Mr Ghoten can say No
MICHAEL Howard, bowing low before Toyoo Ghoten, must have privately prayed for a sympathetic hearing and a tactful solution. He was talking to the right man, but that may not help him. The meeting with Mr Ghoten was Mr Howard's first appointment after flying in from Hong Kong, where he had to change planes. It would have been more comfortable to have taken Japan Air Lines' direct flight from London, but such are the penalties of financial diplomacy. Mr Ghoten, cum- brously entitled vice-minister of finance for international affairs, is an internationalist, a Fulbright scholar of Princeton, a fluent speaker (and joker) in English, an old hand on the circuit of finance ministries and central banks, and a minister with his own line to Yasuhiro Nakasone. I talked to him a few weeks ago in London, where he was arguing that Japan's financial markets were being opened up at a fair pace and in a fair way: 'Ten years ago, there were 53 foreign banks and two foreign securities firms doing business in Japan, now there are 79 banks and 36 securities firms . . . London, New York and Tokyo are like the three best restaurants in town.' Mr Ho- ward will appreciate his quick mind and easy manner, but should not be misled by them. Mr Ghoten's reputation is of the man who negotiates with the West and gets results. Yoh Kurosawa of the Industrial Bank of Japan once put it differently: 'He knows how to argue with Westerners and to say No to them.'
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