Very Different View Emerges From Japan
Business leaders here say they are giving more than lip-service to the government’s new campaign to get them to purchase more supplies abroad. But some also believe that the United States has more to fear from practices of its own manufacturers than from Japan.
Among the critics is Akio Morita, chairman of Sony and one of the most visible Japanese leaders.
Morita contends that it is U.S. manufacturers’ decisions to move their own production offshore that is the real potential killer for the U.S. balance of trade. But he saves his biggest broadside for General Motors and Chrysler.
As he sees it, just as the assault on Japan’s export policies reached its highest pitch this spring, GM and Chrysler were pressuring Japan to substantially fatten quotas on cars they themselves want to bring into the United States.
“This is puzzling to us because America is telling us to increase imports and decrease exports, yet two major companies making big profits in the United States do this,” he told Times correspondent Sam Jameson and myself. “Why are they so selfish?” In their defense, the companies launched their expanded import effort after President Reagan ended “voluntary” restraints on Japanese car makers. The Japanese government promptly and unilaterally substituted its own quotas, and they were much higher. A significant part of that increase, however, goes to GM and Chrysler.
Says Moves Were Wrong
Morita feels, good business or not, the GM and Chrysler moves were wrong. In contrast, he notes, Sony responded to the request to use more imported materials by turning to its San Diego factory to import color picture tubes for use in producing television sets in Japan.
“We tried to change our attitude,” he said. “We are a leading producer so we have to show some effort and some responsibility to society.”
With the dollar exchange rate sky high at about 250 yen--five years ago it was nearer 200--it will cost Sony more. But the picture tube decision isn’t altruism, of course. Sony needs the tubes and hasn’t the spare capacity here that already exists in the United States.
Which brings Morita to his current favorite subject, the system of allowing exchange rates to float according to supply and demand. If the yen were around 200, where he believes it ought to be, Sony San Diego would be fully competitive with Sony Japan. Even salaries would work out roughly the same at that exchange rate.
“There’s no hope if we don’t solve the exchange rate,” he maintains. And to do that will take the kind of innovative thinking that has built companies such as Sony, he adds.
“We thought the floating exchange rate system would balance things out between countries. But the result has been entirely different. We are getting huge money flows.”
Dangerous Situation
As a result, in his view, the world is allowing traders to make huge sums just by moving money, at the expense of hard-working people in factories. “This is a world crisis--a very dangerous situation.”
He says he gets mad when monetary experts tell him there’s no way to change the system. If engineers, of which he’s one, thought that way, there would be little progress.
Morita, who expressed such views to U.S. business leaders at a recent meeting of the Business Council, puts it bluntly: “It’s time for our two countries to stop blaming each other and agree we have a mutual problem. We have been running this improper system too long.”
There’s been some talk about reforming the monetary system, but nothing serious has come of it. At least one Japanese government official, however, believes that the effort soon will become more earnest. Shinji Fukukawa, director of industrial policy for the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, argues that while it will be difficult to get away from the current system of fluctuating rates, “perhaps we need to add some artificial measure to keep the world economy as stable as possible. The invisible hand may need some help from a visible hand.”
