[NYTimes] November 3, 2002 Japan Fears U.S. Is Preying on Weak Economy By JAMES BROOKE
TOKYO, Nov. 2 - Back when Pete Wilson became governor of California a decade ago, people here used to say that the real estate value of the Imperial Palace grounds in central Tokyo was higher than the economic production of all of California. On Friday, the former governor was in town here, brandishing a new report in tune with the changed times, "Can Japan Come Back?" . Without reforms, American investors "are going to lose interest in Japan, and Japan is going to see investment diverted, most likely to China," Mr. Wilson warned, speaking to the foreign press club here. As aides distributed the report, by the Pacific Council on International Policy, an academic research group, the moats and gardens of the Imperial Palace seemed to shrink into a chill autumn fog 20 floors below. The Japanese have long known that the economic tables have turned since the golden days of the late 1980's, when their banks, investors and shoppers ruled the West. But this week brought a series of one-two punches to a country Mr. Wilson called "a place of micro optimism and macro pessimism." On Thursday, Japan learned that China was on track to displace Japan this year as the world's second-largest personal computer market, after the United States. Making news on Friday was an announcement that Japan's highest-paid baseball player, Hideki Matsui, had decided to decamp for the United States to play in the major leagues; and the Finance Ministry announced that tax receipts during the first half of this fiscal year were down 17 percent over the same period last year. All week, Japan wrestled with fears that America Inc. was plotting to buy Japan Inc. - at a deep discount. According to the conspiracy talk, Heizo Takenaka, the new economy chief, was doing the bidding of American "vulture funds" by planning to knock over shaky banks and force bankruptcies of companies that are insolvent on paper. Those rumors helped force Mr. Takenaka to water down his plan to tackle Japan's 12-year-old bad-loan problem. "Agent of the Americans" screamed one tabloid headline about Mr. Takenaka, the minister of economy and of financial services.
