Next Step : The U.N....

By TERESA WATANABE

March 3, 1992 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

TOKYO —

In what they call their first postwar test in international diplomacy, Japanese officials are pushing to play the leading role in rebuilding devastated Cambodia.

Far away from the Southeast Asian nation, in the heart of Tokyo’s Kasumigaseki government complex, Foreign Ministry bureaucrats pore over studies, plot out aid schemes and dream of leading a nation ripped apart by genocide and war into a new century of peace and prosperity.

As hundreds of thousands of Cambodian refugees prepare to head home, and U.N. “blue helmets” launch the largest peacekeeping operation in the organization’s history, the Japanese say they are focusing on Cambodia’s long-term reconstruction.

While Japanese law forbids the country from contributing soldiers to U.N. peacekeeping forces, one Japanese national at the United Nations is slated to become the virtual governor of Cambodia pending free elections next year. Another Japanese heads the effort to return Cambodian refugees. Japan will be assessed at least $250 million as its share of the cost of running the U. N. Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC), and officials here indicate they will actually contribute much more.

Moreover, imitating the Bush Administration’s effort to marshall international aid for the former Soviet Union, Japan plans an international conference in June to help rebuild Cambodia.

Officials here say they are weighing projects to rebuild bridges, roads and other infrastructure critical to Cambodia’s economic future. They have also targeted agriculture, energy and health care as priority areas for assistance.

“This is really the first time for the Japanese to take such initiatives,” said Akio Miyajima, a deputy director in the Foreign Ministry’s Asian affairs bureau. “Everyone agrees that Cambodia is a test case for Japanese diplomacy.”

In part, the Cambodian initiatives are meant to combat the image of Japan as an economic giant but a diplomatic midget. The country is still smarting from a volley of international criticism that its support of allied efforts in last year’s Persian Gulf War was too little, too late. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, Japanese officials also see room to chart a more independent foreign policy course. Until now, it has served more as a diplomatic proxy in Asia, destined to “obey U.S. demands,” as one Foreign Ministry official put it.

Indeed, in a sharp departure from the past, officials are making it clear that they will no longer be satisfied with merely an economic role in global affairs.

When the Japanese ambassador was shut out of recent political talks in Phnom Penh, for instance, Foreign Ministry spokesman Masamichi Hanabusa protested and warned that if Japan was to maintain its “strong support” of Cambodia, such behavior would have to end.

Officials here say a turning point in their approach occurred two years ago when the long-running Cambodian peace talks appeared stalled and Japan unexpectedly invited the warring parties to a meeting that helped break the diplomatic logjam.

“We considered that move bold, brave and risky--quite atypical of Japanese diplomacy,” Miyajima said. “But it turned out to be a success and made us think that maybe we could do something creative in this region.”

There are several reasons that Cambodia emerged as the best candidate for showcasing Japan’s postwar diplomacy, officials say. The Middle East and Eastern Europe were considered too complicated, Africa and Latin America too emotionally distant. China, South Korea and most of the rest of Asia still harbor distrust borne of bitter war memories.

In contrast, relations with Cambodia have been comparatively good. Although Japanese forces occupied the nation during World War II, some Cambodians also credited them with helping throw off French colonial rule. Cambodia was one of the first nations to relinquish claims to wartime reparations from Japan, a gesture that drew an official resolution of appreciation from the Japanese Diet, said Hiroshi Hashimoto, deputy director general in the Foreign Ministry’s economic cooperation bureau.

“Cambodia is a small country, but it helped us rejoin international society,” Hashimoto said.

The country also lies in the volatile buffer zone between the two regional powers of Vietnam and Thailand. A weak Cambodia at the mercy of either country could be destabilizing and jeopardize Japanese interests, officials say.

Aiding Japan’s Cambodian initiatives have been the appointment of Japanese nationals to key U.N. posts. Until elections next year, the nation’s de facto governor will be Yasushi Akashi, a U.N. undersecretary general who was appointed in January as special representative on Cambodia. Sadako Ogata is the U.N.’s high commissioner for refugees.

Also, a U.N. Development Program mission to Cambodia this month is to be led by Ryokichi Korono, an economics professor of Seikei University. The mission will gather facts for a comprehensive paper on Cambodia expected to become the basis for the reconstruction conference in Tokyo this summer.

For all its activism in Cambodia, Japan is likely to move cautiously in trying to carve a broader strategic and political role. For one thing, officials are hamstrung by continuing resistance from other Asian nations and caution among the Japanese public.

Japan’s no-war constitution prevents the nation from dispatching even noncombat troops to join U.N. peacekeeping activities abroad. Foreign Ministry officials say they will continue to push legislation that would eliminate that obstacle, with an eye on such missions as clearing the estimated 6,000 unexploded land mines still threatening Cambodians.

But the bill, which failed to pass last year, has been shoved aside so far in 1992 amid parliamentary squabbling over the national budget and new political scandals.

For many Asians, that is just as well. Former Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, for one, told a conference in Kyoto last month that Japan should keep its troops at home and provide only logistics support for peacekeeping operations.

“I think the best thing for the world is not to tempt the Japanese to re-travel this (military) road,” Lee said.

There is no doubt that the Japanese are singularly well-equipped to advise Cambodia on economic growth, however. With American help, Japan rebuilt itself from the rubble of war into a world-class economic power, and its model of growth has been mimicked in varying degrees by South Korea, Taiwan and others.

So far, Japanese aid to Cambodia has been relatively small. But Hashimoto of the economic cooperation bureau says that is “just the beginning.”

“We expect Japan to be the leading aid donor, especially when we hold the international conference here this summer,” Hashimoto declared. “We cannot escape from this big responsibility.”

While the West tends to spend more of its aid money on humanitarian programs and technical assistance, Japanese officials say they expect to concentrate on helping build a new infrastructure. (Cambodian sources who attended a World Bank meeting in Bangkok last October estimated that at least $900 million will be needed to rebuild the country’s roads, utilities and other key networks.)

That focus has been criticized as overly commercial and designed primarily to benefit Japanese contractors. But officials here defend the approach as best for sustained development.

“We’re interested in the creation of a viable economy--in one word, self-help, or a country that can be sustained on its own,” said one Foreign Ministry official. “If we just give them food, you’ll have the problem of a continuing lack of food.”

Cambodia cannot even begin to think about industrial development when 80% of the estimated 4,000 road bridges in the country have been destroyed; when only a third of power and water needs are supplied; when water is contaminated by passing through leaky pipes, and when most highways are badly potholed.

But to Japanese officials who see themselves as spreading their diplomatic wings for the first time since World War II, the challenge beckons.

“Unfortunately, for quite a long time, Japanese diplomacy was quite limited in what we could do because of the Cold War situation,” Miyajima said. “But with the proxy war in the region over, we can do something creative, something exciting to establish international order.”

Who’s Paying

United Nations plans to send nearly 22,000 military and civilian personnel to Cambodia.

Here’s how the $2 billion tab would be divided: United States: 30.4% Japan: 12.5% Russia: 11.4% Germany: 8.9% France: 7.3% Britain: 6.1% All Others: 23.4% Source: United Nations

Going Home at Last This spring, Cambodia’s 360,000 refugees, now living in seven Thai camps, are to begin boarding buses at four “staging areas” for the trip back into Cambodia. There, six reception centers will help repatriate them.

About the Cambodian Refugees * Age: Nearly 50% under 15 * Family size: Average of 4.4 people * History: Two-thirds have been refugees for more than 10 years. Most adults were farmers. * Literacy: High rate of illiteracy * Plans: Nearly 75% want to go to Battambang or Banteay Meanchey provinces.

What the Returnees Will Get From U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees:

* 2 water buckets

* 2 hoe heads

* 2 sickles

* 2 mosquito nets

* 1 spade

* 1 machete

* wood poles

* sawn timber

* split bamboo

* plastic sheeting

* rope