The Japan That Can Say No

National Review, Feb 11, 1991 by Thomas E. Smith

The Japan That Can Say No, by Shintaro Ishihara, translated by Frank Baldwin (Simon & Schuster, 158pp., $18.95)

AT LAST, English-speaking readers can buy an authorized version of the Japanese bestseller, The Japan That Can Say No. It is not identical to the Japanese edition (or the "pirate" translation circulated in the U.S.), but this is not to say that the sharp point of the original has been blunted.

Shintaro Ishihara gives that point a memorable name: technonationalism. In this sound-bite age, a catchy buzzword is necessary to focus an issue, and Mr. Ishihara invites-demands-a hard look at Japan's place in the world. The United States and the Soviet Union are accorded superpower status because they can lob missiles through space to distant targets. The fact that Japanese-made microchips can guide those missiles to their targets must not be disparaged. If a new world order is evolving, the land of the rising sun will not be consigned to the shadows.

Shintaro Ishihara is a politician who also writes, not a writer who follows politics. He is a member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party; he was formerly minister of transport, and has been a candidate for prime minister. The Japan That Can Say No is not disinterested scholarship. It is a look into the thoughts of a member of the Japanese Diet who may influence, or even make, national policy.

Technonationalism is not a designer issue, like global warming or nuclear winter. The British practiced it when they had the machinery of the Industrial Revolution to themselves, and the United States, in keeping with the deterrent strategies of the cold war, has produced many generations of weapons systems instead of combat veterans. Mr. Ishihara is right to consider applied technology a valuable bargaining chip in what he describes as "the high-stakes poker game of international politics."

While Mr. Ishihara does not shy from shocking phrases, he uses them in the context of a complete discussion of U.S.-Japan relations, trade agreements, strategic alliances, and cooperation. He uses the stick to deliver an attention-getting thwack between the eyes, but also shows us the carrots that make ongoing partnership with Japan a logical and profitable course. His critique of the United States is balanced by criticism of Japanese practices that amount to protectionism, which stifles trade and raises costs. With thickets of red tape and armies of middlemen obstructing the flow of affordable imports to Japan's consumers, he concedes that "even Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot would be baffled by how goods in Japan get from the factory or farm to the consumer."

Mr. Ishihara is not anti-American, but he has had it with demagogic Japan bashing. He is angry about American racism, and he does not use the term to denote absence of preferential subsidies or the presence of paid state holidays. He means unfair and unequal treatment that follows racial lines. Only about one-sixth of foreign direct investment in the U.S. comes from Japan, but no hysteria accompanies British, Dutch, German, and Canadian business transactions. The sound and fury is reserved for the Japanese, and for no apparent reason but race.

A recent example is Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan's eruption over the acquisition of MCA by Matsushita Electric Industries. An MCA subsidiary has a contract for concessions at Yosemite National Park, and Lujan depicts this as foreign control over a national shrine. Since every inch of Yosemite National Park itself still belongs to the U.S., Secretary Lujan seems to be consecrating the souvenir shops that sell trinkets made in Taiwan to tourists from Canada and Europe. In its comparatively brief history, the United States has spent more years at war with the Germans, and even with the British, than with the Japanese. Constructive relations with all three have since been forged, and mutual understanding can keep those relationships healthy. That is no small concern in a world where even standing up to a country the size of Iraq requires global cooperation and multinational support.

While Shintaro Ishihara is not the voice of all Japan, his is a Japanese voice, not that of a Western analyst or some stereotype of the polite and inscrutable Oriental. In part one, written for Japanese readers and published before the recent elections, he is more strident than in part two, written after the elections and with American readers in mind. The positions are consistent, but the shift from campaigner to explainer is palpable.

As Mr. Ishihara shows, the Japanese are, to say the least, people with whom we can do business, and that means products, jobs, markets, and even tax revenues for us. The Honda Accord is now officially a "domestic" automobile, because the car and its parts are predominantly Made in the U.S.A., just like Lee Iacocca's Mitsubishi-powered Plymouths.

If technonationalism is the name of the game, Shintaro Ishihara wants the world to know that the Japanese are prepared to play. For amateur or professional futurists trying to divine the shape of a new world order, The Japan That Can Say No is essential reading.