Author Topic: Rosendahl Report S02 E04 - Prime Minister of Daitō, Suketoshi Heishi  (Read 933 times)

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Offline KrisNord

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Just over a week ago shockwaves ran through the international community when Daitō withdrew from the Cross Straits Treaty Organisation, Mundus longest existing mutual defence treaty. The decision came after a referendum in which nearly 56% of the nation voted to leave. Today we are joined by the Prime Minister of Daitō, Suketoshi Heishi, to discuss this and various other matters.

Kritsa - Prime Minister thank you for meeting with us. If I may begin by asking why do you think the people of Daitō voted to leave CSTO?

Suketoshi Heishi - The pleasure's all mine, Rosendahl-Sunbrek-san. As for your question though, honestly it's quite difficult to guess. Many saw it as unnecessary for the Empire's continued stability or even as potentially detrimental to its security interests. Others, myself included, believe that the alliance has failed to adapt to the world we live in. As I said to the Rokkenjiman Princess, Kyōko, during the summit, the world doesn't need the CSTO of 2014 anymore, rather, it needs one made for the modern day. Of course, there are plenty who simply did not wish to see Daitō remain tied to the Rokkenjimans; the memories of the cold war are still strong in the minds of many. Still, while I cannot say for certain what everyone who voted believes, the reasons why are less important than that it has happened, and now we have to move forwards.

Kritsa - What does leaving CSTO mean for the foreign policy agenda of Daitō?

Heishi - Simply put, a restoration of our old foreign policy, back before we signed the Cross-Straits Treaty. While it remains to be seen where this will lead, I can certainly say that we will be opening up the wider world, building up new ties and restoring old ones as well. Indeed, Harukichi Mishima, our Deputy State Minister of Foreign Affairs, recently made toured the Ardian Peninsula in an effort to foster goodwill with the states therein, something which I can also say had good results. Furthermore, though keep in mind the name's only in use internally, we are working on something I like to call the International Daitōjin Outreach Program, or IDOP for short. Basically, the plan is that we will foster greater ties on the Ardian Continent, given that it is, as the saying goes, our own back garden.

Kritsa - What do you think will happen to the CSTO in the next 12 months.?

Heishi - To be blunt, I doubt there will be a CSTO in the next twelve months. At least, not as an organization anyone really cares about. What I'm trying to say is that the Cross-Straits Treaty Organization has... baggage, you could say, given its name. It was once meant to serve as a counterweight to the USR-led Warsaw, and I won't deny it did that job admirably, but now, when people think of it, they think of Rokkenjima shelling a base in Heyra over a misunderstanding or trying to observe foreign military exercises because a country, which I will note cannot possibly threaten them, was invited to participate. If it doesn't reform, and when I say reform I mean entirely remake itself down to its very name, it will simply fade into obscurity as nothing more than the failed pet project of the rulers of its founder. Certainly, I can say that Daitō will be in a better position by this time next year, but the same cannot be said for the CSTO. It simply will die if it does not adapt, that's the simply the way of the world.

Kritsa - Does Daitō plan on starting a new organization similar to CSTO?

Heishi - While it would be foolish to say that Daitō will never form such an organization, as it stands I see no reason to pursue such a goal when its tenets can be achieved with a network of mutual defense agreements. Sure, one might argue that a formal block has its uses, and I won't deny it, but as there is no genuine threat that would warrant it, I would instead question whether it would be useful at this point. Can you honestly say, for example, that the CSTO has a purpose within this modern world except as a prop for one country's interests? I thought not. Instead, what I would personally do, with the approval of His Imperial Majesty of course, would be to build a network of military ties not bound by a single charter but instead tailored to the needs of both Daitō and the nation which we to seek to ally with. That way both sides can walk away with a deal that works for them instead of trying to fit into a one-size-fits-all type of organization. An economic coalition, on the other hand, is another story, one which is of course not covered by this question.

Kritsa - With the CSTO being tied to a large Cross Straits arrangement do you expect the withdrawal to have an impact on the market and their trust in the daitōjin economy? If so, what shall be those impacts?

Heishi - To expect no negative results to occur with any sufficiently large change is to invite ruin for the people. I fully expect that going into this next quarter, we could potentially see our economy take a mild hit, but it is certainly not as bad as it could be. We had the great fortitude not to join the Cross Straits Union, so we aren't looking at as significant of a hit to the economy as it could've been had we joined. I would like to assuage the worries of the daitōjin populace that we are going back to 2019, when we were in the grip of our recession. Such a scenario will not occur, given ongoing programs to rebuild and to mitigate the worst effects that our divorce from the alliance will have upon the economy.

Kritsa - Did the result of the referendum take you by surprise?

Heishi - Not particularly, no. The people have grown tired of the CSTO, and frankly I cannot blame them. I, more than most, had the opportunity to see the problems with the alliance firsthand. The first summit we were involved in, back in 2020, more or less failed to achieve anything of note and the summit in 2021 barely even happened, after all. This, coupled with failures on the part of the members of the alliance to communicate their plans could only have a negative effect on its polling back home. You can't get around that. Truthfully, the only thing that I am surprised by is that the referendum didn't come sooner. I would've thought that we would've left by October of last year, probably should've as well since we would be further along by now.

Kritsa - Many nations across Mundus were surprised at the speed at which your nation joined the CSTO. Is this a move the government now regrets and if you had the time back would you approach the last two years of so differently.

Heishi - Yes, as a matter of fact, we do regret it. While I agree with my predecessor, Hatayaman-san, on many things, I do believe she was mistaken to have rushed so quickly into it. It was her last year in office, yes, so she didn't have much to worry about with regards to her own popularity, but that does not excuse it. To answer the second part of your question though, there are plenty of things I would've changed. Notably, Daitō would not have joined the CSTO. More to the point, I suppose I would change, if I had to choose just one thing, how Daitō chose to interact with Mundus at large while we were in the alliance. We were so focused on the CSTO that some may call it an obsession, yet every effort, with few exceptions, to build ties within the alliance unfortunately have failed. If we had changed just that, Daitō today would be in a far stronger position, both politically and financially-speaking.

Kritsa - Finally if you could have changed one thing about the CSTO or wider Cross Straits system what would it have been?

Heishi - I touched on it briefly, but other than completely rebuilding the structure of the system from the ground up, I would've sought to work on issues with communication between our respective governments. Granted, these issues were so grave by the time I was appointed as Prime Minister that fixing them would've been quite difficult, one might even say next to impossible. Other issues exist within that alliance, of course, but that was the one that stuck out to me the most when I first took office. Truthfully, the alliance's problems are far reaching and are like a metastasized, malignant tumor that were never treated. To quote the Crown Princess of Achkaerin, "the damage done to the CSTO is long-since done, the patient is dying, and the treatment is simply palliative. Those countries that remain in the alliance simply have one choice left: When will they pull the plug and commend the Cross-Straits Treaty Organization to the pages of history?". I am, of course, of the same opinion at this point in time.