Corporate leaders in Japan are affable cheerleaders who solicit everyone's views and prevent confrontation at nearly any price. It is known as "nemawashi." U.S. lawmakers are cut-throat partisans who clamor for that spotlight, particularly in an election year. It is known as politics.

These cultures collided Wednesday within the look of the polite man from the distant land prior to a congressional committee stocked with angry males and ladies with axes to grind.
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Toyota ( TM - news - individuals ) President Akio Toyoda's moment was a single brought to us by globalization, the integration of economies and societies via a worldwide network of trade and communications. Toyoda's look illustrated two stark realities: Nations are a lot more knitted collectively than at any time, and nevertheless oh-so far apart.

A generation ago, it absolutely was great politics in Congress to bash Japan and purchase American. Now U.S. lawmakers grab campaign cash from Toyota executives and scramble to conserve Toyota work in their districts.

Car employees utilized to consider sledge hammers to foreign autos. Now thousands of them perform for foreign businesses, and U.S. automobile dealers put on "I am Toyota in America" buttons to Capitol Hill.

And think about the hearing alone, wherever American directness confronted Japanese subtlety as Toyoda apologized for life-threatening security lapses and for any corporate culture that might have created items worse.