Source:
CNN(CNN) -- As Akio Toyoda prepares to testify before a U.S. congressional committee in Washington on Wednesday, the midnight lights of television sets will glow in corporate offices and government halls in Tokyo.
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Political leaders in Tokyo will be watching as the fate of Japan's premier brand falters in the market that Toyota --- and most Japanese exports --- depend most upon.
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Yet also growing in Japan is an undercurrent of conspiracy theories: That the U.S. government, now the majority owner of General Motors, has an interest in bringing down the reputation of the company and its leader
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"Considering that Toyota represents Japan's corporate identity, a loss in confidence would potentially affect all Japanese products," said a Friday editorial in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Japan's equivalent to The Wall Street Journal.
Read more:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/BUSINESS/02/24/toyota.toyoda/index.html?hpt=T1
This may not go well.
Japanese culture is based on not speaking directly the way Americans do. It's a very different way of communicating and is famous for creating rifts between Americans and Japanese in business. They infer things and the listener has to fill in the gaps.
In an American trial where answers are expected to be stark and terse, the Japanese way of speaking could easily be interpreted as being devious or trying to hide things when this isn't really the case.