1999: VICTORY WITHOUT WAR FAR EAST: FRIENDSHIP WITH JAPAN, CHINA IMPERATIVE IN CHANGING BALANCES FINAL EDITION, C

• Published in: Chicago tribune (1963)
• Main Author: Richard Nixon From the forthcoming book, "1999: Victory without War," by Richard M Nixon To be published by Simon and Schuster Inc Copyright 1988 by East-West Research Inc Distributed by Los Angeles Times Syndicate
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chicago, Ill Tribune Publishing Company, LLC 20.03.1988
• ISSN: 1085-6706; 2165-171X

Japan's transformation into a pro-Western industrial democracy is one of the most fortuitous developments of the postwar era. While it is an Asian rather than a European nation, it is as critical to the Western alliance as any member of NATO. Strategically, it holds the Eastern ramparts. Economically, its might is indispensable if we are to have a unified Western economic policy. And practically, it has much to gain from an alliance with the West because it has just as much to lose as the United States and the Europeans from further Soviet advances. . . . The Western alliance is immeasurably stronger with Japan than it would be without it. Both the United States and Japan should be proud of the partnership that produced a democratic Japan out of the bitterness and destruction of war. But the war and the American military occupation that followed it-and the period of Japan's dependency on the United States that followed the occupation and that continues today-have had negative results as well as positive ones. While it is by no means the most important element of the relationship between the United States and Japan, the most neuralgic issue is the trade imbalance. In 1986 the Japanese sold $60 billion more worth of goods in the United States than we sold in Japan; this was the major factor in creating a worldwide U.S. trade deficit of $170 billion. Japan's critics say this imbalance costs American jobs and complain that the Japanese have closed their markets to American goods.