ABSTRACT

Since the middle of the nineteenth century on questions of technology Japan and Asia have been in a subordinate position in the international system. This chapter argues that during the second half of the twentieth century, Asia’s technology order has also been defined by a relatively hierarchical regional division of labor even though first Japan and other Asian states later have improved rapidly their technological profiles. Focusing on the Japanese technological challenge, this chapter shows how governments and corporations seek to respond to and appropriate the effects of international technological developments through distinctive institutions, and how they attempt to project their preferences, in the form of national policies and corporate strategies, into the region of which they are a part. Although the technological leads and lags that separated Japan from the USA and other Asian political economies have changed over time, the underlying order has not. As different producers in Japan and Asia rapidly mastered the leading technologies of different industrial sectors, Asia’s technological order has remained defined by the search for enhanced national autonomy and corporate profitability.