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many Americans these days. Nicholas recognized this one as Cord McKnight, the trade representative of a consortium of Silicon Valley-based semiconductor manufacturers.
    Nicholas circled around until he was standing behind Tōrin’s right shoulder.
    ‘You poor bastard,’ McKnight was saying. With his strong face and stronger ideals he would not have looked out of place on the athletic field of an Ivy League campus. His pale eyes, set wide apart, gave nothing away. ‘Was it only three years ago you guys bought into Hollywood, Manhattan, Pebble Beach, and two-thirds of Hawaii at prices no sane businessman would touch? Yeah, it’s gotta be ’cause now that your bubble economy’s burst, you can’t afford to hold on to anything you bought.’
    Tōrin said nothing, either out of good sense or an acute sense of humiliation. The recession had had an incalculable emotional effect on the younger men of Japan, Inc. These men had become used to their supreme power – their ichiban, their number-one-ism. The concept of Japan as number two, inconceivable only four years ago, had caused a severe shock to their egos.
    ‘I mean, look what’s happening now,’ McKnight went on as a small crowd began to form. In among the curious onlookers Nicholas saw Koei and Nguyen Van Truc, the Vietnamese head of marketing for Minh Telekom, a company that had been trying to interest Nicholas and Nangi in accepting a capital infusion in exchange for a piece of Sato. ‘Japan’s already a second-rate power. Remember, when you were bashing our education system? You don’t hear any of that crap now.’ His lips cracked a superior smile. ‘Wanna know why? You guys are turning out computer-illiterate graduates. While we use computers in our schools from the ground up, you find them too impersonal. Your elaborate and cumbersome rituals of doing business are impossible to carry out via computer, so you think of it as a symbol rather than a tool.’ He laughed raucously. ‘You’d rather use a fucking abacus, for Christ’s sake.’
    His laughter kept on building. ‘My God, what you and your pals are missing back in the States, Tōrin. Locked into your monopolistic system, you can’t do what we’re doing so successfully. We’re forging our own kind of keiretsu – for the twenty-first century – built with alliances between telecommunications, consumer electronics, electronic media, and computer companies that have downsized. They’ve shed the fat of the last decade, become more productive and competitive while the Jap companies are still overstaffed and over-diversified.’
    ‘Don’t you think you’ve rather overstepped the bounds of good manners, old man?’ Nguyen Van Truc said in his evenly modulated voice. He had been educated in England and, thus, possessed the exaggerated accent the foreigner often brings to the language.
    ‘Who the hell are you?’ McKnight asked. ‘I’m only saying what’s right. Unless you have something constructive to say, butt out.’
    Van Truc looked around the crowd. He knew just about everyone and was in his element. He gave the American a superior smile. ‘I think you’re being overly emotional and over–’
    ‘Not constructive,’ McKnight snapped, and returned his attention to Tōrin. ‘Here’s what I mean. We Americans have changed. We’re lean, mean fighting machines now. We can already transmit billions of digital bits of multimedia information to millions of households throughout the United States because we’ve got the most advanced cable system in the world.’ His laugh was a derisive bark this time. ‘And what’ve you got? Zip. Hey, you know you’re the only developed country without a mature cable industry? Your manic desire to keep closed your telecommunications and broadcasting industries will be your downfall. The closed field has put you at an insurmountable disadvantage.
    ‘Ever hear of competition, buddy? It’s the American way and it’s going to beat you back into the sea.