Gist of Abe-Obama summit in Washington

WASHINGTON (Kyodo) — The following is the gist of a summit between Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday in Washington.

Abe and Obama agreed:
— to strengthen bilateral alliance, enhance security cooperation.
— the alliance contributes to stability in Asia-Pacific.
— to seek peace, stability in East China Sea.
— to seek tougher U.N. sanctions on N. Korea.
— joining TPP talks will not require commitment to removing all tariffs.
— to step up efforts to fight terrorism.
— to advance base relocation, reduce Okinawa burdens.
— on need to pursue strong economic growth.

Abe said:
— bonds of Japan-U.S. alliance have been restored.
— Japan close to joining int’l parental abduction pact.
— Japan boosting its defense capabilities.
— Japan to review previous government plan to end nuclear power in 2030s.

Obama said:
— alliance is central foundation of security in Asia-Pacific.
— U.S. backs Japan’s attempt to solve N. Korea abduction issue.

Kyodo News, February 23, 2013
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20130223p2g00m0dm006000c.html

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 PM vows stronger U.S. ties, says ’Japan’s back’

WASHINGTON (AP) — Japan’s new prime minister says he will make his country a stronger U.S. ally and joined President Barack Obama in warning North Korea that its recent nuclear provocations would not be tolerated.

After meeting Obama in the Oval Office on Friday. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe also sent a clear message to China: that while Japan does not want confrontation with Beijing, it won’t tolerate challenges to its sovereignty over islands disputed by the two Asian powers.

Those regional tensions served as the backdrop for Friday’s meetings, which came just two months after Abe began his second stint as Japan’s prime minister following a convincing election victory.

Obama said he and Abe were united in their “determination to take strong actions” in response to North Korea’s nuclear test this month, which followed a successful long-range rocket launch last month. That has propelled the isolated, authoritarian state closer to having a weapon of mass destruction that could threaten the U.S.

Abe said he and Obama have agreed to push for tougher sanctions by the U.N. Security Council and spelled out why Pyongyang’s actions are cause for worry.

“They (North Korea) have increased the range of their missile immensely and have attained the ability to reach even the mainland United States,” Abe said at a Washington think tank after his White House visit. He said Pyongyang was also claiming it has made a smaller nuclear bomb that could be delivered by missile.

Speaking through a translator, the Japanese leader said this was why the United States was pressuring China to exert more influence over its North Korean ally. Abe said it was important for the entire international community to do the same.

Most experts believe North Korea is still some years away from being able to hit America, although its shorter-range missiles could already threaten its neighbors.

Abe, a nationalist and advocate of Japanese relations with the United States, is the latest in a revolving door of Japanese prime ministers — the fifth since Obama took office. That’s made it difficult to establish a personal rapport between Japanese and U.S. leaders, notwithstanding the enduring nature of the bilateral relationship. Japan hosts about 50,000 American forces and is a cornerstone of Washington’s Asia policy.

His first stint as prime minister was cut short in 2007 by ill health, but Abe’s now riding high in the polls. He outlined Friday his policy to revive his nation after years of malaise by building a strong economy and strong national defense.

“Japan is not, and will never be, a tier-two country,” Abe said. “That is the core message I am here to make. And I reiterate this by saying, I am back, and so shall Japan be.”

He promised to enhance Japan’s role in international affairs, build its cooperation with other democracies and promote open use of the seas and rules-based trade.

Japan’s relationship with Washington has assumed more importance for Tokyo in recent months as it has locked horns with China over the control of unoccupied islands in the resource-rich seas between them.

Obama did not address the dispute in his brief remarks, but separately, Secretary of State John Kerry complimented Japan on the restraint it has shown and its efforts to prevent a “significant confrontation.”

Abe said that Japan had no intention of escalating the dispute and that his door was always open to Chinese leaders.

But he had some words of defiance, too, over Japan’s sovereignty of the islands.

“We simply cannot tolerate any challenge now and in the future,” Abe said. “No nation should make any miscalculation about firmness of our resolve. No one should ever doubt the robustness of the Japan-U.S. alliance.”

The U.S. has treaty obligations to help Japan in the event of a conflict, obligations Abe said were a stabilizing factor in ensuring peace and stability in the region.

In comments that will be welcomed by Washington, Abe held out an olive branch to South Korea, a key U.S. ally that shares Japan’s concern over North Korea’s provocations.

He said the Japan-South Korea relationship was “extremely important” and he wanted to resolve the differences between them. The two Asian democracies have bickered over another island dispute, and Seoul believes Tokyo lacks contrition for its colonial past and use of Korean sex slaves during World War II.

Friday’s meeting was an opportunity for the U.S. to gauge Tokyo’s intent to join negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, a regionwide free-trade pact pushed by Washington.

Abe held back from such a commitment that could prove politically risky before key elections in July for the upper house of the legislature, known as the Diet. Joining TPP is opposed by most of his party and Japan’s small but politically powerful farming lobby.

However, a joint statement said the two leaders had agreed to continue their talks about Japan’s “possible interest” in joining TPP. It appeared to offer some new wiggle room for Abe. It acknowledged sensitivities for Japan on certain agricultural products and for some manufactured products for the U.S.

The statement said that while all goods would be subject to negotiation, a prior commitment to eliminate all tariffs was not required.

AP, February 23, 2013
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20130223p2g00m0dm034000c.html

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 Abe miscalculates situation, harvesting little from U.S. tour

WASHINGTON, Feb. 24 (Xinhua) — U.S. President Barack Obama and visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met Friday on a wide range of security and economic issues.

However, contrary to Abe’s great hope of showing off the “robust” U.S.-Japan alliance and prodding the U.S. into taking Japan’s side in its spiralling dispute with neighboring China over the Diaoyu Islands, Washington this time intentionally played down the issue, refraining from clearly throwing its support behind Tokyo.

The U.S.-Japan alliance, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the nuclear program on the Korea Peninsula, instead of the Diaoyu Islands, topped the agenda of the two leaders’ talks.

Obama did reiterate the U.S.-Japan alliance was the “central foundation for our regional security and so much of what we do in the Pacific region,” but he trod cautiously, not even mentioning the Japan-China dispute in his brief remarks after his meeting with Abe.

On the Diaoyu Islands, the integral part of Chinese territories illegally claimed by Japan, Abe’s attitude was somewhat restrained by Washington’s snub.

In contrast to his aggressive and rash statements before the trip, Abe claimed he had always handled the issue “in a calm manner.” Although this does not match his deeds, he promised to “continue to do so.”

Despite stressing the U.S.-Japan alliance for regional security in Asia, Obama particularly cited the two countries’ concerns on the “provocative actions” taken by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, namely Pyongyang’s recent nuclear test. He vowed to take “strong actions” in response.

In addition, a brief joint statement issued by Obama and Abe was confined to the TPP, a regional free trade pact pushed by Washington.

It is clear and widely as expected that Abe failed to deliver on his major bid to solicit explicit support over the territorial spat with China, as Washington weighed between a desire to enhance traditional ties with Tokyo against a growing need to cultivate healthy relations with Beijing.

The outcome of Abe’s visit manifested the U.S. attempts to strike a tricky balance.

U.S. expert Christian Caryl has said Japan is Washington’s most important Asian ally. And as Chinese influence grew, Washington could scarcely hope to manage the shifting balance of power in East Asia without the help of Japan, Caryl said in his article posted on the Foreign Policy website.

But at the same time, the United States hated seeing its highly interwoven ties with Beijing damaged by Japan’s rash behavior. The top two economies had been each other’s second largest trading partner while the two UN Security Council permanent members need to cooperate on a host of regional and international issues.

“Nor do the Americans want to see themselves entangled in local feuds that could spark a military conflict” in a region critical to the global economy, as the U.S. economy is struggling to walk out of the woods, Caryl said.

In fact, even before Abe’s trip, U.S. officials and think tank researchers clearly revealed the U.S. stance by emphasizing diplomacy in solving disputes and tighter ties with China.

On the eve of Abe’s visit on Wednesday, Danny Russel, National Security Council senior director for Asia, said the United States wanted to focus on diplomacy between Japan and China to avoid the risk of miscalculations between the world’s second and third largest economies.

“No one wants to allow tensions to fester or to escalate,” Russel said.

Robert Hathaway, director of the Asia program at the Wilson Center think tank in Washington, said, “Obama will not want to contribute to the impression that already exists in China that the U.S. and Japan are ganging up against China.”

Xinhua, February 24 2013
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/indepth/2013-02/24/c_132188968.htm

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 Regional woes cloud Abe’s success in U.S. — Senkakus row, North’s missiles top to-do list

WASHINGTON — Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s trip to Washington was interpreted by some political analysts as confirmation that his second stint at the government helm has gotten off to a strong start.

On Friday, Abe agreed with U.S. President Barack Obama to bolster the bilateral security alliance, given the deteriorating security environment in East Asia amid North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile ambitions and China’s increasingly abrasive tone.

More importantly, Abe boosted his drive to kick-start the economy by securing the crucial U.S. concession that the prior abolition of all import tariffs is not a prerequisite to Japan’s entry to the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade negotiations.

Following his return to Japan on Sunday afternoon, however, the prime minister’s favorable approval ratings may soon begin to falter.

For starters, Abe has yet to come up with a viable solution to ease the ongoing frictions with China over the Senkaku Islands. Chinese vessels for months have been repeatedly intruding into Japanese territorial waters near the disputed islet cluster, which Tokyo administers and Beijing lays claim to, but the Abe government’s response has been mild at best.

Meanwhile, attempts to persuade North Korea that it has little to gain from its nuclear and missile provocations have made no headway, as evidenced by Pyongyang’s nuclear test Feb. 12, in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Pyongyang’s detonation of a third atomic device has triggered calls from around the world for the imposition of tougher sanctions on the regime of Kim Jong Un, and the latest standoff will only further delay a resolution of the North’s past abduction of Japanese citizens, an issue that has been pending for decades.

Abe has vowed to beef up Japan’s capacity to defend itself against the North Korean missile threat, not only through the security alliance with the United States but also by scrapping various constraints imposed on the Self-Defense Forces by the pacifist Constitution.

But to do so, he will first have to win a majority in this summer’s Upper House poll to give his Liberal Democratic Party control of both chambers of the Diet. The LDP already controls the Lower House after sweeping December’s general election.

On joining the TPP talks aimed at creating a vast free-trade zone among Pacific Rim economies, Abe remains unsure whether he can win over opponents within his own ruling party since the regional initiative is anathema to the agricultural sector, which predicts a flood of cheap farm imports would overwhelm many farmers – a core support group for the LDP.

During the Lower House election campaign in December, Abe pledged that Japan would not join the TPP discussions if it was first required to eliminate all tariffs without exception, including on sensitive agricultural imports such as rice and beef.

But following Obama’s clarification that this would not be a prerequisite step, according to a joint statement the two leaders released, Abe on Friday appeared to have begun shifting toward Japan participating in the TPP negotiations.

And with certain products to be exempted from the zero tariff principle – at least for the time being – Abe is now expected to attempt to convince the farming industry that entering the TPP would be in the nation’s best interests.

“It became evident that (the TPP) is not premised on tariff elimination without sanctuary,” Abe told reporters in Washington after meeting with Obama, hinting the LDP-led government is close to deciding to join the trade initiate.

Abe earlier said he would reach a conclusion prior to the House of Councilors election in July. But officials in Tokyo said he may not have that luxury, since Washington has just sent its strongest signal to date that it firmly wants Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, to take part in the TPP, implicitly prodding Abe to make a swift decision.

Traditionally, Japanese leaders seek to establish close ties with U.S. presidents as soon as they take office. Such relationships have often flourished in the past, especially between Yasuhiro Nakasone and Ronald Reagan in the 1980s and between Junichiro Koizumi and George Bush in the early 2000s.

Still, a senior official in Tokyo said conventional friendship-building is not directly applicable in the case of Abe and Obama, whom the official described as a “pragmatist who will never be lost to emotion.”

“What we have to do is deliver results,” the official said.

Shinya Ajima, Kyodo News, February 25, 2013
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/02/25/national/regional-woes-cloud-abes-success-in-u-s/#.USwVCzfA55s

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