Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)

Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)

APEC is an organization that aims to promote free trade and economic cooperation throughout the Asia Pacific region. It was created in 1989 because of the growing interdependence of Asia-Pacific economies and the establishment of regional economic blocs such as the European Union and the North American Free Trade Agreement.

APEC intends to improve living standards and education levels through sustainable economic growth and to promote a sense of community and an appreciation of common values among Asia-Pacific countries. APEC’s membership includes 21 states, called “member economies.”

Of these, 12 are founding members—Australia, Brunei, Canada, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and the United States— while Chile, China, Hong Kong, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Russia, Taiwan, and Vietnam joined at a later phase. APEC has no treaty obligations of its participants.


Decisions made within APEC are reached by consensus, and commitments are undertaken on a voluntary basis. APEC’s membership accounts for approximately 40 percent of the world’s population, approximately 56 percent of world GDP, and about 48 percent of world trade.

The first APEC Leaders’ Meeting occurred in 1993 and was organized by Bill Clinton in Blake Island, Washington. At its 1994 summit meeting in Bogor, Indonesia, APEC set an ambitious schedule to achieve free trade and raise the level of investments throughout the Asia-Pacific region by 2010 for members with developed economies and by 2020 for members with developing ones.

The Osaka Action Agenda was adopted a year later and was designed to implement APEC’s goals of liberalizing trade and investment, facilitating business activities, and promoting economic and technical cooperation. The procedure that all APEC’s decisions had to be taken by consensus and preferably passed unanimously limited the effectiveness of APEC.

In addition, although decisions can be taken in the absence of unanimity, they are not legally binding on member governments. In 1997 at the annual summit in Vancouver, Canada, police forces violently clashed with demonstrators objecting to the presence of Indonesian president Suharto.

APEC is organized into numerous committees, special task commissions, working groups, and a business advisory council. The committees meet twice per year. The working groups are led by experts and consider specific issues, including energy, tourism, fishing, transportation, and telecommunications.

Every year one of the member economies hosts an economic leaders’ meeting, selected ministerial meetings, senior officials meetings, the APEC Business Advisory Council and the APEC Study Centres Consortium, and also fills the executive director position at the APEC secretariat.

The deputy executive director changes every year, as the position is given to a senior diplomat of the country who will be the APEC chair the following year. The APEC secretariat, established in 1993 and based in Singapore, provides coordination as well as technical and advisory support for all the organization’s initiatives.

Junichiro Koizumi - Japanese Prime Minister

Junichiro Koizumi

Junichiro Koizumi was born to a political family in Kanagawa Prefecture and educated at Keio University and University College London. He began his political career as a secretary to Takeo Fukuda, who later became prime minister.

Koizumi was elected to the House of Representatives (lower house of the Diet) in 1970 as a member of the Liberal Democratic Party. He became minister of posts and telecommunications in 1992 and served three terms as minister of health and welfare, the first beginning in 1996.

Koizumi ran unsuccessfully for the presidency of the Liberal Democratic Party in 1995 and 1999 before he was successful in 2001. He became prime minister of Japan on August 26, 2001, and was reelected in 2003 and 2005; he stepped down in 2006.

Koizumi was very popular when first elected. Although his popularity fluctuated over his years in office, he was the longest-serving Japanese prime minister in two decades. His greatest efforts were directed at revitalizing the Japanese economy.


To this end he proposed privatizing the Japan Post, a public corporation that offers banking and life insurance as well as postal and package delivery services. This proposed privatization was a controversial issue in Japan for several reasons, not the least of which is the fact that it employed one-third of all Japanese government employees, who feared the elimination of their jobs.

Koizumi also decreased traditional subsidies for infrastructure and industrial development in rural areas, part of an attempt to shift the base of support for the Liberal Democratic Party from rural areas to a more urban core.

Koizumi made several visits to the Yasakuni Shrine in Tokyo, which honors the Japanese war dead, beginning in 2001. Because 14 Class-A war criminals are honored at the shrine, these visits drew international criticism, especialy from China and South Korea, Japan’s victims.

Junichiro Koizumi - Japanese Prime Minister

Koizumi’s decision to send members of the Japan Self-Defence Force to Iraq in support of U.S. operations in 2003 was also controversial, even though the Japanese troops were theoretically only involved in humanitarian activities.

Koizumi’s personal style was quite different from that projected by most Japanese politicians: he called himself a kakumei no hito, or revolutionary, although some of his critics considered him more of a henjin, an eccentric. His personal appearance, complete with relatively long and unkempt hair and fashionable suits, and his much-publicized interest in rock music, suggested cultivation of this image.

Kyoto Treaty

Kyoto Protocol participation map 2010. Green and dark green indicates countries that have ratified the treaty. Grey is not yet decided. Brown is no intention of ratifying. Red is announced its intention to withdraw in Dec 2011

The purpose of the Kyoto Treaty, also known as the Kyoto Protocol, is to reduce global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Countries that ratify the Kyoto Treaty agree to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions to 5 percent below their 1990 level by the year 2012.

The treaty was first proposed in 1997. The Kyoto Treaty took effect on February 16, 2005, after ratification by Russia met the requirement that the treaty be ratified by countries accounting for at least 55 percent of global carbon emissions.

As of September 2005 156 countries representing over 61 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions had signed the treaty; notable exceptions included the United States and Australia. Developing countries such as China and Russia are exempt from the requirement that they reduce greenhouse gas emissions.


Greenhouse gases contribute to global warming through what is known as the “greenhouse effect.” The analogy refers to a greenhouse used for gardening, in which sun rays are allowed to penetrate the glass walls and ceiling and warm the air within the greenhouse, and the warmed air is prevented from leaving the greenhouse by those same glass walls and ceiling.

In the case of Earth, the planet is warmed by solar radiation which can penetrate Earth’s atmosphere, but a proportion of radiation reflected off the Earth cannot escape back through the atmosphere due to its different wavelength. Scientists estimate that without the greenhouse effect, the average surface temperature on Earth would be –18°C.

The Kyoto Treaty allows nations to engage in carbon emissions trading. This means that a signatory may increase their carbon emissions and remain within compliance by purchasing “credits” from countries that have decreased their emissions.

Countries can also qualify for credits by engaging in clean energy programs and fostering forests and other natural systems referred to as “carbon sinks” because they remove carbon dioxide from the environment.

The current concern with greenhouse gases has to do with the increasing quantities of those gases, and the role they are believed to play in global warming, that is, an increase in the average temperature of the Earth’s surface and atmosphere. It is the consensus scientific opinion that global temperature has risen 0.4 – 0.8ºC since the late 19th century and that human activities are the cause of most of this change.

Scientists who endorse the global warming hypothesis predict that the rise in temperature will continue to intensify with increasing industrial development and the resultant increase in greenhouse gas emissions. Predicted effects of continued global warming include a rise in sea level, leading to coastal flooding, extreme weather, and food shortages due to crop failures.

Not all scientists accept the global warming hypothesis, however. Alternative explanations include the argument that the increase in temperature has not been clearly established, that it is within the range of normal variation to be expected over time, or that it is due to the period when measurement began having been unusually cold. Others argue that although the global temperature does seem to be rising, there is no proof that the rise in temperature was caused by human activity.

Liberal Democratic Party (Japan)

Liberal Democratic Party (Japan)

The dominant political party in Japan from 1955 to 1993 was the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). It began in 1955 with the merging of Shigeru Yoshida’s Liberal Party and Ichiro Hatoyama’s Japan Democratic Party, because both shared a common opposition to the Japan Socialist Party.

However the roots of the LDP date to the late 19th–20th century. Two Japanese political figures, Itagaki Taisuke and Saigo Takamori, played roles in the emergence of the modern LDP.

Japanese political development before the occupation by the United States after World War II can best be viewed in broad cycles. Modern Japanese history begins with the Meiji Restoration of 1868. Facing a continued challenge from the West to modernize and change their isolationist policies, Japanese feudal lords, samurai, and others overthrew the Tokugawa Shogunate that had ruled from 1603 to 1867.


The result was a complete alteration of the Japanese system in order to compete with the West. Japan then changed many of its old political, economic, and social institutions to conform with Western-style examples. From the Meiji Restoration came a series of cycles in Japanese political history that would continue until after World War II.

First came the Freedom and People’s Rights Era, with its associated demands for more liberalization, which lasted from 1878 to 1889. Japan then underwent a militarist period from 1894 to 1905 that was characterized by wars with both China and Russia.

Afterward, a cycle of liberalization known as the Taisho Democracy dominated the politics from 1912 to 1915 and again from 1918 to 1930. An age of militarism, again marked by international aggression, dominated the politics of Japan from 1931 to 1945. The beginnings of the Liberal Democratic Party can be traced to the Freedom and People’s Rights Era.

Itagaki Taisuke claimed a powerful role in late 19th-century Japan. He used his position to advocate peace instead of rebellion in order for the Japanese people to gain a voice in government.

In 1874 Itagaki and his supporters penned the Tosa Memorial, a criticism of the seemingly unchecked power of the oligarchy and a call for representative government. By 1878 Itagaki had become impatient at the lack of reform and moved to create the Aikokusha, the Society of Patriots, in order to achieve representative government.

In 1877 the Satsuma rebellion pitted the samurai led by Saigo Takamori against the citizen-based Meiji army. The Meiji victory solidified its position over the samurai. By 1881 Itagaki founded the Jiyuto, the Liberal Party, which favored the adoption of French styles of political representation.

At the same time, Okuma Shigenobu emerged as a voice in favor of the British model of representative government. Okuma founded the Rikken Kaishinto, the Constitutional Progressive Party, in 1882. The two opposition parties led to a pro-government party called the Rikken Teiseito, or the Imperial Rule Party, in 1882.

A number of violent and nonviolent demonstrations among the political parties soon led to government suppression and restrictions on political activism. Restrictions on the political parties led to fighting within the parties as well as with others.

The Jiyuto, which had fought against the Kaishinto, fell apart in 1884. Okuma also resigned his leadership of the Kaishinto party. A call for more democratic governance, through the movement for Freedom and People’s Rights, added to growing demands for a more politically liberal Japanese system of governance.

By 1889 popular demand led to the enactment of the Meiji constitution. Modeled after that of Prussia, the constitution resulted in a limited democracy. A representative body, the Diet, of directly elected members came into being. Ultimately, the government was run by bureaucrats much like its Prussian example.

By 1890 the call for more direct representation resulted in the first national election. Both the Jiyuto and Kaishinto reorganized for the elections and combined to win over half of the seats in the House of Representatives. The first two decades of the 20th century brought the transformation of the Freedom and People’s Rights into the Liberal Party and later the Seiyukai.

The era of political parties, however, gave way to the militarist period of 1931 to 1945. After the war the modern Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) emerged as the result of a merger between the Liberal Party and the Democratic Party.

The LDP reflected a broad coalition of those calling for military protection by the United States and the economic rebuilding of the war-torn infrastructure under a capitalist system. The first postwar government was LDP-created, and the party would dominate until the 1990s.

Treaty of San Francisco

The Treaty of San Francisco, signed on November 8, 1951, and implemented on April 28, 1952, restored full sovereignty to Japan after its unconditional surrender at the end of World War II and ended the U.S. occupation.

The negotiations over the treaty revealed differing notions of what had caused World War II and of what Japan’s role in the world should be. Engineered primarily by the United States, the treaty quickly became caught up in the cold war rivalries.

In March 1947 U.S. general Douglas MacArthur, who headed the Allied Occupation Authority in Japan, ignited a heated debate about the proper terms of Japan’s rehabilitation when he publicly stated his preference for a relatively short U.S. occupation, believing that Japan had been democratized and demilitarized and that a long occupation would only create resentment.


This view was countered by those who pushed for massive reparations from Japan as well as its complete demilitarization. This group believed that the lax enforcement of the Versailles Treaty, which had ended World War I and established terms for the German reparations and demilitarization, had created the conditions for World War II.

A different assessment of the Versailles Treaty emerged among those who advocated a "soft" approach to the peace treaty. This group, which eventually included U.S. secretary of state Dean Acheson as well as MacArthur, argued that it was the harsh conditions of Versailles that had, by humiliating and isolating Germany, contributed to the rise of Nazism. This group also worried that the United States should be careful not to overextend its military presence in Japan.

The negotiations were complicated by cold war diplomacy. The United States worried about granting Soviet Russia and the newly established communist People’s Republic of China a significant role.

It also wanted to guarantee that Japan would become a U.S.- friendly bulwark against communism in East Asia. In particular, the U.S. military wanted to retain control over Japan for an extended period to guarantee access to its military bases in the area.

The United States eventually adopted a "piecemeal strategy" of granting Japan full sovereignty and disregarding the calls for a longer occupation. It met the concerns of the British Commonwealth of Nations with a U.S.-backed security network that would include Australia and New Zealand.

It satisfied the concerns of the Philippines with promises of aid and security. The United States also decided that neither the Chinese Communist nor the Chinese Nationalist governments would be invited to the treaty conference. This formula won significant bipartisan support in the United States.

The official treaty conference took place in San Francisco in 1951. Fifty-one nations were represented (India chose not to attend). The United States engineered the final result, causing delegates from the Soviet Union, Poland, and Czechoslovakia to walk out. Eventually 48 nations signed the treaty.

The final terms of the treaty reflected a victory for the pragmatists who had worried that overly harsh conditions would push Japan away from the West. Although it stripped Japan of all territory gained since 1895 and rejected the pardoning of war criminals, the treaty established immediate sovereignty for Japan and limited reparations it owed to its World War II victim nations. The United States–Japan Security Treaty, signed two hours after the peace treaty, guaranteed a U.S. military presence.

Not all Japanese were happy with the treaty. Many Japanese wanted to see the process of democratization and demilitarization continued. They were surprised by the number of bases the United States maintained in Japan as well as the ban on diplomatic relations and trade with communist China.

In retrospect, the relatively generous terms of the treaty reformed Japan as an important member of the Western camp during the cold war. Japan never again threatened the security interests of the West or of other East Asian nations.

U.S.-Japan Mutual Defense Treaty

This was an agreement between the United States and Japan, which concluded in 1955, that allowed the United States to maintain its major security presence in Japan. Because of the communist threat in the cold war, the government of Yoshida Shigeru of Japan agreed to a U.S. proposal to create the Self-Defense Force (SDF) at a modest size of 180,000 troops in 1954. By allowing the Japanese government to train a modestly sized defense force, the constitution of 1947 was kept intact.

The original treaty was replaced in 1960 by the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security, which marked a significant change from the one-sided alliance to a more balanced relationship based on shared responsibility for defense.

For the Japanese, the treaty provided a commitment from the United States to defend Japan against an armed attack, and it also required the United States to consult the Japanese government on the use of military bases on its soil.


Consultation was required to ensure that any major changes to U.S. operations or force deployments would be approved by both governments. For the Eisenhower administration, the treaty ensured a greater commitment to a stable alliance to support U.S. interests in Northeast Asia.

Gradually Japan took a greater share for its defense. In 1962 Japan began to pay some of the cost of U.S. military installations in Japan. The United States returned Okinawa and the Ryukyu Islands to Japanese control. Beginning in the mid-1970s, U.S. forces were gradually reduced in Japan.

In the late 1970s a new series of agreements were implemented to transfer the responsibility for protecting specific sea lanes to Japan. Along with its expanded commitments, Japan broke the former 1 percent spending cap for defense and began purchasing American-made aircraft.

The collapse of the Soviet Union brought renewed focus to the U.S.-Japan defense alliance and lessened the need for a major U.S. military presence in northeast Asia. At the same time, Japan began to take on a greater international role. However, in 1991, the Japanese government was forced to decline requests to send troops to participate in the First Gulf War, bowing to parliamentary opposition.

The next year, the Japanese government passed a new law authorizing Japan to participate in United Nations peacekeeping operations, with contingents of Japanese troops. The expansion of Japan’s international commitments were reaffirmed in 1996 with the Clinton-Hashimoto Security Declaration, in which the U.S. committed to maintain 100,000 troops in the Western Pacific region that included Japan.

In 1999 the Japanese Diet passed the Law Concerning Measures to Ensure the Peace and Security of Japan in Situations in Areas Surrounding Japan. It authorized the use of force in "rear areas" surrounding Japan, partly in response to Communist North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons.

After 2001 Japan’s Self-Defense Forces and Maritime Defense Forces participated in U.S.-led military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Washington encouraged and supported Japanese efforts to contribute to the war on terror.

Yoshida Shigeru

Yoshida Shigeru

Yoshida Shigeru was both a diplomat and a politician; he served as prime minister of Japan from 1946 to 1947 and from 1948 to 1954. Yoshida led Japan through much of the U.S. occupation of Japan. His leadership ultimately allowed Japan to emerge from the economic, psychological, and physical damage of World War II.

His policies led Japan to rapid economic recovery, and he was willing to give up independence in foreign affairs in exchange for military protection from the United States. As a result, Yoshida outlined much of the policy for Japan during the cold war era. His belief that the United States would provide the necessary security appealed to the United States as well as many of Japan’s conservatives.

Yoshida was born in Tokyo on September 22, 1878, and educated at the Tokyo Imperial University. Like many of the Japanese military and diplomatic leaders of the early 20th century, he joined the Japanese diplomatic corps. In 1938 Yoshida retired while posted in London. He spent a brief time in prison after World War II for his participation in the Japanese government. He emerged as a key postwar leader.


On May 22, 1946, Yoshida became the prime minister of Japan. Allied occupation forces held him in high regard for his pro-United States and pro-British stances as well as his familiarity with Western cultures. On May 24, 1947, Tetsu Katayama replaced Yoshida as prime minister, but he regained the position on October 15, 1948, and would continue to serve in the position until 1954.

Yoshida’s policies for Japan concentrated on the economic growth required to rebuild the war-torn infrastructure. His policies were quite popular, and he was reelected for three consecutive terms—1949, 1952, and 1953.

Yoshida’s most complicated role was bridging the gap from World War II Japan to Japan under occupation to the modern and contemporary economic power. Yoshida brought stability to Japan but also, in the direction he planned for Japan, offered an opportunity for regional peace and economic prosperity. Yoshida died on October 20, 1967. The decade during which he led Japan is called the Yoshida Years.