Japan’s Foreign Minister to Warn White House on Trade Pressure

Foreign Minister Michio Watanabe leaves today on a mission to build bridges with the Clinton Administration but also to warn that the American tactic of pressuring Japan on trade issues has created “a feeling in Japan that enough is enough.”

Watanabe will not be threatening retaliation if the United States imposes trade sanctions on Japan, Foreign Ministry officials said. It is too early to say there is a consensus to get tough with Washington, they said.

But the Japanese do not feel as responsible as Americans say they are for a trade imbalance that was approaching $50 billion last year, the officials said.

As a result, “a dangerous tendency” to advocate that Japan adopt a “more independent stance” in diplomacy in general is “creeping into the Japanese psyche.” And, at the same time, American badgering on trade issues has created a feeling that “enough is enough,” they said.

Assuming that Japan will continue to cave in to American pressure would be a “very dangerous notion” for Clinton Administration officials to embrace, they said.

Watanabe, the officials said, will try to persuade American officials that the two countries must strive to create a “framework” in which they can feel “more secure” with each other. “That is what this trip is all about,” one of the officials said.

To the relief of the Japanese government, on the day before Watanabe’s departure, the Administration scheduled a short meeting for today so Watanabe can “pay respects” to President Clinton. Officials in Tokyo had feared that Clinton might not see Watanabe and that a presidential snub would have sent a message to a Japanese public already irritated with the United States that the White House was treating U.S.-Japan relations lightly.

In a separate interview, Yukio Sato, director of the Foreign Ministry’s North American division, called Watanabe’s visit “a very important first trip.” Following it, Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa wants to meet Clinton “as early as possible”--sometime “from the end of March through April,” he said.

Watanabe, Sato said, will try to lay the groundwork for the prime minister by discussing with Secretary of State Warren Christopher the tasks that the two nations should undertake together, as well as issues on which Japan’s view may differ from Clinton’s. Topping the list of potential differences is how to deal with China and Russia, he said.

Watanabe also was to meet Defense Secretary Les Aspin to reiterate Japan’s hope that the United States will halt its troop withdrawals from Asia.

Finance Minister Yoshiro Hayashi also will fly to Washington on Saturday to meet Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen. Yoshiro Mori, the minister of international trade and industry, said Tuesday that he hopes to visit Washington in March to lay the groundwork for a Clinton-Miyazawa meeting.