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Foreign Policy. Swarthy, slight (5 ft. 4 in. 130 Ibs.) Premier Kishi is as avid a golfer as President Eisenhower, happily looks forward to a match with Ike at Burning Tree this week. His handicap is a "state secret,'' but under the pressure of work it has gone up from 15 to 21. No state secret are the "suggestions" for a "new era" in Japanese-U.S. relations that he will raise with Eisenhower and Secretary of State Dulles. Basic to Kishi's problem, as his political opponents are well aware, is an ominous statistic for a country that must export to live: since World War II, Japan's population has increased more than 20%, now stands at 90 million, while the land area available has decreased by more than 40% from the heyday of the empire. The obvious remedy: increased trade in any of three directions: i) the Red Chinese mainland, 2) the U.S., 3) Southeast Asia. Premier Kishi's pet solution: creation of a $700 million to $800 million Southeast Asian Development Fund drawing its raw materials from the Southeast Asian countries, its capital goods and technology from Japan, and most of its financing from the U.S. The fund, Kishi is expected to argue, will relieve pressure in Japan for greater Red China trade. Moreover, with U.S. backing, it would transform a peaceful and renascent Japan into the political leader of free Asia.
Also on Kishi's mind: restoration of at least some Japanese civil administration on U.S.-controlled Okinawa; revisions in the U.S.-Japanese defense and security agreements—e.g., Kishi is bringing with him a three-year timetable for a Japanese armed-forces buildup, will probably ask for a similar timetable for the U.S. withdrawal of at least part of its forces from the Japanese home islands; and, hottest of all, increased scope for Japanese trade with Red China.