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For every gadfly who voices contempt for the U.S. and its ills, countless Japanese evince tremendous fondness for their only military ally and premier trading partner. It would be hard, perhaps, to find any nation anywhere so besotted with things American -- from the music, books and movies Japanese absorb to the clothes they wear and hamburgers they eat. Millions of Japanese tourists visit the U.S. every year, while tens of thousands who return from working in America gush about how they loved their stay.
Does all this reflect unalloyed good attitudes? Well, no. In detecting evidence of trouble in the U.S. that Americans themselves see, many Japanese react with sorrow more than anything like contempt. Explains Kazuo Ogura, a senior Foreign Ministry official and expert on U.S.-Japanese relations: "Because Japanese like America and want to admire it, they are frustrated. When they look at America, they see disintegration of the family, drugs, AIDS, middle-class values collapsing. Traditional values are what many Japanese still respect and think important."
Highly sensitive to what foreigners think of them, Japanese chafe under a constant buzz saw of American complaints. A country that emerged from the smoking ruins of 1945 to achieve the free, modern and prosperous society that their conqueror wanted is now blamed for being too good at the game. Says a senior official, Chief Cabinet Secretary Koichi Kato: "Americans told us to be diligent and work hard. We followed that advice. Now we are criticized for our virtue. There is a smoldering frustration about that." Sensitivity extends to the way Japanese reporters minutely track U.S. opinions of their country, in an almost masochistic zeal to record any bad views.
In part, though, the attitude may also be compensation for what some Japanese historians consider to be their country's biggest defect before World War II: a failure to read properly what the rest of the world thought of Japan. Militarists at the time preached and probably believed, for example, that China would welcome them as liberators. Today the Japan that has constitutionally renounced war is awakening to the need for greater responsibility in world affairs. The shift has been slow, however, and underwent a sharp setback during the gulf war.
In a society that may be the most pacifist on earth, the government's failed attempt to circumvent constitutional curbs in order to send noncombat personnel to the Persian Gulf at American behest provoked widespread outrage. More irritating still was the carping from Washington after Japan pledged $13 billion in aid to the allied effort. Says a high Japanese official: "First Americans taught us that pacifism was a good thing, and then they called us cowards when we did not send troops. Oh, Americans did not say that directly, but we felt that was what they were thinking."