The 2000 Kyushu-Okinawa Summit: A Sherpa's Perspective

Despite many challenges, Okinawa succeeded in its bid to hold the 2000 G8 Summit. This was primarily because it was the personal preference of the late Japanese Prime Minister Keizô Obuchi, whose decision may have met with some opposition from politicians but was popular with the general public. What type of summit had Japan envisaged? Were the objectives realized and will the Okinawa Summit be remembered as a historic occasion? In the following article, Yoshiji Nogami, deputy minister for foreign affairs and the G8 sherpa (or personal representative) for the Japanese prime minister, answers these questions and gives details of the post-summit work that has taken place since the conclusion of the leaders' meeting.     

The OAS and the Summit of the Americas: Coexistence,or Integration of Forces for Multilateralism?

Fifty years after the creation of the OAS, political power is not centralized in that organization but variously diffused throughout the interamerican system. Meanwhile, the Summit of the Americas process has slowly acquired its own institutionality outside the OAS, and is sometimes perceived as challenging the primacy of the ideal of the OAS as the principal institution of interamerican relations. Even with its own weaknesses, the Summit of the Americas has become the most important force for reform of the OAS. As the hemisphere prepares for the third full summit in Quebec, this essay assesses the relationship of these two institutions and their future prospects.     

Assessment of the Second US-North Korea Summit and the Future Course of North Korea’s Denuclearization

The second US-North Korea Summit, held on February 27-28, 2019, concluded without an agreement, contrary to most expectations. This article discusses the difference in the positions of the US and North Korea regarding negotiations for denuclearization and identifies the movements of the US, North Korea, and South Korea since the Hanoi summit. It concludes with recommendations for the course of action Japan should take toward promoting peace and prosperity in Northeast Asia.     

The construction of an East Asian order and the limitations of the ASEAN model

An East Asian Summit will be held in Malaysia this December. Like other institutions in the region, the summit will be hosted by ASEAN. Only nations that have signed the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (or TAC), which sets out the basic principles of ASEAN, will receive an invitation to the summit from ASEAN. This unprecedented summit may become a historic starting point on the path towards the founding of an East Asian community. If so, the TAC may well come to represent the basic principles of the East Asian community. The commitment to peaceful resolution of conflict that is enshrined in the TAC could be expanded from Southeast Asia to East Asia. If a Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in East Asia could be concluded, it would surely constitute a major contribution to peace and prosperity in East Asia. At the same time, however, it is likely that the bedrock principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries—as stipulated in the TAC—would also become a fundamental doctrine of an East Asian community. Even within ASEAN there are some who regard this principle as outdated, as it is used as a pretext for resisting pressure to democratize. If it retains the TAC as its basis, will an East Asian community be able to share the concept of democracy?     

Okinawa and the Nago heliport problem in the US-Japan relationship

The impact of the decision about when and if the United States Marine Corp Air Station will be relocated in Okinawa reverberates beyond the prefectural shores. It has the potential to upset the G-8 Summit, scheduled to be held in Nago City in July 2000, as well as to affect the strategic relationship between the US and Japan. In this article, Robert Eldridge, Post-doctoral Fellow at the Suntory Foundation, Osaka, reviews the history of this complicated problem. He argues that the US and Japan must continue to make progress addressing Okinawan requests and concerns. Ameliorating Okinawa” s burden, while at the same time more actively seeking public understanding and suppor t of the US-Japan security relationship and Japan's role in that relationship, as well as increasing Japan's ability to cooperate in times of emergency, is in the interest of both countries.     

Japan's Global Health Strategy: Connecting Development and Security

Japan has made its presence felt in the realm of power politics by focusing on the promotion of “human security” and sustainable development. At the core of both concepts lies the issue of health. As Japan prepares for the upcoming G7 Summit, Keizo Takemi examines the question of what sort of leadership role Japan should play in the critical field of health.     

Playing Base Politics in a Global Strategic Theater: Futenma Relocation,the G-8 Summit,and Okinawa

In late 1995, a culmination of events on Japan's southernmost island of Okinawa, home to over 70 percent of U.S. military facilities in Japan, both threatened the future of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty and posed a direct challenge to the contradictory legacies of Japan's postwar system of constitutional democracy. Almost five years later, in July 2000, in anticipation of the gathering of heads of state at the Okinawa 2000 G-8 Summit, Bill Clinton became the first U.S. president to visit the island in over forty years. Speaking at the Cornerstone of Peace, a monument built in memory of the only ground war fought on Japanese soil between Japanese and U.S. forces in World War II, Clinton reaffirmed the importance of the U.S.-Japan alliance – and Okinawa's role within it – to peace and security in the Asia-Pacific region. Yet in Okinawa the nature and constitution of peace itself has never been a political given. This article traces the politics surrounding the U.S. military presence over this period, delving into the deeper historical, political, and social issues at stake for both this small island prefecture and for parts of the world beyond.     

里斯本战略评述——从经济增长角度分析欧盟经济

2000年欧盟制定了十年发展规划——里斯本战略,旨在通过发展知识经济使欧盟在2010年成为世界上最具竞争力的经济体。本文首先分析了里斯本战略的执行和改革情况,进而从理论角度讨论各种生产要素对经济增长的影响,最后对欧元区国家的经济增长进行实证分析,比较分析了1992-2008年各生产要素对欧元区国家经济增长的贡献情况。本文得出结论认为,里斯本战略试图通过发展知识经济提高经济增长率的这一初衷得到了部分体现,但是技术进步对经济增长的贡献率仍然十分有限。     

China's 'Omnidirectional Diplomacy': Cooperation with all,Emphasis on Major Powers

In the first half of 2001, China's relationship with the two economic power houses, the US and Japan, was anything but smooth. Tomoyuki Kojima, professor of political science and dean of policy management at Keio University describes the principle of China's foreign policy as ''omnidirectional'' diplomacy. The strained relations with the US and Japan, however, were contradictory to this principle which emphasizes international cooperation with a focus on world powers. In the following article, he examines the main reasons for China's problems with both countries. At the time of writing, Shanghai is to host the 2001 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in October, China is poised to enter the World Trade Organization and Beijing had also won the bid to host the 2008 Olympics. As China becomes more and more internationalized, Kojima argues that the emphasis on cooperation will be perceived as having been of vital importance.     

2010年韩国外交综述

过去的2010年,韩国政府在巩固＂新亚洲外交＂成果的基础上,努力应对朝鲜半岛的紧张局势,以举办G20峰会为契机,加强韩美同盟、积极开展经济外交,推动FTA战略的实施,拓展与其他国家的交流合作,促进经济的较快发展。本文旨在探讨韩国政府过去一年的外交政策,对其外交的主要特点进行阐述和分析。     

Mistaken Attribution: The United States and Inter-Korean Relations

The US-South Korea alliance has been one of the most successful relationships to be forged out of the Cold War era. Since the June 2000 inter-Korean summit, however, one area of consistent friction between the two countries has been over North-South relations. In this article, Victor Cha, associate professor of Government and D.S. Song-Korea Foundation Chair in the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, argues that a key dynamic at play is one of perception, involving errors of attribution. Allied complaints about the other are heard, but attempts to address these complaints are dismissed by the counterpart as having been determined by the situation rather than by volition--that is, disposition. This results in mutual frustration. Since the "axis of evil" appellation attached to North Korea by US president, George Bush, both sides have interpreted North Korean behavior as confirming their own convictions on how to proceed. Despite rhetoric to the contrary, the result has been a dichotomy in the way the two governments approach inter-Korean relations.     

PARALLEL LIVES: A Conversation between Hwang Suk-young and Bao Ninh Two Veterans of the Vietnam War

Translators' Preface: The dialogue below is a translation of a conversation between South Korean novelist Hwang Suk-young and Vietnamese novelist Bao Ninh, who met in Seoul on 4 June 2000. Held a few days before the historic summit meeting between South Korean President Kim Dae Jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang, the Hwang Suk-young/Bao Ninh meeting is probably the first such encounter between two major novelists of the Vietnam War from South Korea and Vietnam. The conversation first appeared in the South Korean weekly news journal Hangyoreh 21 on 22 June 2000. The translators would like to thank the editors of Hangyoreh 21 for their kind permission to reproduce the article here.     

东盟实施大国平衡战略的新进展

冷战结束以来,东盟一直在推行大国平衡战略,尤其是维持中、日、美三国在东亚地区影响力的平衡.东亚峰会的召开使东盟的这种战略扩展到了印度、澳大利亚和新西兰.然而同时,东盟的地区主导作用又受到新的威胁和挑战,无疑这又会影响它实施这一战略.另外,美国的无暇东顾又使得东盟倍加担忧,从而迫使东盟召唤美国关注东南亚,以恢复大国的平衡.     

Jihad: a South African perspective

The India, Brazil and South Africa Dialogue Forum (IBSA) established in 2003 brings together three like-minded, democratic, market economies of multi-cultural and multi-ethnic character, sharing a broadly similar economic, political and development situation. At the time of its formation IBSA was widely regarded as representing a novel form of South-South cooperation, transcending older models rooted in the logic of North-South confrontation in the post-colonial, Cold War world. However, now, as the respective countries prepare for their tenth anniversary summit in India, the forum seems to face a growing sense of irrelevance, perhaps even an existential crisis. There has been a proliferation of other forums—notably BRICS and the G20—which means that IBSA needs to differentiate itself if it is to endure. This paper suggests a common vision for IBSA, based on the concept of international liberalism, implying an open international market, well-regulated capital markets and tailored domestic policies such as social policy, health policy and education policy, may well increase the weight IBSA can gain in different international forums.     

Security,Nationalism and Popular Culture: Screening South Korea’s Uneasy Identity in the Early 2000s

By examining the cultural representations of the South Korean notion of the Self/Other in relation to its major traditional enemy — North Korea — this article aims to capture a picture of South Korea’s discursive economy of the North, and to problematise the South Korean identities implicated in that economy in the early 2000s. To achieve these aims, this article focuses on representations of a successful popular South Korean film which was released in 2000, just a few months after the first inter-Korean summit: Joint Security Area JSA. By analytically reading JSA, it is revealed that, in South Korea, the traditional discursive practices based on the Cold War thinking have been eroded. For the South, the North is part of the Self (Korean-ness; love for the North as the same nation) and, at the same time, is an Other (South Korean-ness; contempt for the North as an inferior state). Related to this, South Korea appears to be the uneasy Self without a firm Other in between Korean-ness and South Korean-ness.     

习近平首脑外交与中国白俄罗斯“一带一路”合作

自习近平成为中国领导人以来,在外交领域积极发挥关键性的领导作用,首脑外交已成为中国外交的最高形式。习近平外交思想强调党对外交工作的绝对领导,强调维护首脑对外交工作的核心领导。习近平主席对于中白合作的倡议得到卢卡申科总统的认同和支持,首脑外交已经成为中白“一带一路”合作快速发展的关键性因素。中白克服了空间距离远、产业合作条件不佳的困难,在白俄罗斯首都明斯克市郊建设中白工业园,并被纳入“一带一路”建设框架内,目前该项目的进展迅速。中国与白俄罗斯的“一带一路”合作是远高于一般意义上的经济合作,是一种基于政治互信的合作。从中白合作中我们得出一个结论:因势利导和差异性的合作形式是“一带一路”建设的新特点。“一带一路”绝不仅仅是一条交通物流走廊,更是一种全球经济合作的新模式,是中国参与经济全球化的一种制度创新。     

Sino‐Japanese relations: A Japanese perspective

Although Sino‐Japanese relations seem much improved in recent years, Tomoyuki Kojima, professor of political science at Keio University, still sees numerous problems that Japan must come to terms with before the two countries can develop a truly close relationship. Points of friction include Japan's past aggression in China, Chinese nuclear testing, regional security issues, and China's criticism of Japan. This paper was presented at the conference, “China and Japan in the Asia‐Pacific region since the Pacific War and Prospects for the Future,” held in Beijing on Nov. 12–13, 1995, by the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations and the Australian National University.     

A review essay

Abstract

When Kiyoshi Kojima first articulated the concept of a Pacific Free Trade Area in 1966, he anticipated that the removal of tariffs among the developed nations of the Pacific could encourage economic growth among the less developed nations of the Pacific Basin if the developed countries made certain structural adjustments. He particularly recommended that the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan import more primary materials from the developing countries of Asia and Latin America rather than from each other, and that the developed countries lower any restrictions on the import of light manufactured goods from the developing nations.     

Document: Arab Peace Initiative

This inititative was drafted at the Arab League Summit in Beirut, Lebanon, on March 27-28, 2001. Source: The Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia.     

Japan’s Diplomacy towards Member Countries of Pacific Islands Forum: Significance of Pacific Islands Leaders Meeting (PALM)

As an island country in the Pacific region, it is natural for Japan to have diplomatic relationships with neighboring island countries. By the early 1970s, Japan started to provide Official Development Assistance (ODA) to two individual island countries in the Pacific region, and, in the mid-1980s, when most of the island countries had achieved independence, Japan’s diplomacy expanded to additional countries. In 1985 then Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone made an official visit to two of the island countries, and, in 1987, official policy expressing support for the Pacific island countries’ independence, regional cooperation, political stability, economic development, and people-to-people exchange was issued. In October 1997, the “Japan-SPF Summit Meeting” with participants of leaders from Japan and 14 South Pacific Forum member island countries/regions and government representatives of Australia and New Zealand was held in Tokyo. The 8^th Pacific Islands Leaders meeting held in May 2018 is symbolic of Japan’s diplomacy toward the Pacific Islands Forum member countries. This article is the author’s personal observation of Japan’s diplomacy toward Pacific Islands Forum member countries and the significance of Pacific Islands Leaders Meeting.