Co-Prosperity Again

When Japan set out a generation ago to bribe and bayonet its way to domination over what Tokyo's propagandists called the "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere," an ambitious civil servant named Nobusuke Kishi became an economic administrator in Manchukuo, then Minister of Commerce and Industry in the Tojo Cabinet, and finally wound up in jail for three years after World War II as a war-criminal suspect. He emerged convinced that though the means had been inept, the aim remained the only solution of Japan's pressing economic problems.

Three months ago, at 60, Kishi became his country's Premier. Last week he set out on a whirlwind tour of "Positive Asian Diplomacy," through Formosa, Burma, Thailand, India, Pakistan and Ceylon, in preparation for a visit to Washington. His purpose: to persuade his neighbors that the new Japan was anxious to cooperate "in a spirit of modesty to achieve mutual prosperity by combining American capital, Japanese technology and local resources."

Showing Understanding. Acutely aware that he must start by disproving Communist accusations that he is an American puppet (which he certainly is not), Kishi was ready to sign joint communiques with Burma's U Nu and India's Nehru denouncing all nuclear tests. He hopes to remain on good terms with the U.S., but his line among Asians is that "the U.S. has failed in Asia, despite great sacrifices for Southeast Asia's welfare, through lack of understanding." As the first Japanese Prime Minister since the war to visit Southeast Asia, he himself had to be wary that some of these nations, e.g., Burma and Thailand, might have all too vivid memories of the "understanding" shown by their last Japanese visitors, who came in uniform. "We must try to convince the Southeast Asian countries," he said, "that the new Japan is not the old militaristic Japan."

Kishi traveled in a U.S.-built Japan Air Lines Skymaster (DC-4), accompanied by 15 advisers and 13 Japanese newsmen. "Economic diplomacy," he called his mission. He spoke for a nation whose per capita income is over $200, three times that of India, whose steel production is five times that of India, and whose rice yield is the envy of all Asia. In Washington he will argue that it is Japan, rather than more populous India, that in Asia could balance the growing economic weight of Communist China.

Rival's Welcome. Cut off from its "natural" markets on the Chinese mainland, Japan carries an unfavorable trade balance of more than half a billion dollars, made up in part by current U.S. "special procurements" in Japan but ultimately solvable only by finding new markets for Japan's growing and efficient industries. As Kishi put it: "Without prosperity in Asia, there is no prosperity for Japan." Kishi talked grandly of Japan's "capacity to extend assistance" to Southeast Asia, but Japan has in fact little capital to export.

Serious obstacles complicated Kishi's mission. As one Singhalese put it on the eve of his arrival in Colombo: "We remain wary of Japan's superiority complex toward other Asians." As for India, it is unhappy ovep the way Japan is selling cheap copies of Madras cottons and squeezing India out of the textile market in East Africa and Ceylon. In addition, Jawaharlal Nehru could hardly be expected to welcome a challenger to his dream of being leader of Free Asia. When Kishi set down last week in New Delhi, wearing a black wool suit, the temperature was 103DEG, but his reception, if proper, was decidedly cool.

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