pposite is true. The banking system is wobbling and threatens to collapse, a weakening yen continues to help Japan resist making economic changes and restructuring that the SII negotiations concluded were necessary, and the country suffers from enormous debt. The SSI negotiations found numerous barriers to trade in Japan, with topics ranging from land-use regulations and foreign attorneys being barred from practicing in Japan to macroeconomics and taxation. Japan has responded to calls for change by devaluing the yen in an attempt to make Japanese products cheaper overseas and imports more expensive in Japan, “Almost daily, Japanese officials are giving the yen a verbal nudge downward. The currency is at 130 per dollar, 9.5% weaker than in September and down 28% from the 101-per-dollar level it hit in January 2000, during Japan’s last short-lived economic recovery” (Guth et al., 2002, A1). Japan has not yet fully recovered from the impact of the Asian
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