Real Concerns Amid the Heady Talk : Japan: The prime minister went to Europe looking for votes back home, but it’s the relationship with America that will suffer if he doesn’t get them.

The real campaigning for Japan’s Feb. 18 general election began three weeks ago with Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu’s “typhoon tour” of Europe’s capital cities.

Kaifu came to Europe with his Liberal Democrat government in its deepest mess in 35 years. He wanted not only to appear statesmanlike to the viewers back home, but also to establish a bridgehead of trust to Eastern Europe. He succeeded in the first aim, but the heady talk of international cooperation to revitalize Eastern Europe could come to nothing if his party loses to a markedly more populist, protectionist and emotional opposition coalition.

Besides, the election will not be fought over Europe. Although the Japanese enjoyed the news from Berlin and Prague, their priorities at the polls are three major issues with ramifications for the Japan-U.S. relationship:

--The 3% consumption tax introduced last April. Its bungled introduction left consumers feeling betrayed by broken promises and stung by an unfair and unnecessary levy. The consumer revolt cost the Liberal Democrats their Upper House majority in the summer. This election, too, will be something of a referendum on the issue--the Liberal Democrats want to keep a revised version of the tax, the opposition wants it scrapped.

The choice is significant to the United States. Extra tax revenue frees cash to satisfy military burden-sharing demands. It also allows greater spending on welfare, which reduces the need for savings, thus leading to more consumer spending and more imports, according to the U.S. argument at the Structural Impediments Initiative talks, the American-Japanese forum aimed at opening up the Japanese economy and improving life for Japanese consumers.

--Rice-import liberalization and the “food security” question, which Japan is promoting before the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Japanese farmers have resisted Liberal Democrat efforts to wean them off subsidies; the opposition parties back the farmers. Washington has already won large concessions on the import of oranges and beef. Rice now stands as a final point of principle before the whole Japanese market is opened.

--The territorial dispute between Japan and the Soviet Union. Failure to decide the sovereignty of four small islands and to sign a peace treaty with Moscow keep the door closed on Far East detente and deny wholehearted Japanese backing to Western efforts to shore up Mikhail Gorbachev. Voters, traditionally hostile to the Soviet Union, see this issue in mainly emotional and patriotic terms. But Washington will continue to be concerned with what is increasingly seen as an anachronism.

America’s interests in this election are best represented by the Liberal Democrats. Michael Armacost, the U.S. ambassador, has publicly criticized the Japan Socialist Party’s new defense policy, acknowledging that an outright opposition victory would lead to a long period of debate about the future of the U.S.-Japan security treaty and the status of South Korea, whose government is not recognized by the Socialists.

The next round of negotiations on the Structural Impediments Initiative has already been postponed by Japan until after the general election, and it is unlikely that a new Socialist government would give the talks a high priority.

Until recently, speculation about an opposition victory would have been dismissed by most people in Japan. The mood has now changed, and even senior Liberal Democrat politicians recognize that the result will be close. Either of the two most likely results, a slim Liberal Democrat majority or a coalition government headed by the Socialists, will simply prolong the domestic political stalemate. Europe, and the widening circle of Japanese aid recipients, would like to see a strong and stable government in Tokyo. But of Japan’s international relationships, that with the United States will be damaged the most by indecisiveness.

Europe served Kaifu’s purposes well. If he wins the election, he will find more serious European questions occupying ever more of his time. But in order to pass the election hurdle, he must first win the argument for more liberal and internationalist policies at home.

If he fails, the stagnation that threatens to set in after Feb. 18 will hit the United States the hardest.