Japan Hails US Engagement with Burma

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama hailed US efforts to engage Burma and said that Washington’s increased interest in the Southeast Asian country would greatly benefit the entire Mekong region.

He made the comment at the first Mekong-Japan Summit, held in Tokyo on Nov. 6-7 and attended by Japan, Thailand, China, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Burma.

The US recently revised its policy on Burma, calling for “direct engagement” with the country’s ruling junta while maintaining sanctions until the regime shows signs of moving toward genuine political reforms.

Last week, a US delegation led by Kurt Campbell, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, visited Burma and met with Burmese officials, opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other senior members of her National League for Democracy, and ethnic leaders.

Japan has also been reexamining its relations with its Asian neighbors since Hatoyama’s Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) took power in August. With Japan’s economy suffering its worst downturn in decades, Tokyo is turning increasingly to Asia to offset the weakness of the US as a market for Japanese exports.

At last month’s Asean+3 and East Asia summits in Hua Hin, Thailand, the Japanese prime minister raised the issue of Burma’s democratization process, according to Kazuo Kodama, a Japan foreign ministry spokesman.

Kodama said Hatoyama told his Burma counterpart that Japan hoped all stakeholders in Burma’s democratization process would be included in an election slated to take place next year.

Ko Ko Aung, a Burmese dissident living in Tokyo, said that the Japanese government would likely continue to follow the US line calling for a free and fair election in 2010.

Jeff Kingston, the director of Asian Studies at Temple University’s Japan Campus, said that Hatoyama and Foreign Minister Katusya Okada were both members of a Burma study group in Japan’s parliament and are therefore well-informed and sympathetic to the plight of the Burmese.

The DPJ also expresses stronger support for human rights than the former ruling party, the Liberal Democratic Party, said Kingston.

Meanwhile, Burmese dissidents based in Japan are continuing their protests targeting Burmese Prime Minister Gen Thein Sein, who is in Tokyo to attend the Mekong-Japan Summit.

More than 100 Burmese activists launched a protest this morning against the Japanese and Burmese governments outside the New Otani Hotel, where Thein Sein is staying.

The demonstrators criticized Japan for inviting Thein Sein to the summit and condemned the upcoming election in Burma as a ploy to keep the military in power under a Constitution approved last year in referendum widely dismissed as a sham.

The dissidents said their protests against the Burmese government would continue for the duration of Thein Sein’s stay in Tokyo.  
 
As part of its effort to strengthen ties with the Mekong region, Japan agreed to commit more than 500 billion yen (US $5.5 billion) in the next three years to promote economic development and fight climate change in the region, according to Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.