Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 5, 1994                   TAG: 9403050021
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: associated press
DATELINE:    TOKYO                                LENGTH: Medium

JAPAN CALLS US BULLIES BUT OFFICIALLY THE STRATEGY IS VERY COOL

Washington hasn't actually imposed any sanctions on Tokyo, so Japan's strategy has been to play it cool and work behind the scenes on a package of convincing market-opening measures.

"This is just a kind of procedure. People talk as if Japan is being singled out, but [it applies] to all countries," said Foreign Minister Tsutomu Hata of the "Super 301" law revived Thursday by Clinton.

Super 301 calls for targeting any country judged to be an unfair trader. U.S. officials have made it clear they intend to use the law to reduce Japan's $59 billion trade surplus with the United States.

In a television interview, Hata reiterated Tokyo's promise to come up with market-opening steps by the end of the month. And he welcomed reports that some businesses are preparing to announce stepped-up purchases of American goods, such as auto parts.

"I believe that we must . . . take effective measures to achieve a highly significant decrease" in the surplus, Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa said in a speech to Japanese lawmakers.

The United States has until Sept. 30 to list those countries it considers to have erected the most harmful barriers to American goods and services. If negotiations fail to remove those barriers, the administration could impose punitive tariffs of up to 100 percent against exports from those nations.

Tokyo's financial markets appeared Friday to give the Japanese government's strategy the benefit of the doubt: The stock market's main barometer, the 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average, closed up 360.14 points, or 1.84 percent, to 19,966.00.

And the dollar, which normally weakens during trade tensions, instead rose to close at 104.88 yen compared with 103.80 yen late Thursday in New York.

"It may take months or even years before sectors and products are singled out for sanctions" under Super 301, noted Raymond Bressoud, an assistant director at the Union Bank of Switzerland's Tokyo branch. "The market was not scared."

Nevertheless, some Japanese - mostly outside of the government - did not mask their irritation over the resurrection of the much disliked trade law.

"Instead of brandishing new trade weapons, the U.S. needs to begin talking realistically with its Japanese counterparts," said Japan's No. 2 automaker, Nissan Motor Co. "No one, least of all consumers, wins in a trade war."

"Super 301 is against the American legal notion because you will be playing both the judge's and the prosecutor's role," said Mitsubishi Corp. President Minoru Makihara, one of Japan's most prominent industrialists.

"The Clinton administration is running the risk of beginning a sinister trade practice," said the English-language Japan Times in an editorial for today's editions. The editorial said international trade agreements won't work "if any nation is to be allowed to attain its goals through unilateral and bullying measures."