Ryan Ginstrom wrote:

> "thegoons" <thegoons@bigpond.com> wrote in message
> news:lPzLb.3039$Wa.2434@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
>
> You're so right! Those Japanese are just ethnocentric, aren't they?

Yes, they are, particularly as the construction industry is involved. It is
notorious.

> After all, whenever US & European governments contract out construction,
> they provide Japanese translations of all the bid specifications and
> whatnot, right?

Maybe not, but despite any barriers which do exist, Japanese construction
companies are allowed to succeed anyway. For example:

http://www.worldbridgenews.com/links/8.asp

"Kajima U.S.A., USA, 4/6/2002
With over 160 years of experience and over 13,000 employees around the
world, Kajima Corporation is a global leader in the design, construction
and real estate development industries. Traded publicly on the Tokyo and
London exchanges, Kajima reported over $16 billion in revenues in 2000
(year ended March 31, 2000) and is ranked as the third largest global
contractor in the world."

No matter how hard Japanese may work or how good that work allegedly is,
they aren't going to be "THIRD LARGEST global contractor in the world" if
foreign governments behaved like the Japanese regarding construction
contracts.

http://www.jsce-int.org/Publication/CivilEng/2002/1-1.pdf

"Japan's construction industry is characterized by superb technology
without sufficient international competitiveness. Not only are personnel
costs higher than other countries but construction works are also
structurally high cost. Also, when Japanese technical experts go overseas,
not only are there language difficulties but the work culture is differents
so it makes them less effective and when engineers that are successful
overseas return to Japan, they have a hard time adjusting back to the
Japanese way of business."

Overseas Expansion of the Japanese Construction Technology [sic]

- Kinoshita Seiya, Director, International Division for Infrastructure,
Policy Bureau, Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport

http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/6490.html

Brian Woodall
Japan under Construction
Corruption, Politics, and Public Works
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Publication Date: April 1996

"I would like to commend Professor Woodall for his in-depth look at the
corrupt dango system that has plagued the public works market in Japan.
Having spent the last ten years trying to pry open the closed Japanese
public works market, I believe that this book lays out clearly the
structural problems that block access for U.S. firms. I hope that this
illuminating look at how the Japanese system operates will lead to further
changes in Japan's public procurement system."--Senator Frank L. Murkowski

"Woodall has done a wonderful job of getting behind the scenes to look at
the preeminent sector where money flows to politicians. This is the richest
and most subtle analysis of this industry to appear in English."--Ezra F.
Vogel, author of Japan as Number One

"An important contribution to our knowledge of Japan. Brian Woodall has dug
up quite a bit of new factual information on this understudied
industry."--Frances Rosenbluth, author of Financial Politics in
Contemporary Japan and coauthor of Japan's Political Marketplace

DESCRIPTION In 1987, Japan excluded American firms from bidding on the
multibillion-dollar New Kansai International Airport, sparking yet another
trade dispute between the United States and Japan. The State Department,
Congress, and the President himself were caught up in the dispute, which
still smolders even after Congress passed a threatening resolution to
retaliate. Scandal after scandal--both domestic and international--splashes
across headlines in Japan, generating wave after wave of attempts at
reform. Why is this industry so rife with bid-rigging, collusion, and
pork-barrel politics? What are the political forces behind the industry?
Brian Woodall answers these questions in this book, based on extensive
research and over one hundred candid and revealing interviews with
contractors, industry association officials, public works bureaucrats,
elected politicians and aides, political party officials, journalists, and
scholars.

This inside view begins with a profile of the institutionalized system of
bid-rigging in the public construction market. It explores the powerful
positions of unelected bureaucrats, who are often hired by private-sector
firms after retirement. Career politicians within the Liberal Democratic
Party are revealed to use the construction industry to exploit party
factions toward their own electoral ends. Recent events--the Sagawa affair
and the massive "general contractors" (zenekon) scandal as well as the
political reform movements that followed them--are examined in detail.
Throughout, Brian Woodall illuminates the construction rift between Japan
and the United States and demonstrates how international pressures were
subverted within the shadowy domestic system.

Japan Under Construction is must reading for anyone interested in Japanese
politics, United States-Japan trade relations, and political corruption and
reform anywhere in the world.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Brian Woodall is Assistant Professor at the School of International
Affairs, Georgia Institute of Technology.

--
http://www.mercycorps.org/
http://www.mercycorps.org/items/1398/
http://www.mercycorps.org/mercykits.php

Mercy Corps' goal in Iraq is to work with conflict-affected communities to
meet their urgent needs while also providing a firm foundation for the
future development of economic opportunities and civil society.

Efficiency
Over 92% of our resources go directly to humanitarian programs.

Excellence
Worth Magazine named Mercy Corps one of America's best charities.

High-Value
Every dollar you give helps us secure $12.71 in donated food and other
supplies.