UNITED STATES-JAPAN: Big Brother on Security, Not as Big on Trade

By Suvendrini Kakuchi Reprint | | Print |

Analysis - Suvendrini Kakuchi

TOKYO, Apr 18 1996 (IPS) - When Bill Clinton flew out of Japan Thursday, he left behind a battalion of U.S. troops whose continuing presence reflects an unsettled region, and a team of trade negotiators still battling to resolve bilateral disputes.

This is not to say that either is his fault. Rather, he and probably succeeding U.S. presidents would have to accept such responsibilities as a fact of life, being at the helm of the lone Superpower in the post Cold War era — and wishing to keep it that way.

That requires ensuring political stability, particularly in key market areas such as East and South-east Asia, and it means as well making sure that international markets are open to U.S. exports. Here again much of the focus is on the fastest growing region in the world.

Hence his sincerity in speaking to reporters on Wednesday after putting pen to paper on an extended security alliance with Japan. “This is a moment of remarkable possibility for us. The partnership between our two nations is more important to our people and the world than ever.”

The day before, the U.S. president while on the South Korean leg of his three-day trip to the region, also renewed Washington’s commitment to maintaining a heavy troop presence at the demilitarised zone that has separated the Koreas ever since the 1950-53 war.

And, he also joined with his Seoul counterpart Kim Young Sam in suggesting an initiative to reach a conclusive peace to that shaky truce that North Korea has threatened to undo.

More than North Korea, Washington and Asian countries are worried of a belligerent China upsetting the region’s steady march to economic prosperity because of its sabre-rattling along the Taiwan Straits and off and on military posturings in its disputed territorial claims in the South China Sea.

“I believe that our presence is needed here as long as people have any fear at all that some countries might seek to dominate others, or that Asia might become a battleground of any sort of security problem…” Clinton said.

Referring to the 100,000 troops stationed in the region, he added: “We are seen as a source of stability by our mere presence.”

So, Clinton would have headed off to Moscow on a visit similarly aimed at heading off potential political instability there, with warm feelings of having appropriately dispensed his duties as an envoy of the one of the world’s “strongest democracies and leading economies”.

The other, according to Clinton, is Japan.

This leads to the second headache: the first of course is lingering, with North Korea apparently not accepting his suggested pill of four-way peace talks involving Seoul, Pyongyang, Beijing and Washington; while China, which appears to have quietly slept through the past few days of U.S. posturing, is simply still there.

The second troubling issue for the superpower is Japan’s strong export led economy when taken together with what the U.S. deems an over-protected domestic market.

For while the U.S. president spoke of progress having been made in trade areas, analyst concur that it was security matters that dominated Clinton’s visit — as a matter of urgency, as well as because trade talk was expected to be frustrating.

The word in Tokyo Thursday, was that new U.S. Commerce Secretary Mickey Kantor and a team of Washington negotiators were to head to Kobe, situated west of the thriving commercial district of Osaka, to thrash out niggling disputes with their Japanese counterparts.

Kobe, which was in the headlines a little more than 15 months ago following the January, 1995 earthquake that claimed more than 700 lives, is however unlikely to yield any earth-shattering breakthroughs.

Japanese negotiators are unlikely to be moved by U.S. tough talk, like Kantor’s reported insistence that “Japan open up not only to the United States, but to the rest of the world”.

Despite the first dip in five years of a trade surplus recorded last year, the imbalance continues to be a staggering 40 billion dollars in Japan’s favour.

Much “more work needs to be done”, as Clinton put it, to bring some kind of respectability to the trade figures — that is in the eyes of the superpower.

The disputes centre around the film, semi-conductors and insurance industries. The urgency to settle these disputes stems from looming July deadline dates for negotiation.

As far semi-conductors are concerned, United States wants the renewal of an agreement on increasing the foreign share of the Japanese market, while on the film issue, there is a pending decision on whether to pursue a case by Eastman Kodak Co. that Japan’s market is closed to companies other than Fuji Photo Film.

On insurance, Washington wants assurances that Japan intends to honour a 1994 bilateral agreement on opening up Japan’s insurance sector to foreign companies.

The “Keizai Shinbun”, Japan’s leading financial daily, reported Thursday that Clinton did raise the issue of extending the bilateral semi-conductor according that Washington wants extended after its expiry in July.

The paper did not say Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, known in Washington for his tough negotiating skills when he was in charge of Japan’s trade ministry last year, gave Clinton a flat “no”, but rather was non-committal.

“Mr Clinton did not press Mr Hashimoto on the dispute. Instead he called for trade negotiations to be carried out between the two government delegations,” the paper said.

Robert Orr, an analyst at Nippon Motorolla, the Japanese subsidiary of the giant U.S. telecommunication company, does not think the “soft” approach will work. “Tokyo could simply conclude that Washington is satisfied with the results, irrespective of what monitoring turns up,” he said.

But Japanese economists like Minoru Shimizu, argue that tough talk is not the answer either. “Japanese trade officials have grown tougher,” observes Shimizu, making reference to Tokyo’s decision to stare down Washington last year over the auto-dispute.

Then, when Washington threatened to use its “Super 301” trade law which provides for punitive sanctions against countries deemed to be unfair, Tokyo retaliated by making clear it would challenge the legality of such a move under the rules of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

So then, what will happen in Kobe and beyond, given that the deadlines on these trade disputes comes before Clinton is again called on to face the American electorate?

There are reports here that Japanese and U.S. negotiators are due to meet in June in Hawaii for last-ditch talks on the semi- conductor accord.

Orr, who accepts that it is easier for Japan than the United States to “get tough” at this point, told IPS it is difficult to predict “what exactly will happen”.

“Japan is not saying anything. It is just stone-walling — that is the way it negotiates.”