TOKYO -- In his speech at the Japan National Press Club in late November, former Vice Finance Minister Eisuke Sakakibara said, "A strong yen is in our national interest."
Sakakibara was called "Mr. Yen" in the second half of the 1990s, when he led the country's foreign exchange intervention. His comment in Tokyo indirectly quoted Robert Rubin, the U.S. treasury secretary in the same era, who said, "A strong dollar is in our national interest."
