Trialogue 54 Introductory Note

The agenda for the Tokyo meeting was shaped in part by the Japanese government’s plans for the July 2000 summit of the G-7 countries plus Russia in Okinawa. The plan was for Prime Minister Obuchi to open the Tokyo meeting with a major speech setting out the Okinawa agenda, but Keizo Obuchi was felled by a stroke several days before the Tokyo meeting (and passed away on May 14). Speaking later in the Tokyo meeting, Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa referred to former Prime Minister Obuchi and how hard he had been working to make a success of the Okinawa Summit. “Although there is no way to convey Mr. Obuchi’s message to you,” Mr. Miyazawa noted, "I am certain he would greatly regret that he is unable to be here with you and would wish for the success of our meeting." The session of the Trilateral Tokyo meeting on responses to globalization (see Section 4 of this publication) was directly inspired by the Okinawa agenda.

Former Prime Minister Obuchi had also been working hard to bring broader East Asian concerns to the Okinawa summit, as indicated by the Prime Minister’s travels in the region in the preceding months. East Asia and the wider international system has been a central focus of the Trilateral Commission not only in the 2000 meeting in Tokyo (see Section 1 of this publication), but throughout the triennium for which the Tokyo meeting was the concluding annual meeting. Each annual meeting in this triennium has had at least one session devoted to this broad set of issues. The largest project in this triennium has been the Special Study Group on East Asia and the International System, comprised of a number of persons from Europe, North America, and Japan along with a number of persons from East Asia beyond Japan. The Study Group held workshops in Seoul in November 1998 and in Beijing in October 1999. Draft papers from the Study Group came before the Tokyo meeting and are excerpted in this publication (see Section 1). A plan was adopted at the Tokyo meeting for transforming the Japan group in the Trilateral Commission into a Pacific Asia group for the 2000–03 triennium. It has been clear for some time that Japan should no longer be a "one-country region" within the Trilateral Commission, but it has taken time to work out how the widening to a Pacific Asia group should be accomplished. The plan for doing so is set out in the April 10 memo from the three Chairmen to Members printed in the back of this publication. A first meeting of the new Pacific Asia group is planned for late this year. That will also be the occasion for discussion of the full report from the Study Group on East Asia and the International System, to be published shortly thereafter.

As the April 10 memo from the Chairmen to Members also indicates, Mexican members will be added to the North American group in the new triennium and the European group will continue to widen in line with the enlargement of the European Union. We will also continue the practice of inviting a number of participants from other key areas of the world. “The need for shared thinking and leadership by the Trilateral countries, who (along with the principal international organizations) remain the primary anchors of the wider international system, has not diminished, ” the Chairmen stated. “At the same time, however, their leadership must change to take into account the dramatic transformation of the international system. As relations with other countries become more mature—and power more diffuse—the leadership tasks of the Trilateral countries need to be carried out with others to an increasing extent. ”