Abstract
This paper examines the development of Japanese competition policy in the 1990s. While there are certain signs of Japan’s transition to more stringent competition policy largely as the result of the Structural Impediment Initiative with the United States in 1989, they should not be understood only by their appearances. It is remarkable, on the contrary, that the bargaining power of businesses toward public officials and politicians appears to have grown in general, and that Fair Trade Commission remains vulnerable to the pressure from all those parties.