Morita’s willingness to coauthor a book with someone like Ishihara shocked many Americans, showing that a threatening nationalism still lurked within the capitalist class that Washington had cultivated. The U.S. strategy since 1945 had been to bind Japan to the U.S. via exchanges of trade and technology. Akio Morita was arguably the greatest beneficiary of America’s tech transfers and its market openness. If even he was questioning America’s leading role, Washington needed to rethink its game plan.
