New Tokyo Power Broker Cool to U.S. Campaign to Open Up Economy : Japan: Komei Party captures enough Parliament seats to force ruling Liberal Democrats to listen to its views.

The new power broker in Tokyo will not be giving the United States much help in its pro-consumer campaign to open up Japan’s economy but may offer more financial support for American troops stationed here.

The power broker is the Komei (Clean Government) Party, which holds the casting vote in the upper house of Parliament.

Whatever the result of the general election for the lower house that is expected in February, the ruling Liberal Democrats will be forced to turn to the Komei Party as the only potentially cooperative group with enough seats in the upper house to help it pass legislation. Approval of the upper house is required to pass all bills except treaties and the national budget, but the conservatives lost their majority in that chamber for the first time last July.

In an exclusive interview, Koshiro Ishida, the Komei Party’s chairman, said the American campaign to open up the Japanese economy and improve life for Japanese consumers was “useful” to his party’s policy of promoting better living standards. The yearlong negotiations, known as the Structural Impediments Initiative, were launched in September. But Ishida made it clear that, except for land prices, his Buddhist-backed party was not interested in American appeals for reforms in Japan’s distribution system that could drive down prices of daily necessities.

“It’s true that food prices are high but not so high that people can’t tolerate them. If you look around, you can find inexpensive clothes. Consumers are satisfied with clothing and food. . . . To consumers, the biggest problem is housing. . . . Unless the problems of housing and commuting are solved, people will not have the feeling that their personal living standards have become enriched,” he said.

Ishida did offer support for a U.S. initiative to win an increase in Japan’s payments for the maintenance of about 60,000 American military personnel here--even if it means revising a Status of Forces Agreement, a move that the government and the Liberal Democrats have resisted.

“Right before an election, it is not easy to go so far,” he said, referring to support for such a revision. “But as far as our feeling is concerned, revising it in the future is conceivable.”

“Further increases are unavoidable,” he said of the payments.

At present, Japan pays about $2.5 billion, or about 40% of the $6 billion that the United States spends annually to station its troops here.

Ishida also criticized the Socialist Party, the No. 1 opposition party, for refusing to give unqualified support to continuance of the security treaty with the United States. Reminded that the Komei Party when it was established in the early 1960s opposed the U.S.-Japan Security treaty, Ishida said, “If the world trends change, it goes without saying that not having the treaty is desirable. But we think that ideal is a matter for the future. Realistically, we acknowledge the significance of the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty.”

Ishida said his party will insist that annual increases of between 5% and 6% that have been approved for Japan’s own defense budget be pared down. More funds should go to foreign aid, which should be raised close to 1% of the gross national product, he said.

The Komei chairman ruled out any possibility of forming a coalition with Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu’s ruling party after the lower house election. Instead, he predicted that “political conditions will be unstable” as the election produces a tri-polar political structure lacking a central guiding force.

“Without experiencing a year or two of political bargaining, I don’t think that a regrouping of the political parties can (occur),” he said.

Ishida predicted that the Liberal Democrats will even be forced to negotiate the budget even before it is submitted to Parliament because of budget-related bills that will require passage by the upper house.

“The fiscal 1990 budget will be the last that the Liberal Democratic Party formulates by itself,” he predicted.

So far, maneuvering leading up to the lower house election has focused on Socialist attempts to hammer out a coalition agreement with the Komei Party and two other moderate opposition forces.

But in a meeting with a group of visiting American journalists, Chief Cabinet Secretary Mayumi Moriyama said Kaifu’s Liberal Democrats will seek a coalition with the Komei Party after the general election.

Ishida, however, said his party will campaign for political reform and abolition of the ruling party’s controversial 3% consumption tax and those positions “won’t permit us to shake hands with the Liberal Democrats quickly.”

As the price for cooperating in enacting legislation, he said, the Komei Party will press the Liberal Democrats to accept its proposals for sweeping anti-corruption reforms and for shifting the focus of economic policy from promoting overall growth to raising individual living standards.

Ishida said his party will continue to try to work out a coalition agreement with the Socialists but said that ultimately the Komei, as well as the middle-of-the-road Democratic Socialist Party, probably would join hands with the Liberal Democrats.

“If the Socialists cannot adopt a realistic policy, it won’t be possible to achieve an opposition-led coalition,” he said.

He predicted that the four would-be coalition partners of the opposition will be unable to win a majority in the lower house election, although, with Communist victories included, the Liberal Democrats could lose their majority. In that event, the Komei Party would gain pivotal power in both houses.

The Komei Party, Ishida emphasized, will not join any coalition that includes the Communists.

Its casting vote in the upper house consists of 21 representatives, or three more than the 18 that the Liberal Democrats lack for a majority.

Ishida predicted that after the lower house election, the political spectrum would wind up divided into three segments--the Liberal Democrats on one side, the Socialists on the other, and the Komei Party and the Democratic Socialists in the middle. The three poles, he said, would engage in horse-trading on virtually every bill submitted to Parliament. Communists, he added, would remain outsiders.

“The biggest possibility is that after one, two or three years of experience with a tri-polar political structure, talks will occur between the Liberal Democratic Party and the Komei Party and the Democratic Socialists (for a coalition),” he said.

“At least a year” will have to pass after the general election before the Komei Party can decide whether to join the Liberal Democrats in a coalition, Ishida said.

Ironically, despite its new clout, the Komei Party, which draws much of its support from an often-controversial Buddhist laymen’s organization, the Soka Gakkai (Value Creating Society), suffered a setback in the July upper house election. Financial scandals that hit the party in the last 18 months also portend a “very severe” result in the forthcoming lower house vote, Ishida acknowledged.

“For a quarter of a century, we campaigned for clean politics. (The scandals) inflicted huge damage. . . . We won’t be able to restore (voters’) trust in one stroke,” he said.