Japanese Competition Is No Threat

Now that the cold war seems to have receded, public attention turns to economics. Japan's economic successes are taken as evidence of our own failures. Japan bashing has become a growth industry.

So widespread is the belief that we are being harmed by competition that the public tells the pollsters that Japan is now a greater threat than the Soviet Union. Many of our politicians pound the table and bash the Japanese. Now a leading Japanese industrialist and a prominent politician have bashed back in a new book that urges Japan to say no to U.S. pressure and become more assertive in dealing with us.