2023 Volume 40 Pages 64-78
The role played by one of Japan’s leading trading companies in the overseas expansion of the Japanese automobile industry is the important, if understudied, issue to be examined by the present investigation. How were Japanese manufacturers able to enter key overseas markets, dominated by the more technologically savvy American, British, and European manufacturers? To answer the question, we clarify the role played by the Mitsubishi Trading Company in supporting the Nissan Motor Company in its pioneering export of passenger cars to Australia during the 1930s. We then conclude by considering how these interwar experiences relate to Japan becoming a major source of machinery exports – a key manufacturing nation – that was able to achieve dramatic increases in its light-and heavy-industrial exports to the Americas, Western Europe, and eventually the emerging markets of the Asia-Pacific region in the latter half of the twentieth century.
