JAPAN

JAPAN

The Asahi Shimbun, Tokyo, Dec. 1: The United States will host a summit meeting in April on nuclear security. The gathering will discuss ways to prevent nuclear terrorism and nuclear proliferation, mainly by strengthening measures against theft and black market sales of nuclear fissionable materials that can be used to produce nuclear weapons.

The idea had its roots in President Barack Obama’s landmark speech in Prague last April on nuclear weapons. While announcing his intent to seek “a world without nuclear weapons,” he said that nuclear terrorism is “the most immediate and extreme threat to global security.”

In November, following summit talks in Tokyo between Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama and Obama, the two leaders issued a joint statement in which they stressed the importance of bilateral cooperation on nuclear security. The policy should gain as much ground as possible.

Global economic upheaval

Obama has expressed concern that if one nuclear device exploded in a major city such as New York, Paris or Tokyo, it could not only kill a large number of people but also throw the international community and the global economy into upheaval. His fundamental recognition that nuclear terrorism is a genuine threat cannot be understated. It is also correct to expedite measures to deal with the threat. We must spread this common recognition that prevention of nuclear terrorism is essential for the stability and prosperity in this age of globalization.

In Japan, there is concern about North Korea’s nuclear program and China’s nuclear strategy. They are, of course, serious matters, but Japan should at the same time grapple more with the U.S. concern about nuclear terrorism. It is time, as a key ally, for Japan to make every possible diplomatic effort to alleviate Washington’s concern about the threat of nuclear terrorism.

BRITAIN

The Times, London, Dec. 2: “Unlike any French president before him,” wrote Agnes Poirier, the French political commentator, last year, “Nicolas Sarkozy hasn’t understood that universal suffrage has elevated him above all parties and trite bickering.”

Trite bickering is an apt characterization of President Sarkozy’s economic diplomacy. He said yesterday that the nomination of a French EU commissioner would promote the European economic model over the Anglo-American one. In his view, the appointment of Michel Barnier, a former agriculture minister, as Internal Market Commissioner represented “victory” over the City of London. Mr. Sarkozy thereby simultaneously misunderstood the nature of the international economy, the function of the EU, the role of financial services in promoting growth and — not least — the dignity of his own office.

Economic reformer

Mr. Sarkozy was elected president in 2007 on a message that he was an economic reformer committed to cutting taxes, curbing union power and promoting enterprise. But the greatest financial crisis since the 1930s has caused a radical reevaluation in his thinking. A fortnight after the collapse of Lehman Brothers last year, he declared that financial capitalism was coming to an end and denounced as a “mad idea” the power of unconstrained markets.

Mr. Sarkozy plainly interprets a crisis in one segment of the economy, finance, as a crisis of unregulated capitalism. It is not. The crisis was created not by markets but by incompetence in the most regulated part of the financial system: the commercial banks. French banks were as culpable as any: Societe Generale lost billions of euros owing to a rogue derivatives trader.

The notion that the French Government should now use the institutions of the EU to rein in the City of London is deeply irresponsible.