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Policy Forum Online: Ethical Governance Of Investment Biweekly Update
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I. United States1. Multilateral DPRK Talks Reuters (Paul Eckert, "DIPLOMACY ON NORTH KOREA QUICKENS," Seoul, 07/03/03) and Agence France-Presse ("US, JAPAN, SKOREA TO CONTINUE NKOREA TALKS FOR A SECOND DAY," 07/03/03) reported that senior diplomats from the US, Japan and the ROK will meet for a second day of informal talks on North Korea and efforts to end the stalemate over its nuclear weapons programs, officials said. "They decided it would be useful to continue talking, so they will meet again tomorrow (Thursday)," said an official from the US State Department where the talks are being held. A South Korean official also said the talks would resume on Thursday but there was no indication from any of the sides as to what the reason for the extension was. The State Department had earlier gone to great lengths to play down the importance of the discussions, stressing that they did not constitute a formal meeting of the so-called Trilateral Coordination and Oversight Group (TCOG) which comprises US, Japanese and ROK diplomats. "These are informal consultations among the members of the group that does meet more formally sometimes on North Korea," spokesman Richard Boucher said. "The principal subject of discussion obviously will be the situation with regard to North Korea (and) how to continue to pursue a peaceful and diplomatic solution that we have sought that results in the verifiable and irreversible end to North Korea's nuclear weapons programs," he said. Despite the continuation of the talks, the trio was not expected to come to any new decisions on approaches to the DPRK and the participants still do not plan to issue a statement at the conclusion, officials said. "It's an ongoing consultation and not intended to adopt or approve some new initiative," one senior State Department official said. "They just want to talk about the situation," a second official said. The delegations to the talks were led by US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs James Kelly, South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-Hyuck and Mitoji Yabunaka, the director general of the Japanese foreign ministry's Asian affairs section. The three men met last month in Honolulu at the last formal TCOG meeting. Wednesday's meeting comes as a senior PRC diplomat, Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who deals with Asian issues and policy planning, is also in Washington for talks on the DPRK. The TCOG is urging the DPRK to hold multilateral talks on its nuclear weapons program and has been pressing the PRC to help it in this task. Although the US has demanded that Japan and the ROK be included in the discussions, thus far the DPRK has insisted that it will only talk to the US alone. Reuters ("US, JAPAN, SKOREA TO CONTINUE NKOREA TALKS FOR A SECOND DAY," Washington, 07/03/03) reported that senior diplomats from the US, Japan and ROK will meet for a second day of informal talks on the DPRK and efforts to end the stalemate over its nuclear weapons programs, officials said. "They decided it would be useful to continue talking, so they will meet again tomorrow (Thursday)," said an official from the US State Department where the talks are being held. An ROK official also said the talks would resume on Thursday but there was no indication from any of the sides as to what the reason for the extension was. The State Department had earlier gone to great lengths to play down the importance of the discussions, stressing that they did not constitute a formal meeting of the so-called Trilateral Coordination and Oversight Group (TCOG) which comprises US, Japanese and ROK diplomats. "These are informal consultations among the members of the group that does meet more formally sometimes on North Korea," spokesman Richard Boucher said. "The principal subject of discussion obviously will be the situation with regard to North Korea (and) how to continue to pursue a peaceful and diplomatic solution that we have sought that results in the verifiable and irreversible end to North Korea's nuclear weapons programs," he said. Despite the continuation of the talks, the trio was not expected to come to any new decisions on approaches to North Korea and the participants still do not plan to issue a statement at the conclusion, officials said. "It's an ongoing consultation and not intended to adopt or approve some new initiative," one senior State Department official said. "They just want to talk about the situation," a second official said. The delegations to the talks were led by US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs James Kelly, South Korean Deputy Foreign Minister Lee Soo-Hyuck and Mitoji Yabunaka, the director general of the Japanese foreign ministry's Asian affairs section. 2. Japan on DPRK Nuclear Development The Associated Press (Hans Greimel, "JAPAN WANTS N. KOREAN NUKE PROJECT HALTED," Tokyo, 07/03/03) reported that a top Japanese official said Thursday that a project to help the DPRK build nuclear power plants should be scrapped, as Japan appeared to close ranks with Washington over Pyongyang's suspected pursuit of nuclear weapons. The $4.6 billion project, backed by the US, the European Union, Japan and the ROK, would build two light-water reactors - a type that cannot produce weapons-grade plutonium. But construction has been in limbo since the DPRK admitted last year it had a secret nuclear program. "I personally think it is appropriate for KEDO to decide to suspend it," Senior Vice Minister Toshimitsu Motegi said of the internationally backed Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, which is building the reactors. His comments, which echo the sentiment in Washington, ratchet up the pressure on the DPRK to abandon its alleged nuclear weapons programs. US Ambassador to Japan Howard Baker said last week that US was unlikely to follow through with completing the power plants if DPRK did not give up its nuclear weapons ambitions. At the time, Tokyo suggested it wanted to push on. Hideo Tarumi, of the Foreign Ministry's Northeast Asia Division, said Motegi's comments reflected only his personal opinion and not Tokyo's official stance. "We are currently making every diplomatic effort (with the DPRK), and it's too early to decide on the future of the project," Tarumi said. But other Japanese diplomats meeting in the US on Wednesday also proposed that the KEDO project be suspended to pressure the DPRK into accepting multilateral talks on rolling back its nuclear weapons program, Kyodo News reported. Tarumi could not confirm the report, but said officials from Japan, the US and the ROK were in the US discussing the matter. 3. PRC Role in DPRK Nuclear Talks Reuters ("CHINA STEPS UP EFFORTS ON N.KOREA NUCLEAR TALKS," Beijing, 07/03/03) reported that the PRC has intensified efforts to help resolve the DPRK nuclear standoff and is trying to bring the US and the DPRK back to the negotiating table, officials said on Thursday. Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo was due to discuss the DPRK issue in Moscow after arriving in Russia on Wednesday, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan. Those talks will come on the heels of discussions Vice Foreign Minister Wang Yi held with US officials in Washington on Wednesday and ahead of ROK President Roh Moo-hyun's visit to Beijing next week. "China's efforts to promote the peaceful resolution of the DPRK issue will undoubtedly continue," Kong told a news conference. "And we hope relevant sides will cooperate with China's efforts." On Wednesday, the PRC and Russia blocked a US-proposed statement condemning the DPRK for reviving its nuclear weapons program in a meeting of the U.N. Security Council's five permanent members. Kong reiterated the PRCs plea that "all sides maintain calm and restraint and not take actions that could cause the situation to escalate." Major Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun said on Thursday that the DPRK, via the PRC, had proposed four-way talks with the US, the PRC and the ROK. It said Wang had conveyed the proposal to US Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. Japan's top government spokesman expressed opposition to the proposal on Thursday because it excluded Tokyo. Kong stressed the PRC's position on who participates in negotiations was flexible. "The result is most important, not the format," he said. 4. UN DPRK Rebuke Delay The New York Times (Felicity Barringer and David E. Sanger, "DELAY BY U.N. ON REBUKING NORTH KOREA IS URGED," United Nations, 07/03/03) reported that the PRC and Russia sought today to delay a Security Council condemnation of the DPRK's nuclear arms program, a day after a top DPRK general said any sanctions or blockades initiated by the US would be considered a "complete breach" of the truce that ended hostilities on the peninsula 50 years ago. The letter added that if the US took such actions, the DPRK army would "immediately take strong and merciless retaliatory measures" and promised that "horrible disasters" would befall the South Korean population. The July 1 letter from "the chief of the Panmunjom Mission of the Korean People's Army," contrasted sharply in tone though not in overall content from a letter the Korean foreign minister, Paek Nam Sun, sent the Security Council last week. The harsh follow-up this week to the original letter led some diplomats to wonder if there was an internal DPRK dispute over what mix of conciliatory language and threats should be used with the United Nations and the US. "The meaning is not clear, because we don't know if the army is speaking for Kim Jong Il," one senior Asian diplomat said, referring to the DPRK leader. "But it is unusual to have the Army communicating with the United Nations." While some Asian diplomats here played down the threats in the letter as typical bombast, it was reminiscent of warnings from Pyongyang in 1994 about how it would react to sanctions - warnings that led President Clinton to prepare for the possibility of war on the peninsula. As the Security Council discussed the issue here, State Department officials as well as representatives of the National Security Council and the Pentagon were meeting with China's deputy foreign minister, Wang Yi, in Washington, to discuss North Korea and other regional issues. Richard Boucher, the State Department spokesman, said today, "We've discussed with him issues of nonproliferation, issues of North Korea, issues of South Asia." He added, "He's reiterated Chinese support for a non-nuclear Korean Peninsula and further explored with us the cooperation that we have with China to bring North Korea's nuclear programs to an end." 5. US on PRC Human Rights Record Agence France-Presse ("US WARNS OF WORSENING CHINESE RECORD ON HUMAN RIGHTS," 07/03/03) reported that the PRC has not met its commitments to address human rights concerns, which were made in December talks with the US, the State Department said. "During much of 2002, we saw incremental, but unprecedented steps in the right direction on human rights," department spokesman Richard Boucher said in a written response to a question asked earlier Wednesday at a daily press briefing. "We have been disappointed, therefore, to see negative developments in 2003," he said. "The commitments to make progress on human rights concerns made by China at the conclusion of the December human rights dialogue have not been met, and there have been a number of troubling incidents since the beginning of the year." Among US concerns are the execution of a Tibetan without due process, the arrests of democracy activists, and harsh sentences given to Internet essayists and labor protesters, Boucher said. US diplomats and family members have had no access to trials of political prisoners, while authorities ignore due process rights for people accused of political crimes, he added. Media outlets have been blocked from reporting on politically sensitive issues, and 18 Tibetans were repatriated from Nepal in violation of UN practices, he said. "This backsliding on human rights is of great concern to the US and the international community," the spokesman said. "We urge the Chinese government to take steps to ensure that its citizens are not persecuted for the peaceful expression of their views, and to release all prisoners of conscience," Boucher said. 6. Hong Kong Security Bill Reuters (Kim Coghill, "HONG KONG FACES GROWING ANGER OVER SECURITY BILL," 07/03/03) reported that unpopular Hong Kong leader Tung Chee-hwa faced growing pressure on Thursday to withdraw parts of a planned anti-subversion bill, with even some of his staunchest supporters urging him to make concessions as public anger grows. Pro-Beijing lawmakers and political commentators called for Tung to listen to the city's seven million residents after a massive street protest on Tuesday, the largest demonstration in more than a decade. Organizers plan more protests. Victor Sit, a Hong Kong delegate to the PRC's parliament, told local television he had requested Beijing to ask Tung to shelve the legislation. "The circumstances now are not suitable for passing the law urgently, because 500,000 people have come out to march and protest and some of them don't have enough understanding of the law," he told the television station. Tsang Yok Sing, the head of Hong Kong's largest pro-government party and a member of Tung's inner cabinet, said Tung had no choice but to respond to demands to at least amend the security law. "I believe very soon the chief executive will tell the public how the government is responding to the public's calls," Tsang said. "The government has to respond to people's requests." Hong Kong's post-handover constitution requires the city to pass a national security law, though it doesn't give a timetable. The law has stoked concerns that any dissent may soon be treated the same way it is in the PRC. The PRC fears that without the law, Hong Kong will be used as a base for subversive activities against it. Several key pro-government blocs in the legislature are now reviewing their positions after the demonstration. While no one expects dominant pro-government groups to join democrats and vote against the bill, analysts say the outcome could be close if Tung does not offer some goodwill gestures. "It now boils down to the votes of about five or six people...but I don't think it will be voted down," political commentator Andy Ho said on Thursday. 7. ROK Winter Olympic Bid USA Today ("SOUTH KOREA FINISHES SURPRISING 2ND IN VOTE," Prague, 07/03/03) reported that as several hundred ROK citizens filed away from the announcement Wednesday that Pyeongchang, ROK, had narrowly lost to Vancouver in its bid to host the 2010 Winter Olympics, they shouted out a fervent chorus: "Yes! Pyeongchang! Korea!" In a race forecast as Vancouver's to lose and the Austrian city of Salzburg's possibly to steal, Pyeongchang overcame both its underdog status and International Olympic Committee tendencies toward awarding Winter Games to nearly stun the Olympic world. "Pyeongchang now is on the map," IOC President Jacques Rogge said. "That was not the case until (Wednesday)." Pyeongchang not only won the first round of voting but came very close to winning the race outright. With 51 of the 107 votes cast in the first round, Pyeongchang needed only three more for a simple majority. Vancouver got 40 votes in the first round, Salzburg 16. "Ahead doesn't matter until you win," said Un Yong Kim, an influential IOC member from the ROK whose vocal support of the bid undoubtedly swayed some voters. Most of Salzburg's votes seemingly swung to Vancouver in the second round, as the Canadian city edged Pyeonchang 56-53 for the win. The vote was by secret ballot. Only two Winter Olympics have been staged outside Europe and North America -- the 1998 Games in Nagano, Japan, and the 1972 Games in Sapporo, Japan. IOC member Dick Pound of Canada surmised that colleagues from other continents are tired of North American/European dominance. "One of the messages that's out there," Pound said, "is that Latin America, South America, Africa and Asia are saying, 'Don't you guys in North America and Europe take us for granted, because we can make things happen when we get together.' And they did." 8. PRC AIDS Situation Agence France-Presse ("CHINA, INDIA, CAMBODIA FACING AIDS 'CATASTROPHE': US EXPERT," 07/03/03) reported that the world's two most populous nations, the PRC and India, are facing an AIDS "catastrophe", one of the US' most senior experts on infectious diseases warned here. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Julie Gerberding named Cambodia as another Asian country staring at disaster unless there were international efforts to help develop adequate public health measures. Gerbeding, on a tour of Asia to assess regional infectious diseases and give technical advice, praised Thailand's efforts to contain the HIV-AIDS epidemic. "(But) in some countries, like Cambodia and the PRC and India, the public health measures have yet to take hold," Gerbeding told a seminar at the American Chamber of Commerce. "And the epidemic is really in that phase of scaling up very, very quickly. It looks like Africa did a decade or so ago. "If we don't intervene in those environments we will have a catastrophe. A very, very profound increase in the number of cases." Gerbeding's warnings are not new but they could refocus regional attention on AIDS following unprecedented action in East Asia to contain this year's outbreak of Severe Acute Respitatory Syndrome (SARS). While SARS killed more than 800 people this year, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Health and Science Jack Chow said up to 25 million people had died from AIDS worldwide over the past two decades. Chow, who is travelling with Gerbeding, warned there could be another 80 million cases of HIV-AIDS by the end of the decade in the PRC, India, Russia, Ethiopia and Nigeria alone. The United Nations warned last year that the PRC faced a "catastrophe (involving) unimaginable human suffering" unless authorities took urgent action. According to UN estimates, between 800,000 and 1.5 million people in the PRC had HIV by December 2001, and the number could reach 10 million by 2010. Shared use of intravenous needles by drug use and infection through contaminated blood donations account for about three-quarters of current cases in the PRC. 9. PRC Urban Development Agence France-Presse ("BUILDING COLLAPSES AFTER SHANGHAI UNDERGROUND RAILWAY TUNNEL CAVES IN," Shanghai, 07/03/03) reported that one thousand soldiers have been mobilized to deal with an emergency after an eight-storey commercial building on top of a subway line being constructed in Shanghai collapsed, state media said Thursday. No casualties were reported from the incident on Zhongshan South Street near Shanghai's Huangpu River, but several nearby buildings were damaged, reports said. The collapsed building, which housed an audio-video wholesale market, began to shake in the early hours of Tuesday when work on the M4 metroline crossing the river was going on 20 meters (66 feet) underground, the report said. The rattling sound prompted two guards on night duty inside the building to call police. After people were evacuated, the building began to show more signs of imminent collapse as its windows cracked and splits appeared on its walls. After its interior sections collapsed, the entire building came down, witnesses said. Several other buildings also appeared about to collapse and people were evacuated. The collapse caused a chain reaction which led to a dyke by the Huangpu River -- 100 meters (330 feet) from the collapsed building -- to break, reports said. China Daily quoted Su Ping, an official from the Shanghai Water Authority's drainage facility department as saying the cracking of the floodwall was due to the combined effect of the ground sinking and a rising night tide. Several nearby structures had begun tilting and cracks had appeared in roads as a result of subsidence. The collapsed building and two other commercial buildings nearby have been demolished to lighten the load on the sinking ground. But China Daily quoted sources on the subway tunnel construction site saying the situation was almost under control. The officials said they could not say how much the damage would cost, but that it would be difficult to repair. The new subway line links Shanghai's older western section on one side of the river with the Pudong financial district. The cause of the cave-in is under investigation. 10. PRC Wild Animal Consumption Agence France-Presse ("BEIJING BANS CONSUMPTION OF WILD ANIMALS IN RESTAURANTS," 07/03/03) reported that Beijing is to ban the consumption of more than 1,800 species of wild animals in the city's restaurants, state media reported. In addition to rare or protected species, the eating of snakes, sparrows and tortoises will also be prohibited, the Beijing Star Daily said. The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) disease that spread across the globe from November is suspected to have jumped to humans from civet cats in the southern province of Guangdong, which has already banned the consumption and trading of wild animals. Last month police seized 43,405 kilograms (about 95,500 pounds) of wildlife products, withdrew 2,197 permits for trading or consumption of wildlife, detained two suspects, and seized a number of hunting tools and vehicles used for wildlife trafficking in Guangdong. Eating wild animals is a centuries-old culinary tradition in the PRC that is considered good for the body. Beijing has been the hardest hit city in the global SARS crisis, with most of the 348 deaths and 5,327 infections nationwide coming from the capital. About 800 people were killed by SARS worldwide, from more than 8,000 infections.
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