Abstract
Japan has been trying hard, for at least 20 years, to shed its image as a ‘reactive state’. Kent Calder assigned this label to Japanese foreign economic policy in the late 1980s after watching the nation struggle with international pressure to liberalize its market. Japan was not able to act proactively to liberalize on its own, and even when faced with complaints, it delayed action until the gaiatsu built up to the point where it was on the verge of facing sanctions. Then it would dutifully concede just enough to avoid punishment. When Calder assigned this label, Japan focused exclusively on defending its own trade policies and almost never went on the offense. Worried that any effort to pursue its own complaints in the General Agreements on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) system would just add to the scrutiny Japan's own policies were facing, Japanese trade officials refrained from pursuing GATT trade remedy cases of their own.
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