Anti-Americanism Erupts Like a Volcano in Japan

Just as American automakers like Ford and General Motors toasted recent bounce backs in their car sales, anti-Americanism has reached the verge of a massive eruption in no place other than Toyota’s home country, Japan. The Japanese believe it was extremely unfair for the United States to make such a big fuss out of the Toyota incident, including making Toyota frontman Akio Toyoda apologize and put up with harsh criticism at American Congressional hearings. Hundreds of thousands of Japanese investors who lost every penny after buying toxic American bonds didn’t even hear a word of apology from Uncle Sam. As of now, 60 percent of Japanese think Japan has essentially been colonized by America. They have every reason to believe so: Japan can’t say no to America’s requests; the exchange rate between the yen and the dollar is completely controlled by the U.S.; Japan unconditionally purchases hazardous beef from America; Japan is not allowed to sell American bonds that were purchased because of a trade surplus; Japanese authorities can’t even protest when American soldiers rape local school girls.

As a matter of fact, American-produced cars have all sorts of problems from time to time as well, but then, the American government wouldn’t hold any hearings or broadcast them on live television. Ford once recalled 1.5 million cars, but the American government simply turned a deaf ear. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration at all to say that the United States carried out the world’s biggest protectionism case by using Toyota’s recall. Some Washington “elite” believe that by magnifying Toyota’s faults, America may have found an expedient way of “saving” its own auto industry. Obviously, American-made cars get a huge sales boost after all the foreign cars are kicked out. What the Americans failed to calculate in this master plan was the impact of Toyoda’s congressional appearance on the Japanese people when they saw him on their home televisions; it was no less devastating than Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Forcing Japan to Open Its Beef Market

As there have long been serious concerns about the safety of American beef such that Americans themselves don’t buy it, Japan, like many other countries, used to prohibit beef imports from the United States. However, the Japanese government has experienced substantial pressure from the White House lately because of the prohibition. In order to push economic growth and increase job opportunities by expanding exports, the Obama administration yielded harsh methods to make Japan unconditionally open its beef and other agricultural products markets to the U.S., promptly ignoring protests from the Japanese government and people. American officials have gone so far as to publicly demand Tokyo to “loosen restrictions on American beef imports.” For the past couple of decades, Japan has been importing beef and other agricultural products from the United States. To the average Ichiro, the United States is an “agricultural goods factory.” Aside from movies and planes, America means vegetables and meat.

After WWII, Japan as a defeated country was able to focus all its energy on developing its industrial sector, and subsequently achieved huge success as an industrial megapower, with the United States as the biggest market of its manufacturing industry. For this very reason, Japan enjoys a trade surplus of hundreds of billions of Japanese yen with America every year. Naturally anxious about Japan’s massive dollar reserve, the United States tries to control the exchange rate between the dollar and the yen in every way possible. What’s more, America demands that Japan use its foreign exchange reserve to purchase American national bonds. Naturally speaking, Japan should have the liberty to dispose of these bonds, as it purchased them with concrete money; however, Washington keeps a keen eye and exerts great pressure on the Japanese government whenever it spots the tendency of Japan to sell these bonds. The United States has made a considerable fortune by controlling the exchange rate between the dollar and the yen, and also controlling Japanese possession of American national bonds.

American Forces Involved in Several Rape Cases

Reports showed that American soldiers had raped local schoolgirls in Japan, stirring up intense anger among Japanese people. However, according to the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty, Japanese ports do not have the right to reject American warships upon entry; American soldiers enjoy extraterritoriality rights in Japan, meaning that even if they commit a crime in Japan, the local police have no right to arrest, detain or convict them. Similar rape cases have happened numerous times, resulting in consistent protestations from the Japanese, especially the people of Okinawa. They have organized several large-scale demonstrations and national referendums, protesting that the treaty is unfair, and demanding both its abolishment and the departure of American forces. Japanese scholars think Japan and America’s relationship cannot be “fair” until American troops are completely cleared from Japanese soil.

The Japanese still have a lot more to be furious about; Washington asks that Japan promptly pay for all the expenses of American forces in Japan in order to “guarantee the forces’ ability to protect Japanese security;” these expenses include living expenses, salaries, water and electricity fees, troop transfer fees, facility fees, etc., totaling over 200 billion Japanese yen every year. The United States is also asking Japan for communications fees and infrastructure fees for a recent transfer of some troops to Guam. According to the Yomiuri Shimbun, the United States has recently made a “request” of Japan, “hoping” that Japan would cover the living and medical expenses of the 130,000 American soldiers in Afghanistan. That would scrap 2,000 billion yen from Japan. With America doing what it is doing now, Japanese fury will undoubtedly explode like lava from a volcano.