The Japanese ‘System’ Has a Talent for Fueling Western Resentments

It is curious how little--or how much--weight we attach to the individual leaders of some of today’s important nations. Were Mikhail S. Gorbachev to be suddenly replaced, the world would tremble; it would tremble almost as much if President Bush were to be assassinated, leaving Vice President Dan Quayle as his successor. In China, there is furious speculation about the condition, opinions and intentions of Deng Xiaoping. In Britain, an entire decade of politics has been imprinted with the hand of Margaret Thatcher.

But look how different things are in Japan. One prime minister is eased out of office because of a scandal, and the Japanese Liberal Party comes up with a replacement. But no expert on Japanese politics would suggest that any prime minister is going to transform the country in the way Gorbachev and Thatcher have shaken up their societies.

The reason for the relative lack of importance attached to the person of the new prime minister is that Japan is run not by a leader but by a “system.” How it works has just been described in a brilliant and provocative new book that has caused considerable controversy in Japan and is now beginning to have its impact in the United States. The book, titled “The Enigma of Japanese Power: People and Politics in a Stateless Nation,” is by a Dutch writer, Karel van Wolferen, who has reported on Japan for more than 25 years. He possesses considerable knowledge of the language, history, culture and politics, a journalist’s eye for how things really work and a deep sympathy for the average Japanese citizen, who he regards as being the chief victim of a system that determines the country’s domestic and international politics.

The system itself is about as easy to explain to non-Japanese as is Hegelianism. Much of what we assume about political “power” and political “principles” is, in Van Wolferen’s view, absent in Japan. There exists no “tradition of appealing to transcendental truths or universal values.” Following a centuries-old tradition of deference to the existing authority, the Japanese have no historical equivalent to the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights or the Declaration of Independence to affirm that power lies amid “we the people.”

Instead, power is mediated, and thus controlled, by a coalition of squabbling interest-groups--the Liberal Party politicians, business interests, the media and, perhaps the most important of all without being dominant, the senior bureaucracy. It is very much an “old boys network,” chiefly deriving from Tokyo University Law School, but one lacking a clear, responsible leader. There is no one place in Japan where the buck ultimately stops.

Underneath this amorphous elite, there is a well-trained, homogenous population. The results of this training--especially the high mathematical and scientific skills of its 18-year-olds--elicit a great deal of admiration among foreigners. But what Van Wolferen emphasizes is that the average Japanese is also being trained to conformity, to deference, to an unquestioned loyalty to the school and the firm. Any attempts to alter this system are regarded as unsettling, disruptive and “confusing.” Any attempts by foreigners to become integrated are impossible, for the Japanese regard themselves as a unique people, from their intestinal tracts to their cultural history.

It is no secret that there is profound dislike of recent American pressures to force Japan to increase domestic consumption, import more beef and rice, open up the distribution network, and so on, for all that would hurt vested interests and disturb the status quo. What is perhaps more important is that this system has produced the world’s most efficient export-oriented machine, which, taken together with the reluctance to open itself to imports, is creating those enormous trade imbalances.

The idea that mutual and reasonably balanced world trade is good for its own sake is not understood in a Japanese society that possesses no transcending or universal ideals, only companies that are obsessed about larger market shares and are positioning themselves to be No. 1 in every industry by the early 21st Century. The consequence, then, is a political economy that both alarms and antagonizes other countries and denies its own people many of the fruits of its own economic success.

The real impact and power of Van Wolferen’s book lies in its implications. If his analysis is correct, it implies that global trade relations are going to be increasingly distorted by the policies of this fast-growing but selfish, exclusionist, ethnocentric and irresponsible economic giant.

My view is that Van Wolferen’s diagnosis is exaggerated and does not fully take into account the steady transformation of Japanese society, the newer generation’s attitudes, the piecemeal opening of the domestic economy to foreign enterprise, the disintegration of the Liberal Party and various other signs that the system is in a state of profound, if reluctant, metamorphosis.

Such a contrary opinion is, however, less important than the fact that Van Wolferen’s work will help to fuel foreign (especially American) resentment of Japan. A powerful article in the May issue of the Atlantic Monthly--written by James Fallows, who is also emerging from some years of residence in Japan--makes frequent reference to the book, and calls for the “containment of Japan”--that is, enhanced foreign pressure to amend the exclusionist system. It was followed by an equally powerful article in the New Republic by Murray Sayle, which claims that Germany and Japan are “back,” four decades after their defeat by the Allies. Remarkably, the editors of the New Republic went so far as to write a lead article attacking this new form of American alarmism, but the magazine’s cover carried a lurid cartoon (of a Prussian military planner and a sword-swinging Samurai) and the title of Sayle’s article was “Axis, Ltd.”

All this helps to fuel the current American political resentments, especially of Japan. During the U.S.-Japanese negotiations to build the FSX fighter, Sen. Jesse Helms declared: “They skinned us many a time. They skinned us real bad in December, 1941, and they are skinning us with the FSX.” President Bush--under strong congressional pressure--has put Japan on the list of nations accused of “unfair trading.

From Tokyo comes the reply that it will not negotiate under pressure. Whether it will seek a compromise solution to these trade problems or remind Washington that the U.S. economy is also vulnerable remains to be seen. The business pages of every American newspaper contain a curious mixture of reports about new Japanese investment and technological advances and complaints against “unfair” trading practices. Much of the latter feeds on existing racial prejudices and a fear of being eclipsed.

None of this is likely to be addressed soon. With the Liberal Party in tatters, and Uno’s position by no means secure, Japan seems even more of a “stateless nation” than before.

Whether or not these Western journalists have accurately captured the Japanese enigma, the near-to-medium term future is likely to witness continued economic quarrels and cultural misunderstandings across the Pacific, possibly coinciding with renewed economic and political quarrels between America and Europe. Add to this the remarkable events in Gorbachev’s Russia, the troubles in China, the fissures in other parts of the world and one has a distinct sense of the post-1945 global order crumbling fast, but of our not yet being able to see the outlines of the new order for all the dust and confusion. When the dust settles, it will be intriguing to observe what Japan’s place in this new order will be.