$Unique_ID{bob00359} $Pretitle{} $Title{Japan The Negotiators} $Subtitle{} $Author{Nathaniel B. Thayer and Stephen E. Weiss} $Affiliation{Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs} $Subject{japanese negotiators american negotiating often negotiator government negotiations bargaining issue see tables } $Date{1987} $Log{See Table 1*0035901.tab } Title: Japan Book: National Negotiating Styles Author: Nathaniel B. Thayer and Stephen E. Weiss Affiliation: Center for the Study of Foreign Affairs Date: 1987 The Negotiators Selection, Expertise, and Support The highest calling for a Japanese youth still is to become a government official. In a recent year, 488 of the 1,102 successful applicants to Japanese officialdom came from Tokyo University, a school accorded great prestige in part because of the difficulty of its entrance examination. Another 211 came from Kyoto University, also top-ranked, also difficult to enter. Two-thirds of the applicants (both universities) came from the law department; one-third came from the economics department. These figures would not be unusual for any post-war year. The Japanese bureaucracy is kept small. Bureaucrats are chosen for their educational attainment in a prescribed course of study. They have extraordinary elan and a sense of solidarity that should not be obscured by the dust kicked up in fights between the ministries. Each young official will rise through the tiers of his ministry at about the same speed as his colleagues rise through the tiers in their ministries. Nemawashi, then, turns out to be a meeting between classmates. At age 55 or 56, each official will resign from his ministry (the Japanese expression is "leave heaven") to pursue a second career. Some run for elective office; others become an adviser to a major corporation. That prospect cements ties between bureaucrats businessmen, and politicians. Generally rather large by U.S. standards, a Japanese negotiating team is composed largely of middle-level officials appointed because of their technical and substantive expertise. Often, these individuals are division heads in their mid-forties. The official chief negotiator is usually a senior man with sufficient status to serve as a symbolic representative of the domestic consensus. He may know and say little about the subject matter, though, and defer to the specialists on the team. In spite of their technical or substantive expertise, Japanese government representatives often lack tactical negotiating skills. Some American businessmen contend that Japanese in large multinational companies negotiate ably in the Western tradition. But negotiating skills in a real setting are generally difficult to assess systematically. Support for government negotiators is broad and deep. The team itself may have 15 to 20 members, who are supported by 15 to 20 staff. Their advance preparation is the envy of other governments. The work of other domestic groups should not be over-looked. Range of Authority In the recent aviation negotiations, Japan Air Lines exerted pressure for the government to hold to its position. Similarly, Toyota pressured and limited the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) during initial bilateral talks on auto export restraints, as Nippon Telegraph and Telephone did with the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications during initial talks on government procurement policies. Even the prime minister's authority seems limited. Prime Minister Nakasone signaled as much in telecommunication negotiations in March 1986, when he responded to U.S. requests with the promise to use "my best possible efforts." Unlike President Nixon with Prime Minister Sato, President Reagan decided not to press Prime Minister Nakasone any further for the time being. Individual Styles Many foreign observers have underscored the similarities in the actions of individual Japanese negotiators. A strong team presence and negotiating position and the cultural imperative of consensus-building, among other factors, make for homogeneity. But there are differences worth noting. It has already been mentioned that representatives of different ministries often exhibit different negotiating styles as well as different interests. Foreign Affairs and MITI officials tend to be rather direct and straightforward, for example, whereas Health and Welfare officials, who clearly have less experience with U.S. negotiators, show some difficulty in communicating with Americans. Some have also observed that negotiating styles differ by industry and by region. Naturally, one can point to different personalities and dispositions. All in all, what shines through here is the technical expertise of individual negotiators in groups that have limited authority to bargain. Differences in individual styles and interests should not be assumed away, however. In coming years, they are likely to become more pronounced. Negotiating Strategies and Tactics Negotiating style can be treated as a composite of two kinds of behaviors. One is sheer bargaining-the exchange of proposals and counterproposals for settling particular issues-that occurs within the broad process of negotiation. The second is other interactions among negotiators. The first is negotiating techniques-the magnitude and timing of concessions, for example-and the second involves developing rapport and trust and general patterns of communication. Both kinds of behavior deserve attention. U.S. and Japanese negotiators tend to differ in their relative emphases on the two and in their conduct in each area. Table 1 shows the basic differences between U.S. and Japanese negotiating behavior. The "Probe, Push, Panic" Style In a detailed study of Japanese bargaining with the United States and other governments, Michael Blaker has argued that the Japanese government has "the simplest sort of {bargaining} strategy-know what you want and push until you get it." The Japanese game plan, as he sees it, involves three stages: first, to probe carefully opposing thinking in order to gauge what is obtainable and to set manageable goals; second, to harness all available bargaining resources to force through these apparently realizable conditions; and finally, to continue to press for these demands even when their fortunes have soured and at the risk of terminating negotiations. [See Table 1: DIFFERENCES IN NEGOTIATING BEHAVIOR BETWEEN JAPANESE AND UNITED STATES OFFICIALS] Or in their barest form: "probe, push, panic." While this fairly simple model has been criticized by several scholars, it does describe many aspects of the Japanese style or pattern of negotiation, if not their "game plan." Opening Moves The Japanese do not deliberate extensively over their bargaining tactics or plan what concessions they might make. Blaker observed that once into international bargaining, Japanese negotiators often find themselves with no contingency or fallback plans, few officially authorized concessions, and an absence of clear policies on some questions. Even at the outset, the Japanese sometimes wait for U.S. negotiators to present a first proposal. However, when the Japanese do present a first proposal, it is carefully drafted and reasonable. It reflects the Japanese predilection for well-informed, "best" solutions and the solidarity (and obligation) arising from domestic consensus-building. When the Japanese government negotiators have made their initial proposal, they are in effect not initiating bargaining but presenting its results. Internal activities have been arduous and protracted, and negotiators are held strictly accountable to their constituents. Making Concessions Americans tend to engage in systematic concession-making, starting with high initial demands and then making step-by-step concessions to converge on mutually agreeable terms. Americans always reciprocate when the other side makes a concession, no matter how small it is, even in experimental bargaining with the Japanese. That has not held true for Japanese negotiators who do not appear to favor programmatic concessions. Instead, they call for consideration of their situation and reiterate their initial position. Japanese negotiators may have little leeway to do otherwise, because of the difficulty they have had in reaching a consensus within their own ranks. Japanese negotiators thus often concentrate on searching for just the right method to satisfy both parties' original objectives. In the same vein, the Japanese are reluctant to press points via debate and other aggressive, verbal means. Because they spend more time listening than verbally assaulting or counterattacking the other side's positions, the Japanese have often appeared impervious to counterarguments, at least while at the negotiating table. By the same token, when the other side has come across too aggressively, Japanese negotiators have simply withdrawn from the negotiations. When the Japanese do make concessions, they often jump to an appropriate position rather than inch toward it. They also often make the concession before a public impression is created that their government relented to foreign pressure. In any event, the concessions can be made only after a new consensus is reached. End Game Most bargaining reaches a point when the parties must either agree or break off, what Blaker called the "panic" stage. Generally, Japanese negotiators respond by continuing to press for understanding of their situation and by attributing the failure to reach an agreement to misunderstanding. They cannot appeal to their own public by charging the other nation's negotiators with intransigence; Japanese political mores require the Japanese negotiators to be far-thinking and clever enough to come up with solutions acceptable to both parties. Japanese negotiators will often give way on a minor matter, even to promise something impossible to carry out, to maintain an amiable parting. Blaker offers many pre-war instances in which Japanese negotiators made unsanctioned commitments, initiated unauthorized conversations, and interposed themselves between their government and the opposing negotiators. There have been fewer instances since the war. In no instance has the Japanese government fulfilled the independent commitments of its negotiators. On several occasions, American negotiators have found ways to have the negotiations taken away from the Japanese negotiators and elevated to the political level: to the prime minister's level. Sometimes the prime minister has resolved the issue to the American negotiators' satisfaction. Sometimes, he has written to the President, and the issue has been restudied in the United States to the American negotiators' detriment. Most often, the prime minister has extended a promise which lower Japanese officials have implemented most perfunctorily. Both Japanese and American negotiators have found it advantageous to work against self-imposed deadlines-an impending passage of damaging legislation, a summit meeting of industrial democracies, a head of government visit. These deadlines can often speed up the processes of government and result in the early resolution of a problem. Guidelines for U.S. Negotiators U.S. negotiators must be aware of both the traditional Japanese negotiating style and the changing U.S.-Japanese context in which it is applied. The following suggestions are offered. - Be well prepared. The American negotiator should be aware that his Japanese counterpart has made an independent study of the problem at hand and thinks he knows what the American negotiator should be saying. The Japanese negotiator will open negotiations by asking questions so that he can hear the American say his piece. If the American does not say what the Japanese imagined he would say, then the Japanese negotiator will ask questions until he understands why not. A Japanese negotiator will make no attempt to resolve any issue until he is sure that both he and the American negotiator agree completely on what the problem is. American negotiators should work from American data rather than Japanese data. For example, the Americans did not keep very good records of the costs of the American occupation of Japan. American negotiators, then, had to use the Japanese records when it came time to calculate the Japanese bill. They had to accept Japanese judgments over what was and what was not an occupation cost. The American negotiator should be prepared to question Japanese data. Often Japanese negotiators have not gathered the data themselves but have gotten the data from some Japanese trade association or some other interest group. The data will rarely be incorrect, but it may be selective, and certainly will be self-serving. The American negotiator should be aware that there are collections of Japanese data which may reach conclusions that differ from what the Japanese negotiators are saying. American negotiators often deal with negotiators from the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI). This ministry does not worry much about industry concentration. In fact it favors industry concentration; MITI officials can deal with a small group of industrialists more easily than with a large group of industrialists. Japan also has a fair trade commission, whose principal task is to worry about industrial oligopolies and monopolies. Its reports are of high quality and often describe conditions antithetical to American business interests. American negotiators should open no economic negotiations of any consequence until they have made a survey of Japanese scholarly economic literature. - Patience is required. The Japanese have a proverb which defines patience as sitting on a rock for three years. Negotiations over the entry of American tobacco into Japan have already taken over six years. The Japanese have another proverb which pictures patience as a restless spirit in a bag that is gathered at the top and tied with a string. From time to time, American negotiators should loosen the string, particularly during negotiations in which they are asking and the Japanese are holding fast. Japanese need time to reach a consensus, but the easiest consensus to reach is to stall. - Know the Japanese language. Knowledge of the Japanese language and Japanese non-verbal communications is important to successful negotiations, even though government-to-government negotiations take place in English or French. Since the Japanese negotiators will have to explain the American position to other Japanese, a Japanese speaker on the American team can help immensely by shaping the American arguments in language that the Japanese will find easy to understand and accept. For example, Americans like to talk about fair-play, a word that does not translate readily into Japanese. Often the Japanese prefer to speak in their own language in the informal negotiations that take place away from the formal negotiating table. What is really bothering them becomes clear at these sessions rather than at the formal sessions where English is used. The day is coming when American negotiators will have to make their presentations to the politicians who make the ultimate decisions. These men do not understand English, and it will be hard for the Americans to be persuasive through an interpreter. - Identify key decision-makers. Early in the process, the most influential groups and individuals in Japan's policymaking process on the issues to be discussed should be identified. Attempts to influence domestic positions through these key decision-makers should be quietly undertaken early, before a consensus has developed. Visiting Japanese politicians should not be dismissed. They are potentially part of the solution. - Maintain firm, substantively consistent positions. Researchers have found that a "firm but conciliatory" approach works best with the Japanese. Be firm about your interests but flexible as to means of satisfying them. In Tokyo, to criticize your opposing negotiator is to criticize yourself; to criticize yourself is to criticize your opposing negotiator. - Developing a relationship is important. U.S. negotiators can gain by paying attention to protocol and conduct considered appropriate by the Japanese. The sincerity of one's intentions are appreciated. The effort to establish personal relationships may take a long time, but it is worthwhile. - Threats don't work. At best, the U.S. negotiators will strike a whipping boy (the Japanese negotiator). Some Japanese politicians welcome threats since they bring the special interest groups huddling around them. - Trade-offs are hard. To give a little on one issue (involving agriculture, for example) to get a little on another (involving manufacturing) means that the Japanese negotiator must go back for instructions to at least two ministries, and officials in the ministries must go to the concerned PARC committees. Soon all participants will be at loggerheads. - Escalating issues works only in unusual circumstances. Often, American negotiators attempt to force the prime minister to agree to handle the issue himself. That tactic is successful only if the issue is of sufficient magnitude that the prime minister can invoke public interest and support, the only weapons he can wield to change a PARC committee's decision. - Give-and-take is the best negotiating ploy. Each PARC committee must be given something if it is asked to give up something. Since the good will of the United States has palpable value, the gift need not always be equivalent to what is to be taken away. The committees must have something to carry back to their constituents. - Make greater use of the U.S. embassy in Japan and its officers. The importance of establishing strong relationships with Japanese counterparts is mentioned above. This takes time and effort and can most likely be done with someone in the American embassy in Tokyo, someone with whom the Japanese have worked daily over the years. The Japanese will put on a wonderful show for the American negotiator who flies in from Washington, but no differences will be resolved because the Japanese negotiators have already called the airport and learned when he is scheduled to depart. Currently American differences with Japan result from a vicious circle in which we are caught: The more important the issue, the higher ranking the delegate dispatched from Washington to resolve it. The higher ranking the delegate, the less likely that he will know anything about Japan. The less he knows about Japan, the harder it is to resolve the issue. The longer it takes to resolve the issue, the more importance it seems to take on. Greater use of embassy officers might help to break the circle. These are only the most important recommendations. As the discussion of bargaining moves, cultural elements, and individual negotiators implied, U.S. negotiators should avoid static images of Japanese behavior. Ways exist effectively to negotiate agreements between representatives of the United States and Japan, and there is a record of these having been successfully employed with repeated success since World War II.