Japanese Foreign Ministry has to reform or it will falter

Yoichi Funabashi, The Asahi Shimbun, Tokyo

A former Clinton administration official who now is in private practice as a lawyer told me over dinner, "Of all the foreign ministries around the world, I think Japan's and Russia's are the ones that changed the least after the Cold War."

When Bill Clinton was president of the United States, my friend was in charge of Russian and Balkan policy. He has also lived in Japan and is well versed in both Japanese and Russian affairs.

"The Russian Foreign Ministry has become even more conservative, sticking to the awareness and attitude that go back to the Soviet regime when its diplomacy was dependent on military force," my friend said.

He added that the Bush administration prefers to contact the presidential office in Moscow directly instead of going through Russia's Foreign Ministry.

In the case of Japan, the Foreign Ministry has become dysfunctional because of successive scandals. Also, officials there seem incapable of severing their dependency on the Japan- U.S. alliance and official development assistance.

Even so, public frustration at Foreign Ministry inertia and the refusal by diplomats to bend with the times is hardly an exclusively Japanese problem. The trend is common in industrialized nations.

Take, for example, the following huge environmental changes in international society:

The rapid growth in transnational travel has added a huge burden to consular activities. Unable to catch up with the sudden increase in the workload, the quality of public service declines. As a result, the public becomes distrustful of their foreign ministry and people worry whether they can really count on it to ensure they will be safe and protected when they journey overseas.

In addition, nearly all countries have shifted their foreign policy focus to business diplomacy that promotes national economic interests. French President Jacques Chirac has publicly said he evaluates the competence of ambassadors on the basis of how much they helped French businesses win contracts.

Many developing countries and former Soviet satellites are experimenting with democracy. There is a growing need for foreign ministries of the industrialized nations to address the populations of these places -- and not just to their own people -- directly and to provide an honest accounting of various world events. The prompt appearance of British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Al Jazira television-dubbed the Arab world's CNN, after last year's terrorist attacks on the United States-is an example of such public diplomacy efforts.

Diplomats today are required to be competent in providing easy-to-understand explanations to citizens. This is in addition to having negotiating skills, political sensitivity, the ability to analyze and evaluate one's host country as well as building personal connections and securing a foothold. As democratization advances, it gives rise to tension over ethnic and religious identities-historical recognition, for example. Diplomats who specialize in such issues are very much in demand.

As globalization advances, there are increasing opportunities to speak about and get involved in global issues such as the environment, refugees and AIDS. This is what is means to be a member of international society. This is an area of multilateral diplomacy in which officials of other ministries who are specialists in their own fields play an increasingly important role.

People who can write drafts, chair meetings and freely use English in international conferences, in other words people who have talent for entrepreneurship, have far more value.

The role of ambassadors is also changing. In American embassies and other governmental offices abroad, State Department officials account for 38 percent of all staff who work there. The rest represent other U.S. ministries and agencies. Ambassadors are expected to play the role of a general manager rather than a proxy of the State Department.

As always, the purpose of foreign policy is maintenance and expansion of a country's power and influence and security of national interests. However, methods to achieve that end have changed.

I use the word power but what is important is not intimidating power that uses threats but soft power that attracts others with charm. Countries are urged to provide and share knowledge, technology, know-how, talent, organization and management skills with other countries.

They should compete with each other to make coalitions, make their policy-making process transparent, show accountability and win trust.

After World War II, 300 international organizations emerged. Currently, an estimated 10,000 nongovernmental organizations and 40,000 multinational businesses are active around the world. The world itself is witnessing revolutionary advances in communication and media technology.

Diplomatic circuits and sections are becoming diversified. Diplomacy is dispersing, increasing transparency and becoming increasingly instantaneous. Under such circumstances, foreign ministries have no choice but to change their roles and functions.

In addition, foreign ministries of U.S. allies share a common predicament. As British MP Shirley Williams puts it: They are feeling the repercussions of the drastic decline of power of the U.S. State Department.

In the case of Japan's Foreign Ministry, the problem is all the more serious because it has traditionally relied heavily on the U.S. State Department.

This week, "commission to change the Foreign Ministry," an advisory panel to Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi, will publish an interim report with a list of recommendations for Foreign Ministry reform.

The first thing the ministry should do is recover public trust. Having done that, it should implement reforms to adapt to global environmental changes.

It would not be an exaggeration to say the fate of the ministry depends on reform.

As Charles Darwin said, species that outlive and survive the longest are not the strongest or the biggest. They are the fittest.