Kaifu in O.C. for Talks Today With President

Japanese Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu arrived in Orange County on Wednesday for a meeting with President Bush that Japanese officials hope will put to rest the feelings of “uncertainty and apprehension” growing between the two nations.

Kaifu checked into the Hyatt Regency Irvine with little fanfare and was immediately whisked to the hotel’s top-floor, $5,000-a-night “presidential suite.” The prime minister and his 60-member entourage flew into Los Angeles International Airport and drove by motorcade to Irvine with a California Highway Patrol motorcycle escort.

Bush is scheduled to arrive in Newport Beach today and meet with Kaifu for about two hours at the Four Seasons Hotel, where Bush will be staying. Kaifu, who departs for Tokyo early Friday, also planned to have a breakfast meeting this morning with Vice President Dan Quayle at the Hyatt.

Kaifu initiated the meeting. Top issues discussed are likely to be Japan’s role in the post-Gulf era, including economic and environmental assistance to the ravaged war area, and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s impending visit to Japan and how any rapprochement will affect U.S. interests. Other issues will include multilateral trade negotiations and U.S.-Japan economic issues, such as the trade imbalance, according to Taizo Watanabe, senior spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Although most pre-summit reports have focused on Japan’s perceived shortcomings, Japanese officials say they hope the American side will do its part to patch up relations as well.

Bush can best aid Kaifu by assuring him that “global partnership is a reality” and “Japan is not outside the mosquito net” of America’s closest allies, Watanabe said. Some Japanese felt snubbed that Bush had consulted with French and British allies after the Gulf War, while postponing his official visit to Japan. That gave rise to some media criticism in Japan that “the U.S. is inclined to have closer talks with European allies rather than with Japan,” Watanabe said.

“There has been growing suspicion that Japan’s credibility is so low that there is no more inclination on the part of the American Administration to try to resume the so-called global partnership,” Watanabe said. “The (Japanese) government thought it was vitally important to put the feelings of uncertainty and apprehension to rest by reaffirming the cooperative relationship with the U.S. Administration at the highest possible level.”

The Japanese side may also remind Americans about their own obligations to contribute to progress on a host of economic issues.

Last year, for instance, the two nations concluded a pact called the Structural Impediments Initiative to improve American market access to Japan. The Japanese agreed to streamline their distribution system, increase domestic public works projects, strengthen anti-monopoly laws and the like. In the last year, the government has budgeted increased spending for public works and proposed legislation to begin accomplishing some of these aims.

The United States agreed to increase savings, reduce the budget deficit, improve the education system, move to longer-range business thinking, even convert to the metric system. But so far, the Japanese believe, the Americans have fallen far short of their promises.

“Contrary to general public perception and the campaign organized by U.S. people concerned, the implementation on the U.S. side is really unsatisfactory in our view,” said Hiroshi Hirabayashi, economic minister of the Embassy of Japan. “Americans tend to blame Japan--not only Japan but their trading partners in general. Instead of pointing fingers . . . Americans are urged to do their job to keep their house in order.

“If the President raises the SII issue, Mr. Kaifu would make some comment--maybe more friendly comments than what I have communicated, but he will point to what are the problems on the American side.”

Likewise, Hirabayashi said, the Japanese viewpoint on the multilateral trade negotiations may not be fully understood by Americans. Although the United States is pressuring the Japanese to open its rice market to ensure the success of the Uruguay Round of the multilateral negotiations, Hirabayashi said the American side should also offer to remove its own import restrictions on dairy products, peanuts, sugar and a dozen other protected items.

In addition to meeting with Bush and Quayle to press trade and other issues, Kaifu was also to visit with 28 local Japanese business leaders during his stay in Orange County.

The Orange County chapter of the Japan America Society said that it is “elated” by Kaifu’s visit, but it is also “deflated” because the prime minister did not schedule a public event during his stay.

The society wrote a letter to the Japanese consul in Los Angeles last week, suggesting that Kaifu hold such an event to show the American public a “human side” to the Japanese government.

“I don’t think the Japanese have done a very good job at public relations,” said J. David Eagle, author of the letter. “This is the first time we’ve ever had a (Japanese) prime minister in Orange County and to not take five minutes to set up a public event is to miss a good opportunity.”

At the Hyatt Regency, meanwhile, managers have stocked up on dried seaweed and green tea and 40 housekeepers, valets and waitresses have been given a crash course in Japanese etiquette.

The hotel also has re-routed more than 200 telephones so that, instead of reaching a hotel operator, callers on the top three floors can dial direct to Japan.

When he and his party arrived Wednesday at the 14-story, 536-room hotel, they were accompanied by 125 Japanese journalists. Wearing a dark blue suit, Kaifu stepped from his black limousine, bowed in greeting to another Japanese official and was immediately rushed inside.

In addition to a view of the Newport Beach hills, the hotel’s 6,000-square-foot presidential suite includes two large bedrooms and a large parlor. It has television sets, phones and a study with a fax machine, plus an “environmental center” which, hotel general manager Jerry Lewin explained, can provide “rain, sun, drizzle, wind--anything you want to do except make you younger.”

Japanese and U.S. Secret Service agents have been stationed throughout the hotel since last Thursday, when the trip was confirmed. And shortly before Kaifu’s arrival, a bomb-sniffing golden Labrador named Casey swept several floors.

But security officials said they were not expecting problems. “There’s been no threat. There hasn’t been anything going on,” said Hyatt security director Bill Coy.

The summit is the first between Bush and Kaifu since the two met last March in Palm Springs, said Nori Shikata, a press officer from the Japanese embassy in Washington.

“Last year in March, we talked about a Palm Springs spirit from the Palm Springs summit,” Shikata said. “Maybe we can come up with a Newport Beach spirit.”

Seeing their own opportunity in Kaifu’s visit, two organizations planned to demonstrate outside the Four Seasons today to protest U.S. and Japanese policies.

A group of Christians and Jews, including Shalom International and the Jewish Federation of Orange County, plans to protest Japanese companies’ compliance with the Arab economic boycott of Israel. And environmentalists from the Sea Turtle Restoration Project say they will protest the Bush Administration’s failure to take action against Japan for harvesting an endangered species of sea turtle.