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Fear and Prejudice in U.S.–Japan Relations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2012

John W. Dower
John W. Dower
Affiliation:
JOHN W. DOWER is the Joseph Naiman Professor of History and Japanese Studies at the University of California, San Diego.
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Abstract

At the time of writing, Dower observed mounting tension in U.S.-Japan relations. He identified two factors as contributing to mutual fear: differences in capitalism on national and international levels, and stereotypical perceptions based on racial phobias. The author describes major characteristics inducing pessimism based on rational fears concerning economic well-being, national pride, and “cultural values.” While densely intertwined economically, financially, militarily, and personally, both actors' abiding suspicion of one another has created a sense of impending crisis.

Type
Articles
Information
Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 3 , March 1989 , pp. 135 - 162
Copyright
© Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 1989

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References

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18 Fallows, Ibid.; see also “Japan Asks Why Scientists Go West to Thrive,”The New York Times, November 8, 1987, relating the creativity issue to Tonegawa's Nobel PrizeGoogle Scholar.

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23 Two classic sumo depictions are on the covers of Time (April 13, 1987) and a special business section of The New York Times Magazine (September 20, 1987). While Japan may be winning the “trade war,” Americans are clearly ahead in producing lively political cartoons about the conflictGoogle Scholar.

24 The New York Times, April 5, 1987, for Nukuzawa; Karel G. van Wolferen, “The Japan Problem,”Foreign Affairs, Vol. 65 (Winter 1986/87) pp. 288–303, especially 301Google Scholar; lacocca, Lee, lacocca: An Autobiography (New York: Bantam, 1984) p. 317Google Scholar.

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26 Ian Buruma, who frequently belittles his Asian subjects, is the most hyperbolic Western commentator on “neo-Nazi” trends in Japan; compare “A New Japanese Nationalism,”The New York Times Magazine (April 12, 1987). The numerous examples of U.S. apprehension concerning Japanese militarism include Packard, “The Coming U.S.-Japan Crisis,” pp. 353, 356–57; Forbes (January 26, 1987) pp. 32–33; World Press Review (November 1987) p. 47; Christopher, The Japanese Mind, chapter 14; Henry Scott Stokes, “Lost Samurai: The Withered Soul of Postwar Japan,”Harper's (October 1986) pp. 55–63Google Scholar.

27 These patterns of perception are analyzed in detail in Dower, War Without Mercy, op. cit., pp. 203–317Google Scholar.

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30 The document is analyzed in Dower, War Without Mercy, op. tit., pp. 262–90Google Scholar.