US-Japanese: Are we on a Collision Course?

and with today's speaker I'd like to remind you that the Institute on world affairs is a an activity open to the entire ISU community if you are here you're part of that community and we welcome your participation we'll begin meeting Monday after next at four o'clock in the pine room we'll talk over this week for a few minutes and then we'll start arguing about what will choose for next year we try to choose the most important topic in the world and then we go out looking for the most important people we can the most interesting the most knowledgeable those that can tell us the most to understand that topic better and if you're at all interested or there's someone somewhere in the world you'd like to have come here and have this university here come get involved in the Institute they can part of the discussion and you can play a part in the way this works out next year so please think about that welcome to this news lecture before we introduce our speaker I'd like to bring to your attention that tonight Jane Cortez is going to be giving a lecture in the Sun Room on economy ecology and poetry and then tomorrow at noon here in the Pioneer room we have a panelist spar speaking on engendering change women in the new world order today's speaker Mitsu Goto-- served in executive positions in europe and japan with the Nissan Motor Company before forming his own international consulting firm for the auto industry while with Nissan he was in charge of the International Affairs and he also worked in Europe when Nissan opened its early plants in the UK he's a graduate of Wabash College in Indiana and he did his graduate work at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs he was managing director for the Japan Centre for international exchange and his author of speaking out for Japan my discipline in internationalism he's on the board of advisors for the Belgian Business School a member of the Council of London's policies study Institute and a recipient recipient of the Benjamin Rush Award for humanistic values in corporate I introduced them to you go to' on us Japanese relations are we on a collision course thank you yes generous introduction my last name Gothel is spelled g oto and when I went to Wabash College years and years ago some of my classmates would call me goat oh hi goat or even call me hi billy goat so around 1974 in the wake of first energy crisis Japanese cars started selling like hotcakes in America and touched off a small small car war they termed that the Japanese mass media corn and I am I thought my nickname should be escaped as in scapegoat so if you like to call me escape be very happy in fact my nickname was written up on the front page of Wall Street Journal in February 1975 so I'm very pleased and to be on the campus of Iowa State University today and feel honored to be invited invited by the Institute on world affairs to speak to you today especially the day after the important presidential election I don't know why you chose this particular day for me to to speak but I'm delighted and feel honored to be here today I see sometimes there are two kinds of dreams that I see in not that I see dreams that often one dream that I sometimes see is myself walking up to a podium like this facing an American audience such as yours unable to utter a single word of English you see I did not speak a word of English till I was about 17 or 18 so sometimes I see this kind of dream and wake up and having really cold feet the other then then I'm also reminded of a young Japanese boy someone like me who came to this country to study his Japanese his English was so poor that whenever he wanted to say something he had to look upwards in his pocket japanese-english dictionary one day he will be invited to a party where he was introduced a pretty American girl so he quickly looked up his dictionary and said you have a beautiful high hid e you see in Japanese there one or possibly two words which would describe outer coverings of anything but in English you say strange enough human beings and picks up skin and horses and cows have high on them tree has a bark Orange has a Reyn bananas appeal and peace have pods on them and and of course I've known that that there are some nuts in this country which have not shells on them but the skin on them also but his friend immediately noticed the American friend said to him don't know young man you should have used that word skin in a case like that complexion will be too much for you so next Sunday following Sunday he goes to the local church where the congregation was singing him jaimé jaimé o my Savior so he started singing scheme a scheme me or my City actually the other kind of dream that I sometimes see is the sky filled with Boeing b-29 bombers that used to come drop bombs over us in the last years of the war and and I was then attending a boarding school on the outskirts of Tokyo but in the last year of the war all of the students who mobilized for war effort we had to work in the nearby Nakajima aircraft engine factory operating lathes and things like that and and that became the first target of the b-29 bombers based in Marianas in November 1944 in the first wave of b-29s came in high altitude and since from my childhood I was always interested in airplanes and cars i disregarded the order to stay in the air raid shelter and watch these b-29s come high altitude in broad daylight and their bomb base open and bombs coming down and fortunately the plant went up in smoke but nobody was injured and I remember seeing Japanese anti-aircraft guns being being shot but the the b-29s came in such high altitude that the guns could not get to them but I do remember seeing a Japanese fighter playing congas a style crashed into one of the between eyes and the both planes coming down this was the first time I got to we Japanese got to see what the b-29 looked like because there had been no published picture of the aircraft in the newspaper or magazines and I was really fascinated with these long-range bombers now after the nakajima aircraft plant went up in smoke I then returned to my hometown which is Nagoya a big industrial city between Tokyo and Osaka or for that matter between Kyoto and Tokyo and my my father said to me that perhaps between eyes will start coming to Nagoya also because Nagoya was a home of Mitsubishi aircraft which used to produce famous zero fighters and sure enough in March of 1945 between I started coming dropping bombs over us but sometimes they'll come nighttime and if you hear the engine you know each plane having four engines and there are normally about five three to five hundred b-29s in the air the engine noise alone had devastating psychological effect on us dum dum glow and then we'll cringe in the area shelter and we soon hear bombs exploding nearby and then on May 17th 1945 three months before walking to the end my parental home which was a big Japanese style home in Nagoya went up in smoke after 513 b-29s in a particular rate dropped incendiary bombs in Nagoya and I remember standing on the smoldering ruins of my parental home saying to myself my god what have we done and it made me wonder why the Japanese army generals Tojo was the Prime Minister army general who attacked through harbor in the first place and wondered why Japan ever declared war against the United States I was really mad at the Japanese army generals who started this last war and also wondered if they had maintained a good dialogue with President of the United States Secretary of State perhaps war could have been avoided or if they had much better understanding of the great expanse of America especially the Midwestern part of the United States and your industrial capability I think war could not could not have happened and so when the war came to an end then after I graduated from this boarding school senior high school I decided that I would not want to go to college in Japan but rather I would grab first opportunity offered to me to come to the United States to continue my studies and and but I said to myself first you had to study the language so I during the day I worked on my father's farm just outside of Nagoya and my father being absentee landlord land would have been taken away by tenants if I did not work on my father's farm under MacArthur's new agricultural policy and so during the day I worked on my father's farm by night I would listen to the Armed Forces Radio Japan was still under the Allied occupation and and listen to especially newscast and then imitating the radio announcer who was normally a GI I would read aloud the only english-language newspaper published in The Japan Times trying to memorize phrases words and sentences and when I became reasonably proficient in the language in about a year and a half I then decided to go work for the local US military government in Nagoya where a lot of my American friends would write to their own colleges in universities and to see if they had scholarship available for me but in vain I was also working with a young American in mid-30s civilian employee from Ladoga Indiana a tiny town of 500 people even people in the air don't know where he is but anyway one day this fellow became seriously you know he had bhavet IPO that affected his neck he had hard time breathing and he was taken to flown to US military hospital in Osaka and remained in an oxygen tank for ten days but died there ten days later it just so happened that a few days he was stricken I had taken his picture in your office and when I wrote a letter of condolence to his mother back home in Indiana I thought she would like to have his picture so I enclosed it and for the end of my letter I said someday I would very much like to to come to your country to continue my education and she was everything we had heard about me from her son and she was good enough to drive to Crawfordsville Indiana which is about 13 14 miles from Ladoga and she talked to the admissions wrecker Wabash College eventually Wabash College gave me a scholarship so only because her her son did not make it back to Indiana I was able to come and I and I had four years of one or education in the heart of the Midwest so I became a kind of Japanese fujur and and then I also received fellowship to do graduate work at the Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs so I've had education wise best of both worlds and I'll be forever grateful to my American friends who made it possible for me to come to the United States in the first place now today I'm supposed to be talking about u.s. apparent relations whether we are on a collision collision course my thoughts always go back to January of this year when President George Bush evidently was persuaded by the in commerce secretary Bob Mosbacher to bring 21 US business leaders in the auto sector and I personally have had very good relations with chairman of the big three trees of Detroit Lee Iacocca he also had done graduate work in engineering at Princeton and I got to know him very well he was president of Ford Motor Company and then read Pauling germinal Ford and Bob's tempo of course he had to step down just a few days ago but actually one of the Japanese automakers said at the time that when there are so many of us we cannot possibly have meaningful discussion you know and in fact in in advance of their visit both American and Japanese government negotiators negotiated is sort of a autoparts purchased plants and I think on a voluntary basis Japanese automakers now made commitments to buy as much as 19 billion dollars worth of auto parts from us suppliers by 1994 but already there have been so much goodwill on the part of Japanese automakers also the part of our government to want to buy more from the United States and actually since becoming independent international consultant I've been retained by chairman of the Timken company which is the biggest bearings manufacturer in the United States and also by chairman of our bean industries in Columbus Indiana which is the US biggest all exhaust system manufacturer along with shock absorbers and their Chairman also asked to come to Japan with the president but turned the president down in saying they do not want to be politicized I'm also reminded of the I mean as a other result the auto issue was really highlighted and you know because of President Bush's visit to Japan I'm reminded of the story of a Chrysler dealer somewhere small-town USA and the story that mr. Straub who is Dean of the Sloan School of Management at MIT personally told me now this was the Chrysler dealer in you know in the days when Chrysler Corporation was having grave financial difficulties and the dealer found it very difficult to move chrysler cars from his showroom floor and he became and more and more depressed so he took to alcohol and eventually his wife and children left him one evening he was nursing a bottle with his shaky hands and suddenly I came smoke and with it a genie now Jenny said to him thank you for having gotten me out of this bottle in gratitude I'd like to grant you your last wish so the Chrysler dealer dealer says get me an import dealership when the smoke cleared in the genie disappeared the Chrysler dealer found himself in the middle of Tokyo selling chrysler cars actually The Wall Street Journal had a notorious in January that said Japan should have kept the Iacocca in Japan so that he will be directing sales of Chrysler cars in Japan you know actually I felt this would be a golden opportunity for Prime Minister nozawa first Japanese Prime Minister who is very international minded and also who is able to speak English fluently I thought maybe by getting together with the President of the United States they can discuss broader issues global issues where Japan and the United States could possibly collaborate but instead if you recall at the dinner hosted by our prime minister President Bush threw up we are fortunate he was probably very tired after a grueling trip to Australia and other parts of Asia and so they did not get to discuss more important issues of the day maybe this being the day after the presidential election I should be talking about about Texas businessman Ross Perot but remember t boone Pickens the famous Texas oilman started coming to Japan like a couple of years ago in saying that now that his company had had twenty six percent of the Japanese lighting headlight manufacturer called cojito manufacturing the three of his men be placed on the Japanese company's board in the Japanese company also increased dividend payouts and he kept coming back to Japan but over the years I got to meet him and see him and I began to like this man he he one day gave me his autobiography autograph and in reading his autobiography I admire the way he managed his own company how he treated everyone my name's company you know just like the Japanese Japanese company you know there's no distinction between blue color and white color etc but he also told me a story to American women walking down one of the fashionable streets downtown Houston one day when they heard a frog I found a frog in the gutter and the Frog started talking to them in saying that I used to be an oil man with the spell was cast I came a frog now if one of you were to pick me up and kiss me I'll be able to turn back into an oil man so one of the women picked him up and instead of kissing him she put him in her purse and they continued down the street after a while this other woman got concerned and said to the other why didn't you kiss him and the other woman said nowadays a talking frog is worth more than our oil man but as you know he was not successful in taking over Japanese company and he often appeared before congressional committees in saying that the Japanese companies are not open to foreign investors etc also beginning January of 1990 Japanese government and the US negotiators began a series of negotiations that were called SII which means structural impediment negative almost sound like a star war you should be with something and US side came up with many as 75 different demands ranging from Japan and start buying American rice Japan opened up its market to big toy stores such as tora tora like i can never pronounce that word toy toys are down to we Japanese stop being or colleagues and take more paid holidays and also knowing that we have pension for personal savings on the average we saved 16 fifteen to sixteen percent of our annual income and to put put that into personal savings account as against your five to six percent so American trade negotiators who come to Japan say to us you know you become Spencer it and buy more from America etc so I was beginning to feel that now wait a minute you are getting into our domestic you know in our domestic affairs but even the poll conducted by a Japanese newspaper in I believe in April of 1990 some forty percent of Japanese Paul felt that some of the us demands are justifiable sixty percent of Japanese Paul also felt that the Japan ought to start applying American rice bit a bit because foodstuff in Japan tends to be very expensive compared to the food prices here in the United States and then the Japanese side not to be to be outdone for the first time came up with a dozen demands and to talk to the United States of course the Japanese negotiate would say that us in Riyadh ought to put its economic house in order by reducing federal huge federal budget deficit reduce trade deficit with Japan and you encourage your industries to become more productive improved productivity and competitiveness etc again I'm reminded of the story of the Admiral of the fleet which was told by Marvin Runyon for Nissan wood away from Ford Motor Company to run Nissan's manufacturing operation in Tennessee in fact I was well I need some motor company I was in charge of US investment project also and this story of the Admiral fleet is one day an ensign on his flagship but watching the ship's radar screen and he saw a small blip so he shouted we are on a collision course you change course and the voice would come back and say you change course and you change course and and they were getting nowhere finally the this incident reports this back to the Admiral now Admiral of the fleet now had a microphone in his hand he said this is the Admiral the fleet whoever you are change course and the voice came back and saying god dammit I'm the lighthouse you change course well I think US negotiators know that the we Japanese are very susceptible to external pressure we would we would do something you know we will always react to external pressure and so they have always used kind of harsh tactics harsh rhetoric to get us to do something actually caving in well not exactly caving in to pressure but beginning about five six years ago we not be noticing for iteration of fact u.s. fast food chains in Japan and first of all of course the McDonald's hamburger joint and then Colonel Sanders Fried Chicken came then Denise came baskin-robbins ice cream joint came Taco Bell and Pizza Hut everybody is now in Japan and finally 7-eleven stores came in in joint venture partnership with a Japanese retail chain called Ito yoga doll and there are now more than 4,000 outlets throughout Japan and and they are doing very good business they have very good market research program and the merchandise on on their shelves are changed so often to meet the demanding tastes of Japanese and actually parent company Southland corporation in Texas began to have financial problems in the Japanese side in ended up going to the rescue of Southland corporation and Southland I mean the Japanese yo-yo kado now has I believe something like sixty percent equity in Southland corporation and I think there is a very good example of joint venture between American company and a Japanese company doing so well in Japan now the Japanese populace is bombarded with what you Americans call junk food but we don't call it youngsters really like your fast food restaurants and it's very hard for me to keep my daughters from 17 not baskin-robbins ice cream joints for example at any rate we are beginning to see obese children because of changing food habits and and I'm afraid the rate of heart attack among all the other people is on the increase because we we buy nowadays as much as 73% or your beef export can you imagine this you know sometimes senator Bakk Max Baucus in Montana and other senators or congressmen would say to us you must buy more American beef and now we ended up buying as much of 73 percent of your beef export I know the United States for example restrict the import of inexpensive beef from Argentina or Australian but we ended up buying so much American beef we also buy nowadays something like 68 percent of your pork export and much of which both beef and pork come from Iowa in fact between Iowa and Japan Iowa has trade surplus with Japan I was this morning was just talking with Ratan governor joy Corning in Des Moines and I got to see her in Tokyo in June of this year she was just saying that and that's really amazing and and we also buy 51% of us citrus exports so our warehouses are now bulging with grapefruits and oranges from the United States and my family for example can enjoy grapefruit halves for breakfast every morning prices have come down which is very good thing we also buy about 31% of your chicken export and about 25% of soybean export corn export feedstock export and and sorghum also I think and leave tobacco so we last year if they ended up buying as much as 81 not 8.1 billion dollars worth of agricultural products from the United States so we are United States and best agricultural customer now Japanese industries also have been bending backwards for Japanese government or government on universities also bending backwards to buy more and more from the United States some seven years ago the manufacturer goods imported from the United States accounted for only 30% of imports from the United States but last year we the imports from the United States totaled like fifty three billion dollars but 63% of which were manufactured goods such as satellite space satellites communications equipment computers a hundred million dollars worth of American movies and American movies are very popular in Japan and we are also buying we like new Cadillac Seville and which is becoming very popular in Japan Japanese youngsters like Ralph Ralph Lauren you know outfits and there are also Brooks Brothers tours in Japan now so we it's not that we do not like to buy anything from America as some of you are led to believe but we really like things American still and I hope more American companies would would bend backwards to study the Japanese market and export their products to Japan actually the Japanese today imports more on a per capita basis and per capita dollar figure is something like 800 and not excuse me 387 dollars worth of u.s. products at versus on per capita basis you Americans have been buying about three hundred fifty-seven dollars worth of Japanese goods so that is where we now stand speaking of Iowa Japan relations in addition to to your exports Japanese companies have come to Iowa to invest in sk the japanese bearings company has a plan here rich Bridgestone also invested here in Iowa that's a tire company and a Gino moto which is you know the company that makes seasoning called accent has a plant here in Iowa Sammi Tommo Chemical also has come and horn de part distribution facility is here in Iowa in Toyota Insurance Company of North America has just decided to locate its head office in Cedar Rapids Iowa so more and more Japanese companies are also finding Iowa their American home homes in fact I was in when I was introduced I used to be for a long time with Nissan Motor Company which is a tiny struggling Japanese automaker and and I was also also I also spearheaded Nissan's right to invest here in North America and we began a feasibility studies as far back as 1974 and and the final decision to invest in Smyrna Tennessee was made in time for the presidential election of 1980 you know was a toss-up between Jimmy Carter's reelection and and or Ronald Reagan and in the end I was negotiating with governors of Tennessee and Georgia Georgia governor was democratic governor George Busbee and I played them against each other to get a better deal and finally finally we decided Isan decided to go to Tennessee because Lamar Alexander among other things moved state legislature to vote as much as 7.2 million dollars for training our future employees and Nissan itself matched with sitting aside as much as 52 million dollars for training our people that's and then to date Nissan increase that amount by by double that amount so and today today Nissan in Tennessee employs over 6,000 people and yes I also decided to Bill's an Asian plant and Dekker Tennessee but of the six thousand people over thousand people when they were newly hired managers inclusive or sent to Japan jointly by the state of Tennessee and Nissan and so that groups of maybe thirty and so that they can receive on-the-job training lasting like six weeks in Japan they will have orientation program for Japanese lifestyles also and whatever they the garner and they would bring back to Tennessee and by having the best of both worlds they have been producing real high quality vehicles in Smyrna Tennessee and I for one are very happy that Nissan made their home in the United States in Tennessee now the man who was named the first president chief executive officer Marvin Runyon's name I already mentioned he was vice president body and assembly a Ford Motor Company but he did such a good job that he used to say the people are the greatest asset we have including stake holders and he did such a good job that President Reagan tapped him to be chairman of the travel TVA about a year ago President Bush asked him to become Postmaster General well I think he's doing a very good job in you know was possible us pasta pasta service has had some problems and I think Marvin Runyon is a good job as Postmaster General today before I conclude I just want to say that over the years in the last say two decades the United States in the United States and Japan have become so mutually interdependent our economies we have been bound by mutual security pact also and culturally also there is so much going on even between educational institutions in Iowa and the Japanese educational institutions and then state of Iowa has had a long-standing association with Yamanashi Prefecture which and where Mount Fuji is located I was told that in 1960 when the Yamanashi Prefecture hit by a terrible typhoon pigs were sent by generous people here in Iowa and that was the beginning of Iowa and Yamanashi Prefecture sister state or sister Prefecture ties and again I'm very grateful to the Iowa people for having sent relief goods to Yamanashi Prefecture I think Japan probably needs America more than America would need Japan Mike Mansfield who was long ago Senate the majority leader from Montana was American ambassador to Japan during the Carter Administration and also through the Reagan administration he's Democrat but he did such a good job in Japan that President Reagan reappointed him as ambassador to Japan he used to say the next generation next century is the century of the Pacific and that's where the action is going to be and that's where the growth is foreseen also there's no more important bilateral relationship between that and that between Japan and the United States barring none and I fully concur Japan also needs to play a bigger political international role and of course as you have heard a prime ministers leadership role Miyazawa leadership role has been debilitated by the political party scandal involving political contributions intra factual dispute as as to who should be the faction leader who is likely to be next Prime Minister but at any rate because of Connemara position I think Miyazawa Prime Minister has been keeping his mouth shut about his in his own involvement and I think it has really stability his leadership role in fact his popularity rate is now down to 20 percent so that's the kind of leadership problem that we are having now until about November of last year for four years I was on loan from Nissan Motor Company to the nonprofit organization called Japan center for international exchange as managing director now one of the major objectives of this organization was not only annual congressional and parliamentary exchange program that we had in the last 15 16 years in fact when Dan Quayle was freshman congressman from Indiana he and his wife Marilyn were brought over to Japan and I was since I'm a Wabash graduate in DePaul University he's the Wabash archrival I was asked to take him out for first for breakfast and dinner so ever since I got to know them very very well now same way with Al Gore jr. and when he was a freshman congressman from Tennessee he and Tipper were brought over to Japan and and I took I remember taking them out for dinner and I've maintained very close contact with Al Gore jr. and Tipper since then the fan Center for international exchange was also organized major us-japan dialogue which is called Shimoda conference which will bring together your political leaders business leaders and academics to always policy oriented discussions we were also the parent committee for the trilateral commission which is the brainchild of David Rockefeller and annually this trilateral commission meet once a year North America Japan in Europe and we used to organize policy oriented discussions but but the major objectives of the Japan Center in the last few years had been to encourage or educate Japanese political leaders and three years Japan really need to be played a bigger political role in the community of nations and I don't know how much we've been successful at least I can get these business leaders also being crying I mean we also try to enlighten Japanese business leaders in the American concept of corporate philanthropy getting involved with community affairs increasing number of Japanese businessmen who are based in this country now there is encouraged to get involved with Community Affairs when invited to speak at the local Rotary Club luncheon or something they are encouraged to speak you have but I don't think Japan could ever play and the kind of moral broker or Quarles policeman's role of which the American President or Secretary of State have played so I hope now that you have elected Bill Clinton as the next president I hope the president that only can redress some of your domestic issues your economy and jobs and other domestic issues but I hope that he'll be very good international international I mean president for the rest of it for the rest of the world also Bob Strauss whom I have known for a long time he's currently your ambassador to Russia who said several years ago let us build upon a common vision so that the United States in Japan can stand together as we approach the new frontiers of the 21st century and I feel the same way thank you very much actually not very many of us happen to know Bill Clinton that well although a lot of Japanese business leaders have been coming to the either japan-us southeast Association meeting at which governors of all seven southeastern states bring a big number of business states business delegation to this annual conference but Arkansas has never been part of this conference and so I have known governors of all these seven southeastern states very very well some some past governors but none of us really have met Bill Clinton although he's been to Japan three times to to invite Japanese companies to come in investing I think four or five Japanese companies but he is still kind of figure everything we had done very well he has done very well as governor I'll consult and of course he he was educated at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and I hope somebody who is really qualified will be appointed your secretary of state and and maybe somebody like war and Christopher's name has been I also feel that you know in one of the presidential candidates debates he said that in order to increase the tax base he's going to tax anyone making over $200,000 a year and also he said foreign companies investing here in this country I hope I hope he would not treat the foreign companies differently from US companies because I for one feel that for example Nissan my former company which has invested so heavily in the United States we consider that company to be an American company no longer only maybe less than ten Japanese so I hope Japanese companies that there are about 1,400 Japanese companies that have invested throughout the United States for manufacturing I hope I hope they are not subject to different rates of tax I really do not think so of course in Japan as you know our economy is now they're suffering we say in Japan bubbles also have burst and our stock market has been very depressed real-estate values has started going down for the first time so economies are not doing I mean Japanese companies are not doing very well you know you know when American multinational corporations invest overseas of course and they tend to create more jobs overseas also but I think the statistics show that that also created more job opportunities here in America also because your companies here will have to produce certain componentry or something for overseas sure actually my primary concern or the concern of business which means business - such as mr. mortar of Sony is the content of US Japan trade you know I hope my my sincerest wish is that more American companies would be able to export to Japan more of high value-added things rather than raw materials and parts and components kind of things but looking at the recent US Japan trade US companies tended to buy even machine tools from the United Front from Japan a machine tool industry in United States used to be world's number one huh why over the years I think they lost out to foreign competition I I just do not know you might the same way or much of your steel mills in fact my I'm not Weiser to the Timken company but Timken company built a new steel mill in Canton Ohio in 1983 with technologies from two japanese mills and that mill produces the cleanest steel in the United States and for the inauguration Reagan and went there for the inauguration that steel mill but I hope you will not lose years ago we talked about hollowing out of industries but I think your basic thing I hope your basic industry will remain strong I mean including your auto industry and parts and component manufacturers also actually several years ago Japanese government agreed to pick up more of the defense cost me the cost of having American troops based in Japan and and I think we nowadays pick up the cost of all Japanese means payroll of all the Japanese employees hired by the US military in Japan I think housing cost and things of this kind and that amount per soldier for airmen u.s. airman is higher than the the cost that which is tab which is being picked up by any of the NATO countries so I think maybe half half the cost of having US troops based in Japan is being picked up and by the Japanese government I think I think the gradually US forces stationed in Japan will be reduced I think already I think the US troops based in Korea is being that was already announced but perhaps I think the number of somebody told me there are 60,000 US forces you know airmen and Navy and Army being based in Japan but perhaps that number could be reduced I don't know we still you know follow pins and gave up the US Naval Base Subic Bay and Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines was had to be abandoned because of the eruption of that inner tube so I think US troops would need some kind of base I think in Japan Air Force Base or maybe naval port you know I also realized that the u.s. is is currently having a bit of difficulty relationship with with China after the Kenya Moore incident because of human rights issues involved but I think Japan is maintaining very cordial relations with China we had our Emperor visit China just a week or so ago and although our Emperor had to apologize to the Chinese people that you know during wartime Japanese army invaded China and killed so many even trillion populace but I think I think Japan can maintain cordial relations will probably can give certain economic aid and but I also like to see and we Japan do this in collaboration with US companies no I do not well of course when Gorbachev came to Japan the last time there was great expectation that he would make certain concessions but that did not happen of course its position and within the within Russia was being weakened but by Yeltsin but Yeltsin is also concerned about the economic health of Russia and I don't think he is inclined toward returning even two of the four northern islands to Japan but of course of course Yeltsin would like to see seek Japanese economic aid but Japanese government seems to be thinking you know if we depend gives Soviet Union I mean Russia some kind of economic a package then in return we wanted some back but it's not going to work work that way I don't actually because of the public opinion prevailing there even during the 70s and for example Japanese industries especially the auto industry had to comply with these the very strict exhaust emission control standards and that was introduced in Japan I believe 1973 based on the so-called muskie standards and the basis of muskie standards as I understood it was that somebody amateur measure is also a mission on a busy street in Chicago and senator Edmund muskie put it in the exhaust emission control so Japanese automakers have had to comply you know initially the Japanese on all industry would say oh we just cannot produce cars that can meet that kind of standard but we did it and as a result the air over Tokyo and you know soccer metropolis has become very clean in the meantime from stationary sources also or smoke smoke we have put in restrict local regulations and as a result the air I think over top over Japan is now relatively clean we are now concerned about the destruction of ozone layer this what's my call it you putting in the air conditioning system it's now quickly being replaced by something else what you put in also in the aerosol cans also it being replaced I think Japanese industry has really bent backwards to comply with strict exhaust emission control and in the meantime this also produced new technologies and companies that would make waste treatment system things of this kind in fact I'm now being asked to become consultant to Nashville based four-year-old or company called natural resources technology and company NRT to professors at the Vanderbilt came up with very ingenious waste treatment there are five and they have just licensed a Japanese manufacturer and also trading company for marketing in Japan and new waste treatment facilities being built based on their technology in Columbus Ohio and Cleveland Ohio and I'm being asked to go see and become consultant there's a great deal of market for such that's us technology I know somebody will ask me that question of course there has been some talk among some Asian countries of forming Asian trade bloc also including Japan but I think Japan has taken the position that of course during during the last war Japan tried to create greater Asian called prosperity sphere and our Asian neighbors we in some ways very about Japan forming the Asian trade bloc also in some ways I think forming regional trading blocks such as not is against the principles of gap well European community in some ways but as I see it more American companies including the excretes of Detroit would establish more manufacturing facilities for example in Mexico where the labor cost is Lord and I don't know how this and will contribute to the creation or loss of jobs here in America I'm a little bit against big multinational corporations American or Japanese farming out there work overseas where the labor cost is much more I think that would tend to take their jobs away but there may be freer and freer trade between US and Mexico and Canada yes over the years Japanese labor cost has has really gone up perhaps and to the level of advanced European countries but the ten perhaps in Germany labor cost is probably higher than in Japan but compared to the u.s. labor costs there should not be that much different stuff but perhaps I think you assets to labor cost is higher oh yes yes well Nyssa appointed a new president in June of this year and he the man who moved up to chairman is mr. Coony now both both rose through the ranks of manufacturing and new president soo-ji has had no marketing experience where Nissan has been weak in marketing and I'm afraid faith will take this a long time to become more market oriented and company and Nissan in fact in internationalizing and the company is in US or in Europe always elevated to the position of importance the local nationals and the Japanese went back to Japan and I am afraid me even Nissan USA in Los Angeles is now headed by x-coordinate and in marketing neason in North America Nissan has been very very weak compared to the Toyota and Honda in Europe only because in England Nissan sells outsells Toyota and anybody else these are still number one Japanese automaker in Europe of course I was in charge of Nissan's entire European operation until 1986 what I think is that Japan is not playing bigger political role I mean befitting its economic strings that's what I I want to say but Japanese and Prime Minister's I mean past Prime Minister's never had the international experience of course the the only Prime Minister that that we have had who was very articulate and internationally was not a funny but he is no longer a prime minister perhaps when a younger generation Prime Minister is named after me as our perhaps he can play a little bigger international role but we can we can never provide the kind of leadership that US and president has