Newsletter No. 726
News-Analysis
August 31, 2007

 

SUMMARY OF EVENTS IN JAPANESE-ISLAMIC RELATIONS FOR JULY 2007

There were four major stories in July 2007:

1) The opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) scored a major victory over the ruling party in House of Councillors elections. DPJ Secretary-General Yukio Hatoyama quickly announced that his party wished to bring an end to the MSDF mission in the Indian Ocean.

2) Japanese conservatives, outraged over the US House of Representatives’ vote on a symbolic “comfort women” resolution, threatened to pull support from Iraq.

3) The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant was damaged in an earthquake; an event which suggested some impending changes in Japanese energy policies.

4) Iran demanded outright that Japanese companies pay for their oil in yen rather than dollars.

The first story was truly an earth-shaking development in Japanese politics. For the first time since the establishment of the 1955 System, an opposition party became the largest party in one of the two chambers of the Diet. The scale of the victory was so overwhelming that the premiership of Shinzo Abe was thrown into serious jeopardy. Hatoyama’s announcement at the end of the month made it clear that Tokyo’s policies in the Islamic world were directly subject to possible changes (Shingetsu Newsletter Nos. 689 and 690).

The second story demonstrated in clear fashion that Japanese conservative support for Iraq was viewed mainly through the prism of the US-Japan alliance. It was also an example of extremely poor Japanese judgment that had could negatively impact many facets of Japanese foreign relations (Shingetsu Newsletter No. 685).

The third story was potentially a major story, but its precise impact was hard to measure. It suggested that the nuclear power industry was in some difficulty and that consequently Japan’s oil dependence would grow. This had potential ramifications both in the Persian Gulf as well as Kazakhstan (Shingetsu Newsletter No. 683).

The fourth major story was significant in that Tehran flexed some of its economic muscle at Japan and was able to elicit the desired policy response (Shingetsu Newsletter No. 676).

Aside from these three major stories, the smaller and more subtle events of July 2007 included the following:

1) The First International Conference on the Problems of Democratic Development in Burma and the Rohingya People was held in Tokyo (Shingetsu Newsletter No. 658).

2) The program “Amazing Arabs” was broadcast on Japanese television (Shingetsu Newsletter No. 665).

3) North Sulawesi Governor Sinyo Harry Sarundajang visited Tokyo to discuss investment and other issues (Shingetsu Newsletter No. 666).

4) Yuriko Koike became Japan’s Defense Minister (Shingetsu Newsletter No. 667).

5) Japanese Ambassador to the Philippines Ryuichiro Yamazaki traveled to a remote camp on the island of Mindanao and met with the Chairman Al Haj Murad Ebrahim of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and later cautioned the Manila government not to overreact to an incident of violence (Shingetsu Newsletter Nos. 669 and 699).

6) Japan cancelled some of Yemen’s debts and discussed technical cooperation projects (Shingetsu Newsletter No. 671).

7) The Mitsubishi Corporation won its bid on a project to double power generating capacity a gas-fired power plant as Japan boosted aid to Indonesia (Shingetsu Newsletter No. 672).

8) Japan and Iran held a number of bilateral dialogues (Shingetsu Newsletter No. 673 and 714).

9) Japan and Burkina Faso held bilateral talks (Shingetsu Newsletter No. 675).

10) An Algerian-Japanese joint venture agreed to finance the construction of a crude oil tanker (Shingetsu Newsletter No. 677).

11) Japan and Egypt signed a number of new technical aid agreements (Shingetsu Newsletter No. 678).

12) Japanese and Pakistani officials had a series of meetings and reaffirmed the strength of the bilateral relationship, but nuclear weapons remained a stumbling block (Shingetsu Newsletter Nos. 682 and 688).

13) Japan and Uzbekistan held meetings on human rights and other subjects (Shingetsu Newsletter No. 684).

14) Students and activists in the North Sumatra provincial capital of Medan demonstrated at the Japanese consulate in regard to a local electricity crisis (Shingetsu Newsletter No. 686).

15) A Japanese envoy was sent to the funeral of Afghan King Zahir Shah as concern was shown over a Korean kidnapping crisis in the country (Shingetsu Newsletter Nos. 687 and 696).

16) Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus visited Japan (Shingetsu Newsletter No. 693).

17) Japanese officials debated how they should support peacekeeping efforts in Darfur (Shingetsu Newsletter No. 698).

18) Gotaro Ogawa -- the MOFA point man on Iraqi aid -- met in Baghdad with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki (Shingetsu Newsletter No. 702).