David Warren

International parental child abduction

Earlier this month, I took part in a joint meeting, with seven other Embassies in Japan (including the US, France, Italy, Canada and others) with the new Justice Minister, Ms Chiba.

We were urging the Japanese Government to ratify the Hague Convention on Child Abduction.   Japan is the only one of the G7 major developed countries that hasn't done this.   The Hague Convention puts in place a legal framework for cases where there is disagreement over the custody of children between parents who are nationals of different countries, and one parent takes the children to live in their country against the wishes of the other.  Britain has 37 such cases at present involving Japan, where custody is disputed.   Signature of the Hague Convention would at least mean that there was an agreed procedure for handling such cases - starting with the child being returned to their country of habitual residence, where the courts should determine what custody arrangments are in his or her best interest.

The Minister said that the new Government was considering the issue and that a decision would be made in due course.   There is increasing public discussion of this question here, particularly in light of a very high-profile recent American case; there have also been recent questions in the British Parliament.   I made the point in the meeting with the Minister that Japan, together with all the countries represented there, had signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.  We do hope that the Japanese Government will conclude that Japan's isolation in this area should end sooner rather than later.   We are keen to work with Japan to help the experts here understand how the Hague Convention works in those countries that have signed it - and how it protects nationals of all the signatory countries when child custody disputes occur.

Posted at 16:17 26 October 2009 by David Warren  |  Comments[0]

Blog Action Day 2009: Climate Change

Blog Action Day 2009  We welcome the new Japanese Government’s commitment to a 25% reduction target by 2020, as part of a comprehensive deal at the COP15 meeting in December in Copenhagen.  It continues to be controversial here in some parts of Japanese business. 

Peter Mandelson, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, visited Tokyo last week, and sent a powerful message to Japanese industry that there isn’t going to be a high-carbon future; and that the “first movers” in such an environment will have the business advantage.  My sense is that that message is beginning to get across.  But we are working hard to reinforce it in our own contacts.

Posted at 17:02 15 October 2009 by David Warren  |  Comments[0]

Trip to Akita

I paid a very interesting visit to Akita, in the north of Japan, in September, to talk to students at the Akita International University there - a high-quality, but still quite small, institution.    The working language on campus is English, and all the degree students complete one year of study abroad (and about a quarter of their graduation requirements in this way).  There is a long list of one for one student exchanges with many of the world's best universities, including ten in the UK (with Leeds at the top of the list in terms of numbers at the moment).

The University have been kind enough to invite a number of foreign Ambassadors to talk about the role of Japan in a changing world, and I kicked off the season with a talk mainly on climate change.  You can read the full text here.   It followed the new Prime Minister's commitment to the new medium term emission reduction target of 25% by 2020, which we strongly welcome.   Prime Minister Hatoyama made this a key message in his appearances at the UN General Assembly last week.

We had a lively and friendly Q and A discussion.  One man asked me why I was saying all this in Akita, which has a beautiful rural environment (it does), when whenever he'd been to London, he'd seen precisely the opposite!   (I hope I responded diplomatically.)  On the other hand, another questioner asked whether there were ways in which UK industry could help get the message across to Japanese business that the target was achievable.   Yes, people worry about what the economic effects of the new policy will be.  But the reality is that Japan has the technology to make this work.  And making it work will help get the economy moving again.

I was also fascinated by the emphasis on agricultural self-sufficiency - not just with this audience, but when I saw the Governor and the Mayor the following day.   What Japanese see as a low level (around 40%) is a worry here, and particularly in a very rural area like Akita - much more so than in the UK where the emphasis is different.     I make the point that the price of Japanese rice is still much higher than on the world market.    In Europe, there is a much greater sense of how wrong it is to subsidise food prices when farmers in developing countries have difficulty making ends meet.  And in the UK the issue is now seen as one of food security - secured through diverse sources of supply and open trading relationships - rather than as being purely about domestic production.  

And it's great to meet the British students at the University, and some of the young British teachers working here on the JET scheme, and to be stimulated by their enthusiasm and energy, as they settle into what is for many an unfamiliar but very exciting environment.

Posted at 11:52 06 October 2009 by David Warren  |  Comments[0]

Meeting with Sir Philip Craven

Last week, I was delighted to meet Sir Philip Craven, the President of the International Paralympic Committee since 2001 and a five-time Paralympian in wheelchair basketball, as well as swimming. He is a Member of the International Olympic Committee and a Board Member of the London 2012 Organising Committee.

Posted at 10:29 18 September 2009 by David Warren  |  Comments[0]

Mr Hatoyama's comments on tackling climate change

A clear re-affirmation yesterday from Prime Minister-elect Hatoyama, at the Asahi newspaper's "World Environmental Conference",  that a Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) government will press ahead with their manifesto commitment to a 25% reduction in carbon emissions by 2020 (from 1990 levels) in the negotiations for a successor to the Kyoto framework at COP 15 in Copenhagen in December.  

It will have to be part of an overall deal to which developed and developing countries will contribute.   But this is good news, and evidence of the greater ambition for which we have been pressing the Japanese government this year.  And a desire by the new Government that Japan should be showing leadership in this debate - indeed, the Prime Minister-elect referred specifically to a new "Hatoyama Initiative".

The talk at the evening reception was all about this commitment.  The Danish Ambassador and I were invited to speak, as well as a long line of Japanese politicians and business representatives.  To be eighth out of about ten speakers is a cruel punishment for both the speaker and the audience, so I tried to keep it brief.  We haven't got long before Copenhagen.   We can't afford to lower our sights, if we're going to ensure that global emissions peak within the next 10 years and we keep the increase in global temperature to within 2 degrees.  And investment in the "Green New Deal" will help make economies grow, not (as some in Japanese industry fear) shrink.

Posted at 16:14 08 September 2009 by David Warren  |  Comments[3]

Trip to Nagoya

Fascinating trip to Nagoya, in Central Japan, this week to see three major Japanese investors in the UK.

First, Yamazaki Mazak, the largest machine tools manufacturer in the world.   Ninety years old this year.   Its first product in 1919 was a machine for making Japanese tatami matting.   Now the showroom gleams with the widest imaginable range of products made with their machine tools - everything from artificial hips to aero engine turbine blades.  Yamazaki have had a factory in Worcester since 1987, employing 500 people - it's won the Queen's Award twice, and will be opening its European Technology Centre in Worcester in November.

Then Denso, part of the Toyota Motor group, and the world's top-ranked manufacturer of car electronic and electrical parts, which employs around 2000 people at three sites in the West Midlands, centred on Telford.   The company supports a supply chain in the UK with more than 150 suppliers.  We spend a long time looking at the incredibly detailed and meticulous "hands-on learning" and technical skills training approach - the company has had over 100 Gold Laureates at the international Skills Olympics over the past 30 years.   But then, as someone says to us, if you're going to employ someone for 40 years, it's worth investing three years in training them so that they can operate at the highest possible skills level required.   I watch one of the production lines - 100 tiny, automated processes to make the motor that operates the needle in the speedo dial on your dashboard.  Around 3 million of these are made every month.

And finally, a tour round the Toyota factory at Tsutsumi, to see the Prius rolling off the production line.  6000 people and 1000 robots work at Tsutsumi.  There is something deeply impressive in watching six robots at a time delicately welding each car body as they slowly process down the line - a sort of beautiful mechanical ballet.  Everywhere I look, the theme is environmental.   Half the power needed for the final assembly plant at Tsutsumi comes from solar panels on the roof.  [view photos on our flickr]

It's a cliche, and also wrong, to say that "manufacturing is dead".  Some of the older people I talk to on this trip lament that the younger generation don't have the same attachment to making things that they did.   But the impression I come away with is of cutting-edge processes and the highest standards of quality control.  And Japanese industrial strengths have helped enormously to strengthen the British industrial base in recent years keeping us as the world's 6th largest manufacturing nation.  The big news of the summer for us was Toyota's decision to put hybrid production into its Derbyshire plant, and Nissan's to make electric car batteries in Sunderland.   Helping to make these relationships is very exciting and satisfying work.

Posted at 16:05 04 September 2009 by David Warren  |  Comments[0]

An epoch-making election result

We all woke up on Monday morning to an election result that can genuinely be described as epoch-making.  The opposition Democratic Party of Japan has decisively beaten the Liberal Democratic Party, which has been in power for most of the last 54 years, and has never been seriously under threat of defeat before.   Records tumbled all night.   Record turnout (nearly 70%).   Record size of victory (no winning party in the Lower House has ever had more than 300 seats before).  Record number of women MPs (though still very low by European standards - 54).

Now we are moving into the phase in which the new Government party will be sorting out how it intends to govern and specifically how it is going to tackle the changes it wants to make to the machinery of government.  The DPJ have been swept into office in part with a mandate to reform the relationship between politicians and the powerful bureaucracy.  Everyone will be watching closely - as they do after elections the world over - how the opposition make the transition from saying what needs to be done to actually doing it. 

But the consensus is that this really is a watershed in post-war Japanese politics - a rejection of the old political system, which was perceived as out of touch with voters' concerns, and a call for change - even if there isn't necessarily agreement on precisely what sort of change people want to see.

Posted at 12:08 01 September 2009 by David Warren  |  Comments[0]

Reducing Emissions - More Ambition Needed

Last week, Japanese Prime Minister Aso announced Japan's mid-term (2020) target for emissions reductions - 8% from a 1990 baseline.  The target looks slightly better when compared with 2005 figures - 15%.  The international reaction has been critical - a lot of people were hoping that the Japanese would set out a more ambitious plan in the run-up to the Copenhagen meeting this December, where the successor framework to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol must be agreed.    The UK's targets are considerably tougher - 34% on 1990 figures, and around 22% on 2005.

The announcement follows months of work by the Mid-Term Target Committee.  They considered six options, ranging from allowing emissions to rise from 1990 levels to a 25% decrease on 1990.  The outcome, of course, is a compromise - Japan knows that it must contribute to the international negotiations that will develop the new framework, but the Government does not want to pass on extra costs to households in an economically difficult time.  However the costs of not tackling climate change will be even greater, as shown by Lord Stern's 2006 report on the economics of climate change. The target is domestic - the Japanese haven't said anything yet about how they might use the international carbon market, and emissions trading (on which Japanese industry are not keen).

We'd still like to see more ambition, and a focus on long-term benefit rather than short-term costs.  A low carbon economy can lead to real opportunities for business.   Japanese technology is cutting edge and her energy-saving record impressive.    We have an important opportunity to get this message across later this week, when Adair Turner, the Chairman of the UK Financial Services Authority and of the Climate Change Committee, will be visiting Japan to talk to the Japanese Government and others about both financial regulation and next steps in environmental policy.

Posted at 15:50 16 June 2009 by David Warren  |  Comments[0]

Burma

The British Government is supporting a new website launched by a coalition of campaign groups to put pressure on the Burmese regime to release Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese pro-democracy campaigner, who has spent 13 of the past 19 years in detention.  She was supposed to be released this week from house arrest - instead she has been put on trial in Rangoon for violating the terms of her imprisonment and faces another 5 years in prison.    The website invites everyone - politicians, celebrities, ordinary people - to post a short message of support for her.   I've done this.  I hope as many people reading this blog will do so too.   Her continued arrest and imprisonment is a fundamental abuse of human rights and we must all do what we can to secure her release.

Posted at 11:53 01 June 2009 by David Warren  |  Comments[1]

New Visa Systems

We have introduced new systems for issuing visas for the UK in Japan recently, and things have not gone as smoothly as we had hoped.

The new Points Based System for visa applications to the UK in theory will make the process much quicker and simpler.   Most Japanese visitors do not need a visa anyway.  Those that do will usually fall into Tier 2 (skilled worker that includes intra company transfers which must be accompanied by a Certificate of Sponsorship) or Tier 4 (for students).   The website of our commercial partner VFS Global, handling visa applications, sets out the documents that need to be submitted.  Understandably, perhaps, in the first stages of a new process, not everybody presents the right documents, which can mean delay.

We used to issue visas in the Embassy in Tokyo, but from January, this work was moved to the British Embassy in Manila.    This "hub and spoke" arrangement will apply to other British Embassies in East Asia.   This means that the documents that accompany the visa applications will be couriered to Manila and returned with the application once it has been processed.  The process is totally secure.  But the new arrangements have taken some time to settle down, and, in spite of all the efforts of our excellent colleagues in Manila, visas have taken longer to issue than was the case before.  We're tackling this, with their help, and with the help of the UK Border Agency in London (who are responsible for this work), and the process is speeding up.    But I have received more complaints than I should have liked while this has been happening.

I'm talking about this on my blog for two reasons.  Japanese readers planning to visit the UK will want to know what the requirements are and ensure that they let the visa application centre have the right documents.  And I think that a blog should talk about problems and things that haven't gone smoothly as well as celebrate the things that have.  Protecting the UK's borders is crucial.  But so is maintaining the UK as a friendly and supportive environment for Japanese investors and travellers.  We're determined to ensure that we do this.

Posted at 10:01 26 May 2009 by David Warren  |  Comments[0]