Divided Sun; MITI and the Breakdown of Japanese High-Tech Industrial Policy, 1975-1993

Callon, Scott

ISBN 10: 0804725055 / ISBN 13: 9780804725057

Published by Stanford University Press, Stanford, California, 1995

About this Item

xiii, [3], 240, [8] pages. Includes Acknowledgments, Notes, Works Cited, and Index. DJ has slight wear and soiling. Chapters include Divided Sun: The Rationale; First Impressions: Basic Details of Four Major Japanese High-Tech Consortia, 1975-1993; Turf Wars: MITI Against Other Japanese Bureaucracies; A House Divided: MITI and the Companies; Enemies in the Same Boat: Companies as Competitors Within Japanese Joint Technology Consortia; What Went Wrong? What Went Right? Success and Failure Among Japanese High-Tech Consortia; Structural Change, 1975-1985, and the Breakdown of Japanese High-Tech Industrial Policy; Lessons from the Japanese Experience. Also includes 28 Tables, as well as 10 Figures. Scott Callon is Chairman of Ichigo, a Japanese sustainable infrastructure company that is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange First Section and is a member of the JPX-Nikkei 400. Ichigo is the sponsor of the TSE-listed Ichigo Office REIT, Ichigo Hotel REIT, and Ichigo Green, and the operator of forty-one solar power plants across Japan. Scott has served on a number of Japanese government bodies focused on the roles and responsibilities of Japanese companies and their boards, including the FSA Council of Experts that drafted Japan's Corporate Governance Code and METI's Ito Review. Scott learned Japanese as a child living in Tokyo, graduated from Princeton University (summa cum laude), and has a Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford University. Divided Sun is the story of the methods and machinations that have driven Japan's high-tech industrial policies over the last two turbulent decades. It focuses on MITI and Japan's giant electronics firms - their ambitions and conflicts - in the context of the core of MITI's high-tech strategy since the 1970's, the so-called "cooperative" technology consortia. The author finds that despite widespread claims to the contrary, MITI's industrial policy in high technology has proved to be neither cooperative nor successful. He shows that the policymaking process is torn by conflict and competition: between MITI and other bureaucracies, between MITI and powerful Japanese companies, and between the different companies. As a result, the elaborate structures created to promote cooperation are in many cases a public show masking the underlying reality of fierce competition and conflict. Equally important is the fact that recent technologies emerging from Japanese high-tech consortia have been sadly disappointing. The author's detailed explanation of MITI's internal decisionmaking processes reveals that much of MITI's decline in effectiveness is caused by its rigid insistence on targeting technologies in accordance with long-term plans even when the technologies are soon rendered obsolete in the rapidly changing high-tech marketplace. In the shadow of these new realities, MITI finds itself at a turning point. The author argues that it will have to redefine itself and carve out a new role in the Japanese political economy and the bureaucracy. MITI's primary focus cannot be what once worked so successfully, i.e., the promotion of Japanese companies in international competition. If it does not find a new role, and soon, MITI faces a slow but inevitable decline in influence and effectiveness.

Seller Inventory # 81790

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Divided Sun; MITI and the Breakdown of Japanese High-Tech Industrial Policy, 1975-1993
• Publisher: Stanford University Press, Stanford, California
• Publication Date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0804725055
• ISBN 13: 9780804725057
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Printing [Stated].
• Condition: Very good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very good

About this title

Synopsis

Divided Sun is the story of the methods and machinations that have driven Japan's high-tech industrial policies over the last two turbulent decades. It focuses on MITI and Japan's giant electronics firms - their ambitions and conflicts - in the context of the core of MITI's high-tech strategy since the 1970's, the so-called "cooperative" technology consortia.
The author finds that despite widespread claims to the contrary, MITI's industrial policy in high technology has proved to be neither cooperative nor successful. He shows that the policymaking process is torn by conflict and competition: between MITI and other bureaucracies, between MITI and powerful Japanese companies, and between the different companies. As a result, the elaborate structures created to promote cooperation are in many cases a public show masking the underlying reality of fierce competition and conflict.
Equally important is the fact that recent technologies emerging from Japanese high-tech consortia have been sadly disappointing. The author's detailed explanation of MITI's internal decisionmaking processes reveals that much of MITI's decline in effectiveness is caused by its rigid insistence on targeting technologies in accordance with long-term plans even when the technologies are soon rendered obsolete in the rapidly changing high-tech marketplace.
In the shadow of these new realities, MITI finds itself at a turning point. The author argues that it will have to redefine itself and carve out a new role in the Japanese political economy and the bureaucracy. MITI's primary focus cannot be what once worked so successfully, i.e., the promotion of Japanese companies in international competition. If it does not find a new role, and soon, MITI faces a slow but inevitable decline in influence and effectiveness.

About the Author

Scott Callon is a Distinguished Fellow of the Asia/Pacific Research Center of Stanford University and Chief Market Strategist of BT Asia Securities, Bankers Trust Group, Tokyo.