[Ronin4hire]

It is my impression that Japan's companies are almost an arm of the government more than anything. At least when it comes to the way they invest overseas.

So to answer your question.. it might not be a question of how much influence corporations have on the government but how much influence the government has on corporations.

That might be an old fashioned view though as it's based on an article I read over a year ago about the way Japanese companies acted in South East Asia pre-1990