NEWS ANALYSIS : U.S., Japan Face Rough Seas on Trade Imbalance : Surplus: The two countries differ so much on the reasons behind the deficit that cutting it won’t be easy.

America’s relationship with Japan has often been compared to that of teacher and student. America, it seemed, was forever lecturing Japan about the importance of democracy and free markets. Japan, it seemed, was forever bowing its head in obeisance.

But as tall, youthful President Clinton stood beside wizened, 73-year-old Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa at a joint news conference here last week, it looked as if student was becoming teacher.

In an unusually strong statement for a Japanese prime minister, Miyazawa warned Clinton against treading a path of protectionism.

“We must nurture this relationship with a cooperative spirit based upon the principle of free trade,” Miyazawa said. “This cannot be realized with managed trade nor under the threat of unilateralism.”

Miyazawa offered America improved access to Japanese markets but lectured that “this must be done with parallel efforts of the United States to strengthen competitiveness and export promotion under the free trade system.”

Miyazawa’s defiant statement, and those of officials accompanying him, are new signs of an increasingly assertive Japan, confident of its growing economic power. Miyazawa’s message to Clinton was straightforward, said a Japanese reporter accompanying Miyazawa: “Threats aren’t going to work with Japan anymore.”

For his part, Clinton was more interested in getting a bigger share of Japan’s markets for American business than in wearing the mantle of defender of free trade.

“I would like to focus on specific sectors of the (Japanese) economy. And I would like to, obviously, have specific results,” Clinton said. He not only said he wants to shrink America’s deficit with Japan, but made it clear that he particularly wants Japan to buy more of America’s high-value-added products, such as computers and semiconductors.

“Clinton is not saying, ‘You have to change or Congress will be protectionist,’ ” one U.S. official said after the meeting. “He is saying that if (U.S.) high-tech companies don’t have access to Japanese markets, they will be in trouble. If we have an agreement and they don’t live up to it, we will retaliate.”

Japan’s new insistence on free trade principles and America’s new focus on results bring a potentially explosive dimension to the bilateral trade relationship.

Trade conflicts between the two countries have continued for so long that they appear to have become a permanent component of the bilateral relationship.

In 1972, a State Department white paper warned that the growing imbalance in bilateral trade with Japan was about to “tear the fabric of the U.S.-Japan alliance.” That year, Japan’s surplus with America was $4.1 billion.

Now, with Japan’s annual surplus with America at $49 billion and with virtually every avenue for resolving the trade conflict explored, the two nations have agreed to establish yet another forum for resolving trade differences.

This latest forum, to be put in place in the next three months, will replace the existing Structural Impediments Initiative, an effort to remove structural barriers to trade.

But with the two nations growing further apart on the reasons for the imbalance, they could find it difficult to agree on how to proceed.

Japanese officials are flatly rejecting the American view that Japan’s surplus is evidence that Japanese markets are closed.

“America had huge surpluses with the world in the early 1960s, but did that mean their markets were closed?” asked a Foreign Ministry official. Responding to Secretary of State Warren Christopher’s call for Japan to cut its surplus at the rapid rate it did in the late 1980s, the official dismissed the secretary as “no economist.”

Warned the official: “As long as they call Japan closed, America’s economic revitalization will not work.”

He suggested that Japan’s objective is more one of changing America’s perceptions than one of cutting the trade imbalance. “Maybe after 10 years, America will realize that Japan’s surplus doesn’t mean it has a closed market,” the official said.

Japan’s new assertiveness is part of a larger effort by Japan to present itself as an equal partner with the United States in world affairs.

After their meeting, Miyazawa said he and Clinton had “built a personal relationship of mutual trust.”

Talking to Japanese reporters on the plane shortly after taking off on the flight to Washington, Miyazawa said he hoped to build such a relationship of trust so that he could “deal with most problems over the phone.”

But for a prime minister struggling to play the role of leader of economic superpower Japan and co-partner with America, the cool reception he received in Washington must have come as a rude shock.

As Miyazawa landed at Andrews Air Force Base on Thursday and stepped off his brand-new Boeing 747 (one of two airplanes for government use that Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone ordered in 1987 as part of a plan to boost American imports), he was greeted by a small group of low-level American officials. He awkwardly embraced the first man in the reception line, a protocol officer. Without ceremony, Miyazawa was whisked away in a black Cadillac to the Japanese Embassy. There was no welcoming dinner, no visit to Arlington cemetery and no stroll with Clinton under the cherry blossoms.

Few Japanese officials and reporters failed to notice that Miyazawa’s arrival was virtually ignored in the capital.

“It looks like the gay leaders will get more attention than Miyazawa,” moaned one Japanese reporter, referring to a Clinton meeting scheduled to follow the talks with Miyazawa.

The Japanese Foreign Ministry told Japanese reporters that this was Clinton’s style, his way of cutting costs to help deal with the budget deficit.

And while Clinton stated that there was “no more important relationship for the United States than our alliance with Japan,” to many observers the contrast with events in Vancouver, Canada, two weeks ago was all too evident.

Clinton had appeared far more comfortable walking through the woods alongside Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin than he did speaking with Miyazawa.

Japanese officials still think Miyazawa has a chance of making an impression on Americans. The Japanese Embassy arranged for him to appear Sunday on ABC’s “This Week With David Brinkley.” During the appearance, Miyazawa resolved to cut Japan’s “embarrassing” trade surplus with the United States but rejected the use of specific trade targets.

“Up to now, Americans always heard Japanese prime ministers through the voice of an interpreter,” said an official at the Japanese Embassy in Washington. “They have this faceless image of Japan as a ruthless economic aggressor. We want to show he laughs and has emotions.”