Hosokawa Outlines Reforms for Japan but Omits Details : Asia: The new prime minister also softens his condemnation of WWII as ‘a war of aggression.’

Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa on Monday enumerated a host of reforms that the United States has long urged Japan to implement, but he stopped short of spelling out details.

In his maiden policy speech to Parliament, Hosokawa also offered his third apology for Japan’s past aggression and colonial rule since he was elected Aug. 6. But this time he softened an unprecedented condemnation he had made of World War II as “a war of aggression--a mistake” for Japan.

The 55-year-old leader also described his eight-party coalition Cabinet, Japan’s first non-Liberal Democratic Party government in 38 years, as dedicated not merely to political reform but to “a new starting point in our history.”

Political and electoral reforms to be implemented by December, Hosokawa reaffirmed, will remain “my Cabinet’s first and foremost priority.” But, he added, “We must . . . redress the harmful effects of our over-compartmentalized bureaucracy.”

Breaking up “collusion among politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen,” ending “the politics of special-interest legislators,” promoting deregulation and decentralization and changing the government’s priority from economic growth to improving the quality of life will be hallmarks of his new government, Hosokawa pledged.

He also promised to reduce Japan’s trade surplus by expanding domestic demand and “improving market access” for imports.

“What is the new era? Hosokawa offered no explanation,” complained Yohei Kono, the Liberal Democrats’ new leader.

Although Hosokawa earlier promised to come up with measures by the end of September to stimulate the economy--and to promote imports--he vowed to avoid deficit financing of any new steps. And he said nothing about immediate income tax cuts, which both the United States and Japanese labor and business organizations have supported.

He acknowledged that his predecessor, former Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, had promised to make raising living standards a new priority of government, but said that “the people at large have no feeling that policy priorities have changed.” But he mentioned only his intent to pass along to consumers the benefits of lower prices that ought to occur from the strengthening value of the yen.

Hosokowa also repeated Japan’s “deep soul-searching and apologies for the fact that past Japanese actions, including aggression and colonial rule, caused unbearable suffering and sorrow for so many people.”

It was his third apology and second acknowledgment of Japan’s past aggression since taking office, a sharp contrast from Liberal Democrat predecessors, who never called the war aggression.

But, in an apparent response to criticism from Liberal Democrat leaders, Hosokawa this time added that Japan “should not forget . . . the supreme sacrifice made during the war . . . by previous generations” of Japanese. He also did not condemn the entire war as aggression by Japan, as he did in his first news conference.

Hosokawa announced only one specific new policy--a declaration that Japan would support an indefinite extension of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.