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INTRODUCTION
"The most significant economic relationship Australia has is that with Japan."(1) Japan's economy is the second largest in the world and 10 times larger than that of Australia. Traditionally Japan has provided a large export market for Australian raw materials and rural exports. Increasingly, however, a market is developing in Japan for Australian manufactured goods.(2) This development will intensify the importance of Australia's trade relationship with Japan and disputes as to market access will certainly arise more frequently. It is likely that such disputes will not centre on formal barriers to trade because, under the auspices of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT),(3) Japan has significantly reduced its tariff barriers to market access. Rather, informal or non-tariff barriers have replaced the more traditional tariff barriers to trade and it is these barriers which will become increasingly contentious.(4)
In Japan, one form of non-tariff barrier that has recently received attention, particularly in the context of the United States-Japan trade relationship, is the so-called "Cultural Trade Barrier" (CTB). Cultural explanations for economic issues are often quickly dismissed. This is unfortunate because, whilst it is clear that culture cannot be the sole basis on which to understand a particular trade phenomenon, it cannot be denied that "cultural elements have always been important to an understanding of international trading relations, and ... they are ignored at any country's peril".(5) Australia will necessarily have to recognise in its future trade with Japan that, in the context of CTB impasses, it "has an interest in understanding ... the! values of others".(6)
CULTURAL TRADE BARRIERS
The complex nature of disputes involving CTBs is due, in part, to difficulties associated with the identification and definition of CTBs themselves. For our purposes a CTB is a barrier to the free flow of internationally traded goods that stems from entrenched cultural patterns.(7) CTBs can be divided into the less tangible "attitudinal barriers" and the more easily identified "institutional barriers". Whilst it is perhaps true that Japanese business-people sometimes manipulate the concept of culture for the benefit of their own business interests, it must also be understood that a lack of understanding of the Japanese culture can cause trading difficulties.(8) This study of CTBs is concerned with identifying the extent of concern...