Newsletter No. 523
News-Analysis
February 18, 2007

 

Several items related to Japan-Pakistan relations and the “War on Terrorism” have recently appeared.

PLANS FOR JAPAN-PAKISTAN TAX TREATY NEGOTIATIONS FIRM UP

Pakistan’s Daily Times newspaper has reported in more detail about the upcoming tax treaty negotiations between Japan and Pakistan. The formal negotiations are now scheduled to be held in Tokyo between February 27th and March 3rd. The head of the Pakistani delegation will be Salman Nabi of the Central Board of Revenue.

This report provides a new account of what has led up to these current negotiations. An earlier report summarized in Shingetsu Newsletter No. 462 suggested that Tokyo has wanted to revise the 1959 tax treaty since the mid-1980s, but that Islamabad had been dragging its feet on this issue. The new report says that the government of Pakistan proposed a revision of the 1959 treaty in May 2003, but that Tokyo was dragging its feet on getting started.

Actually, it seems possible to reconcile these two accounts if it is the case that in the 1980s and early 1990s Tokyo was eager to revise the tax treaty, but that it became less of a priority after Pakistan’s 1998 nuclear test; and while, on the other hand, Islamabad grew more interested in facilitating Japanese investment as time went on.

However, it is probably better to await more information on the history of these tax treaty negotiations before setting that account in stone.

THE MYTH OF “AL-QAIDA IN JAPAN” GETS BUSTED

Another victory for American journalism! On the 12th there were two small explosions outside the US military base in Zama, Kanagawa Prefecture. There were no injuries and no damage. Police found metal tubes at the location, one of which was apparently some kind of makeshift mortar.

America’s intrepid ABC News was on the ball, though. They found “intelligence reports” in Japan and Pakistan fingering “Al-Qaida in Japan” as the most likely culprit. They determined that Al-Qaida has “a small but powerful presence” in Japan, acting on the direct orders of Khalid Shaikh Muhammad some years earlier. The heart of the Al-Qaida operation, ABC reported, were about two dozen Pakistani “sleeper agents” who came to Japan in the late 1990s on student visas, and who now work closely with Jemaah Islamiyah of Indonesia.

But don’t panic, folks! The evil Pakistani students have returned to their studies and all the wicked agents out there are still sleeping peacefully! Why? -- Because a Japanese leftist group calling itself the Revolutionary Army (kakumeigun) has declared responsibility for the “attack.” They explained that the purpose of the “attack” was to prevent the realignment of US forces in Japan and in protest to Vice-President Dick Cheney’s upcoming visit to Tokyo.

The most sensible commentary on the whole affair came from the US Army spokeswoman Major Martha Brooks. Commenting on the Japanese leftist claim of responsibility, she said, “It’s no secret there are dissident groups in Japan who are unhappy with the presence of US military forces being stationed here… While we respect the right to disagree, we’d hope they’d use the democratic process to express their views rather than engaging in behavior that’s not only illegal but risky to themselves and possibly members of our community.”

A few days earlier, she also noted that the whole affair had been “blown completely out of proportion.”

Amen, sister!

 

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I contributed the following article to Asia Times Online a few days ago, which was published yesterday. It draws together the material that has appeared in the Shingetsu Newsletter on Japan-Pakistan relations since about October of last year.

JAPAN AND PAKISTAN MOVE CLOSER
By Michael Penn

KITAKYUSHU -- Virtually unnoticed in the international media has been Tokyo's recent effort to clear away impediments in the Japan-Pakistan relationship and to rebuild its links with the South Asian power. The motives suggested are fascinating, and serve to confirm the direction of recent changes taking place in Japanese foreign policy.

The subtle yet distinct signs that Tokyo is rethinking its policies toward Pakistan began to appear shortly after Shinzo Abe replaced Junichiro Koizumi as prime minister last September.

The first sign of new activity came from Seiji Kojima, the Japanese ambassador to Islamabad, who offered himself for interviews to the local media, making such comments as "Japan is of the view that the peace and development of South Asia is becoming increasingly important for the stability and prosperity of Asia and the international community."

Such anodyne diplomatic rhetoric was soon followed by more concrete action. In late October, Ambassador Kojima offered to assist Pakistan in exploring for oil and gas resources, and rapidly thereafter a small delegation from the Japanese trading house Itochu arrived in Islamabad for discussions on energy cooperation.

In December, it was announced that the Karachi Circular Railway project would be revived with technical assistance from the Japan External Trade Organization and an US$872 million loan from Japanese financial institutions. The same month saw the provision of additional Japanese aid for the Indus Highway Construction Project and another item that would help provide electricity for certain areas in Balochistan.

As 2007 dawned, the momentum toward rebuilding Japan-Pakistan relations increased. The "Pakistan-Japan Joint Public and Private Dialogues" were held in Karachi in January, in which a whole host of items were discussed, including issues related to export insurance for Japanese companies, measures against fraud and smuggling, human resources development, and quality control. The Daily Times of Pakistan suggested that the overall purpose of these dialogues was "to finalize a roadmap for expansion in the trade and economic cooperation between the two countries".

At the meetings themselves, the two sides agreed to begin negotiations on a new bilateral tax treaty in late February, and there was also a strong call from Pakistani Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan for Tokyo to begin negotiations on a Japan-Pakistan free-trade agreement (FTA).

The Motives of the Abe Administration

Why has Tokyo suddenly put a higher priority on developing Japan-Pakistan relations? Several motives may be deduced.

In the first place, Japan -- like every other country -- is always concerned about expanding its foreign trade and building new markets. This motive was clearly enunciated last month by Toru Tsuji, chairman of the Japan-Pakistan Business Cooperation Committee, when he noted, "Pakistan with its population of 150 million people is an attractive trade and investment partner."

Second, unlike Iran and some other countries in the region, the Pakistani government maintains good relations with the US as many in Washington regard the regime of President General Pervez Musharraf an ally in the "war on terrorism". In recent years the Japanese government has grown increasingly deferential to Washington's political priorities in the Islamic world, but stronger Japan-Pakistan ties are not currently regarded as likely to raise "alliance complications" for Japanese policymakers.

However, the real urgency may come from the third factor: the competition for regional influence between Japan and China. On November 24 -- just two months after the Abe administration came into power -- China and Pakistan signed an FTA. There is some evidence that this event alarmed the current Japanese government, which is already noted both for its hawkish views toward Beijing and its interest in building strong relations with Pakistan's neighbor and sometimes rival, India.

Clearly, Commerce Minister Khan -- who presided over Pakistan's FTA negotiations with China -- was not shy about playing the China card during his January meetings with the Japanese delegates to the policy dialogues. He reportedly told them rather bluntly that they could expect to lose their footing in the Pakistani auto-parts and machinery markets unless they moved to sign their own FTA soon.

Despite the momentum that has been growing toward a tighter relationship between Japan and Pakistan, there remain difficulties that should logically serve to limit the bilateral rapprochement.

From Islamabad's perspective, Beijing is likely to be a much more reliable partner than Tokyo. Although Japanese technologies may still be more useful than Chinese technologies for the development of Pakistani industry, a tight link with Japan is ultimately too politically dependent on US goodwill. As one of its very first acts, the Abe administration pulled out of a major oil-development project in Iran almost entirely in deference to sensitivities in Washington.

While it may be true that Pakistan and the United States currently enjoy a period of warmth linked to Islamabad's strategic decision to back some aspects of the "war on terrorism", there is little reason to believe that this bilateral relationship will always be quite so close. Until Tokyo can demonstrate that it is an independent player in world affairs, its usefulness as a long-term partner for Pakistan will be limited.

Not unrelated to these issues is the major contradiction that faces Tokyo itself in this regard: a tight connection with Islamabad would make an even bigger mockery of Japan's supposed principles against nuclear weapons. It was the 1998 nuclear test that put the chill into the Japan-Pakistan bilateral relationship in the first place.

Islamabad's nuclear arsenal is no less illegal under the framework of the Non-Proliferation Treaty now than it was at that time. And Japan is -- after all -- the country that often likes to remind the world that it is still the only nation to have suffered the horrors of the atomic bomb, and thus has a special moral status on this issue.

Indeed, it was suspicion that Tehran had a secret military nuclear program that served as the cover story for Japan's withdrawal from the Azadegan project in October. Foreign Ministry spokesman Tomohiko Taniguchi told reporters then, "Nuclear proliferation is the first-, second-, and third-most-important thing for Japan to care about."

Another high-ranking Japanese official told the press at that time that the withdrawal from Azadegan "will be a strong message to the international community about our intolerance of Iran's nuclear-arms development".

In light of such a principled public stand only four months ago in regard to Iran, what will the "international community" make of Tokyo's newfound tolerance of Pakistan's (and India's) illegal nuclear arsenals now? How far can competition with China really be pursued in South Asia by a country that still self-righteously claims to be the moral torchbearer for a world without nuclear arms?