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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 05 TOKYO 005831 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR E, P, EB, EAP/J, EAP/P, EAP/PD, PA 
WHITE HOUSE/NSC/NEC; JUSTICE FOR STU CHEMTOB IN ANTI-TRUST DIVISION; 
TREASURY/OASIA/IMI/JAPAN; DEPT PASS USTR/PUBLIC AFFAIRS OFFICE; 
SECDEF FOR JCS-J-5/JAPAN, 
DASD/ISA/EAPR/JAPAN; DEPT PASS ELECTRONICALLY TO USDA 
FAS/ITP FOR SCHROETER; PACOM HONOLULU FOR PUBLIC DIPLOMACY ADVISOR; 
CINCPAC FLT/PA/ COMNAVFORJAPAN/PA. 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: OIIP KMDR KPAO PGOV PINR ECON ELAB JA
SUBJECT:  DAILY SUMMARY OF JAPANESE PRESS 10/06/06 
 
 
INDEX: 
 
(1) Anti-terror Law: Government makes decision to extend it for the 
third time and continue MSDF's maritime supplying activities 
 
(2) Whether government's intelligence function is strengthened 
depends on prime minister's "determination" 
 
(3) FTA: Rising mood for resuming talks with South Korea, possibly 
before year's end following summit meeting 
 
(4) Restart of Japan's relations with China and with South Korea 
(Part 2): Urgent need for resolving pending issues 
 
ARTICLES: 
 
(1) Anti-terror Law: Government makes decision to extend it for the 
third time and continue MSDF's maritime supplying activities 
 
MAINICHI (Page 1) (Excerpt) 
Eve., October 6, 2006 
 
The government this morning held a cabinet meeting to approve an 
amendment to the Anti-Terror Special Measures Law allowing a 
one-year extension. This would be the third extension of the law 
since it was passed, and it will allow the Maritime Self-Defense 
Force to continue its supplying activities in the Indian Ocean that 
it started in 2001. The MSDF will enter a sixth year of providing 
such services. The government and ruling parties plan to have the 
Diet pass the bill quickly, but the opposition camp, including the 
Democratic Party of Japan (Minshuto) remains opposed. 
 
(2) Whether government's intelligence function is strengthened 
depends on prime minister's "determination" 
 
SANKEI (Page 5) (Full) 
October 5, 2006 
 
The Abe administration needs to strengthen the government's 
intelligence function. Before it stands a mountain of challenges, 
such as strengthening the intelligence-gathering system for the 
Prime Minister's Official Residence (Kantei), creating a foreign 
intelligence agency, and establishing a legal system to protect 
intelligence. Such systems have already been completely set up in 
the United States, Europe, South Korea, and other democratic 
countries. To what extent Japan will be able to introduce these 
functions hinges on Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's "determination." 
 
"If Japan had prepared a satisfactory intelligence function in the 
postwar period, a large number of Japanese nationals would never 
have been abducted," said Chief Researcher Katsuhisa Furukawa of the 
Research Institute of Science and Technology for Society. 
 
The National Police Agency and the Public Security Intelligence 
Agency are engaged in gathering intelligence pertaining to domestic 
security. When it comes to overseas intelligence, however, the 
government's analysis system is quite poor. The Cabinet Information 
Research Office was set up in September 1952 under the lead of 
Taketora Ogata, who was chief editor and a close aide to Prime 
Minister Shigeru Yoshida. Although more than 50 years have passed 
since then, the Cabinet Intelligence and Research Office (CIRO), its 
successor, is still understaffed. Although CIRO is regarded as the 
Japanese counterpart of the CIA (US Central Intelligence Agency) and 
 
TOKYO 00005831  002 OF 005 
 
 
the MI 16 (Military Intelligence, section 6) of Britain, the office 
has yet to be labeled as a full-fledged operation. 
 
Under such a situation, as a senior Liberal Democratic Party 
official said, "Since Japan was hardly able to obtain intelligence 
on its own on whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction," it had 
no choice but to trust the US" on the occasion of war initiated 
against Iraq. When Japanese nationals were taken hostage by 
terrorists in Iraq, Japan remained unable to collect information or 
to take measures in an effective way. Naturally, Japan has no way of 
knowing what policy China and North Korea are mapping out toward 
Japan. 
 
There are two types of foreign intelligence: confidential and open 
intelligence. Confidential intelligence includes: (1) imagery 
intelligence taken by spy satellites or aircraft; (2) signal 
intelligence obtained by intercepting radio or other transmissions; 
and (3) intelligence received from humans. In the case of Japan, the 
Defense Agency has collected intelligence through three 
information-gathering satellites, but what is lacking most is human 
intelligence. 
 
Japan has yet to establish a satisfactory system to accurately 
analyze the intelligence collected by the Foreign Ministry, CIRO, 
the Defense Agency, and the National Police Agency and to provide 
such information to the nerve center of the government, including 
the prime minister and the chief cabinet secretary in the form of 
data or briefings. 
 
The Cabinet Information Conference holds a meeting only twice or so 
a year. The deputy chief cabinet secretaries preside over a joint 
information conference with bureau director-level government 
officials twice a month. Even in such meetings, government agencies 
try to sequester their most valuable information and provide it 
directly to the prime minister or the chief cabinet secretary in an 
attempt to score points. This is a typical evil effect of the 
factious bureaucracy. The prime minister and the chief cabinet 
secretary are also not eager to ask for necessary information for 
 
SIPDIS 
policymaking. 
 
National Institute of Informatics Professor Hajime (or Gen?) Kitaoka 
said: "The Kantei should have staff specialized in assessing and 
analyzing intelligence, like Britain, and be given authority to 
access to important information kept by other government agencies. 
It is necessary to scrap the vertically organized system of 
administration." Kitaoka served as General Management Division 
director in the Foreign Ministry's Intelligence and Analysis Bureau 
and later General Administrative Division director in the Cabinet 
Satellite Information Center. 
 
It is said that it would take at least 10 years to prepare even 
primary equipment for a foreign intelligence agency. Based on the 
view that personnel are the key to this task, former CIRO head 
Yoshio Omori said: "It is necessary to foster personnel and also to 
establish a school to train them." 
 
(3) FTA: Rising mood for resuming talks with South Korea, possibly 
before year's end following summit meeting 
 
NIHON KEIZAI (Page 2) (Slightly abridged) 
October 6, 2006 
 
A mood for resuming the suspended talks to sign a free trade 
 
TOKYO 00005831  003 OF 005 
 
 
agreement (FTA) with South Korea is rising prior to Prime Minister 
Shinzo Abe's visits to China and South Korea. A plan has emerged to 
include a statement of both countries' intention to accelerate FTA 
talks in an agreement to be reached at the upcoming bilateral summit 
meeting on the 9th. Some observers see talks resuming late this 
year, at the earliest, once coordination of views of concerned 
government agencies gets underway. 
 
A senior Japanese Foreign Ministry official involved in FTA talks 
with South Korea yesterday indicated he was pinning hopes on a 
political decision by President Roh Moo Hyun, noting, "I hope the 
Korean side will return to the negotiating table at the upcoming 
summit meeting." 
 
Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and President Roh Moo Hyun agreed 
to aim at reaching a general agreement before the end of 2005 when 
the met in October 2003. 
 
Though both countries started talks in December 2003, no 
working-level meeting has been held since November 2004. South 
Korea, which imports a great deal of mined and manufactured products 
from Japan, wants to correct the trade imbalance between the two 
countries by reducing deficits with Japan through aggressive exports 
of agricultural products. It is urging Japan to further open its 
markets, making it a condition for Japan to liberalize 90%  of its 
agricultural sector. Japan is reluctant to meet this request, 
arguing that such conditions for resuming talks should not be set. 
It continues to remain at odds with South Korea over liberalizing 
the agricultural area. 
 
Some, however, take the view that the real reason for suspending the 
talks was the political factor of strained bilateral relations due 
to Prime Minister Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni Shrine, according to 
one informed source connected to Japan-South Korea relations. Deputy 
Prime Minister and Minister of Finance and Economy Kwon O-kyu, who 
is in charge of South Korea's economic policy, during a recent 
interview with the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said, "Given the size of 
trade and investment between Japan and South Korea, I would like to 
resume FTA talks with Japan before the end of the year." 
 
South Korea is currently promoting FTA talks with the US. It is also 
expected to enter into FTA talks with the European Union (EU) in the 
near future. It plans to launch industry-academic-government studies 
with China with the aim of launching FTA talks. 
 
Japan is the ROK's largest investment partner, following the US, and 
the third largest trade partner, following China and the US. Some 
Japanese observers think that South Korea may have reached a 
judgment that it would be advantageous to resume the FTA talks with 
Japan at an early date, as a senior official of the Foreign Ministry 
put it. Quiet coordination of views is proceeding ahead of the 
upcoming bilateral summit meeting. 
 
(4) Restart of Japan's relations with China and with South Korea 
(Part 2): Urgent need for resolving pending issues 
 
YOMIURI (Page 1) (Full) 
October 6, 2006 
 
It is unprecedented for a Japanese prime minister to set an 
extremely tight schedule for his first overseas trip. 
 
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will arrive in Beijing at around noon 
 
TOKYO 00005831  004 OF 005 
 
 
tomorrow. On the afternoon, he will attend a welcoming ceremony at a 
square in front of the Great Hall of the People and meet with 
separately President Hu Jintao, Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, and 
Standing Committee of the National People's Congress Chairman Wu 
Bangguo. He is then expected to attend a dinner party hosted by 
President Hu. 
 
Staying overnight there, Abe will leave for Seoul next morning. He 
will meet in the afternoon with President Roh Moo Hyun. He will then 
hold a press conference. After attending a dinner party hosted by 
Roh, Abe will hurryingly return home that night. 
 
Abe's tight diplomatic schedule demonstrates that the main purpose 
of his trips to Beijing and Seoul is to resume summit diplomacy with 
the top leaders of China and South Korea. The summits were suspended 
during the Koizumi government. Abe regards his meetings with Hu and 
Roh as a political and diplomatic message. He does not necessarily 
place weight on reaching agreements with them. 
 
If Abe can gain a foothold for rebuilding Japan's relations with 
China and South Korea, it can be said that his visits to Beijing and 
Seoul are successful. He, however, should not be happy with "mere" 
summitry. Abe's major challenge is to break away from the kind of 
relationships with China and South Korea in which much energy is 
spent on the issue of prime ministerial visits to Yasukuni Shrine. 
 
There remain many pending issues between Japan and China and between 
Japan and South Korea. The tug-of-war between Tokyo and Beijing and 
between Tokyo and Seoul has intensified over such aspects of their 
respective national interests as territorial claims and marine 
resources. 
 
A touch-and-go situation has continued between Japan and China over 
exploration of undersea gas reserves in the East China Sea because 
China is now ready to produce gas from the Shirakaba (Chunxiao in 
Chinese) field located near the median line between Japan and China, 
and Japan meanwhile has started preparations for test drilling in an 
area closer to the Japanese territorial waters than to the medial 
line between the two countries. There are no prospects to terminate 
the vicious cycle that a confrontation between Tokyo and Seoul 
intensifies every time there is an ocean current survey near the 
disputed Takeshima/Dokdo islets, located in waters where the 
exclusive economic zones claimed by Japan and South Korea overlap. 
 
The Chinese government has toughened its control over Japanese 
products, announcing that it has discovered harmful substances in 
frozen mackerel pikes, soybean paste, soybean oil and cosmetics 
imported from Japan. The dominant view in Japan is that this is 
China's retaliation against Japan, which has tightened its 
regulations on residual pesticides that have resulted in Chinese 
products exported to Japan drastically declining. It is also urgent 
to deal with cross-border environmental problems, including yellow 
sand (loess) being carried in the currents from China, which 
allegedly causes damage to human health. Some have noted that 
Japan's diplomacy toward China and South Korea tends to swing 
between being resentful toward China and South Korea or being 
apologetic toward those countries. It is crystal clear that such 
extremes in diplomacy cannot resolve issues. 
 
Whether the Abe administration will be able to pave the way for a 
new diplomacy toward China and South Korea is unclear, as it seeks 
to break away from the postwar regime and mover toward a more active 
stance. 
 
TOKYO 00005831  005 OF 005 
 
 
 
DONOVAN