U.S., Japan Look Past Trade Jam to Reaffirm Ties : Summit: The President counteracts economic tensions by focusing on cooperation in key programs worldwide. : NEWS ANALYSIS

Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu ended his 25-hour California visit on Saturday with his own political standing bolstered by the first clear recognition at a U.S.-Japan summit that his country means more to American officialdom than just trade frictions.

President Bush, who invited Kaifu to the hurried summit only seven days beforehand, went out of his way to add a non-trade dimension to the troubled relationship that many see heading for a crisis.

In remarks after the meetings, Bush said that Japan is not only “moving rapidly to assume a leading role in the world” but that “no matter where we look around the world--from Eastern Europe to Panama to Cambodia--the United States and Japan are working together to promote political and economic transformations.”

Bush also devoted more time in his seven hours of talks and dinners with Kaifu to global issues and cooperation with Japan, both in policy coordination and in joint actions, than he did to the trade disputes that are poisoning relations.

Even Japanese officials, however, stopped short of predicting that the emphasis on the positive, rather than the negative, would brake rising U.S.-Japan frictions.

“The extremists, like those demanding that Japan eliminate its trade surplus with the United States in five years, won’t be swayed,” said one high-level Japanese diplomat. “They probably will claim that the summit failed.”

But, on the governmental level at least, Kaifu won what he wanted and needed most--a recognition that America values the alliance and wants to develop a “global partnership” with Tokyo.

Bush and Secretary of State James A. Baker III have been talking about a global partnership with Japan for nearly a year. But the summit marked the first time that leaders of the two countries spent more time discussing global than bilateral issues, which Kaifu termed the “dark, troubled side” of the relationship.

Japanese officials said discussions of international issues took more time than did trade in Saturday’s summit by a 4-to-1 ratio.

For his part, Bush won from Kaifu what he appeared to want most--a commitment that Kaifu regards the trade frictions seriously and will put his shoulder to the task of pushing two sets of tedious negotiations now in process. Both are regarded as crucial to forestalling a potential explosion in U.S.-Japan relations.

A week ago, S. Linn Williams, deputy trade representative, complained that Japanese negotiators lacked sufficient high-level “political guidance” to make progress in talks designed to eliminate structural barriers to trade. By the time Kaifu left the summit in Rancho Mirage, near Palm Springs, on Saturday, he had voiced his support for the so-called Structural Impediments Initiative (SII) six times, including an official policy speech to Parliament hours before he left Tokyo. Bush has made the SII the centerpiece of his economic policy toward Japan.

In his remarks to the press, with Bush standing at his side, Kaifu declared that he is “determined to firmly tackle structural reforms as one of the top priorities of my new Cabinet.”

In contrast, at a meeting with Bush in Washington last September, Kaifu warned the President that there would be limits to what Japan could do in reforming its culture and ways of doing business.

Bush’s statesmanlike treatment of Kaifu is certain to enhance the 59-year-old leader’s shaky standing at home. And Kaifu’s pledge of support will add pressure on Japan’s bureaucrats to live up to what many in Japan will view as an obligation to the United States.

But Kaifu, who lacks his own power base within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, will still have to rely on persuasion to achieve reforms at home. And with the ruling party now a minority in the upper house of Parliament, some of the moves Bush reportedly seeks remain virtually a political impossibility.

Both the prime minister and Japanese bureaucrats said in advance of the summit that they would not discuss the specifics of any American demands, if only because they had not been given enough time to prepare for the summit. In fact, no details were discussed. Nor did Bush press for specifics.

The California summit was also the first one at which Japanese officials openly expressed irritation at the wave of condemnation being showered upon Japan, not only in trade but in the fields of Japanese investment in the United States, Japanese financial power and even Japanese culture.

Kaifu took note of the rising cultural criticism of Japan by scholars--including charges that Japan is not truly a democracy--by proposing to Bush that the two nations undertake joint studies of social problems they both face, such as education and the aged.

“If we discuss these problems in each other’s society together, (Americans) will deepen understanding that we are both countries that value freedom and democracy,” he told reporters accompanying him from Tokyo.

Although Kaifu displayed no animosity, other Japanese officials openly expressed resentment and irritation that members of Congress, reporters and some Administration officials they disdainfully call “35-year-old lawyers” insist on focusing only on trade disputes in U.S.-Japan summits.

“The public’s interest in the summit is focused on the troubled area of economics, but the trouble-free sectors of U.S.-Japan relations are far larger than the troubled portion,” one disgruntled diplomat said.

This diplomat complained that when Bush picks up the phone and invites European leaders for informal talks at Camp David or other resort-like sites, no one considers the invitation unusual. But when Bush extends a phone invitation to Japan’s leader, “everybody regards it as a summons.”

So far, Japanese have been offering to play the supporting role in a global partnership with the United States, while expanding their activities into such regions as East Europe and Latin America. Top Japanese diplomats insist that they want the United States to retain the lead. And indeed, Kaifu at the summit again failed to offer any new, specific ideas for the partnership.

The supporting role, however, is becoming more and more crucial.

Already, Japan is providing more financial backing for U.S. initiatives--such as aid to the Philippines, refinancing of Mexico’s debt and support for East European economies--than the United States itself. A rupture in the political affinity between the two nations, Japanese diplomats warned in Tokyo, could produce a much less cooperative attitude toward Washington and impede the global partnership that leaders of both nations insist they want.