Volume 37, Number 17 · November 8, 1990
The Great Japanese Misunderstanding
By James Fallows
Agents of Influence: How Japan's Lobbyists in the United States Manipulate America's Political and Economic System
by Pat Choate
Knopf, 295 pp., $22.95
The Japanese Power Game: What It Means for America
by William J. Holstein
Scribner's, 339 pp., $22.95
Pat Choate writes that his book is not really about Japan—despite its subtitle, despite the big red hinomaru circle of the Japanese flag that dominates its cover, despite the debate that Choate has provoked in Washington about whether Japanese interests have too much influence over American politics. (The two books under review here have almost identical big-red-dot covers, suggesting that maybe it's time to retire the hinomaru as a design motif for writings about Japan.) Choate says that, instead, he is concerned with the structural corruption that arises when American politicians and bureaucrats leave office and immediately go to work as lobbyists for special interests. The most important of these interests have traditionally included defense contractors, assorted American corporations and economic interest groups (such as sugar or milk producers), and some foreign governments.
Review, 6839 words
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