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Japan 'summit.com' agenda could backfire

TOKYO: Eager to parlay success in global summitry into domestic political capital, Japan's prime minister is scrambling to craft an agenda for the Group of Eight (G8) leaders' meeting that will grab headlines and impress voters.

The ploy, however, could backfire if as many now anticipate Tokyo gives information technology (IT) pride of place when leaders from the world's seven rich nations and Russia meet on Japan's southern island of Okinawa in July.

That's because focusing on IT and how to close the global gap between countries already riding its wave to growth and those lagging behind would cast an unwelcome spotlight on a nasty feud between Tokyo and Washington over rates charged by telecoms giant NTT (Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp

"The irony is that for the G8 to have a 'summit.com' would highlight the fact the Internet revolution here is filling NTT's coffers," said Jesper Koll, chief economist at Merrill Lynch.

TELECOM CLOUD, CHINA REBUFF

US and Japanese officials failed last week to bridge their divide over how far and how fast NTT should lower the fees that the telecoms giant, in which the government holds a majority stake, charges other carriers to access its local phone lines.

Washington wants an immediate 41 percent reduction while Tokyo, arguing bigger cuts would threaten NTT's profits and its employees' jobs, has offered a 22.5 percent cut over four years.

Washington says it will not rule out using any of the weapons in its trade battle arsenal.

Doubts remain about how far NTT can be forced to yield given its huge political clout, though some analysts said dubbing the G8 an "IT summit" would boost the pressure for it to compromise.

Obuchi, who has been touting Tokyo's campaign to reflect Asian countries' views at the G8, already suffered one pre-summit setback late last month when China rebuffed unofficial feelers as to whether it would take part in summit in some form.

And while Japan has invited Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji to visit as soon as possible in an effort to get Beijing's input into the summit process, no date for the trip has been set.

"They built up expectations without checking with the Chinese first," a Western diplomat said. "They put themselves way out on a limb and got the limb sawed off."

OKINAWA RISK

Other issues on a lengthy list of possible summit agenda items, while worthy, lack headline-grabbing lustre.

Among those mooted by Obuchi so far are education, genetics, globalisation and its downside, health, cultural diversity, crime, ageing society and conflict prevention.

Though happy to garner points with the public for choosing Okinawa one of the nation's poorest prefectures and home to the bulk of the US military bases in Japan as the summit site, Obuchi is keen to keep local opponents to the bases from stealing the limelight during the G8 gathering.

Okinawa, with less than one percent of Japan's land mass, is home to 75 percent of the US military bases in the country. Long-standing local resentment of the bases flared after the 1995 rape of a Japanese schoolgirl by three US servicemen.

"This summit it going to be a challenge in terms of issue management," the Western diplomat said. "From this point on, there will be a lot of hair-pulling at the foreign ministry."

Ironically, Obuchi could well find that whatever happens at the summit, voters in a Lower House election that must be held by October are more concerned with their pocketbooks than diplomacy.

His popularity dented by a string of scandals and hounded by dodgy economic data, Obuchi is widely expected to delay the poll until after the summit partly in hopes that by then official figures will show that the economic recovery is gathering steam.

"The LDP (ruling Liberal Democratic Party) is deluding itself if it thinks that success in the summit will turn things around," a Western political analyst said.

"The economy is still the overriding concern."-Reuters