Japan puts butter before guns

Press, 10 April 1980, Page 21

Japan puts butter before guns

The United States and Japan are engaged in the most heated debate for years on . the perennial question: How much money should Japan pay to defend itself? •5 “They’ve got to contribute more than, they have,” said an American military source, barely disguising his fury over the reluctance of Japanese leaders

to increase defence spending above the usual level of slightly under 1 per cent of the country’s gross national product. He added optimistically: “We think they’re gradually waking up to realities.” In fact, Japanese leaders, beneath a veneer of compliance and “understanding,” are procrasti-

nating as long as they dare. Off the record, Japanese officials talk darkly about American “interference in our internal affairs” and say the Government cannot afford to spend more. “There is a growing fear,” observed “Yomiuri Shimbun,” Japan’s largestselling national newspaper, "that the defence

spending question may turn into a point of discord between ’ the two countries.” It warned that a “quick-tempered” demand by the United States would have adverse results. American officials have found it hard to curb their impatience in a series of talks that, will reach a crescendo when the Prime

Minister, Masayoshi Ohira, flies to Washington early next month. His Foreign Minister, the erudite but politically powerless Saburo Okita, has just returned from the United States with “suggestions” from the Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, and the Defence Secretary, Harold Brown, that Japan invest a full 1

per cent of its gross national product in defence rather than the present 0.9 per cent. The notion has provoked a chorus of criticism from politicans and bureaucrats. The powerful Finance Minister, Noboru Takeshita, has said simply it would be “quite difficult” to increase the level of the budget — the kind of remark that in this society can be interpreted as a flat refusal. Leftist politicians are threatening prolonged opposition in Parliament to

any increase in defence spending. The Japan Socialist Party, in distant second place to the ruling Libera 1-Democrats, announced it would turn the defence topic into a major campaign issue in elections for the Upper House in July. Political analysts doubt if the Liberal-Democrats, deeply divided among themselves and in danger of losing the power they have held over Japan for more than a generation,

can afford such a bitter debate in view of unexpected support for the post-war Constitution forbidding any kind of military activity. “We can understand United States irritation with growing international tension,” said “Yomiuri Shimbun,” reflecting widespread popular opinion, but “there are other means than large guns that contribute to peace.” Copyright, London Observer Service.

By

DONALD KIRK,

“Observer,” London