Philip Altbach Philip G. Altbach is professor of higher education and director of the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College. He is currently a member of a committee exploring Japan-U.S. educational relations. The Japan-U.S. bilateral relationship is one of the most important in the world. Trade and security issues come to mind as central to this relationship, but education and culture are just as important, and are a necessary underpinning to commerce. Each country is very much on the mind of the other, not only in matters of trade policy but also in popular culture and imagination.
Japan pays more attention to the United States than vice versa.
Very few books from Japanese sources reach readers in the English-speaking world, while Japanese bookstores are well stocked with American books, many reaching the bestseller lists. A study done in the 1980s by the Research Institute of the Japan Press Society looked at what was reported about the United States in the Asahi Shimbun and about Japan in the New York Times. There is also a lack of balance in people. Many more Japanese visit the United States than Americans visit Japan. Not only are there vastly more tourists from Japan going to the United States than there are Americans traveling in the other direction, but the numbers of students and researchers are dramatically unbalanced.