Nakasone Urges Pacific Trade Pact

Former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone called for a “new world economic order” Wednesday, proposing the establishment of a multinational pan-Pacific trade group that would include the United States.

During an interview prior to a speech in Los Angeles, Nakasone said the United States and Japan could further promote the principles of democracy and free trade in East Asia by forming a trade organization that would include Pacific nations, Canada and Mexico.

Such a group, he said, could help the United States, Japan and other Pacific nations to more easily resolve future economic policy disputes.

“After the demise of communism, there is only one economy--the market economy,” Nakasone said. “There is bound to be friction between nations with developed economies and (economic) late-comers.”

Nakasone, Japanese prime minister from 1982 to 1987, said these emerging capitalist “late-comers” are likely to adopt subsidies and other government measures to nurture certain fledgling industries until those business sectors grow stronger. Nakasone likened such measures to a golf handicap, arguing that a new trade organization was needed to “coordinate the level of handicap” certain nations would receive.

Nakasone called the proposed group a “Grand Pacific Common House for Cultural and Economic Cooperation.” He said he has submitted a proposal for such an organization to the current Japanese prime minister and foreign minister and that Japanese leaders are reviewing the ideas.