After years of business meetings with a number of chief executive officers of major American corporations, Matsukawa was still amazed at their ignorance of Japanese social realities and economic concepts. The Americans, who always acted like benevolent parents to wayward children, expected theJapanese business and political leaders to simply get in line and behave.
As one of the most powerful members of the Heiwa Shokai Investment Group, Matsukawa always relished debating U. S. leaders about the free-trade policy — until now. He was tired of trying to explain the Japanese business philosophy to the slowwitted Americans. They obviously could not accept the fact that controlling production, distribution, and prices, combined with a government that acted as a shepherd, was a more efficient system of capitalism than the U. S. model.
For the most part, everything had gone Matsukawa's way until the New York City building boom went bust in 1990. After paying over $1.2 billion for 85 percent of an expanding property-development company, the Heiwa Shokai Investment Group had lost over $550 million when the properties were devalued.
That was the beginning of a number of setbacks for the wealthy industrialist, including heavy losses in the Tokyo stock market. Next came the deflation of the real economy and the associated plunge of corporate profits.
When the stock market dropped over 27 percent, Matsukawa and members of the other cartels encouraged the Japanese parliamentary panel to create a securities watchdog to monitor the Nikkei. While they waited for the panel to act on the perplexing securities problem, Japanese economists nicknamed the downturn baburu no hokai, or explosion of the bubble.
Fifteen months later, Matsukawa barely avoided a major scandal when two bank officials who had approved loans for him were found to be involved in fraudulent transactions with the billionaire.
Matsukawa calmly lied about his involvement with the bankers while he diverted large sums of money from their banks to a banking company where the chief executive officer was on the industrialist's payroll.
Matsukawa also experienced significant losses from speculative art, real estate holdings in California, and from his investments in the automobile industry. He was astounded when the U. S. Commerce Department ruled that Mazda and Toyota were illegally dumping minivans on the American market.
To Tadashi Matsukawa, dumping was merely good business that happened to be underwritten by the Japanese government. Matsukawa would flood a U. S. market with a quality product at a price below his competition's cost, wait for the various competitors to give up and go out of business, then raise the prices when he dominated the industry.
The business practice of dumping had worked fine until the Americans began to retaliate. People who knew the feisty Japanese businessman had learned not to mention the United States and automobiles in the same sentence.
His biggest single setback, which continued to consume him with rage, was the loss of $114 million in a patent dispute involving a video system for aircraft simulators. A federal jury in San Francisco ruled that one of his companies had intentionally infringed a patent held by an American inventor. Reluctantly, Matsukawa settled out of court to keep from tarnishing his corporate image, but the personal humiliation was indelibly imprinted in his mind.
Matsukawa was a volatile man with very little patience for people who didn't serve a useful purpose in his world. It was, however, painfully evident to anyone who knew him well that Matsukawa's character was, in one respect, fatally flawed. Unfortunately, Tadashi Matsukawa was born without a shred of conscience.
Although he was blessed with exceptional intelligence and unrivaled ingenuity, Matsukawa often fell victim to finding plausible reasons to circumvent his own logic. With a natural inclination to resist structure, he often let the explosive combination of superior intelligence and boredom lead him into bizarre schemes.
These traits became clearly apparent when the Liberal Democratic Party began to disintegrate. The violent conflict pitted the caretakers from the old guard against the ambitious young progressives. Matsukawa immediately saw a tremendous opportunity to take advantage of the turbulent process of political realignment. He smiled inwardly while turmoil swept through Japan's politics, knowing that the real power was still in the hands of the bureaucrats. The political chaos was a clever subterfuge to evade more pressure from the Americans.
The election upheaval, which was touted as the first step in a long campaign to reform the political process, was really a convenient smoke screen to alter Japan's course in history. Matsukawa, who laughed at the world for buying Japan's "stale-sake-in-new-bottles scheme," had his own grand design to help guide his country into a stronger and more competitive position.
His quiet solitude was interrupted when the English housekeeper stepped out to the pool deck. The middle-aged woman politely bowed before speaking. "Mr. Matsukawa, Senator Brazzell has arrived."
Matsukawa gave her a slow glance. "Tell him I'll be there in a few minutes," he said with a deep voice that cut through the cool air, "and fix him a double scotch on the rocks."
Senator Frank Brazzell, who had arranged for Matsukawa to buy a large share of a major U. S. investment firm, was the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. He was also the recipient of large under-the-table "contributions" from Matsukawa.
The unsmiling woman acknowledged the order and returned to the stately ranch home.
"Those lackeys in Congress will do anything for money," Matsukawa muttered to himself. He relaxed while he spent a few more minutes soaking in the warm water. The idea of keeping a U. S. Congressman waiting appealed to him.
Matsukawa and a number of other chief executive officers of Japanese mega-corporations had a great deal of influence over many Congressmen, including members of the House Science and Technology Committee, the House Appropriations Committee, and the Committee on Foreign Investment. The aggressive business leaders also had the Secretary of Commerce in their pocket and paid huge sums of money to former U. S. government officials to act as lobbyists for Japan.
Like Tadashi Matsukawa, most Japanese CEOs made sizable donations to many American colleges and universities. The ongoing endowments allowed the Japanese executives the privilege of arranging for the children or grandchildren of certain U. S. legislators to be accepted by the most prestigious universities in America, regardless of their academic qualifications.
The astute business leaders not only paid for the children's educations, they made sure the youngsters were offered well-paying jobs when they graduated. Most of the offers came from former American companies that were now owned by the large Japanese conglomerates.
If a legislator happened to chair an important committee, like the House Ways and Means or the Committee on Armed Services, Matsukawa quietly guaranteed the Honorable public servant's financial future in return for special consideration for his projects. The cozy arrangement, which provided a win for both parties, made perfect sense to the Japanese executive and the American politicians.
Matsukawa's worst fear was that some morning the American people would wake up and realize that the Japanese, in collusion with many of the elected officials on Capitol Hill, had economically raped their country.
Matsukawa believed that it was time to confront the arrogant Americans before the mood in the United States became both tougher and openly hostile. He viewed America as a debt-ridden nation in decline, plagued with crime and drugs and riddled with undisciplined minorities and a never-ending wave of undesirable immigrants.
He also bought protection from organized labor, and, through a distant third party, paid large sums to Japanese terrorist groups to stage anti-American attacks on U. S. facilities and citizens. Like the mythical Greek soldier who threw a stone in the midst of rival armies to get them to fight each other, Matsukawa relished fomenting trouble between Japan and the U. S.