VZCZCXRO4035
PP RUEHCHI RUEHFK RUEHHM RUEHKSO RUEHPB
DE RUEHKO #4752/01 2300820
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 180820Z AUG 06
FM AMEMBASSY TOKYO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 5548
INFO RUEHZU/ASIAN PACIFIC ECONOMIC COOPERATION
RUEHNE/AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI 8089
RUEHIL/AMEMBASSY ISLAMABAD 1912
RUEHKA/AMEMBASSY DHAKA 0637
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS 5000
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA 2908

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 TOKYO 004752 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
FOR EAP/J, EAP/EP AND WHA 
STATE PASS USTR FOR CUTLER/NEUFFER 
USTR ALSO FOR BEEMAN/MEYERS 
PARIS FOR USOECD 
GENEVA FOR USTR 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ECON EAID PREL APECO JA
SUBJECT: MOFA OFFICIAL ON REINVIGORATING APEC 
 
REF: A) STATE 121653 
 
 B) TOKYO  4260 
 
¶1. (SBU)  Summary:  Japan agrees, in principle, on the need to 
institutionally strengthen APEC but believes more discussion is 
needed to determine the most effective way forward, according to 
Japan's APEC Senior Official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs 
(MOFA).  Acknowledging the prospect of pressure to bring India into 
APEC once the moratorium on new membership ends, the official 
speculated that one approach to the challenge of APEC expansion 
might be to consider a variety of new voting procedures, such as 
World Bank "constituency" voting, to avoid a further weakening of 
the organization.  He also agreed that having a permanent 
secretariat would be one way to keep the organization focused but 
 
SIPDIS 
indicated that Japan has yet to put together a formal position on 
APEC reorganization. End Summary 
 
¶2. (SBU)  Econcouns called on incoming MOFA APEC Senior Official 
Masashi Mizukami to welcome him to his new position and to open a 
dialogue on APEC issues in advance of next month's Senior Officials' 
Meeting (SOM) in Vietnam.  Mizukami, one of the Ministry's top 
Spanish language experts, serves concurrently as APEC Senior 
Official and Deputy Director General of the Bureau for Latin 
American and Caribbean Affairs.  In this dual role, Mizukami has a 
good perspective on both halves of the APEC membership.  Previously, 
Mizukami served at Japan's Permanent Mission to the UN where he 
covered ECOSOC affairs, an experience that, he admitted, left him 
frustrated with large, unwieldy international economic 
institutions. 
 
Need to "Stabilize" APEC as an Institution 
------------------------------------------ 
 
¶3.  (SBU)  Mizukami said Japan "sympathizes" with recent U.S. and 
Australian proposals to strengthen the APEC Secretariat but had yet 
to put together a specific proposal of its own.  Speaking 
informally, he observed that APEC should operate more like the G-8, 
which strikes the right balance between achieving "tangible results" 
and focusing on the specific interests of successive host nations 
(e.g. Russian energy or British interest in sub-Saharan Africa.) 
APEC, by contrast, with its wide variety of members, ends up 
drifting in different directions depending on the particular 
interests of each year's host economy.   A permanent secretariat, 
Mizukami asserted, would help APEC "stabilize" its agenda. 
 
¶4.  (SBU)  However, before Japan could agree to any specific 
proposal on reorganization, it hoped for a detailed discussion of 
how the new structure would be financed.  "We need a process," he 
emphasized, "that systematically works through the details." 
Although he did not categorically rule out an increased Japanese 
contribution to a reinvigorated organization, Mizukami noted that 
the APEC calendar and GOJ's budget cycle were out of sync so that, 
without Prime Ministerial-level commitment to a supplemental budget 
request, or taking money from a related account, the GOJ would be 
unable to commit additional resources to APEC before FY-2008 (i.e. 
April 2008.)  Normally, ministries' budget requests for the FY 
beginning the following April need to be into MOF at the end of 
August each year.  Nevertheless, he will be discussing APEC with his 
MOFA superiors hinting that he may have more concrete ideas on 
strengthening the organization at the November leaders' meeting. 
 
Expanded Membership Brings Challenges 
------------------------------------- 
 
¶5.  (SBU)  Mizukami also offered informal thoughts on the 
implications of expanded APEC membership should the current 
moratorium expire next year.  He noted with a smile that his dual 
responsibility for Latin America had opened him to entreaties for 
Japanese support for APEC membership from a number of countries in 
the region, including Panama and Colombia.  He said he demurred, of 
course, but emphasized this was a challenge APEC would have to face 
sooner or later. 
 
¶6.  (SBU)  The biggest challenge though was India, whose accession, 
if agreed to, would have immediate implications for how the 
organization functions.  Mizukami stated that an explicit condition 
of India's accession should be its agreement not to block future 
consensus on entry of its South Asian neighbors.  This led him to 
muse briefly on whether APEC should consider the possibility of 
introducing constituent-based voting procedures as at the World Bank 
 
TOKYO 00004752  002 OF 002 
 
 
(i.e., small countries in a given group are represented by one of 
them, perhaps on a rotating basis, depending on the issues up for 
decision; the summit would be open to all members.) Such a variety 
of voting mechanisms would, he asserted, allow the organization to 
expand its membership without fatally damaging its effectiveness. 
 
¶7.  (SBU)  Comment: Mizukami's past experience working with ECOSOC 
clearly left him disillusioned about the effectiveness of large, 
unwieldy international economic organizations that lack clear 
centralized direction.  Although in this meeting he was largely 
presenting his personal views and not considered MOFA positions, 
Mizukami is new to the APEC community and the fact that he is 
willing to consider new approaches to the organization's challenges 
bodes well for productive engagement in future discussions with USG 
officials. 
 
SCHIEFFER