U.S.-JAPAN OVERCOMING OBSTACLES : Our Interests Can Come Into Balance : End this drifting apart by jointly enhancing mutual self-interests in the face of European expansion and integration.

The dramatic shifts of power in Europe are also forcing a reassessment of postwar power alignments on the other side of the globe--in Japan and the Pacific Basin.

Just as a unified Germany will be less feared in the context of European integration, the powerful new Japanese role would be less feared in the context of constructive cooperation with the United States in a pan-Pacific arrangement that I call “Amerippon.”

Yet, there are very major competitive aspects in the American-Japanese relationship that will complicate matters greatly. Some even fear we are on a collision course toward trade and economic warfare. The obstacles to continued relative harmony--not to mention greater integration--are manifold.

Japan’s non-tariff barriers are notorious, from its closed distribution system to its discriminatory safety-inspection procedures. While protecting its high-technology sector at home, Japanese companies, fueled by low-cost capital, seek total conquest of market share in the global economy. The job loss associated with Japanese competition in the United States, plus the highly visible purchase of American landmarks such as Rockefeller Center and Hollywood studios, stirs up deep and even irrational nationalist resentment.

American resentment, in turn, stirs up emotions among Japanese that they are victims of racial prejudice, soon to be the newly vilified empire of post-Cold War America. Not entirely without reason, many Japanese feel they have become the easy scapegoat of a nation unwilling to raise its savings rate, rebuild its infrastructure, invest in a sagging education system and revive the attitude that manufacturing matters.

Overcoming these obstacles requires the kind of political imagination associated with Europe’s Jean Monnet--the French economist and diplomat who led the movement in the early postwar years to develop the European Economic Community--and the kind of political will that is demonstrably present in Europe today. Unfortunately, in both the United States and Japan, for the foreseeable future, we’re likely to see instead a weakening and fragmentation of leadership.

In Japan, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party kept its majority in last week’s lower-house elections, but its strength was diluted by the strong showing of the Socialists. It will, therefore, be incapable of setting a definite course, confirmed by consensus, and making the difficult trade-offs that must be made to maintain economic harmony with the United States.

In the United States, congressional intrusion into the presidential conduct of foreign policy, particularly the inclination to micro-manage foreign policy, means that it will be very difficult to fashion a long-range, intelligent approach toward Japan.

Thus, a key objective of farsighted leaders in both the United States and Japan ought to be to end this drift by adopting a clear-minded concept of the joint enhancement of our self-interests in the face of European expansion and integration.

The “Amerippon” arrangement would involve close coordination of foreign policy, close commingling of international economic decision-making, partnerships between large American and Japanese corporations (including mixed boards of directors) and, increasingly, the joint training of managers. A common consumer market across the Pacific, without restrictions, would have to undergird these other forms of cooperation.

Linking our destinies in this common way would enable the coupling of our respective countries’ most significant assets--Japan’s applied scientific and engineering capability with American openness and originality--to the mutual benefit of both.

In this context, Japan’s security role would also change. During the postwar era, Japan was seen as a necessary economic bulwark and forward station of American forces for the purpose of containing Soviet expansion.

As we move into the next century, the geostrategic objective of United States and Japanese collaboration will change. It is no longer a matter of collaboration for the sake of military security but collaboration for the sake of growth, prosperity and stability.

Because an integrated Europe presents the risk of becoming a “fortress Europe,” or at least a club that will tend to discriminate against the United States and Japan, it is essential that both Japan and the United States seek a substantial economic presence there. Such a presence is essential to keep the world trading system, which took root under U.S. hegemony, from breaking up.

Japan’s most important contribution to international stability is what I call “strategic international economic aid”--economic aid directed for security and political reasons. This means deliberate allocation of economic aid by Japan to countries as varied as the Philippines, Thailand, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, Poland and the nations of entral America--all of whose economic weakness threatens the stability of their regions.

The great lesson of the postwar order is that the balance of power between great nations and regions is what kept the peace. The winding down of the Cold War and prosperity in Europe and Asia have undermined the old formulas of balance. The pillars of the new balance must now be set in place and deliberately linked together.