CHAPTER 6
Japan: A World Unto Itself A MOST MISUNDERSTOOD MARKET
“have been more copiously described than Japan, and perhaps few have been less thoroughly understood.” So stated Edwin Reischauer, the noted academic, historian, and former US ambassador to Japan, in writing many years ago about the relationship between Japan and the rest of the world. The United States and Japan have each subconsciously cultivated a sophisticated form of protectionism. Each has, in its own way, fended off the other even though—despite their checkered histories—they rely heavily on one another politically and economically. Japan is much maligned in the United States as a totally closed export market where it’s virtually impossible for any US-based company to succeed. This perspective persists despite the fact that Japan is currently the third largest market in the world for American-made products and has historically run a trade surplus with virtually ever country it does business with, not just the US. On the other side of the coin, Japanese insularity and cultural arrogance has many subtle, and exasperating, forms. For traders, perhaps the most obvious are the country’s convoluted distribution system and continuation of an almost feudal concept of society that unnecessarily complicates the internal processes involved in facilitating foreign commerce. While blame abounds on both sides of the Pacific, Japan remains a mystery to many Americans, as does America to many Japanese. In a sense, our mutual pasts tend to cloud our future excessively. The results, in their turn, are often outrageously amusing and profoundly vexing. While attending business school in Japan, I can remember seeing a cartoon in a weekly business newspaper that profoundly underscored the love-hate symbiosis that has overshadowed economic relations between the US and Japan. Two men, one Japanese and the other American, sit quietly on a bench in one of the small parks that dot metro Tokyo. The Japanese speaks: “Johnson-san, I understand your company is sending you back to your home office in New York. I want you to know how much I’ve valued our friendship.” The American responds: “Thank you, Sato-san. We have grown close over the past 20 years. I will miss you.” A long pause. “That’s just like you Americans,” Sato-san concludes, “Here today and gone tomorrow.”
FEW COUNTRIES
Otter Pelts and Culture Clash It was, after all, pure business. Through the second half of the 18th century, the trading posts along the northwest coasts of the North American Pacific had supplied the Hong merchants of China with beaver pelts. The Chinese held a firm grip on the
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