Some patients have chosen their doctor - and once in the hands of the doctor, so to speak, they do not challenge the doctor. In Western countries the family is also involved with medical decisions, like Japan, and this should remain so. However, the ultimate decision should be made by the patient. In some areas of medicine, such as genetic counseling the person seeking treatment is not sick but seeks medical services, and so some call them a client. Medical services are already open to some market choice, like shopping, and this trend has a positive impact on raising the patient above the doctor in their relationship, as in other commercial sectors.
Informed choice is a phrase more appropriate than informed consent.
Even in Japanese tradition the idea of taking control of one's own life is seen in the various forms of suicide, and chosing somewhere to die, so that the autonomy of writing a living will is a return to the past - before advanced technology took these decisions away from the person themselves. If anyone should claim that Japanese have a special respect for nature, and value harmony, and that Western traditions do not, we should judge by data - what we see and what we can read in literature. In both Western and Asian traditions there is literature that supports a closeness with nature. However, sadly, in both we also see in practice disregard for nature. Japan, whether we like it or not, has a bad environmental record.