Press Conference, 14 May 2009

Support measures for foreign descendants of Japanese nationals
The Fifth Pacific Islands Leaders' Meeting
Visit to Japan by Lawrence Cannon, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada
Questions concerning support measures for foreign descendants of Japanese nationals
Questions concerning the Fifth Pacific Islands Leaders' Meeting
Questions concerning the possible visit of the President of the Republic of Korea to Japan
Questions concerning actions being undertaken by Japan regarding displaced people in Pakistan
Questions concerning support measures for Spanish speaking foreign residents in Japan
Further questions concerning actions being undertaken by Japan regarding displaced people in Pakistan

I. Support measures for foreign descendants of Japanese nationals

Deputy Press Secretary Yasuhisa Kawamura: Good afternoon. Let me start with announcements. First is about the Government's support for Japanese descendants.

Japan is experiencing a "once in a hundred years" economic crisis, accompanied by serious challenges for foreign residents in Japan as well as our nationals. To cope with this situation the Government of Japan has been implementing measures to support foreign residents in Japan, including Japanese descendants.

The Cabinet Office decided the support measures in last January and adopted the additional measures in April. Those support measures are comprehensive programs to alleviate the difficulties facing the foreign residents in Japan and those programs cover education, job training and housing areas.

The measures also include support for voluntary repatriation. Under this program, the Government of Japan, by which I mean the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW), provides financial and other support for the unemployed Japanese descendants who have faced the current serious economic difficulties and wish strongly to leave this country for home.

After the announcement of the program, there were some press reports commenting on the duration of the period, referred to as "for the time being," during which the recipients of the support would not be allowed to reenter Japan as the same descendants residents' status.

In response to these comments the Government of Japan has recently clarified the duration of the period. On Monday, the 11th, this week, Mr. Takeo Kawamura, Chief Cabinet Secretary, said, "The Government will review it after three years as a target in principle, by taking into consideration how the economic, employment and other situations develop."

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs explained about this clarification to the Brazilian Ambassador on Tuesday, the 12th this week, and the Ambassador expressed his appreciation of the explanation and Japan's continuous support for the overseas Brazilians in general.

I need to underline again this support measure is exceptionally prepared for the descendants who desire to leave for home. But for those who would wish to continue to reside in Japan, the Government of Japan adopted comprehensive support programs and has been implementing them.

That is about the reentry issue.

II. The Fifth Pacific Islands Leaders' Meeting

The second announcement is the so-called "PALM 5," the Fifth Pacific Islands Leaders' Meeting.

Next week, on the 22nd and 23rd, Japan will host PALM 5, the Fifth Japan-Pacific Islanders' Leaders Meeting, in Tomamu, a town in Hokkaido. This summit meeting is the fifth round following the previous four meetings since 1997. The previous fourth summit meeting was held in 2006 in Okinawa. For the next week's PALM summit, we target to address the following three issues.

The first is to agree to establish "Pacific Environmental Community." This means the building of region-wide cooperation in the area in environmental and climate change.

The second area to address at the summit meeting is to show the regional collective will and determination to overcome vulnerabilities and challenges to promote human security, in which we would particularly need to pay attention to human security in health, water supply, and education, with a focus on capacity building. This challenge and response at the summit is important in the sense that the area may be subject to difficult challenges caused by the ongoing global financial and economic crisis.

The third is to strengthen personnel exchanges as a foundation for further regional collaborations.

I understand you have the matrix of the events of PALM 5, it is a draft schedule. Let me just skim through the procedure of the events. Leaders are expected to arrive next Tuesday on the 20th, at Tokyo first, and there is a welcome reception to be hosted by Ms. State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Hashimoto. On the 21st, Thursday, the Pacific Island Exhibition will be held in the morning, with a luncheon to follow, and in the evening, a welcome reception will be hosted by Foreign Minister Nakasone. On the 22nd, Friday, that is the first day of the summit meeting, the leaders will be escorted to Hokkaido from Tokyo. After the opening ceremony in the afternoon, the first session, the summit session will be held, and a dinner hosted by Prime Minister Taro Aso will follow. And they will stay in Tomamu. And then the following day, Saturday the 23rd, the leaders will discuss in the second and third sessions. And then at the end of the sessions the co-chairs will come out for a joint-press conference and make an announcement. After meeting with the local residents, the leaders will leave Tomamu, in the evening.

Related Information (PALM5)

III. Visit to Japan by Lawrence Cannon, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada

The third item for announcement today is about a visit by Mr. Cannon, the Canadian Foreign Minister. I understand that Mr. Cannon is currently holding a press conference at the Japan National Press Club.

Mr. Cannon arrived last night, and this afternoon he will pay a courtesy call on Prime Minister Aso. He will also meet with Mr. Hamada, the Defense Minister, to be followed by Foreign Minister Nakasone's meeting in the evening. After the Foreign Minister's meeting, there will be a joint-press conference by the two Foreign Ministers, and Mr. Nakasone will host a dinner for Mr. Cannon tonight. Tomorrow, on Friday the 15th, Mr. Cannon will visit JICA and see the President, Mrs. Sadako Ogata, and in the afternoon he will also visit the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation. He will leave from Narita in the evening.

The main focus of the Foreign Minister's meeting will be to reconfirm the precious and indispensable partnership which exists between the two countries. Japan and Canada share values and enjoy the Asia-Pacific partnership and engage themselves in constructive commitments in the area of the G8, the United Nations and other international fora. This time in Tokyo, the two Foreign Ministers will reconfirm the effective cooperative relations and will agree to further deepen the collaborations.

Related Information (Press Release)

IV. Questions concerning support measures for foreign descendants of Japanese nationals

Q: I would like to ask you, for example, the person who will receive the benefit to return to Brazil, to the original country, I thought I heard that they will cancel the visa that they have, so can you explain how these things will manage? They really will lose the visa that they already have or not?

Mr. Kawamura: Can I clarify your question? I understand that your question is about whether those recipients of the support will lose the original status as a special Japanese descendant's visa?

Q: Yes, right. There are some family visas, there some visas which are special visas for Japanese descendants.

Mr. Kawamura: The answer is very simple, no change of the visa status. Visas will remain valid during the designated period. They are issued for a certain period, so the validity will be remained. This measure, the said measure of support for the repatriation, has nothing to do with the duration of the validity of the visa.

Q: I can understand, but what I want to confirm is, those people who will benefit by this program, they will lose the visa? For example, who has the permanent visa, how the visa will be for them? They will have to submit again to have the visa or not? This is my question.

Q: I am sorry. Actually what she is trying to say is that, if somebody, of course, the visa will not be expired because they are having this kind of help from the Government, but what she is trying to say is that most of the eijyusha kind of visa, it is for three years, so it is basically the same time, so I think that if they return and they want to come back to Japan, they will have to make a new visa and all the procedures again. The question she is trying to say is, of course, if the visa is cancelled because of expiration, they will have to make everything again?

Mr. Kawamura: No, he or she does not have to apply from zero. She or he can hold a visa as a valid visa if it is within the designated period of validity. The visa will remain valid anyway. If you have the valid visa, and then, you wish to return home and apply for the support from the Government, you will receive the money and go home. Then what will happen after that? The point of today's clarification is that, the duration in which people are not expected to come back again would be around three years, but they will review the period according to the economic and employment situations. It has nothing to do with the visas. For further technical details, I would ask my expert to respond. He will be prepared to answer your questions later.

Q: And another thing, these educational measures and employment measures, do you have any idea when it is ? actually we are seeing that it is starting to begin in Hamamatsu and other Brazilian communities, but do you have a special date for when everything starts or not yet?

Mr. Kawamura: My understanding is that these are broad range programs and it may take some time to actually implement them. Some of the programs have been already implemented and some of them will come later. But the Government is in a great hurry to carry them into practice. Sooner or later all those programs will be in place.

In order to make it clear, the support measures for the descendants to return home have started from April 1st. They are in place. Did I make myself clear?

Q: No. It was not clarified, but anyways I think that it is just a problem for, I think, Japanese descendants from South America, I think, so the ordinary people, I think that they are not interested in this question.

Mr. Kawamura: Well I think that the international society pays much attention to this issue. That is why I am holding this press conference to make it clear. But anyway, after answering other questions I will come back or my colleague will come back and answer further questions. Anyway thank you for attending the press conference and raising the questions.

Q: My question is about the measures. This is about follow-up of support for foreign residents. I have seen and attended some meetings which are held on this subject. Recently there was one in Nagoya, I attended that meeting also. I am concerned about follow-up and feedback of that meeting. You already had meetings on this subject, and after awhile you had another again. So this time the community organizations who are involved, they are called to attend these meetings and participate in this, they have no follow-up and no information and no feedback is asked from them.

And the second part is, how do these organizations, like we have an organization for the Pakistani community living here ? I got the information from my correspondent's club, not as a community member. The community never gets any information about this, for the participation in such activities which are held on these promotions to support foreign residents and like this.

Mr. Kawamura: Let me start with the second part of your question, if your question is about the support for the leaving Japanese descendants-

Q: It is not. It is not that. This is a general question about these meetings which are being held by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Mr. Kawamura: About the foreign residents policies in general?

Q: Yes. It is a general question. As I mentioned, I was there in Nagoya, but this information I got as a member of the press from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, not as a member of the community. And there is an organization for the foreign residents talked about here. They never get any information about these meetings, about any efforts made by the Government for the foreign residents living in this country.

Mr. Kawamura: Okay, I also need to ask my partner about this, but my understanding is that there are established networks between the Government side and the foreign residents' communities in Japan. By mistake or for technical reasons, there might be some cases where the information has not reached to the people in need. So we will take your comments and pass it on to the people in charge and consider the improvement in the communications.

Q: But I think that communities are made up of more than 10,000 people, and about 90% of them, they have Japanese spouses. Probably more than 90%. Most have visas for this reason. There are very few who are on working visas. I was shocked to see that in the Pakistani organization, we have not any kind of information about these things. So we require some information.

Mr. Kawamura: In this particular context of Japanese Government support for the returning Japanese descendants, the target group has some limited coverage. We basically target the Japanese descendants from South America, and we did not intend to cover the residents of say, the South Asian community, or others. So this is my interpretation of the reason why the information of these particular policy initiatives has not reached you or your community. I hope that on other policy issues and policy initiatives to be taken by the Japanese Government which might relate to the interests of your community, or the South Asian community, that the information should reach you without fail.

V. Questions concerning the Fifth Pacific Islands Leaders' Meeting

Q: Can I ask two questions on the Pacific Leaders' summit? The first one is, does Prime Minister Aso have any plans to hold bilateral meetings with other leaders? And the second question is, will there be any discussion about financial assistance to island countries suffering from climate change? At the end of the meeting will there be an announcement of specific figures in assistance?

Mr. Kawamura: Let me start with your second question. We have not come up with a certain figure for the estimated amount of assistance for the Pacific Island leaders, but if I follow the previous practice, for example, the last round of the summit meeting in Okinawa in 2006, we came up with 45 billion yen in aid as a package. It may be natural to assume that at the end of the day we will discuss the issue toward that line, but at this particular moment we cannot commit to the amount how much will be announced, but if I follow the previous practice, leaders may be expected to announce this kind of a concrete figure.

The first question, the bilateral meeting, there might be some chances for holding bilateral meetings, but again at this moment I have not recognized some bilateral meeting arranged. I will come back and let you know of any further development.

Related Information (PALM5)

VI. Questions concerning the possible visit of the President of the Republic of Korea to Japan

Q: Can I ask one more then? There was a news report that the South Korean President will visit Japan, to Kyoto, from June 20th to 29th for a summit meeting with Prime Minister Aso. Can you confirm this report?

Mr. Kawamura: We expect the Korean President will visit Japan sometime this year because we have committed to a series of the so-called "Shuttle Diplomacy." When it comes to the timing, you said "June," but we have not agreed yet the timing of his visit to Japan. We will continue to discuss with the Korean Government.

VII. Questions concerning actions being undertaken by Japan regarding displaced people in Pakistan

Q: It is not really related to this. Since the last six or seven days, with Pakistan playing a central role in fighting terror, a practical operation was started. As a result, this is a record of the last twenty days, I got the information, the maximum number of displaced persons has reached up to three million people. Many are saying it is more. But on the safer side, the Government is saying it is three million people. So is the Japanese Government ? I have been monitoring and the Japanese Government gave some assistance just before the operation was started, now is there anything being done for this, one of the very serious issues of recent history?

Mr. Kawamura: We recognize the situation in Pakistan has entered into a serious situation. We monitor it very carefully, and Japan, as you remember, hosted the Pakistan Donors Conference last month, and we committed to the stability and security of Pakistan. As the chair of the Pakistan Donors Conference, we will continue to engage ourselves with the security and situations in Pakistan, and we will closely discuss with the Pakistani Government and also with other like-minded countries, and we will decide how we should respond to the newly developing situations. But at this point I have not any new announcement or plans about additional assistance. But we will continue to monitor with much attention.

Q: Because at the time of this donor's conference this operation was not yet started. So nobody knew at the time how serious and how big and how big a number of displaced persons there were.

Mr. Kawamura: Yes, we recognize the newly developing situations. Even after the donors conference the situation is moving. The bottom line is that the donors and Pakistan's friends should flexibly respond to the situations so that security there is effectively maintained. We may come back on this issue later.

VIII. Questions concerning support measures for Spanish speaking foreign residents in Japan

Q: Actually we are talking here with a very big focus on the Brazilian community, I would like to ask, how about the Spanish community? Because only Brazil speaks Portuguese but all the rest of South America speaks Spanish and we have such a big community here. How about them? Do they still have the same kind of benefits, or not really?

Mr. Kawamura: Not limited to the returnees help, you are talking about the general? Yes, the comprehensive programs which I introduced at the beginning are not limited to the Brazilian descendants. Most of them are planned for foreign residents in Japan, so naturally that will include the Spanish community in Japan as well.

Q: So it does not matter which nationality then?

Mr. Kawamura: No. The returning program is the only exception in this regard. And I need to emphasize again that the January-April packages are very broad and include education, job creation, job training, Japanese translation services for "Hello Work" offices; if you have time, please read carefully the list of the measures. And the repatriation support program is just one of them. The essence of the policy package is to help the foreign residents or descendants who wish to stay and make an effort for further job opportunities. So the Government is on the side of those foreign residents.

Q: I saw here that the Ministry is creating a portal web site, do you think we have any chance to follow up there about everything that is going on - or where should we get all the information?

Mr. Kazuyoshi Matsunaga, Director, Foreign National's Affairs Division: The Cabinet Office will build a web page in various languages.

Mr. Kawamura: Have you ever accessed the Foreign Ministry's home page?

Q: I think not because I do not read Japanese.

Mr. Kawamura: It is easy, there is a link to the Cabinet Office and it is possible to access it in English. Toward the end of the page you can have a button for the link. You can try to get to the Cabinet Office in English.

IX. Further questions concerning actions being undertaken by Japan regarding displaced people in Pakistan

Q: I am typing my article today, should I write that, "A spokesman of the Japanese Government said that the special situation in-"

Mr. Kawamura: Yes, we recognize that the situation is changing and are monitoring it carefully, and we will exchange views with other countries and consider future possible responses. But it is not in a clear format at this moment. We will come up with it later.

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