JAPAN INTERNAL
CONFIDENTIAL
1. The subject of the Tanaka verdict and its consequences was very much to the fore while I was in Tokyo.
2. At that time it was common ground among all I met that Tanaka would not resign over the verdict even though most people thought that he should even within the LDP. There was a remote possibility that he might agree to resign in order to resolve problems for the LDP and in the run-up to an election, but this would have to be distinguished from resignation over the verdict.
(This possibility now seems almost to have disappeared.)
3. I found considerable respect for Nakasone. He was subjected to less criticism than many of his predecessors and there was no obvious successor at present. The MFA commented that he was unlike his predecessors in imposing his own decisions on foreign affairs rather than simply accepting advice, and in his determination to prepare himself properly, for example in spending three hours learning the Korean text of the speech which he delivered on his visit to Seoul in early 1983. The general assessment was that Nakasone would contrive to avoid a factional split and that he had a good chance of limiting the loss of LDP seats in an election (universally expected in December or perhaps January) so as to prolong his own tenure as Prime Minister.
4. In the longer term, Kato of the MFA thought that Abe, although he had been a good Foreign Minister whose interests for example in journalism made him easy to brief, would probably not be a good Prime Minister because he had no basic philosophy or deep understanding of trends. On the other hand Miyazawa was a much more complex character who thought for himself and did not rely on officials; "such men are dangerous".
5.
One comment by LDP politicians which interested me was that of the agricultural commodities over which Japanese protectionism continues the only one which really mattered was rice. Californian rice was better and cheaper, but if Japan gave way on everything else it could not afford to give way on this. Japanese voters were not really interested in what the Government did over controlling exports of cars or things like that, but they did care about protecting the rice producers.
2 November 1983
Marklift
M Elliott
Far Eastern Department
CONFIDENTIAL