but the realities of power seem to have weakened his resolve.
"During the election campaign, I stated that we would relocate outside Okinawa," Hatoyama said yesterday. "The Okinawans have high expectations . . . so we will make every effort to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. I hope the solution will strengthen the alliance."
Japanese defence secretary Toshimi Kitazawa has accepted that moving the base will be "difficult". To enforce the point, Washington unleashed a diplomatic barrage on Japan culminating in a blunt October statement by US defence secretary Robert Gates that the debate on Futenma was over and it was "time to move on".
Washington and Tokyo measure Okinawa's unhappiness by the size of anti-base demonstrations. Last weekend more than 20,000 people came out to demand that Hatoyama fulfil his pledges.
In 1995, larger protests after the rape and beating of a 12-year- old girl by two marines and a sailor forced the US and Japan to promise to return Futenma - with extraordinary conditions.
A replacement base would have to be constructed off the coast of Heneko - one of Okinawa's most pristine and environmentally rich areas.
The Guam Treaty also called for 8,000 of the island's 25,000 US troops to be shipped out of Okinawa to Guam at a cost to Japanese taxpayers of $6.09 billion (€4.08 billion).
The treaty, pushed through the Diet in May by the dying LDP administration, ignored Okinawans and many have reacted with fury. Despite years of dispute on Okinawa over the bases, polls show opinion hardening against the government.
Expecting liberal change from Obama, many have been surprised at the vehemence of his administration, especially when Gates cracked the whip again, calling Heneko the linchpin without which all deals were off.
That leaves Hatoyama in a dilemma: concede US demands and he risks appearing weak and detonating the anger that simmers beneath Okinawa; reject them and he incurs the wrath of Washington.
© 2009 The Irish Times
FACTBOX: Five facts about Shanghai, Obama's first China stop
Sun Nov 15, 2009 12:05pm EST
(Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama is in the financial hub of Shanghai, on the first leg of his maiden trip to China since taking office earlier this year.
Here are five facts about Shanghai, China's cosmopolitan business capital:
* Starting off as a fishing village, Shanghai began to develop into the metropolis it is today in the 19th century, when the British established a concession there after the first Opium War in 1842. Other colonial powers followed soon after in setting up their own areas of administration in the city.
* By the 1920s and 1930s, Shanghai was known as the "Paris of the East" for its glamorous lifestyle and beautiful art deco buildings, but also as the "Whore of the Orient" for its racy bars, gangs, drugs and prostitutes. That came to an end for good with the Communist victory in the civil war in 1949.
* During the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, which ended in 1976, thousands of Shanghai people were sent into the countryside to work, and the city's development ground to a halt. Fortunately, many of Shanghai's historic buildings, including the famous waterfront Bund, were left untouched.
* When China began landmark economic reforms in the late 1970s, Shanghai was one of the first places to benefit. The country's first stock exchange opened there in 1990, followed by the start of a massive redevelopment of the city focused on the former farmlands of Pudong, now site of the glitzy financial district and a busy and rapidly expanding international airport.
* Today, Shanghai is home to an estimated 18 million people, from migrant workers from poor rural parts of China, to U.S. bankers, European artists and a precocious new band of Chinese entrepreneurs. Next year, Shanghai plays host to the World Expo.
Source: Shanghai city government, Reuters.
(Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Charles Dick)
© Thomson Reuters 2009. All rights reserved.
(Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama is in the financial hub of Shanghai, on the first leg of his maiden trip to China since taking office earlier this year.
Here are five facts about Shanghai, China's cosmopolitan business capital:
* Starting off as a fishing village, Shanghai began to develop into the metropolis it is today in the 19th century, when the British established a concession there after the first Opium War in 1842. Other colonial powers followed soon after in setting up their own areas of administration in the city.
* By the 1920s and 1930s, Shanghai was known as the "Paris of the East" for its glamorous lifestyle and beautiful art deco buildings, but also as the "Whore of the Orient" for its racy bars, gangs, drugs and prostitutes. That came to an end for good with the Communist victory in the civil war in 1949.
* During the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, which ended in 1976, thousands of Shanghai people were sent into the countryside to work, and the city's development ground to a halt. Fortunately, many of Shanghai's historic buildings, including the famous waterfront Bund, were left untouched.
* When China began landmark economic reforms in the late 1970s, Shanghai was one of the first places to benefit. The country's first stock exchange opened there in 1990, followed by the start of a massive redevelopment of the city focused on the former farmlands of Pudong, now site of the glitzy financial district and a busy and rapidly expanding international airport.
* Today, Shanghai is home to an estimated 18 million people, from migrant workers from poor rural parts of China, to U.S. bankers, European artists and a precocious new band of Chinese entrepreneurs. Next year, Shanghai plays host to the World Expo.
Source: Shanghai city government, Reuters.
(Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Charles Dick)
© Thomson Reuters 2009. All rights reserved.
Japan-U.S. Relations: Let There Be Discord
Op-Ed Contributor
Japan-U.S. Relations: Let There Be Discord
Published: November 15, 2009
HIROSHIMA — In February 1960, one month after its signature in Washington, the U.S.-Japan treaty of mutual cooperation and security was submitted to the Japanese Parliament for ratification. It unleashed a storm of unprecedented furor across Japan.
Massive and at times violent demonstrations erupted in major cities. Fights broke out in the lower house of Parliament, where police had to intervene to arrest opposition members.
A planned visit by then U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower was cancelled. Finally, even though the treaty was ratified (by default) in June, it cost then Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, the man most Japanese saw as its main architect, his job.
All this is to say how surprising it is to see, as the 50th anniversary of the pact approaches, American policy-makers and commentators so rattled by voices in Japan questioning the treaty — and more specifically its burden on Okinawa.
The worry-mongers tend to ignore not only the treaty’s historical significance, but also the cataclysmic changes that have occurred in Japan since the elections in August.
They err mostly, however, by considering the treaty as the only link between the two Pacific rim partners, overlooking the range and depth of a far more complex friendship binding Tokyo and Washington.
First the treaty itself: For the United States it is but one among similar important bilateral security alliances. For Japan, however, it has deep psychological and moral ramifications, touching upon a myriad of issues, from national pride and self-esteem to a collective sense of guilt towards Okinawa.
As long as Japan remains under America’s protective umbrella — what historian John Dower calls its “subordinate independence” — it shall be hard pressed to exercise on the international stage a leadership role fully commensurate with its economical status or peace credentials, even in the nuclear arena, despite its moral authority as the only atomic-bombed nation in history.
The Japanese may ultimately conclude that their security pact with the United States is indeed in their own best strategic interest, or at least unavoidable for the time being. But the new government is right to want a national conversation around the alliance’s full implications.
Harried and impatient visits, like the one offered last month by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates — whose demeanor resembled more an irritated parent than an ally or friend — not only enforce the caricature of Americans as culturally insensitive but also deeply wound Japan’s sense of fair play. The Japanese rightly felt that the Americans would never tolerate such a disdain for the imperatives of their own domestic politics.
Second, the new political landscape in Japan: America has yet to grasp just how essential a change has occurred in Japan. For the first time in decades, ordinary Japanese seem genuinely proud of their political leadership.
Except for a brief spell under Junichiro Koizumi — admired maybe more for his personal integrity than for any lasting accomplishments — until recently Japanese were all but resigned to deplorable politicians wheeling and dealing behind closed doors.
True, the new government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama may also stumble along the way. But for now people are relishing a new era and breed of politician — qualified, articulate and frequently young — able and willing to address the real problems facing this nation, leaving no sacred cows untouched. Swept into power with a huge popular mandate for change, it would be irresponsible, to say the least, for Hatoyama not to question the security alliance with the United States.
Most importantly, however, the grumblings in Washington tend to underestimate the depth and strength of a friendship that binds one of the world’s youngest to one of its oldest nations.
Few countries could have emerged from a bloody war, the atomic holocausts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and a long, humiliating occupation to retain such genuine bonds with their former enemy and victor.
Nowhere am I reminded of this sentiment more strongly than here in Hiroshima, where the motto “forgive but not forget” is the underlying spirit animating the citizens’ campaign for nuclear disarmament.
One is hard-pressed to ever hear, at least openly, any hatred for the Americans. Two years ago the remarkable mayor of Hiroshima, M.I.T.-educated Tadatoshi Akiba, went so far as to nominate an American to head the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation, an entity that spearheads the city’s peace initiatives.
Finally, it is naïve to assume that all this is a one-way road, for America too is dependent, in more subtle ways, on Japan for its security concerns.
At a time when it is shedding blood and money in Iraq and Afghanistan, America needs Japan more than any of its European allies. Japan’s modest, cautious diplomacy does not sufficiently highlight the admiration and trust it enjoys in the Middle East and generally in the larger Muslim world.
I have observed again and again, through hundreds of young Afghan professionals I have worked with, the respect with which they regard Japan as a nation that rose from its ashes, as a country of culture and tradition that has succeeded in a globalized world, and, just as significantly, as a country without a religious attitude or agenda. It is rare to hear such sentiments offered with regard to Washington.
The relationship forged by the United States and Japan since Commodore Perry sailed into Tokyo Bay in 1853 is indeed complex. It has been sustained not just by security concerns or an economical agenda, but by shared values, pains, joys, memories and interests spanning education, culture, science and, of course, baseball. It is a resilient, multifaceted friendship, fully able to handle occasional discord.
Japan has been a nation of peace and democracy for the last 64 years, and the United States rightly deserves some credit for this. The best it can now do is to wait, courteously, for the Japanese to contemplate the next century fully on their own terms.
Nassrine Azimi is senior adviser at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research.
Japan-U.S. Relations: Let There Be Discord
Published: November 15, 2009
HIROSHIMA — In February 1960, one month after its signature in Washington, the U.S.-Japan treaty of mutual cooperation and security was submitted to the Japanese Parliament for ratification. It unleashed a storm of unprecedented furor across Japan.
Massive and at times violent demonstrations erupted in major cities. Fights broke out in the lower house of Parliament, where police had to intervene to arrest opposition members.
A planned visit by then U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower was cancelled. Finally, even though the treaty was ratified (by default) in June, it cost then Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, the man most Japanese saw as its main architect, his job.
All this is to say how surprising it is to see, as the 50th anniversary of the pact approaches, American policy-makers and commentators so rattled by voices in Japan questioning the treaty — and more specifically its burden on Okinawa.
The worry-mongers tend to ignore not only the treaty’s historical significance, but also the cataclysmic changes that have occurred in Japan since the elections in August.
They err mostly, however, by considering the treaty as the only link between the two Pacific rim partners, overlooking the range and depth of a far more complex friendship binding Tokyo and Washington.
First the treaty itself: For the United States it is but one among similar important bilateral security alliances. For Japan, however, it has deep psychological and moral ramifications, touching upon a myriad of issues, from national pride and self-esteem to a collective sense of guilt towards Okinawa.
As long as Japan remains under America’s protective umbrella — what historian John Dower calls its “subordinate independence” — it shall be hard pressed to exercise on the international stage a leadership role fully commensurate with its economical status or peace credentials, even in the nuclear arena, despite its moral authority as the only atomic-bombed nation in history.
The Japanese may ultimately conclude that their security pact with the United States is indeed in their own best strategic interest, or at least unavoidable for the time being. But the new government is right to want a national conversation around the alliance’s full implications.
Harried and impatient visits, like the one offered last month by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates — whose demeanor resembled more an irritated parent than an ally or friend — not only enforce the caricature of Americans as culturally insensitive but also deeply wound Japan’s sense of fair play. The Japanese rightly felt that the Americans would never tolerate such a disdain for the imperatives of their own domestic politics.
Second, the new political landscape in Japan: America has yet to grasp just how essential a change has occurred in Japan. For the first time in decades, ordinary Japanese seem genuinely proud of their political leadership.
Except for a brief spell under Junichiro Koizumi — admired maybe more for his personal integrity than for any lasting accomplishments — until recently Japanese were all but resigned to deplorable politicians wheeling and dealing behind closed doors.
True, the new government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama may also stumble along the way. But for now people are relishing a new era and breed of politician — qualified, articulate and frequently young — able and willing to address the real problems facing this nation, leaving no sacred cows untouched. Swept into power with a huge popular mandate for change, it would be irresponsible, to say the least, for Hatoyama not to question the security alliance with the United States.
Most importantly, however, the grumblings in Washington tend to underestimate the depth and strength of a friendship that binds one of the world’s youngest to one of its oldest nations.
Few countries could have emerged from a bloody war, the atomic holocausts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and a long, humiliating occupation to retain such genuine bonds with their former enemy and victor.
Nowhere am I reminded of this sentiment more strongly than here in Hiroshima, where the motto “forgive but not forget” is the underlying spirit animating the citizens’ campaign for nuclear disarmament.
One is hard-pressed to ever hear, at least openly, any hatred for the Americans. Two years ago the remarkable mayor of Hiroshima, M.I.T.-educated Tadatoshi Akiba, went so far as to nominate an American to head the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation, an entity that spearheads the city’s peace initiatives.
Finally, it is naïve to assume that all this is a one-way road, for America too is dependent, in more subtle ways, on Japan for its security concerns.
At a time when it is shedding blood and money in Iraq and Afghanistan, America needs Japan more than any of its European allies. Japan’s modest, cautious diplomacy does not sufficiently highlight the admiration and trust it enjoys in the Middle East and generally in the larger Muslim world.
I have observed again and again, through hundreds of young Afghan professionals I have worked with, the respect with which they regard Japan as a nation that rose from its ashes, as a country of culture and tradition that has succeeded in a globalized world, and, just as significantly, as a country without a religious attitude or agenda. It is rare to hear such sentiments offered with regard to Washington.
The relationship forged by the United States and Japan since Commodore Perry sailed into Tokyo Bay in 1853 is indeed complex. It has been sustained not just by security concerns or an economical agenda, but by shared values, pains, joys, memories and interests spanning education, culture, science and, of course, baseball. It is a resilient, multifaceted friendship, fully able to handle occasional discord.
Japan has been a nation of peace and democracy for the last 64 years, and the United States rightly deserves some credit for this. The best it can now do is to wait, courteously, for the Japanese to contemplate the next century fully on their own terms.
Nassrine Azimi is senior adviser at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research.
What About China's Dirty Secrets?
by Sophie Richardson
November 15, 2009 | 8:05am
As he makes his first visit to China, the president will be grilled about loans and deficits. Sophie Richardson on why Obama needs to turn talk to Beijing's state secrets and "black jails."
Speaking in Tokyo’s Suntory Hall on Saturday on the first leg of his visit to Asia, President Barack Obama stressed the importance of promoting human rights in the region. “Supporting human rights,” he said, “provides lasting security that cannot be purchased in any other way." “There are certain aspirations that human beings hold in common: The freedom to speak your mind, and choose your leaders; the ability to access information, and worship how you please; confidence in rule of law, and the equal administration of justice. These are not impediments to stability, they are its cornerstones.”
Human rights have deteriorated markedly in China since President Obama took office, particularly for the country’s vibrant but beleaguered civil society—journalists, lawyers, health, human rights and religious advocates. To help reverse this trend, President Obama should take up with President Hu Jintao each of the five human-rights areas he spotlighted in Suntory Hall.
On “the freedom to speak your mind, and choose your leaders,” President Obama should ask President Hu to release Chinese activists who have been jailed or detained for exercising this basic right. Liu Xiaobo, for example, was arrested last December for coauthoring Charter 08, a pro-democracy and human-rights manifesto. In June, he was formally charged with “incitement to subvert state power,” a charge often used to silence critics of the Chinese government.
On the “ability to access information,” President Obama should raise the case of Tan Zuoren and Huang Qi, two activists also facing charges of subversion. Their crime? Investigating the deaths of schoolchildren in the May 2008 Sichuan earthquake and posting their findings online. China’s “Great Firewall” prevents the country’s 338 million Internet users from freely accessing information on the Web, while the censorship of the press, television, and radio is equally pervasive.
On the “ability to worship how you please,” President Obama should ask President Hu to ensure the respect of China’s own constitution, which guarantees freedom of religion. In spite of this provision, Buddhist followers of the Dalai Lama in Tibet, Uighur Muslims in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, and Christians in underground “house churches” face numerous restrictions to their freedom of faith.
On the “confidence in the rule of law,” President Obama should urge the Chinese government to abolish the practice of renewing lawyers' licenses annually—a way to disbar courageous rights-defending lawyers who bring cases that expose government abuses. He should also address the state secrets law which so often is used against peaceful critics of the government. On the “equal administration of justice,” President Obama should denounce recent executions and the complete lack of due process in the trials of Tibetans and Uighurs arrested after protests in March 2008 and July 2009.
Finally, as the Chinese government welcomes President Obama on his first official visit, thousands of Chinese suffer in secret, unlawful detention facilities known as “black jails,” the existence of which the Chinese government unconvincingly denies.
In a new report this week, Human Rights Watch has interviewed dozens of people who were grabbed off the streets and detained in these prisons, used primarily by provincial and municipal officials as a means of stopping their citizens from complaining to national officials about abuses like illegal land grabs and corruption. Detainees—men, women and teenagers—are often physically and psychologically abused. Many are denied food and sleep, and fall victim to theft, extortion or sexual abuse by guards.
Said one 43-year-old man of his 55-day detainment: "I was beaten [by guards] every three days... they said I didn't respect their work. I couldn't endure it and several times considered suicide."
President Obama should call for the dismantlement of these illegal detention facilities, and ask China’s leaders to make rule of law reforms a top priority.
Even as he meets with senior government officials in China, President Obama should remember to advocate for human rights of the people of China. By making these requests, he can show that he is willing to walk the walk—not just talk the talk—on human rights.
Dr. Sophie Richardson is the Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch
November 15, 2009 | 8:05am
As he makes his first visit to China, the president will be grilled about loans and deficits. Sophie Richardson on why Obama needs to turn talk to Beijing's state secrets and "black jails."
Speaking in Tokyo’s Suntory Hall on Saturday on the first leg of his visit to Asia, President Barack Obama stressed the importance of promoting human rights in the region. “Supporting human rights,” he said, “provides lasting security that cannot be purchased in any other way." “There are certain aspirations that human beings hold in common: The freedom to speak your mind, and choose your leaders; the ability to access information, and worship how you please; confidence in rule of law, and the equal administration of justice. These are not impediments to stability, they are its cornerstones.”
Human rights have deteriorated markedly in China since President Obama took office, particularly for the country’s vibrant but beleaguered civil society—journalists, lawyers, health, human rights and religious advocates. To help reverse this trend, President Obama should take up with President Hu Jintao each of the five human-rights areas he spotlighted in Suntory Hall.
On “the freedom to speak your mind, and choose your leaders,” President Obama should ask President Hu to release Chinese activists who have been jailed or detained for exercising this basic right. Liu Xiaobo, for example, was arrested last December for coauthoring Charter 08, a pro-democracy and human-rights manifesto. In June, he was formally charged with “incitement to subvert state power,” a charge often used to silence critics of the Chinese government.
On the “ability to access information,” President Obama should raise the case of Tan Zuoren and Huang Qi, two activists also facing charges of subversion. Their crime? Investigating the deaths of schoolchildren in the May 2008 Sichuan earthquake and posting their findings online. China’s “Great Firewall” prevents the country’s 338 million Internet users from freely accessing information on the Web, while the censorship of the press, television, and radio is equally pervasive.
On the “ability to worship how you please,” President Obama should ask President Hu to ensure the respect of China’s own constitution, which guarantees freedom of religion. In spite of this provision, Buddhist followers of the Dalai Lama in Tibet, Uighur Muslims in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region, and Christians in underground “house churches” face numerous restrictions to their freedom of faith.
On the “confidence in the rule of law,” President Obama should urge the Chinese government to abolish the practice of renewing lawyers' licenses annually—a way to disbar courageous rights-defending lawyers who bring cases that expose government abuses. He should also address the state secrets law which so often is used against peaceful critics of the government. On the “equal administration of justice,” President Obama should denounce recent executions and the complete lack of due process in the trials of Tibetans and Uighurs arrested after protests in March 2008 and July 2009.
Finally, as the Chinese government welcomes President Obama on his first official visit, thousands of Chinese suffer in secret, unlawful detention facilities known as “black jails,” the existence of which the Chinese government unconvincingly denies.
In a new report this week, Human Rights Watch has interviewed dozens of people who were grabbed off the streets and detained in these prisons, used primarily by provincial and municipal officials as a means of stopping their citizens from complaining to national officials about abuses like illegal land grabs and corruption. Detainees—men, women and teenagers—are often physically and psychologically abused. Many are denied food and sleep, and fall victim to theft, extortion or sexual abuse by guards.
Said one 43-year-old man of his 55-day detainment: "I was beaten [by guards] every three days... they said I didn't respect their work. I couldn't endure it and several times considered suicide."
President Obama should call for the dismantlement of these illegal detention facilities, and ask China’s leaders to make rule of law reforms a top priority.
Even as he meets with senior government officials in China, President Obama should remember to advocate for human rights of the people of China. By making these requests, he can show that he is willing to walk the walk—not just talk the talk—on human rights.
Dr. Sophie Richardson is the Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch
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