DEFINING THE FUTURE OF TV : Japan Official Withdraws Announcement on HDTV : Technology: Analysts say confusion at the top reflects weakness in Hosokawa’s new coalition government.

It was a display of confusion and cross purposes totally unlike the Japan the world once thought it knew.

Tuesday, a senior official said Japan will cease support of a Japanese standard for super-high-quality televisions because the technology does not match world trends.

Wednesday, the official recanted, and the presidents of Japan’s top electronics firms launched a counterattack to assure consumers that the new-generation technology is alive and well.

The disarray among top policy players reflects weakness and inexperience in the new coalition government under Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa, analysts say, as miscalculations become apparent in a growing range of policy areas.

The flap over high-definition television also underscores the high risks of government targeting industries in which the pace of technological change is swift. Although Japanese corporations spent an estimated $3 billion on the system called Hi-Vision, most analysts believe the next generation of television sets will eventually use a fully digital standard easily compatible with computers. Such a standard is now being developed by a “grand alliance” of American companies led by Zenith.

Akimasa Egawa, a top Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications official, shocked Japan on Tuesday when he announced at a news conference that Japan would abandon the Hi-Vision standard to put the nation in line with the trend toward digital television in the rest of the world.

But Egawa did so without any broad consensus backing him up.

Hosokawa’s government, which took power last year after 38 years of unbroken rule by the pro-business Liberal Democratic Party, lacks the skills to resolve conflicts among powerful bureaucrats and other interested parties, explained Minoru Morita, a prominent political analyst. The result Wednesday was an outburst of corporate anger and official backpedaling.

“In the past, senior members of the LDP would have mediated among the ministry, NHK and the companies,” Morita said. “Now this process is happening in public. You don’t have politicians experienced enough to act as coordinators.”

Even Hosokawa has at times proven inept. Just three weeks ago, the prime minister announced a major tax reform package, only to be forced the next day to withdraw it because he hadn’t fully cleared it with his political allies and relevant ministries. A heavily revised package was later approved.

A furious reaction from industry and Japan’s powerful semi-governmental television station, NHK, forced Egawa to retract his statement. While confirming Japan’s need to take a more serious look at the trend toward digital television, Egawa said at a news conference Wednesday that the Ministry will “continue to promote Hi-Vision as we have in the past.”

Experimental HDTV broadcasts will be expanded into full-time regular broadcasting, as previously planned, once a new satellite begins service in 1997, Egawa said.

An hour after Egawa spoke, the presidents of Sony, Matsushita Electric and NEC, three of Japan’s leading electronics manufacturers, held their own joint news conference to assure the public that the Hi-Vision standard will continue to expand in use well into the next century.

Organized in a collective effort led by NHK and the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, Japanese companies invested heavily in HDTV over the past 20 years in hopes of generating a new consumer boom. Electronics companies face sharply declining sales of VCRs and other key products and are desperate to find new items to keep their factories humming.

In an effort to promote Hi-Vision, Japan’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry has offered subsidies and tax breaks to 31 regions designated as special HDTV areas.

Corporations have come up with HDTV-related products. Consumer electronics maker JVC sells a VCR for the Hi-Vision standard, while a cosmetics company recently developed a line of products that is supposed to hide wrinkles that show up more clearly on HDTV.

But HDTV has been a big disappointment. With sets costing upward of $6,000, only 20,000 have been sold. The only HDTV programming available is nine hours a day broadcast by NHK that has been widely criticized as boring.

The uproar over Hi-Vision’s future is likely to increase doubts among private broadcasters regarding the wisdom of investing huge sums to broadcast HDTV.

Japan has faced similar troubles with other cutting-edge technologies. While superb at manufacturing sophisticated hardware, Japanese firms have a weaker record in software fields. As the world moves toward a multimedia age, with a premium on creativity and fast action, even huge firms such as Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp. are seeking links with U.S. firms that might help them keep up with the fast pace of change.

Japanese companies insist that in any event, their investments in Hi-Vision will not be completely wasted. Because the Japanese standard is a hybrid of the old analog and new digital technologies, much that was developed for Hi-Vision will be applicable to sets made using the next digital standard.

They also deny that consumers have wasted money by spending huge sums on Hi-Vision television sets. “Whatever comes out in the future, people won’t have to throw out their receivers,” said Norio Ohga, president of Sony.