Japan's politics clouds APEC meeting

Japan's politics clouds APEC meeting

By Peter Starr

TOKYO (AFP): When Japan assumed the chair after the annual meeting of APEC ministers in Jakarta last year, Japanese Foreign Minister Yohei Kono brandished a gavel handed to him by his Indonesian counterpart.

Standing alongside International Trade and Industry Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, he declared Japan was "looking forward to the powerful support and cooperation of all the members" of the group as it entered its seventh year.

A year later, however, barely a handful of the group's 18 members support Japan's controversial plan to extend special treatment for sensitive sectors such as agriculture in a free- trade blueprint to be adopted in Osaka.

Powerful support has instead given way to strong opposition from members ranging from Australia and the United States to Thailand and Singapore -- amid fears that the group might actually fall apart if it fails to back down.

To make matters worse, at least symbolically, it will be a severely weakened Japanese foreign minister presiding over this year's annual meeting of APEC ministers when it kicks off in Osaka next Thursday.

Japanese convention dictates that, unlike other members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, Japan has two ministries instead of one dealing with APEC affairs. And according to protocol, while the foreign and trade ministers will "co-chair" the meeting, Kono is supposed to have the upper hand.

But Kono has recently been dumped as president of the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), only to be replaced by Hashimoto as leader of the biggest party in the coalition of socialist Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama.

Hashimoto has also replaced Kono as deputy prime minister, putting Japan in the embarrassing diplomatic position of having the foreign minister chairing this year's APEC meeting wielding a big gavel with little power.

APEC officials say that barring a last-minute breakthrough by senior officials at informal meetings in Osaka early next week, a compromise on the divisive issue of special treatment for sensitive sectors will probably have to be brokered by the ministers at their two-day meeting starting next Thursday.

And if the ministers fail, as increasingly appears likely, it will be up to the APEC leaders themselves to come up with a deal at their informal summit hosted by Murayama the following Sunday on Nov. 19.

Despite a politically powerful farm sector with strong links to the LDP, the momentum for Japan's fragile coalition government to accommodate the majority of APEC members has been quietly growing in recent weeks.

A senior Japanese government official, who asked not to be named, said the main reason why Japan was reluctant to even hint at a compromise on agriculture at this stage was a looming upper house by-election in barely a week.

As fate would have it, the election is in Saga prefecture, a big rice-growing area on the southern island of Kyushu, and is scheduled for the same day as the APEC summit on Nov. 19.

The seat has long been held by the LDP and the by-election, the first since Hashimoto assumed the party leadership in September, is widely seen as a forerunner to a general election next year.

Another senior government official, who also asked to remain anonymous, hinted at an eventual compromise within APEC, saying the failure to reach a compromise at this stage was "more a political and psychological problem than a logical problem."

The country's biggest selling newspaper, the Yomiuri Shimbun, has meanwhile come out strongly in favor of a last-minute deal in an editorial last weekend.

"Murayama, host of the APEC meetings, should make a bold decision," the newspaper said. "If Japan gives priority to domestic politics in the compilation of guidelines when the leaders of cabinet ministers of 18 countries and regions get together in Osaka, it would harm APEC's future. Moreover, Japan's leadership in the Asia-Pacific region would be questioned."

APEC leaders are supposed to issue a declaration towards the end of the afternoon on the Sunday of the summit, only hours before polls close in Saga.