Ignoring Security Issues, Christopher Focuses on Economics in Japan Talks

Secretary of State Warren Christopher told Japan’s new foreign minister Tuesday that in the Clinton Administration, economics comes first--and that means a change in focus in the U.S. relationship with Japan.

“This is a new period where economic relationships must be addressed with great intensity,” Christopher told Foreign Minister Kabun Muto, according to an aide who was present at the hourlong meeting. “In order to maintain and indeed expand our partnership, we’re going to have to make progress on economic issues and reduce large trade imbalances.”

Once, a secretary of state and his Japanese counterpart would have started their first meeting by talking about the Cold War threat from the Soviet Union, the future of China or the stability of North Korea.

But with the Cold War gone, Christopher and Muto spent most of their time discussing the Clinton Administration’s complaints about Japanese economic and trade policies.

Christopher acknowledged the U.S. desire to maintain its military alliance with Japan but put little emphasis on the issue, officials said.

“It isn’t that we don’t care about the security relationship,” a senior official said. “But the economic relationship has come up in importance.”

The Christopher-Muto meeting was thus something of a dress rehearsal for the more important meeting this Friday in Washington between President Clinton and Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa.

Aides described Christopher as polite but firm, serving notice that the new Administration’s premises for dealing with Japan are different from those of its predecessors.

Christopher did not press any specific trade issues, aides said, except to make sure that new regulations allowing U.S. firms to compete for Japanese government procurement contracts will enable all U.S. computer makers to compete in Japan--and not just the supercomputer manufacturers who were a focus of controversy.

“This was their first meeting,” a senior official said, implying that specific trade complaints will be pushed harder in later sessions.

Reacting to Christopher’s approach, a Foreign Ministry official was quoted in Tokyo newspapers as saying, “Japan acknowledges the existence of various economic and trade issues, but thinks it all the more important to strengthen political dialogue and tackle global problems.”

Japan prefers the old focus on a “strategic partnership” between the United States and Japan, he suggested.

U.S. critics of Japan--and of the George Bush Administration’s approach to U.S.-Japan relations--have often charged that focusing on the strategic relationship merely allows Tokyo to avoid confronting U.S. complaints over trade.

Christopher’s message was a somewhat more measured version of a point Clinton has been making periodically for several weeks: The United States is tired of losing ground in trade to Japan.