Japanese Delighted With Foley Nomination Officials Overlook Post’s Long Vacancy In Praising Choice For Ambassador

It was worth the wait.

That was the feeling in Japan on Saturday after President Clinton nominated former U.S. House Speaker Thomas Foley to be ambassador to Tokyo, a post that has been vacant for more than eight months.

While the United States often touts its ties with Japan as one of its top global priorities, Washington was remarkably slow in tapping a replacement for Ambassador Walter Mondale.

But through it all, the Japanese never complained they were being ignored. With good reason - Clinton had been clear for months that he would eventually nominate Foley, widely seen as a friend of Japan.

“We welcome the nomination of an influential ambassador, which shows that the Clinton administration continues to emphasize relations with Japan,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hiroshi Hashimoto said in a statement Saturday.

Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto also praised the pick, saying Foley has been an outstanding figure in U.S. politics and knows Japan well, Kyodo News reported.

The Japanese could hardly have picked a more agreeable ambassador themselves.

Foley has led 13 congressional trips to Japan since the late 1960s, and he has been back several more times since he lost his seat in the House in the Republican landslide in 1994.

He is one of only four Americans to have been awarded the highest decoration Japan gives to foreigners, the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun, Paulowina Flowers. The other recipients are Douglas MacArthur, former Secretary of State George Schultz and former ambassador Mike Mansfield.

If the Japanese were effusive, Foley’s chumminess with Tokyo has some American business people worried he won’t be as tough as Mondale was in trying to force open the Japanese market.

Foley, 68, is also from Washington - the only state with a trade surplus with Japan, and some fret that could give him a rosier view than most of how open the Japanese market is.

“We would like him to understand that there are still a lot of impediments to access to the Japanese market,” Robert Orr, vice president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan, said before the nomination.

Some U.S. businesspeople are hopeful, however, that Foley’s career roots in Japan could make him a diplomatic ace in the hole if the Clinton administration takes a tough stance on trade.

The some Japanese are just happy to get someone familiar with their country.

“There are two qualifications we would like an ambassador to have, and Foley has them both - one is to know Japan, and the other is to have solid connections in Washington,” said Yoshio Hatano, a former Japanese ambassador to the U.N. who knows Foley. “Mondale had the second, but not the first.”

Hatano added that the Japanese favor Foley “not because we expect him to be pro-Japanese, but because he would be understanding.”

If the Senate confirmation goes smoothly, Foley should arrive by early October in a Japan in the midst of an overhaul of the economy that is expected to open more markets to imports.

But Japan also is trying to export its way out of an economic slump, despite U.S. urging to spur domestic consumption instead.