From: mdo@socrates.umd.edu ("Mike T. Do")
Subject: [NEWS] ON TRADE TIES TO HANOI JAPANESE JUMP THE GUN
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Newsgroups: soc.culture.vietnamese
Date: 7 Nov 92 00:02:17 GMT

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From New York Times (11/06/92)
By David E. Sanger

TOKYO, Nov 5 - Jumping ahead of American policy in Asia, the Japanese
Government will announce on Friday that it is resuming broad economic ties
with Vietnam, including the offer of a major loan package, senior Japanese
officials said today.
    The move comes in response to heavy pressure from Japanese business
groups, which have urged the governing Liberal Democratic Party to pave the
way for a variety of long planned investments in Vietnam by Japanese
companies.  Tokyo is expected to announce a $400 million package on Friday,
and that may be followed by loans from its Export-Import Bank.
    Some government officials and business executives familiar with the
internal debate over the issue said the Government of Prime Minister Kiichi
Miyazawa had postponed its announcement until after the American elections.
It feared that acting earlier would open Japna to criticism during the
Presidential campaign that it was catering to the Japanese business interests
while questions remain unresolved about the fate of American soldiers
missing since the Vietnam War.
    With the recent announcement by Hanoi that it would open its records on
American P.O.W.'s and M.I.A.'s, Washington is expected to move fairly quickly
to lift the American embargo on trade with Vietnam and to begin to normalize
relations.
    Japanese officials said they had informed the United States of their
actions, but they declined to characterize the American response.  They also
said Japan had urged the Vietnamese to provide more information about missing
Americans.
    Unlike the United States, Japan nver broke relations with Hanoi after the
American pullout from Vietnam.  But in 1979, after Vietnamese troops invaded
Cambodia, it halted virtually all aid to the Communist Government.  Vietnam
in return, refused to pay back Japanese loans amounting to nearly $200 million,
and since then economis relations have been stalled.
    A senior Japanese official involved in the decision over Vietnam said
recently that "we are looking at this as a symbol," and that Japan has told
the United States that "we want U.S. relations with Vietnam normalized."
    American officals have said little publicly about Japan's impending action
though the Bush Administration was apparently informed of it several months
ago.  Last week Lawrence S. Eagleburger, the acting Secretary of State, said
during a visit to Tokyo that "whatever the Japanese Government decides to do,
we have our own view of how to proceed."
    "We will not be affected by what the Japanese Government decides," he
added.
    For the Vietnamese, courting Japan has been a major priority.  Not only
is Tokyo the largest contributor to aid, it is also the likeliest source of
capital to rebuild the country's decrepit infrastructure.  Some here say the
expanded relationship with Japan may place subtle pressure on the United
States to restore diplomatic relations and end its trade embargo, though
Japanese officials deny that this is their goal.


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