An Ocean Apart: Explaining Three Decades of U.S.-Japanese Trade Frictions

Closing a critical gap in the literature examining the strained economic 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, he explains, a 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. The main conclusion the author draws is that as long as both the U.S. and Japan deal more with symptoms than causes, bilateral problems will persist.