“The honeymoon is about to be over. It has given a real sense of partnership between Australia and Japan, but now we can come down to discuss business”. According to the Japan Times, this was the message with which Mr Kiichi Miyazawa (at that time Minister for International Trade and Industry) greeted journalists on his arrival in Sydney in April 1971. This was no more than a complaint about the Australian tariff system, which discriminated against Japanese manufactures in favour of British. Such complaints were a regular feature of Australian–Japanese relations and became more frequent in the minor troughs of the Japanese business cycle that regularly followed each new peak of Japanese economic growth. “The end of the honeymoon” was, however, an arresting phrase and it was often remembered during the years that followed when, against the background of the world recession, the boundless expectations of the preceding period gave place to a more sober reality. In this paper, I shall attempt to gauge the extent of this reappraisal.