The Miko - 02 by Eric Van Lustbader Read Free Book Online

reaches of power in Japan who the outsider and even most Japanese never saw or knew about. Was this one of those men? If so, Nicholas had to believe Tomkin’s admonition of extreme care on the long trip across the Pacific. “This deal with Sato Petrochemicals is potentially the biggest I’ve ever put together, Nick,” he had said. “The merging of my Sphynx Silicon division and Sato’s Nippon Memory Chip kobun is going to bring untold profits over the next twenty years to Tomkin Industries.
    “You know American manufacturers; they’re so goddamned slow on the uptake. That’s why I decided to start up Sphynx two and a half years ago. I got fed up with relying on these bastards. I was always three to six months behind schedule because of them and by the time I got their shipment, the Japs had already come out with something better.
    “Like everything else, they’ve been taking our basic designs and making the product better and at a far lower price. They did it to the Germans with thirty-five-millimeter cameras, they did it to us and the Europeans with cars. Now they’re gonna do it to us again with computer chips unless we get off our asses.
    “You better than anyone, Nick, know how goddamned hard it is for a foreign company to get a toehold in Japan. But now I’ve got something they want—want badly enough to allow me fifty-one percent interest in my own company. That’s unheard of over there. I mean, they took IBM to the cleaners when they opened up in Tokyo.”
    Nicholas recalled the incident well. Japan’s all-powerful Ministry of International Trade and Industry, known more colloquially as MITI, had sprung up after World War II to essentially help guide Japan’s economy back onto sound footing. In the 1950s, MITIs chief minister, Shigera Sahashi, became the samurai bent on discouraging what he saw as a massive invasion of American capital into Japan.
    He also saw the enormous potential worldwide market coming for computers. Japan had no computer technology whatsoever at the time. Sahashi used IBM’s desire to open up Japan for its trade to effectively create a national computer industry.
    MITI already had set policies severely limiting the involvement of foreign companies in Japan’s economy. The ministry was so powerful that, in effect, it could exclude all foreign participation without its consent.
    Sahashi allowed the formation of IBM-Japan but as soon as the fledgling company was set up, he set about showing them what they had stepped into. IBM, of course, held all the basic patents that Japan required to begin its own homegrown industry.
    In a now historic meeting with IBM-Japan, Sahashi told them: “We will take every measure possible to obstruct the success of your business unless you license IBM patents to Japanese firms and charge them no more than a five-percent royalty.”
    When the understandably appalled IBM officers indignantly accused the Japanese, through him, of having an inflated inferiority complex, Sahashi said, “We do not have an inferiority complex toward you; we only need time and money to compete effectively.”
    Stunned, the Americans were faced with the difficult choice of having to withdraw IBM completely from a major part of its planned worldwide expansion or capitulating to MITI’s total domination.
    They chose to submit, and for years afterward Sahashi would proudly recount the details of his triumphant negotiations.
    “I learned from that fiasco.” Tomkin’s voice had brought Nicholas back. “I’m not so greedy that I’ll put one foot in the trap before I know what the hell’s going on. I’m going to use the Japs, not the other way around.
    “I won’t spend dollar one on a Japanese company until the deal’s set. I’ve got the patented advance, but there’s no way I can manufacture this new-type chip in America without the costs making sales prohibitive. Sato can give me that; he controls Japan’s sixth largest konzern. He can manufacture this thing