My Personal History, Kagayaki Miyazaki16. Japan-US Textile Negotiations

In August 1968, a lobbyist hired by Asahi Kasei in the US sent me a copy of a telegram from Richard Nixon, the Republican presidential candidate, to Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, in the heart of the textile industry in the American south. The telegram said, “Once elected, I will promptly discuss import restrictions on all textile products, including wool and synthetic fiber, with the relevant countries.”
I was chairman of the Japan Chemical Fibers Association, and when I read this telegram pandering to the textile industry constituency, I knew we would be in trouble if Nixon won.
When Nixon became president in January 1969, he acted without delay. He dispatched Secretary of Commerce Maurice H. Stans to Japan, Europe, and elsewhere to negotiate textile import restrictions. The biggest aim was to restrict wool and synthetic fiber imports from Japan.
Stans visited Japan in May and met with Foreign Minister Kiichi Aichi and Minister of International Trade and Industry Masayoshi Ohira, but the talks broke because the Diet opposed restrictions.
Of course, the US didn’t give up easily. We heard that the textile issue would be brought up at the Japan–US summit in November that year. This was a historic meeting when the reversion of Okinawa was decided, but I also went to the US to keep an eye on the negotiations myself.
I was relieved that the Japan–US joint statement did not include the textile issue. At the post-summit party at the Japanese embassy in Washington, Aichi even told me twice that, “Miyazaki, the textile issue didn’t come up.”
Even so, the expression on Prime Minister Eisaku Sato’s face at the party was extremely stern. He seemed to lack cheer despite having accomplished the feat of getting Okinawa back. Somehow that bothered me. Theories about a secret agreement with the US started spreading in the media. They said Sato had gone to sell thread (textiles) and buy rope (Okinawa). I didn’t want to believe it, but I thought the textiles issue must have come up at some point.
As feared, Nixon did propose severe textile import restrictions twice. I worked to resist those restrictions by forming the Japan Textile Federation, approaching Diet members, and talking to people in the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and Industry.
In the summer of 1970, I finally collapsed due to overwork. While I was hospitalized for nearly two months, the situation didn’t improve at all. Not long after I got out of the hospital, another Japan–US summit was held in Washington on October 24. This time, the textiles issue was formally on the agenda and the two leaders agreed to reopen intergovernmental negotiations.
Sato met with us after returning to Japan, but all he said was, “I’m on good terms with Nixon” without giving any specifics. I was disappointed because I hoped to learn more.
We issued a statement that opposed reopening negotiations, but on November 9 Japan and the US reopened negotiations between Nobuhiko Ushiba, the Japanese ambassador to the US, and Assistant to the President Peter M. Flanigan. The negotiations were held 13 times, but were inconclusive and finally suspended.
We organized a rally of textile business representatives from all over Japan November 16. I wore a headband and stood at the front.
Meanwhile we frequently received unofficial requests from the government and the Liberal Democratic Party saying, “If this continues, it will negatively affect Japan–US relations, so please make voluntary restrictions on textile exports.”
I had our lobbyists investigate the situation in the US. The results suggested that if we made voluntary restrictions, various bills in congress for import restrictions would be withdrawn. I decided that we had no choice but to make voluntary restrictions, so I started working on that.
In response, Wilbur D. Mills, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said, “We’re prepared to accept Japan’s voluntary export restrictions,” so in both Japan and the US it felt like the situation was moving toward resolution.
I drafted a proposal while consulting with Chairman Toyosaburo Taniguchi of the Japan Textile Federation (currently honorary advisor to Toyobo). I showed it to Mills in advance and incorporated the wishes of the US side as much as I could, finally announcing the voluntary restriction proposal on March 8, 1971. The government announced that the negotiations by the Chief Cabinet Secretary would be discontinued, and decided on a total of 48.9 billion yen in relief measures for the textile industry. I thought this was finally the end of the Japan–US textile dispute, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case.
On March 11, 1971, President Nixon issued a statement saying, “We can’t accept the Japanese voluntary restrictions” after intense pressure from the American textile industry, which was dissatisfied with our proposal. He dispatched Special Envoy David M. Kennedy to Japan in April.
Kennedy came to Japan again in May, and strongly requested a conclusion to the intergovernmental negotiations. At the end of September, Anthony J. Jurich, a special assistant at the State Department, visited Japan and told Minister of International Trade and Industry Kakuei Tanaka that, “Unless a government agreement is concluded, the US will unilaterally impose import restrictions from October 15.” This was their ultimatum.
Tanaka gave up on resolving the issue through voluntary restrictions, and signed an intergovernmental agreement on October 15.
This is the sequence of events on the surface, but more things were happening behind the scenes. A carefully researched book The Textile Wrangle was published six years ago, and it corroborates things I later heard directly from Jurich.
The agreement was harsh, with individual restrictions for three years and only 5% growth for synthetic fiber and 1% for wool. The Japan–US textile negotiations that we struggled with for more than three years ended in disappointment, and I felt all my efforts had been futile. Looking back now, though, I feel that we did gain some substantial benefits.
One is that we received more than 180 billion yen in support from the government. The textile industry avoided bankruptcy because we got 48.9 billion yen to purchase weaving equipment as well as more than 130 billion yen in low-interest loans.
At the time of the final Ushiba–Flannigan talks, there was discussion about whether I should go along too. If I had gone, we might have reached a resolution more quickly. But that would have indicated agreement by the industry, so we wouldn’t have received the 180 billion yen in support.
Another effect was that our persistence for three years prevented a large influx of of cheap textile products from South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. As the Japan–US textile negotiations dragged on, the US couldn’t conclude any agreements with those countries, which allowed them to triple their textile exports to the US while their exports to Japan only doubled. That probably would have increased even more if we had reached an agreement with the US sooner.
Although these are important points, we hardly ever hear of them. Considering the compensation and relations with neighboring countries, the Japan–US textile negotiations actually brought real benefits to the Japanese textile industry, even though it seemed humiliating at the time.
On the other hand, South Korea received $375 million from the US, nominally for defense, while the Japanese textile industry was saved with tax money from the Japanese people. In that sense, South Korea came out even better.
It made me wonder why the Japanese politicians wouldn’t talk to us more frankly. If they had told us from the outset that, “We have to sacrifice textiles in order to get Okinawa back, but the government will compensate the industry, so please support the agreement,” then we wouldn’t have had such a struggle. They must have been hampered by a secret agreement.
I believe that based on what I heard from a person who saw the interpreter’s notes from a one-on-one meeting between Prime Minister Sato and Nixon, and also what I heard from Jurich. I also suspect some leaders in the US textile industry knew about the secret agreement from the beginning, which is why they took such a hard line. It also seems that people around Sato were involved in drafting the American proposal for export restrictions all along, although this isn’t explicit in the book.