Hatoyama vows in Diet speech to deepen Japan-U.S. ties, end Futemma row+

TOKYO, Jan. 29 Kyodo -
Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama reiterated in his policy address to parliament
Friday that his four-month-old government aims to deepen the Japan-U.S.
alliance and decide by the end of May on where to relocate a U.S. Marine base
in Okinawa Prefecture as he has promised.

With what he dubbed ''a budget to protect people's lives'' for fiscal 2010 from
April 1, Hatoyama said he will fulfill his pledges to offer monthly allowances
to families with children regardless of their income levels, waive public high
school tuition fees and push through bold reforms in administrative affairs,
which he says include wasteful work.
The 13,600-word speech in Japanese by Hatoyama, who sometimes faces criticism
for his abstract concept of ''yuai'' (fraternity), was full of anecdotes, with
references to the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi as well as a story about a father
who lost his son in the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake.
In a rare case in a premier's parliamentary speech, Hatoyama again offered an
apology to the public over a personal funding scandal and promised to proceed
with open discussions on corporate donations so that political funds can be
dealt with in a more transparent and reliable way.
But he made no mention of another funding scandal involving Democratic Party of
Japan Secretary General Ichiro Ozawa.
Regarding the Japan-U.S. security alliance, Hatoyama said it may have changed
in its quality over the past five decades since the countries revised their
security pact in 1960, but that its importance will not diminish in the decades
to come.
In his speech to the first ordinary Diet session since taking office in
mid-September, he said he will continue to cooperate with U.S. President Barack
Obama toward developing the alliance into a multilayered one and creating a
world free from nuclear weapons as advocated by Obama.
On the future of the U.S. Marine Corps' Futemma Air Station in the Okinawa city
of Ginowan, which is widely seen as straining bilateral ties, he promised to
pick by the end of May a specific relocation site that will not only help keep
the peace in Asia but also alleviate the base-hosting burden on people in
Okinawa.
Among other foreign policy issues, Hatoyama, who leads the ruling Democratic
Party of Japan, also expressed fresh eagerness to form an East Asian community,
a European Union-style framework for regional cooperation.
In an apparent bid to allay concerns among Washington officials that their
economy may be kept out of the envisaged bloc, Hatoyama underlined that the
community would never be an exclusive economic zone that would compete with
other regions.
''In that sense, the importance of the unwavering Japan-U.S. alliance will not
only remain unchanged, but will also be an indispensable prerequisite for
creating an East Asian community,'' Hatoyama said.
''We need to promote regional economic cooperation (in the envisioned
community), while also reaffirming that beefing up a multilateral free trading
system would benefit us most,'' he said.
In terms of bilateral ties with neighboring nations, Hatoyama said Japan will
enhance its strategic, mutually beneficial relations with China, while seeking
a future-oriented friendship with South Korea.
To contain North Korea's nuclear ambitions, Japan will work more closely than
ever with its four partners in the six-party talks -- China, South Korea,
Russia, and the United States.
Hatoyama reiterated that his government will make all-out efforts to have all
victims of Pyongyang's abductions returned to Japan as soon as possible and
that it will comprehensively resolve the North Korean nuclear and missile
development issues as well as the abduction issue before normalizing ties with
the reclusive state.
Hatoyama's speech to the 174th ordinary Diet session was the second longest,
after one given by late former Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto in January
1996, according to Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Koji Matsui.
Hatoyama was eager to draw up a speech featuring the seven sins inscribed on
Gandhi's monument in India, which the premier visited in December, saying that
his own political philosophy stems from the Indian leader's teachings,
according to Matsui.
Gandhi described the following as the seven sins in society -- ''politics
without principle,'' ''wealth without work,'' ''pleasure without conscience,''
''knowledge without character,'' ''commerce without morality,'' ''science
without humanity'' and ''religion without sacrifice.''
Hatoyama said these seven sins are the very problems Japan and the world are
currently riddled with and that it is now being asked what kind of politics,
economy, society or education should be pursued.
The premier started his speech with and repeated a few times throughout it the
phrase ''I want to protect lives,'' instead of fraternity, which he repeated in
his first policy speech in late October during an extraordinary Diet session.
Citing at the end of the speech the father who lost his son in the powerful
quake that hit Hyogo Prefecture and its vicinity, Hatoyama also stressed the
importance of forming communities in which residents care for each other and
protect each other.
In Friday's address, he said he was able to work out a fiscal 2010 budget that
features more outlays on social welfare, medical services and other areas than
those compiled by the Liberal Democratic Party as a result of ''a change of
government'' that took place after the DPJ's election victory in August.
While stressing that his government's immediate task is to bring the nation's
economy back on track for recovery, Hatoyama also said that maintaining fiscal
principles is another responsibility that must be fulfilled despite declining
tax revenues.
Among other issues, Hatoyama said his goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions
by 25 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 would serve as an opportunity to improve
the health of the nation's economy and create new growth, defying claims that
he has laid out too ambitious a goal and failed to lead other countries to
follow suit.
==Kyodo
2010-01-29 23:35:06


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