Japanese Will Offer Plans to Settle Disputes

Japan’s former Foreign Minister, Shintaro Abe, said Friday on the eve of departing for Washington that he will take with him proposals aimed at settling a series of trade disputes.

“They will be appreciated,” Abe told reporters.

He said he will tell President Reagan and other U.S. officials that “neither retaliation nor protectionism” will redress the imbalance in U.S. trade with Japan.

“Rather,” Abe said, “we must seek a solution by continuing calm and dispassionate discussions.”

He will visit Washington as a special envoy of Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, who plans to be in Washington April 29 to May 2. Abe is scheduled to meet Vice President George Bush, four Cabinet secretaries, a number of congressmen and other officials.

‘Very Serious State’

Abe, who is chairman of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s General Affairs Council, said economic relations between the two countries have reached a “very serious state.”

“If trade problems worsen,” he said, “the relations of trust that have been built up over the years between Japan and the United States could be demolished. In my experience, (the situation has) never been more difficult.”

He said he will make “a clear promise” to U.S. leaders that Japan’s effort to expand domestic demand will involve actual government spending of more than 5 trillion yen ($35 billion).

But not all this spending will be reflected in the supplementary budget that the ruling party says it will propose in the fall, Abe said. A part of the new spending, still to be determined, will be accounted for in local government budgets, he said. Abe’s statement contradicted another party official, who had said the supplementary budget itself will amount to 5 trillion yen.

Effort to Boost Demand

Abe, one of three main candidates to succeed Nakasone as prime minister, said he realizes that the U.S. government considers “very important” Japan’s effort to increase domestic demand in order to increase imports.

He refused to disclose details of the proposals he will take to Washington on such issues as super-computers, agricultural imports, foreign participation in a new international telecommunications company and construction of a new airport at Osaka, tariff reductions on chocolate and alcohol, including wine, and American auto parts.

But a separate statement Friday by the Liberal Democratic Party indicated that the proposals carried by Abe are not likely to be hard and clear.

For example, the party statement said Japan will promise the United States to “make clear the procedures” for government procurement of super-computers, but it said nothing about actually buying American super-computers.

It restated a list of old goals without offering details on how they might be carried out, but it listed two new aims--to reduce income taxes in keeping with the effort to increase domestic demand and to double foreign development aid, to $7.6 billion, by 1990 instead of 1992, as announced earlier.