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The growing enmity is not entirely one-sided. Yoshio Sakurauchi, a veteran politician who heads the prestigious but largely ceremonial post of speaker of Japan's House of Representatives, said last week that "the root of the ((trade)) problem lies in the inferior quality of U.S. labor. The American worker doesn't work enough but wants high pay. About one-third can't even read." (In fact, about 15% of the adult work force would be considered functionally illiterate, meaning that they are unable to adequately perform in their job.) Stooping to Sakurauchi's level of discourse, Michigan Senator Donald Riegle shot back, "His attitude in slandering American workers was the same view the Japanese held the day their warplanes struck Pearl Harbor. Their arrogance was gone by 1945 when they learned the full measure of America's capability."
The Japanese seem ambivalent about the escalating tensions with America. "Japan's view of the U.S. is in a dangerous balance," says Yukio Okamoto, a former Foreign Ministry official who heads his own consulting firm in Tokyo. "The feeling that Japan needs to cooperate with the U.S. still remains strong, but at the same time there is a sense that the U.S. is being selfish and blaming everything on Japan." To a large extent, Japanese who lived through World War II, now in their mid-50s and older, feel indebted to the U.S. People in their 40s tend to be the corporate warriors, who wonder why they are criticized for working so hard. Only Japanese under 40, who grew up with American rock music and Hollywood movies, identify with American criticism of their country. Says a 30-year-old management consultant: "Even if what the U.S. is saying seems unreasonable, we can understand that we are disliked because we work too hard to go to the head of the class."
The waters between the U.S. and Japan were further roiled by the latest trade statistics, which show a dramatic jump in Japan's overall trade surplus, up 84% to $78.23 billion for 1991. But while the numbers gave some Americans a ready excuse to decry Tokyo's trade practices, in fact Japan's surplus with the U.S. alone increased by a modest 1%, to $38.45 billion. Since 1987, the U.S.-Japanese trade gap has actually narrowed by nearly $14 billion.
While there is little doubt that many Japanese companies continue to pursue an aggressive export strategy, it is far less clear whether their home market is rigged against foreign competitors, as their critics charge. Many American executives argue that Japan's interlocking company relations and complicated distribution system pose an unfair burden to red-blooded American business. Why, they ask, do three Japanese glassmakers control nearly all of the $2 billion sheet-glass market in Japan despite efforts of American producers to sell quality products there? A recent study by the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan concluded that an exclusionary distribution system is just one of many problems facing foreign companies in that country, where real estate is expensive and labor is in short supply. Still, the Japanese market has become increasingly open to foreigners.