Outgoing Envoy to Japan: Forceful on Tough Issues

The Japanese have called him Mr. Gaiatsu (foreign pressure). Foreign Ministry officials complain that he ignores proper diplomatic channels by using contacts with businessmen, political leaders and reporters to get his way. But for American businessmen, this soft-spoken, tough talking, 6-foot-4 diplomat has been a valued ally.

Michael H. Armacost retires this summer as U.S. ambassador to Japan, leaving behind a U.S. Embassy better focused on the key issue on President Clinton’s agenda: prying open Japan’s markets. The State Department officially announced Friday that he will be replaced by former Vice President Walter F. Mondale.

“He (Armacost) established an effective trade-oriented post to help American business,” says Norman Neureiter, director of Texas Instruments’ Asian operation.

But Armacost conceded Friday that he has not been as effective during his four-year tenure as he would have liked. Japan’s trade surplus has ballooned to politically dangerous levels, putting the bilateral trade relationship in what is arguably the most explosive situation it has ever faced.

“There is not as much of a difference as I would like to have seen (in the trade situation),” Armacost told the Foreign Correspondents Club in Japan. “There is a market penetration problem in Japan not just for the United States but also for Asians and Europeans.”

Breaking into Japan, he said, will continue to require lots of “pick and shovel work.”

Armacost warned of a disturbing new trend in bilateral ties. “We must combat elements of distrust creeping into the relationship, a tendency to see hidden agendas,” he said.

When it comes to approaching Japan on tough issues, Mondale may want to borrow a page from Armacost’s book. The retiring envoy’s effectiveness, one American executive says, was in his ability to present the American view in a blunt, forceful manner while being “tactful, gracious and understanding at the same time.”

He helped persuade Japan to see America’s perspective on a range of issues from contributing money to the Persian Gulf War to breaking down structures that impede imports such as Japan’s distribution system.

Armacost has often been the butt of criticism. An editorial in the Asahi Shimbun, a major national daily, once complained: “His criticism (about trade) is too much at a time when we Japanese are seriously discussing what to do about an issue that affects the very foundation of the nation we built after World War II.”

One magazine accused him of “leading Japan around by the ear,” and Justice Minister Masaharu Gotoda accused him of “putting his nose in internal affairs.”

But Armacost said foreign pressure is a key ingredient in getting Japan to change. That pressure has become all the more sensitive, he admits, because it is increasingly aimed at domestic issues.

“As border controls (on trade) have come down and our economies become more integrated, the significant barriers turn out to be matters of domestic policy,” he said.

Armacost, who just turned 55, will go to Stanford University, where he will write a book about U.S.-Japan bilateral relations.