A Look at How Japan Prepared for the G7 Summit 

Some might say the gods are watching over the 42nd G7 Summit in the Ise-Shima region of Japan this week.

On Thursday, the first day of their meeting on a tiny resort island less than an hour away, the leaders of Japan, the United States, Germany, Britain, Canada, France and Italy visited the mystical Ise-Jingu Shrine, the country’s most sacred holy site, a forest-enshrouded complex where pilgrims pray to a multitude of Shinto deities at sanctuaries made largely of wood that are completely rebuilt every 20 years.

In its entirety, Ise-Jingu encompasses an area nearly the size of Paris. Though off the beaten tourist track between Tokyo and Kyoto, it attracts more than 8 million visitors a year.

Its beauty and serenity punctuate its billing as a place “where nature and people exist as one” – a concept entirely in tune with the “peace and prosperity” theme promoted by the G7 Summit’s Japanese hosts.

Ise-Jingu was the starting point of a pre-summit press tour for reporters from G7 countries that took us Pacific coastline fishing villages still nurturing centuries-old traditions and rituals to a modern machinery and tools  manufacturer with global aspirations, a woman CEO and factory workforce that is nearly one-third female.

The tour was sponsored by the Japanese Foreign Ministry, which invited this writer from Global Atlanta along with reporters from Montreal, Paris, Rome and Pensacola, Fla., and the political editor of the Glasgow (Scotland) Herald.

The purpose was to promote tourism, industry and commercial enterprise in Japan’s Mie Prefecture – a region that stretches along 620 miles of Japan’s Pacific coastline and is home to 1.8 million people – and to draw global attention to the summit venue, Ise Shima. 

“It is a place where world leaders can fully experience Japan’s natural beauty, rich culture and tradition,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was quoted as saying in a briefing packet given to reporters. 

The actual summit site is the Shima Kanko Hotel on Kashikojima Island, which is 4.5-miles around and home to 98 residents. The first resort to open in Japan after World War II, the hotel was described in a recent op-ed piece in the Japan Times as “a colossal concrete block eyesore situated on a glorious promontory with commanding views over the waters of nearby Ago Bay.”

The writer, American Jeff Kingston, director of Asian Studies at Temple University Japan, said island residents were worried that tourists would stay away in the weeks leading up to the summit.

We didn’t get to meet any residents while we were there or venture inside the hotel. 

What we did see was an anti-terrorism drill involving an explosion and fire, the spraying of suspected toxic gas, 90 firefighters and hazmat-attired first responders arriving on emergency vehicles with sirens blaring, leaders barking orders through megaphones, fleet-footed stretcher bearers dashing in and out of the building and “victims” carried to grassy aid stations.

There was a hook-and-ladder rescue and helicopter hovering overhead. Thirteen people were “injured,” according to the scenario, and the terrorists escaped.

”In taking consideration of attacks around the world, we want to make sure we’re equipped to handle such situations,” Atsuro Sasaki, commissioner of the Fire and Disaster Management Agency, told a news briefing.

Dealing with the worldwide terrorist threat was a leading summit priority for the host country,  Japan’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Masato Otaka told a dinner reception for our group shortly after we arrived in Tokyo.

“We don’t consider ourselves isolated from the terrorist threat,” Mr. Otaka said when asked why Japan would be so concerned. “Japan could be a soft target because it is allied with the Western world, including the United States.”

Japan also was hoping to garner international support for its campaign to uphold the “rule of law” in response to China‘s perceived efforts to restrict navigation in the strategic waterways of the South China Sea, he said. During the first day of meetings, leaders agreed on that point, noting that a clear and direct message was needed about military buildups and other questionable activities in disputed maritime areas. China wasn’t amused, saying this issue was outside the G7’s portfolio. 

Japan’s other top priority – a key reason behind these meetings since they started in 1975 – was economic development, stagnant in Japan for the better part of a generation after decades of meteoric growth. 

Mr. Abe stressed the economic challenges being faced in emerging markets related to plummeting commodity prices. He called for member countries to spur their economies through spending, though Germany and some other countries didn’t agree on that point, according to reports.  

In Mie prefecture, we saw a variety of cultural and economic activities showing how that area is aiming to boost tourism while blending the modern economy with a preservation of ancient traditions. 

Among other things, we: 

• Slept on futons in an old-timey Japanese inn where we left our shoes at the door in exchange for a breathtaking view of the sea and moved the next day to a high-rise luxury hotel that offered hot springs public baths enjoyed by one and all.
• Observed a live auction at a squeaky clean and nearly odorless fishery where we had to wash our hands, don ball caps and sponge dirt off the bottoms of our shoes before we were allowed anywhere near the fresh catch.
• Witnessed a calligraphy performance at the studio of the region’s only remaining inkstick maker who uses a special black ink that lasts so long words written thousands of years ago can still be read.  Today, he and his son also use it for house paint and as an ingredient in cookies that we sampled and found to be quite tasty.
• Visited a “robocare center” where experimental robots are tested for the treatment of people with paralyzed limbs and watched – and in some cases participated in – a demonstration of how the technology can be used to help  patients bend their arms and get around in specially designed wheelchairs. 

Our last stop was a sun-drenched beach near Toba where 100 free divers called Ama — “women of the sea”– donned wet suits, white coveralls and flippers, but no breathing apparatus, to fill their satchels with highly valued abalone plucked from depths of 10 or more feet while a Shinto priest prayed on shore. Their catch was to be dedicated to the deities and enshrined at Ise-Jingu. 

Stay tuned for a subsequent story on the Ama divers.