TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/060391/0603005.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 3.7 KB | 83 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 36

AMERICA ABROAD

What Good Friends Are For


By Strobe Talbott


    The U.S. has "special relationships" with half a dozen or
so countries. Near the top of the list are Israel and Japan.
The U.S. was instrumental in the founding of the Jewish state
in 1948, and almost 6 million American Jews could be
automatically entitled to citizenship there. The case of Japan
is more ambiguous but no less special. The U.S. used A-bombs to
finish off a militaristic empire, then helped rebuild what has
become an economic superpower.

    Both relationships are strained these days. The Likud
government's commitment to the de facto annexation of the
occupied West Bank, hence to the open-ended subjugation of its
Palestinian population, hinders the U.S.'s ongoing effort to
broker a Middle East peace and jeopardizes Israel as a humane
and democratic society.

    Ties between Tokyo and Washington are frayed as a result
of bad American habits, notably an addiction to debt, as well
as predatory Japanese trade practices.

    But if the U.S. is having trouble with both Israel and
Japan, those two countries have had practically nothing to do
with each other. Without ever admitting it was doing so, Japan
has aided and abetted the Arabs in their 43-year-old economic
boycott of Israel. The U.S., Canada and some countries in
Western Europe have laws against companies' abiding by the
boycott. The Japanese kept mumbling that they favored free
trade, but that the "private sector" must make its own decisions
on commercial grounds.

    In fact, there is no such thing as a private sector in
Japan. Either that or there is nothing but the private sector.
For years Japan Inc. has had a one-dimensional foreign policy:
what's good for Japanese exports is good for Japan. Since there
were many times more customers for Toyota and Nippon Steel in
the Arab and Islamic worlds than in Israel, Japan abided by the
boycott.

    That's begun to change. In April, Toyota announced it
would sell cars directly to Israel. Nissan and Mazda are
expected to follow. For the first time, Japan is adding a
representative of the powerful Ministry of International Trade
and Industry to the staff of its embassy in Israel. El Al is
being allowed to open service between Tel Aviv and Tokyo (via
Moscow).

    Israeli diplomats consider these moves to be modest and
tentative but welcome nonetheless. American Jewish leaders and
members of Congress have been lobbying hard for the shift. So,
much more quietly, have some younger civil servants inside
several Japanese ministries. They see their country's compliance
with the boycott as symptomatic of the parochialism and
selfishness that have until now marked Japan's definition of its
role in the world.

    The Reagan and Bush administrations have helped too.
Former Secretary of State George Shultz raised the issue
repeatedly. James Baker and most of his senior deputies have
done the same. During a meeting in California in April,
President George Bush told Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu that the
end of the gulf war "might be an opportunity for Japan to have
closer relations with Israel." Kaifu agreed, adding that the
Arab boycott was "undesirable." Vice President Dan Quayle, who
met with Kaifu in Tokyo last week, pressed for more steps in the
right direction.

    This story, while unfinished, already has a moral: the
Japanese need gai-atsu, or outside pressure, almost as much as
they resent it. By leaning hard on its friends in Tokyo, the
U.S. is doing a favor for Japan as well as Israel. But, then,
what else are special relationships for?