ABSTRACT
As outlined in Part I, the global economic ascent of Japan from the 1950s to the 1980s and the subsequent downturn in the economy in the 1990s and at the beginning of the twenty-first century have taken place in the context of international structures set in place by the early-starters of the West. Within the structural constraints thereby imposed, the Japanese state and its people have sought to catch up with the advanced Western economies, giving substance to the norms of developmentalism and economism. In this process, the economy has relied heavily on the export of manufactured goods to the world market, especially the most advanced consumer market, the US. Over time, these exports have moved from imitation goods at the lower end of the technology spectrum to sophisticated goods at the higher. This is not the economic role US policy-making agents had envisaged for Japan after the end of the Occupation. Then, Japan’s future was seen to be as a second-tier economy, not a leading economy capable of challenging America’s industrial and technological might (Cumings 1984). Yet Japan has emerged as a challenger in sector after sector of the US economy. As a consequence, the two now compete in many of the same high-technology, high-value-added areas. This has caused a range of trade and other economic conflicts. Here the norm of developmentalism at the heart of Japan’s export-led strategy has often been perceived to generate tension with the norms of free-market capitalism at the heart of the US’s strategy.
