U.S.-Japan Trade Fight Seen as Threat to Others

Government and business leaders attending a weekend conference on “Transitions in the Pacific Rim” in Laguna Niguel warned that the trade dispute between the United States and Japan could have a “snowball effect” on Southeast Asian nations, destabilizing their economies.

Musa Hitam, deputy prime minister of Malaysia, said restrictive trade legislation pending in Congress could set off a chain reaction among those developing Asian nations that, unlike Japan, may not be strong enough to sustain the sudden shock.

Much of the focus of the conference was on the six members of the Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)--Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and the Philippines.

“If their economies are weak,” said Motoo Shiina, a leading member of the Japanese Parliament, the developing nations “will lose stability in politics.”

Richard C. Holbrooke, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs in the Carter Administration, suggested that Congress “must be far more sensitive to the political consequences that could follow from some of its recent economically driven actions.”

In a keynote address, Holbrooke said that “East Asia’s economic success, and our awe of it, has contributed to dangerous and shortsighted pressures in Congress, as some legislators seek to deal with our perhaps justifiable complaints against Japan by taking a shotgun to the entire region.”

If that attitude prevails, he said, “our left hand will undo with discriminatory trade measures what our right hand has long sought to do with our overall economic, political and security policies in the Pacific.”

Nearly 200 participants and observers from 13 Pacific Rim nations attended the meeting at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Laguna Niguel.