Opposition Grows in South Korea, Japan Over Opening Rice Markets : Trade: Leaders in both countries face domestic political pressure as they take action to facilitate a GATT agreement.

South Korean farmers and students staged rallies across the nation Tuesday in a last-ditch effort to block any opening of the country’s rice market to imports. But the government of President Kim Young Sam seemed to be prepared to yield on the contentious issue in world trade talks.

In Japan, Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa also faced sharp criticism Tuesday after he and other government leaders implied that in order to facilitate a successful conclusion to trade talks under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, they were prepared to accept a limited opening of the rice market in Japan.

Farmers in both countries bitterly oppose rice imports. But over the past two months, the Japanese government has been preparing the public for an end to the total ban with a series of careful leaks.

Hosokawa’s biggest problems with rice involve high-level politics. He faces reproach from Socialist allies in his ruling coalition and bitter attacks from the opposition Liberal Democratic Party.

“Prime Minister Hosokawa cannot escape responsibility for being double-tongued,” LDP Secretary General Yoshiro Mori said in one such denunciation.

In South Korea, domestic political groundwork for yielding on the emotional rice issue did not really begin until Saturday, when Korea’s negotiating team at the GATT talks in Geneva announced that it was abandoning efforts at total protection of the country’s rice market and would instead seek to get the most favorable terms for opening it.

By Tuesday, the former united front of Tokyo and Seoul against the imports was rapidly crumbling--good news for world trade but bad news in South Korea, where the main response was widespread anger.

“It is a grave crime,” South Korean opposition leader Lee Kie Tack declared to a cheering crowd of about 20,000 protesters gathered outside the Seoul railway station.

“For the past seven years,” complained a farmer from the Taejon area who came to Seoul to join the protest, “the government has been telling us it would protect us. Even Kim Young Sam said he would protect the rice market during his presidency. Now we hear this about-face on policy, just overnight.”

Similar protest rallies were held in many smaller cities across South Korea. Demonstrators drove farm vehicles to town offices, then dumped bags of rice to block the roads. In some areas, farmers set fire to their crops in protest. Police reinforced security around the U.S. Embassy in Seoul and consulates in other cities to protect them from possible attack.

However, the Yonhap News Agency reported that Kim would announce an agreement on limited rice imports by next week, in time for Seoul to contribute to success in the GATT talks, which must be concluded by next Wednesday or face collapse.

The agreement for South Korea is expected to resemble that hammered out for Japan. In both cases, a very limited quantity of rice imports would be allowed for a number of years, with the expectation that after that period, quotas would be lifted and imports would be controlled through use of tariffs.

The GATT proposal for Japan allows a six-year period before tariffs would replace quotas. Korean media have reported that Seoul is demanding it be granted a 10-year grace period, during which imports under a quota system would start at 2% of the market and rise to 3.5%.

Times researcher Chi Jung Nam in Seoul contributed to this article.