Orphan's Answer

As Finance Minister in Japan's third postwar Cabinet, pudgy, iron-willed Tanzan Ishibashi feuded frequently with General Douglas MacArthur and was purged from office in 1947. Last week, as the strong-minded Minister of International Trade and Industry in the indecisive administration of Ichiro Hatoyama, Ishibashi once again crossed swords with the U.S. In the Oriental Economist, a magazine he has owned since 1939, Ishibashi made the first official announcement that Japan will press for increased "economic and cultural exchanges" with Red China.

Hard hit by the rising prices of raw materials and production costs, Japan is fighting a losing battle to close its chronic $42 million monthly gap in trade with the dollar area. Japan's total exports last year amounted to only 57% of the 1934-36 average, while imports rose to 80%, according to the government's Economic Planning Board. Japanese businessmen call themselves the "orphans of Asia"; they have spent ten years trying to cultivate new markets and dependable sources of raw materials in South and Central America, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. But, argued Ishibashi, "the result has not been satisfactory enough to induce the Japanese to give up Communist China." Said he: "Segregation of the China market has been the major factor contributing to the changes in Japan's trade pattern from prewar."

The Japanese are aware that any hasty expansion of trade with Red China would threaten economic relations with the U.S.; China last year spent only $28.5 million for Japanese goods, while the U.S. imported $450 million worth. Japan's answer, argues wily Ishibashi, is to win "alleviation or removal" of the free world's restrictions on strategic trade with Red China so that Japan can close its trade gap by selling the Communists ships, railroad equipment, generators, steel products, cranes and bulldozers.

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