ABSTRACT
The huge and rapidly growing worldwide outflows of Japanese investment in the later 1980s and 1990s also caught the attention of academic writers, and they were integrated into conceptual schema of imminent regional hegemony and Japanese domination of integrated regional production networks. The claims of Japanese primacy have been made possible by an analysis which focuses on Japanese trade and investment, ignoring their importance relative to the contribution of others. The argument is that broad quantitative data underestimate the less visible Japanese influence for a number of reasons. The belief that Japan holds a stranglehold on high technology in Asia is by now clearly exploded. The increasing role of Japan as overseer and coordinator of a regional division of labour and borderless production, through its network of affiliates in East Asian countries, is much heralded.
