The Japan Problem Revisited

Karel van Wolferen

From Foreign Affairs, Fall 1990

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Summary:  A Dutch commentator calls for an end to US wishful thinking that Japan will ultimately conform to Western ways given continued pressure to do so, and urges the creation of a 'new institutional framework' for global trading relations, based on a mutual recognition of national realities.

Karel van Wolferen, East Asian correspondent for the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad, has lived in Japan since 1962. His most recent book is The Enigma of Japanese Power.

Wishful thinking in Washington and a refusal to discuss basic matters in Tokyo are threatening to turn a troubled relationship into one in which both parties will be guided by metaphors of villainy.

Washington's wishful thinking is composed of the self-flattering view that Japan was more or less remade in the American image during the early years after World War II, and the belief that whatever stands in the way of a relatively free and equitable exchange of economic opportunities will eventually be removed through mutual resolve. On the Japanese side, one finds a consistent denial of fundamental problems other than the necessity for Americans to "try harder to compete," and a vehemently negative reaction to any attempt at serious political analysis. Japan's bureaucrats and business interests are simply not ready to discuss with the outside world how their economy and informal power system interact.

This ominous situation would not exist if media and intellectuals, both within and outside Japan, were more thorough in scrutinizing Japanese conditions. The United States is incessantly studied, as if under a microscope, for motives and purpose, and justifiably so, for it is the world's most important economic power. Nothing remotely comparable takes place for the world's second-largest economic power.

An important reason for this hiatus is the world's great dependence on the Japanese press for information and speculation on Tokyo and its foreign relations. This principal source of information about Japan does not engage in a true dissection of its own political habitat. Japanese media rarely offer analytical reporting on the informal relations and transactions among government bureaucrats, business bureaucrats of the industrial federations, political power brokers and other clusters of powerholders that determine Japanese policies. Japanese editors themselves are part of this informal political structure, and where issues cut too close to the interests of the Japanese sociopolitical elite, the news media are not sufficiently independent to offer a variety of views.

Conforming to the human inclination to project one's own habits and thoughts onto others, Americans assume that something comparable to their own policy debates takes place in Japan. Thus the erroneous impression is widespread that the Japanese people are engaged in a discussion about their country's purpose and future role in the world. The problems of U.S.-Japanese relations are often presented as if dependent on the Japanese voter, who only needs to be won over before the government can make the concessions demanded by the United States. The fact is, the Japanese electorate has no say in bilateral controversies and could not, even if it wanted to, influence their outcomes in any way. If the Japanese electorate actually did have a mandate, the United States would have an easier task: an opinion poll by the economic daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun suggests that a majority of Japanese understand that their interests are championed by an American government pleading for structural reforms benefiting the consumer.1 The United States is sometimes even half-jokingly referred to as Japan's only authentic political opposition party.

Japanese ...

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