WOULD JAPAN BE ABLE TO SAVE ITS FACE

Last week could have really been called the most "patriotically eventful" for Japan. The 7th of February is a day of the Northern territories (with an obligatory protest march near the Russian embassy). The 11th of February is the day of Japan — holiday of the state foundation. Recently this day was the reason for the violent debates subjected to the issue of whether it restores the warlike Japan traditions or not. This year, however, the Japanese holiday was darkened by the apparent and well-coordinated world-scale attack at the Japanese goods. Toyota has called back more than 9 million cars from the USA and Europe during last three months.

Last week could have really been called the most "patriotically eventful" for Japan. The 7th of February is a day of the Northern territories (with an obligatory protest march near the Russian embassy). The 11th of February is the day of Japan — holiday of the state foundation. Recently this day was the reason for the violent debates subjected to the issue of whether it restores the warlike Japan traditions or not.

This year, however, the Japanese holiday was darkened by the apparent and well-coordinated world-scale attack at the Japanese goods. Toyota has called back more than 9 million cars from the USA and Europe during last three months. This number includes 400.000 of the hybrid Toyota Prius cars that used to be the exemplar of the next level technologies before that. Honda also withdrew more than 2 million cars. Koito Industries — airliner seats producer — was accused of safety certificate forgery and they would have to replace 150.000 seats.

Toyota — largest company of Japan — world leading car producer probably lost its leadership this February. Toyota share prices drop down 20%, having pulled the Nikkei index with them.

Japan is making the off-grade cars. This thought seems to be too large for comprehension and it seems that Japanese consider it to be some sort of an ill joke. Specialists understand this truth in full. "Japan is drowning. If Toyota is not all right then Japan is not all right as well", — stated Masamoto Tanaka, professor of the Tokyo Technology Institute — leading educational institution of the country that prepares the future engineers. Yukio Noguchi — economics professor of the Tokyo Vaseda University — repeats his words: "Even Toyota is suffering a defeat, even Prius does. We do not possess leadership in the field of hi-tech goods anymore. That is a severe hit for the national pride" (New York Times 8 feb "In Toyota Mess. Lesson for Japan").

Is there any political pretext under this coordinated offensive? Is it just a small episode or the beginning of something greater? Americans believe that it really is. Second chance? "Japan would never get it" — states the Newsweek title. January sales of the Japanese cars in the USA dropped for 47% comparing to the Christmas December. Sales of the American cars at the same time increased for 25%. Largest American car-producing companies have started the large-scale campaign intended to discredit the Japanese cars. Key moment of this campaign was the public speech of Ray LaHood, current U. S. Secretary of Transportation, containing the severe criticism of Toyota sluggishness with the withdrawal of the cars. "We consider the opportunity to impose a fine via filing a civil lawsuit against Toyota, connected with the mass withdrawal of the cars after the problem with the accelerator pedal. We should also take into the consideration the fact that the Japanese company decided to withdraw and repair the cars only after the pressure from the United States government". He also addressed the Toyota owners, having called to "stop driving them". "We’re not done with Toyota. U. S. authorities still thoroughly examine all possible defects and control the necessary feedback".

American car producers Ford Motor, General Motors and Chrysler have already announced the $1000 discount for those who exchange the used Toyota cars for the new America-produced automobiles. Some dealers are even mounting the billboards saying "Dump your unreliable Toyota here!" or "Wanna know how to get rid of Toyota — ask me how!"

Official U. S. papers are quite cautious in their estimates. In this sense, blogs are free to make the far-reaching forecasts. Slate. com — one of the most authoritative blogs of America — published an article right on the 11th of February (birthday of Japan) calling to forget about the stories that Europe and Japan are outpacing America. According to it, the USA is in the very favorable position to restore its economics now. In Europe and Japan crisis wasn’t so acute just due to the fact that leadership of these countries decided to postpone the solution of numerous problems to the distant future. European Union problems with Greece and Japan and their undermined faith into the high quality of goods may become the catalyst of huge changes. Article also featured some small details. Author says that the only news that can be more shattering than these would probably be the news that Chez Panisse, ecological home-made cuisine and home-bred ingredients restaurant from Berkley (California) switched for Crisco. Even the apologetic bow of Toyota’s chief Akio Toyoda became an object of multiple jokes and parodies even at the serious editions. All this indicates that Toyota was seriously taken in the hand.

The U. S.-Japanese relationship has always been great and it has no alternatives rather than to remain to be so. Almost no one has doubts of that. So the expectations of some noteworthy remarks considering for example, the position of new Japanese leader Hatoyama regarding the immediate withdrawal of the American USAF base from Okinawa would be in vain. It would be no point to think that his position is allegedly connected to the fact that the U. S. Transportation Department became more captious (more than 7.000.000 cars were called back). One is to have the remarkable skills of reading between the lines in order to catch the signs of the upcoming storm in the following statement of Brad Glosserman, Center of Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) specialist, dated the 8th of February:

"Since the last September when Hatoyama administration came to power, the American-Japanese relations resemble the slow-motion train crush. Desire of Hatoyama’s government to ‘lever’ the Japanese foreign policy and form the ‘more equal relationship’ with their ally caused the apprehends of a break-up, rather than the calibration. These fears are inappropriate. Japan has really no alternatives to the alliance with the United States. But still there’s a real possibility that today’s problems largely harm to what State Secretary Hillary Clinton has recently characterized as the ‘really necessary’ partnership".

If Japan strives for the real balance in politics then why wouldn’t it get a real balance in economics as well? How about a parity of Japanese cars sales in America and American cars sales in Japan? What would Japanese think about such balance?

The last two sentences have never been said but they were always meant. Tom Clancy was the first person who assumed in his "Debt of honor" book that — given the certain circumstances — these words would be said.

in order to figure out the significance of Tom Clancy’s words I’m asking you to make follow me in a tour into the summer of 2001 when I — along with the hundreds of thousands of computer gamers — launched the "Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon", game that set the still unbeaten standards for the tactical shooter genre. Read with all your attention now. According to the game plot (that Tom Clancy wrote in 2000), in 2008 Russians gathered 3 armored divisions of the 58th army at the border of Northern and Southern Ossetia. Georgia — supported by the U. S. army instructors — started a police operation of restoring the constitutional order in Southern Ossetia (objective of the first mission is to destroy the base of Ossetian rebels and capture their leader). Russia "causes a stir" at the UN, having stated that Georgia started the genocide of Ossetians — after that, Russian tank divisions invade Ossetia via the Roki tunnel and advance to the Tbilisi. By the fifth mission that is dated by 14th of May, 2008 Tbilisi was already captured by the Russian army.

At that time frequenters of the internet-forums and authors of the special magazines used to write that Tom Clancy is smoking some good weed. Few months after that, in September of 2001 everyone also quoted the 1994 book of his — "Debt of honor" — where the terrorist heads the passenger airliner to the Capitol building killing the most part of American political establishment at once. Japanese pilot Sato was at the control column of the plane. Now wait a minute. Why was he Japanese? Perhaps, it was Arab, Chinese or Russian terrorist? "No, he definitely was Japanese" — wrote Clancy. Japanese and nobody else.

Geopolitical roles of the countries are personified down to the limit in Clancy’s books. Every country is represented by one or several heroes, whose characters are quite easy to be dealt with and, therefore, it’s easy to predict their actions. Russians — in the Clancy books — are frank and honest guys, whom you can trust. Only having allied with Russians, America can reach the world stability and defeat the terrorism. Europeans are double-faced and weak. Arabs and Iranians are insane fanatics who are destined to lose due to lack of the positive program of any kind. Chinese are dumb, narrow-minded, complacent people who, of course, are to be defeated because of that.

In one of his books, Clancy describes the Chinese intervention to Siberia, which actually turns to be the slaughter of the Chinese army as the innocents. While the Japanese...well, the Japanese are really dangerous...

"Debt of honor" starts from the episode of election of the new Prime Minister of Japan — his policy is aimed towards the political independence of Japan and revival of the national consciousness. At the same time usual American family is buying the miracle of the Japanese car-industry — new model Toyota Cresta.

"In this affordable front-drive car that featured economical four-cylindered engine with the sixteen valves, two adults could have comfortably seat at the front and three kids could have taken their seats in the back. According to the ‘Motor Trend’ magazine it was immediately chosen the car of the year. The car explodes at the freeway few pages after that. ‘Preliminary investigation results — performed by the U. S. Transport Department — revealed the fact that the fuel tanks didn’t meet the long-lasting American safety standards.’ As a result of that U. S. Transport Department issued a regulation of the immediate stopping of exploitation of all the ‘Cresta’ passenger cars and their obligatory return to the sellers..."

Moreover, U. S. Congress adopted the law stipulating the thorough research of all cars imported to the USA from Japan in order to prove their conformity with the quality standards. That led to the collapse of the Japanese car industry. "There’s nothing we can do, — answered President Darling in an icy tone. —We’ve been lucky and in the next couple years we were able to cut down the trade deficit, but their new Prime Minister was so subordinate to the large industrialists that it was impossible to deal with his people. That was the time to end all of this".

I believe that now we can only envy the futurologist gift of Tom Clancy. New Prime Minister and his policy towards the independence. In half a year — problems with the Japanese cars in the USA. Cresta and Prius. In the Clancy’s books it was Congressman Al Trent who made a public speech accusing the Japanese car-producers of casual Americans’ death. In reality, Congressman Henry Waxman stood out with the statement that during last 10 years 19 people died due to the faulty Japanese automobiles. Even the fictional and real methods of exerting the pressure towards the Japanese automobile industrialists coincided.

This is how the Japanese reacted to that: "Having lost our positions at the market we would never be able to regain them again.
— But why? — asked Clark in perplexity.
— When we first came to the American marker, Yen rate was thrice less than the current one. Thus, we had an opportunity to successfully compete with the American goods. Then, having conquered our market niche in America and having created the goodwill for the commodities produced under the brand of Japanese corporations, we’ve managed to increase their prices. At that, we have not only saved out market share — we have actually extended it in several sectors due to the Yen rate increase. Today, achieving it would be a much tougher job. Considering the production of other goods, for example cameras — they are produced everywhere these days: in Korea, Singapore, Malaysia. The same thing may be applied to the consumer electronics. The thing, Clark-san, is that nobody has the slightest idea of what is really going on now. My country has never faced situation like that since 1941".

This is the very thing that Japanese don’t even dare to think today. Mind that Clancy’s novel has no signs of the financial crisis that aggravates the situation multiply. In the book fictional Japanese reacted in the rapid and ingenious way. They’ve caused the New-York Stock Exchange and Dow Jones index to fall. Then they’ve occupied the Saipan Island and forced America to meddle into the military affair with the numerous victims among the civil population. Quite naturally, Japanese were defeated in the end.

Today no one is thinking about any kind of extravagant Japanese actions, as well as about their "victory" or "defeat". The thing is, however, that the history itself teaches us to never put Japanese in a situation where they have to choose between "saving their face" and the very survival of the nation.

By Vadim Bulatov