Japan: Rich and Unloved

Even before he left Tokyo on an eleven-day good-will tour of five Southeast Asian capitals, Japanese Premier Kakuei Tanaka was aware of the smoldering resentment in the area of his country's overweening economic power. He knew that the abrasive aggressiveness of Japanese businessmen had earned them a reputation as "the ugly Americans of Asia." He realized also that bitter memories lingered of Japanese cruelties during World War II. And he had been warned that there would be demonstrations. But nothing prepared him for the enraged outburst of the thousands of shouting and jeering Thai students who protested his visit to Thailand, traditionally one of Asia's most gentle and hospitable nations.

As Tanaka's jet landed at Bangkok's airport, there were only about 100 orderly protesters waving signs. Read one: TAKE BUT NEVER GIVE. Another said: SELFISH. For a brief moment, Tanaka dared hope that his agreement to meet with Thailand's powerful student leaders had defused plans for mass demonstrations. But his hopes were short-lived.

As Tanaka's motorcade neared the Erawan Hotel in the center of the city, it was halted by a crowd of 2,000 students. Police clearly showed that they wanted to avoid a confrontation, and so the demonstrators surged toward the approaching cars, screaming " Jap, go home!" and waving placards reading JAPANESE ECONOMIC ANIMAL.

When Tanaka's car turned into the hotel drive way, the students pummeled its roof and windows with their fists. Other vehicles in the motorcade were forced to a halt and the demonstrators -- mainly in their teens -- tried to open each car. One of those mobbed, despite his civil service uniform, was the Thai government's own Secretary-General Choosak Watanaronchai, who saved himself by shouting "I'm a Thai!" Other bands of students broke four windows in the city's most prominent Japanese department store (the Thai Daimaru) and threw a small plastique bomb at the Japanese Trade Center.

"I had been told about the sentiments," Tanaka said, "but now I know how real they are." When he met with 13 leaders of the 400,000-member National Student Center of Thailand next day in an ornate salon of Government House, the encounter turned into a limping dialogue of mutual incomprehension. Since the students overthrew the military regime last October, they have become the most powerful political force in Thailand, overshadowing the caretaker government of Premier Sanya Dharmasakti. They complained to Tanaka that Japan was exploiting Thai labor, polluting the air and water with wastes from Japanese-owned factories, and generally turning the country into an economic satellite. Even if exaggerated, their concern was based on hard economic reality. Thailand depends on Japan for 37% of all its imports and 21% of its exports. Official statistics, acknowledged to be conservative, indicate that 37% of all foreign investment is already Japanese.

Smug Lecture. Tanaka's reply was somewhat evasive; he delivered a smug lecture about Japan's example of hard work and industrial expansion since World War II. He then told the students that in a three-hour meeting with Premier Sanya, he had offered to soften the terms of a $153 million loan and curb overly aggressive and ruthless private Japanese business practices through a new government agency, to be called The Economic Cooperation Ministry. None of this satisfied the students, who left the meeting threatening to "act against every Japanese in Thailand" unless the government acts to prevent Japanese domination of the economy.

Tanaka's failure to mollify the Thai students does not augur well for the rest of his good-will mission in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. His first stop had been in Manila and had gone with deceptive smoothness. That was largely due to a state of martial law that prevented any anti-Japanese outbursts and the eagerness of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos for injections of more Japanese capital. But during the rest of his itinerary, Tanaka will be faced with the threat of more anti-Japanese demonstrations. Moreover, Tanaka can scarcely assure his Southeast Asian trading partners of more generous assistance at a time when the Japanese are promising aid to several Arab nations, in an effort to curry their favor in return for oil.

Thai students last week also found time for a demonstration against the U.S. It was sparked by reports in three Thai newspapers that an American CIA agent had sent Premier Sanya a fake letter purporting to be from a Communist insurgent leader in Northeast Thailand and offering a cease-fire in return for autonomy in rebel-held areas. The clumsy gambit, apparently, was to sow disillusion among insurgents by making them believe that their leaders were willing to settle for less than victory over the whole country. The demonstrators demanded the expulsion of Ambassador William R. Kinter; he remained, but sent the agent out of the country and said that he would be disciplined. He also promised to end such practices.

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