That

They all seem odd and synonymous. I would delete 'fighting for', at least. Then some of them can be made to work:

Individual freedom. That's what Americans are fighting for.
Individual freedom. That's what Americans are all about.
Individual freedom. That's America.

Right now, I'm thinking about the reference of "this/that."

MM, do you think the second one here works?

The Americans think that individuality should come first. This is different from what the Japanese think.
The Americans think that individuality should come first. This is different from the Japanese.

And this. Do you think this works fine?

TakaMM, do you think the second one here works?

It is a touch too terse.

TakaAnd this. Do you think this works fine?

Too terse again.

They leave too much blank grammar for the reader to go astray in.

Hmm...Well, what I'm really thinking about is actually this:

When Westerners think and talk about space, they mean the distance between objects. In the West, we are taught to perceive and to react to the arrangement of objects and to think of space as "empty".

The meaning becomes clear only when it is contrasted with the Japanese, who are trained to give m

TakaMM, what do you think "it" in bold refers to?

Well, I would have used 'that', but 'it' means the concept presented in the two sentences of the preceding paragraph.

In the revised one in hand, "The meaning becomes clear only when it is contrasted with" is replaced with "This is in contrast to."

Anyway, it/this, or your "that" refers to the concept presented in the sentences of the preceding paragraph. Then it's "concept vs people," not "concept vs concept."

Isn't it too terse?

If not, why do you think this example in

We infer the Japanese situation. By that length of exposition, the native reader is well into the argument and is no longer searching back for grammatical referents.

So is it that the meaning is "(This is in contrast) to the Japanese idea" or "(This is in contrast) to the way Japanese see it", but for the sake of simplification, it is reduced to "to Japanese"?

In other words, in order for such reduction and the expression "concept vs people" or "concept=people" to be accepted as natural, a certain length of description would be necessary if it was not

I think I mean ' Otherwise the grammatical reference error is noticed and the reader does not accept it.'

In other words, about the last example concerning the cultural difference in perception of space, strictly speaking, the way the reference term is used is grammatically wrong, but it passes unnoticed.

Is that what you mean?