Why Pressure Tokyo?

The strained relations between Japan and the United States cannot be explained by spurious charges that the Clinton administration is pushing managed trade, capitalizing on anti-Japanese sentiment to score domestic political points or needlessly bashing Japan over economically meaningless international surpluses. Rather, the tensions arise from two fundamental and related developments: changed American priorities and the pronounced drag of Japan’s huge current account surplus on global demand, economic expansion and job creation.

The Clinton administration’s drive to spur global economic growth and strengthen U.S. economic potential requires a new deal with Japan. For itself and all other nations, the United States is seeking to converge Japan’s international accounts with the rest of the industrialized world and to open Japan’s markets.

NO MORE FREE RIDE

The search for such convergence marks a transition in U.S.-Japan relations, the fourth such transition since World War II. First came the reconstruction period, running through the early 1950s, in which the United States consciously helped rebuild Japan’s industrial capacity in order to make democracy permanent. The United States tolerated Japan’s protection of home markets, its resurrection of certain prewar practices and the resulting keiretsu structure of industrial cross-share holdings, in which companies cooperate informally.

The second phase began with the 1952 Mutual Security Assistance Pact, which ended U.S. occupation of Japan. The pact extended the U.S. nuclear umbrella over Japan and made Japan the Asian cornerstone of the Cold War containment strategy. Japan became vital to the defense of Pacific sea-lanes and host to the largest U.S. military base in the region. Although economic issues were steadily emerging, they remained secondary to security interests.