Louis Proyect writes: > >there are degrees. Japan isn't going to become a neo-colony in the near > >future, but it's clear that US-based companies use their clout to push for > >"opening" the Japanese economy to freer flow of capital, etc., so that US > >companies can buy Japanese assets, etc., at advantageous terms.
The US's strategic advantage in this little war so far has been the value of the equity markets, which places Japan at a distinct disadvantage and makes US and UK firms, at least until they buy high in a bubble, masters of the acquisitions universe. In some ways it's possible to argue the US-Japan relationship is 'neoimperial'. Japan's strategic resource base is tied to US foreign policy, and Japan in most ways has no independent foreign policy--this is why there is so little progress with the Koreas, China or even Russia. Japan's 'defense' is tied into a US-Japan agreement that is more limiting and extraterritorial than NATO is in Europe (though the US military has always appreciated things like Mitsubishi avionics). The new phase (which I correlate with a stalled stock market in the US along with liberalization of capital movements, the phony war against terror notwithstanding) , though, is the US push to get inward direct investment into Japan--especially banks, insurance, finance and real estate (which reflects the 'strengths of the US economy in these areas--FIRE industries). This became so obvious when US representatives were proclaiming in public it was time for US interests to re-capitalize Japan's failed banking system (a claim which seemed ridiculous to everyone but the grasping Americans, since it is Japan with all the savings not going anywhere). However, little has been said about what is regulation for these new forces (US led and owned private equity, which finds its apotheosis perhaps in Carlyle Group using CALPERS money). And the need has become glaring with things like Enron and Andersen and the inherhent conflicts of interests at the investment banks (over analysis, consultation, the banks' own investments, and interests of its private equity clients). > > Indeed, inter-imperialist rivalry provoked WWI and WWII. For background on > the last attempt by US imperialism to push Japan against the wall, see > Jonathan Marshall's "To Have and Have Not: Southeast Asian Raw Materials > and the Origins of the Pacific War". Yes, this is an excellent analysis. Many Americans are still in denial over what led to that disastrous war. Dower's 'War Without Mercy' is an excellent analysis of the ideologies used to justify the conflict. Charles Jannuzi
