Japan’s views now on Pacific co-operation

Press, 16 March 1982, Page 22

Japan’s views now on Pacific co-operation

By

STUART McMILLAN,

who was in Japan , recently as

a guest of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The idea of Pacific Basin cooperation, put forward by a former Japanese Prime Minister, Mr Masayoshi Ohira, has not been allowed to die out in Japan, but that country now expects another country or other countries to breathe fire into the coals.

There is even a suggestion that the idea is giving Japan some of the same trouble with its vagueness as it has given those countries to which it has been suggested. Japan has determined to take no new initiative on the idea. On the other hand if another country picks the idea up — and Thailand may hold talks on it — Japan will respond with speed.

The idea is a little less vague than in its early stages. At one time no-one could be absolutely sure about who should be in any agreement in Pacific Basin co-operation. Should it be all the countries whose shores touch the Pacific Ocean? That includes quite a number of South American countries. It includes, of course, the United States, and Canada as well as the obvious countries such as the small Pacific nations of the South Pacific and Australia and New Zealand, as well as some of the South-East Asian countries. But China? Maybe. The Soviet Union? Hardly.

By now, the idea appears to have been narrowed down tb Japan, New Zealand, Australia, the small Pacific countries, Papua New Guinea, and the Association of South-East Asian Nations — that is Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines. The theory is that the developed countries of the region — Japan, New Zealand and Australia — would give the others a lead in economic and other forms of co-operation.

The reactions to the proposal put forward by Mr Ohira and which continued to be advanced after his death in 1980, have varied. A.S.E.A.N. has been generally cautious, arguing that the dominant regional grouping in East Asia and the Pacific has been A.S.E.A.N. itself. It did not want to see a grouping which overshadowed A.S.E.A.N, The Japanese have obviously taken account of the views of A.S.E.A.N. in deciding to drop any further initiative on the proposal.

Neither New Zealand nor Australia have expressed views against the proposal, though both countries have wondered what the co-operation would involve, New Zealand, in particular, has argued that cooperation should involve access to Japan’s markets for food products and a change of heart

on the part of Japan which would mean that Japan would regard New Zealand as a reliable long-term supplier of food to Japan. This might mean the abandonment in Japan of convictions about self-sufficiency in food and security of food supply.

Both New Zealand and Australia see some difficulties in a grouping of Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. Both countries have been at pains to avoid seeming to dominate some of the smaller countries of the Pacific and see no way in which such a grouping as that proposed by Japan could fail to be dominated by the three countries.

Because of the very vagueness of the idea, people looked to Japan’s motives for suggesting Pacific Basin co-operation. A number of motives, none of them seeming to provide a complete explanation, have been suggested. One is that Japan, which is not renowned for taking initiatives in foreign'policy, felt the need to take an important initiative. Another is that Japan tends to be isolated in general security and economic groupings and the idea of Pacific Basin co-operation would end some of the isolation. Yet another motive ascribed to Japan, sometimes by Japanese themselves, is that if the idea of Pacific Basin co-opera-tion were part of the thinking in the making of policy, then

government departments would have to take that into consideration and not.J act, in the way they frequently do, by serving the interests of. the department or-the special sections of society with which a particular department deals.

Still another motive which has been suggested is that Japan feels a need to do something about the South Pacific which receives little Japanese aid, and that Pacific Basin co-operation offers a means of doing this. Roth that motive and the suggestion that Pacific Basin co-operation might be one method of dealing with “North-South” questions have more than a hint of justification after the event rather than real motivation.

My own favourite explanation is that because of Mr Ohira’s philosophical bent of mind, and his awareness that Japanese tend to look inwards to their own society, he saw this as a method of making his countrymen look outwards. If that motive is correct, a corollary is that in these days of leadership in Japan by the much more pragmatic Mr Suzuki as Prime Minister, with his emphasis on domestic matters, the Ohira idea is likely to have a totally different content.

One other motive or explanation needs mentioning. It is that in addressing himself to the question of the countries of the Pacific, Mr Ohira used two

words which have a symbolic and emotional meeting. One is “Pacific,” the other “co-opera-tion.”

This, of course, leaves open the question of what he meant. But that is where this article started out.