The Japanese Dilemma
进退维谷的日本
The very fact that Peking is so purposeful about what is to happen in East Asia increases the pressures now bearing down upon Japan’s (self-proclaimed) “omnidirectional peaceful diplomacy”—or what might more cynically be described as “being all things to all men. ”51 The Japanese dilemma may perhaps be best summarized as follows:
中国对待中亚地区可能发生的情况表现出如此成竹在胸，单是这一事实现在就增加了对日本（自身宣布的）“全方位和平外交”——或可能更多地被人们戏称为“跟所有人打交道”——的压力。对日本的困境，也许最好可以作如下概括：
Due to its immensely successful growth since 1945, the country enjoys a unique and very favorable position in the global economic and power-political order, yet that is also—the Japanese feel—an extremely delicate and vulnerable position, which could be badly deranged if international circumstances changed. The best thing that could happen from Tokyo’s viewpoint, therefore, would be for the continuation of those factors which caused “the Japanese miracle” in the first place. But precisely because this is an anarchic world in which “dissatisfied” powers jostle alongside “satisfied” ones, and because the dynamic of technological and commercial change is driving so fast, the likelihood is that those favorable factors will diminish—or even disappear altogether. Given Japan’s belief in the delicacy and vulnerability of its own position, it finds it hard openly to resist the pressures for change; instead, the latter must be slowed down, or deflected, by diplomatic compromise. Hence its constant advocacy of the peaceful solution to international problems, its alarm and embarrassment when it finds itself in a political crossfire between other countries, and its evident wish to be on good terms with everyone while it gets steadily richer.
由于1945年以来在国家发展中取得了巨大成功，这个国家在全球经济和强权政治格局中享有一种独特的、非常有利的地位。但是，日本感到这种地位也是一种极其微妙的、极其脆弱的地位，一旦国际形势发生变化，就会受到严重破坏。因此，从东京的观点来看，可能发生的最好情况，首先是造成“日本奇迹”的那些因素继续存在。但是，正是因为当今的世界是一个“不满意”的国家同“满意”的国家展开激烈竞争的混乱世界，正是因为技术和商业的变革势头如此迅猛有力，可能使这些有利因素逐步消失，甚或完全消失。鉴于日本已认识到自己地位的微妙性和脆弱性，它发现自己很难坦然地抗拒变革的压力；相反，它必须采取外交妥协手段来减缓或疏导这一压力。因而，当日本发现自己处于国家间政治交火的中间地带时，它就经常鼓吹和平解决国际问题，以消除自己的担心和窘迫局面；在它越来越富裕的时候，就公开主张与每个国家建立睦邻关系。
The reasons for Japan’s phenomenal economic success have already been discussed (see above, pp. 416–18). For over forty years the Japanese homeland has been protected by American nuclear and conventional forces, and its sea lanes by the U. S. Navy. Thus enabled to redirect its national energies from militaristic expansion and its resources from high defense spending, Japan has devoted itself to the pursuit of sustained economic growth, especially in export markets. This success could not have been achieved without its own people’s commitment to entrepreneurship, quality control, and hard work, but it was also aided by certain special factors: the holding-down of the yen to an artificially low level for decade after decade in order to boost exports; the restrictions, both formal and informal, upon the purchase of imported foreign manufactures (although not, of course, of the vital raw materials which industry needed); and the existence of a liberal international trading order which placed few obstacles in the way of Japanese goods —and which was kept “open,” despite the increasing burdens upon itself, by the United States. For the past quarter-century, therefore, Japan has been able to enjoy all of the advantages of evolving into a global economic giant, but without any of the political responsibilities and territorial disadvantages which have, historically, followed from such a growth. Little wonder that it prefers things to remain as they are.
关于日本获得表面上的经济成就的原因，本书已在前面做过讨论。40多年来，日本国土一直受到美国核力量与常规部队的保护，其海上交通线受到美国海军的保护。这就使日本得以从军国主义式的扩充军备中腾出国家力量，从高水平的防务开支中腾出财力来不断地大力发展经济，尤其是不断扩大出口市场。这一成就的取得如果没有本国人民精诚的创业思想、质量控制和勤奋工作，当然是做不到的，但某些特殊因素显然也起着促进作用。这些因素是：为了扩大出口力量，几十年来一直人为地把日元币值保持在低水平；对购买进口的外国货（当然不包括工业部门需要的重要原料）实行正式的和非正式的限制；现有的自由进行国际贸易的格局，对日本商品的外销几乎不存在什么障碍——尽管自身的负担不断加重，美国仍保持日货进入美国市场的道路“畅通”。因此，在过去1/4世纪里，日本才得以享有使自己发展成为一个全球经济巨人的一切有利条件，而且不负任何政治责任，在领土方面也没有什么不利之处（从历史上看，在出现这一增长之后，必然会产生这些不利之处）。毫不奇怪，日本喜欢事情继续照这样的形势发展下去。
Since the foundations of Japan’s present success lie exclusively in the economic sphere, it is not surprising that this also is the field which worries Tokyo most. On the one hand (as will be discussed below), technological and economic growth offers fresh glittering prizes to the country whose political economy is best positioned for the coming twenty-first century; and only a few dispute the contention that Japan is in that favorable position. 52 On the other hand, its very success is already provoking a “scissors effect” reaction against its export-led expansion. The one “blade” of those scissors is the emulation of Japan by other ambitious Asian NICs (newly industrialized countries), such as South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, etc. —not to mention China itself at the lower end of the product scale (e. g. , textiles). 53 All of these countries have far lower labor costs than Japan,* and are challenging strongly in fields in which the Japanese no longer enjoy decisive advantages—textiles, toys, domestic goods, shipbuilding, even (to a much less degree) steel and automobiles. This does not, of course, mean that Japan’s production of ships, cars, trucks, and steel is doomed, but to the extent that it is increasingly necessary for them to move “up-market” (e. g. , to higher-grade steels, or more sophisticated and larger-sized automobiles) they are withdrawing from the bottom end of a production spectrum where previously they were unchallenged; and one of the more important tasks of MITI (the Ministry for International Trade and Industry) is to plan the phasing out of industries which are no longer competitive— not only to make the decline less traumatic but also to arrange for the transfer of resources and personnel into other, more competitive sectors of the international economy.
鉴于日本目前获得成功的基础完全表现在经济领域，毫不奇怪，这也是东京最忧虑的领域。一方面（下面将加以讨论），技术和经济增长为日本提供了巨大的好处，使其政治经济处于最佳的地位来迎接21世纪的来临，只有少数人不同意日本处于那种有利地位。另一方面，正是它所取得的成就本身，已在对它的以出口为主的经济扩张产生一种“剪刀效应”反应。“剪刀”的一“股”是韩国、新加坡、中国台湾、泰国等亚洲其他雄心勃勃的新兴工业国家和地区，更不用说处在产品系列较低一端（如纺织品）的中国本身，力图赶超日本。同日本相比，所有这些国家和地区的劳动力都便宜得多[4]；它们在日本不再享有决定性优势的那些领域——纺织品、玩具、日用百货、造船，甚至较小程度上的钢铁和汽车——向日本发起猛烈的挑战。当然，这并不意味着日本的船舶、小汽车、卡车和钢铁生产已日落西山，而是意味着日本越来越需要使这些产品“高级市场化”（如生产高级钢或更先进的大型汽车），从它先前未遇到挑战的产品生产系列的底端摆脱出来；其通商产业省的更重要的任务之一，是制订淘汰那些不再有竞争力的产业的计划；在淘汰这些产业时不仅要少受损害，而且要做出安排，向其他有更大竞争力的国际经济部门转移资源和人力。
The second, even more worrying blade of the scissors has been the increasingly hostile reaction of Americans and Europeans to the seemingly inexorable penetration of their domestic markets by Japanese products. Year after year, the populations of these prosperous markets have bought Japanese steel, machine tools, motorcycles, automobiles, and TV sets and other electrical goods. Year after year, Japan’s trading surpluses with the EEC and the United States have widened. The European reaction has been the tougher one, ranging from import quotas to bureaucratic obstructionism (such as the French requirement that Japanese electrical goods be admitted only via an understaffed customs house in Poitiers). 54 Because of its own belief in an open world trading system, American administrations have hesitated to ban or otherwise restrict Japanese imports apart from dubious “voluntary” limits. But even the staunchest American advocates of laissez-faire have grown uneasy at a situation in which, essentially, the United States supplies Japan with foodstuffs and raw materials and receives Japanese manufactures in return—a sort of “colonial” or “underdevelopment” trading status it has not known for a century and a half. Moreover, the growing U. S. trade deficits with Japan—$62 billion in the fiscal year ending March 31, 1986—and the pressures from beleaguered American industries which have felt the brunt of this transpacific competition have increased Washington’s demand for measures to reduce the imbalance—e. g. , to encourage a rise in the exchange value of the yen, a substantial increase in American imports into Japan, and so on. As the western world drifts toward quasi-protectionism, moreover, its tendency to put limits upon the total amount of textiles or televisions imported implies that Japan will have to divide that shrunken market with its Asian rivals.
“剪刀”更令人忧虑的第二“股”，是美国人和欧洲人对日本产品近乎无情地打入其国内市场持越来越强烈的敌视态度。这些国家的人民年复一年地从国内繁荣的市场上购买日本的钢、机床、摩托车、汽车、电视机和其他电器。日本对欧洲经济共同体和美国的贸易出超也在年复一年地扩大。欧洲国家的反应一直更为强烈，包括从限制进口额，到官方采取禁止进口的措施（如法国要求，只有经过设在普瓦捷的工作人员不多的海关允许，日本的电器才能进口）。美国政府由于本身信奉开放性的世界贸易制度，一直在禁止或采取措施限制日货进口（令人半信半疑的“自愿”限制除外）方面犹疑不决。但是，即使那些最强烈主张自由贸易主义的美国人，也对下述局面表示不安：实际上美国是在向日本供应食品和原料，而美国接收的却是日本的工业制品——这实际上是美国一个半世纪以来闻所未闻的一种“殖民地”或“不发达的”贸易地位。而且，美国对日本日益增长的贸易逆差——在1986年3月31日结束的财政年度内，达到620亿美元——以及面对横跨太平洋的竞争锋芒而处于困境的美国工业部门的压力，使越来越多的人要求华盛顿采取措施来减少这种不平衡，如鼓励提高日元的兑换值，大量增加美国向日本的出口等。随着西方世界倾向于实行准保护主义政策，美国也倾向于对进口的纺织品或电视机的总量实行限制。这就意味着日本将同亚洲贸易竞争者来瓜分那个已经缩小的市场。
It is scarcely surprising, therefore, that some Japanese spokesmen deny that things are good, and point to an alarming conjunction of threats to their present market shares and prosperity: the increasing challenge by Asian NICs in so many industries; the restrictions upon Japanese exports by western governments; the pressures to change Japan’s tax laws, divert monies from savings to consumption, and ensure a large increase in imports; finally, the swift rise in the value of the yen. All of these, it is claimed, could mean the end of Japan’s export-led boom, a decline in its payments surpluses, a slowing-down in its growth rate (which has already been decelerating as its economy becomes more “mature” and its potential for spectacular expansion diminishes). In that connection, Japan worries that it is not only its economy which is maturing: because of the age structure of its population, by 2010 it will have “the lowest ratio of working-age people (those 15 to 64 years old) among the leading industrial nations,” which will require high social security outlays and could lead to a loss of dynamism. 55 Moreover, all the attempts to get the Japanese consumer to buy foreign-made manufactures (except those with a certain prestige, like Mercedes cars) lead to domestic political controversy,56 which might in turn cause a possible breakdown in the consensus politics which has been an integral part of Japan’s sustained export-led expansion in the past.
因此，人们对下面这件事不必感到奇怪：日本的某些发言人否认万事大吉，并指出他们目前的市场份额和繁荣所受到的威胁已达到警戒点，即在很多产业中，亚洲新兴工业国已提出了越来越强烈的挑战；西方国家政府对日本的出口实行限制；要求改变日本税收法，把储蓄资金转为消费资金以及保证大量增加进口的压力等状况都已出现；最后则是日元的迅速升值。人们认为，所有这一切可能意味着日本以出口为主导的繁荣的结束、支付盈余的下降和增长速度的减慢（随着日本经济更加“成熟化”和大规模发展潜力的消失，其增长速度早已慢了下来）。在这方面，日本担心的不仅仅是它的正在成熟化的经济；由于人口年龄结构的影响，到2010年，日本“处于工作年龄（即15～64岁）的人口所占比例，将是一流工业国家中最低的”，这种情况将要求日本实行高水平的社会保险开支，因而可能导致国家丧失发展潜力。而且，所有使日本消费者购买外国制造的商品（除享有一定声誉的像奔驰轿车一类的商品以外）的打算，都会引起国内的政治争吵。而政治争吵，反过来可能瓦解日本政治上的一致性——这种一致性曾是以往日本以出口为主导的经济持续发展的不可缺少的因素。
Yet while it may be true that Japan’s economic growth is slowing down as it enters a more mature phase, and while it is certainly true that other countries are unwilling to permit Japan to keep the economic advantages which aided its previous explosion of exports, there nevertheless remain considerable substantive reasons why it is likely to expand faster than the other major Powers in the future. In the first place, as a country so incredibly dependent upon imported raw materials (99 percent of its oil, 92 percent of its iron, 100 percent of its copper), it benefits enormously from the changing terms of trade which have reduced the prices of so many ores, fuels, and foodstuffs; the drop in world oil prices after 1980–1981, which saves Japan billions of dollars of foreign currency each year, is only the most spectacular of the falls in raw-materials and foodstuffs prices. 57 Furthermore, while a rapid appreciation in the value of the yen is likely to cut some of the country’s exports overseas (depending always upon the elasticity of demand), it also greatly reduces the cost of imports—and thus helps industry to stay competitive and inflation to remain low. In addition, the 1973 oil crisis stimulated the Japanese into searching for all sorts of energy economies, which contribute to the still greater efficiency of its industry; in the past decade alone, Japan has reduced its dependence on oil by 25 percent. In addition, that same crisis impelled Japan into a sustained search for new sources of raw materials and a heavy investment in such areas (somewhat akin to Britain’s investments overseas in the nineteenth century). None of this makes it absolutely certain that Japan can rely upon a continued flow of low-priced raw materials; but the auguries for that are good.
可是，尽管随着日本经济进入一个更加成熟的阶段，其增长速度确实在缓慢下降，尽管其他国家也确实不愿让日本继续保持以前曾帮助其出口产生爆炸性扩大的经济优势，仍然有相当多的重要因素表明，将来日本仍可能比其他主要大国发展得更快。首先，作为一个如此不可思议地依赖进口原料的国家（日本99%的石油、92%的铁、100%的铜靠进口），日本从贸易条件发生的变化中获得了巨大的好处。这些变化已使如此多的矿石、燃料和食品的价格降低；1980～1981年后世界石油价格的下降（这一下降使日本每年节省下了数十亿美元的外汇），仅是原料和食品价格下降的最突出的一个例子。而且，虽然日元的迅速升值有可能减少日本的一部分出口（始终取决于需求的伸缩性），但也可能大大减少进口的支出，从而有助于工业部门保持其竞争力，使通货膨胀保持在低水平上。此外，1973年发生的石油危机促使日本人寻求各种节约能源的办法，这也有助于日本工业保持较高的效率。单就近10年来说，日本对石油的依赖程度已减少了25%。另外，那场危机还迫使日本不断寻求开辟新的原料来源，并对这些新原料来源地区进行了大量投资（在某种程度上颇似19世纪英国向海外的投资）。这一切当然不能绝对地肯定让日本获得源源不断的低价原料的供应，但其预兆却是吉利的。
More significant still is the continued surge of Japanese industry toward the most promising (and, ultimately, most profitable) sectors of the economy for the early twenty-first century: that is, high technology. In other words, as Japan steadily pulls out of the production of textiles, shipbuilding, basic steel—leaving them to countries with lower labor costs—it clearly intends to be a (if not the) leading force in those scientifically advanced manufactures which have a much higher added value. Its achievements in the computing field are already so well known as to be legendary. Borrowing heavily from American technology in the first instance, Japanese companies were able to exploit all their native advantages (a protected home market, MITI support, better quality control, a favorable yen-to-dollar ratio) as well as—most probably—“dumping” at below-cost prices to drive most American companies out of the production of semiconductors, whether of the 16k RAM, the 64k RAM, or the later 256k RAM. 58
更加重要的一点是，日本工业正在不断地向21世纪初期最有希望（而且，归根结底也是最有利可图）的经济部门，即高技术部门迅猛发展。换言之，随着日本逐步从纺织品、造船和原钢生产脱身而出，把它们让给劳动力成本较低的国家去生产，它明显地打算使自己成为（如果现在还不是，将来也是）生产先进的科学技术产品的领导力量，从而获得高得多的附加值。它在电子计算机方面的成就早已作为一种传奇广为人知。日本公司由于首先从美国大量输入技术，后来已能够充分发挥本国的优势（受到保护的国内市场、通商产业省的支援、较好的质量控制、日元对美元比价的有利地位），并且能够（也是最可能的）用低于成本的价格“倾销”日货，把大多数美国公司赶出半导体生产领域，不管是在16K、64K随机存取存储器方面，还是在后来的256K随机存取存储器的生产方面，都是如此。
Even more worrying to the American computer industry is the evidence of Japan’s determined move into two fresh (and much more profitable) fields. The first is the production of advanced computers themselves, particularly the sophisticated and extremely expensive “fifth generation” supercomputers, which can work hundreds of times faster than the largest existing machines and promise to give their owners enormous benefits in everything from codebreaking to designing aircraft shapes. Already American experts are stunned by the speed at which Japan has moved into this area, and at the amount of research capital which MITI and large companies like Hitachi and Fujitsu are pouring into it. 59 Yet the same is also happening in the field of computer software, where again American firms (and a few European firms) were unchallenged until the early 1980s. 60 To be sure, the successful production both of supercomputers and of software is a much larger task than making semiconductors, and will test Japan’s designers to the utmost; and in the meantime both American and European companies (the latter strongly supported by their governments) are preparing to meet the commercial challenge, while the U. S. Department of Defense will give its massive backing to ensuring that its national firms remain ahead in the development of supercomputers. Nonetheless, those bodies would be very sanguine to assume that Japan can be permanently held off in these fields.
更使美国电子计算机工业忧虑的是，有迹象表明，日本决心打入两个新的（更加有利可图的）领域。第一个领域是先进的电子计算机本身，尤其是极其精密和贵重的“第五代”超大规模电子计算机的生产。这类电子计算机的工作速度比现有的最大的电子计算机快几百倍，有可能使这类电子计算机的用户在各类工作——从破译密码到设计飞机——中获益匪浅。对于日本向这一领域渗入的速度，和日本通商产业省以及日立和富士通等大公司对这一领域研究工作的投资规模，美国的专家们早已感到十分吃惊。同样的情况也发生在电子计算机软件方面，而在这一方面，80年代初期以前美国公司（以及欧洲国家的一些公司）从未遇到过挑战。肯定地说，同制造半导体相比，成功地生产超大规模电子计算机和软件要困难得多，对日本的设计师将是一个极大的考验；与此同时，美国和欧洲国家的公司（后者的公司得到政府的有力支持）正在准备应付商业方面的挑战，而美国国防部则将给予巨大的支持，以确保本国公司在发展超级电子计算机方面保持领先地位。尽管如此，这些公司和部门对于是否能在这些领域永远遏制日本，仍然没有很强的自信心。
Since respected journals like The Economist, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and many others frequently carry articles about Japan’s move into further areas of high technology, it would be superfluous to repeat the details here. Mitsubishi’s link-up with Westinghouse has been seen as evidence of Japan’s increasing interest in the nuclear-power industry. 61 Biotechnology is also a large Japanese concern, especially with its implications for enhancing crop yields. So, too, is ceramics. The reports that the Japanese Aircraft Development Corporation has joined up with Boeing to produce a new generation of fuel-efficient aircraft for the 1990s—denounced by one American expert as a “Faustian bargain” whereby Japan will provide cheap finance and acquire U. S. technology and expertise62—may be even more significant for the future. But perhaps the most important (in terms of sheer output) will be the already impressive lead which Japan has in the field of industrial robots and its development of (experimental) entire factories virtually controlled by computers, lasers, and robots: the ultimate solution to the country’s decreasing labor force! The latest figures show that “Japan continued to introduce about as many industrial robots as the rest of the world combined, several times the rate of introduction in the United States. ” Another survey indicates that the Japanese use their robots much more efficiently than Americans do. 63
《经济学人》、《华尔街日报》、《纽约时报》等受人尊敬的报刊，以及其他许多刊物，经常载文谈论日本向高技术领域的深层渗入的情况，本书已无须赘述了。三菱公司同美国西屋电气公司的联合，已被看作是日本对核动力工业越来越感兴趣的证明。生物技术也是日本非常关心的一个领域，它尤其重视生物技术在提高谷物产量方面的意义。有报道说，日本飞机开发株式会社已同美国波音公司联合制造供90年代使用的新一代节油飞机。一位美国专家把这种做法斥为“浮士德的交易”：日本将用廉价的资金来换取美国的技术和专业技能。这件事甚至可能对未来具有更加重要的意义。但是，也许最为重要的（从纯粹产量方面来看），将是日本在下述方面早已获得的令人印象深刻的领先地位：工业机器人及由电子计算机、激光器和机器人控制和管理的整个（试验性）工厂的开发——一种最终解决国家日益减少的劳动力问题的办法。最新数字表明，“日本继续向工业部门引进大量工业机器人，其数量相当于世界其余国家使用的工业机器人的总和，比美国引进的多好几倍”。另一项调查表明，日本在使用机器人方面的效率比美国高得多。
Behind all of these high-technology ventures are a cluster of broader, structural factors which continue to give Japan marked advantages over its chief rivals. The role of MITI as a sort of economic equivalent to the famous Prussian General Staff may have been exaggerated by foreigners,64 but there seems little doubt that the broad direction which it gives to Japanese economic development by arranging research and funding for growth industries and a gentle euthanasia for declining ones has worked better to date than the uncoordinated laissez-faire approach of the United States. The second strength—one of the most important of all in explaining the rise and fall of particular firms and industries—is the large (and increasing) amount of money which is allocated to research and development in Japan. “The proportion of GNP devoted to R&D will virtually double this decade, rising from 2 percent of GNP in 1980 to an expected 3. 5 percent by 1990. The United States has stabilized R&D expenses at about 2. 7 percent of GNP. However, if military research is excluded, Japan is already devoting about as many man-hours to R&D as the United States and will soon be spending about as much for it. If present trends continue, Japan will take the lead in nonmilitary R&D spending by the early 1990s. ”65 Even more interesting, perhaps, is the fact that a far higher proportion of Japanese R&D is paid for and done by industry itself than in Europe and the United States (where so much is done by governments or universities). In other words, it is aimed directly at the marketplace and is expected to pay its way quickly. “Pure” science is left to others, and tapped only when its commercial relevance becomes clear.
在所有这些高技术冒险的后面，还存在着一系列更加广泛的体制上的因素，这些因素继续使日本拥有超过其主要对手的显著优势。日本通商产业省——从经济方面看，相当于著名的普鲁士总参谋部——的作用可能被外国人夸大了，但是人们对于这一机构所起的广泛的指导作用，却似乎没有什么怀疑。这一机构通过下达广泛的指示来指导日本经济的发展：安排科研工作，为正在发展的工业部门提供资金，使正在衰落的工业部门安然停工转产。到目前为止，它那广泛的指导一直比美国那种不协调的自由放任主义做法更好些。第二种力量，即一种能说明特定企业和工业部门兴亡的最重要的力量，是日本国内分配给研究与开发工作的大量（且日益增加的）资金。“这10年内，日本用于研究与开发工作的资源，在国民生产总值中所占的比重实际上将增加1倍，估计要从1980年的2%增加到90年代初的3.5%。美国用于研究与开发工作的开支，在国民生产总值中所占的比重一直稳定在2.7%左右。但是，如不把军事科研计算在内，日本用于研究与开发工作的人力和时间已赶上了美国，所花的钱不久也会与美国花的一样多。如果目前的趋势继续下去，到20世纪90年代初期，日本将在非军事研究与开发支出方面跃居领先地位。”可能更令人感兴趣的是下述事实：在日本，由工业部门本身花钱进行的研究与开发工作占有很高的比重，远远超过欧洲国家和美国的工业部门所承担的份额。在欧美诸国，许多研究与开发工作是由政府或大学完成的。换句话说，日本的研究与开发工作直接瞄准市场，并期望能迅速开辟自己的道路。“纯”科学研究工作让其他人去做，只有当这种科学研究的商业价值变得明显时，它才被开发起来。
The third advantage is the very high level of national savings in Japan, which is especially marked compared with that in the United States. This is partly explained by the differences in tax systems, which in the United States have traditionally encouraged personal borrowing and consumer spending—and in Japan encourage private savings. On average, too, the individual in Japan has to save much more for his or her old age, since the pension schemes are usually less generous. What all this means is that Japanese banks and insurance companies are awash with funds and can provide industry with masses of low-interest capital. The share of GNP which is collected in Japan both as income tax and social security payments is much lower than in the other major capitalist-cum-“welfare state” societies, and the Japanese evidently intend to keep it that way, in order to free the money for investment capital. 66 Europeans who would like to imitate “the Japanese way” would first of all have to massively reduce their social welfare spending. Americans enamored of Japan’s system would have to slash both defense and social expenditures, and to alter their taxation laws even more drastically than they have done so far.
第三个优势是日本拥有极高水平的国民储蓄，同美国相比，它在这方面尤其突出。这种情况的存在可以部分地用税收制度的差别来解释：在美国，政府在传统上鼓励个人借贷和消费支出；在日本，政府鼓励私人储蓄。从整体上看，日本的国民也必须为自己的老年积蓄更多的钱，因为政府提供的养老金通常不那么大方。所有这一切都意味着日本银行和保险公司拥有大量的资金，能够向工业部门提供大量低息资本。在日本，通过收入所得税和社会保险金集中起来的资金，在国民生产总值中所占的份额，大大低于其他主要的资本主义“福利国家”，并且日本显然打算那样一直干下去，以便腾出钱来进行资本投资。那些可能愿意效法“日本方式”的欧洲人大概首先得大规模削减其社会福利开支；爱上了日本制度的美国人首先得大砍其防务开支和社会开支，并采取比先前更断然的措施，从根本上改变其税收法。
The fourth strength is that Japanese firms have a virtually guaranteed home market in all except prestige and specialized manufactures—a situation no longer enjoyed by most American firms or (despite their protectionist efforts) by the majority of European companies. While much of this was aided by in-built bureaucratic practices and regulations designed to favor Japanese producers in their home market, even the abolition of such mercantilistic devices is unlikely to persuade Japan’s consumers to “buy foreign,” other than raw materials and basic foodstuffs; the high quality and familiarity of Japanese products, a strong cultural pride, and the complex structure of domestic distribution and sales will ensure that.
第四种力量是日本的公司拥有一个几乎有保证的国内市场（除了那些有声誉的和专门化的制造业之外），而大多数美国公司或大多数欧洲国家的公司（尽管它们采取了保护主义措施）却不再享有这种优势。尽管造成这种局面在很大程度上是由于内在的官僚做法和实行有利于日本制造商在他们国内市场上活动的法规，但即使取消这类重商主义的手段，也不可能说服日本的消费者“购买外国货”，除非是原料和基本食品；日本产品的高质量和使用日本产品的习惯、强烈的文化自豪感，以及国内分配和销售体制的复杂性，也将保证这种局面继续存在。
Finally, there is the very high quality of the Japanese work force—at least as measured by various mathematical and scientific aptitude tests—which is not only groomed in an intensely competitive public education system but also systematically trained by the companies themselves. Even fifteen-year-olds in Japan show a marked superiority in testable subjects (e. g. , mathematics) over most of their western counterparts. In the higher reaches of learning, the balance is different: Japan has a dearth of Nobel Prize scientists, but it produces many more engineers than any western country (about 50 percent more than the United States itself). It also has nearly 700,000 R&D workers, which is more than Britain, France, and West Germany have combined. 67
最后一点是日本劳动大军的高质量——至少用各种数学和科学才能测验来衡量是如此。这支劳动大军不仅是通过具有强烈竞争机制的公共教育系统培养起来的，而且各个公司本身也对他们进行有系统的训练。在日本，甚至15岁的少年也在一些学科（如数学）的考试中，比大多数西方国家的同龄少年表现出明显的优势。在高等学术领域，差距有所不同：日本缺少获得诺贝尔奖的科学家，但它培养出的工程师比任何西方国家都多得多（大约比美国培养的多50%）。它还拥有近70万名研发人员，比英国、法国、联邦德国加在一起还多。
No statistically quantifiable assessment can be made of the combined effects of the above five factors, compared with conditions in other leading nations; but, taken together, they obviously give Japanese industry an immensely strong bedrock. So, too, does the docility and diligence of the Japanese work force and the harmony which seems to prevail in the industrial-relations system, where there are only company unions, a search for consensus, and virtually no strikes. There are, clearly, unattractive features here as well: longer hours of work, the all-pervading conformism to the company ethos (from the early-morning physical exercises onward), the absence of truly independent trade unions, the cramped housing conditions, the emphasis upon hierarchy and deference. Moreover, Japan also contains, outside the factory gates, a radicalized student body. Such facts, and other disturbing traits in Japanese society, have been commented on by many western observers68—some of whom appear to view the country with the same sort of horror and awe that continental Europeans manifested toward the “factory system” of early-nineteenth-century Britain. In other words, what is clearly a more effective arrangement of workers, and of society, in terms of output (and thus wealth creation) involves a disturbing challenge to traditional norms and individualist ways of behavior. And it is because the emulation of the Japanese industrial miracle would involve not merely the copying of this or that piece of technology or management but the imitation of much of the Japanese social system that observers such as David Halberstam argue, “This is America’s newest and … most difficult challenge for the rest of the century … a much harder and more intense competition than … the political-military competition with the Soviet Union. … ”69
我们无法对上述5个因素的综合效果用统计的方法做出数量上的估计，并同其他一流国家的情况作比较。但是，这些因素合在一起，明显给日本工业奠定了极其坚实的基础。在这方面，日本劳动大军的听话和勤奋，在产业关系系统中流行的和睦，只有公司工会，努力寻求达到一致，几乎没有罢工现象等，也起了作用。显然，这里也存在着没有吸引力的现象：工作时间较长，对公司风气的普遍盲从（从早上做体操开始一直如此），没有真正独立的工会，居住条件不宽裕，强调等级和差别等。日本在工厂大门以外还拥有一支激进的学生军。对于这些事实以及日本社会中的其他不安定因素，西方的许多观察家已做过评论，其中一些观察家用同样惊恐的眼光来看这个国家，就像欧洲大陆人对待19世纪初期英国出现的“工厂制度”一样。换句话说，从产量（即创造财富）的角度看，对工人和社会实现一种显然更加有效的安排，包含着对传统常规和个人行为方式的令人困扰的挑战。正是因为效法日本工业奇迹不仅要照搬这种或那种技术或管理方式，而且要大量仿效日本的社会制度，所以像戴维·哈伯斯塔姆这样的一些观察家才争辩说：“这是美国在20世纪其余时间里面临的最新和……最困难的挑战……一场比同苏联进行的政治-军事竞争还艰难和激烈得多的竞争……”
As if these industrial strengths were not enough, they have been complemented by the amazingly swift emergence of Japan as the world’s leading creditor nation, exporting tens of billions of dollars each year. This transformation, which has been under way since MITI’s 1969 dismantling of export controls upon Japanese lending and its creation of financial inducements for overseas investments, is rooted in two basic causes. The first of these is the inordinately high level of personal savings in Japan—over 20 percent of Japanese wages are saved, so that by 1985 “the average total savings of Japanese households exceeded the average annual income for the first time”70— which has left financial institutions flush with funds that are increasingly invested abroad to gain a higher return. The second reason has been the unprecedentedly large trade surpluses occurring for Japan in recent years because of the explosion in its earnings from exports. Fearing that such surpluses would fuel domestic inflation (if returned home), the Japanese finance ministry has been encouraging the giant banks to invest vast sums overseas. 71 In 1983, the net outflow of Japanese capital was $17. 7 billion; in 1984, it leaped to $49. 7 billion; and in 1985, it leaped again, to $64. 5 billion, turning Japan into the world’s largest net creditor nation. By 1990, the director of the Institute for International Economics forecasts, the rest of the world will owe Japan a staggering $500 billion; and by 1995, the Nomura Research Institute predicts, Japan’s gross overseas assets will exceed $1 trillion. 72 Not surprisingly, Japanese banks and securities firms are rapidly becoming the largest and most successful in the world. 73
好像工业方面的这些力量还不够劲一样，它们还得到了日本惊人迅速地发展成为世界第一流债权国这一事实的补充。日本每年对外输出数百亿美元。这一变革自日本通商产业省于1969年解除对日本贷款出口的控制和建立了对海外投资的财政鼓励制度以来，一直在进行着。发生这一变革的基本根源有两个。其一是日本国内个人储蓄的超高水平——日本人的工资有20%以上储蓄在银行里。这样，到1985年，日本家庭的平均总储蓄额便第一次超过了平均年收入额，使日本的金融机构手中握有大量的资金，并日益扩大对海外的投资，以获得更高的回报。其二是由于日本从其出口中获得的收入猛增，近些年来使日本获得了史无前例的大量贸易盈余。日本大藏省担心这一盈余会加剧国内的通货膨胀（如把这一盈余转用于国内），因而一直鼓励各大银行向海外大量投资。1983年，日本资本的净外流额达177亿美元，1984年猛增至497亿美元，而在1985年又进一步增至645亿美元，使日本成为世界上最大的净债权国。据国际经济研究所所长预测，到1990年，世界其余国家欠日本的债将达5000亿美元；据野村综合研究所估计，到1995年，日本在海外的总资产将超过10000亿美元。毫不奇怪，日本银行和保险公司正在迅速变为世界上最大和最成功的金融机构。
The consequences of this vast surge in Japanese capital exports contain dangers as well as benefits for the world economy, and perhaps also for Japan itself. A considerable amount of these funds is invested into infrastructures around the globe (e. g. , the English Channel tunnel) or into the opening of new iron-ore fields (e. g. , in Brazil), which will benefit Tokyo indirectly or directly. Other monies are being channeled by Japanese companies and their balances into the creation of overseas subsidiaries (especially for production)—either to have Japanese goods manufactured in low-labor-cost countries so that they can remain competitive, or to place such plants within the territories of, say, EEC countries and the United States in order to obviate protectionist tariffs. The greater part of this capital flow has, however, gone into short-term bonds (especially U. S. Treasury bonds), which if ever recalled back to Japan in large amounts could unsettle the international financial system—just as in 1929—and place tremendous pressures upon U. S. dollars and the U. S. economy, since much of this money is going to finance the huge budget deficits incurred by the Reagan administration. On the whole, however, Tokyo is much more likely to keep recycling its surplus capital into new ventures overseas than to bring it home.
日本资本输出的这种大规模膨胀的后果，对世界经济，可能还对日本本身，既包含着危险，也包含着好处。把大量资金投向全球的基本建设工程（如英吉利海峡隧道），或用来开辟新的铁矿石开采场（如在巴西），将直接或间接地给东京带来好处。日本公司还正在使用其他资金和盈余来兴建海外子公司（尤其是直接从事生产的子公司），采取在劳动力价值低廉的国家生产日本商品的方式，以保持竞争力，或者把这些工厂建在欧洲经济共同体成员国和美国的土地上，以逃避那些国家保护主义的关税。然而，这一资本外流的更大部分已经变成短期债券（尤其是美国财政部的债券），一旦这些债券大量返回日本，则有可能打乱国际金融体系（正像1929年曾经发生过的那样），对美元和美国经济造成巨大压力，因为这笔钱的很大一部分正在用来弥补里根政府巨大的预算赤字。但是，总的来讲，日本更愿意将它的剩余资本进行新的海外投资，以保持反复循环，而不愿把剩余资本转回国内。
The rise of Japan in the past few years to be the world’s leading net creditor nation—combined with the transformation of the United States from being the biggest lender to being the biggest borrower—has occurred so swiftly that it is still difficult to work out its full implications. Since “historically a creditor nation has led growth in each period of global economic expansion, and Japan’s era is just arriving,”74 it may well be that Tokyo’s emergence as the leading world banker gives a further middle-to-long-term boost to international commerce and finance, following the earlier examples provided by the Netherlands, Britain, and the United States. What seems remarkable at this stage is that the surge in Japan’s “invisible” financial role is occurring before there is any significant erosion of its immense “visible” industrial lead, as happened (for example) in the British case. Perhaps that may change, and swiftly, if the value of the yen soars too high and Japan experiences long-term “maturity” and slowdown in its manufacturing base and in its rate of productive growth. Yet even if this does happen—and there are reasons (as given above) to think that any decline of Japan as a manufacturing nation will be a slow process—one fact is clear: with the forecast amount of overseas assets in its hands by the year 2000, its current-account balances are bound to be handsomely supplemented by a vast flow of earnings from abroad. In all ways, therefore, Japan seems destined to get much richer.
日本在几年内迅速崛起，发展成为世界上主要的净债权国，以及美国从最大的债权国变成最大的债务国，竟是如此迅速，以致我们仍然难以搞清其全部意义。由于“历史上债权国曾经在全球经济的每一个大发展时期领导着发展的潮流，而日本的时代才刚刚到来”，很可能将出现以下局面：日本以世界第一流银行家的面目出现，将会仿效荷兰、英国和美国先前提供的榜样，给国际商业和金融进一步带来中期到长期的繁荣。在现阶段，似乎不同寻常的是，在日本“有形的”强大工业领先地位发生任何重大衰变之前，日本“无形的”财政金融作用正在获得极大的提高。正如英国那样，如果日元升值过高，日本工业经历长期的“成熟化”，生产基地的生产活动慢下来，生产增长率降低，则日本的那种地位可能发生变化，并且这种变化可能是很迅速的。可是，即使这种情况真的发生，有理由（上面已谈到）认为，日本作为一个商品生产国，其任何可能的衰退都将是一个缓慢的过程。有一个事实也是很明显的：由于到2000年它将拥有人们所预测的那批海外资产，日本目前账面上的盈余必然会得到巨额海外投资收入的大量补充。因此，从各方面看，日本似乎注定要变得更为富有。
Just how powerful, economically, will Japan be in the early twenty-first century? Barring large-scale war, or ecological disaster, or a return to a 1930s-style world slump and protectionism, the consensus answer seems to be: much more powerful. In computers, robotics, telecommunications, automobiles, trucks, and ships, and possibly also in biotechnology and even in aerospace, Japan will be either the leading or the second nation. In finance, it may by then be in a class of its own. Already it is reported that its per capita GNP has sailed past those of the United States and western Europe, giving it almost the highest standard of living on earth. What its share of world manufacturing output or of total world GNP will be is impossible to say. It is worth recalling that in 1951, Japan’s total GNP was one-third of Britain’s and one-twentieth (!) of the United States’; yet within three decades it had risen to be double Britain’s and nearly half the United States’. To be sure, its rate of growth over those decades was unusually swift, because of special conditions. Yet according to many assessments,75 the Japanese economy is still likely to expand about 1 to 2 percent a year faster than the other large economies (except, of course, China) over the next several decades. * It is for that reason that scholars such as Herman Kahn and Ezra Vogel have argued that Japan will be “number one” economically in the early twenty-first century, and it is not surprising that many Japanese are fired by that very prospect. For a country which possesses only 3 percent of the world population and only 0. 3 percent of its habitable land, it seems an almost unbelievable achievement; and but for the possibilities inherent in the new technology, one would be tempted to assume that Japan was already close to maximizing the potential of its people and land and that, like other relatively small peripheral or island states (Portugal, Venice, the Netherlands, even Britain in its time) it would one day be eclipsed by nations which had far larger resources and merely needed to copy its successful habits. For the foreseeable future, however, Japan’s trajectory continues to rise upward.
那么，到21世纪初日本在经济上将强盛到何等程度呢？如将大规模战争或社会生态方面的灾难，或再出现某种20世纪30年代的世界不景气，以及保护主义诸因素排除在外，一致的答案似乎是：日本在经济上将强盛得多。日本在电子计算机、人工智能、电信通信、小汽车、卡车、船舶，可能还在生物技术，甚至在航空和航天诸方面，将居世界第一位或第二位。在金融方面，那时日本可能处于它应有的地位。早已有报道说，日本的人均国民生产总值，已经超过了美国和西欧国家的人均国民生产总值，以致它的生活水平几乎成为世界上最高的。我们很难说出日本在世界总产值或世界总的国民生产总值中将占多大份额。值得回味的是，日本1951年的国民生产总值仅相当于英国的1/3，美国的1/20，可是经过30年，它就使国民生产总值比英国高一倍，相当于美国的一半左右。可以肯定地说，这几十年内日本国民生产总值的增长率因受特殊条件的影响，是特别高的。而根据许多人的估计，日本的经济在今后几十年内仍然有可能以每年高于其他大国（中国当然除外）1.5%～2%的经济发展速度向前发展[5]。正因为如此，一些学者，如赫尔曼·卡恩和埃兹拉·沃格尔等才断定，日本将在21世纪初成为世界上“头号”经济大国，而且毫不奇怪，许多日本人也受到这种前景的鼓舞。对于仅拥有世界3%的人口和0.3%的可居住土地的一个国家来说，这似乎是一项几乎不可思议的成就。但是，从新技术内在的可能性来看，人们却会做出这样的设想：日本已接近其人民和土地的最大潜力；像其他较小的边缘国家或岛国（葡萄牙、威尼斯、荷兰，甚至英国）一样，日本有可能在某一天被拥有丰富得多的资源、只需抄袭日本成功的习惯做法的国家所超过。但是，就可预见的将来而言，在日本的抛物线式的弧形行程中，其发展势头还是继续向上的。
No matter how one measures Japan’s present and future economic strength, two facts are overriding. The first is that it is enormously productive and prosperous, and getting much more so. The second is that its military strength, and defense spending, bears no relation to its place in the international economic order of things. It possesses a reasonable-sized navy (including thirty-one destroyers and eighteen frigates), a home-defense air force, and a modest army, but it is clearly much less of a military power, relative to others, than it was in the 1930s, or even in the 1910s. More pertinent still for the debate upon “burden-sharing”78 is the fact that Japan allocates so relatively little for defense. According to the figures in The Military Balance, in 1983 Japan spent $11. 6 billion on defense, compared with $21– 24 billion spent by France, West Germany, and Britain, and a colossal $239 billion by the United States; per capita, therefore, the average Japanese inhabitant had had to pay only $98 for defense that year, compared with the average Briton’s $439 and the average American’s $1,023. 79 Given its current prosperity, Japan seems to be getting off lightly from the costs of defense—and in two related ways: the first is that it shelters under the protection of others, namely, the United States; the second is that its low defense outlays help it to keep down public spending and thus provide more resources for the Japanese manufacturing effort which is so hurting American and European competitors. 80
不管人们如何估计日本当前和未来的经济实力，有两个事实是很突出的。第一，日本的经济有巨大的创造性，十分繁荣，并且越来越具有创造性，越来越繁荣。第二，日本的军事实力和国防开支与日本在国际经济格局中的地位没有多大关系。它拥有一支规模合理的海军（包括31艘驱逐舰和18艘护卫舰），一支用于国土防卫的空军和一支中等规模的陆军。但是，同其他国家比较起来，它的军事实力明显小于20世纪30年代，甚至小于1910～1920年。对于“负担均摊”这场争论更为切题的事实是，日本分配给防务的资源，相对地说是小的。根据1983年版《军事力量对比》提供的数字，日本用于防务的开支达116亿美元，而相比之下，法国、联邦德国和英国的防务开支达210亿～240亿美元，美国则高达2390亿美元。因此，按人均计算，那一年每个日本人平均担负的防务开支才98美元，而相比之下，英国平均每人分担439美元，美国平均每人分担1023美元。尽管日本目前很繁荣，它似乎还是在悄悄地减少自己的防务开支，并采取了两种互相有关的方式：一是它在其他国家即美国的保护之下求得安全；二是它低水平的防务开支有助于保持低水平公共开支，从而为日本的制造业提供更多的资源，使美国和欧洲的竞争对手受到严重损害。
Were Japan indeed to respond to the pressures of the U. S. government and of other western critics and to increase its defense spending to the level allocated by the European NATO members—averaging around 3–4 percent of GNP—the transformation would be dramatic and would turn it (along with China) into the third-largest military power in the world, with expenditures on defense of over $50 billion a year. Nor is there any doubt, given Japan’s technological and productive resources, that it could build, for example, carrier task forces for its navy, or longrange missiles as a deterrent. That would certainly benefit domestic firms like Mitsubishi, as well as providing a counter to Soviet power in the Far East, thus rendering help to an overstretched United States.
如果日本真的屈从美国政府和其他西方批评者的压力，把自己的防务开支增加到欧洲北约成员国所担负的水平，即平均占国民生产总值的3%到4%，那就会发生急剧的变化，将会使日本（同中国一起）成为世界上第三军事大国，一年的防务开支就会超过500亿美元。毫无疑问，日本以现有的技术和生产资源，就可以——举例来说——为其海军建设航空母舰特遣舰队，或者生产远程导弹，作为威慑力量使用。这样做肯定会使三菱一类的国内公司获利，并提供一支武装部队去针对苏联在远东的军事力量，从而有助于减轻美国过重的防务负担。
What is much more likely to happen, however, is that Tokyo will endeavor to escape those external pressures, or at least to maintain defense spending as low as it possibly can without provoking a rupture with Washington. The chief reason has not been the purely symbolic one of wishing to keep Japanese expenditures on defense within the ceiling of 1 percent of GNP; by NATO definitions (i. e. , by including military pensions), it had already broken that barrier, and in any case, it spent a considerably larger percentage of its GNP upon defense in the early 1950s. Nor has it much to do with the conditions of the 1951 U. S. -Japan security treaty, which is the legal basis for the American military presence in Japan, and which further encouraged Tokyo to think of trade rather than strategic power; for the circumstances of the 1980s are now quite different from those of the Korean War. The real reasons, in the view of the Japanese government, are the domestic and regional objections to a massive increase in its defense spending, and to a revision of the constitution, which forbids sending troops (or even selling arms) abroad. The memory of the militaristic excesses of the 1930s, of the wartime losses, and (especially) of the horrors of the A-bombs has ingrained upon the Japanese consciousness a dislike and suspicion of war and of the instruments of war which is at least as strong as western pacifism after the First World War; and while that may change in time, with the coming of a younger, more assertive generation, the prevailing opinion in the near future is much more likely to constrain the Tokyo government to keep increases in spending on the aptly named “self-defense forces” to modest levels. 81
然而，更有可能出现的情况是，日本将千方百计地避开那些外部压力，或在不与华盛顿产生裂痕的情况下，尽可能使其防务开支保持低水平。其主要理由并不是纯粹象征性地希望日本的防务开支保持在占国民生产总值1%这个限度之内。按照北约的定义（即包括军人养老金在内），日本早已打破了这一限制；不管怎么说，它在20世纪50年代初期用在防务上的开支就在国民生产总值中占相当大的比重。它这样做同1951年《美日安全条约》的条件也没有多大关系。那项条约成了美国在日本驻军的合法依据，并进一步推动东京考虑贸易，而不是考虑战略力量问题，因为80年代的条件十分不同于朝鲜战争时的条件。在日本政府看来，真正的原因在于日本国内和各个地区反对日本大规模增加防务开支，反对它修改宪法，因为日本宪法规定日本不得向国外派遣军队（甚至出售军火）。对30年代过分的军国主义化、战时的损失，尤其是对原子弹造成的恐怖的记忆，已经在日本人的良知中种下了一种对战争和战争工具的厌恶和疑虑感，这两种感觉至少像第一次世界大战后西方的和平主义一样强烈。那种记忆可能会时过境迁，随着更年轻、更加自信的一代的出现，不久的将来流行的舆论很可能促使日本政府把用于巧妙地称为“自卫队”的开支增加到适当的水平。
To these moral and ideological reasons there can be added economic ones. Among Japanese businessmen and politicians there is considerable opposition to increasing public spending (which, as mentioned above, is much lower in Japan than in any of the other OECD countries): to them, a doubling or trebling of defense expenditures must be paid for by either adding to the large public-sector deficit or raising taxes— and both are acutely disliked. Besides, it is argued, a large army and navy did not bring Japan “security,” whether of the military or the economic sort, in the 1930s; and it is difficult to see at present how an increase in defense spending could prevent a possible cutoff of Arab oil—which is a far greater danger to Japan strategically than, say, the hypothetical nuclear winter, and explains Tokyo’s desperate efforts to “lie low and say nothing” whenever there is a crisis in the Middle East. Is it not better, then, for Japan to abjure the use of force and to resolve all international disputes peacefully, as a cosmopolitan “trading state” should? Since modern war is so costly and is usually counterproductive, the Japanese feel that there is a lot of merit in their zenhoi heiwa gaiko (“omnidirectional peaceful diplomacy”).
除了上述道义和意识形态上的理由外，还可以加上经济方面的一些理由。在日本工商界和政界人士中间，有许多人反对增加公共开支（如前所述，日本的公共开支大大低于经济合作与发展组织的任何其他成员国）。对他们来说，如防务开支增加1～2倍，这些钱必须采取增加公共开支方面的大量赤字或增加税收的方法来支付，而这两点都是他们极端厌恶的。此外，人们还指出，建设一支庞大的陆军和海军，并不会给日本带来“安全”，不管是军事方面的安全，还是经济方面的安全，就像在20世纪30年代那样。而且，目前人们也很难看到增加防务开支能否防止阿拉伯石油供应的可能中断，而后者从战略上对日本来说，要比假想的核冬天所带来的危险大得多。这一点进而说明，为什么每当中东发生危机时，东京就竭力“躲起来和保持缄默”。那么，对日本来说，像一个世界性的“贸易国家”那样，放弃使用武力和用和平方式解决一切国际争端不是更好吗？由于现代战争代价如此巨大，一般是破坏生产的，所以日本人感到他们的“全方位和平外交”具有很多优点。
These feelings are no doubt reinforced by Tokyo’s awareness that many of its neighbors would react with alarm to a large-scale buildup of Japanese military power. That would obviously be the response of the Russians—against whom, after all, the United States wants Japan to “burden-share” in defense matters, and who are still in dispute with Tokyo over the islands north of Hokkaido, and who probably feel that they have enough on their hands in the Far East with the expansion of Chinese power. But it would also be the response of those lands previously subjected to Japanese occupation—Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Malayasia, Indonesia—as well as Australia and New Zealand, all of which have reacted nervously to any signs of a revival of Japanese nationalism and bushido mentality, and which have encouraged Tokyo to “focus on productive nonmilitary ways to enhance Southeast Asian peace and security. ”82 Above all, perhaps, there looms for Tokyo the difficulty of assuaging the suspicions of a touchy Peking, which still nurses memories of the Japanese atrocities of 1937–1945, and has also warned Japan not to get too heavily involved in developing Siberia (which in turn complicates the Tokyo-Moscow relationship) or to support Taiwan.
日本很了解，它的许多邻国对它的大规模扩充军备会惊讶地做出反应。日本的这种认识无疑也加深了上述感觉。显然，苏联人会对此做出反应——毕竟美国要求日本在防务方面“分担自己的那一份”，而且苏联人仍然在同日本人争论北方四岛问题；苏联人还可能感到，他们在远东应付中国实力的扩张已经够麻烦的了。但是，先前曾被日本占领过的那些地区，如朝鲜、中国台湾、菲律宾、马来西亚、印度尼西亚，以及澳大利亚和新西兰，也会做出反应——所有这些国家都对日本恢复民族主义和武士道精神的任何迹象，做出了神经质般的反应，这些反应已经促使日本“致力于采取创造性的非军事方式来加强东南亚的和平和安全”。可能尤其重要的一点是，日本正面临着一个棘手问题：消除易怒的中国的疑虑——中国对1937～1945年日本在中国犯下的罪行仍记忆犹新，并且已经警告日本不要过分参与西伯利亚的开发工作（这一点反过来使日本和苏联之间的关系复杂化了），或支持中国台湾。
Even Japan’s economic expansion (while bringing with it much-needed investments, plus some development aid and tourism) has left many of its neighbors suspicious, feeling that they are being sucked into a newer and more subtle version of the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” once again—the more especially since Japan does not import very much (except raw materials) from those countries, yet sells a great deal of its own manufactures to them. Here, too, China has been the most outspoken, at first welcoming the late 1970s boom in Japanese trade and investments, then sharply curtailing them, partly because of its own balance-ofpayments deficit, partly to avoid economic dependency upon any single foreign country which might take undue advantage of it; America’s trade with China, Deng urged in 1979, “must come equal to Japan’s,”83 and thus prevent any possibility of a Japanese variant of “the imperialism of free trade. ”
甚至日本的经济扩张（与此同时带动了大量必需的投资以及某些开发援助和旅游业），也给邻国带来了许多疑虑——它们感到自己正被再一次吸进更新的、更诡谲的“大东亚共荣圈”中。尤其是因为日本从这些国家进口的东西不多（原料除外），但却向它们大量倾销日货，它们的这种感觉就更加强烈。这里，中国一直是直言不讳的——20世纪70年代末期，它起初对扩大日本的（对华）贸易和投资表示欢迎，以后便急剧地削减了同日本的贸易和日本的投资，其原因部分是由于中国的收支逆差，部分是为了避免在经济上依赖某个外国，防止为其所利用。邓小平在1979年敦促美国同中国的贸易“必须保持在同日本相等的水平上”，以此来防止产生任何一种日本变种的“自由贸易的帝国主义”。
All of these are, at the moment, merely straws in the wind, but they make politicians in Tokyo worry about how best to evolve a coherent external strategy for Japan as it moves toward the twenty-first century. There is no doubt that with its economic power expanding, it could become a second Venice—in the sense not just of extensive trading, but also of protecting its maritime sea lanes and of creating quasi-dependencies overseas; yet the internal and external objections to a strong Japan are such that not only will it avoid any move toward territorial acquisitions along old-fashioned imperialist lines, but it is also unlikely to increase its defense forces by very much. This latter conclusion, however, will increasingly irritate American circles who are pressing for “burden sharing” in the western Pacific. Ironically, therefore, Japan will be criticized if it does not substantially increase its spending upon arms, and it will be denounced if it does. Either way spells trouble to what has been nicely termed Japan’s “maximal gain/minimum risk foreign policy. ”84 This suggests, once again, a Japanese preference for as little change as possible in the military and political affairs of East Asia, even as the pace of economic growth quickens. That, too, compounds the dilemma, for even a non- Marxist would be puzzled to imagine how the profound economic transformation of Asia could avoid being attended by far-reaching changes in other spheres as well.
现时所有这一切仅仅是预示未来动向的一些小事情，但却使东京的政治家们对于日本向21世纪迈进期间怎样才能制定一项最佳的、协调一致的对外战略焦虑不安。毫无疑问，随着经济实力的扩大，日本有可能变成第二个威尼斯——不仅表现在扩大的贸易上，而且表现在保护自己的海上交通线以及对海外的半依赖地位上。但是，内部和外部对一个强大的日本的抵触，将不仅能防止日本沿着老式的帝国主义路线攫取领土的任何打算，而且也会使它不可能大规模扩充军备。然而，后面这一结论将大大刺激美国人士，他们正在要求日本“分担”西太平洋的防务。因此，具有讽刺意味的是，如果日本不大量增加军备开支，它就要受到批评；而大量增加军备开支，它又要受到谴责。不管日本怎样行事，都会给日本那名字漂亮的“最大收获和最低风险的对外政策”带来麻烦。这再一次说明，即使日本经济发展速度加快，它也主张尽可能少地改变东亚军政事务的格局。但这样做同样又会使日本的困境进一步复杂化，因为即使一个非马克思主义者也难以设想，亚洲深刻的经济变革怎么能避免给其他领域带来深远的变化。
The deepest worries of the Japanese, therefore, are probably those which are rarely if ever discussed publicly—partly out of diplomatic discretion, partly to avoid bringing such developments about—and concern the future balance of power in East Asia itself. “Omnidirectional peaceful diplomacy” is all very well for the present, but how useful will it be if an overextended United States does withdraw from its Asian commitments, or finds it impossible to protect the flow of oil from Arabia to Yokohama? How useful if there is another Korean war? How useful if China begins to dominate the region? How useful if a declining and nervous USSR takes aggressive actions? There is, of course, no way of answering such hypothetical and alarming questions; yet even a mere “trading state” with small “self-defense forces” may one day find it unavoidable to provide some answers. As other nations have discovered in the past, commercial expertise and financial wealth sometimes no longer suffice in the anarchic world of international power politics. The EEC—Potential and Problems
因此，日本最感忧虑的可能是那些很少公开讨论的问题——其部分原因是由于外交上的谨慎，部分原因是为了避免发生这种事态——关于东亚本身未来的均势。“全方位和平外交”对于目前来说，是非常好的，但是如果负担过重的美国真的从它的亚洲义务中脱身，或发现日本不可能保护石油从阿拉伯源源不断流向横滨，这种外交还会有什么用处呢？如果中国开始主宰这个地区，它还有什么用呢？如果发生另一次朝鲜战争，它会起什么作用呢？如果正在衰落的、神经质的苏联采取侵略行动，它还会有什么用处？当然我们不可能回答这类假想的、怪诞的问题。但是，甚至仅仅一个拥有小型“自卫队”的“贸易国”有朝一日也可能发现，自己不可避免地要对这些问题做出某种回答。像其他国家以往已发现的那样，商业才能和金融财富，在国际强权政治处于无政府状态的世界上，有时是不能满足需要的。