There is a good deal of blather about the shared values that are ostensibly the foundation of the alliance between Japan and the United States. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Barack Obama invoked this mantra when they met in Washington to finalize new Japan-U.S. defense guidelines that hardly any Japanese support. Perhaps the public has the wrong values?
Citing the U.N. World Values Survey, Peter Duus, professor emeritus at Stanford University, points out that social values differ considerably among the two populations.
"Rational Americans vs. emotional Japanese; materialist Americans vs. spiritual Japanese; American individualism vs Japanese groupism; self-interest-pursuing Americans vs. self-sacrificing Japanese; and so on," he summarizes. The emphasis on shared values papers over significant differences, and Duus says is thus "fraught with potential for fundamental misunderstanding," setting both sides up for disappointment.