were so a key member state in terms of keeping the Community open.
We had won the first battle of Nissan and would win the second too.
The Japanese asked whether NATO would survive the loss of its enemy and what sort of Germany would re-emerge in Europe.
The
But the overwhelming burden of their questioning was about
whether the UK was fully committed to, and fully participating
in, Europe. The Japanese were looking at Europe again. opening up of Central Europe made Germany a much more attractive site for investment than it had been before. All 11 Länder were now represented in Japan and making efforts to attract
(I replied that as far as influence was concerned Germany was much more often minorised in Community votes than the UK - a point which seemed to make some impact and may be
worth replaying.)
investment.
Japanese Defence Policy
4.
Fujii pointed out that compared to the benign environment of Europe Japan was surrounded by some shaky and unstable countries such as China, Korea and the countries of Indo-China. But the
disappearance of the Soviet threat was having an impact in Japan
too. It would be more difficult to explain the raison d'être of the
Security Treaty (Japan was unable to say in public that China was a
threat). It was ironical that just as the Japanese opposition had
got round to dropping its ideological hang-ups about the Security
Treaty the right in Japan were beginning to call it into question
not in articles in the newspapers but in conversations at dinner
tables. This question would become public at some time.
Japan spent a lot of money on defence but no-one in Japan
thought that the self defence forces could fight their way out of a wet paper bag (Ishihara/Akimoto).
J
Difficult to talk about reductions in defence unless there was
framework for disarmament in the Pacific (Lord Jenkins).
RCIAAZ/4
a
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