TOKYO — The United States and Japan may have forged an agreement that will intensify competition in cellular communications along the crowded Tokyo-Nagoya corridor. But Americans shouldn't expect a big "thank you" from Japanese consumers.
In the latest trade dust-up between the two nations, it is Motorola and America that are the targets of Japanese wrath, not the companies that have been charging consumers rates four to five times those in the United States.
"Re-Emergence of Prewar Economic Blockade," and "Down With Coercive U.S. Diplomacy" were among the anti-American graffiti sprayed on the walls of Motorola's headquarters in downtown Tokyo earlier this month after America threatened to impose trade sanctions on Japan.
Since the White House threatened sanctions, "all of us have come to hate America," said journalist Toshiaki Ohno of other Japanese reporters covering telecommunications. "The role of Japanese consumers isn't to boost profits at American companies."
The intensity of Japan's response to American pressure is a symptom of the economic nationalism that bubbles up a little more fiercely here each time there is a trade dispute between the two economic powers. It also underscores the depth of the gulf that divides Japan from the West on just what constitutes free trade and what Japan must do to open its economy. The agreement reached between the United States and Japan Saturday allows Motorola Inc. to compete on equal footing with Japanese companies in providing cellular phone service in the heavily populated region stretching from Tokyo to Nagoya. Motorola had maintained that its local partner, Nippon Idou Tsushin Corp. (IDO), had thwarted sales in the coveted, 155-mile corridor.
Even so, an outbreak of American-style competition among cellular companies in Japan seems unlikely.
Delays already have provided Japanese suppliers with the crucial lead time necessary to bring their costs in line with Motorola's. And by the time IDO's Motorola network covers most of Tokyo 18 months from now, it will face additional competition from new companies offering digital services--some of them beneficiaries of a new Japanese government low-interest loan program.
In the meantime, the Japanese government is taking steps to prevent cellular phone prices from falling too rapidly.
And Japanese consumers are not ready to fight for lower prices if it means that increased competition will damage Japanese firms that employ family members and friends.
