Arnie 'more popular than Bush'

2004-11-12 09:03

Tokyo - Perhaps in a joking reference to the California governor's presidential ambitions, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told Arnold Schwarzenegger on Friday he's more popular than their mutual ally George W Bush.

"You're very popular," a smiling Schwarzenegger told Koizumi, shaking the premier's hand at his official residence.

"You too," Koizumi replied in English.

"More popular than Bush."

Koizumi further told the former bodybuilder, copping a phrase from Schwarzenegger's smash hit Terminator: "You will be back to Japan".

The governor met the prime minister as part of a four-day trade mission to Japan to revive flagging Japanese tourism to his state, invite more investment dollars and sell California-grown produce.

Former bodybuilder for president

The Austrian-born former bodybuilder turned politician has said openly he wants to run for president, despite the constitutional rule banning foreign-born US citizens from seeking the top office.

"Why not? With my way of thinking, you always shoot for the top," he told CBS's 60 Minutes in an interview broadcast last month.

Schwarzenegger was to take his star appeal directly to the public at an outdoor venue on Saturday, the final day on his first trip to Asia since becoming governor last year.

Japan is California's second-largest overseas trading partner, while Japanese companies are the largest foreign investors in California, Schwarzenegger's office said.

Some 590 000 Japanese tourists visited California in 2003, half the number in the mid-to-late 1990s, his office said, with tourism hampered especially after the September 11 2001 attacks.

- AFP