Special Background Briefing

18 July 2000

1. Topics for discussion at the upcoming G8 Kyushu-Okinawa Summit
2. Greater prosperity
3. Deeper peace of mind
4. Greater world stability
5. Thoughts on this year's G8 Summit
6. Questions on the importance of information technology (IT) at the G8 Summit and other Summit related issues
7. Questions on the digital divide issue
8. Questions on cultural diversity and the situation on the Korea Peninsula
9. Questions relating to the possible discussion of trade and debt issues by the Leaders at the G8 Summit
10. Questions concerning the United States of America's National Missile Defense (NMD) Program and Japan's funding of United States military in Japan

1. Topics for discussion at the upcoming G8 Kyushu-Okinawa Summit

   Press Secretary Ryuichiro Yamazaki: First, I will just briefly sketch the topics and then look at the schedule and then go back in more detail on the topics.

   The topics are grouped into three wide areas: the first one being "greater prosperity" under which we intend to address the world Economy's problems, especially in the context of globalization, zooming in on information technology (IT). The second grouping, we call "deeper peace of mind," which addresses the socio-economic problems facing the individual in everyday society, and thirdly is "greater world stability," which more or less addresses the political questions, such as conflict prevention, disarmament and regional issues.

   Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori will probably move to Okinawa in the evening of 20 July, and on Friday 21 July, in the evening, the G8 Working Dinner will be the first working session for the G8 Leaders. On Saturday 22 July there will be the morning working session followed by a working lunch, and in the afternoon another working session. Later that evening, there will be a social dinner at Shurijo Castle. On Sunday 23 July, there will be the last working session in the morning to be followed by the press conference from 1:00p.m. to 1:30p.m. by the Chair of the G8, namely Prime Minister Mori.

   After each of the sessions I will do my best to keep the international press abreast of what took place, though obviously I will not be able to disclose specifics. The working guidelines for briefings are that one can only quote one's own delegate's remarks unless otherwise agreed to, but of course from the Chair, we will try and give you some idea of how the issues of the discussions developed.

   As for documents, we hope that we can distribute any documents no later than the final press conference.

   Although this has not been officially decided, there is a high possibility that there will be one single document on IT, but I cannot confirm whether it will be issued separately, and if so, when it will be issued.

   We have identified three major areas for discussion: greater prosperity, deeper peace of mind and greater world stability. Generally speaking, the G8 Summit has been a very important occasion for the Leaders to meet each other directly and to have in-depth discussions on very important topics. Obviously, the meeting cannot solve all of the very difficult issues in a matter of two and a half days. However, one of the important roles of the G8 Summit is to identify the issues for the G8 countries, to draw up a common approach for coping with them and, as required, follow up on the conclusions and policy directions into the next Summit Meeting. Furthermore, any necessary work in between would be delegated to a relevant, existing international organization.

2. Greater prosperity

   Mr. Yamazaki: On "greater prosperity," which will address the information technology area, you should have with you the document, which contains Japan's own initiative in this area of IT as announced on Friday by Prime Minister Mori. I hope you will have time to read through it. In the background of this issue lies the importance of addressing the digital divide between developed and developing countries, and how we can bridge that gap by various measures including assistance in infrastructure building and human resources development.

   As for specific actions, Japan will prepare a comprehensive cooperation package for bridging the digital divide, consisting of non-official development assistance (ODA) and ODA public funding, with a view to extending a total of US$15 billion over five years. In this connection, we will attach importance to collaboration with the various relevant international organizations in this field.

   The purpose of this initiative, which we call Japan's comprehensive cooperation package, is to show Japan's willingness and determination to address this very important issue of digital divide and to set the pace as the Chair of the G8.

   On IT, we are not quite sure what sort of documentation will result from the discussions, but we hope that it will give further direction in some of the key elements that need to be addressed. I will refrain from trying to be more specific than that at this time. I will leave it up to the Leaders who are very keen to discuss this issue. When I accompanied Prime Minister Mori during his Golden Week trip to all the G8 countries, all of the Leaders with whom he met shared his view that IT should be one of the key elements in this coming Kyushu-Okinawa G8 Summit.

   Secondly, another important issue under "greater prosperity" is the development issue. Especially this time, we have focused on the health issues, namely, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria- -- the infectious diseases -- and that is why the second document we have distributed today is very relevant. This was also announced on 14 July. It is sub-headed "Okinawa Infectious Diseases Initiative." If you look at the "Basic Philosophy" later and the principles thereafter, it should give you an idea of how serious these infectious diseases are as a constraint upon development efforts on the part of developing countries.

   We have stated this on page four under paragraph four entitled, "Reinforced Efforts in Combating Infectious and Parasitic Diseases through ODA," which says: "Thus Japan will utilize general grant aid, grant assistance for grassroots projects, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Community Empowerment Program, JICA Partnership Programs, technical cooperation, development studies, and contributions to international organizations and other ODA schemes to enhance its assistance for measures against individual infectious and parasitic diseases, improvement of public health, development of research networks, primary and secondary education and access to safe water with the target of allocating a total of US$3 billion over the next five years." It continues: "In addition, in view of the fact that non-government organizations (NGOs) in developing countries have a vital role to play in ensuring that assistance for infectious and parasitic diseases control reaches the community level, Japan will establish a fund in the United Nations for supporting the NGOs." That is another Japanese initiative in order to set the pace for the upcoming Kyushu-Okinawa G8 Summit. We look forward to discussions on this topic as well.

   The third item under "greater prosperity" is cultural diversity as a source of dynamism. As the process of globalization is enhanced, there are some concerns about individual cultures becoming very uniform. We hope that the leaders can conduct an interesting discussion about the importance of cultural diversity as a source of dynamism and how this dynamism could be compatible with growing globalization.

3. Deeper peace of mind

   Mr. Yamazaki: The second cluster is "deeper peace of mind" which can be sub-sectioned into issues such as crime, food safety, and environment. I like to describe this as socio-economic problems pertaining to the individual in modern society. I cannot give you too much detail on each of the items today. On crime, there is an important convention being negotiated in Vienna on international organized crimes. This is something that the Leaders will probably want to encourage.

   On food safety, which was a big issue in last year's Summit in Cologne, the European countries tended to take the precautionary principle. In other words, regarding genetically modified foods, they took a precautionary principle meaning that you are guilty unless proven innocent. The American side, however, was freer and less restricted and took the principle of being presumed innocent unless proven guilty. This issue of food safety is under discussion at the Codex Alimentarius Commission, a joint committee of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). The conclusions of the work they are carrying out are supposed to come out in 2003, which is still a bit distant. The G8 Summit Leaders would want to address the food safety issues in Okinawa and, if possible, to come up with some common direction as to how to further deal with this issue.

   On the environment, for instance, in relation to the global climate warming, the Hague Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP) 6 Meeting is scheduled for this Autumn. I am sure the leaders would want to endorse and support the success of the COP 6 Meeting.

4. Greater world stability

   Mr. Yamazaki: Finally on "greater world stability," as you may know, in Miyazaki, conflict prevention, which was discussed in depth, was dealt with in a separate document outlining the five aspects of conflict prevention, including the small arms issue, which Japan has been placing a lot of emphasis on. We also discussed disarmament and regional issues in Miyazaki. All of these will be injected into the discussions in Okinawa, although due to the time constraint, the G8 Leaders in Okinawa will obviously not cover all of the same topics which have already been covered by the G8 Foreign Ministers. However, they will probably want to focus on some of the areas that interest them in the near future. It will be interesting to see which issues are discussed and how the final meeting of minds will be expressed in writing.

5. Thoughts on this year's G8 Summit

   Mr. Yamazaki: Finally, as I am speaking on a background basis, I will give you my impression of this upcoming Summit as compared to some of the past summits. This summit is the twenty-six of its kind since the first summit in Rambouillet in 1975. In other words, 25 years have passed. It is about ten years since the end of the Cold War, it is now four years after the Lyon Summit where globalization was first taken up as a central issue, and we are on the threshold of the 21st century.

   Sometimes in the past, some immediate economic crisis or immediate international political crisis gets the priority of the G8 Leaders and that dominates the G8 Summit itself. For instance, last year the G8 Summit in Cologne was dominated in part due to the Kosovo situation. As of now as I talk before you, there are rather promising signs in the world at large; there is no urgent economic crisis, the world economy is recovering with countries coming to grips with certain issues, and on the political side very close to Japan on the Korea Peninsula, there are Meeting in Miyazaki. As the Foreign Ministers did in Miyazaki, we hope that the Leaders in Okinawa can concentrate on some of the topics I have described to you by addressing the core issues, without having their attention diverted by a crisis situation. I hear that the weather report is very stable too, and that there will not be any typhoon crisis in Okinawa.

6. Questions on the importance of information technology (IT) at the G8 Summit and other Summit related issues

   Q: I do not understand why at this coming summit that IT has to be so important. I think IT is something that develops based particularly on market principles, so this is not necessarily something that the government needs to address. What the government needs to address related to IT is, for example, taxation, and various rules of trade. Having said that, my question is: the United States and Europe both seem to be rather luke-warm about discussing this idea at the upcoming summit. Of course they will discuss it, but not with the high level of passion that Japan seems to be expressing. Why is this?

   For my next question, I would be interested to know what the latest news about President Clinton's visit is? What kind of information does the Foreign Ministry have on this?

   My last question concerns the total cost of holding the Summit, including Okinawa and the private sector. If there is one, could you give us a breakdown of the cost footed by the respective ministries and agencies, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs?

   Mr. Yamazaki: You have asked quite a few questions, the first of which was the central role of the private sector in IT. I think that is quite true and if you look at the document on the international digital divide, you will see this notion being repeated from time to time. However, concerning the digital divide, especially as is relates to the developing countries side, it is important for public funds to be supplementing the private sector, and that is why we made this policy announcement.

   On your second point about the other participants maybe not being so enthusiastic about taking up IT, as I was saying earlier, when we went with Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori to the G8 countries during Golden Week, the other leaders showed agreement in placing IT as one of the major issues for discussion.

   On the third question about President William Jefferson Clinton of the United States of America, I think your question is addressed in relation to the Middle East talks in Camp David, perhaps. As far as we know, there is no change in his schedule to come to Japan and Okinawa.

   On the fourth question, I do not have the relevant information today.

   Q: What kind of budget has the Foreign Ministry have earmarked?

   Mr. Yamazaki: I do not have it with me, but I can get it for you.

7. Questions on the digital divide issue

   Q: At the moment we are having this conversation between the US and Japan about your connection charges on NTT's phones. I was wondering if you find any paradox, contradiction or irony in the fact that Japan is volunteering to spend US$15 billion to overcome the digital divide in developing nations when in fact many people think Japan itself has a very significant digital divide?

   Mr. Yamazaki: I have no comment on that because you are challenging government policy which I adhere to.

   Q: On the US$15 billion, you say that it is being prepared. When will it be introduced? Is Japan going to ask the other G8 participants to match or give similar contributions?

   Secondly, on the first page where it is pointed out that there could be repercussions for the international community, can you comment at all on what the danger is of the tech-divide growing wider than it is?

   Mr. Yamazaki: On that score, this is a general statement concerning the tendency that developing countries are not fully benefiting for IT. As you know, we have been talking about trying to have an Asian perspective in mind and some of the discussions that we have had with Asia countries indicate that there are concerned that they are lagging behind and not getting the full benefits of IT. "Future instability" is perhaps a bit too strong, but if you want the international community to develop in a more or less balanced way, digital divide could be detrimental to that. As for the actual implementation, we must go through a budgetary process to get the actual funding for the next five years.

   On asking the other nations for funding, from the Chair, we are trying to set an example and set the pace, but it would be up to the individual countries to decide. Here again, I cannot prejudge the future actions of other countries.

8. Questions on cultural diversity and the situation on the Korea Peninsula

   Q: On cultural diversity, rather than to attempt to stop the spread of McDonald's, how did that item get onto the agenda? Can you say a bit more about what it implies and what policies it involves?

   Also very briefly, is Okinawa likely to take the discussion on North Korea and the Korean Peninsula further forward?

   Mr. Yamazaki: On cultural diversity, I think we should wait to see how the Leaders want to address this. IT is at the forefront of technology, whereas with cultural diversity we are talking about something else, such as traditions and culture in general, however, it can still be a source of dynamism. I will also have to wait for the actual discussions and will try to debrief you on the results.

   Q: Is that the Japanese initiative for putting it on the agenda?

   Mr. Yamazaki: The Sherpas and G8 Leaders had no difficulty placing this on the agenda. As Japan is the Chair, we are responsible for formulating the agenda.

   On the North Korean issue, I have nothing to say at this present time. Obviously, some of the more important regional issues will certainly be taken up and discussed by the G8 Leaders, but let us see how they come out on this. President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation will have traveled from the People's Republic of China to North Korea, for example. I would not want to prejudge or preempt the discussion, but I am sure that it will certainly be discussed.

9. Questions relating to the possible discussion of trade and debt issues by the Leaders at the G8 Summit

   Q: Will the Leaders touch upon the following three matters: (1) the Asian Monetary Fund; (2) restructuring the debt of developing countries; and (3) the unsuccessful Seattle discussions and the international trade negotiations in this G8 Meeting?

   Mr. Yamazaki: On the first point about the Asian Monetary Fund, I am not quite sure whether that will come as a specific topic because the finance ministers more or less discussed infrastructure and so forth.

   Q: I meant in conjunction with the intervention of reform, restructuring and financial systems.

   Mr. Yamazaki: The Leaders will take stock of the report coming out of public. If you are talking about heavily indebted poor countries (HIPCs) initiative, which was agreed in Cologne, we believe that the G8 is carrying through what was agree, and we should now continue to implement what was agreed for the 40 HIPCs.

   On the World Trade Organization (WTO), we have not yet finalized the wording of the final document. If I may just mention outreach from G8 on two fronts. Firstly, we have established an NGO center in Nago City, near the International Media Center, which the international press can have ample access to, and the Japanese delegation will be briefing the NGOs as to what is taking place in the Summit meetings. The second outreach takes place in Tokyo on 20 July before we move to Okinawa. It has already been announced by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that we will be having a dialogue with the G77, Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), Organization of African Unity (OAU) and United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) 10 and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) together, namely the Chair of G77, President Oluseguen Obasanjo of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the Chair of NAM, President Thabo Mvuyelwa Mbeki of the Republic of South Africa, the representative of the OAU, President Abelaziz Bouteflika of the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, and Chair of UNCTAD 10 and ASEAN, Prime Minister Leek Pai Chuan of the Kingdom of Thailand. They will be meeting the G8 Leaders who will be in Tokyo at that time.

10. Questions concerning the National Missile Defense (NMD) of the United States of America and Japan's funding of United States military in Japan

    Q: I have two questions. The first is whether there is any possibility of the G8 Leaders discussing the United States National Missile Defense system?

    For the second question, which is directly related to the G8 Summit, could you tell us where the United States and Japan stand in their relationships on the so-called host nations support and Japan's funding for the US military in Japan? There are some reports that the two countries have already reached an agreement in principle to reduce Japan's funding for the military by up to three billion yen. Would you be able to comment on this?

    Mr. Yamazaki: I cannot comment on your second question at this time. I know that there are discussions going on between the our two governments, but I cannot confirm any results at this time.

    Q: Does Japan want to reach an agreement before or by the time of President Clinton's visit?

    Mr. Yamazaki: Other than the basic timeframe for negotiating a new agreement, there is no specific time frame. Of course, our officials are trying to conclude their work as soon as possible in general terms because the existing agreement runs out in March 2001, but there is no specific time limit as such.

    On your first question about national missile defense (NMD), this issue is basically under discussion between the United States of America and the Russian Federation, and I would like to refrain from commenting on how it may emerge in the discussions at the G8. Perhaps when the session that discusses disarmament, non-proliferation and arms control is concluded, I can debrief you on the outcome. Thank you very much.