Japan Official Says He’d Quit Over Rice Issue : Trade: Yamamoto insists that the U.S. acknowledge the ‘special circumstances’ that surround his country’s ban on imports.

Japan’s agriculture minister said Thursday that he is prepared to resign, if necessary, rather than lift his country’s ban on rice imports as part of a round of multilateral trade negotiations that end in December.

Speaking at the Japan National Press Club, Tomio Yamamoto also rejected an American demand that Japan end its subsidies to farmers. He said he is “resolved to assume responsibility” if agricultural negotiations in the so-called Uruguay Round of trade talks “fail to go smoothly.”

His statements came in the aftermath of a public denunciation in May by U.S. Agriculture Secretary Clayton K. Yeutter, who lambasted Yamamoto for refusing to offer a proposal for liberalization of rice imports in the talks being carried on under the auspices of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

“Japan cannot insist upon one set of rules for goods and services where it is internationally competitive and another set of rules where it is uncompetitive,” Yeutter declared in a letter to Yamamoto that he released to the press. He also accused Yamamoto of breaking a Japanese promise to liberalize its rice market if other nations dismantled restrictions on agricultural trade in the GATT talks.

Last Friday, Yeutter was reported to have told a delegation of members of Parliament from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party that the Uruguay Round will not be completed if Japan retains its ban on imports of rice.

Nonetheless, Yamamoto said he will insist that the United States acknowledge the “special circumstances” surrounding Japan’s rice problem. “This is the same position as that of the Liberal Democratic Party and of Prime Minister (Toshiki) Kaifu.”

Rice, he claimed, is the only “main food” of any nation at issue in the GATT talks. Opening Japan’s door to imports, even on a partial basis, he said, would “destroy” Japanese agriculture and rice paddies. And the paddies, he said, “fulfill a role of flood control that is three times as important as all the dams in Japan.”

Although rice consumption in Japan has been diminishing steadily since 1960, Yamamoto said “Yamato-damashi,” or Japan’s spirit, and the nation’s culture had both “developed on the basis of rice cultivation over thousands of years.”

Yamamoto said domestic agricultural subsidies “are needed to reform Japan’s agriculture. Without them, how can Japanese agriculture survive?”

Instead of arguing about elimination of domestic subsidies, he said, the GATT talks should focus on agricultural export subsidies.

He said Japan had removed all but 17 restrictions on farm imports “to become one of the few wide-open agricultural markets in the world.” As a result, Japan’s ratio of self-sufficiency in foodstuffs has plummeted to 30% from 70%, on a calorie basis, he said.

“This is not a situation in which we can permit even partial liberalization of rice imports,” he declared.

He also predicted that a preliminary GATT meeting in July would fail to produce a basic framework for agreement on agricultural liberalization for the Uruguay Round.

Yamamoto’s hard-line stance contrasted sharply with a statement made June 13 by former Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita, who is considered the strongman of the ruling party. Takeshita predicted that the GATT negotiations would force the government to “seriously consider adjustments between established interests and public opinion favoring change” on Japan’s policy banning rice imports.

Takeshita also praised the opposition Komei (Clean Government) Party for declaring June 11 that preparations should be made to aid rice farmers who would be hurt if the import ban is relaxed.

The Komei Party, whose main support comes from city dwellers, was the first Japanese political group to drop opposition to foreign rice.

Yamamoto refused to comment on the new moves by Takeshita and the Komei Party.