Japan: G8 political grandstand

Japan hosts the G8 leaders’ summit from Monday at Toyako in Hokkaido, and embattled Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda will be counting on the occasion to indulge in a bit of grandstanding. The opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) has been doing his government down at every opportunity it gets in parliament, but the political stage is Fukuda’s alone when the G8 meet.

Japan is burnishing its credentials on global issues.  It hosted the Tokyo International Conference on African Development in May, and climate change is expected to feature prominently at the G8 talking shop. Yet no ground-breaking outcome is expected. There will be meetings, and fine words from G8 members, but only action will decide whether the event has been a success.

The summit should not be written off. Multilateral fora often allow world leaders to iron out the odd bilateral issue on the sidelines. G8 summits also serve to focus minds on the big issues they address, and provide a deadline for some serious policy thinking. Fukuda is likely to lobby a little on Japan’s more individual concerns. For example, he will want to promote the cause of the Japanese abducted by Pyongyang in the 1970s and 1980s, a priority for Tokyo that has been slipping off the six-party talks table, where North Korea’s denuclearisation is discussed. Pyongyang has been cooperating this year with the international community, more or less. This is making it hard for Tokyo to press its point, for lack of meaningful support from its allies, who prioritise the process for reducing the North Korean nuclear threat over a single issue such as this.