Thomas Hoover - The samurai strategy

Vision research was also well advanced. A Matsushita robot equipped with a computerized "eye" was able to analyze the lines and shadows of a human face and then draw a black-and- white sketch like a sidewalk artist. Even more amazing, a robot with a TV-camera eye-developed jointly by Waseda University and Sumitomo Electric-could read sheet music and play it on a keyboard using mechanical fingers. This android pianist employed recent advances in artificial intelligence to determine the best fingering for each phrase and even took requests for tunes in spoken Japanese. Play it again, HAL. Other robots with "voice recognition" capability allowed a human operator simply to sit in one spot and command the mobile machine where to go and what to do.

At one point Tam asked Matsugami for a candid opinion on how far along he thought the Advanced Robot-Technology Program had progressed. Well, he replied, sucking in his breath pensively, the manual dexterity problem was about licked: the robot arms now being perfected could pick up anything and move it anywhere. Vision and programmable intelligence were harder, but he felt their research was getting close. Already he had robots that could analyze and interpret 3-D objects and scenes, enabling them to maneuver around a factory floor and make decisions of almost human complexity. The ultimate objective was factory-wide systems for Computer-Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) that would allow every operation of a company, from design to engineering to manufacturing, to be controlled by computer via a single data base. It was cheap, and it elevated quality control to a hundred percent. No doubt about it, he said, as Japan moved to automate manufacturing and get on with an information- industry future, these smart robots would be their secret weapon.

The Institute's mechanical menagerie, I realized, was what the next century was going to look like. Except it was here now. As Matsugami took us through lab after lab, it became clear that the Japanese "third-generation" functionoid robot was all but a reality.

Noda's message was clear. Already Japan was spending twice as much on new manufacturing technology as America was. They led the world in robotics and that lead was growing. With the coming of that third generation-robots that could see, move, and think-world industrial leadership would be up for grabs. These were the stakes Japan was betting on the twenty-first century. Anybody who planned to play against them better have something on the table too.

At the end of the tour as dusk was beginning to settle in, Noda reappeared and escorted us back to the limo. And that's when he laid it out.

"Dr. Richardson, what you and Mr. Walton have just seen is merely a glimpse of the real peril to America's future." He was closing the door of the car. "There is much, much more… projects such as the rapid commercialization of superconductivity. America's world supremacy is at a crossroads."

"Why are you showing us this?" Tam was still troubled by the same question that was eating at me.

"Very simple, really. Thus far we have, together, attempted to address some of the more egregious ineptitudes in America's corporate management. Our success in that, if I may say, has already been substantial. However, the best-managed organization cannot flourish without the tools required to take it the next step. That translates as technology." He paused, then looked at us both. "Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"Japan now has the technology, just as it has the money," Tam answered.

"You are correct. Thus far Dai Nippon has merely provided a conduit to infuse capital into the American industrial scene. That was the easy part. The task remaining will be much more difficult." He looked at us. "Difficult because, for this, America must share in return."

"You want to make a deal, I take it." I finally spoke. Funny, but I thought I sounded a little like Faust beginning negotiations with the devil.

He smiled. "That is a blunt way of describing what I am about to suggest, Mr. Walton, but it does capture the spirit of my proposal. America excels in basic research, Japan in applied research, in engineering. The time has come to join forces."

"How?"

"As you have seen, the monetary resources at Dai Nippon's disposal make it possible for us to wield significant influence." He smiled. "Japanese capital has been brought to America; Japanese technology can be brought as well."

"At a price."

"At a price, yes. But a modest one really." He smiled again, then buzzed for his driver to start the car. "Let me put it like this. If you choose to proceed with me in the next step of Dai Nippon's program, I will arrange for everything you have seen today to be my gift to America. All I ask from you both is complete cooperation in the days ahead. Together we can forge an informal alliance between Japan and America that could alter the course of world history. But it must be done in an atmosphere of complete trust."

Tam was astonished. "You'd make this manufacturing technology available to American industry? Why?"

"As part of a quid pro quo, Dr. Richardson. It's quite simple. In return I would expect complete access to the R amp;D in the firms Dai Nippon has acquired." He stared back through his rimless glasses. "Which, I gather, is a notion you find a trifle unsettling."

You bastard, I thought. You did have my phone tapped. How else could you have known what she was thinking?

She shot me a telling glance. "How does all this fit in with the new MITI guidance we're suddenly getting?"

"That is a separate matter, Dr. Richardson, which we will address in due course. What I am concerned with now is something else entirely-the final step in restoring America to economic health. The first requirement was long-term capital and better management, which Dai Nippon has now begun to provide. The next is technology, a small foretaste of which I have shown you today."

Was this, I wondered, the big picture, the kan we'd been trying to get a handle on?

"What I'm proposing," Noda continued, "is that together we become partners in the creation of a massive Japanese- American consortium. Perhaps we could call it Nipponica."

"Nipponica?" She kept her tone even.

"The name has an interesting ring to it, does it not? As I envision the organization, you would be its American CEO." He paused. "I would chair the board." Then he turned to me. "And you, Mr. Walton, could be invaluable as chief corporate counsel."

The man had gone totally mad. Or had he?

"I still don't understand how this venture could be brought together. You'd be dealing with hundreds of companies, a worldwide management headache."

"Mr. Walton, what other choice do we have? Given the precipitous decline of America's global leadership, together with Japan's economic and technological rise, there can be only two possible outcomes of the inevitable direction affairs are headed: bankruptcy for us both, or war. The time has come for risk-taking, for a belief in the human spirit. We each need the other more than our political leaders can allow themselves to admit, and thus steps must be taken outside normal diplomatic channels to bring us closer together." He continued, in perfect form, "Both America and Japan would benefit from a commingling of our industry and research. We would learn from each other, find strength in unity, realize a common perspective on global concerns. Our economies would be joined, our peoples united. Instead of friction and the saber rattling of trade disputes, we would have the harmony of a single enterprise."

"Who exactly is going to finance and operate this undertaking?" I was listening to him describe his planned-for Utopia with increasing skepticism. But he had already rocked America, and Japan, to the core. Not a man to underestimate.

"As you might suppose, Dai Nippon would, by virtue of its present situation, be ideally suited to lay the groundwork." He glanced out the tinted windows. "Afterward the political processes of both countries would naturally have no choice but to follow our lead, ratifying-as they always do-conditions that have already become a fait accompli."