ABSTRACT
In 1989, author turned politician Ishihara Shintarō launched an inflammatory diatribe against the United States. The Japan that Can Say No not only became a million-copy bestseller at home, but also through unofficial and official translated editions, it caused an ‘uproar’ in America, according to Ezra Vogel (Isihara 1989: 8). Ishihara’s manifesto holds no punches in its vitriolic attacks on white racism, which were all the more provocative when read against America’s fitful bouts of ‘Japan bashing’ in the 1980s that only seemed to confirm how much yellow-peril racism was still very much alive (Bailey 1996: 1, 2, 175, 176; Berger 2004: 175-9). Yet, in its angry charges, an equally as recidivist sentiment of national projection is betrayed that is all the more disturbing because of the prewar attitudes it unashamedly resuscitated: a renewed clash of civilizations of East versus West, in which Japan assumes the paramount role in leading an Asian renaissance.
