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Making Europe from the Outside: The Rise of Japan and European East–West Cooperation in the Long 1970s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 September 2025

Aleksandra Komornicka Open the ORCID record for Aleksandra Komornicka [Opens in a new window]
Aleksandra Komornicka*
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Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Maastricht, Netherlands
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Email: aleksandra.komornicka@maastrichtuniversity.nl
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Abstract

Since the 1970s, Japan has occupied a position of political, economic, and technological power. The article argues that Japan’s rise during this period resulted in increased European East-West cooperation. Firstly, it demonstrates the threat posed by Japanese competition in sectors such as automobiles and electronics encouraged the expansion of Western European companies into Eastern Europe. Secondly, by examining the case of Poland, it shows how Japan’s rise served as a model for opening socialist economies. Viewing the increase in East-West European cooperation through Japan’s ascent offers a fresh perspective on this phenomenon. It illustrates how the emergence of new global powers facilitated the fragmentation of Cold War divisions, enabling a more balanced understanding of the political and economic motivations behind this cooperation in capitalist and socialist countries. It also suggests that East-West European cooperation was shaped by a broader global transformation that escapes a purely Cold War logic.

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Contemporary European History , Volume 35 , 2026 , e17
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This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
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© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press.

Introduction

When negotiating the production of French buses in Poland in 1972, the Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs suggested to the French ambassador in Warsaw that cooperation between the two countries should be fostered in light of Japan’s rise.Footnote 1 While this conversation likely had no direct bearing on the deal that was concluded a few months later, it reflects the specific set of circumstances under which such bilateral agreements were reached. These agreements, in turn, contributed to the web of relations that shaped the emerging pan-European economic space of the 1970s.

The historiography usually narrates this rise of the pan-European economic space in the 1970s through the lens of the Cold War. It is thus considered a key element of détente, namely the period of relaxation in international tensions, which on the continent was characterised by the multiplication of political, economic and cultural forms of cooperation across the iron curtain. When addressing the origins of European détente, much of the recent literature emphasises the agency of European actors. From this perspective, the high point of European détente, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), was shaped by smaller European states driven by their own security and interests.Footnote 2 Scholars also often highlight the foreign policy strategies of Western European leaders like Charles de Gaulle and Willy Brandt, who sought to transform socialist regimes through closer cooperation.Footnote 3 Similarly, Angela Romano’s studies emphasise the European Economic Community’s (EEC) deliberate political strategy of détente in the 1970s, which aimed to detach European socialist regimes from the Soviet Union.Footnote 4 In contrast to states and international organisations, the role of non-state economic actors and thus economic motivations for détente of the Western European side remains much less covered.Footnote 5 In turn, on the generally understudied socialist side, these economic motivations are viewed as crucial. Scholars often cite the socialist regimes’ need for foreign loans and advanced technology as key drivers behind their engagement in détente,Footnote 6 though they rarely investigate the political objectives behind this engagement.Footnote 7 Whether placing emphasis on political drivers, as in the case of Western Europe, or economic ones, as is usually done for socialist regimes, this scholarship views détente as constructed primarily by European actors, overlooking the global factors that shaped their decisions. As a result, the rise of détente, and the associated growth of the pan-European economic space in the 1970s, is rarely analysed in relation to broader global developments, such as the rise of Japan.

Examining the formation of a pan-European economic space through the lens of Japan’s rise provides a new perspective on this phenomenon. Japan’s economic and technological ascent contributed to the fragmentation of the bipolar world order. Alongside developments such as the Sino-Soviet split, it exemplified the shift away from a West-dominated global economy and a political landscape monopolised by the US–Soviet Union division, towards an emerging multipolar world order.Footnote 8 By focusing on how capitalist and socialist European actors responded to these global changes in the 1970s, this article reveals how this fragmentation encouraged thinking beyond ideological divisions on the continent, thereby stimulating pan-European cooperation. Second, presenting European East–West cooperation as influenced by external developments helps correct the misleading portrayal of détente motivations, which often depicts Western European actors as politically driven while suggesting that socialist regimes care only about economic benefits. Instead, this article highlights the strong interplay of political and economic drivers influencing European détente in both capitalist and socialist states. Finally, depicting the rise of pan-European economic space as a response to global changes enables one to extract specific bilateral agreements from their national and temporary contexts. Instead, it enables us to see these agreements as part of a broader pan-European logic, which persisted beyond détente and the Cold War.

After the tragic and spectacular defeat in the Second World War, epitomised by the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan became the key US ally in Asia during the Cold War. The American decision to assist Japan’s post-war reconstruction, combined with the economic boom triggered by the Korean War, enabled Japan to rise from defeat and devastation to become the world’s second-largest economy after the United States. Between 1954 and 1971, the Japanese economy grew at an average annual rate of approximately 10–14 per cent. Compared to the United States and Western Europe, Japan was less affected by the 1970s crisis, further solidifying its leading position in global economic growth. In addition, Japan became known for its high living standards and relatively equal society. This economic success also translated into growing political influence, exemplified by Japan’s inclusion in the G7 since its founding in 1975.Footnote 9

Beyond US assistance and the stimulus provided by the Korean War, the origins of Japan’s ‘economic miracle’ are often traced to its distinctive development model. Central to this model were the dismantling of traditional bureaucratic and ownership structures; the active and coordinated role of the state – epitomised by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI); access to foreign capital; and the large-scale importation and adaptation of foreign technology and expertise, which laid the foundation for export-led growth. This last factor was especially crucial, as it helped Japan emerge as not only an economic leader but also a technological one.Footnote 10

In the 1990s, the Japanese economic position declined, and the country entered its ‘lost decade’. The once existing fascination with the Japanese development model has been largely forgotten. Most studies of Japan’s effects on the rest of the world come from the 1980s and early 1990s.Footnote 11 The phenomenon has been best researched for the United States.Footnote 12 There are also some studies on the Western European states’ and companies’ reception of rising Japan.Footnote 13 Scholars often interpret the phenomenon in the context of European integration, demonstrating how the economic and technological competition posed by the Japanese companies contributed to the closing of an internal market in the 1980s.Footnote 14 In a similar vein, this paper will show how it also encouraged European cooperation, beyond the borders of the EEC. In turn, with a few exceptions of studies on diplomatic relations,Footnote 15 Japan long remained absent from the literature on the European socialist regimes.Footnote 16 This article addresses this gap by showing how Japan served as an inspiration in a socialist economy. As such, it reveals the popularity and influence of the Japanese development model outside of the Asian Tigers economies that are usually studied in this context.Footnote 17

The reception of Japan in socialist regimes is reconstructed based on the case of Poland, by the 1980s the regime most politically and economically entangled with Western Europe among Soviet-allied European countries. Since the period of de-Stalinisation, local socialist elites had sought to reduce the country’s dependence on the Soviet Union, making Poland one of the pioneers of East–West contacts. The expansion of economic ties with capitalist countries followed a similar rationale. The country’s large-scale opening towards the West, a key element of national strategy in the 1970s, positioned it as a central actor in European détente on the socialist side and thus a particularly relevant case for investigating its origins.Footnote 18 Nevertheless, the rise of Japan also resonated in other European socialist regimes. As Victor Petrov shows, for instance, Bulgaria was impressed by Japan’s computing industry and sought to replicate its achievements in this field.Footnote 19 Furthermore, Polish sources indicate that the Japanese development model was also discussed in transnational socialist forums.Footnote 20

The argument regarding Japan’s influence on the rise of European East–West cooperation will develop over two sections. The first will examine Western Europe, where Japan’s emergence was primarily seen as a threat. The second will focus on socialist Poland’s fascination with the Japanese development model. In both cases, the analysis of perceptions of Japan will be followed by an explanation of how these perceptions contributed to the expansion of East–West cooperation.

The paper draws from archival records collected in Archives Nationales (AN) and Centre des Archives diplomatiques de la Courneuve (CADC) in France; Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts (PA AA) in Germany; the National Archives (TNA) in the United Kingdom; Historical Archives of the European Union (HAEU) in Italy; and Archiwum Aktn Nowych (AAN) and Archiwum Instytut Pamięci Narodwej (AIPN) in Poland.

Western Europe: Japan as a Threat

The fear concerning overseas competition has been present in Western Europe since the 1960s. In 1967, French journalist Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber framed this threat as The American Challenge and, in his influential book under the same title, explained the danger behind the expansion of American companies in Europe. As a response, he suggested closer European cooperation with a special emphasis on technological development.Footnote 21 In 1981, Servan-Schreiber published another bestseller, The Global Challenge. Although this time he focused on the broader reorganisation of the world order, the picture he drew placed not only the United States but also Japan ahead of Western Europe in terms of economic and technological development.Footnote 22

In the 1970s and 1980s, Servan-Schreiber was not the only author who observed this phenomenon. Publications such as Ezra Vogel’s Japan as Number One: Lessons for America Footnote 23 or The Art of Japanese Management by Anthony Athos and Ricardo Pascale sent a strong message: if not reformed, American and even more so Western European industry would lose the competition with the Japanese one.Footnote 24 By these means, the management and production solutions of many American and Western European companies were inspired by the Japanese model. The lean production system pioneered by Toyota and the total quality management approach implemented by other Japanese companies such as Sony fascinated global managerial elites and spread to companies in the United States and Western Europe.Footnote 25

However, more importantly, the rise of Japan – with its competitive, export-oriented production – became, after the United States, yet another major competitive threat to Western Europe. By the late 1980s, this threat motivated various key European initiatives, and European policymakers and business actors did not hide this motivation. Jacques Delors, the president of the European Commission from 1985 to 1995, talked openly about the need to push European integration forwards and to develop strategic sectors rather than abandoning them to the United States and Japan. In this way he justified the EUREKA programme created in 1985 to secure the EEC’s technological independence through increased funding on research and development.Footnote 26 Such a perspective was especially supported by the leaders of European multinationals, which from the 1980s organised themselves in lobby groups – most famously the European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT).Footnote 27 According to its leader and the CEO of the Dutch Philips, Wisse Dekker, only the Single Market ‘will give European industry an opportunity to organise on a scale big enough to compete with its main rivals in Japan and in the United States’.Footnote 28 In a similar manner, Japan was referenced by leaders of the Association for the Monetary Union of Europe (AMUE), which gathered European businesses interested in lobbying for the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU).Footnote 29 Both the ERT and the AMUE were led by Philips and Fiat, respectively representing the electronics and automobile industries. These two sectors were among the most hit by the competition arriving from the United States and Japan.

The creation of the Single Market and EMU, sometimes labelled by Japanese observers as ‘fortress Europe’,Footnote 30 should be viewed as a final response to the ‘Japanese problem’ present in Western Europe since the 1970s. The trade balance between Japan and the EEC amounted to 500 million dollars in 1970, 11 billion dollars in 1980 and 28 billion dollars in 1991.Footnote 31 Since the mid-1970s, the rise of Japan also became an object of interest for European institutions. As observed by Kiran Klaus Patel, between 1975 and 1987, the European Council talked about Japan eleven times – more than about any other third country.Footnote 32 At the same time, the European Commission tried to negotiate the EEC–Japan agreement, which would protect European industry from Japan’s competition and enable Western European companies to enter the Japanese market; this resulted in a joint declaration only in 1991.Footnote 33

In the 1970s, without an EEC–Japan agreement in place, national governments used their own methods to safeguard their industries from external competition. Many of them counteracted the inflow of Japanese goods by concluding Voluntary Export Restraints (VER) for specific products.Footnote 34 For the automobile sector, by 1981, these methods enabled Western European states to limit the presence of Japanese cars to an average of 7 per cent of annual domestic sales. This was, however, only the case for the automobile manufacturing countries; for the ones without national car industries, this number reached 23 per cent.Footnote 35 While the EEC’s continental members maintained similar policies into the 1980s, the United Kingdom opened its doors to foreign direct investment from Japanese automobile manufacturers to revive its declining domestic industry. As a result, Nissan – followed later by Honda and Toyota – gained access to the EEC market. These British strategies came to be labelled the EEC’s ‘Trojan horse’.Footnote 36

The situation in the electronics sector was even more challenging. In the 1960s European electronics companies started falling behind the United States and Japan in terms of producing cutting-edge technological solutions, crucially microelectronics. Western European states responded to this problem by increasing their support for the electronics sector.Footnote 37 For instance, in France, the ‘Plan Calcul’ in 1966 aimed to stimulate domestic technological development in information technology to secure French strategic independence in this field.Footnote 38 However, throughout the 1970s Western European electronics companies gradually gave up their efforts and started to rely on purchases from the United States and Japan.Footnote 39 Crucially, by the 1980s all Western European companies produced computers based on Japanese technology.Footnote 40

On both the national and the European level, Western European businesses lobbied for protectionist policies and support. Already in 1972, the Union of Industrial and Employers’ Confederations of Europe (UNICE), an umbrella association for national employers’ associations of the EEC member states, created a permanent committee for monitoring commercial relations with Japan. It also requested that the European Commission be regularly informed about the EEC–Japan talks.Footnote 41 As observed by Sigfrido Ramírez Pérez, the Japanese competition was a key factor leading to the establishment of the Committee of Common Market Automobile Constructors, namely an association of the EEC car producers in 1972.Footnote 42 Thus, competition from outside Europe emerged as an alarming factor that fostered cooperation among European companies well before it was publicly acknowledged by industrialists and policymakers.

However, joint lobbying efforts for tariffs, quotas and states’ support was not the only business strategy for facing the Japanese challenge; expansion was one of the essential tools at their disposal. Apart from increasing their presence in the EEC member states and cooperation with one another, the new global competition epitomised by the rise of Japan made Western European automobile and electronics companies embark on the path of conquering new markets. By doing so, they participated in the making of the second wave of multinationalisation.Footnote 43

It was in this context of rising global competition that many automobile and electronics companies from Western Europe knocked on the doors of the European socialist regimes offering cooperation. In the automobile sector, these attempts were initially caused by the competition within the EEC and from the United States. Companies such as Fiat or Renault, since the 1960s, gradually lost their dominant position in their domestic markets. As a response, both looked for economic cooperation with socialist regimes: Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and Poland in the case of Fiat, and Romania in the case of Renault.Footnote 44

The small-engine cars offered by these two companies, and well adapted for the European socialist regimes’ needs, soon became particularly challenged by the Japanese countermodels. In contrast to the luxury automobile producers, manufacturers specialising in widely accessible consumer products faced competition from Japanese car companies such as Toyota, Nissan and Honda, which at this time distinguished themselves with unseen productivity, adaptability and lower prices.Footnote 45

The rise of Japan thus does not explain why East–West cooperation in automobiles began, but it helps explain why it continued. The question of why Western European business actors remained committed to cooperation with the European socialist regimes despite repeated failures to comply with terms of agreements and widespread knowledge about their deteriorating economic situation, above all rising indebtedness, remains a paradox. Scholars examining this phenomenon in the banking sector point to the strong political motivation of Western European governments.Footnote 46 However, in the case of industrial sectors, commitment to cooperation with the socialist regimes was also driven by increasing global competition. While this context discouraged Fiat from embarking on new ambitious projects such as the construction of the new automobile plant in the Soviet Union in 1966,Footnote 47 it encouraged it to maintain cooperation and reduce the costs of production. Since initial deals in 1967 and 1971, Fiat consequently extended its presence in socialist Poland, creating a de facto technological monopoly on automobile production in the country.Footnote 48 In 1988, the Italian press proudly reported Fiat’s victory over Japan in yet another bid for the modernisation of the automobile industry in Poland.Footnote 49

The Japanese competition hit the Western European electronics sector harder and earlier. Already since the late 1960s, European electronics leaders such as French Thomson, West German Grundig and Telefunken, British Ferranti or Dutch Philips had faced Japan and the US technological advantage. Likewise for this reason, Western European electronics companies were especially eager to cooperate with the socialist regimes.

From their perspective, expansion was an opportunity to diffuse their standardised solutions. For example, in 1966, West German Grundig sold a Polish foreign trade venture a licence to produce a cassette deck based on its own cassette system.Footnote 50 By doing so, Grundig hoped to diffuse its model and acquire a monopoly for this type of product in socialist regimes. This deal was a part of Grundig’s battle against a competing cassette system developed by Philips. The battle was eventually lost after Japanese Sony adapted and diffused Philips’s technology.Footnote 51 Nevertheless, these initial contacts became a base for a long Polish–Grundig cooperation, which materialised with the consecutive deals on the production of tape recorders and cassette decks in 1967, 1974 and 1978. Moreover, via Grundig, the Polish foreign trade apparatus established contacts with Telefunken, another West German electronics company. This cooperation led to deals in 1967 and 1970 on the production of record players. The efforts of Grundig to prevail in standard battles resulted in a lasting entanglement between Poland’s electronics industry and West Germany’s companies.Footnote 52

Similarly, in 1974 Philips sold a Polish foreign trade venture a licence for the video recorder M-20 based on its own video cassette recording (VCR) system.Footnote 53 Although the company was very sceptical about cooperation with socialist regimes, the sale offered a chance to dominate socialist markets with a standardised solution challenged by Japanese competition.Footnote 54 However, by 1986 the Japan Victor Company’s (JVC) video home system (VHS) pushed out the VCR solution even from socialist Poland.Footnote 55

In light of increasing external pressure and fast technological developments in the electronics industry, Western European electronics companies could also move their older production lines to socialist regimes, while developing newer solutions at home. The sale of the licence for Telefunken record players to Poland was motivated by this logic. As observed by the Polish security service, the West German company needed to focus on more technologically advanced products, but it still needed some record players for the domestic market. For this reason, a deal with Poland, where the costs of the licence were to be repaid with deliveries of ready-made products, well corresponded to Telefunken’s goals.Footnote 56

The sale of licences for the production of electronics could have also improved the economic situation of Western European companies. In France, attempts at reinvigorating the electronics sector resulted in a Cuivre-Electronique (Copper-Electronics) agreement concluded with Poland in 1969. According to this agreement, in exchange for deliveries of copper, France offered Poland a beneficial credit line worth 750 million francs for the purchase of electronic licences.Footnote 57 It was concluded as part of the first economic agreement between the two countries. The aim of safeguarding the national electronic industry went hand in hand with détente foreign policy objectives, championed by de Gaulle and epitomised by his visit to Poland in 1967.Footnote 58

Among others, the French side committed to selling Poland a critical licence for integrated circuits. However, this sale was limited by the Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM), an organisation established by the NATO members in 1949 that aimed to limit the flow of strategic technology to socialist countries. According to the organisation, integrated circuits had potential applicability in military equipment. Thomson-CSF, supported by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, pushed to break the embargo advocated by the United States but initially failed. This encouraged other technology providers from Western Europe such as British Ferranti, which also committed to selling Poland the technology and offered to use diplomatic means to convince the United States to lift the embargo.Footnote 59 Indeed, in 1971, the matter of the sale of integrated circuits was discussed between British Prime Minister Edward Heath and US President Richard NixonFootnote 60 as well as French Minister of Foreign Affairs Maurice Schumann and the US president’s Security Advisor Henry Kissinger.Footnote 61 Discussing the issue on such a high political level demonstrates the clash of the détente foreign policy line between Western Europe and the United States. While the former believed in the ‘change throughout rapprochement’, the latter looked at the matter through a more traditional Cold War security lens.Footnote 62

However, meetings on such a high level also show the strong commitment of Western European governments to support their domestic electronics sectors. As described by a French report on the matter, ‘the refusal [American] to sell this licence produces a damage to the French electronics industry incomparable with a small security risk inherent to all sales of this type’.Footnote 63 Similarly, the British Foreign Office insisted on ‘strong political reasons’ for supporting Ferranti in its bid for providing Poland integrated circuits. As its report from 1971 stated, ‘British-owned firms [. . .] which make integrated circuits have suffered heavy losses on this business because of strong import competition’.Footnote 64

The electronics companies often reminded governments about their difficult situation, motivating state actors to facilitate their cooperation with socialist regimes. In June 1971, Thomson-CSF’s vice-president, André Danzin, thanked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for their efforts in attempting to break the American veto. He considered this type of support instrumental at times when its branch responsible for components was in ‘serious difficulty’ because of the ‘international economic situation’.Footnote 65 Similarly, Sebastian de Ferranti, a managing director of the family-owned Ferranti company, remained in regular contact with the British government. For instance, in his letter to the Minister of Aerospace, he requested his support, claiming that the deal ‘could be the vital factor in keeping our business viable during the difficult trading period for microcircuits’.Footnote 66 Exerting such pressures, the companies became important co-producers of the détente foreign policy of Western European governments.Footnote 67

The battle for providing Poland with integrated circuits was eventually won by Japan. As opposed to the French and British, the country decided to disregard COCOM restrictions, and the Sanyo Electric Company concluded an undercover deal with Poland in 1972. Later the Japanese technology was complemented with purchases from Thomson-CSF, which eventually managed to break the COCOM embargo.Footnote 68

Polish–Japanese cooperation in microelectronics, however, was more of an exception than the norm. While EEC members accounted for around 20 per cent of Poland’s foreign trade in 1980, Japan received only 0.5 per cent of Polish exports and supplied just 1 per cent of its imports.Footnote 69 Western Europe also led in providing Poland with technology and credits.Footnote 70 These figures, however, reflected Poland’s economic and political preferences rather than the technological and economic superiority of Western Europe.

Japanese economic and technological pressure, alongside the American and internal ones, contributed to pushing Western European companies to the socialist markets. Their interest in the region became critical for fostering European East–West cooperation, particularly in the automobile and electronics sectors, both of which were strongly challenged by the global competition. Expansion into socialist markets offered Western European companies the opportunity to monopolise them, diffuse their standardised solutions, reduce production costs and simply increase profits by selling technology. By urging national governments to facilitate their efforts to cooperate with countries on the other side of the iron curtain, these companies, and their economic interest, became instrumental in reshaping Western European policies towards socialist regimes.

Socialist Poland: Japan as an Inspiration

The effect of Japan’s rise on socialist Poland was different. By the late 1960s, European socialist regimes were aware that they were falling behind in technology and the production of consumer goods. Therefore, rather than a threat, it emerged as a possible source of inspiration. While in Western Europe Japan inspired efforts to emulate its practices at the company level, in European socialist regimes it offered an alternative development model. From the perspective of a peripheral country like Poland, Japan represented the first example of rapid modernisation since the Soviet Union in the inter-war period. Massive technology transfers and ambitious export goals were key elements of the Japanese development model adopted by Polish socialist elites in the 1970s. In this way, Japan provided a template in which the path to economic growth led through foreign trade and the opening of the economy. This approach, in turn, created the conditions necessary for the rise of European East–West cooperation.

Since the mid-1960s, the press in socialist Poland devoted considerable attention to Japan’s rise. In contrast to their counterparts in other Soviet-allied European countries, Polish journalists often had access to international media outlets and engaged in notably open and wide-ranging debates.Footnote 71 Moreover, geographical and cultural distance allowed them to depict the Japanese development model outside of the typical Cold War framework. Some articles in Polityka (Politics), the Polish United Workers’ Party’s (PUWP) liberal wing weekly, even praised Japan for ‘opposing the invasion of American capital’.Footnote 72 Finally, the strong involvement of the state in the economy made Japan more comparable to a socialist economy than to the capitalist countries of the West.

Włodzimierz Wowczuk, a journalist, in his series of articles on Japan in Życie Gospodarcze (Economic Life), looked at the Japanese miracle entering a dialogue with those who ‘speculate about the universal character of Japanese recipe for economic growth’.Footnote 73 Although he was doubtful about some features of the Japanese modernisation pattern, he admitted that the Japanese attitude to ‘its God – foreign trade’ could be of interest to Poland.Footnote 74 Japanese export-led economic growth was also picked up as relevant for a Polish case in academic articles unpacking the origins of Japan’s success.Footnote 75 In addition, press articles and studies on its rise paid particular attention to the import of technological licences, which were seen as a key factor in Japan’s technological success. Authors such as Jan Monkiewicz, a specialist in global technology transfers, openly compared the Japanese approach with the Polish one, identifying the lack of technological exchange as a major cause of Poland’s technological backwardness.Footnote 76

In addition to the broader global interest in Japan’s rise during this period, Poland’s exposure to Japan was also shaped by the growing cooperation between the two countries. Since the establishment of bilateral relations in 1957 and the signing of the first trade agreement in 1958, the ties between Poland and Japan were systematically broadened and reinforced through mutual diplomatic and trade representation exchanges. As a consequence, Polish fascination with the Japanese model of development may also have been influenced directly by Japan itself. For instance, the journal Handel Zagraniczny (Foreign Trade) dedicated an entire issue to Japan, providing a platform for Japanese politicians and industrialists to appeal directly to readers in socialist Poland.Footnote 77

This Polish interest in the ‘Japanese miracle’ started in the context of the deteriorating economic situation of the late 1960s. By then, the post-war development model, based on heavy industry investment, had stopped yielding tangible results. These circumstances led to new waves of economic reforms in socialist regimes, starting with Alexei Kosygin’s 1965 programme in the Soviet Union, which aimed at decentralisation and the introduction of very limited market mechanisms into the centrally planned economy.Footnote 78 This example was followed by similar attempts in European socialist regimes, including East Germany and, most notably, Czechoslovakia. In the latter case, economic reforms went hand in hand with political liberalisation, leading to concerns among other socialist leaders in the region and eventually resulting in the 1968 Warsaw Pact intervention. The crushing of the Prague Spring famously put an end to ambitious reform programmes in socialist Europe. While introducing major systemic changes became taboo, revising economic strategy remained on the table.Footnote 79

However, in case of Poland, the space for revising the economic strategy opened only after December 1970. On 7 December, Poland concluded its first post-war treaty with West Germany. Both sides agreed on the inviolability of the post–Second World War borders and committed to the normalisation of bilateral relations through political, economic, cultural and scientific cooperation. This treaty unlocked Poland’s scepticism towards expanding ties with Western European states. Moreover, on 12 December, Władysław Gomułka’s leadership increased prices for basic food products, causing workers’ strikes on a scale unseen before in socialist Poland. These strikes led to the appointment of the internationally minded Edward Gierek, formerly the Party leader in Silesia, as the new First Secretary of the PUWP. Gomułka, who had been in power since 1956, was known for his austerity and cautious approach to ambitious initiatives. His dismissal freed the leadership from these constraints.

The revision of Poland’s economic strategy followed the change of leadership. According to the new economic plans, massive new investments undertaken in the first years of the decade were supposed to result in the explosion of exports. These new investments were envisaged to be based on foreign technology and financed by foreign loans. Foreign trade was the essence of the new strategy of accelerated economic growth.Footnote 80

Zdzisław Rurarz, Gierek’s economic advisor during his first years in power, advocated such a strategy. As a foreign trade expert with international experience as Poland’s representative to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), Rurarz was familiar with debates on the Japanese modernisation pattern. His own books and articles on foreign trade and international economics reveal a particular affection for this country, something that in 1981 resulted in his promotion to the position of Poland’s Ambassador to Japan.Footnote 81 According to Rurarz’s memoirs, he was the one who suggested to Gierek ‘accelerated growth, something à la popular Japanese model’.Footnote 82 His report from December 1971, which contained detailed recommendations for revising the Polish national strategy, drew a comprehensive parallel between the Polish situation and the Japanese experience. While acknowledging the limitations of applying the Japanese development model to the Polish context, Rurarz advocated following its example in several key areas: the pace of annual economic growth, the training of managerial elites, raising wages to stimulate productivity, leveraging foreign loans and – crucially – accelerating integration into the global division of labour, which effectively implied opening up the economy.Footnote 83 The report was never fully adopted and Rurarz even lost his job due to its ideologically problematic proposals concerning replicating Western consumption models.Footnote 84 However, Rurarz’s principal ideas corresponded to the ones underlying Poland’s strategy in the 1970s.Footnote 85

Rurarz’s report was not the only document that pointed out Japan as an example. Such references were often present in official documents, in particular concerning the licence policy. For instance, the report on technology transfers prepared by the Ministry of Science, Higher Education and Technology in 1973 explained that Poland’s entrance into global technological exchanges was significantly delayed in comparison with countries such as Japan, which only between 1963 and 1967 acquired 2767 licences.Footnote 86 In their memoirs, the policymakers from the decade also recalled the Japanese development model functioning as a justification for the Polish 1970s strategy.Footnote 87

The numbers concerning foreign trade best illustrate the shift in Poland’s economic policy. According to official statistics, between 1970 and 1975, the trade volume with developed capitalist countries increased by around 300 per cent.Footnote 88 In the same period, Poland bought 294 technological licences, more than the total over the past twenty-three years.Footnote 89 However, Poland also raised its foreign debt tenfold since 1970. In 1976, foreign debt reached 11 billion US dollars.Footnote 90 This last figure signalled that Poland’s new economic strategy was not bringing the expected results. While imports from capitalist states rose continuously, exports remained significantly behind. Polish products did not achieve excellent quality, and the massive imports of new technologies did not boost the country’s scientific development, as happened in the case of Japan. In November 1973, the government debated the fact that since 1971 Poland had sold only three licences. During this debate, the prime minister, Piotr Jaroszewicz, mentioned: ‘Japan bought many more licences than Poland, other countries bought many more licences than Poland, but it did not entail their scientific regression, on the contrary, it entailed their scientific development’.Footnote 91

Poland’s Japan-inspired strategy of the 1970s failed. Due to production inefficiencies and the economic crisis of the 1970s, the investments made in the first half of the decade did not produce the export boom policymakers had hoped for. By the 1980s, Poland was the most unstable and indebted country in Europe.Footnote 92 At the same time, however, its 1970s policy was critical for the rise of European East–West cooperation, and Western Europe was the primary beneficiary of Poland’s economic opening up. By 1980, the EEC was Poland’s most significant non-socialist economic partner, and its member states a main source of licences and foreign credits.Footnote 93

This entanglement happened despite the fact that Japanese companies were eager to compete with Western European ones for socialist markets. The foreign ministries of Western European states repeatedly commented on Japanese competition in socialist regimes. For instance, a West German report from 1978 expressed concern that Japan set up fifteen companies’ representations in Warsaw, while West Germany had only eight.Footnote 94 Similarly, when describing attempts at entering Poland’s market, the British Foreign Office mentioned ‘ferocious Japanese competition’.Footnote 95

The insight from the Polish archives shows why Poland’s 1970s economic strategy benefited above all Western Europe. Although Japanese companies presented offers in many serious contract bids, they usually lost to their Western European counterparts. The advantage of geographical proximity and inter-war economic ties made Western European partners highly privileged in Poland. In the case of buses, the Polish side assessed the Japanese Hino’s offer as one of the most desirable due to the high quality of the product and competitive price. However, because of high transport costs, the offer was dismissed.Footnote 96 The modernisation of the automobile sector in the early 1970s was based on cooperation with companies that were previously engaged in business in Poland: both Berliet and Fiat did so in the inter-war period.

Moreover, the difficult position of Western European companies, in particular electronics ones, often made them more prone to adapt more flexible positions. The Polish foreign trade apparatus skilfully profited from this weakness. For instance, in talks concerning Polish–British cooperation in this field, the Polish Minister of Machine Industry, Tadeusz Wrzaszczyk, did not hesitate to mention that ‘the EEC was not alone in the world’, suggesting the possibility of cooperation with Japan or the United States.Footnote 97 Such comments, made also during different negotiations, aimed to mobilise Western European companies to propose better terms and to relax the COCOM restrictions.

Indeed, Western European companies often offered better terms of cooperation, thereby mitigating the technological shortcomings of their products. Unlike American and Japanese companies, they were more willing to enter into long-term cooperation agreements with socialist regimes. In addition to the simple transfer of technology, such deals included foreign loans and the possibility of repaying them with ready-made products or components. The significance of these terms was highlighted during a government discussion in 1973 concerning the purchase of a Grundig cassette deck, when Jan Chyliński, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, remarked:

We must remember that we bought Thomson just as we are now buying Grundig – from a company that offered the possibility of repaying the foreign currency expenses. We need to be clear that the Grundig we are currently purchasing is not among the best cassette decks in the world [. . .] Japanese and American ones are of higher quality.

He later added that, unlike Western European companies, Japanese and American firms were not willing to offer such favourable terms of cooperation.Footnote 98

In addition to economic necessity, the favourable terms of Western European offers were driven by the foreign policy agenda of détente and closely intertwined with its political dimension. Western European states actively supported East–West cooperation by loosening trade restrictions and extending favourable lines of credit. Moreover, specific economic deals became integral to the broader, multilayered cooperation that flourished across Europe in the 1970s. For instance, in 1973, when West German Economics Minister Hans Friderichs came to Poland, he discussed with the Polish officials not only the sale of Grundig cassette decks but also a range of other issues, including Edward Gierek’s upcoming visit to West Germany, the ‘family unification’ of Germans living in Poland and the delivery of electricity and coal.Footnote 99 This interconnection of various topics became especially evident during the CSCE, where security, political, economic and cultural matters were negotiated as part of a single, comprehensive agreement. On both the bilateral levels and the pan-European multilateral, economic relations were inextricably linked with political ones.

This dual logic was by no means restricted to the Western European side. European détente provided Poland with significant security benefits, particularly regarding the inviolability of its western border – first confirmed by the treaty with West Germany and later solidified in the 1975 Helsinki Accords, which concluded the CSCE. Throughout the 1970s, reports by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs insisted on cementing these gains with economic ties. This approach was a means of ‘making détente irreversible’.Footnote 100 In contrast, although foreign policy directives recommended expanding contacts with Japan, much less effort was dedicated to this goal.Footnote 101 While establishing economic ties with Western Europe had political underpinnings, trading with Japan brought limited advantages of this kind.

The example of Japan was significant for Poland’s national strategy in the 1970s. The fascination with the Japanese development model encouraged policymakers to open the economy and invest in technology purchases. Although this approach did not produce the same results as in Japan, it did lead to the increase in European East–West cooperation. Western European companies became the primary beneficiaries of Polish economic policy. Geographical proximity, inter-war economic ties and the eagerness of Western European companies to enter the socialist market privileged their position. However, they also benefited from the fact that European détente offered socialist Poland political advantages.

Conclusion

The rise of Japan produced varied effects across Europe in the 1970s. In Western Europe, competition from Japanese companies was seen primarily as a threat to domestic industries. While Japan’s success also served as a managerial inspiration, it did not inspire a state development model, as it did in socialist Poland. On both sides of the iron curtain, Japan also emerged as a potential partner; however, such partnerships remained occasional until the third wave of globalisation in the 1990s. Only in the early 1990s did the EEC regulate its trade relations with Japan, while the collapse of the Polish socialist regime opened the way for systemic transformation. This transformation drastically reduced the state’s capacity to autonomously select its economic partners and ushered in an era of large-scale foreign direct investment, in which Japan, despite its own economic challenges during this period, could effectively compete with other global players. In contrast, during the final decades of the Cold War, responses to Japan’s rise in both Western Europe and socialist Poland led to increased cooperation across the iron curtain. In this way, Japan’s rise contributed to a web of relations that helped the emergence of a new pan-European economic space.

The emergence of this space was made possible by the fragmentation of the rigid Cold War divide, a process stimulated by Japan’s economic and technological ascent. Faced with increasing global competition, Western European actors began cooperating with socialist regimes, downplaying the security threats they once posed and weakening transatlantic unity. In socialist Poland, Japan’s economic and technological success – coming from a state not seen as part of the monolithic ‘capitalist West’ – presented an alternative development model. This model suggested opening the economy and relying on foreign trade as a source of growth, which in turn implied closer contacts with non-socialist countries.

European East–West cooperation in the 1970s was driven by both economic and political objectives. While scholars often portray Western Europeans as politically motivated and socialist regimes as economically driven, the interplay of these two logics was crucial on both sides. Western Europe’s détente policy was influenced by concerns for national industries and co-produced with private companies. Similarly, in socialist Poland, motivations were not purely about acquiring hard currency and modern technology; foreign policy preferences also played a role, with a clear bias towards cooperation with Western European industry over other partners.

Viewing the development of the pan-European economic space through the lens of the rise of Japan reveals that its rise was a response to not only domestic needs but also global economic and international transformations. Previous scholars have shown how these dynamics encouraged closer economic and political integration in Western Europe. This paper argues that the same logic applied to the entire continent. Global market forces impacted both capitalist and socialist countries, pushing them towards cooperation. Despite political obstacles, practical concerns like transport costs and historical ties resurfaced as compelling reasons for cooperation. This logic operated independently of Cold War dynamics and outlasted them, leading first to economic entanglement and eventually to the integration of the two parts of Europe.

References

1 ‘Entretien avec M. Olszowski affaire de l’autobus’, French embassy in Warsaw to Paris, 15 Mar. 1972, CADC, 199QO/430.

2 On Helsinki see for example Laurien Crump and Angela Romano, ‘Challenging the Superpower Straitjacket (1965–1975): Multilateralism as an Instrument of Smaller Powers’, in Margins for Manoeuvre in Cold War Europe: The Influence of Smaller Powers, ed. Laurien Crump and Susanna Erlandsson (New York: Routledge, 2019), 13–31; Angela Romano, From Détente in Europe to European Détente: How the West Shaped the Helsinki CSCE (Bruxelles: Peter Lang, 2009); Oliver Bange and Gottfried Niedhart, Helsinki 1975 and the Transformation of Europe (New York: Berghahn Books, 2008).

3 For example, Arne Hofmann, The Emergence of Détente in Europe: Brandt, Kennedy and the Formation of Ostpolitik (London: Routledge, 2007); Piers Ludlow, ed., European Integration and the Cold War: Ostpolitik-Westpolitik, 1965–1973 (London: Routledge, 2007); Gottfried Niedhart, Durch Den Eisernen Vorhang: Die Ära Brandt Und Das Ende Des Kalten Kriegs (Darmstadt: WBG Theiss, 2019).

4 Angela Romano, ‘The EC and the Socialist World: The Ascent of a Key Player in Cold War Europe’, in Europe’s Cold War Relations: The EC towards a Global Role, ed. Ulrich Krotz, Kiran Klaus Patel and Federico Romero (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021), 51–70.

5 For example Karsten Rudolph, Wirtschaftsdiplomatie im Kalten Krieg. Die Ostpolitik der westdeutschen Grossindustrie, 1945–1991 (Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag, 2004).

6 Such a perspective is present in majority of general studies of the Cold War as well as these on socialist regimes in the 1970s and 1980s, for instance Stephen Kotkin, ‘The Kiss of Debt: The East Bloc Goes Borrowing’, in The Shock of Global: The 1970s in Perspective, ed. Niall Ferguson et al. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 80–92.

7 For a more balanced description of motivations on the socialist side, see Angela Romano and Federico Romero, eds., European Socialist Regimes’ Fateful Engagement with the West: National Strategies in the Long 1970s (London: Routledge, 2020).

8 For these global transformations since the 1970s see for example Niall Ferguson et al., eds., The Shock of Global: The 1970s in Perspective (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011); Giovanni Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century Money, Power, and the Origins of Our Times (London: Verso, 1994), 336–70.

9 On Japan during the Cold War see Michael Schaller, ‘Japan and the Cold War, 1960–1991’, in The Cambridge History of the Cold War, vol. 3, Endings, ed. Melvyn Leffler and Odd Arne Westad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 156–80; Gary D. Allinson, Japan’s Postwar History (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004).

10 On Japanese economic miracle see for example Chalmers Johnson, MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925–1975 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1982); Steven Tolliday, ed., The Economic Development of Modern Japan, 1945–1995: From Occupation to the Bubble Economy (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2001); Aaron Forsber, America and the Japanese Miracle: The Cold War Context of Japan’s Postwar Economic Revival, 1950–1960 (London: University of North Carolina Press, 2000).

11 For a general overview see Glenn D. Hook and Michael Weiner, eds., The Internationalization of Japan (London: Routledge, 1992).

12 Andrew C. McKevitt, Consuming Japan: Popular Culture and the Globalizing of 1980s America, Studies in United States Culture (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017); Michael Schaller, Altered States: The United States and Japan since the Occupation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997); I.M. Destler, Haruhiro Fukui and Hideo Sato, The Textile Wrangle: Conflict in Japanese–American Relations, 1969–1971 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1979).

13 For example, Mark Mason, Europe and the Japanese Challenge: The Regulation of Multinationals in Comparative Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).

14 Wayne Sandholtz and John Zysman, ‘1992: Recasting the European Bargain’, World Politics 42, no. 1 (1989): 95–128, https://doi.org/10.2307/2010572; Thomas Bourke, Japan and the Globalisation of European Integration (Aldershot: Dartmouth Publishing Company, 1996).

15 Kimie Hara, Japanese–Soviet/Russian Relations since 1945: A Difficult Peace (London: Routledge, 1998); Viktor V. Kuz’minkov and Viktor N. Pavlyatenko, ‘Soviet–Japanese Relations from 1960 to 1985: An Era of Ups and Downs’, in A History of Russo-Japanese Relations: Over Two Centuries of Cooperation and Competition, ed. Dmitry Strelsov and Nobo Shimotomai (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 419–39.

16 The role of Japan in the socialist regimes in the 1970s and 1980s has been addressed by the panel ‘Japanizing Eastern Europe: Alternative Modernizations of State Socialism’ at the Annual Convention of the Association for Slavic, Eastern European and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) in 2021 including presentations by Aleksandra Komornicka, Piotr Perkowski and Victor Petrov; Piotr Perkowski, ‘Modernization through Japanization? The Japanese System and State-Socialist Poland’s Economic Reform’, The International History Review 47, no. 1 (2024): 88–104, https://doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2024.2314763; Akira Kudō, ‘Economic Relations between Japan and East Germany: The Developing Relationship of Kureha Kagaku and Carl Zeiss Jena after the First Oil Crisis’, Entreprises et Histoire 80, no. 3 (2015): 84–113, https://doi.org/10.3917/eh.080.0084.

17 For example Ezra F. Vogel, The Four Little Dragons: The Spread of Industrialization in East Asia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993).

18 For Poland in cooperative perspective see: Romano and Romero, European Socialist Regimes’.

19 Victor Petrov, Balkan Cyberia: Cold War Computing, Bulgarian Modernization, and the Information Age behind the Iron Curtain (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2023), 190.

20 For example Mieczysław Rakowski, Dzienniki polityczne 1972–1975 (Warsaw: Iskry, 2002), 39–40.

21 Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, Le Défi Américain (Paris: Denoël, 1967).

22 Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, Le Défi mondial (Paris: Fayard, 1980).

23 Ezra F. Vogel, Japan as Number One: Lessons for America (New York: Harper. Colophon, 1979).

24 Richard Pascale and Anthony Athos, The Art of Japanese Management (New York: Warner Books, 1982).

25 For instance Nick Oliver and Barry Wilkinson, The Japanization of British Industry: New Developments in the 1990s, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992); Tony Elger and Chris Smith, eds., Global Japanization? The Transnational Transformation of the Labour Process (London: Routledge, 1994).

26 ‘Address given by Jacques Delors to the European Parliament’, 17 Jan. 1989, accessed Mar. 2024, https://www.cvce.eu/content/publication/2003/8/22/b9c06b95-db97-4774-a700-e8aea5172233/publishable_en.pdf.

27 Anjo Harryvan, ‘Japan, Philips and the Making of Europe’s Single Market, 1984–1994’, Journal of European Integration History 25, no. 1 (2019): 9–22, https://doi.org/10.5771/0947-9511-2019-1-9; Maria Green Cowles, ‘Setting the Agenda for a New Europe: The ERT and EC 1992’, JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies 33, no. 4 (1995): 501–26, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5965.1995.tb00548.x; Bastiaan Van Apeldoorn, Transnational Capitalism and the Struggle over European Integration (London: Routledge, 2002); Grace Ballor, Enterprise and Integration: Big Business and the Making of the Single European Market (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).

28 Nan Stone, ‘The Globalization of Europe: An Interview with Wisse Dekker’, Harvard Business Review, May–June 1989, accessed May 2025, https://hbr.org/1989/05/the-globalization-of-europe-an-interview-with-wisse-dekker.

29 ‘A challenge for enterprises: build up a monetary union of Europe’, Dec. 1987, AN, AMUE 109/174, 1.

30 Albert Rothacher, ‘The EC and Japan’, in Europe’s Cold War Relations: The EC towards a Global Role, ed. Ulrich Krotz, Kiran Klaus Patel and Federico Romero (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021), 115.

31 Harm G. Schröter, ‘Japanese–European Business Encounters during the Second Half of the 20th Century’, Entreprises et Histoire 80, no. 3 (2015); 7, https://doi.org/10.3917/eh.080.0005.

32 Kiran Klaus Patel, Project Europe: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 261.

33 On EEC–Japan relations in the 1970s and 1980s see Laurent Warlouzet, Governing Europe in a Globalizing World: Neoliberalism and Its Alternatives Following the 1973 Oil Crisis (London: Routledge, 2017), 85–7; Jörn Keck, Dimitri Vanoverbeke and Franz Waldenberger, eds., EU–Japan Relations, 1970–2012: From Confrontation to Global Partnership (London: Routledge, 2015); Takeshi Abe, ‘The “Japan Problem”: The Trade Conflict between the European Countries and Japan in the Last Quarter of the 20th Century’, Entreprises et Histoire 80, no. 3 (2016), 13–35, https://doi.org/10.3917/eh.080.0013; Grace Ballor, ‘Liberalisation or Protectionism for the Single Market? European Automakers and Japanese Competition, 1985–1999’, Business History 65, no. 2 (2022): 302–28, https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2021.2025218; Mark Manson, ‘Elements of Consensus: Europe’s Response to the Japanese Automotive Challenge’, JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies 32, no. 4 (1994): 433–53, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5965.1994.tb00508.x.

34 James T. Walker, ‘Strategic Trade Policy, Competition, and Welfare: The Case of Voluntary Export Restraints between Britain and Japan (1971–2002)’, Oxford Economic Papers 67, no. 3 (2015): 806–25, https://doi.org/10.1093/oep/gpv026.

35 Tomasso Pardi, ‘La révolution qui n’a pas eu lieu: les constructeurs japonais en Europe (1970–2010)’ (The revolution that did not take place: the Japanese carmakers in Europe [1970–2010]) (PhD diss., École des hautes études en sciences sociales, 2012), cited after: Sigfrido M. Ramírez Pérez, ‘Embedding the Market during Times of Crisis: The European Automobile Cartel during a Decade of Crisis (1973–1985)’, Business History 62, no. 5 (2020): 816; Alice Milor, ‘Ownership Matters: French Governments and Automotive Industrialists Facing the Japanese Challenge, 1974–1986’, Business History Review 96, no. 4 (2022): 833–55, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007680521001045.

36 Tommaso Pardi, ‘Industrial Policy and the British Automotive Industry under Margaret Thatcher’, Business History 59, no. 1 (2017): 75–100, https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2016.1223049.

37 For example Douglas Webber, Martin Rhodes, J. Richardson and Jeremy Moon, ‘Information Technology and Economic Recovery in Western Europe: The Role of the British, French and West German Governments’, Policy Sciences 19, no. 3 (1986): 319–46.

38 Laureen Kuo, ‘The Search for Independence: Planning for France’s Information Technology Autonomy, 1958–66’, Technology and Culture 64, no. 2 (2023): 485–514, https://doi.org/10.1353/tech.2023.0059.

39 Harryvan, ‘Japan, Philips and the Making of Europe’s Single Market’, 11–13.

40 Alfred Dupont Chandler, Inventing the Electronic Century: The Epic Story of the Consumer Electronics and Computer Industries (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), xiii.

41 P. Huvelin (UNICE) to Altiero Spinelli (European Commission), 15 June 1972, HAEU, BAC094/1985/7.

42 Ramírez Pérez, ‘Embedding the Market during Times of Crisis’, 816.

43 On the rise of multinational companies see Alfred Dupont Chandler, ed., Leviathans: Multinational Corporations and the New Global History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Geoffrey Jones, Multinationals and Global Capitalism: From the Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).

44 On the Western European automobile sector and European socialist regimes: Valentina Fava, ‘Between Business Interest and Ideological Marketing: The USSR and the Cold War in Fiat Corporate Strategy, 1957–1972’, Journal of Cold War Studies 20, no. 4 (2019): 26–64; Valentina Fava and Luminita Gatejel, ‘East–West Cooperation in the Automotive Industry: Enterprises, Mobility, Production’, The Journal of Transport History 38, no. 1 (2017): 11–19; Manfred Grieger, Ulrike Gutzmann and Dirk Schlinkert, eds., Towards Mobility: Varieties of Automobilism in East and West (Wolfsburg: Volkswagen AG, 2009).

45 Manson, ‘Elements of Consensus’, 434–6; Ballor, ‘Liberalisation or Protectionism’, 304–7; Susan Roland, Vehicle of Influence: Building a European Car Market (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000), 111–22.

46 Emmanuel Mourlon-Druol, ‘The Role of a Creditor in the Making of a Debt Crisis: The French Government’s Financial Support for Poland, between Cold War Interests and Economic Constraints, 1958–1981’, Financial History Review 27, no. 1 (2020): 73–94, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0968565019000222.

47 Fava, ‘Between Business Interest and Ideological Marketing’, 60.

48 Aleksandra Komornicka, Poland and European East–West Cooperation in the 1970s: The Opening Up (Abingdon: Routledge, 2024), 126–47.

49 ‘Fiat e Rai piacciono alla Polonia’, La Stampa, 23 Mar. 1988.

50 ‘Notatka w sprawie rozmów z f-mą Grundig na temat współpracy kooperacyjnej przy produkcji i dostawach do NRF magnetofonów C-100’ (on cooperation with Grundig), Memo by Security Service, 3 Aug. 1965, AIPN, BU 0236/158/t.1.

51 John Nathan, Sony: A Private Life (New York: HarperCollins, 1999), 129.

52 Komornicka, Poland and European East–West Cooperation, 167–88.

53 Report by Supreme Control Chamber on Zakłady Radiowe Kasprzaka, 14 May 1980, 6, 39, AAN, Najwyższa Izba Kontroli (NIK) 1154/81/781.

54 ‘Notatka służbowa’, Memo by Capt. St. Jankowski, 29 Sept. 1972, AIPN BU 0236/158/t.3.

55 Michael A. Cusumano, Yiorgos Mylonadis and Richard S. Rosenbloom, ‘Strategic Maneuvering and Mass-Market Dynamics: The Triumph of VHS over Beta’, Business History Review 66, no. 1 (1992): 51–94, https://doi.org/10.2307/3117053.

56 ‘Notatka dot. Przebiegu negocjacji polskiego przemysłu elektronicznego z zachodnioniemieckimi firmami „Grudik” i “Telefunken” _w sprawie zakupu licencji i kooperacji w produkcji magnetofonów i gramofonów automatycznym zmieniaczem płyt’ (on negotiation with Grundig and Telefunken), Memo by mjr. A. Dyszy, 17 Feb. 1967, AIPN 0236/158/t.1.

57 ‘Note. Relations economiques franco-polonais’, Report by French Minister of Foreign Affairs, 2 Mar. 1971, 2, CADC, 199QO/430.

58 On Polish–French relations: Dariusz Jarosz and Maria Pasztor, Stosunki Polsko-Francuskie 1944–1980 (Warszawa: Polski Instytut Spraw Międzynarodowych, 2008).

59 Komornicka, Poland and European East–West Cooperation, 167–88.

60 Heath to Nixon, 30 Mar. 1972, TNA, PREM 15/1950.

61 Schumann to Kissinger, 14 Feb. 1972, CADC, 199QO/435.

62 On the difference between superpowers and European détente see for example Jussi Hanhimäki, ‘Détente in Europe, 1962–1975’, in The Cambridge History of the Cold War, vol. 2, Crises and Détente, ed. Melvyn Leffler and Odd Arne Westad (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 198–218; Romano, From Détente in Europe.

63 ‘Cession d’une licence de transistors au silicium à la Pologne. Arguments susceptibles d’être développées à Washington’, Report by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 31 Mar. 1971, 2, CADC, 199QO/435.

64 ‘Talks between the Prime Minister and the President of the United States of America at Bermuda 20–21 December 1971’, Brief by Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Dec. 1971, 6, TNA, FCO 69/222.

65 André Danzin (Vice-President Thomson-CSF) to Hervé Alphand (Secretary General of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs), 15 June 1971, CADC, 199QO/435.

66 Sebastian de Ferranti to Frederick Corfield (British Minister for Aerospace), 8 Sept. 1971, TNA, FCO 69/222.

67 On the role of industry in making détente foreign policy: Angela Romano, ‘The UK Policy towards Socialist Countries in the 1970s: Trade as a Cornerstone of Détente’, in The Foreign Office, Commerce and Foreign Policy in the Twentieth Century, ed. Effie Pedaliu, John Fisher and Richard Smith (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 465–85; Rudolph, Wirtschaftsdiplomatie im Kalten Krieg.

68 Komornicka, Poland and European East–West Cooperation, 167–88.

69 Calculated based on: Rocznik Statystyczny Handlu Zagranicznego 1981 (Warszawa: Główny Urząd Statystyczny, 1981), 20–2.

70 ‘Informacja o wykorzystaniu licencji zakupionych w latach 1971–1980’ (report on licences bought between 1971 and 1980), Planning Commission, Ministry of Science, Higher Education, and Technology and Ministry of Foreign Trade for Governmental Commission on Science and Technological Progress, Feb. 1983, AAN, Ministerstwo Nauki, Szkolnictwa Wyższego i Techniki (MNSWT) 2626/407.

71 For Poland in cooperative perspective see Romano and Romero, European Socialist Regimes’.

72 ‘Japoński super ekspres’ (Japanese super express), Polityka 3 (1968): 10.

73 Włodzimierz Wowczuk, ‘Japonia. Kulisy dynamicznego rozwoju’ (Japan. Behind-the-scenes of dynamic development), Życie Gospodarcze 14 (1968): 11.

74 Włodzimierz Wowczuk, ‘Polska- Japonia. Konfrontacje gospodarcze’ (Poland–Japan. Economic confrontations), Życie Gospodarcze 8 (1967): 7.

75 For example Michał Niesiołowski, Japonia: Źródła i kierunki rozwoju gospodarczego (Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Ekonomiczne, 1974).

76 Jan Monkiewicz, Operacje licencyjne w rozwoju stosunków gospodarczych między Wschodem a Zachodem (Warszawa: Polski Instytut Spraw Międzynarodowych, 1973), AAN, PISM (Polski Instytut Spraw Międzynarodowych) 1738/404; Ryszard Farfał, ‘Polityka licencyjna’ (Licence policy), Życie Gospodarcze 36 (1969): 10; more on Japan in the Polish public debate: Perkowski, ‘Modernization through Japanization’, 91–3.

77 Handel Zagraniczny, Wydanie Specjalne poświęcone Polsko-Japonskim stosunkom gospodarczym (Special issue on Polish–Japanese economic relations), 1977.

78 Yakov Feygin, Building a Ruin: The Cold War Politics of Soviet Economic Reform (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2024); Philip Hanson, The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Economy: An Economic History of the USSR (New York: New York University Press, 2003), 98–127.

79 On economic debates and reforms in socialist regimes see for example Romano and Romero, European Socialist Regimes’; André Steiner, The Plans That Failed: An Economic History of the GDR (New York: Berghahn Books, 2010); Iván Berend, The Hungarian Economic Reforms, 1953–1988 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).

80 On Poland in the late 1960s and 1970s see Komornicka, Poland and European East–West Cooperation, 167–88; Anthony Kemp-Welch, Poland under Communism: A Cold War History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 172–202.

81 On Rurarz see: Patryk Pleskot, Rurarz, Spasowski – Żywoty Równoległe: Wokół Ucieczek Ambasadorów PRL w Grudniu 1981 (Wars: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej, 2023).

82 Zdzisław Rurarz, Byłem doradcą Gierka (Chicago: Andy Grafik, 1990), 61.

83 ‘Koncepcje Rozwoju Gospodarczego Polski w latach 1971–1995’ (concepts of Poland’s economic development), Rurarz’s report for Gierek, 13 Dec. 1971, AAN, KC PZPR (Komitet Centralny Polskiej Zjednoczonej Partii Robotniczej) 1354/XIA/1172.

84 Rurarz, Byłem doradcą Gierka, 157.

85 For a detailed analysis of Rurarz’s report see Łukasz Dwilewicz, ‘Rola ekspertów w zarzaądzaniu gospodarką PRL w latach siedemdziesiątych’, Studia Polityczne 24 (2009): 27–36.

86 ‘Kierunki doskonalenia polityki licencyjnej’ (Directions for improving licence policy), Report by the Ministry of Science, Higher Education, and Technology and representatives of industries for Politburo, Feb. 1973, AAN, URM (Urząd Rady Ministrów) 290/5.4/47, 4.

87 For example Paweł Bożyk, ‘Polityka Edwarda Gierka-zadowoleni i przeciwnicy’, in Dekada Gierka: blaski i cienie, ed. Paweł Bożyk (Wars: Kto jest kim, 2013), 39; on more Japanese inspirations in Poland see Perkowski, ‘Modernization through Japanization’, 93–6.

88 Calculated based on: Rocznik Statystyczny 1976 (War: Główny Urząd Statystyczny, 1976), 340.

89 ‘Informacja o wykorzystaniu licencji zakupionych w latach 1971-1980’ (report on licences bought between 1971 and 1980), Planning Commission, Ministry of Science, Higher Education and Technology and Ministry of Foreign Trade for Governmental Commission on Science and Technological Progress, Feb. 1983, AAN, MNSWT 2626/407.

90 Economic Survey of Europe in 1991–1992 (New York: United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, 1992), 322.

91 ‘Zapis przebiegu obrad posiedzenia Prezydium Rządu’ (Minutes from Presidium of Government meeting), 2 Nov. 1973, AAN, URM 290/5.4/64, 211.

92 On the reasons for the strategy’s collapse see Kazimierz Poznański, Poland’s Protracted Transition: Institutional Change and Economic Growth, 1970–1994 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Komornicka, Poland and European East–West Cooperation.

93 Calculated based on: Rocznik Statystyczny Handlu Zagranicznego 1981, 20–2; ‘Informacja o wykorzystaniu licencji zakupionych’, AAN, MNSWT 2626/407.

94 ‘Stand der deutsch-polnischen Wirtschaftsbeziehungen’ (state of Polish–German economic relations), Aug. 1978, PA AABA63/421.

95 For example ‘Woodall-Duckham – Caprolactam Plant’, British Embassy in Warsaw to Miss M Z Terry, 26 Jan. 1972, TNA, FCO28/1938.

96 ‘W sprawie uruchomienia produkcji autobusów o dużej pojemności’ (on buses production), Report by Ministry of Machine Industry for Politburo, 27 Jan. 1972, AAN, KC PZPR 1354/V/98.

97 ‘Record of conversation between Mr Julian Amery and Mr Tadeusz Wrzaszczyk, Polish Minister of the Machine Industry at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office’, 26 Jan. 1972, TNA, FCO69/315.

98 ‘Zapis przebiegu obrad posiedzenia Prezydium Rządu’ (Minutes from Presidium of Government meeting), 1 Mar. 1974, AAN, URM 290/5.4/72, 43.

99 ‘Notatka informacyjna o przebiegu rozmów w Polsce Federalnego Ministra Gospodarki NFR dr. H. Friderichsa w dniach 12–14 grudnia 1973’ (On talks with Friderichs), Dec. 1973, AAN, Ministerstwo Handlu Zagranicznego (MHZ) 351/45/4.

100 ‘Węzłowe kierunki i zadania polityki zagranicznej PRL w 1974’ (foreign policy guidelines for 1974), Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Politburo, 15 Jan. 1974, AAN, KC PZPR 1354/V/120, 3.

101 For example ‘Węzłowe kierunki i zadania polityki zagranicznej PRL w 1975’ (foreign policy guidelines for 1975), Report by Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Politburo, 28 Jan. 1975, AAN, KC PZPR 1354/V/128, 15.