MAMORU TSUDA, A PRELIMINARY STUDY OF JAPANESE-FILIPINO JOINT VENTURES, Foundation for Nationalist Studies, Quezon City, 1978, pp 174. THE emergence of Japan as the dominant capitalist economy in the Far East and as one of the leading capitalist economies of the world is one of the important features of post-war history. That Japan, while not being a military power, is definitely on the way to becoming an economic 'super power3 and that Japanese influence, which may not be uniformly pronounced everywhere, is definitely overwhelming in the non-socialist nations of South-East Asia is now not seriously challenged. While the Japanese fought World War II in order to gain a foothold in this region and lost the war, "ironically, the Japanese now— or soon will—draw far more from Pacific Asia than a successful establishment of their projected World War II empire might have brought them." ) This region is in a position to furnish not only raw materials to Japan, but even more important, "relatively inexpensive and skilled labour for the labour-intensive portion of the Japanese productive'cycle (and perhaps also for those activities which result in excessive pollution or other undesirable by products for a highly advanced and concentrated nation)." 2 It is in the context of such a prospect that detailed studies on the extent of Japanese economic penetration into Third World countries, more so, the South East Asian countries arc needed. This is only one of the reasons why the book under review should be welcomed. Mamoru Tsuda's book should also be welcomed for the useful information it contains on the structure of Japanese business conglomerates and the Filipino business houses. However, Tsuda's "preliminary9 study remains at a purely descriptive level and shies away from concrete analysis. Its principal merit is that