Viewing cable 09TOKYO2875, MOFA ""ALLIANCE HANDS"" EXPRESS FRUSTRATION AT DPJ

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P 160732Z DEC 09
FM AMEMBASSY TOKYO
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S E C R E T TOKYO 002875 
 
NOFORN 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR EAP/J 
DOD FOR OSD/APSA - 
GREGSON/MITCHELL/SCHIFFER/HILL/BASALLA/HAMM 
PACOM FOR J00/J01/J5 
USFJ FOR J00/J01/J5 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/14/2014 
TAGS: PREL PGOV MARR JA
SUBJECT: MOFA ""ALLIANCE HANDS"" EXPRESS FRUSTRATION AT DPJ 
GOVERNMENT'S HANDLING OF ""SECRET AGREEMENTS,"" FRF 
 
Classified By: James P. Zumwalt, Deputy Chief of Mission; reasons 1.4 ( 
b/d) 
 
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SUMMARY 
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¶1. (S) Former U.S-Japan Alliance managers from the Ministry 
of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) summoned back back to Tokyo to 
participate in the ministry's team investigating the 
so-called ""secret agreements"" on nuclear weapons being 
carried into Japan on U.S. Navy vessels, expressed 
considerable frustration at the Democratic Party of Japan 
(DPJ) government's handling of Alliance issues during a 
December 10 meeting with poloffs. The officials did not have 
a good sense of the direction the DPJ government would take 
on USN operations in Japan in the long-term, but noted that 
in the near-term they would not be affected. They criticized 
strongly the Hatoyama government's approach on the issue of 
the Futenma Replacement Facility (FRF) and urged the U.S. 
Government to express its discontent publicly. They also 
cautioned that the Hatoyama government's approach to Alliance 
issues might indicate a trend that was not favorable to the 
Alliance, which raised concern as the most senior government 
bureaucrats were cut out of the decision-making process in 
the new government. END SUMMARY. 
 
¶2. (C) Poloffs met December 10 with Japanese Permanent 
Mission to the UN Political Counselor Yutaka Arima 
(PROTECT)(former Principal Deputy Director, MOFA Japan-U.S. 
Security Treaty Division), former Japan-U.S. SOFA Division 
Principal Deputy Director Takashi Ariyoshi (PROTECT), and 
former Japan-U.S. SOFA Division Deputy Director Fukahori 
(PROTECT) to discuss a number of current Alliance issues 
under the Hatoyama government. 
 
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""SECRET AGREEMENT"" 
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¶3. (S) Ariyoshi noted that the MOFA ""secret agreements"" team 
had finished its search for relevant documents and awaited 
the ""Wise Men's"" expert panel (comprising Tokyo University 
Professor Shinichi Kitaoka and five other academics) to 
finish their review of the findings. The next step after the 
review is the drafting of a report, which will be authored by 
MOFA Minister's Secretariat Deputy Director General Kitano, 
Ariyoshi said. When asked whether the process would impact 
the additional deployment to Japan of two USN minesweeper 
vessels in the coming weeks, Ariyoshi responded that the 
report would not be completed until January or later and 
would not likely affect USN operations in the interim. He 
was reticent to predict, however, what longer-term impact the 
review could have on USN operations here, saying he had ""no 
idea"" which direction the current leadership would take. 
 
¶4. (S) Arima, who was called back to MOFA from his current 
posting at the Japanese Permanent Mission to the UN (like 
Ariyoshi, who was called back from his posting at the OECD in 
Paris) to participate in the MOFA team searching through 
document files, questioned the usefulness of the project, 
terming it ""a waste of time."" He commented that the U.S. 
Government's approach of responding to public inquiries that 
the declassified documents ""speak for themselves"" was the 
logical way to respond to queries on the matter. 
 
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CURRENT POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT AND FRF 
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¶5. (C) All three MOFA officials expressed, in varying 
degrees, their displeasure toward the Hatoyama government's 
handling and politicization of the Futenma Replacement 
Facility (FRF). Arima lamented that the issue had 
essentially tied both governments' hands to the point where 
 
other important, strategic bilateral initiatives for 
strengthening the Alliance have slowed or are not moving 
forward. They stressed that the USG ought not to be overly 
accommodating to the DPJ government on FRF or risk being 
misunderstood and appear willing to make concessions to the 
agreed roadmap. Ariyoshi asserted that the USG ought to, in 
some form, express its discontent toward the GOJ publicly. 
The MOFA contacts also concurred that even the most senior 
government bureaucrats were essentially cut out of the 
decision-making process and were unable to coordinate with 
the USG on public messaging to counter inaccurate depictions 
of both governments' positions and discussions. 
 
¶6. (C) At the same time, while pressuring the GOJ to resolve 
the issue quickly might be effective, it also risked negative 
public backlash against the United States that would play 
directly into the hands of anti-Alliance factions among 
coalition parties and the left-wing elements of the DPJ. 
Fukahori pointed out that various elements of the DPJ 
government's approach might not make sense individually, 
unless viewed within the context of anti-Alliance objectives. 
 A trend emerged from such perspective if the ""dots were 
connected,"" albeit one completely adverse to the interests of 
the Alliance, Fukahori said. This, he noted, was a concern, 
as the vast majority of the Japanese public did not 
understand security issues and the importance to Japan's 
security of moving forward with FRF. 
 
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COMMENT and CONTEXT 
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¶7. (S/NF) The remarks by all three MOFA officials are 
striking, both in terms of their degree of candor, as well as 
the frustration shown toward their political leaders. Past 
anecdotal indications of frustrations from other MOFA and MOD 
contacts notwithstanding, this is a rare example in which 
experienced ""Alliance hands"" in the Japanese government 
express such clear concerns about the possible impact of the 
FRF and ""secret agreement"" discussions on the U.S.-Japan 
Alliance. All three interlocutors, who sought out the 
meeting to convey their views, share extensive, recent 
experience working on security-related matters in MOFA and 
are close contacts of the Embassy. Arima, in particular, has 
long been a key source of information and insight for the 
Embassy and is someone who views the United States in a very 
positive light. The son of a former MOFA North American 
Affairs Bureau Director General, Arima spent formative years 
in the DC area, speaks near-native English, and is a clear 
rising star among his peers at MOFA. That he stated 
repeatedly the DPJ members ""just didn't get it"" on security 
matters speaks volumes about how some talented career 
diplomats at MOFA view the Hatoyama Cabinet. 
ROOS