No one can deny that Japan has become a world leader in technology or that, in many areas, its technological prowess even surpasses that of the United States. Scholars attending a 1991 conference on the topic came up with “a unanimous, unambiguous conclusion”: “Japan's technological capability across a wide spectrum of commercially significant fields is formidable and growing relative to that of the United States.… Over the past several decades, Japanese companies have captured growing shares of the global market for numerous high-technology products and have accelerated the pace of innovation in mature industries.” This conclusion is supported by studies in both the United States and Japan.

According to the US National Science Board, Japanese firms received 44 percent of all the patents issued around the world for robot technology from 1986 through 1990. US firms, by comparison, received 24 percent. The competition for patents for optical fiber technology was dead even (33 percent each) during this period. But Japanese firms showed remarkable improvement since the 1976–80 period, when they garnered only 23 percent of those patents.

MITI, meanwhile, routinely assesses the technological competence of Japanese and American firms in a number of fields. It has found that Japan is now leading the United States in the reliability and performance of such products as VCRs, high-tensile strength steel, and semiconductor lasers.