BY GEOFF MIRELOWITZ
SEATTLE - Despite growing protests in Japan demanding "Yankee go home," U.S. vice-president Al Gore, while on an official visit there November 19, reaffirmed Washington's determination to keep 47,000 U.S. troops stationed in that Asian country. Gore was in the city of Osaka attending the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in place of President Bill Clinton.
Gore and other U.S. officials were nonetheless scrambling to respond to the latest shockwaves from the crisis involving the U.S. military presence in Japan.
The latest controversy was sparked by Admiral Richard Macke, commander of all U.S military forces in the Pacific, who declared that the three U.S. soldiers who raped and brutalized a 12-year-old Okinawan girl September 4 should instead have paid for a prostitute.
At a breakfast meeting with reporters on the morning of November 18, Macke, a four-star admiral, remarked, "I think that it was absolutely stupid, I've said several times," offered Macke. "For the price they paid to rent the car they could have had a girl."
The rape has boosted the opposition throughout Japan to the U.S. military presence there, especially on the island of Okinawa. The vast majority of U.S. forces in Japan are stationed on Okinawa. The admiral's callous justification of sexual exploitation of women only reinforced the deep hatred felt by many Japanese toward the U.S. military brass for their role in organizing centers of prostitution everywhere they set up bases abroad.
Macke's statement was clearly untenable for Washington at this juncture in its relations with Tokyo. By the end of the day, under orders from the White House, he had "resigned."
Washington dumps admiral
Big-business circles in Japan were also wary of the
reaction Macke's remarks were bound to provoke there. His
resignation was initially reported by Japanese television
without mentioning his comments about the rape.
Leading U.S. capitalist politicians openly expressed concern about the impact of this affair on U.S.-Japanese ties. "Can you imagine what this does for relations between our countries now?" asked Senator Joseph Biden, a ranking Democrat. "If they were bad before, what do you think will happen now?"
Biden and other U.S. political figures had reason to be concerned. Gore's visit fell short of Washington's goal of a joint reaffirmation with Tokyo of the U.S.-Japan security treaty that allows U.S. bases to remain there.
The Japanese government, responding to public pressure and to some doubts in ruling circles over the arrangements that have been in place for decades, declined to issue such a declaration.
Any such announcement was postponed until a Japan visit by Clinton is rescheduled. Signaling Tokyo's concern about the issue of U.S. troops, Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama called a Clinton visit "a matter or urgency." The U.S. president cancelled his trip to Osaka at the last minute to deal with another debate unfolding in Washington - how much to cut Medicare and other social programs.
Cooperation or competition?
Washington faced difficult enough problems heading into
the 18-nation Asian-Pacific summit before the latest crisis
erupted. In fact, the Osaka "economic cooperation forum"
revealed more about rivalry in the Asian-Pacific region than
cooperation.
The forum was established with great fanfare in 1993 at a meeting on Blake Island near Seattle at which Clinton presided. A 1994 meeting took place in Indonesia. This year's gathering was intended to arrive at mutually agreed- on ground rules for achieving "free trade."
The progress made was less than dazzling. The document adopted by the summit "does not even define what is meant by `free and open trade,' " reported the New York Times. A principal issue is tariffs on products entering various Asian countries. Washington is eager to remove barriers to the goods produced by companies owned by wealthy U.S. families.
The forum's stated goal is to reduce tariffs, not eliminate them. Trying to put the best possible face on it, a U.S. official remarked, "That could mean zero. It could mean something more than zero."
China's assistant minister for foreign trade and economic cooperation explained, "I believe there will be several different interpretations of what has been agreed."
In the end, vague language reaffirming the goal of free trade by the year 2010 for industrialized and semi- industrialized countries and by 2020 for underdeveloped nations was approved. Again trying to convey the impression of progress in achieving Washington's goals, top U.S. trade official Mickey Kantor announced, "The train is gaining speed. No derailment at all - in fact just the opposite. We have made a step forward here at Osaka."
Agreement not binding
A more apt analogy might suggest that Washington's train
was stuck on a siding. Despite Murayama's claim that the
Osaka meetings were "of historic significance in that they
moved APEC from vision to action," the actual agreement
reached in Osaka is binding on no one and the organization
has no enforcement methods. Progress toward a "free trade
zone" in Asia would rely on voluntary action and "peer
pressure."
The problem facing Washington, its major rivals in Tokyo, and their junior partners throughout the region is anything but unique. Each government is striving to protect the interests of the wealthy families in its respective country and improve its economic and political position at the expense of its rivals.
The capitalist markets in Asia are booming and each capitalist class wants a bigger share of it. The "Issues" page in the November 19 Seattle Times captured the underlying problem. "In conflict: U.S. and Japanese interests," read the headline. "Powerful forces indicate deeper tensions lie ahead."
One of the noteworthy developments at the Osaka forum was China's announcement that it would cut tariffs on 4,000 items by an average of at least 30 percent next year. China has been under growing pressure from Washington and Tokyo to open its market further to the penetration of goods and capital from abroad.
Beijing's move received modest praise from vice- president Gore. "That was a positive step," said Gore. "There are others."