U.S. and Japan Stuck in the Mud : Squabbling Over Trade, They Fail to Build a Vital Compact

The United States’ relations with Japan are heading toward a postwar low. Unless both countries act now, America’s key alliance in the Pacific--and this vital economic partnership--could come unglued. Nothing less than a new U.S.-Japanese political compact will come to the rescue.

For many Americans, Japan is little more than a national engine of corporate economic growth, unwilling to understand the needs of others as it seeks global dominance in major industries. Yet viewed from Tokyo, this is a gross and dangerous caricature. Indeed, too many U.S. observers reduce relations with Japan to a single statistic--the bilateral balance of trade--and pay scant attention to what unites the two countries. Often ignored are Japan’s democratic development, its Western economic system, its commitment to U.S. strategic objectives and its penchant, as it becomes a cosmopolitan society, for following the American lead, from the texture of its television to the design of its products and the life style of its younger generation.

Most at issue today is a provision of the 1988 Omnibus Trade Act that requires Tokyo to permit much greater access for U.S. goods by next spring. These demands, emanating from an angry Congress, have spawned a set of talks, the Structural Impediments Initiative, or SII--an unconscious mimicking of SDI, the Strategic Defense Initiative. Yet, like “Star Wars,” “car wars” is unlikely to relieve the United States of its sense of vulnerability to the outside world. Even if SII drags out of the Japanese government some limited benefits for U.S. exporters--most difficult because of Japan’s domestic political crisis--the price will be paid in political relations.

Observers in Tokyo have been particularly disquieted by a U.S. public-opinion poll that stipulated Japan, not the Soviet Union, to be the leading threat to U.S. well-being. This subordination of the world’s central conflict (however muted) to mere economic competition (however vigorous) leads the Japanese to wonder about U.S. priorities and purpose. Also disquieting has been a spate of books by American authors whose common theme is that the United States must increase its economic pressure on Japan. Not to be outdone in the Battle of the Books, two leading Japanese--one being the founder of Sony--have responded with harsh criticism of American business methods.

No doubt, there is much validity to U.S. criticism of the slow pace at which Japan is liberalizing its trade practices. No doubt, the Japanese are right in asserting that most of America’s economic difficulties are home-grown. But most striking is the fact that this squabble dominates almost totally each side’s current perceptions of the other.

Neither society has an adequate knowledge of the other, with the lack more apparent in the United States. In particular, the United States has largely left non-diplomatic relations with Japan to the academic specialists, the economists, the bankers and the businessmen. Essentially uneducated about modern Japan are the American media, the mainstream foreign policy and academic elites, the average citizen east of California and political leaders--especially members of Congress, only a handful of whom have visited Japan during this critical year.

Nor has Japan done much better. American lobbyists for Japanese companies have worn out their welcome on Capitol Hill, but rarely does a Japanese appear to plead his own case (of necessity, in English) and thus inspire confidence, and few Diet members know their American counterparts.

Japan also is poor at gaining credit where due; it is, for example, the leading donor of foreign economic aid and provides most of the financial underpinning for Filipino democracy--facts that should be counted in comparing contributions to the global good.

Most missing is a clear and articulated sense of political common interest. Thus, while change in East-West relations is being celebrated, rarely mentioned is the continuing need for the U.S. Seventh Fleet and Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force to keep watch over an undiminished Soviet Far East Fleet. Nor is much said about the long-range value of maintaining naval power in the region or of updating the U.S.-Japanese security relationship. If that were done, Japan would likely stop increasing its defense spending before the point of alarming some East Asian neighbors. Congress might accept that U.S. forces are in Japan primarily to promote U.S. interests, and thus stop demanding that Tokyo pick up the entire tab. And Japanese public opinion would better understand the security provided by U.S. forces and thus have fewer doubts about their presence.

A new U.S.-Japanese political agreement could be the basis for encouraging Japan to translate its economic strength into a sense of responsibility for its commercial actions and for the effective functioning of the global economic system. There would be a bilateral framework for efforts by the two countries, on their own and with others, to deal with worldwide concerns that are as much political as economic--from Third World debt to the environment. Japan could be drawn more deeply into the management of East-West relations. And the United States and other states would be more likely to accept greater Japanese political weight in institutions such as the IMF and World Bank.

It will not be easy for Japan to develop a world view to complement its economic prowess. Nor will it be easy for Americans to accept a major Japanese role in the world--even one based, happily and without precedent, on economic rather than military might. Nevertheless, the U.S. and Japanese governments must begin now, in clear view of both societies, to create a new political compact. Only then can they put their trade dispute in perspective and thereby avoid an error of historic proportions.