A Perspective On Japanese Trade Policy And Japan Us Trade Friction

Closing a critical gap in the literature examining the strained relationship between the U.S. and Japan, this book synthesizes the economic, political, historical, and cultural factors that have led these two nations, both practitioners of capitalism, along quite different paths in search of different goals. Taking an objective, multidisciplinary approach, the author argues that there is no single explanation for Japan's domestic economic or foreign trade successes. Rather, his analysis points to a systemic mismatch that has been misdiagnosed and treated with inadequate corrective measures. This systemic mismatch in the corporate strategy, economic policies, and attitudes of the U.S. and Japan created and is perpetuating three decades of bilateral economic frictions and disequilibria. As long as both the U.S. and Japan deal more with symptoms than causes, bilateral problems will persist. This book's unique analysis will encourage a better understanding on both sides of the Pacific of what has happened, is happening, and will continue to happen if corporate executives and policymakers in the two countries do not better realize the extent of their differences and adopt better corrective measures.

Relations between Japan and the US remain strong, and government-to-government relations continue to be productive. However, complaints can be heard. This volume reflects these sentiments and emphasizes the need to promote closer ties and greater understanding between the US and Japan.

First published in 1998, this study of Japan-U.S. trade friction and the role perceptual differences have played in its evolution differs from its predecessors in key ways. First, it is interdisciplinary, drawing on the research of anthropologists, area specialists, intercultural communication specialists, linguists, sociologists, and social psychologists as well as that of political scientists and economists. Second, it both identifies and quantifies perceptual differences between Japanese and American opinion leaders regarding the large bilateral trade imbalances, the bilateral relationship, and national negotiating styles. Third, original data were collected from completed questionnaires sent to 230 American and 230 Japanese opinion leaders from business, government, academia, and the media, who had been involved in some way with the rice, automotive, or semiconductor sectors. Fourth, the three case studies of trade friction are representative of three differing mixes of trade friction are representative of three differing mixes of trade friction causal factors and perceptual dynamics. Finally, based on the findings of this study, modest suggestions are offered on how the bilateral perceptual gap might be narrowed and trade friction diminished so that the structural and sectoral problems might more effectively be addressed. This book should be of interest to scholars, government officials, and business leaders in Japan, the United States, and other countries in the global community who are interested in bilateral relations, international economic and political affairs, and trade friction. It should also be of special interest to social psychologists and cross-cultural scholars and researchers.

This study provides up-to-date coverage of the most important domestic and external political and economic influences on Japanese trade policy, as well as the evolutionary dynamics of that policy in the post-war period.

In a few years, the United States has gone from worrying about Japan's economic might to worrying about its meltdown. The rise and fall of America's 'results-oriented' trade policy towards Japan captures this turnaround. John Kunkel traces this Japan policy to a crisis in the institutions, laws and norms of the US trade policy regime in the first half of the 1980s. This arose from the erosion of America's post-war international economic dominance (especially vis-à-vis Japan) and the unintended consequences of Reaganomics. The crisis in turn led to the progressive ascendancy of a coalition of 'hardliners' over 'free traders' after 1985. Kunkel combines research in economics, politics and history - including interviews with key policy-makers - to illuminate this important case study of American trade policy. His book offers theoretical insights and practical lessons on the forces shaping US trade policy at the start of the twenty-first century.

Schoppa documents how U.S. pressure has been misapplied in the past, insisting on the need for a strategy more informed about internal Japanese politics. While a strategy reliant on brute force is liable to backfire, he argues, one which works with domestic politics in Japan can succeed.