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By Newsweek Editors
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By all rights, the meeting in Tokyo this week between George Bush and his Japanese counterpart, Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, should be a celebration. The two men are from distinctly different cultures but cut from the same bolt. They are committed internationalists and free-traders, more comfortable in the salons of G-7 meetings than in political back rooms. As their generation came to power they watched an improbable alliance between Tokyo and Washington grow from the ashes of war. Japan was America's bulwark in Asia during the cold war; nurtured under America's wing, the Japanese created the economic miracle that won't stop. Now, 50 years after Pearl Harbor, the Soviet empire is a shambles, and Japanese-style capitalism is spreading through East Asia, turning a poor, politically unstable region into an economic dynamo.
A celebration it should be, but a celebration it is not. Rarely in the postwar era has there been more tension in the U.S.-Japanese relationship, and this week's trip may not do much to relieve it. To the considerable irritation of his hosts, Bush goes to Tokyo under fierce political pressure at home, thanks to a stalled U.S. economy and a presidential campaign in which Democrats are certain to hammer him for America's one-sided trade relationship with Japan. The trip, Bush said, was about three things: "Jobs, jobs and jobs." With 21 American businessmen in tow, he will seek substantive trade concessions from a nation whose economic power continues to grow despite a political system that often reeks of Third World corruption and incompetence. Bush will probably gain some cosmetic concessions, but they are unlikely to provide any lasting solutions to the tensions-and the reasons for failure may lie more in Tokyo than in Washington.
At a crucial moment in its history, Japan's lack of leadership is acute. Critics portray the country as a rudderless ship, a nation that pursues economic advantage almost mindlessly, with few internal political constraints. For most of its postwar history, the Liberal Democratic Party has governed Japan, passing the prime minister's post among four major factions. The differences among the factions tend to be personal rather than ideological, but the schisms can run deep nonetheless.
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Beyond the LDP, influence in Japan is dispersed into clusters of ruling elites--tribes of insular bureaucrats, businessmen and legislators whose only common goals are the expansion of Japanese economic power and the re-election of the ruling party. With no powerful central authority, Japan effectively runs on autopilot, say its critics-an "economic juggernaut with no brakes," writes Karel Van Wolferen, author of the influential "The Enigma of Japanese Power." Even Japan's friends concede that there may be disturbing elements of truth in that depiction.
In just over two months in office, Miyazawa has done little to dispel the concerns. His administration has been a tour de force of political ineptitude. Miyazawa fumbled three opportunities to demonstrate that he would be the prime minister under whom Japan would finally play a global political role commensurate with its economic strength. He flip-flopped on a tax proposal that would have paid for a variety of international programs, botched the handling of a controversial measure that would have allowed Tokyo to send troops on U.N. peacekeeping missions abroad and shelved a plan aimed at reforming Japan's faction-ridden political system.
Miyazawa's flailings are ominous for Japan. They deepen the growing perception abroad of Japan as a nation without an effective head of state. They also raise real questions about Miyazawa's ability to deliver on meaningful trade concessions to Washington, needed to preserve the all-important U.S. relationship. Senior officials in Tokyo reject the idea that Japan differs from the rest of the industrialized world. They point out that Miyazawa and his predecessor, Toshiki Kaifu, have had to deal with divided legislatures, much as Bush does in Washington. They argue, too, that every nation has bureaucracies, interest groups and turf fights-all of which can sabotage policy proposals. "Pardon us, but we're a democracy just like you are," a Foreign Ministry official said sarcastically last week. "We have to go through democratic processes. There is nothing fundamentally different about our system."
In truth, the image of Japan as the economic terminator, mindlessly chewing up markets around the world, is exaggerated. The current problems are arguably not systemic but rooted in Miyazawa's own failings as a politician-and the fact of the divided legislature. Just four years ago, when Noboru Takeshita was prime minister, Washington pressed for access to huge Japanese construction projects and the opening of the beef and citrus markets to U.S. exports. Takeshita, with the help of another of his powerful faction members, cobbled together enough votes to offer a phased opening of all three markets. The lesson: "You get the right people to deal with and things can go smoothly," says a former American government official who has dealt frequently with Japan.
This time around, Miyazawa will probably offer Bush several market-opening proposals, such as relaxing some safety and environmental guidelines to allow more imported automobiles into Japan without expensive equipment adjustments. Miyazawa will try to persuade Japanese auto companies to increase the number of foreign cars sold through their dealerships in Japan and urge them to increase purchases of U.S.-made auto components. And if by chance the Americans and the European Community solve their own disputes over agricultural subsidies, Miyazawa may even offer a slight opening of Japan's politically sensitive rice market.
Those "concessions" will probably be good enough for Bush, who is no trade hawk. The better news may be that Miyazawa is reaching out to people who can help him deliver on deals with Washington by protecting him at home. He has been urging a Takeshita-faction leader and political enforcer named Shin Kanemaru to become LDP vice president. The two men loathe each other; Miyazawa once said he'd like to see Kanemaru "drowned in the Kamanashi River." But LDP politicians say that Miyazawa realizes he needs help from the powerful Takeshita faction. And, according to Western diplomats, in Tokyo, Kanemaru, despite his misgivings about Miyazawa, acknowledges that yet another short failed administration is something Japan's international image cannot afford.
Japan also does not want to see Bush lose this year's election to another American politician who would not be content with minimal concessions. Miyazawa surely knows that-and Takeshita and Kanemaru will get a chance to hear it for themselves when they talk with Bush at a private dinner that Miyazawa is giving Wednesday night. The real powers behind Japan's chrysanthemum curtain are likely to hear a simple message from the president: help me now on trade, or you risk dealing with a Democrat in 1993. If they take it to heart and deliver, both George Bush and Kiichi Miyazawa could survive to meet again. That, they would celebrate.
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