Opinion Japan has many faces By Joseph LaPenta	フレームで見る  英文をプリントする  脚注をプリントする
日本のさまざまな顔 アジアのヒーローとしてタイム誌の表紙を飾った鈴木イチロー選手と中田英寿選手。彼らは世界に認められた日本の顔を象徴している。だが最近、そうでない日本の顔を象徴するような事件が起こってしまった。

Countries show many faces to the world. The photos of smiling Hidetoshi Nakata and Ichiro Suzuki were on a recent cover of Time magazine in an issue about Asia's heroes. But another face of Japan in the news was not as attractive. On May 8, North Korean asylum-seekers tried to enter the Japanese Consulate General in Shenyang, China. The incident caused an enormous controversy between Japan and China.

The Japanese and Chinese governments gave very different explanations. There were probably misunderstandings on both sides, but a picture is worth a thousand words. In a video tape of the event, we see three armed Chinese guards attempting to stop two women and a child from entering the consulate grounds.

The guards push and pull. The women scream. The child is dropped on the ground. And as all this is happening, members of the Japanese staff approach the gate. Do the Japanese try to stop the Chinese guards? Do they try to protect the child? No. They just stand by and watch. Once the women and the child are removed from the consulate grounds, a Japanese staff member politely returns a hat and other objects dropped by the Chinese guards.

China claims Japanese officials granted the guards permission to enter and remove intruders. The video tape appears to support their claim. Japanese officials were not merely passive observers but seemed more concerned about the personal belongings of the guards than about the fate of the women and child.

The incident has inevitably led to criticism of Japan's foreign policy and the attitude of its diplomats. Critics have focused especially on Japan's lack of openness to refugees and asylum-seekers.

However, we should keep in mind the country's long history of isolation and xenophobia. Japan is not a "nation of immigrants," nor does it pretend to be a "melting pot." Since World War II, it has made domestic economic development its priority. In foreign affairs, Japan has generally followed the lead of the United States, at least until the end of the Cold War.

Those days are gone forever. It is time for a profound change of consciousness, and there are Japanese who can act as models for a new approach. One such person is Sadako Ogata. She spent a decade as the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and helped protect and feed more than a million people in the war-torn areas of Iraq, Yugoslavia and Africa.

It is significant that while Ogata has served as Japan's U.N. representative, she is known for her independence and her opposition to bureaucrats and government officials. As the daughter of a diplomat, she was raised partly outside Japan and has degrees from Georgetown University and U.C. Berkeley. Last November, Prime Minister Koizumi chose her as the special envoy on Afghanistan, and he also offered her the job of foreign minister after firing Makiko Tanaka. Ogata turned him down, but it is intriguing to imagine how she would have handled the many problems that have plagued the ministry, especially the incident in China.

Is Sadako Ogata the exception that proves the rule? Hardly. There are many Japanese working independently, and with governments and NGOs, to help people all over the world. Government officials claim to be the "face" of a nation — to represent all the citizens of a country. That is a convenient fiction. A country is its people, and different people have different faces.

Shukan ST: June 7, 2002

(C) All rights reserved