Equally important is the fact that recent technologies emerging from Japanese high-tech consortia have been sadly disappointing. The author's detailed explanation of MITI's internal decisionmaking processes reveals that much of MITI's decline in effectiveness is caused by its rigid insistence on targeting technologies in accordance with long-term plans even when the technologies are soon rendered obsolete in the rapidly changing high-tech marketplace. In the shadow of these new realities, MITI finds itself at a turning point. The author argues that it will have to redefine itself and carve out a new role in the Japanese political economy and the bureaucracy. MITI's primary focus cannot be what once worked so successfully, i.e., the promotion of Japanese companies in international competition. If it does not find a new role, and soon, MITI faces a slow but inevitable decline in influence and effectiveness.