--- "President Lee Decline the Invitation"
[ Up ]

“President Lee Decline the Invitation”

This weak-kneed position vis-à-vis Peking also posed problems in 1995, when Japan hosted the general meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group (APEC) in Osaka that year. Before sending our an invitation to me, the Japanese government dispatched a representative to Taiwan to request that “President Lee decline the invitation.”

There are many in Japan who oppose the U.S.-Japan alliance. The Japan Communist Party, which has recently restored relations with the Chinese Communist Party, is expected to grow even more critical of the security arrangements. Some media organizations willingly carry articles calling for “review of the U.S.-Japan security arrangement.”

The United States is, therefore, forced to give up a comprehensive security system and form separate bilateral arrangements with Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Australia and to develop a security policy based on these separate treaties.

Security is an important challenge, of course, but Japan should also play a more active role in the area of the economy. It should commit itself to an economic cooperation system for Asia.

Let us think globally and reconsider the Bretton Wood system centering on the IMF and the World Bank. This system, in which the U.S. dollar is the core currency, seems no longer able to maintain stability in the international monetary system. Presently, the world is awash in paper money and everywhere you look someone is acquiring someone else’s assets.