Bush Lauds Japan Measure Allowing Troops Overseas

WASHINGTON — President Bush on Wednesday praised Japan’s recent passage of legislation authorizing it to send military personnel overseas and told Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa that the measure will enable Japanese troops to work on peacekeeping missions in “world trouble spots.”

After an hour of talks at the White House, Miyazawa, in turn, told the President that with the end of the Cold War, Japan plans to take on “greater roles and responsibilities” in the world. The Japanese prime minister cautioned that Tokyo will work closely with the United States and emphasized that “America will, no doubt, remain the world leader.”

The two men’s comments demonstrated Japan’s continuing emergence as a major world power and its increasing willingness to go along with U.S. requests to carry more weight in the alliance between the two countries.

While carefully qualified and restricted to peacekeeping efforts, the historic legislation passed in Tokyo last month enables Japan to send its forces overseas for the first time since World War II.

The meeting between the President and the Japanese prime minister was their first since Bush’s rocky trip to Tokyo last January, in which he became ill at a state dinner. Neither Bush nor Miyazawa mentioned the problems of that encounter, and both sought to portray the relationship between the two countries as one of harmony.

“You’re a good friend of our country, and I think the American people know that,” Bush told Miyazawa.

Nevertheless, the trade frictions that dominated the Tokyo trip were still very much in evidence Wednesday.

While claiming that some recent progress has been made on trade issues, Bush quickly told Miyazawa: “Still, I feel we have more to do. . . . I want to mention our continued interest in access to your markets for (American) automobiles and auto parts (and) semiconductors. . . .”

Although the President did not mention it, the U.S. trade imbalance with Japan--which was $43 billion last year, more than three times as large as the American deficit with any other country--has been growing dramatically in recent months.

Miyazawa promised Bush on Wednesday that if Japan’s existing efforts do not work, he will use “every possible means” to ensure that the Japanese economy continues to grow. Washington has been urging Japan to stimulate its economy and thus, they hope, imports of American goods.