[asia-apec 744] BAYAN and AWC Co-sponsored Forum-Workshop at APPA

[ppc]

Asia Pacific People's Assembly (APPA)
November 10-15, 1998
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

APPA Forum-Workshop on Globalization and the US-Japan Security Agenda
Sponsored by Asia-Wide Campaign and Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN
or New Patriotic Alliance, Philippines) 
November 11 - 12, 1998

I. Objectives

1.1. to deepen our understanding of the US-Japan Security Agenda in the
Asia-Pacific region and its relation to  the economic and political crisis
brought about by globalization;

1.2. to learn about  the joint security strategy employed by U.S. and Japan
in realizing their security agenda in the Asia Pacific region; 

1.3. to share and learn from experiences of people's struggles in the region
to counter the aggressive assertion by US and Japan of their security interests;

1.4. to determine the urgent issues  related to the US-Japan Security Agenda
which can be the basis for regional action.    


II. Rationale

Globalization, vaunted as the unstoppable and desirable integration of the
vastly disparate economies of the advanced capitalist countries and the
backward, pre-industrial Third World  nations into a single global economy
by knocking down all barriers to "free trade and  free market", has begun to
unravel and become exposed as a false messiah.  Instead, the neoliberal
policies of  liberalization, deregulation and privatization  are becoming
widely seen as delivering deathblows to the crisis-ridden economies of
underdeveloped countries and the so-called newly industrializing countries
(NICs).  How?  By throwing them wide-open to the unbridled profit-making of
transnational corporations and banks as well as rendering them completely
vulnerable to the vagaries of the world market.

The results for oppressed peoples in the Third World are now plain for all
to see: bankruptcies of domestic industries; workers thrown out of their
jobs or forced to accept slave wages,   hazardous work conditions,  and work
insecurity;  peasants and indigenous peoples  displaced from the land  and
driven to penury by landgrabbing, so-called development projects, and land
and crop conversion; massive migration of the rural poor to cities only to
become urban slum dwellers without jobs and  homes, facing a bleak future;
the commerce of women and children as the cheapest , contractual  labor in
sweat shops and as commodities in a burgeoning flesh trade; the continuing
brain-drain as professionals, technical people, skilled workers and other
trained persons are lured to become migrant workers in search of better job
oppurtunities outside their home countries.

The assault on the working people of industrialized countries occurs
simultaneously as international capital seeks to invest and set up shop
where labor costs are the lowest and trade unions are non-existent or
ineffectual.  Now more than ever, the historical gains of the working class
are being severely undermined and set back.

It is the US, long the dominant superpower in Asia, and its junior partner
Japan together with other imperialist powers, which have been pushing
globalization to the desperately poor, underdeveloped countries of the
Asia-Pacific.  These power centers of monopoly capital join hands  in making
the latter countries comply with GATT-WTO, IMF-World Bank and APEC economic
impositions with the collusion of domestic ruling elites in every country.
At the same time they vigorously compete with each other for markets and
resources, expanding and consolidating their strategic spheres of influence.

In a 1995 US Defense Department policy paper  the following assessment was
made: "The Asia Pacific region is currently the most economically dynamic
region in the world, and on that basis alone, its security would be critical
to America's future." 

US trade with Asia grew twice that of trade with Europe accounting for 36%
of total American world trade.   It provides for more than 3 million
American jobs and contributes over $400 billion annually to the US economy.
Seventy percent of the regional demand for oil is met by  US-owned or
controlled wells in the Persian Gulf with the precious commodity passing
through narrow choke points in Southeast Asia.

Forty percent of global bank reserves are reported to be under the control
of seven East Asian economies (namely Japan, the PRC, HK, Taiwan, Singapore,
ROK and Malaysia).   The US Defense policy paper unabashedly concludes that
the fundamental economic interests of the US in the Asia-Pacific region
makes it strategic in terms of US national security.

Japan for its part has accelerated the relocation of its assembly and
sub-assembly type of manufacturing in East Asia  to establish a regional
division of labor comprising the NICs, China and ASEAN members.  Japanese
monopoly capitalists seek to take advantage of the region's rich natural
resource base, huge market , and cheap and docile labor together with
generous government incentives  such as tax holidays and tariff-free
importation of capital goods and raw materials.  It is not surprising that
from 1991- 1993, the rate of profit for Japanese firms in Asia was 2.4%
which is more than four times as much as in Japan.  Thus the high economic
stakes of Japanese monopoly capital in the region corresponds to the highest
priority Japan, in alliance with the US, gives to regional security concerns.  

The other face of globalization has seen popular struggles, uprisings and
wars of  national liberation waged by an increasing number of masses of
people against  severe economic measures and the accompanying political
repression unleashed by the monopoly capitalists and their cohorts among
ruling regimes not only in the Third World countries but in highly
industrialized centers as well.   
The current  financial and economic crisis  which saw the crash of  East
Asian economies including that of Japan,  the eventual collapse of the
Russian economy, and which now threatens  the Chinese and Latin American
economies, only underscores the importance for the US and Japan of  securing
their economic and political interests in the region.  In order to protect
these immense interests and to suppress peoples' movements directly
threatening them, the US and Japan have been flexing their military muscle
and intervening covertly and overtly in the internal affairs of countries in
the region.

Despite the fact that it is the sole superpower in the world today, the US
maintains 100,000 forward deployment troops in main military bases and
facilities in Alaska, Hawaii, Japan, Korea, Guam and Saipan, Singapore and
Diego Garcia.  Bilateral military treaties concluded by the US with Japan,
South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand and others after World War II
continue to be the cornerstone of US military hegemony in the region.  Other
Asian countries which do not have US bases are covered by  Accessing and
Cross Servicing Agreements (ACSA) which provide unhampered  sea/air ports
usage and supply arrangements.

Since The US-Japan Security Treaty was signed in 1952, Japan has been
providing logistical and financial support for US troops stationed in the
region.  In exchange, Japanese big business interests are protected under
the US military umbrella.  In reasserting its economic, political and
military hegemony, US imperialism demands more support from Japan.  The
Japanese ruling class assents because of its own militarist  agenda aimed at
protecting and expanding its capital overseas in the face of worsening
economic and political crisis in the region.

Thus the US and Japan have strengthened their security alliance and stepped
up their joint military activities.   In April 1996, the two governments
issued the Joint Declaration on Security -- Alliance for the 21st Century
which widens the scope of their defense cooperation in regional and even
global military adventures.  At the same time, the US and Japan concluded an
ACSA which allows Japanese self-defense forces (SDF) to provide greater
logistical support to the US military.  In November the same year,  Japan
mobilized 11 warships, 130 aircraft and 10,000 soldiers in a joint military
excercise with the US Seventh Fleet which coincided with  US-South Korea war
games clearly directed against North Korea.  

It is in this context that the workshop, "Globalization and the US-Japan
Security Agenda" is being held at the Asia-Pacific Peoples' Assembly.  The
US-Japan security alliance continues to be the real source of
destabilization and insecurity in East Asia as well as the rest of the
Asia-Pacific.  These imperialist powers have for a long time used our region
as their battleground, resulting in the loss of countless lives, widespread
destruction of homes and properties, unspeakable suffering and a legacy of
socio-economic ills for generations to come.   

Peace-loving peoples of the Asia-Pacific must oppose the US and Japanese
imperialists'  aggressive militarist and interventionist designs in the region.

III. Program
 
November 10
Whole Day:        Registration to APPA
Afternoon:        Registration to Workshop on Globalization and the US-Japan
Security Agenda
Early Evening:    APPA Opening Ceremony

November 11
Morning Session
 8:00-  9:00      Additional Registration
 9:00-  9:30      Keynote Speech: Globalization and the US-Japan Security
Agenda 
                    Speaker: Capt. Dan Vizmanos, former President, BAYAN
 9:30-10:30       Country Sharing on US-Japan Security Strategy
		  - United States: Security Strategy for Asia in the 21st
Century
                    Proposed speaker: from Friends of the Filipino People or
American Friends Service Committee 
		  - Japan:  Its Own Security Agenda for Asia    
                    Speaker c/o AWC
10:30-11:00       Break
11:00-12:30	  - Philippines: Visiting Forces Agreement - the Return of U.S.
Military Forces
                    Speaker: Dr. Carol Araullo, Vice-Chairperson, BAYAN
		  - Korea:  A Country Still Divided  by U.S. Military Bases
                    Speaker: from the National  Council for Independent and
Peaceful Reunification of Korea
		  - Indonesia:  US-Indonesia Arms Deal
                    Proposed Speaker: from the YMB network
		  - China: Is She a Regional Threat?
		    Proposed Speaker: from Labor Rights Association, Taiwan
12:30- 1:00       Open Forum

 1:00- 2:00       Lunch

Afternoon  and Evening Session 
 2:00- 3:30       Sharing on  Peoples' Struggles Against US-Japan Security
Agenda
                - USA
		- Japan
		  A Broad Coalition Campaign Against U.S. Military Bases in
Okinawa
		  Citizens' Campaign Against U.S. Bases and the Deployment of
SDFs Abroad
  3:30- 4:00    Break
  4:00- 6:30	- Philippines Junk VFA Movement
		- Korea: Minjung Movement  for Peace and Reunification in Korea
		- Indonesia : YMB Network
		- Taiwan
	        - Asia-Wide Campaign 
 6:30- 7:30     Open Forum
 7:30- 8:30     Dinner

November 12
Morning Session

  9:00-10:00    Resolutions
10:00-10:30     Break
10:30-11:30     Plans
11:30-12:00     Closing

Drafted by: BAYAN
October 2, 1998