Korean nukes and Japan beef ban engage Rice
The standoff over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program and Japan’s enduring ban on US beef imports were at the top of the agenda as US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice headed to Japan today.
Rice, due in Tokyo tonight as part of an Asian tour, was scheduled to give a policy speech tomorrow and meet Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and other leaders before heading to South Korea in the afternoon.
Rice arrives amid rising impatience in the US with the Japanese continued refusal to lift its ban on US beef imports. Tokyo closed its lucrative market to American beef after the discovery of the first US case of mad cow disease in December 2003.
North Korea is also of immediate concern to Japan. The reclusive hardline communist state announced last month that it possesses a nuclear weapon, and it has already demonstrated that its missiles are capable of hitting Japan.
Japan is hoping to re-engage North Korea in six-party talks on its weapons programs with China, the US, Russia and South Korea, but Pyongyang has so far resisted. Tokyo is also eager to resolve the cases of Japanese who have been missing since they were abducted by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 80s.
The beef issue has become the most visible blemish on what has otherwise been an increasingly tight relationship between Tokyo and Washington.
Tensions have flared in recent weeks, with growing US calls for quick action to resume the beef imports. Before the ban, Japan was American beef’s most lucrative overseas market.
Japan currently tests all domestic cows for mad cow – bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE – but a government panel has recommended that requirement be loosened to exclude cows 20 months old or younger.
Japan’s Food Safety Commission is now working on changing that policy to allow the resumption of beef imports from younger US cows.
The US is pushing for quick action, and some members of the US Congress have warned of possible sanctions if Japan does not lift the ban soon.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda pointed out on Friday that the US still bans imports of Japanese beef as well. The ban was first imposed in March 2000 over hoof and mouth disease, but was extended with the discovery of mad cow disease in Japan in September 2001, according to the Japanese Agriculture Ministry.
