Nakasone to Send Envoy to U.S. to Ease Trade Strains

Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone on Wednesday decided to dispatch Shintaro Abe, chairman of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s general affairs committee, as his special envoy to the United States in the hopes of soothing exacerbated U.S.-Japanese economic relations before his own visit to Washington on April 29.

Abe, who developed a close personal relationship in more than 20 meetings with Secretary of State George P. Shultz during the 3 1/2 years that he served as Nakasone’s foreign minister, is to make the trip after the middle of the month.

Masaharu Gotoda, chief Cabinet secretary, told newsmen that Abe will meet President Reagan to deliver a personal letter from Nakasone. Abe, himself a leading candidate to succeed Nakasone as prime minister, also is to meet Cabinet officials and congressmen during a stay of “several days,” Gotoda added.

The Cabinet secretary said that Abe will present to U.S. leaders ideas in two areas, to be formulated by the government and the ruling party before his departure: the framework of a new overall economic policy to spur economic growth at home in the hope of promoting imports and proposals for solutions to a host of individual economic disputes.

“If Japan does not put together a package of ideas (to solve U.S.-Japan frictions), there would be no purpose in sending a special envoy,” Gotoda said.

Too Late to Reverse Decision

Abe, who took over the ruling party post last July, is expected to arrive in Washington too late to reverse Reagan’s decision to implement penalty tariffs on Japanese electronic goods April 17 in retaliation for Japan’s alleged failure to uphold a U.S.-Japanese semiconductor agreement concluded last Sept. 2. Officials of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry are scheduled to visit Washington to make an attempt late this week and next week to forestall the tariffs.

The decision to dispatch Abe was regarded as underscoring Nakasone’s own recognition of how serious trade frictions have become with the United States.

It also will have the effect of speeding up formation of the new economic measures, which Japan promised to take in return for a Feb. 22 commitment in Paris from the financial leaders of five other advanced nations to cooperate in stabilizing foreign exchange rates. Earlier, Nakasone had said the new measures will be announced after Parliament enacts the fiscal 1987 budget--which is not expected until late May.

Meanwhile, Japan’s ambassador to Washington, Nobuo Matsunaga, told Japanese newsmen that he believes that the Reagan Administration felt compelled to order sanctions against Japan over semiconductor trade to avoid even stiffer measures that Congress might have enacted as law.

“As far as the American government was concerned, I don’t think it wanted to slap Japan,” said the envoy, who was called home for consultations before Nakasone’s trip.

Declaration Criticized

Matsunaga indirectly criticized Hajime Tamura, minister of international trade and industry, who declared last Saturday that Japan would offer no new concessions to the United States on the semiconductor dispute. Without mentioning Tamura’s statement, the envoy said that “Japan must provide material which will enable the U.S. government to withdraw the sanctions.”

The ambassador also spoke out against opinions that have been voiced privately by leaders of the highly influential business group Keidanren (Federation of Economic Organizations) in favor of Japan’s restricting overall exports to the United States to ease trade friction.

Such self-restraints themselves would be a form of protectionism and would only “add strength to advocates of protectionism in the United States,” Matsunaga said. A reduction in Japan’s surplus with the United States, which amounted to $58.6 billion last year, must be sought by enlarging Japan’s imports, he said.