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                                                                                NATION, Page 23

Japan Bashing on the Campaign Trail


The candidates are talking tough about trade, but voters think
their problems were made in the U.S.A.

By WALTER SHAPIRO -- Reported by Sam Allis/Boston, Jon D. Hull/
Manchester and Michael Riley/Little Rock


    Twelve years ago -- back in those innocent days when
candidate Ronald Reagan was pledging to balance the budget by
cutting taxes, and first-time presidential contender George Bush
was crowing that he was "up for the '80s" -- former Treasury
Secretary John Connally embarked on a bold strategy in his quest
for the G.O.P. nomination. In place of the Soviet Union and the
Ayatullah's Iran, Connally concocted an entirely different
American enemy: a small and peaceable island nation called
Japan. Connally blustered that unless the Japanese practiced
fair trade, "they'd better be prepared to sit on the docks of
Yokohama in their Toyotas watching their Sony sets, because they
aren't going to ship them here." His reward for being a
visionary: Connally won precisely one delegate.

    Fast-forward to the 1992 campaign and suddenly almost the
entire field of challengers -- from Pat Buchanan on the
Republican right to Senator Tom Harkin on the Democratic left
-- is singing out of the old Connally hymnbook. An artfully
contrived TV spot depicts Democratic Senator Bob Kerrey guarding
a hockey net while warning the Japanese that "if we can't sell
in their market, they can't sell in ours." Harkin vows to send
a similarly shrill message to Tokyo: "We're going to reduce our
trade deficit with you, Japan, down to zero in five years. Two
ways you can do it: buy more or sell us less." Even soft-spoken
Democrat Paul Tsongas cracks, "The cold war is over, and Japan
won." And if Buchanan puts "America First," guess what country
is last?

    Judging from tough-guy rhetoric alone, it might appear
that America is spoiling for a fight and, with the Soviet Union
on the dustheap of history, Japan is the only serious adversary
around. But the spate of Japan baiting mostly follows Teddy
Roosevelt's maxim in reverse: loud talk and little stick. No
presidential contender is reckless enough to portray Japan as
the Evil Economy. America's congenital optimism may be cowering
in the corner, but the candidates -- and most voters --
recognize that the roots of the nation's problems lie within the
50 states. Still, in the sound-bite derby for the White House,
Japan's affluence and economic nationalism make tempting
targets. Japan owes its current prominence to, along with the
recession, the President's sorrowful swoon at the Sparkplug
Summit in Tokyo. Never before has the nation's Globe-Trotter in
Chief seemed so woefully ill prepared on foreign soil. Bush was
unable to articulate a coherent rationale, other than pity, for
why Japan should liberalize its economic system to reduce its
trade surplus with the U.S. With a carping chorus of car
executives and a patronizing lecture from Prime Minister Kiichi
Miyazawa, the Bush visit became the free-trade version of Jerry
Ford's WIN (for Whip Inflation Now) buttons.

    Any presidential pratfall automatically becomes a big
issue, especially when six candidates in the two parties are
gunning for the job. Democratic trade moderates could suddenly
sound tough by attacking Bush's performance in Japan without
embracing strident protectionism. Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton
needles the President: "When the Japanese Prime Minister said
that he felt sympathy for the U.S., it made me sick. If I'd been
there with him, I'd have thrown up too."

    For the long out-of-power Democrats, the trade issue with
Japan offers a rare opportunity to define their vision for a new
global order. Bush's sense of the hierarchy of nations is still
shaped by the habits of the cold war -- otherwise why did he
wait three years to make a state visit to Japan? In contrast,
the Democratic contenders primarily view the world through the
prism of economics, and here Japan far outranks Boris Yeltsin's
Russia.

    But the Democrats appear ambivalent in their attitudes
toward the world's other economic superpower. Since three of the
five Democrats have been state Governors (Clinton, Kerrey of
Nebraska and Jerry Brown of California), they tend to welcome
Japanese investment in America (jobs) even as they deplore
Japanese trading practices (lost jobs). No Democratic candidate
would qualify as a Japan expert, but all, aside from Tsongas,
have visited the country. In fact Harkin lived in Japan for 18
months as a naval aviator during the 1960s, and Brown made
pilgrimages both as Governor and, more recently, as an acolyte
in a Zen retreat in Kamakura.

    If Japan provides the Democrats with a major foreign
policy opportunity, it also symbolizes the dangers of
overpromising. Economic nationalism is deeply embedded in the
fabric of Japanese culture, and it may be naive to believe that
the long-standing trade imbalance can be wiped off the books in
a single presidential term. No Democrat -- or Bush either --
seems prepared to confront the ultimate what-if question: What
if America's trade deficit with Japan is a permanent condition
and cannot be eliminated through pressure to open up Japanese
markets or short-term investments in domestic competitiveness?
The Democrats -- aside from Brown, who rarely mentions Japan in
his different-drummer campaign -- fit on a neat grid from hawk
to dove in their strategies for meeting the Japanese challenge:

    Harkin the Hawk: veering close to unabashed protectionism,
he demands that the Japanese reduce their trade surplus by 20% a
year -- or else. The threat would be akin to a Fortress America
ban on Japanese imports, a drastic remedy with scant appeal to
voters who freely choose to drive Japanese cars.

    Kerrey the Weathervane: in his TV ads and rhetoric he
often sounds like a Harkin echo. But then in interviews he veers
the other way, saying, "I don't think we ought to be
protectionist. I think we need to lead in a free-trade fashion."
His glib approach rests on the faith that Japan will respond to
firm U.S. pressure and -- presto -- the trade deficit will
vanish. "I don't mean to dictate to Japan what they do
internally," he insists, before adding, somewhat
contradictorily, that they "have to give us access to their
marketplace."

    Clinton the Conciliator: with his emphasis on rebuilding
America from within, he attributes only 25% of the trade problem
to Japan's structural barriers to U.S. imports. He stresses the
primacy of U.S. ties with Japan, saying, "It's like any other
important relationship in life. It can't be dealt with
intermittently." But Clinton can be almost as evasive as Kerrey
when it comes to the specifics of how to pry open Japanese
markets. As he puts it, "We'll play by their rules if they won't
play by ours and take appropriate action."

    Tsongas the Dove: his free-trade philosophy is buttressed
by a subtle grasp of the Japanese psyche. "We need to build
better products and compete better," he explains. "Then we'll
be in a position to negotiate. Now we're sitting across the
table from people who look at us with disdain." Threats are not
his style, but he points out that what the Japanese "fear most
is a U.S. consumer backlash."

    The debate over economic relations with Japan represents
the first campaign issue of post-cold war politics. Its
visibility in the early days of the race is a healthy sign that
America is finally facing the future. What a far cry from just
four years ago, when the word Japan was never uttered during
the two debates between Bush and Michael Dukakis.