Japan Cultural Exchange Center Greeted Warily : Relations: It is intended to repair ties with the United States. But American scholars worry that the government-funded foundation will be another means to buy influence in the U.S. market.

A Japanese government-financed “cultural exchange” fund designed to help repair the nation’s emotionally frayed relations with the United States is about to be launched.

But it has already been criticized by Americans who are concerned that it will become yet another effort by Japan to win commercial success in the U.S. market by buying influence.

When the Center for Global Partnership opens April 1, it will sponsor a number of programs, including fellowships for Americans visiting Japan and Japanese visiting the United States. It will also sponsor conferences, forums and intellectual exchanges.

The center will start with an endowment of $385 million provided by the Japanese government. Its annual budget of about $25 million will be derived from the interest and dividend income from the endowment.

But if a two-day conference that was held here last week to solicit advice from Americans is an indication, the center and its activities are in for a rocky start.

American and Japanese scholars, think tank executives and directors of cultural exchange programs joined in a chorus of warnings that independence from government influence will be essential if the program is to win acceptance and credibility in the United States.

A Foreign Ministry official, however, indicated that considerations of how Japanese taxpayers’ money is used will be more important than the center’s independence. Parliament approved the funding in a supplementary budget enacted last December to “deepen and broaden interchanges” between Japan and the United States “from a global perspective.”

“Many knowledgeable people in the United States worry that the (center) may be a lost opportunity (to improve relations) or may even set U.S.-Japan relations back rather than advance them,” said Susan Berresford, vice president of the Ford Foundation.

“They fear it may be used to polish Japan’s image, rather than than engage in philanthropy. If so, people will come to see Japan’s interest as manipulative, rather than developmental,” she said.

“The key to success is independence,” said Bruce MacLaury, president of the Brookings Institution.

The criticism and concerns about the new center were clearly colored by charges of undue Japanese influence in American affairs that former TRW Inc. Vice President Pat Choate made in his book “Agents of Influence.” In the book Choate charged that the Japanese spend $400 million a year to influence U.S. scholars, mold American public opinion and hire former U.S. government officials as lobbyists.

Yujiro Hayashi, deputy director of a futurology research institute, complained that all established government-funded think tanks in Japan lack independence.

“They should be acting as institutions to give advice to the decision makers, but they work exactly the opposite, discussing only topics that are handed to them by the decision makers,” he said.