The Japan That Can Say No: Why Japan Will Be First Among Equals (Hardcover)

~ Shintaro Ishihara (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this brief, arresting and abrasively frank work, Japan Diet member and novelist Ishihara plumbs the causes of friction between his country and the U.S. Claiming that dropping the A-bomb on Japan rather than on Germany conveyed American racism, he warns that nuclear superiority will go to the superpower that acquires a microchip made only in Japan. And while conceding Japanese deficiencies--poor self-image, staunch clannishness--the author contends that U.S. trade deficits are due to a pursuit of immediate profits at the expense of long-range economic planning such as that practiced in his country. Calling for changed attitudes on both sides, Ishihara proposes a detailed agenda of "drastic steps" on the part of the U.S. to restore its world competitiveness and to foster an equal partnership with Japan--which he deems essential to both nations as a factor in post-Cold War global realignments. $75,000 ad/promo.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Description

The author, a leading Japanese statesman, asserts in this book that the balance of power has shifted and that Japan will no longer play polite sister to the US in world affairs. He claims that Japan could instantly overturn US military superiority by selling its crucial computer missile chip to the USSR. He therefore stresses that it is time for the US corporations to listen to Japanese advice on achieving long-term economic strength instead of relying on trade sanctions to bale them out. He is also convinced that America's racial prejudice, which resulted in dropping the atomic bomb on Japan and not Germany, remains rampant and is a persistent cause of friction between the two countries. This book therefore helps the reader to understand a changing world in which Japan moves towards economic and technological supremacy. A long-time member of the Japanese Parliament, Shintaro Ishihara is the award-winning author of several literary novels and the President of PEN Japan.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1St Edition edition (January 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671726862
• ISBN-13: 978-0671726867
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,475,602 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A fiercely nationalistic book every American should read, August 4, 2002

By	Jerald R Lovell (Clinton Township, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Japan That Can Say No/Why Japan Will Be First Among Equals (Paperback)

This book was a million-seller in Japan, and was translated into English in 1991. The author was a promininet Japanese politician. The book is dated, and history has not always borne out the author's views. Nonetheless, anyone attempting to understand modern Japan should read it. Some of the passages will be very surprising and disturbing.

Author Ishihara avoids the conventionally polite Japanese protocol and forcefully states that Japan is the equal of the United States, that Japan should have its own defense forces, (and strong ones), that Japanese computer technology is second to none and should be used as a negotiating tool, and Japan will be the most influential power in dealing with Asian nations.

Ishihara berates America for racism, and contends that the atomic bomb was not used on Germany because Germans were white, and Japanese were yellow. He asserts that nations colonized by Japan have been far more successful following liberation than those colonized by the United States.

The book exemplifies the growing trend toward national pride in Japan, and also forcefully addresses the feeling by many Japanese that their nation is misunderstood.

Plainly, the sentiments in the book foretell a troubled period in Japanese-American relations, and remind us that the Japanese have not forgotten Hiroshima any more than America has forgotten Pearl Harbor. Ishihara's call for a constructive dialogue between the two nations is well taken. Otherwise, the future looks cloudy at best.

Very highly recommended, even if slightly dated.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars emblematic parochialism and obscure nationalist rage, September 19, 2006

By	Robert J. Crawford (Balmette Talloires, France) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Japan That Can Say No/Why Japan Will Be First Among Equals (Paperback)

I read this book in the CIA-translated version as a Senate aide concerned about the rise of Japan, which included as co-author one of the leaders of Sony (Morita). While interesting for scholars, as I glanced thru this version - which is watered down but still white hot with anger - I was struck at how far off base the predictions of the man seem today. Afterall, when it was written, Japan was at the crest of the bubble economy, it appeared as if Japanese computer chips (and its electronic industries) would confer great power on the country (they could refuse to sell components that went into US missiles), and the US was in a now-unimaginable phase of self doubt. As such, the way things have turned out, after nearly 16 years of stagnation and the rise of high tech manufacturer-competitors elsewhere, reveal the author to have been so badly mistaken regarding the trajectory that Japan would take as to be laughable.

In a deeper sense, it points to the fact that Ishihara did not understand the economic forces at work at the time and so was full of utterly baseless nationalistic bravado. Japan's economic rise was based upon the post-war reconstruction boom, then a relatively protected economy that allowed huge undustrial combines to band together as cartels (gouging their won consumers to sell at low prices abroad to gain marketshare and crush competitiors), and lastly to a number of significant management innovations (TQM, just-in-time manufacturing, etc.) that are reflected in the fact that they make excellent cars. However, it was basically a follower economy making products that have become commoditized by cheaper manufacturers elsewhere in Asia - just as its innovations became widely emulated - and corrupted by the money generated in real estate speculation that eventually collapsed in a deflationary spiral. Meanwhile, its political reforms have been weak at best, and senselessly nationalistic at worst.

Ishihara understood none of this and casts no light on any of it of value. Instead, he drags out pre-WWII arguments about the innate superiority of the Japanese character and similar rather ugly arguments. He is also appalingly loose with the facts: for example, he claims that the US bombed Japan, but not Germany with the atom bomb for racist reasons (Japanese were yellow, Germans were not) - but if you know a minimum of history, which Isihara apparently doesn't, you would realise that at the time of the German defeat (April, 1945) the bomb was not yet completed (it was first test detonated the following July)! The book is full of this kind of sloppiness. What he does succeed at, however, is expressing the resentment that parochial Japanese nationalists felt at the time. In retrospect, his arrogance appears as breathtaking as it is ignorant. But his anger and resentment, and what they reflect of Japanese attitudes, is very real indeed. Seen this way, the book is one long crypto-racist rant.

Japan has a long way to go to understanding outsiders, the gaijin, such as why Korea and China find the official sanitising of its aggressive WWII history so offensive and outrageous. I mean, young Japanese students are taught that Japan was a victim of WWII and not just because of the atomic bomb - and their text books are being revamped to reinforce that!! If you read this, you can understand some of the reasons why, which is the greatest value of the book, more in spite of its content than because of what it reflects.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Unapologetic Defender of Japan's Militarist Past, May 17, 2007

By	G. Buchanan "glbtango" (Bowie, Md. United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Japan That Can Say No/Why Japan Will Be First Among Equals (Paperback)

Why Japan will be first among equals?

Shintaro Ishihara has achieved an unusual and unqualified success for being honest in his opinions regarding Japan and its relationship with The United States of America.
His Chapters, #2 ---"Racial Prejudice:The Root Cause of Japan-Bashing" and #6---"Japan and the United States: Partners or Master and Servant" is thought provoking.

With this in mind, Ishihara contends [pg 29/30] that Americans, "with their scant few centuries of history have never experienced the shift from one major historical period to another".
"They emerged as the premier world power only decades ago, toward the end of the modern era. That Japan, an Oriental Country, is about to supplant them in some major fields is what annoys the Americans so much."

In this regard, Ishihara's book has demonstrated that people who have known domination, unequal treaties, Extra territoriality treaties, forced open door policy and racial oppression throughout the centuries do not interpret world events as those who have not. Further, Ishihara states that-- "the modern era is in its terminal phase. An awareness of its imminent demise has made Americans, the most powerful Caucasians since World War ll, increasingly emotional, almost hysterical, about Japan."

Based on my review, Ishihara's book is a book to read, to study, Quote from and to share for he is one of Japan's best known Nationalist Politician and unapologetic defender of Japan's militarist past.

In this connection, I quote----
"Rightist Tokyo Governor Ishihara says war kept Asia safe from White People". Taipei Times, Associated Press, Tokyo, Monday, October 04, 2004, Page 5.

Accordingly, I highly recommend this book, because it holds similar views of many other "Decision-Making-Elites" within Japan and Asia Vis-A-Vis Western's opinions on Asia.