Click here to return to the archive of columns by Edward Neilan
China, Japan leaders head for America
March 31, 1999
By Edward Neilan
Special to World Tribune.com
TOKYO--The world's two most influential traveling salesmen are heading for
the United States soon, their suitcases overflowing with products and
policies which they want to sell to Uncle Sam.
Or to get him to affix his seal of approval.
Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji, the former Shanghai mayor, is due to show
up at the White House
April 8 in the glare of media attention over China's human rights record,
charges that its spies have been pilfering U.S. nuclear secrets, its
promising trade and development outlook, and
its chances of getting into the World Trade Organization (WTO) while
keeping Taiwan out.
All of this is against a backdrop of a renewed and burgeoning U.S
domestic debate over whether
"engagement" or "containment" is the best way to deal with a newly-awakened
tiger.
Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi will arrive in Washington about one
month later, during what Japanese call the "Golden Week" holiday, for the
first state visit by a Japanese prime minister in 12 years.
(Asked what is the difference between a state visit and merely an
"official" visit of which there have been many, a Japanese diplomat said
"During a State Visit they shoot more guns on the White House lawn.").
The United States, Japan and China are the world's three most exciting
countries--perhaps also the most important-- for a lot of reasons.
Obuchi presides over the world's No. 2 national economy in value, and
Japan has the globe's largest foreign exchange reserves at US$221.5
billion. Japan's per capita Gross Domestic Product is US$23,105 for a
population of 126.3 million.
Zhu's China has US$145 billion in the bank, has a per capita GDP of
US$3,650 for 1,246.9 billion
population--about 10 times as many people as Japan.
Endless statistics are available to characterize the similarities and
differences of the respective leaders and their visits.
But you can't pinch statistics nor smell them; evaluation of a scene by
instinct and perceived charisma is not enough. Anecdotes often are more
meaningfully descriptive than yardsticks.
The United States gets high marks for providing the open markets in
which Japan and China can flourish, a fact more statute than quarterly
trade figures.
Political scientists will be staying awake at night calculating the
benefits accruing to each of the nations following the visits. There will
be advance predictions of "who will win" not unlike football
prognostications.
As usual, Canada's Marshall MacLuhan has the last word: "The medium is
message." The reality that Zhu and Obuchi are going to Washington is more
important than what will be said there.
If further symbolism is demanded, please note that both Zhu and Obuchi
will be arriving in U.S.-made Boeing 747 jet aircraft.
(New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, in a Tokyo speech recently,
said his research shows it is matter of fact that no two nations which have
McDonald's fast food hamburger restaurants have ever fought a war against
each other.)
By all odds, Zhu and China will get more press attention on the
upcoming visits, than will Obuchi and Japan.
This despite the fact that the United States and Japan have more
cooperative projects underway than any two sovereign nations have ever had
in history--from the formal "Common Agenda" to backpackers' guidelines
to manuals on zoo culture.
At this point in time, the pendulum positions China as more exciting
and uncertain to the American psyche, which is unable to embrace more than
one Asian giant at a time as its "favorite." Japan is more and more of a
known factor to Americans, therefore perhaps just a bit boring or
predictable.
It is the American public and media psyche that are fickle, not the
Japanese or Chinese international demeanor.
While on home leave recently, Japanese Ambassador to the United
States Kunihiko Saito told a Tokyo audience that he had become tired of
seemingly endless American public official and press criticisms and advice
on Japan. Saito, generally soft-spoken but with a reputation for
marksmanship in debates, asked an American journalist to explain the
negative reporting on Japan.
"If one fully-loaded New York-Dallas plane crashes, that's news," the
American journalist pointed out. He added "On the other hand, if all 40
New York-Dallas daily flights arrive safely, that's not news."
The explanation was astute. There hasn't been a plane crash in
U.S.-Japan relations in a long time.
Edward Neilan (eneilan@crisscross.com) is a veteran journalist, based in Tokyo, who covers East Asia and writes weekly for World Tribune.com.
March 31, 1999
|