Word: miyazawa
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Japanese legislators have approved a motion of no confidence in the government of Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa; they say he has failed to attack political corruption as he promised to do. It is only the second such resolution since the 1950s. Miyazawa has dissolved the parliament, and must call new elections within 40 days...
Superficially at least, it was a big advance over the last time Japanese Premier Kiichi Miyazawa met with an American President: there were no digestive mishaps, and by quoting the song Yes! We Have No Bananas, Miyazawa made light of Bill Clinton's remark to Boris Yeltsin that Japanese say yes when they mean no. As for substance, however, Clinton's first U.S.-Japanese summit did not mark much of a change in the relations between the two countries. "Let's not paper this over," said Clinton. "There are differences still between the Prime Minister and me." Japanese markets...
...Miyazawa, standing nearby, didn't flinch. As expected, he suggested that a piece of his government's recent $116 billion stimulus package would end up paying for American-made goods (Clinton seemed underwhelmed), but he stood firm against "managed trade." Whether or not the two leaders really thought they could reduce America's $49 billion trade deficit with Japan harmoniously, they did promise to come up with a detailed plan to do so within three months. Of course, with the troubles Miyazawa's party is having at home, he may not be around that long...
That experience persuaded many U.S. trade experts, including close advisers to Clinton, to advocate "managed trade," implying much heavier-handed efforts to reduce the U.S. trade deficit with Japan, on the rise again at $49 billion last year. Miyazawa will try to hang tough but will probably wind up making at least some concessions -- though at the price of deepening resentment in both countries. And it is by no means sure how accommodating Japan will be this week when foreign and finance ministers from the Group of Seven industrial nations meet in Tokyo to put together a new package...
...would have to overcome its scruples about sending troops abroad, so that it could participate in any peacekeeping operations it might vote on. Japan did send 600 troops to Cambodia to repair roads and bridges under a U.N. peace mandate, but only after a bruising political fight that the Miyazawa government has neither the will nor the strength to repeat...