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The article examines the political conditions in Japan. It claims that the country is experiencing an age of uncertainty in terms of the crisis in its parliamentary government and its relationship with the United States. It shows how this age of uncertainty will affect Japan's economic future. It also questions the authenticity of the Japanese democracy. Meanwhile, other problems facing the country are the absence of public opinion and the weakness of its civil society. Lastly, the article calls for the need to reform the Japanese political system.

The article focuses on a wishful thinking in the U.S. government and a refusal to discuss basic matters with Japanese government that is threatening their relationship. An important reason for this problem is the world's great dependence on the Japanese press for information and speculation on Tokyo and its foreign relations. Japanese media rarely offer analytical reporting on the informal relations and transactions among government bureaucrats, business bureaucrats of the industrial federations, political power brokers and other clusters of power holders that determine Japanese policies. Both the Japanese and the American sides are frustrated. These frustrations can only grow, and could well grow out of hand, since the solutions offered for the bilateral problems are so far essentially the same as those that have not worked in the past. The view that American pressure has created a climate of opinion in Japan to shift the emphasis from production to consumption demonstrates the depth of Washington's wishful thinking.

Examines the misconceptions that hamper the U.S. to formulate an effective economic policy toward Japan. Perception that Japan is a sovereign state like any other; Preservation of a careful balance between semi-autonomous groups that share power; Powerful components of the Japanese System; Premise maintained by the U.S. and Europe that Japan belongs with them in that loose category known as capitalist free-market economies; Strength of the Capitalist Development State; Extent of economic and political disputes between Japan and the U.S.