The Samurai Strategy Part 46

Ben greeted him at the door with me not far behind, doubtless looking as if I'd just stumbled in from a three-day forced march. Without a word he pa.s.sed over his coat, then followed me downstairs where Tam was still going through the line of printouts spread across the dining room table, translating onto one of my yellow legal pads.

I pointed him in the direction of the coffee urn stationed in the kitchen. He poured a cup, then came around and plopped down on the couch.

"Walton"--he sampled his brew, then set it down--"you're not going to believe what your G.o.ddam client did Friday. Swear to G.o.d, your man actually threatened me, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d, a not-too-subtle warning to back off."

"Jack, that's small potatoes." I straddled one of the dining room chairs. "What would you say to a possible play by our friend Matsuo Noda that makes Pearl Harbor look like a gesture of j.a.panese-American solidarity?"

"Two days ago I might have thought you'd been smoking a controlled substance. Now, I'm not so sure."

"Well, we're still piecing it together. I don't think anybody could even imagine what's really afoot. One thing's for sure, though--this is big." I paused. "It might even be that Noda is somehow fronting for MITI, though I'm still not totally convinced."

I'd been turning that possibility over, but I somehow couldn't buy it all the way. Wasn't Matsuo Noda's style. He was a loner.

"MITI?" He looked at me. "That's government, right? The Ministry of . .

"International Trade and Industry. j.a.pan's 'War Department' for trade."

"Yeah? Go on."

"Listen. All Noda's talk about helping American industry? Of course it's bulls.h.i.+t. But I think it's just half the bulls.h.i.+t. What we suspect is, he's buying a little of everything so n.o.body will figure out their real agenda."

"You'd better back up and take this from the beginning."

"Wait a minute." Tam got up and started the turntable. Mendelssohn was still on the platter. Maybe we were taking too many precautions, but she still nursed the idea we might be bugged.

With the music cranked up to "8," we proceeded to give Jack a quick summary of how the stack of memos on the table had come into our hands.

In a way, though, they raised as many questions as they answered.

"Jack, nothing here is spelled out in detail. We have to take everything and sort of rotate it by ninety degrees to see how Noda fits in." I walked over to the table. "Tam, where's your translation of that one by what's-his-name . . . Ikeda?"

"Right here." She handed it to me.

"Here, Jack, start with this. Just to get up to speed on the background."

He fumbled in his pocket, retrieved his bifocals, and began to read the yellow sheet.

_OPERATION MARKETSHARE - 90

Internal Memo No. 22

From: Hiromu Ikeda, Deputy Minister of Industrial Technology Sector, Ministry of International Trade and Industry

(MITI)

Subject: SUPERCHIPS

World dominance in semiconductors will provide the basis for j.a.pan's control of the global information industry by the turn of the century, which will be the key to our economic leaders.h.i.+p and military strength.

The critical path to achieving this lies with the coming generations of semiconductor technology--the submicron, giga-scale superchip.

Accordingly, the objectives of Operation Market- share - 90 in the semiconductor sector should receive the highest possible priority.

Areas of research should include semiconductor-grade polysilicon, silicon wafer production, ceramic packaging, quartz photomasks, X-ray lithography, supercooled Josephson junction circuits, and optoelectronic chips for optical switching. R&D should also be focused on digital signal processing, application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), specialized dynamic random access memories (DRAMs), very large-scale integrations (VLSIs) for supercomputers . . .

_"Walton, I can't make heads or tails of this gobbledygook." He tossed down the sheet. "What's this all about?"

"What it means"--Tam spoke up--"is that Ikeda has targeted every emerging area of semiconductor research. Everything. A clean sweep. If he succeeds, sooner or later n.o.body else will even be able to make the really advanced chips. A few more years and America joins the Third World."

Jack looked a little skeptical. Truthfully I found her extrapolation somewhat fanciful myself. But then, who knew?

"Tam, how about showing Jack that other memo? You know the one."

She didn't say anything, just turned back and sorted through the stack of yellow pages till she had it. Out came Jack's gla.s.ses again.

_OPERATION MARKETSHARE - 90

Internal Memo No. 37

From: Kenji Asano, Deputy Minister for Research and Planning, Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI)

Subject: CURRENT STATUS OF R&D

This office has now completed its review of the recent survey of research and development (R&D) by j.a.panese firms compiled by the Science and Technology Agency, the results of which are the subject of this memorandum. Of the companies surveyed, 70% maintain that their research is equal or superior to that of leading firms in the U.S. and Europe, although only 18.2% consider themselves in unchallenged top position. Furthermore, the remaining 30% believe their research is inferior or lagging behind the West (ref. to Table 1). Of those who reported inadequate R&D in high technology areas, the following reasons were given . . .

_"Whoever wrote this is just poor-mouthing." He flipped on through the sheets, then looked up. "Saying he needs more money for basic research.

I hear this kind of stuff all the time. h.e.l.l, j.a.pan already spends nearly twice what we do per capita on nonmilitary R&D. What does he want?"

"Keep reading, Jack, and you'll see that the main R&D he's pus.h.i.+ng is in computers and semiconductors. It ties in exactly with Ikeda's targets. This is backup consensus for the big drive."

"You still haven't told me anything I didn't already suspect." He tossed the pages onto a side table. "So how about answering a few less- obvious questions?" "Shoot."

"First off, what's this Operation Marketshare - 90 all about?" He took off his gla.s.ses and pocketed them.

"Jack, remember the famous. .h.i.tachi directive that got loose a while back, the one on how to market their 256K memory chips, ordering their salesmen just to keep underpricing American manufacturers till they had the sale, loss no object. According to Henderson, by the time the International Trade Commission got around to convicting them of dumping, they'd demolished America's domestic industry and nailed down ninety percent of the market."

"Ninety, you say. Well, that's getting to be a familiar number." He slumped back against the sofa. "Out of curiosity, what's included in this MITI Marketshare - 90 operation?"

"Computers, of course. But also pretty much everything in high tech where the U.S. still has a leading position--from biotech to aeros.p.a.ce.

These guys don't think small."

I gave Ben a pat, then pulled Mori's printout around, going on to explain that we'd come across it in the drawer of her desk. It was, I added, obviously some kind of special computer sorting of the firms DNI was targeting. The categories in the sort were a breakdown of high-tech areas, with individual firms listed underneath, together with a summary of their research expenditures.

"Take a look. First, notice that this printout has been sorted and converted into this list here." I placed it alongside the page I'd found in the Xerox machine. "Voila, they're identical."