Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
100-105)
SIR STEPHEN
GOMERSALL KCMG AND
DR JIM
HOARE
2 APRIL 2008
Q100 Mr. Illsley: Would you agree
that delegating our influence in that part of the world through
the European Union would probably be a mistake?
Sir Stephen Gomersall: Absolutely.
The European Union is a very important player with Japan. It took
Japan probably 20 years to understand and come to terms with the
fact that the European Union—the Commission—has competence
in certain defined areas. In those areas and on some bigger global
issues that are not formally European competence issues—Middle
East policy, climate change and things like that—the EU
voice is very important, but in many cases the Japanese would
not have moved on trade issues if member states had not been there
as well, backing up the formal representations of the EU. Of course,
there are many instances where member states—particularly
the UK, France and Germany—have interests in issues that
are way outside the formal EU agenda, and we need to be there
to represent our interests directly on those.
My view is very clear, and that is that there
is a great beneficial complementarity between the EU and the member
states in Japan. The EU delegation in Japan has a fairly long
experience there, and there are some very good people, including
the ambassador. The relationship between the EU in Japan and the
member state delegations is extremely close, and tactical and
other information is shared pretty closely.
Chairman: We have a couple more areas
to address. Sandra Osborne will speak and then John Stanley.
Q101 Sandra Osborne: In 2006, the
Committee, in its East Asia report, noted a lack of institutionalised
regional security architecture in East Asia. The Government's
response was that they were encouraging that through the EU and
its involvement in the ASEAN Regional Forum. What is the state
of play with regard to the development of such arrangements, and
does there remain a useful role for the UK in encouraging that?
Dr. Hoare: I think that it would
be fair to say that the reality has not changed a great deal since
2006. The one new development is the high-profile and, to a modest
extent, successful Six-Party Talks on the Korean nuclear issue,
but even that is perhaps in difficulties. There are a number of
problems with trying to impose a European or western-style security
apparatus on East Asia. There is the difficulty that there are
two leading East Asian nations: China and Japan. There are difficulties
because of the historical legacy of the second world war, which
affects attitudes towards Japan, and because East and South-East
Asia are not coherent political and cultural region in the way
that Europe is. There are very great differences between China
and Malaysia, for example, or any combination of countries that
you care to take.
There is also the historical fact that until
very recently the major outside power interested in East Asia—the
United States—was not really very interested in any sort
of regional security system. It preferred what was called the
hub-and-spoke system, whereby the United States was the hub and
had bilateral treaties with countries such as the Philippines,
Japan and South Korea. Therefore, one of the problems is that
you lack one of the basic building blocks to create the sort of
regional security structure that we have in Europe.
There is an attempt to change that through
the various off-spins from the Association of South East Asian
Nations: ASEAN+3, which includes China, Japan and Korea at the
meetings, and the ASEAN Regional Forum, which is much wider. However,
for a number of reasons, which are partly cultural, these are
not very powerful or dynamic bodies. When I worked in the Foreign
Office on the ASEAN Regional Forum, a phrase that was used often
was, "ASEAN will not be comfortable with that," but
ASEAN was not comfortable with a lot of things, and anything that
might provoke confrontation was to be avoided. That said, the
emergence of some issues, particularly the North Korean nuclear
issue and how to cope with it, have made countries in the region
look much more at the idea of some form of overarching security
apparatus, but the problems still remain and I do not see them
being solved in the short term.
Sir Stephen Gomersall: I think
that Jim is basically right. My personal belief is that Japan
has slightly missed out by not being more proactive in trying
to promote some structures based loosely on ideas of free trade
and respect for certain political norms in the area, which would
have put relationships among Japan, China, Korea and the ASEAN
countries on a more stable and constructive kind of framework
and taken some volatility out of the situation. When I was there,
I made several public suggestions that there might be things to
be learned from EU experience, and I certainly believe that that
is the case in areas of military transparency. For example, people
are really quite worried about Chinese deployments and deployments
in North and South Korea. The Organisation for Security and Co-operation
in Europe evolved lots of mechanisms in the 1970s and 1980s that
could be transported to that part of the world, but the bottom
line is that there are virtually no takers for those kinds of
ideas in Japan. Japan has pursued its own diplomacy through aid,
the negotiation of free trade arrangements with individual ASEAN
countries and, as Jim mentioned, through the ASEAN+3 format, which
is new, but not yet very operational. The stock answer to all
these ideas is that Asia and Europe are fundamentally different
in geography, culture, stages of development and relative wealth,
and therefore the European experience cannot be transported there.
Q102 Sir John Stanley: As Sir Stephen
and Dr. Hoare know, this Committee is overwhelmingly and primarily
concerned with the scrutiny of British foreign policy. I would
like to ask you, Sir Stephen, what you consider today should be
the top British foreign policy priorities towards and with Japan,
given our involvement with it as an associate member of NATO,
for example, in Iraq previously, and continuing in Afghanistan.
Sir Stephen Gomersall: The two
that stand out are climate change, which is a security issue,
and international security, in the sense of Japan's growing involvement
in, and support for, international peacekeeping and peace support
efforts. As you know, since the first Gulf war, Japan has gradually
moved to become more involved, and it has been so in peacekeeping
and peace support operations in the Gulf, Cambodia, East Timor
and places such as that.
The National Defence Guidelines that were
published at the end of 2007 state that international peace and
security support is now a primary mission of the Self-Defence
Forces. As you know, Japan deployed in the wake of 9/11 both to
the Indian ocean and to Iraq, with much support from the British
armed forces. It is tentative at this stage, but mechanisms are
being put in place within the Self-Defence Forces to create a
readiness brigade, for example, which would be deployable more
quickly in the event of a big natural disaster or international
crisis, certainly in the East Asia area.
There is still a great allergy among the
public to involvement in anything that would require the Self-Defence
Forces to shoot in anger, and there is a tendency to look for
operations where Japan can fulfil more of a support role than
a front-line one. I think that that will evolve with time, but
UK experience is highly regarded by Japan in that area. We have
given it a lot of advice on, for example, forming joint operations
and on the theory and practice of peacekeeping. It is very useful
for us to keep alongside Japan, which does not like to be dominated
all the time by the United States in that kind of area.
Q103 Sir John Stanley: Do you feel
wholly confident that Japan will remain a non-nuclear power?
Sir Stephen Gomersall: I remain
pretty confident, yes.
Sir John Stanley: Only pretty?
Sir Stephen Gomersall: Very confident.
It is remarkable that 50 years after the end of the American occupation,
Japan is still firmly allied to the United States. It is a very
stable country. Although is has big armed forces, it has a very
limited deployable offensive force. There is still a strong consensus
around that position. It is recognised that Japan, with its ambitions
to be more of a global player, including in the United Nations,
needs to be visible in international peacekeeping operations.
We have seen a lot of evidence of that.
Only in the event of a major cataclysm on
the Korean peninsula, or if the Americans were totally unexpectedly
to turn tail and withdraw from the Pacific, could there be a scenario
in which Japan would arm in the nuclear sense. That is my view,
but that does not mean that there is not more open talk and discussion
in the bars. You will find Japanese parliamentarians who say that
Japan ought to protect itself against North Korea by rearming.
However, although Japan might have the capacity to do that, I
do not see any serious political movement in that direction.
Q104 Sir John Stanley: Dr. Hoare,
you were charged with reopening our embassy in Pyongyang and blazed
a trail there. Can you tell us the answer to the same question
in relation to the DPRK? What should the British Government's
top foreign policy priorities be towards the DPRK?
Dr. Hoare: The problem is that
we are not a leading country on matters relating to the Korean
peninsula, so our role will always be somewhat limited. Over the
years, we have tended to defer to the United States on Korean
issues, providing support to the United Nations at the military
armistice commission when it used to meet—the British defence
attaché was a member of that. Indeed, we used to keep a
token number of British troops in South Korea until the last 20
years or so.
In 2000, Ministers made a decision to establish
diplomatic relations with North Korea—that was one of the
clearest examples of a ministerial initiative rather than Ministers
taking up something that officials had proposed. Within the Foreign
Office, a small number of people had been saying for years that
it was a sensible policy, but it had not been accepted. In 2000,
it was accepted.
We had very few illusions that the demilitarised
zone was going to disappear because Britain had established diplomatic
relations with North Korea. According to our arguments at the
time, we did it to help the South Korean Government in their relations
with North Korea, and that has remained part of our policy ever
since. As it developed in 2002—something about which there
is considerable debate—the North Korean nuclear issue has
overshadowed that initial initiative, and that has led us away
from a position of developing our engagement with North Korea.
The lady from Amnesty who spoke just before
us argued for continued British engagement with North Korea as
a means of dealing with human rights issues. I would also argue
for that. Even if there is going to be a modification in the South
Korean Government's policy—again, it is a little early to
see exactly what the new President is going to do: the rhetoric
is strong, but the reality may be different—there is no
sign whatsoever that the South Korean Government want those countries
that have already engaged with North Korea to back away from that
engagement. Even when the US Administration were at their most
vociferous about North Korea, there was no sign that they thought
that we should back away from the engagement marked by diplomatic
relations with North Korea. Nobody opposes that policy.
By dealing directly with the North Koreans,
we learn more than we would if we were not there. By showing them,
in however small a way, that the outside world has lessons for
them to learn, by exposing their officials and students to that
outside world and by giving an alternative to the closed society
in which they live, we are helping to modify North Korean behaviour
and policies. It is not going to be an easy or quick process,
but it is underway.
The changes that have taken place in North
Korea have many causes, including the hunger of the 1990s that
forced it to seek international aid, and the consequences of the
South Korean engagement policy, which has led it to be able to
establish relations with more countries. All those things are
modifying North Korea's attitude to the outside world and, to
a certain extent, its behaviour. If we stop, we will not improve
the situation; if we continue, we might.
There is one big area where we have no influence—where
nobody has much influence that I know of. That is the North Korean
military. When I was there, we made some attempt to reach out
to the North Korean military, without much success. The United
States, believe it or not, did have some link into the North Korean
military that was quite unlike that of any other country that
is known—the American missing in action programme that ran
in North Korea for 10 years. It is a great pity that that was
stopped by the then Defence Secretary a couple of years back.
That was a small military confidence-building measure that I think
was helping the situation. However, we have nothing like that.
We should, I think, continue to engage with
North Korea. We should encourage other countries to do so as well.
We may not make great advances, but we will certainly not help
if we back away.
Q105 Sir John Stanley: You spent
many years of service in the Republic of Korea embassy. You know
it extraordinary well. What would you say, in the totally different
situation in respect of South Korea, should be the British Government's
top foreign policy priorities for the Republic of Korea?
Dr. Hoare: We have a lot of interests
with South Korea. We have trade interests, and cultural and educational
interests, some of which are growing. We can play a positive role.
South Korea may have an idealised picture of what we are like,
but it regards Britain with a certain degree of respect because
of our historical role in East Asia, as well as with a certain
amount of gratitude because we were one of those countries that
came to its aid during the Korean war. It also regards us as a
leading European power that is worth cultivating.
The new President is something of an unknown
quantity to all of us. He was a very good mayor of Seoul—it
used to be said of Neville Chamberlain that he was a very good
mayor of Birmingham in a quiet year—but Mr. Lee has not
played on the international stage before, so we have to take account
of that. We have to learn his methods and his approach.
We have formed a good basis over the years
for continuing engagement with South Korea—for encouraging
it to be more open—but we have to be realistic. We are not
going to break its long-standing links with the United States,
but in the past 10 years, we have proved helpful in South Korea's
main security consideration—relations with the North. Even
if the President changes the policy, we will still gain credit
for having played that role.
I think that we should continue to act very
much as we have done over the past 20 years, by providing an alternative
voice to the United States on certain issues and providing an
extra entrée into Europe. Like many Japanese, many South
Koreans have English as their first language and, instinctively,
if they are thinking of coming to Europe, they think of coming
to Britain rather than other parts of Europe. Economic considerations
may push them towards Poland or Romania these days, but the place
where they want to live and to educate their children is probably
London.
Chairman: Gentlemen, thank you very much
for your time and for staying longer than we originally said—unfortunately,
we had the two votes. We have covered a lot of territory and we
are very grateful to you. If either of you has any thoughts that
you wish to convey to us, we should be happy to receive them in
writing.
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