A delegation that included Mike Mansfield Center director Terry Weidner and Mansfield Center board member John Menson gained rare access to top Japanese leaders during a recent visit to Tokyo.
The group spent time with Japan’s Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, Foreign Minister Taro Aso and Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe. Abe and Aso are candidates to replace Koizumi when the prime minister steps down this fall.
A packed itinerary for the Mansfield group in Japan included a successful symposium co-hosted by Keidanren, a Japanese federation of economic organizations, on bilateral issues and East Asian regional trends. The group also attended briefings by U.S. Ambassador Schieffer and the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan, lunch with several young Japanese Diet members, and a reception and dinner at the ambassador’s residence. They also participated in activities at Toyota Motor Corp. and at Panasonic, owned by Mitsubishi Electric Corp. Chairmen of both corporations are on the Mansfield Foundation board.
The trip was planned around a meeting of the foundation’s board held in Tokyo.
Weidner said the group got access to the top Japanese leaders in part because they were led by Mansfield Foundation board members Thomas Foley and Walter Mondale, both of whom served as U.S. ambassadors to Japan, but also because of the continued high esteem in which Mike Mansfield is held in Japan, where he also served as U.S. ambassador.
“Virtually every Japanese dignitary we met not only knew of Mansfield, but also volunteered their admiration for his integrity and interest in East Asia,” Weidner said. “We hope we can maintain that memory among the new generation of leaders.”
The delegation also traveled to China, where they attended ceremonies to mark the opening of a joint training center that the Mansfield Center and Mansfield Foundation will run with a Chinese partner. While in China, the group also co-sponsored a seminar on East Asian security, met with U.S. embassy personnel and attended a range of briefings on Chinese foreign policy and U.S.-China relations. Chinese party General Secretary Hu Jintao and other top leaders of China were in the United States at the time of the group’s visit.
Weidner said Japan’s Prime Minister Koizumi has broken the mold as a politician both by successfully defying a 50-year-old system of control by powerful political factions and by displaying a personal style and charisma very much at odds with a more traditional “button-down” political culture in the country.
“Koizumi reminded me a lot of Bill Clinton in his ability to command attention in a personal setting,” he said.
Both Menson and Weidner said much of the conversation with Koizumi involved small talk. He spoke of a recent meeting with Tom Hanks, where Hanks expressed envy for Koizumi’s long hair. Other conversations involved Koizumi’s admiration for Elvis Presley and American rock and roll. But Koizumi also touched on key issues in U.S.-Japan relations, including the continuing problems with U.S. beef imports and the question of payment for the transfer of 8,000 U.S. Marines from Okinawa to Guam, an issue since resolved.
Secretary Abe also was impressive, the two noted. He displayed an obvious command of key policy issues while also evincing a dry wit, they said.
Conversations with Foreign Minister Aso included a lengthy personal analysis of the growing tensions between China and Japan, a topic that dominated many meetings the group attended.
“The current controversy is most directly tied to China’s anger over a series of trips that Prime Minister Koizumi has made to the Yasukuni Shrine,” Weidner said. “Because fourteen ‘Class A’ war criminals are buried there, China perceives high level visits to the shrine as celebrating or at least sanctioning Japanese brutal expansionism during World War II.”
The situation has been complicated because many Japanese see the Yasukuni issue as being manipulated by Chinese authorities to divert attention from China’s internal problems, Weidner said. The controversy has gained momentum, he said, because Japan, which often has responded to this kind of criticism with apologies, seems disinclined to respond to Chinese pressure at a time when the country is emerging from a long recession and exhibiting renewed pride and nationalism.
Weidner said Sino-Japanese tensions are directly relevant to the Mansfield delegation because the Mansfield Center and Mansfield Foundation can play at least a modest role in bridging the gap between the two sides of the issue.
“While leaders on both sides are firm in their beliefs, they also seem genuinely committed to creating avenues for dialogue that could reduce tensions,” Weidner said. “They also are open to having the center and foundation contribute to that effort.”
Examples of that commitment include the suggestion of Shoichiro Toyoda, honorary chairman of the board of Toyota Motor Corp., of a series of forums on nonpolitical issues such as energy and the environment, similar to past joint retreats held on those topics by the Mansfield Foundaiton and Center. Weidner said Chinese colleagues also seemed to react positively to the delegation’s suggestion of creating retreats on Sino-Japanese relations for young leaders on both sides.
A highlight of the delegation’s visit to Beijing was a high-level celebration to mark the formal opening of a joint training center that the Mansfield Center will run jointly with the Mansfield Foundation and the All-China Youth Federation, a key UM partner in the People’s Republic of China.
The new center will facilitate China-based training on a range of subjects and also can provide support for Montana faculty, business people and other travelers as well as a venue for University and other programs in China. The ACYF also co-sponsored a successful seminar on East Asian strategic issues during the visit, which included continued discussions at Nankai University and with UM’s partners about a proposed China campus venture.
Further information about the Mansfield Center at UM is online at http://www.umt.edu/mansfield.
