The Bottom Line in Japan

...Even as White House writers were polishing up the remarks for Reagan to deliver to his hosts, Nakasone had to face one of the toughest tests of any Japanese Prime Minister in recent years...

...will be more than $20 billion...

...One of the first aims of a serious reform movement, spearheaded perhaps by a coalition of LDP malcontents and members of opposition parties, might well be to try to "neutralize" Japan between the United States and the Soviet Union...

...labor unions and the motor vehicle industry, among others...

...The opposition parties, ranging from the distant-second-ranking Socialists to the Buddhist-dominated Komeito to the Communists, united in refusing to attend parliamentary sessions until the LDP leaders made the issue of Tanaka's expulsion the first order of business...

...Hovering in the background is the specter of the man who probably continues to wield more political power than anyone else in Japan, Kakuei Tanaka...

...Not that neutralization is likely in the coming weeks or months...

...Besides, not even conservative Japanese want to risk the fiscal chaos threatened by massive investment in military equipment...

...Years ago, in his rise to power, Nakasone had called for strengthening Japan's military establishment while massive antiwar, anti-U.S...

...American cries for offsetting Japanese exports began rising in the early 1970s, when Japan's surplus started to exceed what appeared then as a whopping $2 billion annually...

...Tokyo's negotiators responded by making some concessions in the form of tariff and quota reductions, all announced amid much ballyhoo at critical junctures over the past few years, and by going as far as they could on what are euphemistically described as "voluntary" motor vehicle export restraints...

...into a corner...

...But this year the Japanese surplus in trade with theU.S...

...If Washington actually launched a tariff war against Japan, no Japanese leader could survive on a policy of military alliance...

...In a sense, Japan has negotiated the U.S...

...Moreover, the urgency of military priorities has increased amid report after report of growing Soviet strength in the area...

...By appearing to be a Reaganesque hawk, the Prime Minister in effect is able to bribe the United States into not imposing some of the severe restrictions demanded by U.S...

...Its bases are essential, for one thing, to support South Korea in case of an attack from the North...

...Japan can only become the target of nuclear shots from either side if it tightens its alliance with the United States, and raises its defense spending, in keeping with Washington's desires...

...After all, Nakasone had described the Japanese archipelago as an "unsinkable aircraft carrier" in a rather off-hand moment of his own visit to the United States last winter...

...for the trade deficit...

...For a nation still governed by a "peace constitution" that theoretically proscribes any kind of armed forces, the lure is hypnotic...

...Nor will the Japanese significantly increase their military spending...

...One victim could be Nakasone himself, because he has relied on Tanaka's faction in the Lower House of the Diet for the votes he needs to keep his post...

...The ultimate result, however, could be a polarization of forces in Japanese society, with a coterie of reformists aligned firmly against at least part of the LDP...

...Instead, it threatens to finally uproot at least some of the pillars that have supported Japan's ingrown conservative elite since shortly after World War II...

...Although Japan's great bureaucracy creaks faithfully onward under any circumstances, the phenomenon of legislative paralysis was enough to provoke Nakasone into a well-timed display of tears, it was said, at a closed-door session of party leaders...

...This could be catastrophic for United States foreign policy...

...The U.S., meanwhile, cannot picture a defensive system in the western Pacific without Japan as an ally...

...The fact that he had to endure a barrage of criticism upon returning home-and then placed his remarks carefully within the context of the long-existing commitments between the two countries?hardly diminished him in the eyes of the White House strategists...

...The agreement, under which Japan said it would ship no more than 1.85 million cars to the United States next year, reinforced Tokyo's argument that it's doing all it can to accommodate the American position while defending the free trade tradition...

...Nevertheless, he may get what he doesn't want if the Tanaka ruckus forces a political upheaval...

...His followers have been electing him to office despite his having to quit the Prime Minister's post in a real estate scandal in 1974, despite his implication in "Lockheedo" from the time the bribery reports surfaced at Securities and Exchange Commission hearings in the U.S...

...Indeed, the battle over Tanaka's future could tear apart the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and finally enable some of its lesser factions-or conceivably leaders of the opposition parties-to wield real influence...

...Since theincep-tion of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces during the Korean War, at the behest of the U.S., every Japanese Prime Minister has warily agreed to build up a tiny military force in the course of parrying demands for opening the Japanese market...

...in 1976, and despite his subsequent resignation from the LDP itself...

...In a system dominated by "money politics," Tanaka may be able to hold out against resigning from the Diet until he goes to prison-and perhaps longer if the voters keep returning him to office...

...For if Reagan was the quintessential American hawk, Prime Minister Yasuhi-ro Nakasone was his Japanese counterpart...

...Nakasone's recognition of this necessity is hardly unique...

...In the meantime, Nakasone's fervent reaffirmations of the U.S.-Japanese alliance are seen as the dues he has to pay to ward off the perennial danger of retaliation by the U.S...

...As if also to smooth the way for the President, the Japanese only the week before had eased up on trade quotas-marking one more in a series of measures designed to counter criticism of the barriers held responsible for mounting trade deficits between Japan and other manufacturing countries...

...Thus the United States is essentially buying what it views as vital military security at a high price in terms of jobs lost in American industry, declining profits and total business failures...

...Typically, the Finance Ministry, not the critics of the U.S.-Japan alliance, blocks requests for more than limited increases in the defense budget, being determined to keep such expenditures within 1 percent of the gross national product...

...Now, with memories of the Korean Air Lines Flight 007 shootdown still fresh, the two men could easily play upon their mutual anti-Soviet ism...

...The actions reflected the desire of both sides to remove some of the potential for unpleasantness from a trip viewed as a chance to reiterate old cliches?and embellish on them wherever possible...

...The process is bound to be evolutionary...

...And even if that is avoided, the cosmetic improvements produced by Reagan's trip notwithstanding, present policies virtually preclude reversing the trade deficit with Japan, likely to climb above $50 billion by 1990...

...Donald Kirk, a long-timecontributor, is a veteran observer of Asian affairs...

...His conviction last month on charges of having accepted bribes to expedite the sale of Lockheed aircraft during his tenure as Prime Minister from 1972-74 is by no means the end of the Tanaka affair...

...demonstrations were still in vogue...

...Tanaka might have graciously spared Nakasone the embarrassment by resigning from the Diet, but he clearly prefers to brazen out a series of appeals before surrendering to four years in prison-half of it to be nullified no doubt by parole...

...President Reagan would no doubt prefer Nakasone to a less amenable opponent...

...Yet for all the contrived optimism of Reagan's three-day visit, the United States may not be able to count on Nakasone much longer-If, in fact, he was all that trustworthy in the first place...

...There remains, though, the eventual consequence of "Lockheedo...

...OF ARMS AND AUTOMOBILES The Bottom Line in Japan BY DONALD KIRK Washington United States and Japanese negotiators rattled uneasily over the nasty little bump on the great superhighway to a predictable Reagan-Nakasone communique when they settled on a compromise quota for Japanese car imports nine days before Ronald Reagan's November 9 arrival in Japan...