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.

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.

The essays in this volume provide an overview of the causes and proposed remedies for the recurring bouts of trade friction between Japan and the United States.