ironment Protection Agency because the level of funding is commensurate with low level of emphasis placed on environmental protection in Japan.
The central government budget in Japan for 1992 was approximately 61,000,000 million yen (International Monetary Fund, 1993, p. 147). The budget for the Environment Protection Agency for 1992 approximated 225,000 million yen. The following relationships establish a perspective for environmental protection spending in Japan:
1. The central government budget for 1992 represented approximately 17.5 percent of Japan's gross national product in 1992.
2. The budget for the Environment Protection Agency represented approximately 36/100 of one percent of the total central government budget for 1992.
3. The budget for environmental protection in Japan in 1992 represented approximately 6/100 of one percent of the country's gross national product in 1992.
Regardless of how one views the Japanese budgetary effort for environmental protection, the effort must be regarded as low priority and weak. Japan has yet to make a firm commitment to environmental protection.
When it was developing into an industrial and economic power, the United States relied primarily on an expanding domestic market. In the post Second World War period, Japan's rise to economic super power status relied heavily on the development of external markets. In its surge into and almost through the new industrializing country status, Korea has followed the path of the Japanese more closely than that of the Americans (Tharp, 1989, pp. 35 38). Unlike the Japanese, however, Korea's major industrial firms have tended to exploit the country's workers, as opposed to providing them with the long term securi
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