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2010/02/02
Hatoyama responds to reporter’s questions on Futenma, child allowance, China
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On February 2, Prime Minister and DPJ President Yukio Hatoyama responded to reporters’ questions at the Prime Minister’s Office. With regard to Futenma, he was asked a question relating to a comment made by Minister for Foreign Affairs Katsuya Okada the previous day, which had seemed to imply that continued use of the facilities at Futenma was also a possibility. Hatoyama repeated, “The starting premise for this issue has always been the question of where the facilities at Futenma should be moved to.” He said that discussions had started due to the fact that the safety of local residents near the base was being threatened by noise pollution and other issues and so for that reason an alternative destination for the facilities at the base had to be found, and that his administration had determined to search for that destination starting from a “zero-base”. He emphasized, “In other words, the origin of this issue lies in the movement of the base facilities from Futenma. I don’t believe that finally saying, ‘We’ve come back again [to leaving facilities at Futenma]’ is the answer to this.” Hatoyama added that “I believe that the Minister for Foreign Affairs also understands this” expressing the opinion that Okada’s comment had only be made in the context of how “zero base” could be interpreted.
Furthermore, in response to a question regarding the difficulty of paying the full amount of child allowance as promised in the Manifesto, in view of current fiscal conditions, Hatoyama pointed out, “Rather than [arguing] whether it is possible or not, we called for the judgement of the people [in the election] based on our Manifesto, so I think that we should continue to pursue this line.” He added, “We will do our utmost to work toward paying the full amount [of allowance]. Those involved with public finances might think this is rather difficult, but I believe that we should focus all our efforts on the second round of thorough budgetary reviews which will endeavour to discover where waste is by looking at the budget as a whole after the general and special accounts have been combined.” Hatoyama stressed, “We should not be talking about what happens after that. Rather it is the government’s task now to make every effort to ensure that we are able to pay the full amount of the allowance.”
With regard to China’s military build-up, Hatoyama said, “As a government, considering that China is our neighbour, of course we must pay close attention when her military spending has shown double-digit increases for more than 20 years.” He went on, “I would like to call on China to show an increased degree of transparency toward the international community.”
Hatoyama was also asked about the prospects for holding a debate between the leaders of the ruling and opposition parties. He replied, “I am already holding daily discussions with [LDP] President Tanigaki and [Komeito] Chief Representative Yamaguchi regarding issues that need to be resolved prior to this, including the budget.” Hatoyama expressed the opinion that it was vital to conduct business a day at a time, as well as stating he considered the idea of holding a leadership debate to be worthwhile.
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