Blue Storm Over Tanaka

At times in recent weeks caucus sessions of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party have looked rather more like sumo matches than the deliberations of a conservative party. Angry debates have touched off an unseemly spectacle of party members toppling desks, smashing glasses and hurling soggy pieces of sushi (rice sandwiches) at one another to underscore their points. The fighting is a product of the violent dissension within the L.D.P. that is now haunting the shaky and increasingly unpopular government of Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka.

The cause of the uproar is a proposed civil air agreement between Japan and the People's Republic of China that would further downgrade Japan's relations with Taiwan. At Peking's insistence, Tanaka and Foreign Minister Masayoshi Ohira want to withdraw recognition from Taiwan's airline as a flag carrier by designating it China Airlines (Taiwan); at the same time, the government would turn the airline's ground services and offices in Japan over to a domestic agent. Last week Taiwan made it "crystally clear" to Japan's unofficial emissary Osamu Itagaki that it would rather cut off Japan Air Lines' enormously profitable Taipei-Tokyo run than accept Tanaka's arrangement.

What makes the problem particularly thorny for Tanaka is that Taiwan's position is being vigorously supported by a group of 31 young, right-wing Liberal Democratic members of the Diet. Last August these youthful conservatives formally organized themselves as the Seirankai (Blue Storm) faction of the L.D.P. --blue being the symbolic Japanese color of purity. They took a blood oath to purge Japanese politics of permissiveness, back-room deals and softness toward the left. They have also complained bitterly about several important Foreign Ministry lapses, which they blamed on Ohira, including poor advance reporting on the energy crisis and his failure to warn the Prime Minister of anti-Japanese feeling before his stormy "good will" tour of Southeast Asia. Now the airlines issue is another dart to be fired at Ohira and, indirectly, at his boss, Prime Minister Tanaka, who cannot afford losing his key political ally.

A few months ago, Tanaka could easily have weathered the Blue Storm. But the Prime Minister's popularity is plummeting--public approval in the polls was down to 19% last month from a high of'71% a year and a half ago--and a number of sticky challenges on the domestic front have severely weakened his position as party leader.

Signs of Strain. Japanese labor, which launched its annual "spring offensive" earlier this month with a one-day railway strike, is clamoring for an across-the-board pay increase of 30% and threatening work stoppages if it does not get it. At the same time, the government has been forced to heed the cries of anguish from the country's oil refining and marketing companies, who warned that the price freeze was driving them toward bankruptcy. A proposed 64% price hike will surely lead to howls from consumers already enraged by a staggering 23% rise in the cost of living within the past twelve months.

A potential and willing beneficiary of Tanaka's crisis is conservative Finance Minister Takeo Fukuda. Although too respectable to associate openly with the Blue Storm, Fukuda would have its support in a showdown with Tanaka. That day may not be far off. If the L.D.P. loses seats in this summer's upper house elections, Fukuda --who at 68 has little time to lose--may quit the Cabinet and directly challenge Tanaka for leadership of the party, and hence the government. Tanaka, meanwhile, has been showing signs of the strain. An attack of facial neuritis that he suffered last December has worsened to the point that his speech is slurred. His health problem adds to the impression of a tottering leader who is at best only stumbling along.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.