Japan, Inc.

A third in a series of reflections in anticipation of Japan’s imperial couple’s visit to Saipan.

Saipan became prominent in pulp fiction anthology in the early ’90s when Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan in Debt of Honor faced Mr. Yamata, who gobbled up half of Saipan’s real estate and consequently triggered a process that almost led to another World War. Yamata’s machinations to align economic and political forces in Japan for a symbolic gesture to reacquire Saipan as well as destroy the United States’ political and economic systems had a ring of plausibility that only a Clancy literary craft can skillfully weave. Needless to add, pulp fiction aficionados got riveted in their airline seats to gobble up the yarn in one trans-Pacific seating, gauging from the book sales at the time.

Saipan was Japanese territory between the two World Wars. Acquired after Germany relinquished it at the onset of World War I, the occupation was recognized in a trusteeship agreement with the League of Nations after the cessation of hostilities. There is reason to believe that the peopling of the Marianas Islands by Japanese nationals was a part of an imperial design already in place, which by then extended to Formosa and Korea, and would later add Manchukuo.

Yamata in Clancy’s story was out to avenge his family’s forced and untimely demise on Saipan’s famed Suicide Cliff on the tail end of the American invasion of the island. He was out as well to inflict considerable damage to the economic and political stability of the United States, which, in Yamata’s view, mercilessly soiled the nation’s honor to the ground. It is from such tales, credible and realistic in the telling, that we derive our common images of Japan and its citizens. We are to be wary of them, we are told. Even as allies, we are cautioned that they are not to be fully trusted.

There are historical reasons for this sentiment. After World War II, the occupying government of Gen. Douglas MacArthur wanted to dismantle the four entrenched and dominant zaibatsus of Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Sumitomo, and Yasuda. This was aborted when it became apparent that war efforts and support of the military conflict in the Korean peninsula needed organized and efficient sectors in the Japanese economy. Weakening of the large companies did not serve the interest of the occupying forces as they wallowed into the worsening conflict south of the Yalu River.

The zaibatsus smartly converted themselves into conglomerates to escape the anti-monopolistic policies of the times. These conglomerates, now known as keiretsus, would evolve into integrated structures that embraced the qualities of core companies with loyal though sluggish lifetime employees, as well as incorporate the flexibility of mobile subcontractors with their efficient but expendable personnel. Subsidiary companies could then absorb losses in lean times and periods of scarcity. This formation of ‘cartels’ and economic groupings—Japan’s version of capitalism—have allowed it to secure the smooth continuum of production and distribution processes, maintain an acceptable level of unemployment, and spread risks in an increasingly meritocratic and egalitarian workforce. Japan segued smoothly from an aristocratic, to a feudal, to an urban, and finally to a mass society. With it was the unifying icon of the Imperial throne.

Long before the Wharton School of Economics discovered corporate culture, the keiretsus already had the cultural ambience, its art and discipline, in place. When President Reagan realigned the mighty dollar’s value in the mid-’80s, the ¥en catapulted into global prominence that soon, boardrooms from Hollywood to Wall Street were serving sushi for lunch, miso soup and Kobe beef for dinner.

This image of a monolithic, homogeneous society, defensive with manners in its insularity, and parochial yet assertive in perspective, has come to be the holding icon of Japan Inc. Heartless JAL, some suspect and publicly say so, is pulling its operations out of the region because it cannot squeeze enough blood out of the local population. (We spare HSBC’s exit from such accusations because we perceive them to be more Brit than Sino, a not-so-subtle form of racial prejudice.) We could not give JAL the benefit of the doubt that this decision is responsibly based on purely economic realities. Thus, some find it ironic that at a time when there is a massive exodus of business interests out of the island, that the sovereign icon of Nihon and Nippon, the Empress and the Emperor, would deign come visit our neighborhood. Further, short-sighted business interest are forgiven their mercenary view in figuring out how to maximize the impact of the royal couple’s visit to the island’s visitors industry. Solemn and sober the pilgrimage might be, but is it a promotional opportunity that should be ignored?

Here’s the nagging larger question that remains: Is Japan Inc. really that monolithic in self-perception and in truth? Japan’s self-image for a long while has been that of a single, unified entity. Does that still hold true? The myths out of the Meiji Restoration began a process that created what we now know to be Japan. Some of these perceptions are increasingly coming into reexamination, from territorial identity to the nature of the Chrysanthemum throne, but the myth persists—Japan Inc. is one people, one direction.

To the visitor, the image of firm, solid Japan gets shaken at ground zero. The Shinjuku district of my youth, with its step down pubs where subscribers leave their favorite bottle of brew behind on a shelf, has now become the bustling Metropolitan Government Center and its famous Yoyogi Park. Outskirt of the Park are trendy and pricey boutique shops, including a store that sold in 2001 an aluminum Peugeot bicycle, basic model, for $7,000. In the Park are, however, makeshift cardboard dwellings of homeless people, dependent on the dole of the state and well-meaning non-government organizations. This, in a place vaunted for lifelong employment and care, and an ingrained respect for the elderly and abiding care for “those without swords.” The keiretsus had not been that all-encompassing.

Unified Japan is unraveling at the seams. And the world asks, if the keiretsus cannot take care of their own, how are they to be trusted in caring for the economic welfare of many portions of the world where they exert considerable influence?