Correspondents' Correspondence Traveling Salesman

...Traveling Salesman Tokyo??It was a visit laden with incongruities, the most notable being that it happened at all Yet there was the stony-faced Soviet foreign minister, Andrei Gromyko, sitting in a lavish meeting room at the New Omani, this city's newest and most luxurious hotel, emitting banalities about "improved Japanese-Soviet relations," "pleasant and rewarding talks with Japanese leaders," and the like Empty m themselves, these diplomatic niceties take on meaning when viewed against the shifting power alignments of the Western Pacific...

...Gromyko's Japan visit, coming just before President Nixon's China trip, was clearly designed to encourage Tokyo to look upon Moscow as an "alternative partner" to balance against both Washington and Peking Just as the USSR has emerged as the most influential foreign power in India, so it may hope eventually to gain similar leverage in the Western Pacific If that goal seems rather illusory in 1972, the prospect of a Soviet-Indian alliance would have seemed absurd in 1952, or even in 1962 —DDonald Kirk...

...Because of this impasse, the two countries failed to sign a formal treaty when they renewed diplomatic relations in 1956 They were on the verge of opening discussions in 1959 when Japan and the United States approved a revised mutual security pact, enabling the Russians to score points with angry Leftists by refusing to negotiate How could the Soviet Union, after all, conclude a "peace treaty" with a nation militarily allied with the US...

...By holding the "peace treaty" and "northern islands" cards until the most propitious moment, Gromyko was skillfully trim to draw Japan away from the "special relationship" on which it has built its industrial strength since World War II Furthermore, by making no public commitments, he was leaving the Soviets room to maneuver, should Japan begin moving too close to China or make up too quickly with the U S Gromyko admitted to having discussed the China question with Fukuda, "among other international problems" Enigmatic as ever, he merely said that "all countries are welcome to improve relations with China as long as they do not jeopardize the security of the Soviet Union " Gromyko's dignified tones contrasted with the acerbic wit of Chou En-lay, who told Japanese newsmen in Peking that "a certain Russian" then en route to Tokyo would try to lure the Japanese with words and gestures The Chinese, said Chou were most sympathetic with Tokyo's desire to regain territory lost to the Russians—jus as Peking would like to persuade Moscow to return some of the land formerly taken from it by the tsars...

...Relations between Moscow and Tokyo, it must be remembered, have ranged from bitter hostility to cool neutrality ever since Russian troops overran Japan's four northernmost islands in the closing days of World War II Soviet leaders admit the two islands closest to Hokkaido do indeed belong to Japan, but they insist on their rights to the other two, despite the fact that they were ceded to Japan by a light-hearted 19th-century tsar...

...These differences, however, were not mentioned publicly by either Gromyko or the Japanese foreign minister, Takeo Fukuda In fact, the only substantive result of their talks was a joint communiqu?¦ promising to negotiate the overdue treaty later this year Although Gromyko did not say so, diplomatic observers here are quite certain he hinted to Fukuda that the Soviets would at least onsider returning the islands, perhaps on a long-range timetable Tokyo has been so adamant on this point that it seems unlikely the two men could have agreed to proceed without clarifying the issue in advance...