Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [310]
Mr Kaifu was to host a meeting of the International Democratic Union (IDU) — the international organization of Conservative Parties which Ronald Reagan and I had founded. Inevitably, the IDU comprised a variety of right-of-centre parties: but it had the advantage over its junior partner, the European Democratic Union (EDU), that it was not dominated by the Christian Democrats and included the American Republican Party. (The star of that year’s conference was undoubtedly the Swedish Conservative leader — since Prime Minister — who delivered a speech of such startling Thatcherite soundness that in applauding I felt as if I was giving myself a standing ovation.)
Mr Kaifu had his own domestic reasons for wanting the occasion to be a success. He had no strong power base of his own within the LDP and needed to cut something of an international figure in order to win back alienated LDP voters before the forthcoming general election. For my part I wanted to help him as much as I could. He was strongly pro-western, a man of integrity, and not at all in the somewhat reticent, introverted mould of some Japanese politicians that I met. I had not really got to know Mr Kaifu before I came to Japan — though he had been to see me at No. 10 as part of a group on previous occasions. I was told that his favourite sayings were: ‘politics begins with sincerity’ and ‘perseverance leads to success.’ It seemed an uncontroversial philosophy.
I had a long talk with Prime Minister Kaifu on the afternoon of Wednesday 20 September. Some of the worst causes of disagreement between Japan and the West, including Britain, were by now being overcome. Japan’s external surplus had begun to fall somewhat — though the fact that the yen had depreciated against the dollar threatened problems with the Americans in the future. Japanese investment in Britain was now greater than ever: in fact we were attracting more Japanese manufacturing investment than anywhere else in the European Community. Japan had become one of Britain’s fastest growing major markets. My discussions with the Prime Minister covered that perennial topic, Scotch whisky — where the ever ingenious Japanese had devised whisky ‘lookalikes’ to circumvent the tax changes which had been introduced.
But we were also able to range much more widely over international and indeed Japanese domestic affairs. Mr Kaifu had twice been Education minister and so we had something special in common. He spoke eloquently about social issues, in particular the decline of the family and the need to come to terms with the demographic factor of a rapidly ageing population. These were matters which were also increasingly preoccupying me. But I felt that Japan’s highly developed sense of community and ability to combine material progress with an attachment to traditional values in some ways equipped them better to face these challenges than did our western culture. I have always connected this with the fact that Japan has the lowest level of violent crime in the developed world.
At the end of our talk I gave a television interview jointly with Mr Kaifu about global environmental issues, an area in which the Japanese were beginning to play a large role. I hoped that it would boost his standing, and was told that it had done so. But after the customary two years, Mr Kaifu was soon in his turn to join the ranks of former Japanese prime ministers whose international achievements were an insufficient antidote for factional weakness.
By the time I left office, the West and Japan were beginning seriously to come to terms with the question of where Japan’s future lay. Only with the end of the Cold War has the full importance of this become apparent. Japan can have a huge role in bringing Russia to prosperity and stability by providing the capital and technology for the development of Siberia. At the same time, Japan has very close links with China. Japan’s attitude