Can Abe Fill Koizumi’s Blue Suede Shoes?

If an English-language article about Koizumi Junichiro ever appeared without the word “maverick,” I didn’t notice. But now Abe Shinzo might get to be one of the cool kids too. Bono praised Japan for its anti-poverty funding in the ’90s and its aid in Southeast Asia after meeting Abe Wednesday. And he may have called the new prime minister “cool.”

“I’ve always seen George Bush looking at my sunglasses … and George Bush never put them on,” Bono said. “The last pope put them on, and Prime Minister Abe — very cool.”

Reuters asserts that Bono was calling Abe cool, but I think he might have been referring to the act of putting on the sunglasses, not the politician himself. One way or another, we know Bono locates Abe on the “cool” scale somewhere between Koizumi and Bush, because he said he was disappointed not to have discussed music with Abe as he had with the Maverick. Not to worry, Bono said, “Next meeting, I’ll get him on that.”

U.S. Treasury Secretary and Fed Chief to Lead China Delegation

Plans for a high-level economic delegation from the United States to China next month have been gradually emerging over the last week. This team will be pretty hard-hitting. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who first visited China in September, and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will lead the delegation to the semiannual U.S.-China Strategic Economic Dialogue, created in September.

The talks are expected to address the $200 billion U.S.–Chinese trade imbalance and the Bush administration’s hope that China will adjust its undervalued currency.

Poll: China is First Priority For Japanese, U.S. Second

A Nikkei Shimbun poll found that the Japanese public ranks China as Japan’s highest diplomatic priority, followed by the United States and South Korea.

How a Small U.S. or European Company Turns to China

China Law Blog tells the story of a worried client deciding whether to do business in China, revealing the decisions set before a small or medium-sized companies in the United States or Europe when faced with competitors who manufacture in China.

I talked a lot with my small company client today about the risks of China and what his company can do to minimize those risks, all the while emphasizing there is no way to wholly eliminate them. Towards the end of our conversation, he said, “it sounds like you are telling me I should not go into China.” I then told him I was actually telling him the opposite, but as his lawyer I felt it my job to highlight the risks and focus on minimizing them. I then went on to say that based on what he had told me, the biggest risk of all would be to not go into China even though it had become pretty clear that failing to do so would likely eventually mean the end of his business.

English Lessons From Abe Shinzo

During the Koizumi administration, I signed up for the Kantei’s weekly e-mail magazine. Every now and then, Koizumi would reveal some slight variation of his language on the Yasukuni Shrine, which was big news for me when I was researching Yasukuni rhetoric.

I never canceled the subscription, so now I get the Abe administration’s newsletter. I was hoping I’d find some crack about his meetings this week with Hu Jintao and George W. Bush at the APEC summit, but what I found was a bit more interesting.

Abe Shinzo is teaching English! The popularity of learning English in Japan is much discussed, and still probably little understood. But here’s the bureaucracy’s contribution. From the Japanese edition of the newsletter:

＜メルマガで学ぶ時事英語＞

　問題：教育基本法は英語で何というでしょう？

　→答えは今週の英語版メルマガで！登録はこちらから！！

Study Current Events English With the E-mail Magazine

Problem: How do you say Kyouikukihonhou in English?

→The answer is in the English edition of this week’s e-mail magazine! Sign up here!

The answer came in my e-mail, because I generally read it in English:

- Answer to the quiz in the Japanese Version E-mail Magazine

Q: How do you say “kyouiku-kihon-hou” in English?
A: Fundamental Law of Education.

They’re running a week behind: Abe’s plan to revise the Fundamental Law of Education was the topic of last week’s newsletter. But not only are they inserting English quizzes into the weekly newsletter, they’re pushing their Japanese-language audience to sign up for the English version. It’d be nice if the newsletter from the White House would encourage, say, Spanish learning. After all about 10 percent of U.S. residents are native Spanish speakers, and as many as a third have some knowledge of the language.

Mori Visits Taiwan Again, China Still Irked

Former Japanese Prime Minister Mori Yoshiro, who led Japan for a year from 2000 to 2001, visited Taiwan this week and received a medal of honor in addition to meeting Chen Shui-bian. A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson protested that “Japan should … not engage in political exchanges in any form with Taiwan independence forces.”

Mori, who was Koizumi Junichiro’s direct predecessor, visited Taiwan to similar disapproval from China in 2003.

Some may remember Mori from a rather charming faux pas, related in Wikipedia’s characteristic deadpan thus:

On meeting President Bill Clinton, he asked Clinton “Who are you?”, with the intention of saying “How are you?”. Since Clinton thought it was a joke, “I’m Hillary’s husband, and you?” Clinton answered to him in English. And then, Yoshiro Mori answered “Me, too”.

Perhaps a similar misstep with Chen would have softened Chinese opposition.

Resources on China in Africa

Jennifer Bréa is developing a great index of resources on China–Africa ties at her Africabeat blog.

Abe States the Obvious: No Nuclear Japan

I don’t think many informed commentators really thought the calls of Nakasone and others would lead to a nuclear Japan any time soon, but it’s notable that Prime Minister Abe Shinzo pledged to Chinese President Hu Jintao at the APEC summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, that Japan would remain a non-nuclear state. Indeed, if a Japanese government decided to develop a nuclear capability, it would be soon in coming. But because the Japanese public still opposes a nuclear military—and, perhaps more significantly, Japan has no immediate need for a non-U.S. deterrent—Japan has little motivation to apply its nuclear savvy to weaponry.

According to Reuters: “Our country is the only one in the world to have suffered a nuclear attack,” Abe said. “We have to take the lead in persuading the world to give up nuclear weapons.”

Which implies the reduction of U.S. and Russian arsenals and a commitment to nonproliferation in general. We’ll see what this rhetoric amounts to.

Chinese Official: Sino-Japanese Relations ‘Back on Track’

Huang Xinyuan says Sino-Japanese relations have recovered. That’s after Prime Minister Abe Shinzo’s second meeting with President Hu Jintao this weekend at the APEC summit in Hanoi, and after five years of stilted relations during Koizumi Junichiro’s leadership in Japan.

“Since Prime Minister Abe’s visit to China,” Huang Xingyuan, Councilor with China’s Foreign Ministry, said today in Hanoi, “China-Japan relations have improved dramatically and are now back on track.”

The two leaders met today.

“The talks today were constructive and positive and will definitely improve China-Japan relations,” said Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing Saturday. …

“This is a sign that both countries relations are improving and developing, and that progress is being made,” Hu told Abe, according to a pool statement released to reporters today. “China-Japan relations will be at this important juncture for some time and it is important that both countries’ leaders work toward developing relations in the right direction.” …

“We will continue to talk about the East China Sea,” Huang said, “and we’ll make the East China Sea an area of peace.”

Japan has urged China to stop exploration in the area until the two energy-hungry nations can set up a system for joint use of the reserves.

Japan earlier this month filed a protest with Beijing about Chinese activity in the area after detecting flames from an apparent burn-off of oil or gas — a possible sign that China was advancing its development of the disputed reserves.

The contentious issue of the Yasukuni Shrine was not discussed among the two leaders today, a Japanese government official told reporters on the condition he not be named.

Is the U.S. Outsourcing Pollution to China?

A China Daily (state-supported media) report asserts that the “western” media ignore the environmental impact of international business moving manufacturing to China. The story is on a think tank report from the China Council for International Co-operation on Environment and Development (CCICED).

The report suggests that when trade between China and its partners exerts an environmental impact, the responsibility should be borne by all parties, including manufacturers, traders and consumers in the product chain.

For example, it has been alleged that China poses a threat to tropical forests by importing timber from Southeast Asian countries. But 70 per cent of the timber is made into furniture and exported to the United States and European Union countries.

China’s environmental impact on Southeast Asia is far more exaggerated than the economic benefits it brings to the region, the report noted.

“China has been playing its role as a global workshop in the past two decades,” said Shen Guofang, vice-president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and core expert of the CCICED. “We import the raw material, produce, send the products abroad and keep the waste and pollution ourselves.”

The Corporate Social Responsibility in Asia blog notes that the effect may be even worse than moving the pollution.

The West is basically sending its pollution to China and that benefits the West! But when you consider China’s huge energy inefficiency and serious poor implementation of environmental regulations, I fear the net impact is probably far worse.

Indeed, if businesses move manufacturing from a country with a strict set of environmental regulations to China, the motivation to be clean disappears, and the externalized cost to the environment increases.

It seems that this should be a major topic of concern for U.S. activists, who might exert pressure on U.S. businesses.