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Amanpour

Another Spin for Asia Pivot; Two Tutus Preach Forgiveness; Imagine a World

Aired April 24, 2014 - 14:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN HOST: Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the program. I'm Christiane Amanpour.

President Obama woke up in Japan today. It is his first state visit there and his first stop on a high-stakes tour of four key democratic allies in the Asian region.

Mr. Obama has to strike a delicate balance, reassuring these allies that the United States stands behind its commitment to their defense while trying to reassure China that this and the pivot to Asia is not just code for containing China.

China, one country the president is not visiting on this trip, does loom large, however. The world's fastest growing major power is flexing its muscles all across the region. The tripwire could be these rocks in the East China Sea.

Japan administers them and calls them the Senkaku Islands, while China claims them and calls them the Diaoyu.

Already on day one by simply reiterating America's longstanding commitment to Japan, President Obama finds himself in a spat with China.

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BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Territories under the administration of Japan are covered under the treaty. There's no shift in position. There's no red line that's been drawn. We're simply applying the treaty.

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AMANPOUR: But China's foreign ministry was quick to strike back.

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QIN GANG, CHINESE FOREIGN MINISTRY SPOKESMAN (through translator): No matter what anyone says or does, it cannot change the basic reality that the Diaoyu Islands are China's inherent territory.

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AMANPOUR: At the same time, anxiety in Asia spreads well beyond these disputed islands. Japan's conservative prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is raising red flags even among his allies, building up Japan's military and publicly honoring Japan's war dead.

In China and Korea, memories of Japanese atrocities are still fresh.

Now Tomohiko Taniguchi is a special top foreign policy adviser to the prime minister, and he joins me now from Tokyo.

Welcome to the program, Mr. Taniguchi.

TOMOHIKO TANIGUCHI, SPECIAL ADVISER TO JAPANESE PM: Thank you for having me. Good evening to you from Tokyo.

AMANPOUR: Thank you. And first let me get straight to your reaction to what President Obama said publicly about the treaty coverage the United States and Japan.

TANIGUCHI: Yes. We should not tolerate any action to change the borders by using brute force. If that's the message that we should send, the international community should send to, for instance, the Russians, we should say the same to the Chinese, who have been attempting to do exactly that, not just around Japan, but also in the South China Sea.

In that sense, the statement that President of the United States who is commander in chief of the United States, has just said is very much reassuring not just to Japan but also to other concerned partners in this region.

AMANPOUR: Mr. Taniguchi, you know, of course, that the president has to walk a very, very difficult tightrope while defending and supporting allies and trying not to cause China to think that there's any moves against it.

To this end, while he was saying that this treaty will be implemented and is being implemented and applied, he also had this to say about Japan.

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OBAMA: It would be a profound mistake to continue to see escalation around this issue rather than dialogue and confidence-building measures between Japan and China.

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AMANPOUR: So he was kind of also laying down the challenge.

Don't you believe that Prime Minister Abe needs to make some confidence-building measures towards China?

I mean, 18 months into his office, he has not yet met the leader, Xi Jinping, of China.

TANIGUCHI: That works both ways. We're asking the Chinese side to come along, no matter what difficulties we have between us. And but the reality is hardly a day goes by without us seeing an attempt made by the Chinese side to send their official vessels into either contiguous or territorial waters of Japan.

But we are saying exactly what President Obama has told Shinzo Abe, prime minister of Japan, to ourselves. We shouldn't lose our calm and we should open our arms always to embrace the peaceful rise of China.

AMANPOUR: Can you do more than opening your arms to embrace that peaceful rise, the inevitable rise that you are faced with in this region?

And see -- you are the top foreign policy adviser to the prime minister. The fact that the world's third largest and second largest economies are not even talking to each other at this time is pretty worrying to all concerned.

Is there some advice you could give or some first step or some kind of step that you could take to reach out?

TANIGUCHI: I don't disagree with you on what you have just said. Yes, Prime Minister Abe and the members of the cabinet are very much keen on having straight talks with their counterparts in China, slowly, gradually, attempts have been made from both sides, I believe, to break the barrier and see eye-to-eye.

But it will take more time and before anything happens, I would urge the Chinese side to stop provoking actions.

AMANPOUR: One of the things that the Chinese have been very, very upset about and has also provoked concern amongst your strong allies, the United States, is the prime minister's controversial visit to the Japanese war shrine, Yakusuni (sic).

The U.S. embassy in China has issued a statement in which it says while Japan is a valued ally and friend, nevertheless, the United States is disappointed that Japan's leadership has taken an action that will exacerbate tensions with Japan's neighbors.

Was it really wise for the prime minister to do this?

TANIGUCHI: My questions about all that should be the following: is Shinzo Abe willing to bring Japan back to the 1930s?

Is Shinzo Abe willing to endorse some of those -- some of those interpretations of Japan's past wrongdoings?

Or is Shinzo Abe willing to pay homage to the leaders of the wartime Japan whose souls are actually enshrined, together with 2.5 million souls, in the shrine, Yasukuni shrine?

The answers to these three questions are all no, no, no. And that much I believe has been well understood by White House, the State Department and friends and allies of the United States and across the region.

AMANPOUR: Perhaps it hasn't been understood, because otherwise the United States embassy wouldn't have put out that message of concern on its official website.

So again, it is being taken as provocative precisely because of the nature of some of those souls you talk about, who are and have been condemned for committing war crimes during various Japanese wars and incursions.

Again, do you think now is the time for your prime minister to be making those kinds of what clearly are disturbing moves to many around your region?

TANIGUCHI: The problem is not that serious, I believe. If you speak with the Malaysians, the Filipinos and the Indonesians, they say they are very much paying attention to what Shinzo Abe does, but they're not the people who say that Shinzo Abe is bringing Japan into the Japan of the 1930s.

And indeed, given the massive amount of financial debt, government debt and shrinking population actually, there is no room for Japan to increase its defense budget.

Japan has done very little, but it's brought back to where it was 10 years ago, while the Chinese are increasing their military budget by double digits every year.

AMANPOUR: Mr. Taniguchi, what can you say that's reassuring to those who are concerned that Prime Minister Abe wants to rewrite the constitution, particularly around that military which, as we know, after World War II, was a defensive posture and wants to change that going forward?

Is that -- could that be read as a signal of alarm?

TANIGUCHI: I would not buy that argument, frankly speaking, because to act collectively with your likeminded peers, allies and friends, in time of difficulties, is an innate right to everyone, every individual and every nation.

But for historic reasons, the Japanese government has imposed upon itself a very much, let's say strange interpretation to say that Japan does have that innate right, but it's stopped exercising that.

And in time of networked alliance when United States calls upon other likeminded partners, Australia and others, to do their job, the third largest or indeed the second largest democratic nation in this region has to shoulder its own due responsibility.

And I think Shinzo Abe is doing exactly that.

AMANPOUR: Let's just quickly move to economics and trade deals finally.

One of the key planks, the strongest planks of Mr. Obama's pivot to Asia is the transpacific partnership. Now there are all sorts of political problems that mean that the U.S. and Japan haven't fully cemented this.

Do you think that there will be a breakthrough, if not on this trip, in the future?

And how significant is that?

TANIGUCHI: Listen, it's a quarter past 11, very late at night to Tokyo -- in Tokyo. But the 11th hour decision on that front does not have -- does not appear to have been made.

But the sheer fact both ministers, U.S. Geoff Furman (ph) and the minister in charge from the Japanese side have spent so much time and effort like 15-hour negotiations and so on, I think has given traction to the whole process of the transpacific partnership agreement. Some started to say or wonder if the TPP process would lose steam.

But by showing leadership from both sides, the United States and Japan, I think the whole region should be relaxed because this will happen sooner rather than later.

AMANPOUR: Mr. Tomohiko Taniguchi, top adviser to Prime Minister Abe, thank you so much for joining me from Tokyo tonight.

TANIGUCHI: Thank you for having me.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And while President Obama still hopes for that trade agreement among his Asian partners, today marks the one-year anniversary of a tragedy that highlights the crucial need for trade regulations and oversight among nations all over the world.

The ruins and the heartbreak remain from the garment factory collapse in Bangladesh, South Asia. It took over 1,000 lives last year. And while international manufacturers have pledged to improve conditions, it is difficult to forgive the negligence and the indifference that led to the disaster.

Difficult. But according to Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, essential, not just to heal wounds but to know the truth. The truth that can set a nation and a people free, when we come back.

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AMANPOUR: Welcome back to the program.

Forgiveness: it was the Rainbow Nation's first miracle. When South Africa emerged from apartheid 20 years ago, it was deeply scarred by decades of institutionalized racism, bigotry and violence. Vengeance would have been a natural desire. But President Mandela had another idea: truth and reconciliation. Put the past out there in the open but forgive.

He chose Desmond Tutu, the archbishop of Cape Town, to lead that effort. And now Tutu is taking his campaign for forgiveness to the Internet and to the wider world.

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DESMOND TUTU, ARCHBISHOP EMERITUS OF CAPE TOWN: Dear friends, each of us is broken. And out of that brokenness we hurt one another. Forgiveness is the journey we take toward healing ourselves and our world.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): Tutu is one of the world's undisputed heavyweight human rights champs and he has never feared speaking truth to power.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: I spoke to him and his daughter, an Anglican priest, as they launched this initiative to try another way of healing divisions all the way from Syria to Ukraine to South Sudan.

Archbishop Tutu and Mpho Tutu, welcome. Thanks for joining me.

DESMOND TUTU: Thank you.

MPHO TUTU, ANGLICAN PRIEST: Thank you.

AMANPOUR: Archbishop, let me ask you first, why now? Why this Internet campaign? And what do you think it can achieve?

DESMOND TUTU: Well, of course, I mean, I wish we could have been able to have studied this earlier because as you look around our world, you see so many, many conflicts. And well, this is a good time because people have seen examples of what happens when you do forgive. You just referred to what happened in our country.

And you know not an island. They have the Good Friday agreement after a great deal of conflict. And so it is appropriate. The time is now. People are hurting. People can when they have been hurt to want to hit back and we are saying as I said in the title of one of the books, one wrote, no future without forgiveness.

AMANPOUR: Mpho, how will it work? You've already got people signing up for the newsletter. It doesn't come out for another couple of weeks.

How is it going to work?

MPHO TUTU: Well, our global forgiveness challenge begins on May 5th and you'll -- you can go to www.forgivenesschallenge.com to sign up. And the challenge works that each day you'll have an email from us that will give you some pointers for things to do on that day. It's a 30-day challenge. The exercises and ways to engage with those who may have hurt you.

AMANPOUR: I'd like you both to weigh in on what seems to be not just a leadership issue against homosexuality in Africa, but also a popular issue. People seem to have no problem with governments from Uganda to Nigeria and elsewhere banning homosexuality and imposing very, very stiff fines.

And Archbishop Tutu, you once were quoted, saying, "I cannot worship a homophobic God. I would refuse to go to a homophobic heaven. I would say, 'Sorry.' I mean, I would much rather go to the other place."

How can what you're talking about resolve this very key issue that is a total lack of forgiveness or empathy for a whole group of people, homosexuals in Africa?

DESMOND TUTU: Well, I mean, I think that we've also got to remember that we leave people, many of them, are funded, you know what, they are funded by American conservatives who go into Africa and promise people all kinds of things so that we need to be a little more careful.

I think myself that because of this locality of problems that you have pointed out about Africa, we tend to look for things that appear to be fairly straightforward.

And as you know, I mean, homophobia is something that characterizes not just Africa. In America you have had instances of people being killed because they were -- they were homosexuals or all of the title thing that you say, I mean, lesbian and so on. And that it's not a straightforward thing.

I mean, your -- in your country, just now, it's only a few states that have moved to the point where they have legalized same-sex union. And this is, what, the 21st century. We want to say remember that we are humans together. That is the thing about ubuntu -- I am a person; I am because you are. I need you to help me to become what God wants me to be as you need me.

AMANPOUR: The concept of ubuntu is a very powerful concept about all of our common humanity.

So, Mpho, in the pulpit, what do you say to deeply religious Africans who believe, yes, many of them are funded by right-wing groups here in the United States. But the penalties are really harsh that the government have imposed and the people seem to be supporting their governments.

What do you say from the pulpit, Mpho?

MPHO TUTU: I say we can't preach love and hate at the same time. We as human beings have tried, over the ages, to legislate love. We've said that people of different races shouldn't be married. We've said that people of different economic classes shouldn't be married. We've said that people who are uneducated shouldn't marry people who are educated.

Over the years, we have tried to legislate love. And that is what we, the last bastion of legislation is legislating love between people of the same gender. And that is something that we will continue to discover as we discover that it was impossible to legislate love between people of different races. It is impossible to legislate that people of the same gender not love each other.

AMANPOUR: All right. Thank you both so much for joining me, Mpho and Desmond Tutu, thanks for joining me from Cape Town.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

AMANPOUR: And after a break, imagine if the key to forgiveness isn't forgetting but remembering. The persistence and the power of memory to heal a people and a planet when we come back.

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AMANPOUR: And finally tonight, imagine a world where the answer to crime isn't punishment but memory. We've just heard how Desmond Tutu put his faith in forgiveness to the test with South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission after the end of apartheid.

They called the mission Restorative Justice, and in 19 public hearings around the country, victims were invited to give statements about their experiences. At the same time, the perpetrators of the violence were also allowed to speak and request amnesty from prosecution as long as they spoke the truth.

Amazingly, it worked, producing a report that laid bare the painful truths of apartheid, while laying the groundwork for reconciliation between whites and blacks.

What began in South Africa has spread across the globe. This map on display in the Museum of Memory and Human Rights in Santiago, Chile, shows the proliferation of such commissions to every continent on Earth, from here in the United States to the Czech Republic to South Korea to Rwanda.

After the genocide that killed nearly a million people 20 years ago this month, I went back to Rwanda to speak to victims of the atrocity and also the perpetrators. And I watched the forgiveness process play out in open-air local courts and in homes throughout the countryside.

While cynics may label this whole idea an empty exercises, softhearted and softheaded, Desmond Tutu himself has spoken of the practicality, the necessity of seeking truth and reconciliation.

Forgiving is not forgetting, he says, it's actually remembering. Remembering and not using your right to hit back. It's a second chance for a new beginning and the remembering part is particularly important, especially if you don't want to repeat what happened.

That's it for our program tonight. Remember you can always contact us at our website, amanpour.com, and follow me on Twitter and Facebook. Thanks for watching and goodbye from New York.

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