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- <text id=91TT1182>
- <title>
- June 03, 1991: America Abroad
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1991
- June 03, 1991 Date Rape
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- WORLD, Page 36
- AMERICA ABROAD
- What Good Friends Are For
- </hdr><body>
- <p>By Strobe Talbott
- </p>
- <p> 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.
- </p>
- <p> 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.
- </p>
- <p> 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.
- </p>
- <p> 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.
- </p>
- <p> 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.
- </p>
- <p> 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).
- </p>
- <p> 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.
- </p>
- <p> 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.
- </p>
- <p> 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?
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
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