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To: goldsnow who wrote (23141)	11/18/1998 11:28:00 PM
From: Richard Grenier	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116836

Japan trade surplus rises again as Clinton visits Wednesday November 18, 10:27 pm Eastern Time By Yoko Nishikawa TOKYO, Nov 19 (Reuters) - Japan's trade surplus with the United States recorded another solid jump in October underscoring persistent trade tensions between the two nations as U.S. President Bill Clinton was due to arrive in Tokyo on Thursday. Japan's trade surplus with the United States climbed to 719.74 billion yen ($5.89 billion), up 32 percent from the previous year, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) said on Thursday. Japan's exports of automobiles to the U.S. rose 31 perecent, while steel exports -- recent focus of U.S. dumping charges -- surged 115 percent. The overall customs-cleared trade surplus for October rose 24 percent from a year earlier to 1.37 trillion yen, the MOF added. The data followed an overnight announcement by the U.S. Department of Commerce that Mexico had displaced Japan as the United States' second largest trading partner, as financial turmoil in Asia slowed U.S. trade with the region. U.S. exports to Japan in September fell by 8.7 percent year-on-year, the Department of Commerce said. Clinton is due to arrive Tokyo later Thursday and is expected to press for swift economic recovery in Japan in a meeting with Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi on Friday. Obuchi said earlier on Thursday that he would show Clinton Japan's strong determination to secure positive economic growth in the fiscal year starting next April, and explain the government's latest economic stimulus package totalling nearly 24 trillion yen. Japan has been under pressure by its trading partners to boost its domestic demand to suck more imports in and to take a leadership in reviving crisis-hit Asian economies. U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, who will accompany Clinton in Tokyo, said on Tuesday it was key for the U.S. economy that Japan get back on track. ''Clearly we have an important stake in growth in Japan, both because of its impact on export demand for U.S. products and because our capital markets are very tightly linked,'' he told a news briefing at the White House. Economists said the rise in the trade surplus was mainly caused by a continued decline in imports due to weak domestic demand that outpaced a drop in exports. Exports -- viewed as a core engine for supporting the nation's faltering economy -- fell both in volume and value terms in October. Economists said a recent rise in the yen had put downward pressure on the exports, which declined in value terms for the first time in five months. A finance ministry official said Japan's exports decreased as sales to Asia remained weak, adding that it was hard to say how a recent strength in the yen would affect moves in the trade surplus. But he reiterated that the tempo of the rise would stablise, although the ministry expected a rise in the surplus for a while. Economists said although the United States might put further pressure on Japan to take steps to prop up domestic demand and shore up the fragile financial system, Thursday's trade data alone would not trigger major trade friction. ''When there was trade friction in the past, the United States was worried about its labour market conditions. But now, its job market is stable on the back of the strong U.S. economy and a major friction is unlikely to appear,'' said Satoshi Shimamoto, an economist at Standard & Poor's MMS. He added that since there has been a change in the trade structure, where many Japanese factories in the United States create jobs for the U.S. workers, ''the United States cannot just blame Japan for the surplus.'' biz.yahoo.com

To: goldsnow who wrote (23141)	11/18/1998 11:33:00 PM
From: Richard Grenier	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 116836

Japan-U.S. relations a complicated love-hate web Wednesday November 18, 10:38 pm Eastern Time By Elaine Lies TOKYO, Nov 19 (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi and President Bill Clinton will be all smiles when they meet in Tokyo on Thursday. But the graceful diplomatic dance of their two-day summit will mask a relationship that is at once pragmatic and emotional, dependent and defiant, intimate and cold -- a complicated web of love and hate unusual between nations. ''When you think of England or France, you think of a distant relative you call up every so often but don't actually do much with,'' said political commentator Hisayuki Miyake. ''But the ties that bind the United States and Japan are incredibly strong. They're almost like parent and child.'' The most crucial tie is the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, which brought Japan under the U.S. defence and nuclear umbrella and freed it to allocate resources to develop its economy rather than spend on defence. But the price has been a high one. Japan was forced to allow U.S. forces to base themselves on its soil and forfeited a certain amount of diplomatic flexibility. Some 47,000 U.S. servicemen -- nearly half of the 100,000 American troops based in Asia -- are located in Japan as well as ships, including an aircraft carrier and its latest warplanes. ''Japan can't take any initiative, it always has to consult with Washington. This basically forces its diplomacy into a straitjacket,'' said political commentator Yasuo Kurata. Miyake added: ''Look at the way every Japanese prime minister rushes to visit the United States first thing after taking office. It is a very strong dependency relationship.'' Some analysts said it seemed a bit strange for Japan to allow the bases to stay when other countries, such as the Philippines, had got rid of them. ''But the United States has done a lot of nice things for Japan, assumed the role of older brother. Japan does not want to stand up to that older brother,'' said Gregory Clark, president of Tama University near Tokyo. Clark suggested that Japan is also happy, at least for now, to let the United States stake out a superior Asian position. ''They rely on the United States as a stalking horse to do a lot of work for them. And then when the United States gets tired of things they can take over with a superior position carved out.'' Japan and the United States have been linked since 1853, when the appearance in Tokyo Bay of the ''Black Ships'' -- U.S. Navy vessels -- wrenched Japan from centuries of isolation. But it was Japan's painful defeat in World War Two and the humiliation of the Occupation after that set the stage for the relationship that endures to this day. Although the ties then were primarily those of victor and vanquished, there was also admiration for a country that seemed clearly superior in both a material and moral sense, Kurata said. Even though some Japanese now complain about the constitution forced on them by the Occupation, most credit the United States with introducing them to democracy. ''The United States has always been a teacher for Japan,'' said Hiromi Teratani, a professor of sociology at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo. Also during the postwar period, a number of regulatory and economic concessions set the stage for Japan's rapid economic growth. ''The relationship has always been mostly pragmatic. America was of enormous benefit to Japan in the 1950s and 1960s, and Japan was its Cold War ally,'' Clark said. He added: ''But there is also emotion -- definitely love and hate. America did help Japan very much after the war, and they haven't forgotten. The hate is that 'they dropped the atom bomb on us'.'' Things grew ugly during the 1980s as Japan overtook the United States economically, partly based on those earlier concessions. And as the U.S. star seemingly faded, a nasty trade war ensued. At this point, Miyake said, it became apparent that relations between the two were not nearly as close as they had seemed. ''The connection was actually more that of step-parent and child. Because a real parent would be happy to see their child go beyond them, and the United States most definitely was not.'' Now that Japan is struggling with its worst economic recession since the war while the United States is doing well, the two seem to have fallen back into their former roles. But there are signs Japan may no longer be quite so content to put up with its old position after some time at the top. Resentment is rising not only at a wave of U.S. advice and scolding on the economy, but also at how a Japan-backed Asian rescue plan was rejected last autumn -- only to come back into favour when re-floated recently amid talk it could have alleviated the Asian economic crisis had it been adopted last year. ''It seems the teacher doesn't want the student to exceed them, but neither does it want them to lag so far behind that it makes the teacher look bad,'' Teratani said. Others say that now more than ever, Japan must simply stand up to the United States and state its opinions clearly. ''After all, what will happen if we say 'no' -- it's not as if the United States will come and attack us,'' said Kurata. He added: ''We are now in danger of being like the dog in the Victor electronics ads that just sits and listens to 'his master's voice'. But what we need to be is the MGM movie lion -- get out there and roar.'' biz.yahoo.com

To: goldsnow who wrote (23141)	11/19/1998 3:03:00 PM
From: Alex	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 116836

3,000 Russian nuclear workers go on one-day strike 12.48 p.m. ET (1749 GMT) November 19, 1998 MOSCOW (AP) — About 3,000 nuclear workers in a closed Ural Mountains city held a one-day strike Thursday to demand unpaid wages and pay raises to help them cope with inflation, a news report said. About 100 of the striking workers picketed outside the headquarters of the administrative center of the Ural Mountains city of Snezhinsk, about 950 miles east of Moscow, and collected signatures for an appeal to Russian Nuclear Energy Minister Yevgeny Adamov. Union chairman Yuri Bersenev said the walkout posed no danger. "We provided for necessary measures to ensure the reliable safety of our facilities. The most dangerous of them were either stopped beforehand or continue operating in the normal regime,'' the ITAR-Tass news agency quoted Bersenev as saying. The workers are demanding at least three months of back pay, and 200 percent wage increases to help deal with rising inflation, ITAR-Tass said. "Constant undernourishment, insufficient medical service, inability to buy clothing and footwear for children or to pay for their education ... have created grave permanent psychological stress, which is the cause of our protests,'' the workers' appeal said. Many nuclear towns across Russia, built during the Soviet era, are still closed off for security reasons. The Russian government owes the nuclear industry nearly $170 million for unpaid state orders. Nuclear workers in several cities held a three-day strike in September.