Talking Past Each Other

By John Kohan

After 38 years of partnership, an odd couple feels the strain

It would be difficult to imagine a more unlikely partnership than the U.S.Japanese alliance. One nation is ancient and culturally homogeneous, crowded onto an archipelago at the edge of Asia. The other is an ethnic melting pot, with European roots, that spreads across a continent. Both are troubled by memories of a global war that inaugurated the nuclear age, terribly and personally for each. Still, over the past three decades the U.S. and Japan have managed to forge what U.S. Ambassador to Tokyo Mike Mansfield calls "the most important single bilateral relationship, bar none." An American with long experience in Japan remarks, "It is something of a miracle that two countries as different as we are have bridged the gap to the extent we have."

That span of trust and confidence is made of real girders. The U.S. is now Japan's most important trading partner. Together, the two countries account for nearly half of all production outside the Communist bloc. With 119 U.S. bases and 51,550 American troops on its soil, Japan has become the keystone of U.S. defense strategy in the Pacific. When the U.S. called on its allies to boycott the 1980 Moscow Olympics to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Japan was among the first to join. It also followed the U.S. lead in imposing economic sanctions against Poland.

But the U.S. and Japan have begun to realize that they can no longer take their relationship for granted. The American-Japanese dialogue has undergone an unsettling change. Tolerance has sometimes given way to impatience, accommodation to recrimination. Says former Foreign Minister Kiichi Miyazawa: "Since World War II, I have been able to talk with my friends from America on many issues, and most of the time we agree or agree to disagree. Now we are not even sure we are talking about the same thing."

The main areas of dispute, trade and defense policy are not new. But tensions have been aggravated by the persistent global recession and the growing Soviet arms buildup. With the U.S. unemployment rate at 10%, U.S. business leaders complain with increasing stridency about what they consider to be unfair Japanese trading practices. A number of the announced Democratic presidential candidates have joined former Vice President Walter Mondale in calling for protection against the flood of Japanese imports (see ECONOMY & BUSINESS). In addition, at a time when the U.S. is devoting 6% of its G.N.P. to defense, vs. less than 1% in Japan, many politicians and businessmen charge that Japan has been successful partly because it is getting a "free ride" on defense (see following story). Declared Senator Don Riegle of Michigan in a recent speech: "Japan spends almost nothing on its own defense, then turns around and kicks Uncle Sam in the teeth on trade."

Part of the problem is communication. As close as relations have been for 38 years, Japan and the U.S. have never had the kind of frank, not to say occasionally acerbic, dialogue that Washington frequently has with many of its European allies. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce Clyde Prestowitz observes, "Despite the enormous contact between American and Japanese officials and negotiators at higher levels, most of it is spent talking past each other." Japanese diplomats make the mistake of believing that if they can explain their policy often or well enough, the U.S. will ultimately agree with it. Part of the problem is semantic: the Japanese verb rikai means both to understand and to appreciate. While the two concepts are often blurred in Japan, in the U.S. they are not.

U.S. diplomats bear their share of responsibility for many of the crossed signals. They have shown a troubling tendency to ignore Japanese interests when making major decisions. The most notable example occurred in 1971, when, without advance warning, President Nixon devalued the dollar and slapped a 10% surcharge on all dutiable imports to the U.S. Two years later, the U.S. limited the export of all soybeans in order to avert a livestock feed-grain shortage, without realizing that this would cause concern in Japan, where soybeans are a principal source of protein.

Since coming to power last November, Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone has improved the diplomatic climate substantially. Before his first state visit to Washington in January, his government pointedly announced several tariff cuts and the easing of nontariff barriers. Nakasone also expressed a willingness to bolster Japan's defense role in the Pacific.

Much of the strain in U.S.-Japanese relations may be the inevitable result of a change in the way the Japanese view themselves. Increasingly, they believe that their economic success is the fruit of hard work and that the U.S. bears responsibility for its problems. An American diplomat in Japan explains: "Japan appears to be attempting to define a role for itself commensurate with the strength it exercises in the world."

If bilateral ties are to remain strong, the U.S. will have to realize that certain set notions about Japan must also change. Ambassador Mansfield contends: "We ought to quit leaning on the Japanese and get back to our own old time religion" of producing competitive, quality products with pride. The Japanese will also have to learn that a position of global power brings added responsibilities. Long considered the junior partner in the Western alliance, Japan may finally be ready for full membership. --By John Kohan. Reported by Carol Honsa/Washington and Edwin M. Relngold/Tokyo

With reporting by Carol Honsa, Edwin M. Relngold This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.