U.S.-Japan Ties Strong, Baker Says : Southeast Asia: A Malaysian voices fear that friction between Tokyo and Washington could threaten region’s security.

Secretary of State James A. Baker III came to the defense of Japan on Saturday after a top Southeast Asian official voiced fears that growing Japanese power plus friction between Washington and Tokyo could threaten the security of the region.

The issue was raised by Foreign Minister Abu Hassan Omar of Malaysia during a closed-door meeting here of the Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations. Citing the decline in East-West tensions and some U.S. public opinion polls showing that Americans see Japan as their top economic threat, Hassan wondered if Japan might replace the Soviet Union as Southeast Asia’s main security worry.

Hassan’s remarks reflected general uncertainty among Southeast Asian officials about how rapidly changing relations among the world’s leading powers could affect Asia and the Pacific region.

“We wanted to get clarification from the Japanese,” Hassan explained to reporters afterward.

According to both Japanese and American accounts, Baker quickly intervened in the discussion and sought to dispel any fears.

“Mr. Baker raised his hand and said that, although some people (in the United States) feel that way, it is a minority,” Japanese spokesman Makoto Yamanaka said. “He (Baker) made it clear that a majority of the American people believe in good relations between Japan and the United States.”

U.S. officials said Baker also sought to counteract an impression that the United States and Japan might be at loggerheads with each other, now or in the future. On the contrary, Baker said, Japan and the United States have expanded their political and security ties over the past two years.

Japanese officials said the ASEAN delegates’ discussion prompted Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Nakayama to voice regrets over Japan’s seizure of Southeast Asia in World War II.

“(Nakayama) deplored what Japan did before and during the last world war,” said spokesman Yamanaka. “ . . . We caused agonies and trouble to people in Asia and the United States.”

Nakayama “made it very clear that . . . it is the consensus of the Japanese people not to become a military power in this region (Southeast Asia),” the Japanese spokesman said.

Japan is now the largest investor in the ASEAN nations and the region’s principal trading partner. The association’s six countries--Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and Brunei--have a population of more than 300 million.

Over the last two days, Japan has been seeking support from Southeast Asian officials for its current foreign policy goals, particularly its desire to recover what it calls the four “northern territories”--four islands in the Kurile chain that have been occupied by the Soviet Union since the end of World War II.

Nakayama also urged ASEAN members to normalize their relations with China. At the recent summit of the seven leading industrialized nations in Houston, Japan announced that it will go forward with a package of more than $5 billion in loans to China, even though the summit decided to maintain, for now, a ban on World Bank and other international lending to China.

“We strongly expect China to continue to uphold its policies of openness toward the outside world and to pursue further its economic and political reforms,” a Japanese spokesman said Saturday.

As a result, he said, Japan would favor the inclusion of China in a new economic organization for Asia and the Pacific but would oppose the admission of the Soviet Union into the same organization.