This article ran in the April edition of Japan Now, a publication of the Japan Information and Culture Center, Embassy of Japan, Washington, D.C. It is based on a talk given by me in March of 1997 at the Center. The text below is the raw text submitted for the article, and may have some spelling errors!
I worry whenever Japan becomes too invisible in the American mind. Teachers
tell me enrollment in Japanese language classes is down. Publishers tell
me books on Japan are not in demand. Politicians and technologists, who
used to worry about Japan inheriting the 21st century and leaving America
behind in the dust, are strangely silent. American news magazines, which
in the eighties loudly proclaimed the need to learn from Japan or to fight
back with pictures of big rising red suns on their covers, now rarely feature
Japan. When Newsweek magazine recently ran a short article on Japan,
it titled it, "Dimming Sun.""
It's hard to believe how visible Japan was only a few years ago, and how
strained relations were, over trade imbalances and a variety of cultural
and emotional issues. After a flurry of books and articles in the early
eighties that seemed to glorify everything about Japan, Americans began
writing articles and books suggesting that Japan was exerting improper
influence on the U.S. political process, that Japan should be "contained,"
and even, as with the case of a 1991 book titled The Coming War With
Japan, that war between the two countries was inevitable. Of course,
in Japan the literature was similarly strident, with books and articles
criticizing the U.S., and even a book subtitled in English, "Coming
War With USA."
It's easy to understand why this change has come about. It's mostly economic,
of course, and money drives far more human behavior than one would like
to think. The U.S. economy has been humming along, and-- thanks to entrepreneurial
spirit and the network/ PC revolution-- has done a better job than anyone
expected at making the transition to an information-based economy. Japan,
on the other hand, has been having a rough time. Like last night's champagne
now gone flat, the intoxicating "bubble" economy of the late
eighties and early nineties is over. Technologists are reeling in shock
from America's embrace of the Internet. Real estate and stock values have
plummeted. Banks are in trouble. And the old administrative-guidance structural
models, which helped lift Japan's economy so far and so fast in the postwar
period, no longer seem to work.
It's also easy to understand why Americans pay less attention to Japan
today if one looks at the Japanese media. Businessmen who a few years ago
displayed an overweening confidence in their dealings with Americans now
are wringing their hands in frustration. A recent issue of Toyo Keizai
[Eastern Economics] magazine had a cover illustration showing Japan stretched
out on a hospital bed, receiving a transfusion. Sapio magazine,
which often runs articles with a slightly bombastic, even nationalistic
flavor, recently issued a feature edition titled, "Things that Japan
can Be Proud Of," as if there were very little left to be proud of.
But of course this is all very misleading. Many fundamentals in Japan's
situation look very good compared to America. Japan is the still the world's
2nd largest economy, and it has a per capita GNP considerably higher than
that of the U.S. Nor is Japanese technology to be written off. A recent
Consumer Reports survey of autos from 1989 to 1995 listed 18 of
the best cars, and they were ALL Japanese. Japanese manufacturers have
recently re-entered the U.S. personal computer market after an absence
of many years. In the near future we will probably see a massive importation
of flat screens, DVD devices, and further out, possibly Japanese breakthroughs
in mechatronics, micromachines, and so forth. Export-oriented Japanese
manufacturers, who miraculously succeeded at making their products globally
competitive at nearly 80 yen to the dollar a few years ago, may be looking
at some very, very profitable years ahead if the exchange rate remains
around 123 yen, as it is now. The trade deficit with America is sure to
worsen.
And Japan is back in a very comfortable role, a role which it historically
has been very good at-- of playing "catch-up." Americans should
be careful not to be misled by the moaning and groaning coming out of Japan,
for much of it is not meant to be taken at face value, and can be merely
a public expression of concern and intent.
America and Japan today are inextricably intertwined, economically and
culturally. Yet it is impossible for each half of this partnership to understand
the other without first understanding the fundamental complexity of the
relationship itself. The relationship has a strong cyclical factor to it,
of viewing each other as friends, foes, and models to emulate, but it is
also characterized by a consistent tendency to either over- or underestimate
each other's capabilities, often with disastrous consequences. After a
period of tension, some receding of Japan in the American consciousness
may be a good thing, but it also increases the possibility of being unpleasantly
surprised in the near future, when conditions inevitably change again.
March 28, 1997
Copyright 1997 Frederik L. Schodt
Frederik L. Schodt is the author of America and the Four Japans: Friend,
Foe, Model, Mirror (Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press, 1994) as well other
books on Japanese robotics and pop culture. His most recent work is entitled
Dreamland Japan: Writings on Modern Manga
Copyright 1997, Frederik L. Schodt
Revised May 29, 1997