Ohira: No Power Games

Shortly after he was elected to head Japan's Liberal Democratic Party, Masayoshi Ohira met with TIME Tokyo Bureau Chief Ed Reingold and Correspondent Frank Iwama at party headquarters to discuss some of the challenges he will face as Premier.

On relations with the U.S.: The foundations of Japan's foreign policy are built on close relations with the U.S. This must not be allowed to change. There must not be the slightest bit of mistrust between the two nations.

On Japan's role as an economic power: Japan must not get involved in world power games but must discharge her responsibilities to the world as an economic power. Japan must help the world economy move toward stability. For this, the dollar has to recover a more stable position. In turn, Japan must cooperate more actively in helping defend the dollar. After all, the dollar helped Japan over these many years, and Japan owes her present position to the dollar. Now when the dollar is "tired," it is a natural obligation for Japan to come to the rescue of the dollar.

On the dollar: We are fully cooperating with President Carter's dollar-defense measures through the swap mechanism [through which the central banks of Japan, West Germany and Switzerland extend the U.S. credit to buy yen, marks and Swiss francs]. I believe this swap system should be enlarged to make it even more effective.

On Japanese aid to Asia: It is natural from a geographic viewpoint [that] Japan should continue to place emphasis on Asia. The pan-Pacific region is not like Europe. The economies are in different stages of development, the quality of the economies is different, and any associations are very loosely tied. The ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] does exist, however, and it must be respected, but it is not like the European Community association. This means that our aid will move more on the bilateral plane [instead of being filtered through the regional association].

On Japan's trade surplus: I do not think we can do more than we are already doing, beyond expediting the existing measures to correct the situation. I do not yet have any new plans on this problem. But it is a serious problem and has to be solved as quickly as possible.

On inflating the Japanese economy: A growth rate of 7% [current rate: 5.7%] is unattainable. I see no reason to make unreasonable efforts to try to achieve this goal. No matter what new stimulatory measures are launched at this time, it would not be feasible to produce effective results before the end of the fiscal year [March 31,1979]. We will be working out measures to prevent a fall in exports, since this will have a big bearing on economic recovery here.

On relations with China: China, the Soviet Union and the U.S. are our neighbors. As time goes on there will be a natural increase in mutual understanding of positions and exchanges. There will be no emphasis in relations with one at the expense of the others.

On President Carter: He called on me in May 1975, when I was Finance Minister. We talked for about 40 minutes. I knew that he was one of the candidates [for the Democratic presidential nomination], but at the time I had no idea whether he would win or not. But as he was leaving he said, "See you next time in the White House." However, I have no plans at the moment for going to the U.S. and seeing the President. It is too early to make such plans.

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