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Japan's emperor visits WWII battlesite

SYMBOLIC MOVE: Emperor Akihito's visited Saipan to pay tribute to more than 30,000 Japanese troops, as well as US troops and islanders, who died in the 1944 battle that's been called the D-Day of the Pacific

AP , SAIPAN, NORTHERN MARIANA ISLANDS

"We will once again mourn and pay tribute to all those who lost their lives in the war ... and we wish to pray for world peace."

Emperor Akihito

In the first visit by a Japanese monarch to a World War II battlesite abroad, Emperor Akihito arrived on this tiny US territory yesterday to pray for tens of thousands of Japanese lives lost here in the name of his father, plus the thousands of US soldiers and islanders killed.

But the visit comes amid growing anger in China and the Koreas over what many there see as Japan's failure to make amends and over repeated visits by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to a war shrine in Tokyo that is a powerful symbol of Japan's pre-1945 militarism.

Akihito and Empress Michiko were to spend two days on this semitropical island, where some of World War II's fiercest fighting marked the beginning of the end for Japan's war machine in the Pacific.

One scheduled stop was "Banzai Cliff," where Japanese fearing capture by US troops plunged to their deaths after shouting "banzai," which means long life, for Akihito's father, the late Emperor Hirohito.

"Our hearts ache when we think of those people who fought at a place where there was no food, no water, no medical treatment for the wounded," Akihito said in a statement at Tokyo's airport.

The royal couple also planned to place wreaths at monuments to the US troops and the local islanders, mostly Chamorro or Carolinians, who were killed.

At least 30,000 Japanese troops -- some Japanese estimates go as high as 43,000 -- and 12,000 civilians died in the battle. More than 5,000 Americans, about half of them Marines, and 1,000 or so islanders also were killed on Saipan or nearby islands.

Akihito, who was 11 years old when the war ended, attends an annual ceremony in Tokyo marking Japan's 1945 defeat.

He has been to China and has expressed remorse for the past during visits to Japan by South Korean leaders.

Mourners from Japan ceremonially sprinkle sake rice wine and water down Banzai Cliff in Saipan on Saturday, one of two cliffs where hundreds of Japanese soldiers and civilians threw themselves to their deaths to avoid capture by advancing US troops who seized Saipan in a decisive Pacific battle. Japanese Emperor Akihito is due to visit Banzai Cliff during his June 27-28 visit to Saipan meant to mourn war dead amid animosity between Japan and its neighbors over wartime memories.

But he has never made a trip to offer condolences at a former battlefield overseas.

"This time on soil beyond our shores, we will once again mourn and pay tribute to all those who lost their lives in the war and we will remember the difficult path the bereaved families had to follow," he said in the statement. "And we wish to pray for world peace."

But anger over Japan's militarist past still runs deep in Asia, where many believe Tokyo has failed to atone.

Though Akihito was expected to receive a warm welcome here -- Saipan's economy relies heavily on Japanese tourism, and flag-waving crowds braved a downpour to line the path of his motorcade -- such sensitivities hung over the visit.

A small minority of Koreans living here threatened to stage protests because the imperial couple was not expected to pay their respects at a memorial to the Koreans who died fighting here.

Korea was a Japanese colony from 1910 until 1945, and many Koreans were forced to fight for the Japanese military.

Operation Forager, which began on June 15, 1944, has been called the D-Day of the Pacific.

The fall of Saipan three weeks later allowed US B-29 bombers to pound Japan's cities, weakening the country's defenses and will to fight.

Japan has apologized to China for an accident in which three Chinese people were injured by poison gas that leaked from chemical weapons abandoned by the Japanese army after World War II.

Japan had sent government officials and experts to Guangzhou to check whether the accident had been caused by chemical weapons abandoned by its army.

“Our government truly regrets that the accident happened and expresses our heartfelt sympathy for the sufferers,” the Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hatsuhisa Takashima, said in a statement that was released late on Sunday.

Takashima said Japan would do its best to quickly scrap all chemical weapons left in China by Japanese forces.

China told Japan that three Chinese citizens were taken to hospital after they inhaled poison gas that leaked from abandoned shells while removing sand on a riverbank in Guangzhou last week, he said.

China has complained that Japan has been slow in clearing up about 2million chemical weapons buried or discarded by retreating Japanese troops after the war ended in 1945.

Japan is required to dispose of chemical weapons left in China b 2007 under an international treaty, the Chemical Weapons Convention. Japanese studies have placed the number of such shells at about 700,000.

In 1999, Japan promised to provide funding, technology, manpower, facilities or other assets needed to scrap the weapons.

In August 2003, a toxic leak killed one man and injured 43 after five canisters of mustard gas were unearthed at a construction site in Qiqihaer, Hilongjiang Province.

Japan has therefore agreed to pay approximately ¥300 million (US$2.75 million) in compensation.

Last July, two schoolboys in northeastern China were wounded when they uncovered and played with chemical weapons abandoned by the Japanese army after World War II, according to the Chinese media.

Relations between Japan and China have been frayed over a host of issues, at the core of which are disputed that stem form Japan’s invasion and occupation of parts of China from 1931 to 1945.

This between the two Asian giants have been strained particularly over Japanese Prime Minsister Junichiro Koizumi’s visits to Yasukuni shrine, which China sees as a symbol of Japan’s past militarism and where convicted war criminals are honored along with Japan’s war dead.

US is world’s biggest jailor

An analysis by the International Center for Prison studies (ICPS) suggests authorities around the world are sending their citizens to jail at an ever increasing rate, The US, China and Russia are responsible for half the world’s 9million prisoners. The total has risen in the US－by far the world’s biggest jailer－from 1.86 million in 1999 to more than 2 million. The study, conducted at King’s College London, shows a rise in the prison populations of 73 percent of those countries analyzed. England and Wales are continuing to jail offenders at a higher rate than any other major country in western Europe. There are 76,000 people in jails in England and Wales. Last week human rights group Amnesty International estimated that an additional 25,000 asylum seekers were locked up last year in the UK.

In the wake of CNOOC's buyout bid for Unocal and Beijing's insistence on maintaining the yuan peg, US officials are frantically trying to come up with a strategy for dealing with China's soaring trade surplus

For US President George W. Bush's administration, and even for many members of Congress, China has become almost too big to bash.

A day after one of China's state-controlled oil companies made an unsolicited US$18.5 billion bid for Unocal, a Californian oil and gas company with extensive fields in Asia, US administration officials and many lawmakers were almost tongue-tied about the implications.

US Treasury Secretary John Snow, asked whether he would lead a national security review of the deal, hesitantly told members of the Senate Finance Committee last Thursday that the question was "hypothetical" because the transaction has yet to happen.

US Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan said virtually nothing about the deal. But he used some of his bluntest language ever to warn lawmakers against imposing tariffs on China as a way to pressure it over its exchange-rate policies.

For months, many lawmakers in both parties have become almost frantic about China's soaring trade surplus and its impact on US manufacturers.

Anxiety is so high that Republican lawmakers from industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania are loathe to vote for anything that sounds like a free-trade agreement.

But anxiety is at least as great about a disruption of US business ties to China.

"I think there is a reluctance to confront China," said Republican Representative Phil English of Pennsylvania, the leader of the congressional steel caucus.

"The problem is that many companies are depending on Chinese inputs and on imported goods to sell at retailers," he said.

China is also one of the US' largest creditors, and acquired more than US$200 billion worth of Treasury securities over the past year.

Moreover, China is already home to a growing number of US-owned factories, many of them exporting back to the US, and an even greater number of factories that are suppliers to US companies.

For the past two years, the Bush administration has struggled to balance competing economic goals: It wants to persuade China to let its currency rise in value, which would make Chinese imports more expensive in dollar terms even as it works to fend off proposals from Congress to impose high tariffs if China refuses to change its policies.

Last Thursday, Snow argued that it would be dangerous to impose "punitive" actions on China. Not only would it be a mistake to threaten China with tariffs if it refuses to let its currency float, he said, but it would also be a mistake to subject China to countervailing duties in cases where it illegally subsidizes exports.

"Acting on any of the punitive legislative proposals before Congress now would be counterproductive," Snow told lawmakers.

Greenspan, testifying at the same hearing, said it was a major mistake to think that US jobs would be increased even if China did change its currency policies.

"I am aware of no credible evidence that supports such a conclusion," Greenspan said. Tariffs of Chinese imports would protect "few, if any American jobs," he continued, and would "materially lower our standard of living."

The US$18.5 billion bid for Unocal by China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC), China's third-largest oil company, was merely the latest and by far the biggest move by a Chinese company to acquire a formidable US company.

The move marks an evolution in China's ambitions from being a major exporter, using its earnings to acquire US Treasury securities, to becoming a significant foreign investor in hard assets as well.

US officials made it clear last Thursday that a deal with Unocal would almost certainly be subjected to an interagency review over its implications for national security.

But Snow was extremely hesitant when asked about the issue by Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat.

"It's hypothetical at this point, because we don't have a transaction," Snow said, adding that a foreign company taking over a company in a potentially sensitive industry would normally ask for such a review itself. Indeed, CNOOC did just that last Thursday, even before it is clear whether Unocal's board and shareholders will accept the offer over its standing deal with Chevron.

Snow's diffidence startled Wyden, who has supported the administration on many trade issues.

"I'm a free-trader, but being a free-trader isn't synonymous with being a chump. He should have said, `You bet we're going to take a look at it,'" Wyden said after the hearing.

Gary Hufbauer, a trade expert at the Institute for International Economics, said the US administration badly wants to keep the many issues involving China as separate as possible, from its currency policy to its surging textile exports to its enforcement of US patent and copyrights.

"What the administration wants to do is avoid putting all these issues together into what some what want to call a single `coherent' China policy," Hufbauer said.

"A `coherent' policy would probably be one that sees China as an emerging adversary," he said.

But lawmakers in both parties are increasingly demanding a more comprehensive approach to China.

"China's competitive challenge makes Americans nervous from Wall Street to Main Street," said Senator Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat.

Senator Jim Bunning, a Kentucky Republican, complained that the administration has made little progress in prodding China over its trade and currency policies.

"They've kind of told us to take a hike," Bunning said. Snow responded, as he did several other times during the hearing, that "we're not satisfied, and we want them to know that."

Despite the frustration among lawmakers, most avoided any criticism of CNOOC's attempt to buy a major US oil company.

US administration officials noted that China remains a miniscule direct investor in the US, far smaller than the tiny European nation of Luxembourg. As a general matter, US officials have encouraged foreign companies to invest in the US and refrained from interfering in all but a handful of cases.

Critics of China hinted that they might use the bid for Unocal as a way to pressure China on other issues.

"Does anybody honestly believe that the Chinese would ever let an American company take over a Chinese company?" asked New York Democrat Senator Charles Schumer, sponsor of a bill that would impose a tariff of 27.5 percent on Chinese imports if it fails to change its currency policy.

But other lawmakers emphasized caution in handling China's growing presence on the global stage.

"We must be thoughtful in our actions and get it right," said Senator Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, chairman of the Finance Committee.