Homelessness has doubled over the past year, say some, as once-vaunted community and company support has frayed. Many people sleep in parks or 24-hour Internet cafes.
By Peter Ford | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
from the September 3, 2009 edition
Tokyo - By the time the police arrived at 7 a.m. last Monday to move him on from the Ikebukuro subway station where he had spent the night, Isao Ito had been awake for some time.
He had been poring over the jobs section of a magazine, and he hadn't slept well anyway.
Newly arrived in the capital in search of work, he said, "I haven't eaten or slept for three days. I'm alone, and I'm nervous about sleeping rough."
Welcome to the global recession, Japanese style. As Mr. Ito has just found, perhaps nowhere else in the industrialized world is it so easy to slip from just getting by to utter destitution.
Some 460,000 people have lost their jobs in Japan since the "Lehman shokku," as people here call it – the day last September when the collapse of Lehman Bros. bank triggered a worldwide financial crisis.
Half of them, like Ito, were on temporary or part-time contracts that gave them no unemployment or other social security insurance.
Thousands lived in company housing, and when they lost their livelihoods, they lost their homes. Today they sleep in parks, under bridges, and in railway stations. If they still have a little money, they bunk down for the night in cubicles in 24-hour Internet cafes.
Homeless numbers swell
Though official figures disguise the scale of the crisis, says Shoji Sano, founder of the Japanese edition of the "Big Issue," a magazine sold by homeless people, "judging by the number of people who go to soup kitchens, I'd say the number of homeless in Tokyo has doubled" over the past year.
Government statistics say there are 3,105 homeless in the capital. But when "Big Issue" volunteers handed out a booklet to homeless people offering advice on finding food, jobs, and medical help, they got through 11,000 in a few weeks, says Eriko Sato, a staffer on the magazine.
And the homeless, camped under blue tarpaulins along the riverbank or stretched out on cardboard boxes in railway stations, are only the most visible signs of a broader problem in a nation that prides itself on being middle class. Twenty million people, one-sixth of the population, now live below the poverty line, according to official figures.
"When you fall out of the safety net in Japan, you wouldn't believe what is not available," says Charles McJilton, who runs a food bank distributing food to needy Tokyo residents.
Seventy-seven percent of unemployed Japanese have no unemployment insurance for example, according to a report earlier this year by the International Labor Organization. That compares with 57 percent in the United States.
Japan's traditional support system was based on the family and community on one hand, and on companies that often offered jobs for life on the other. Community and family ties have frayed in a more mobile society, and companies jumped at the chance that free-market reforms earlier this decade gave them to hire temporary workers without paying social security contributions, and to fire them at will.
As those poorly paid workers lose their jobs, with few chances of finding another one so long as the recession lasts, more and more younger men are ending up on the streets.
Of the 5,400 people that an official survey found sleeping in Internet cafes two years ago, 41 percent were under 30.
"The average age of people staying here has fallen from 53 to 49," says Hiroshi Ibe, manager of a homeless shelter in the Chiyoda district of central Tokyo. "Most of them used to be construction day laborers, but it is clear that more and more of the homeless now used to work in manufacturing."
In recent months, says Isao Matsumoto, an official at "Tokyo Challenge," a municipal agency helping the homeless, the city's five shelters have been swamped. "A year ago they were 70 percent full," he recalls. "Now they are 100 percent full. More people come seeking shelter than we have room for."
Until Sept. 1, men who left a shelter had to wait three months before they were readmitted. Now the waiting period has been extended to six months. "We want to give everyone a chance," says Mr. Ibe.
Big barriers to finding a job or home
When they leave the shelter, they are meant to move to a self-support center and start looking for work. Only half of them actually do so, however. The other half, Ibe acknowledges, go back to the streets – often because they see no hope of finding a job. (Read about how Yutaro Gomikawa's skill at soccer changed unemployment officials' attitude toward the homeless man.)
"If I talked about my situation openly I don't think an employer would hire me," says Kenji Yoshida, who had been living rough for 10 months before he sought help at the Chiyoda shelter. "That's why I always hide my homelessness."
And even those lucky few who do find jobs are hardly any nearer to finding a home. Japanese landlords generally require two months' rental as "key money," two months' rental as deposit, and a month's rent in advance, not to mention a guarantor who will pay any overdue bills. Few homeless men can come up with that.
Late last year, the government made 13,000 housing units available to homeless people, and has so far filled 7,666 of them, according to official figures. But that is not a lasting solution, argues Mr. McJilton, who once lived as a homeless person in Tokyo for 18 months.
Welfare officials are notoriously reluctant to put young single men on the rolls, finding all kinds of excuses to exclude them, according to homeless activists. And without welfare or a job, many of the newly housed homeless are unable to pay their utility bills.
The housing project may have cleared a lot of people off the streets, but it has not done much more, argues McJilton. "The government is more interested in keeping the peace than in solving the problem," he complains.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
In Japan, cutting costs with seaweed and sit-ups
The Japanese offer a case study of how diet and lifestyle can improve the health of a nation.
By Takehiko Kambayashi | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
from the October 14, 2009 edition
Tokyo - Call it seaweed versus the Big Mac.
The traditional Japanese diet – tofu, rice, fish, and, yes, mineral-rich nori – is famous for being considered healthy. The typical American diet – fill in your own favorite fatty food here – is seen as far less so.
That is one reason Japan always comes out on top in world rankings of life expectancy (83 years versus 78 years in the US). It is also why Japan has among the lowest obesity rates in the world.
These factors have helped contribute to Japan's low healthcare costs. The simple fact is, if you aren't sick as much in the first place, you won't tax the system as much in the second place.
Yet the widespread availability of healthcare in Japan also plays a significant part in the country's physical well-being. Japan's system routinely ranks among the highest in effectiveness and efficiency.
Ironically, Japan's universal approach to healthcare – an idea still highly controversial in the US – owes its beginnings to American influences. In postwar Japan, the emphasis on education and healthcare by the General Headquarters of the Allied Forces (under Gen. Douglas MacArthur) contributed to the country's establishment of universal coverage in 1961.
To this day, the system reflects the Japanese sense of egalitarianism. How much a person makes doesn't influence the quality of care or how often someone sees a doctor. "It's not for profit – insurers don't earn a profit," says Yuki Minagawa, a nurse-turned-journalist who covers medical issues. [Editor's note: The original version misspelled Yuki Minagawa’s last name.]
Everyone in the island nation of 127.5 million is required to have health insurance either at work or through a local insurer. Premiums are based on a person's salary and split between the employer and employee. No appointment is needed to see a doctor. A special national health insurance program aids those over 70.
"That enables them to go see a doctor often," says Takao Suzuki, director of the National Institute for Longevity Sciences in Obu, Japan. The number of Japanese centenarians recently surpassed 40,000 for the first time.
The government health ministry keeps the price of healthcare low. That contributes to maintaining insurance premiums between $130 and $180 a month for the average Japanese family. Japanese pay 20 to 30 percent of the cost of medical care out of their pockets, those over 70 pay 10 percent, and parents pay 20 percent for preschool children.
Japan's healthcare costs make up 8 percent of GDP, about half that of the US. In addition to tight government control, frequent visits to doctors – the Japanese are three times more likely to see a doctor than Americans are – also help keep healthcare costs low, says Kim Phyo, professor of neurosurgery at Dokkyo Medical University in Saitama.
Japan has few malpractice suits as well.
Still, the Japanese system has plenty of shortcomings. Medical care is uneven across the country. Overused emergency rooms turn away patients in some areas. Doctor availability and training vary widely. Many small hospitals don't have the expertise or facilities to handle specialized needs like intensive care.
Though most hospitals in Japan are private, doctors at government-run institutions make modest salaries. "Doctors complain of low pay and hard work," says Yusaku Tazawa, a pediatrician at Sendai Medical Center, a state-run hospital. "So, when they get older, some of them quit to start their own [practice]."
While many elements of the Japanese healthcare system probably wouldn't be politically acceptable in the US, Americans can learn a few things from the Japanese about diet and lifestyle. Even though obesity rates are rising here as the Japanese eat more Western food, the prevailing eating patterns are seen as far healthier.
"The people eat more fish while Westerners eat meat," says Masaaki Takeuchi, a former professor at the Tokyo University of Agriculture.
Exercise, too, is ingrained in the culture. Radio calisthenics – morning exercise music played over the airwaves – is popular. Ironically, this, too, was an American import, inaugurated in 1928 after Japanese officials saw it done at a company in New York. Today 76 percent of Japanese primary schools let their students perform radio calisthenics; 25 million people in all participate in them.
By Takehiko Kambayashi | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
from the October 14, 2009 edition
Tokyo - Call it seaweed versus the Big Mac.
The traditional Japanese diet – tofu, rice, fish, and, yes, mineral-rich nori – is famous for being considered healthy. The typical American diet – fill in your own favorite fatty food here – is seen as far less so.
That is one reason Japan always comes out on top in world rankings of life expectancy (83 years versus 78 years in the US). It is also why Japan has among the lowest obesity rates in the world.
These factors have helped contribute to Japan's low healthcare costs. The simple fact is, if you aren't sick as much in the first place, you won't tax the system as much in the second place.
Yet the widespread availability of healthcare in Japan also plays a significant part in the country's physical well-being. Japan's system routinely ranks among the highest in effectiveness and efficiency.
Ironically, Japan's universal approach to healthcare – an idea still highly controversial in the US – owes its beginnings to American influences. In postwar Japan, the emphasis on education and healthcare by the General Headquarters of the Allied Forces (under Gen. Douglas MacArthur) contributed to the country's establishment of universal coverage in 1961.
To this day, the system reflects the Japanese sense of egalitarianism. How much a person makes doesn't influence the quality of care or how often someone sees a doctor. "It's not for profit – insurers don't earn a profit," says Yuki Minagawa, a nurse-turned-journalist who covers medical issues. [Editor's note: The original version misspelled Yuki Minagawa’s last name.]
Everyone in the island nation of 127.5 million is required to have health insurance either at work or through a local insurer. Premiums are based on a person's salary and split between the employer and employee. No appointment is needed to see a doctor. A special national health insurance program aids those over 70.
"That enables them to go see a doctor often," says Takao Suzuki, director of the National Institute for Longevity Sciences in Obu, Japan. The number of Japanese centenarians recently surpassed 40,000 for the first time.
The government health ministry keeps the price of healthcare low. That contributes to maintaining insurance premiums between $130 and $180 a month for the average Japanese family. Japanese pay 20 to 30 percent of the cost of medical care out of their pockets, those over 70 pay 10 percent, and parents pay 20 percent for preschool children.
Japan's healthcare costs make up 8 percent of GDP, about half that of the US. In addition to tight government control, frequent visits to doctors – the Japanese are three times more likely to see a doctor than Americans are – also help keep healthcare costs low, says Kim Phyo, professor of neurosurgery at Dokkyo Medical University in Saitama.
Japan has few malpractice suits as well.
Still, the Japanese system has plenty of shortcomings. Medical care is uneven across the country. Overused emergency rooms turn away patients in some areas. Doctor availability and training vary widely. Many small hospitals don't have the expertise or facilities to handle specialized needs like intensive care.
Though most hospitals in Japan are private, doctors at government-run institutions make modest salaries. "Doctors complain of low pay and hard work," says Yusaku Tazawa, a pediatrician at Sendai Medical Center, a state-run hospital. "So, when they get older, some of them quit to start their own [practice]."
While many elements of the Japanese healthcare system probably wouldn't be politically acceptable in the US, Americans can learn a few things from the Japanese about diet and lifestyle. Even though obesity rates are rising here as the Japanese eat more Western food, the prevailing eating patterns are seen as far healthier.
"The people eat more fish while Westerners eat meat," says Masaaki Takeuchi, a former professor at the Tokyo University of Agriculture.
Exercise, too, is ingrained in the culture. Radio calisthenics – morning exercise music played over the airwaves – is popular. Ironically, this, too, was an American import, inaugurated in 1928 after Japanese officials saw it done at a company in New York. Today 76 percent of Japanese primary schools let their students perform radio calisthenics; 25 million people in all participate in them.
Japan: In land of avid TV watchers, American dramas steal the show
Even Toyota has pulled ads from Japanese shows as American TV imports grow increasingly popular.
By Takehiko Kambayashi | Correspondent 10.20.09
A local, slice-of-life story from a Monitor correspondent.
The Japanese, perhaps the world’s most avid TV watchers, are getting hooked on American television dramas. Current and past series such as “24,” “Alias,” “Lost,” “Heroes,” “Bones,” “The Closer,” “Prison Break,” and many others have eclipsed their Japanese counterparts and become a large presence in DVD rental stores, the primary way Japanese viewers have access to these shows.
This is bad news for the Japanese television industry, which is suffering as more companies cut advertising in the face of the prolonged economic slump. Last year, even Toyota announced it would slash its advertising by up to 30 percent.
But the biggest problem facing Japanese media is their production of poor-quality and “many harmful and vulgar TV programs,” says Sadahiko Sugaya, chairman of TV Tokyo. More domestic TV viewers are attracted to US products with their unusual plot lines and big-scale productions, says Misako Wakai, who handles foreign dramas at SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation, a digital satellite TV provider. Viewers can choose to watch the American shows dubbed or with subtitles in Japanese.
“Certainly, ‘24’ is a driving force of the boom,” says Ms. Wakai. Another appeal for Japanese viewers: The “lead character [on American shows] has some specific profession such as a CTU [Counter Terrorism Unit] agent in ‘24’ and a forensic anthropologist in ‘Bones,’ while those of Japanese TV dramas are a college student or ordinary worker. They have something really attractive that Japanese counterparts don’t,” says Wakai.
The Hollywood writers’ strike in 2007-08 is another factor in the success of American TV shows, says Takeo Itami, a public relations official at Geo Corporation, which operates a major rental DVD shop. “The [movie] vacuum was filled by American TV dramas,” he says.
“I’m so addicted,” says Toshihiko Tsunenaga, a medical school student and big fan of Jack Bauer, the main character in “24.” “I’ve been pretty busy keeping up with them.”
By Takehiko Kambayashi | Correspondent 10.20.09
A local, slice-of-life story from a Monitor correspondent.
The Japanese, perhaps the world’s most avid TV watchers, are getting hooked on American television dramas. Current and past series such as “24,” “Alias,” “Lost,” “Heroes,” “Bones,” “The Closer,” “Prison Break,” and many others have eclipsed their Japanese counterparts and become a large presence in DVD rental stores, the primary way Japanese viewers have access to these shows.
This is bad news for the Japanese television industry, which is suffering as more companies cut advertising in the face of the prolonged economic slump. Last year, even Toyota announced it would slash its advertising by up to 30 percent.
But the biggest problem facing Japanese media is their production of poor-quality and “many harmful and vulgar TV programs,” says Sadahiko Sugaya, chairman of TV Tokyo. More domestic TV viewers are attracted to US products with their unusual plot lines and big-scale productions, says Misako Wakai, who handles foreign dramas at SKY Perfect JSAT Corporation, a digital satellite TV provider. Viewers can choose to watch the American shows dubbed or with subtitles in Japanese.
“Certainly, ‘24’ is a driving force of the boom,” says Ms. Wakai. Another appeal for Japanese viewers: The “lead character [on American shows] has some specific profession such as a CTU [Counter Terrorism Unit] agent in ‘24’ and a forensic anthropologist in ‘Bones,’ while those of Japanese TV dramas are a college student or ordinary worker. They have something really attractive that Japanese counterparts don’t,” says Wakai.
The Hollywood writers’ strike in 2007-08 is another factor in the success of American TV shows, says Takeo Itami, a public relations official at Geo Corporation, which operates a major rental DVD shop. “The [movie] vacuum was filled by American TV dramas,” he says.
“I’m so addicted,” says Toshihiko Tsunenaga, a medical school student and big fan of Jack Bauer, the main character in “24.” “I’ve been pretty busy keeping up with them.”
Japan’s Miss Universe Won’t Wear Kimono Criticized as Obscene
By Masatsugu Horie
July 31 (Bloomberg) -- Japan’s candidate for the 2009 Miss Universe pageant will make adjustments to her costume after the black kimono outfit she had chosen was criticized as too revealing.
“Considering the opinions we got from many supporters and other people concerned, we decided to make the hemline of the costume longer,” IBG Japan, which operates the local Miss Universe contest, said on a posting yesterday on its Web site.
Emiri Miyasaka, a 25-year-old from Tokyo, who won Japan’s preliminary contest in May, disclosed her official costume, created by French designer Ines Ligron and Japan’s Yoshiyuki Ogata, on July 22. The pageant organizer and designers received complaints from more than 2,000 people, including one who said the kimono looked like “something a prostitute might wear,” according to a report today in the Sankei newspaper.
Miss Universe will be chosen in Bahamas on August 23.
To contact the reporter on this story: Masatsugu Horie in Osaka at mhorie3@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: July 31, 2009 05:43 EDT
July 31 (Bloomberg) -- Japan’s candidate for the 2009 Miss Universe pageant will make adjustments to her costume after the black kimono outfit she had chosen was criticized as too revealing.
“Considering the opinions we got from many supporters and other people concerned, we decided to make the hemline of the costume longer,” IBG Japan, which operates the local Miss Universe contest, said on a posting yesterday on its Web site.
Emiri Miyasaka, a 25-year-old from Tokyo, who won Japan’s preliminary contest in May, disclosed her official costume, created by French designer Ines Ligron and Japan’s Yoshiyuki Ogata, on July 22. The pageant organizer and designers received complaints from more than 2,000 people, including one who said the kimono looked like “something a prostitute might wear,” according to a report today in the Sankei newspaper.
Miss Universe will be chosen in Bahamas on August 23.
To contact the reporter on this story: Masatsugu Horie in Osaka at mhorie3@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: July 31, 2009 05:43 EDT
Gaffe-prone Japan PM struggling
By Roland Buerk
BBC News, Tokyo
He put a brave face on it, walking up to the podium and bowing stiffly before he began the news conference.
But even some in his own Liberal Democratic Party fear Japan's Prime Minister, Taro Aso, is leading them to a historic defeat.
He is asking for more time in power. But he began by saying sorry for past mistakes.
"There might have been some inappropriate comments I made that might have led to the lowering of the support of the people of Japan," he said.
"And within our party, the solidarity was lacking and that might have been because of my lack of leadership. And there might have been Japanese people who were not very comfortable about my leadership, and I would like to take this opportunity to apologise."
Mr Aso, who is known for gaffes that have offended people from doctors to the elderly, was speaking after he dissolved the lower house of Japan's Diet, or parliament.
He hopes the general election at the end of August will be about the economy, and security.
He insists he can deliver on both.
Rise from the ashes
But the campaign threatens to be more about whether the Liberal Democratic Party's time is up.
The party has governed Japan for more than half a century, except for a break of less than a year in the early 1990s.
For much of that time the story of Japan was its rise from the ashes of World War II to economic might.
But times have changed.
Japan is now mired in a recession, and that is on top of a decade of stagnation in the 1990s.
"The LDP has nothing to run on, their record is miserable, they've done nothing to alleviate the soaring misery index," says Jeff Kingston of Temple University in Tokyo.
Taro Aso is the third prime minister since the popular Junichiro Koizumi stepped down after winning the last election for the lower house in 2005 on a platform of reform.
"The voters gave Koizumi an overwhelming mandate and they didn't do anything. In the meantime the economy is falling off a cliff and unemployment is soaring," says Jeff Kingston.
Hoping to take power in the next election is Yukio Hatoyama, of the Democratic Party of Japan - like Mr Aso, the heir to a political dynasty.
His grandfather replaced Taro Aso's grandfather as prime minister in the 1950s.
History could be about to repeat itself.
Mr Hatoyama's party is promising reforms, including strengthening social welfare and wrestling control of policy-making from what it says is an over mighty bureaucracy.
The DPJ is well ahead in the opinion polls, and perhaps Taro Aso's greatest hope of surviving in office is if the opposition stumbles before election day.
In May, Ichiro Ozawa stepped down as the leader of the DPJ amid a political fundraising scandal.
His successor - Mr Hatoyama - has already been embarrassed after it emerged some people listed as his donors were dead.
"It would have to be hugely dramatic, something way out of the ordinary to derail the DPJ express," says Jeff Kingston of Temple University.
"The DPJ has a long history of self-inflicted wounds, of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, but it would have to be something truly extraordinary for them to blow it."
Story from BBC NEWS:
Published: 2009/07/21 23:40:31 GMT
© BBC MMIX
BBC News, Tokyo
He put a brave face on it, walking up to the podium and bowing stiffly before he began the news conference.
But even some in his own Liberal Democratic Party fear Japan's Prime Minister, Taro Aso, is leading them to a historic defeat.
He is asking for more time in power. But he began by saying sorry for past mistakes.
"There might have been some inappropriate comments I made that might have led to the lowering of the support of the people of Japan," he said.
"And within our party, the solidarity was lacking and that might have been because of my lack of leadership. And there might have been Japanese people who were not very comfortable about my leadership, and I would like to take this opportunity to apologise."
Mr Aso, who is known for gaffes that have offended people from doctors to the elderly, was speaking after he dissolved the lower house of Japan's Diet, or parliament.
He hopes the general election at the end of August will be about the economy, and security.
He insists he can deliver on both.
Rise from the ashes
But the campaign threatens to be more about whether the Liberal Democratic Party's time is up.
The party has governed Japan for more than half a century, except for a break of less than a year in the early 1990s.
For much of that time the story of Japan was its rise from the ashes of World War II to economic might.
But times have changed.
Japan is now mired in a recession, and that is on top of a decade of stagnation in the 1990s.
"The LDP has nothing to run on, their record is miserable, they've done nothing to alleviate the soaring misery index," says Jeff Kingston of Temple University in Tokyo.
Taro Aso is the third prime minister since the popular Junichiro Koizumi stepped down after winning the last election for the lower house in 2005 on a platform of reform.
"The voters gave Koizumi an overwhelming mandate and they didn't do anything. In the meantime the economy is falling off a cliff and unemployment is soaring," says Jeff Kingston.
Hoping to take power in the next election is Yukio Hatoyama, of the Democratic Party of Japan - like Mr Aso, the heir to a political dynasty.
His grandfather replaced Taro Aso's grandfather as prime minister in the 1950s.
History could be about to repeat itself.
Mr Hatoyama's party is promising reforms, including strengthening social welfare and wrestling control of policy-making from what it says is an over mighty bureaucracy.
The DPJ is well ahead in the opinion polls, and perhaps Taro Aso's greatest hope of surviving in office is if the opposition stumbles before election day.
In May, Ichiro Ozawa stepped down as the leader of the DPJ amid a political fundraising scandal.
His successor - Mr Hatoyama - has already been embarrassed after it emerged some people listed as his donors were dead.
"It would have to be hugely dramatic, something way out of the ordinary to derail the DPJ express," says Jeff Kingston of Temple University.
"The DPJ has a long history of self-inflicted wounds, of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, but it would have to be something truly extraordinary for them to blow it."
Story from BBC NEWS:
Published: 2009/07/21 23:40:31 GMT
© BBC MMIX
Hatoyama faces daunting economic task
By Robin Lustig
BBC News, Tokyo
Not many incoming prime ministers would envy the task facing Yukio Hatoyama, the man who's likely to inherit responsibility for Japan's deep economic crisis after yesterday's historic election.
After more than half a century of virtually uninterrupted rule by the Liberal Democratic Party, now it is the turn of the Democratic Party of Japan to try to find a cure for the country's chronic economic malaise.
Unemployment is at a record level of 5.7%. Consumer prices fell by 2.2% last month, raising fears of a new deflationary spiral, similar to the one which paralysed Japan for much of the 1990s.
Exports, the lifeblood of the Japanese economy, have collapsed - exports to the US were down by 39.5% year-on-year in July; to China down by 26.5%, to the European Union down by 45%.
So how will the new government get the country out of the mess? The Democratic Party says it will cancel unnecessary and costly infrastructure projects, slim down the country's bloated bureaucracy and invest in areas like environmental and medical technology, which party leaders say they have identified as the growth areas of the future.
“ Japan, once the home of the world's most remarkable economic miracle, has embarked on a new, but highly uncertain, chapter in its history ”
But when I met Masao Watanabe, chairman of Japan Pure Chemicals, a small but highly specialised company that develops the chemicals used to coat materials in integrated circuits, he told me he wants the new government to adopt a cautious approach.
Too much change too fast is not what the country needs, he says. Like many Japanese entrepreneurs, he is nervous of what change can mean.
Most of Japan's economic activity is in the hands of men like Mr Watanabe, who run thousands of small and medium-size companies, many of them supplying the needs of the major multi-nationals like Hitachi, Toyota and Sony.
At the electronics giant Panasonic, they are investing heavily in environmental technology, using their know-how to develop what they call an eco-house, which eventually will be able to produce and consume all the energy it needs without contributing to the emission of carbon gases. This, they say, is the future.
Soup kitchens
So Japan is changing. But the change is already leaving thousands of victims in its wake.
Men who once had jobs for life - the "salarymen" whose companies provided for their every need - are now out of work, or on short-term contracts.
I met a 48-year-old former junior manager who lost his job after 18 years with the same company.
He would no give me his name, and he would not be photographed. He has not dared tell his parents or his neighbours that he has no job. Only his wife and son know.
Labourers who built the steel-and-glass high-rise buildings that dominate the Tokyo skyline are now destitute - thousands of them are living on the streets.
At one soup kitchen alone, I saw more than 300 men waiting patiently, sitting cross-legged on the ground, for a local charity to provide their one hot meal of the day: rice and meat, served in plastic bowls.
So the challenge now for the Democratic Party is both to revive the economy and find a way to provide basic welfare benefits for the homeless and unemployed.
Japan's national debt is already approaching 200% of GDP, the highest ratio in the world; borrowing more will not be easy.
The Democratic Party has never served in government before and has yet to spell out how exactly it intends to find the cash to do all the things it has promised to do.
Japan, once the home of the world's most remarkable economic miracle, has embarked on a new, but highly uncertain, chapter in its history.
Robin Lustig has been reporting from Tokyo on the Japanese Election for
Published: 2009/08/31 23:03:43 GMT
© BBC MMIX
BBC News, Tokyo
Not many incoming prime ministers would envy the task facing Yukio Hatoyama, the man who's likely to inherit responsibility for Japan's deep economic crisis after yesterday's historic election.
After more than half a century of virtually uninterrupted rule by the Liberal Democratic Party, now it is the turn of the Democratic Party of Japan to try to find a cure for the country's chronic economic malaise.
Unemployment is at a record level of 5.7%. Consumer prices fell by 2.2% last month, raising fears of a new deflationary spiral, similar to the one which paralysed Japan for much of the 1990s.
Exports, the lifeblood of the Japanese economy, have collapsed - exports to the US were down by 39.5% year-on-year in July; to China down by 26.5%, to the European Union down by 45%.
So how will the new government get the country out of the mess? The Democratic Party says it will cancel unnecessary and costly infrastructure projects, slim down the country's bloated bureaucracy and invest in areas like environmental and medical technology, which party leaders say they have identified as the growth areas of the future.
“ Japan, once the home of the world's most remarkable economic miracle, has embarked on a new, but highly uncertain, chapter in its history ”
But when I met Masao Watanabe, chairman of Japan Pure Chemicals, a small but highly specialised company that develops the chemicals used to coat materials in integrated circuits, he told me he wants the new government to adopt a cautious approach.
Too much change too fast is not what the country needs, he says. Like many Japanese entrepreneurs, he is nervous of what change can mean.
Most of Japan's economic activity is in the hands of men like Mr Watanabe, who run thousands of small and medium-size companies, many of them supplying the needs of the major multi-nationals like Hitachi, Toyota and Sony.
At the electronics giant Panasonic, they are investing heavily in environmental technology, using their know-how to develop what they call an eco-house, which eventually will be able to produce and consume all the energy it needs without contributing to the emission of carbon gases. This, they say, is the future.
Soup kitchens
So Japan is changing. But the change is already leaving thousands of victims in its wake.
Men who once had jobs for life - the "salarymen" whose companies provided for their every need - are now out of work, or on short-term contracts.
I met a 48-year-old former junior manager who lost his job after 18 years with the same company.
He would no give me his name, and he would not be photographed. He has not dared tell his parents or his neighbours that he has no job. Only his wife and son know.
Labourers who built the steel-and-glass high-rise buildings that dominate the Tokyo skyline are now destitute - thousands of them are living on the streets.
At one soup kitchen alone, I saw more than 300 men waiting patiently, sitting cross-legged on the ground, for a local charity to provide their one hot meal of the day: rice and meat, served in plastic bowls.
So the challenge now for the Democratic Party is both to revive the economy and find a way to provide basic welfare benefits for the homeless and unemployed.
Japan's national debt is already approaching 200% of GDP, the highest ratio in the world; borrowing more will not be easy.
The Democratic Party has never served in government before and has yet to spell out how exactly it intends to find the cash to do all the things it has promised to do.
Japan, once the home of the world's most remarkable economic miracle, has embarked on a new, but highly uncertain, chapter in its history.
Robin Lustig has been reporting from Tokyo on the Japanese Election for
Published: 2009/08/31 23:03:43 GMT
© BBC MMIX
Toyota increases hiring in Japan
Toyota is hiring 800 contract workers in Japan, its first increase in jobs in more than a year.
The Japanese carmaker said this was due to higher demand for its Prius petrol-electric hybrid in Japan.
Toyota now employs 1,300 contract workers in Japan, who are distinct from the 70,000 full-time workers that have guaranteed lifetime employment.
Toyota, struggling with the global downturn in auto sales, had stopped employing contractors last June.
The majority start work next month at its Tsutsumi plant in central Japan, which makes the Prius and other models for the Japanese market.
The Prius, launched in 1997, is now in its third generation. By the end of April, Toyota had sold 1,028,000 of the cars worldwide, more than half of them in North America.
At its peak in 2005, Toyota employed over 11,600 contract workers - who are hired for fixed periods of employment.
Weaker data
The announcement came amid data showing Japan has been hit by weaker exports, as overseas markets cut back on buying Japanese items such as cars.
The finance ministry said the surplus in the current account - the broadest measure of trade - fell at an annual rate of 19.4% in July to 1.27tn yen ($13.5bn).
Exports dropped 37.6% from a year earlier to 4.6tn yen.
"Sluggish exports dragged down the surplus," said Hideki Matsumura, an economist at the Japan Research Institute. "Exports were weak in every key region, underlining that a recovery in the global economy has yet to become solid."
Other data showed that Japanese bank lending grew at the slowest pace in a year in the 12 months to August.
Story from BBC NEWS:
Published: 2009/09/08 06:12:48 GMT
© BBC MMIX
The Japanese carmaker said this was due to higher demand for its Prius petrol-electric hybrid in Japan.
Toyota now employs 1,300 contract workers in Japan, who are distinct from the 70,000 full-time workers that have guaranteed lifetime employment.
Toyota, struggling with the global downturn in auto sales, had stopped employing contractors last June.
The majority start work next month at its Tsutsumi plant in central Japan, which makes the Prius and other models for the Japanese market.
The Prius, launched in 1997, is now in its third generation. By the end of April, Toyota had sold 1,028,000 of the cars worldwide, more than half of them in North America.
At its peak in 2005, Toyota employed over 11,600 contract workers - who are hired for fixed periods of employment.
Weaker data
The announcement came amid data showing Japan has been hit by weaker exports, as overseas markets cut back on buying Japanese items such as cars.
The finance ministry said the surplus in the current account - the broadest measure of trade - fell at an annual rate of 19.4% in July to 1.27tn yen ($13.5bn).
Exports dropped 37.6% from a year earlier to 4.6tn yen.
"Sluggish exports dragged down the surplus," said Hideki Matsumura, an economist at the Japan Research Institute. "Exports were weak in every key region, underlining that a recovery in the global economy has yet to become solid."
Other data showed that Japanese bank lending grew at the slowest pace in a year in the 12 months to August.
Story from BBC NEWS:
Published: 2009/09/08 06:12:48 GMT
© BBC MMIX
Japan town continues dolphin hunt
A Japanese coastal town has gone ahead with its annual dolphin hunt, despite protests from animal rights activists.
Fishermen in Taiji caught about 100 bottlenose dolphins and 50 pilot whales - their first catch since the fishing season began on 1 September.
But in what appears to be a concession to international opinion, some of the dolphins will be released rather than killed and sold for meat.
The dolphin hunt was criticised in the recent award-winning film The Cove.
After the film's release earlier this year, the Australian coastal city of Broome ended its sister-city relationship with Taiji.
Way of life
Of the 100 dolphins caught in the hunt, 50 will be sold to aquariums nationwide and the rest will be returned to the ocean, officials from Wakayama prefecture said.
The whale meat will be sold for human consumption.
Hunting dolphins and small whales is legal under the terms of the International Whaling Commission's ban on commercial whaling, but many activists still object to the practice.
Dolphin and whale meat is seen as a delicacy in Japan, and Taiji residents say they have killed them for hundreds of years as part of their fishing lifestyle.
Published: 2009/09/10 07:10:59 GMT
© BBC MMIX
Fishermen in Taiji caught about 100 bottlenose dolphins and 50 pilot whales - their first catch since the fishing season began on 1 September.
But in what appears to be a concession to international opinion, some of the dolphins will be released rather than killed and sold for meat.
The dolphin hunt was criticised in the recent award-winning film The Cove.
After the film's release earlier this year, the Australian coastal city of Broome ended its sister-city relationship with Taiji.
Way of life
Of the 100 dolphins caught in the hunt, 50 will be sold to aquariums nationwide and the rest will be returned to the ocean, officials from Wakayama prefecture said.
The whale meat will be sold for human consumption.
Hunting dolphins and small whales is legal under the terms of the International Whaling Commission's ban on commercial whaling, but many activists still object to the practice.
Dolphin and whale meat is seen as a delicacy in Japan, and Taiji residents say they have killed them for hundreds of years as part of their fishing lifestyle.
Published: 2009/09/10 07:10:59 GMT
© BBC MMIX
Six US deserters at large in Japan: govt
US has asked Japanese authorities to detain them and hand them over.
Fri, Jul 31, 2009
AFP
TOKYO, JAPAN - At least 12 US military personnel have deserted their bases in Japan over the past year and six of them remain at large, a Japanese foreign ministry official said Friday.
'Local police departments are still searching for six of them who are unaccounted for' after leaving their bases since July 2008, the official said.
The United States agreed with Japan last year to disclose information on deserters and has asked Japanese authorities to detain them and hand them over, following a series of crimes involving US military personnel.
On Thursday, a Japanese court sentenced a 23-year-old Nigerian man who served with the US Navy to life in prison for killing a taxi driver last year in Yokosuka, the site of the largest US naval base in Japan, near Tokyo.
The crime was the latest to strain relations between the US military and the communities that host them. The United States has about 47,000 military service members stationed in Japan, and almost as many of their family members.
'The Japanese government is requesting (the United States) to prevent desertions,' Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura told a news conference.
Fri, Jul 31, 2009
AFP
TOKYO, JAPAN - At least 12 US military personnel have deserted their bases in Japan over the past year and six of them remain at large, a Japanese foreign ministry official said Friday.
'Local police departments are still searching for six of them who are unaccounted for' after leaving their bases since July 2008, the official said.
The United States agreed with Japan last year to disclose information on deserters and has asked Japanese authorities to detain them and hand them over, following a series of crimes involving US military personnel.
On Thursday, a Japanese court sentenced a 23-year-old Nigerian man who served with the US Navy to life in prison for killing a taxi driver last year in Yokosuka, the site of the largest US naval base in Japan, near Tokyo.
The crime was the latest to strain relations between the US military and the communities that host them. The United States has about 47,000 military service members stationed in Japan, and almost as many of their family members.
'The Japanese government is requesting (the United States) to prevent desertions,' Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura told a news conference.
Local theaters down, not out in Japan
Groups attempt to fight back against suburban multiplexes.
Sat, Sep 26, 2009
Daily Yomiuri/Asia News Network
By Yoshikazu Suzuki
For many regional cities, the local movie theater has become a thing of the past. But recently there have been moves by many local areas to bring old theaters back to life and hopefully help boost the communities.
Multiplexes housing five or more movie screens have been popping up in cities and suburbs across the country in recent years, helping cause an uneven distribution of movie screens across the country.
According to the 2008 yearbook of movie screenings published by the Japan Community Cinema Center, there were 3,176 screens--excluding adult movie theaters--in 2007, an increase of 350 over the previous survey taken in 2005.
However, 80 percent of these screens were at multiplexes, and the number of movie theaters had actually fallen by 122 to 667.
In 1993, when the nation's first multiplex opened in Kanagawa Prefecture, there were 1,734 movie theaters.
Multiplexes attached to suburban shopping malls, which themselves have accelerated the hollowing out of downtown shopping streets, has spurred the shutdown of conventional movie theaters.
This is particularly conspicuous in Shikoku. In Tokushima Prefecture, five theaters closed between 2005 and 2007, leaving one multiplex in the Tokushima surburbs as the only place in the prefecture where movies can be seen on the big screen. In Kochi Prefecture, there is one multiplex and one theater each in Kochi, which means anyone in the rest of the prefecture who wants to see a movie must head to the city to see it.
In Tokushima there was about one theater screen per 100,000 people in 2007, the highest ratio in the nation. Two years before it was one per 60,000.
In the Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya metropolitan areas, the people-to-screen ratio has been shrinking due to the growth of multiplexes, and currently sits at about 30,000 to 40,000 people per screen.
Yuko Iwasaki, secretary general of the JCCC, is worried about these trends. "In local areas, theaters are concentrated in prefectural capitals with the result being that there are no movie theaters elsewhere," Iwasaki said. "It might be that someday there will emerge generations of people who don't watch movies in theaters."
These problems were discussed at the National Conference of Community Cinemas 2009, which was held on Sept. 4-5 in Kawasaki. Community cinemas is a general term that encompasses local movie theaters that show a variety of famous movies, including classics, nonprofit cultural facilities and other supporting organizations.
About 250 people participated in the conference, including those associated with so-called mini-theaters, which show more independent films not found at multiplexes, and movie theaters operated by nonprofit organizations. Discussions included ways of running movie theaters through the initiative of citizens.
At Kawasaki Art Center, which opened in the spring of 2007, there is a theater owned by the municipal government and operated privately. The staff of the Kawasaki Shinyuri Film Festival, which will be held for the 15th year this autumn, plays a central role in the theater's management.
In central Maebashi, which has many shops that sit empty, Cinema Maebashi will open at the end of next month to take the place of a movie theater that has closed. Cinema Maebashi will be run by the local citizens group Maebashi Geijutsu Shukan.
Takada Nikkatsu, a theater in Joetsu, Niigata Prefecture, was built in the late Meiji era (1868-1912) and has been designated by the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry as a cultural heritage site from the era of industrial modernization. But the facility has succumbed to the ravages of time, and ways to bring it back to life were brought up at the Kawasaki conference. Kenzo Horikoshi, executive director of the JCCC and a professor at Tokyo University of the Arts, called for government assistance to help the Takada Nikkatsu at panel talks including officials from the Cultural Affairs Agency and METI.
"Reviving the movie theater in the town's center is related to the issue of how to preserve the local community," Horikoshi said. "I want the government to think about providing financial assistance after designating the theater as a cultural foundation."
In response to such regional moves, METI has begun assistance measures under the pretext of "promoting the digitalization of screening systems." Revamping regional movie theaters that can attract large crowds will have a ripple effect, helping reinvigorate local shopping streets, one analyst said.
The business map for movie theaters has drastically changed. The gap has widened not only between major urban and local areas but also between capital cities and other municipalities.
Such being the case, it is all the more important for the private and public sectors to cooperate in promoting the health of community cinemas.
Sat, Sep 26, 2009
Daily Yomiuri/Asia News Network
By Yoshikazu Suzuki
For many regional cities, the local movie theater has become a thing of the past. But recently there have been moves by many local areas to bring old theaters back to life and hopefully help boost the communities.
Multiplexes housing five or more movie screens have been popping up in cities and suburbs across the country in recent years, helping cause an uneven distribution of movie screens across the country.
According to the 2008 yearbook of movie screenings published by the Japan Community Cinema Center, there were 3,176 screens--excluding adult movie theaters--in 2007, an increase of 350 over the previous survey taken in 2005.
However, 80 percent of these screens were at multiplexes, and the number of movie theaters had actually fallen by 122 to 667.
In 1993, when the nation's first multiplex opened in Kanagawa Prefecture, there were 1,734 movie theaters.
Multiplexes attached to suburban shopping malls, which themselves have accelerated the hollowing out of downtown shopping streets, has spurred the shutdown of conventional movie theaters.
This is particularly conspicuous in Shikoku. In Tokushima Prefecture, five theaters closed between 2005 and 2007, leaving one multiplex in the Tokushima surburbs as the only place in the prefecture where movies can be seen on the big screen. In Kochi Prefecture, there is one multiplex and one theater each in Kochi, which means anyone in the rest of the prefecture who wants to see a movie must head to the city to see it.
In Tokushima there was about one theater screen per 100,000 people in 2007, the highest ratio in the nation. Two years before it was one per 60,000.
In the Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya metropolitan areas, the people-to-screen ratio has been shrinking due to the growth of multiplexes, and currently sits at about 30,000 to 40,000 people per screen.
Yuko Iwasaki, secretary general of the JCCC, is worried about these trends. "In local areas, theaters are concentrated in prefectural capitals with the result being that there are no movie theaters elsewhere," Iwasaki said. "It might be that someday there will emerge generations of people who don't watch movies in theaters."
These problems were discussed at the National Conference of Community Cinemas 2009, which was held on Sept. 4-5 in Kawasaki. Community cinemas is a general term that encompasses local movie theaters that show a variety of famous movies, including classics, nonprofit cultural facilities and other supporting organizations.
About 250 people participated in the conference, including those associated with so-called mini-theaters, which show more independent films not found at multiplexes, and movie theaters operated by nonprofit organizations. Discussions included ways of running movie theaters through the initiative of citizens.
At Kawasaki Art Center, which opened in the spring of 2007, there is a theater owned by the municipal government and operated privately. The staff of the Kawasaki Shinyuri Film Festival, which will be held for the 15th year this autumn, plays a central role in the theater's management.
In central Maebashi, which has many shops that sit empty, Cinema Maebashi will open at the end of next month to take the place of a movie theater that has closed. Cinema Maebashi will be run by the local citizens group Maebashi Geijutsu Shukan.
Takada Nikkatsu, a theater in Joetsu, Niigata Prefecture, was built in the late Meiji era (1868-1912) and has been designated by the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry as a cultural heritage site from the era of industrial modernization. But the facility has succumbed to the ravages of time, and ways to bring it back to life were brought up at the Kawasaki conference. Kenzo Horikoshi, executive director of the JCCC and a professor at Tokyo University of the Arts, called for government assistance to help the Takada Nikkatsu at panel talks including officials from the Cultural Affairs Agency and METI.
"Reviving the movie theater in the town's center is related to the issue of how to preserve the local community," Horikoshi said. "I want the government to think about providing financial assistance after designating the theater as a cultural foundation."
In response to such regional moves, METI has begun assistance measures under the pretext of "promoting the digitalization of screening systems." Revamping regional movie theaters that can attract large crowds will have a ripple effect, helping reinvigorate local shopping streets, one analyst said.
The business map for movie theaters has drastically changed. The gap has widened not only between major urban and local areas but also between capital cities and other municipalities.
Such being the case, it is all the more important for the private and public sectors to cooperate in promoting the health of community cinemas.
N. Korea revives drive to scrap Japanese cars
The drive was launched in 2007 but later suspended because most cars in N. Korea are Japanese made.
Mon, Oct 12, 2009
AFP
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA (AFP) - North Korea has revived a campaign to ban Japanese cars from its roads, apparently reflecting strained relations between the two nations, a South Korean welfare group said Monday.
The drive was launched in 2007 but later suspended because about 70 percent of cars in the communist country are Japanese, said Good Friends, which works in North Korea.
The group said Pyongyang revived the campaign in June, instructing provincial prosecutors to check for Japanese vehicles in each factory and public enterprise and to report their findings.
The new campaign calls for the elimination of Japanese vehicles by October 8, 2011, with the exception of heavy-duty trucks, it said.
Between July and August, prosecutors in the northern border city of Hyesan dumped 49 Japanese vehicles including ten cars, the group said.
Pyongyang might have stopped the campaign in 2007 "because most cars used by party and government officials are Japanese," Lee Seung-Yong, director of Good Friends, told AFP.
The new campaign reflects the nations' current state of relations, he said.
Yonhap news agency reported in early 2007 that North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il ordered the seizure of all Japanese cars after he spotted a broken-down model blocking a road.
The order might be connected to Japan's push for sanctions against Pyongyang following its first nuclear test in 2006, it said at the time.
Japan intensified pressure after the North's second nuclear test and missile launches. In June, it imposed a total ban on exports.
Mon, Oct 12, 2009
AFP
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA (AFP) - North Korea has revived a campaign to ban Japanese cars from its roads, apparently reflecting strained relations between the two nations, a South Korean welfare group said Monday.
The drive was launched in 2007 but later suspended because about 70 percent of cars in the communist country are Japanese, said Good Friends, which works in North Korea.
The group said Pyongyang revived the campaign in June, instructing provincial prosecutors to check for Japanese vehicles in each factory and public enterprise and to report their findings.
The new campaign calls for the elimination of Japanese vehicles by October 8, 2011, with the exception of heavy-duty trucks, it said.
Between July and August, prosecutors in the northern border city of Hyesan dumped 49 Japanese vehicles including ten cars, the group said.
Pyongyang might have stopped the campaign in 2007 "because most cars used by party and government officials are Japanese," Lee Seung-Yong, director of Good Friends, told AFP.
The new campaign reflects the nations' current state of relations, he said.
Yonhap news agency reported in early 2007 that North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il ordered the seizure of all Japanese cars after he spotted a broken-down model blocking a road.
The order might be connected to Japan's push for sanctions against Pyongyang following its first nuclear test in 2006, it said at the time.
Japan intensified pressure after the North's second nuclear test and missile launches. In June, it imposed a total ban on exports.
Japan emperor should be able share his thoughts, says FM
His prepared messages have been almost identical every time. -AFP
Fri, Oct 23, 2009
AFP
TOKYO - Japan's Emperor Akihito should be able to speak his mind rather than read from a bureaucrat's prepared script when he next opens parliament, Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada suggested Friday.
Okada told fellow cabinet ministers at an informal meeting that he wonders "whether we can make efforts to have the wording reflect the emperor's thoughts, even if it's just a little bit."
The 75-year-old opens sessions of the Diet legislature, but his prepared messages have been almost identical every time, Okada told reporters later, acknowledging that Akihito under the constitution must steer clear of politics.
The Chrysanthemum Throne, the world's oldest monarchy, has changed along with the times as Japan has emerged from the aftermath of World War II and US occupation to become Asia's economic powerhouse.
Akihito's father, Hirohito, was once worshipped as a living demigod and only renounced his divinity after Japan's surrender in the war.
The post-war constitution stipulates the emperor is "the symbol of the state" and the unity of the people and shall not be involved in politics.
Under a decades-long custom, the emperor attends the opening ceremonies of parliamentary sessions and delivers a short message prepared for him by the Cabinet Office and approved by the government.
His messages have hardly varied. Emperor Akihito said he hopes parliament "will perform its duty fully and live up to the confidence from the people" at sessions that opened in January and September this year.
Fri, Oct 23, 2009
AFP
TOKYO - Japan's Emperor Akihito should be able to speak his mind rather than read from a bureaucrat's prepared script when he next opens parliament, Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada suggested Friday.
Okada told fellow cabinet ministers at an informal meeting that he wonders "whether we can make efforts to have the wording reflect the emperor's thoughts, even if it's just a little bit."
The 75-year-old opens sessions of the Diet legislature, but his prepared messages have been almost identical every time, Okada told reporters later, acknowledging that Akihito under the constitution must steer clear of politics.
The Chrysanthemum Throne, the world's oldest monarchy, has changed along with the times as Japan has emerged from the aftermath of World War II and US occupation to become Asia's economic powerhouse.
Akihito's father, Hirohito, was once worshipped as a living demigod and only renounced his divinity after Japan's surrender in the war.
The post-war constitution stipulates the emperor is "the symbol of the state" and the unity of the people and shall not be involved in politics.
Under a decades-long custom, the emperor attends the opening ceremonies of parliamentary sessions and delivers a short message prepared for him by the Cabinet Office and approved by the government.
His messages have hardly varied. Emperor Akihito said he hopes parliament "will perform its duty fully and live up to the confidence from the people" at sessions that opened in January and September this year.
Japan continues to execute mentally ill prisoners
10 September 2009
The government of Japan continues to execute prisoners who are mentally ill, according to a new Amnesty International report.
Hanging by a thread: mental health and the death penalty in Japan highlights five cases where mental illness has been reported, including two cases with extensive medical documentation. These prisoners remain on death row facing execution.
The exact number of death row prisoners with mental illness is unknown. The secrecy around the death penalty and prisoners' health, combined with a lack of scrutiny by independent mental health experts, has led to reliance on secondary testimony and documentation to assess the mental state of those on death row.
The government has a policy of not allowing access to prisoners on death row and denied Amnesty International’s request for access.
Amnesty International’s report also emphasises that prison conditions need to be improved to prevent inmates from developing serious mental health problems while on death row.
Japan has signed up to international standards that require that those with a serious mental illness be protected from the death penalty. The country is contravening those standards by its failure to prevent the execution of prisoners who are mentally ill.
As of 3 September 2009, 102 people are on death row in Japan waiting to find out if their government will put them to death. For those who have completed the legal process, death could come at a few hours' notice. Each day could be their last.
The arrival of a prison officer with a death warrant would signal their execution within hours. Some live like this year after year, sometimes for decades.
"To allow a prisoner to live for prolonged periods under the daily threat of imminent death is cruel, inhuman and degrading," said James Welsh, Amnesty International’s Health Coordinator and lead author of the report. "Amnesty International’s studies around the world have shown that those suffering mental health problems are at particular risk of ending up on death row.
"Mental disorders can give rise to crimes, impair the ability of a defendant to participate in an effective legal defence, and are likely to play a significant role in the decision of prisoners to terminate appeals. In Japan, condemned inmates are also at risk of developing a serious mental illness while on death row."
According to the report, Japan is breaching its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in its treatment of prisoners on death row. Conditions in prisons are harsh and prisoners on death row are especially vulnerable to developing mental health problems due to being imprisoned in isolation with little human contact.
Amnesty International is concerned that prisoners are not allowed to talk to one another – a restriction enforced by strict isolation. Contact with family members, lawyers and others can be restricted to as little as five minutes at a time.
Apart from visits to the toilet, prisoners are not allowed to move around the cell and must remain seated. Death row prisoners are less likely than other prisoners to have access to fresh air and light and more likely to suffer additional punishments because of behaviour that may infringe the strict rules imposed on them.
"These inhuman conditions increase a prisoner’s anxiety and anguish and in many cases push prisoners over the edge and into a state of mental illness," said James Welsh.
The report calls on the government of Japan to establish a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty. It also urges the government of Japan to review all cases where mental illness may be a relevant factor, to ensure that prisoners with mental illness are not executed and to improve conditions for prisoners so that prisoners will not suffer declining mental health or the development of serious mental illness.
The government of Japan continues to execute prisoners who are mentally ill, according to a new Amnesty International report.
Hanging by a thread: mental health and the death penalty in Japan highlights five cases where mental illness has been reported, including two cases with extensive medical documentation. These prisoners remain on death row facing execution.
The exact number of death row prisoners with mental illness is unknown. The secrecy around the death penalty and prisoners' health, combined with a lack of scrutiny by independent mental health experts, has led to reliance on secondary testimony and documentation to assess the mental state of those on death row.
The government has a policy of not allowing access to prisoners on death row and denied Amnesty International’s request for access.
Amnesty International’s report also emphasises that prison conditions need to be improved to prevent inmates from developing serious mental health problems while on death row.
Japan has signed up to international standards that require that those with a serious mental illness be protected from the death penalty. The country is contravening those standards by its failure to prevent the execution of prisoners who are mentally ill.
As of 3 September 2009, 102 people are on death row in Japan waiting to find out if their government will put them to death. For those who have completed the legal process, death could come at a few hours' notice. Each day could be their last.
The arrival of a prison officer with a death warrant would signal their execution within hours. Some live like this year after year, sometimes for decades.
"To allow a prisoner to live for prolonged periods under the daily threat of imminent death is cruel, inhuman and degrading," said James Welsh, Amnesty International’s Health Coordinator and lead author of the report. "Amnesty International’s studies around the world have shown that those suffering mental health problems are at particular risk of ending up on death row.
"Mental disorders can give rise to crimes, impair the ability of a defendant to participate in an effective legal defence, and are likely to play a significant role in the decision of prisoners to terminate appeals. In Japan, condemned inmates are also at risk of developing a serious mental illness while on death row."
According to the report, Japan is breaching its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in its treatment of prisoners on death row. Conditions in prisons are harsh and prisoners on death row are especially vulnerable to developing mental health problems due to being imprisoned in isolation with little human contact.
Amnesty International is concerned that prisoners are not allowed to talk to one another – a restriction enforced by strict isolation. Contact with family members, lawyers and others can be restricted to as little as five minutes at a time.
Apart from visits to the toilet, prisoners are not allowed to move around the cell and must remain seated. Death row prisoners are less likely than other prisoners to have access to fresh air and light and more likely to suffer additional punishments because of behaviour that may infringe the strict rules imposed on them.
"These inhuman conditions increase a prisoner’s anxiety and anguish and in many cases push prisoners over the edge and into a state of mental illness," said James Welsh.
The report calls on the government of Japan to establish a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty. It also urges the government of Japan to review all cases where mental illness may be a relevant factor, to ensure that prisoners with mental illness are not executed and to improve conditions for prisoners so that prisoners will not suffer declining mental health or the development of serious mental illness.
Japan Is Fading
One thing the nation's next leaders don't talk about is growth.
By Rana Foroohar | NEWSWEEK
Published Aug 15, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Aug 31, 2009
Japan is heading into a landmark election in a state of freefall. Stagnant since the early 1990s, Japan's economy fell off a cliff in the last quarter, dropping 15.2 percent in the worst collapse of any industrial nation in decades. Automakers—Toyota, Nissan, and Honda, once the heart of the Japanese industrial miracle—saw exports fall 70 percent in April, and were forced to shutter factories to clear inventory. Since pocketbook issues decide elections, it's not surprising that Japanese voters appeared poised to toss out the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), only the second time it has lost power in half a century.
Meanwhile, China is launching direct challenges to Japan's position as the leading economy in Asia. Beijing recently launched an official campaign to build a green car industry, a field in which Japan still holds a commanding lead. Some Japan watchers compare China's green car project to Sputnik, the Soviet satellite that trumped American preeminence in science and technology in the 1950s. Just as alarming, China has been making noises about replacing the dollar as the sole international reserve currency, and has begun conducting regional financing deals in Chinese yuan instead, a push Japanese officials see as a direct threat to the yen as well. "It brought home the fact that the yen is not used in this way by others," notes Yasuo Ota, an editorial writer for Nikkei. The worry grew in July, when top Chinese officials flew to Washington, D.C., to continue their high-level "strategic dialogue": "That caused concern, because the Japanese feel that we need to be involved in any conversation about security in the region," notes Shinzo Kobori of the Institute for International Policy Studies in Tokyo.
So Japan is preparing to usher in a new government against a backdrop of worry that the nation is already Asia's political and economic also-ran, prematurely playing No. 2 to China. It's all happened fast. When this decade opened, Japan's economy was still almost four times the size of China's, but in recent years China looked set to surpass Japan by 2010 or shortly thereafter. Now, with China still growing at 8 percent a year and Japan shrinking, commentators in Japan have been forced to admit that the switch will likely come even sooner. "It's nonsense for us to continue talking about competing with China [for sole leadership in Asia] when their economy will surpass ours by next year," says Kobori, echoing the sentiments of other academics, writers, intellectuals, and even younger politicians within Japan.
There's a growing, reluctant consensus that Japan will have to find a new role. From the Meiji Restoration—the great flowering of Japanese innovation and reform in the 1860s—until recently, Japan "had basically one goal: catch up with the West and be accepted as a great power. They achieved that in the '80s, but they've never figured out what to do for an encore," says Columbia professor and Japan expert Gerald Curtis. "Japan today is a tired country." The old model—work hard and save to finance exports to the West—is clearly broken. (The other top developed export power, Germany, has also been particularly hard hit by the global recession, as all the rich consuming nations of the West enter what looks to be a long period of slow growth and weak demand.) With Asia emerging as "the center of the global economy, its new growth engine, Japan now has to figure out how to put itself at the center of that center," says Curtis.
The opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) clearly sees Japan as a regional Asian power, and no longer a nation tied only to the West. DPJ leader Yukio Hatoyama has denounced the global free-market consensus, of which Japan was once a happy member, blaming "globalism" and "U.S.-led free-market fundamentalism" for the current crisis. His vision amounts to a retreat inward, beefing up "fraternity" at home with a stronger welfare state, and more generous pensions and child support, while refocusing Japan's trade and investment strategies on East Asia. Alarmingly, however, the DPJ manifesto did not even mention "growth" until it was attacked by the LDP, suggesting that the DPJ doesn't quite get its predicament. Maintaining Japan's comfortable standard of living won't be possible without growth.
American and Japanese intellectuals have compared Japan's new position to Canada's, or Switzerland's—rich, content powers that have learned to thrive alongside giant neighbors. The problem, says MIT Japan expert Richard Samuels, is that it would be a painful "deep dive" for Japan to go the way of Canada, which has an economy more than three times smaller, and smoother relations with the U.S. than Japan has with China. The Asian powers have a rough history dating to the Japanese occupation of China in World War II, and often competing interests in trade and security. Japan is still protected by the U.S. nuclear umbrella, now primarily against possible future threats from China.
Others have suggested that a more fitting model could be found in France, the wealthy co-leader with Germany of a powerful regional bloc. Japan and China might play this role together in Asia. The DPJ has even proposed French-style child subsidies to boost the country's birthrate, which would revive some of the economic dynamism Japan has lost as a result of having the world's most rapidly aging population. Of course, the EU started as the European Coal and Steel Community, a postwar French-German alliance to share resources; China and Japan are still fighting over offshore oil rights and atrocities from World War II. The huge gap in average yearly incomes—$34,080 in Japan and $2,000 in China—will make it difficult for them to work together as regional leaders, the way Germany and France do.
Yet the benefits of an aggressive regional strategy are clear—France, for example, has boosted its per capita income by 42 percent since the formation of the European Union in 1993, and no one doubts that it has gained greatly by leveraging the common market. Japan could do the same. Goldman Sachs predicts that the major emerging markets, led by China and India, will overtake the combined GDP of the G7 by 2027, a decade faster than previously thought. By 2010 China will account for an amazing 30 percent of global consumption growth, more than the G3 and double that of the U.S. The Japanese, who have hitherto focused more on economic ties to the U.S. and Europe, are slowly beginning to realize that they would do well to ride this train.
Growth is imperative, whether the DPJ acknowledges it or not. Economists often talk about how the Japanese need to boost domestic consumption, which has been flat for a decade, to make up for falling exports. But the domestic market is shrinking. The population peaked in 2004 at 128 million, and is projected to fall to 90 million by 2055. The ratio of working-age to elderly Japanese fell from 8:1 in 1975 to about 3:1 in 2005, and will probably shrivel to about 1.3:1 in 2055. This means "there is no viable model for increasing domestic consumption [to the extent needed]," says Kobori. The Japanese are currently putting 5 percent of their GDP into fiscal stimulus, and still nothing is happening. America is putting 2 percent in, and is now in recovery. "What we need is a new model based on more regional integration," says Kobori. "If we can't find that model, we are in trouble."
Japanese businesspeople are hunting for one: on a recent visit to top companies in Japan, Curtis found executives talking less about naiju (domestic demand) than about jun-naiju (pseudo–domestic demand), a new phrase that means demand in the home region of Asia. "The idea is to integrate Japan into the heart of this new and growing Asian 'domestic' market, not only by selling to middle-class Chinese and Southeast Asians, but also by increasing Japanese investment in Asian companies; further liberalizing import and export markets, particularly in very closed areas like agriculture; and working more closely with China and other less-developed countries in areas like the environment, technology, and energy," says Curtis.
In recent years, trade flows to China in particular have increased rapidly; in 2000 exports to the U.S. from Japan were about five times those to China; now the figures are nearly equal (though it's important to note that most of what goes to China are high-tech components for assembly versus finished goods). Flows could be further increased if Japan would dismantle trade barriers and encourage more export of, for example, expensive luxury agricultural products like its very high-quality rice to Asia's nouveau riche, while allowing penny-pinching Mrs. Watanabes at home to buy more cheap, mass-produced foods from China. Ultimately, trade in finished goods will rise, too. Manufacturers are starting to focus more research and marketing dollars on Asian consumers rather than Western ones in order to boost regional exports of Japan's upscale cars and consumer goods. The DPJ platform calls for an increase in aid to develop Asia as a way of helping bolster those middle-class consumers.
In other ways, Japan is still strikingly Western-oriented. It is typically one of the top four investors in China, yet it still sends nearly three times more of its direct investment in factories and companies to the United States. Experts say Japan tends to pigeonhole China as a place for low-end outsourcing, and is particularly fearful of intellectual-property theft in China because relatively high-cost Japanese manufacturers lose everything if their ideas are stolen. Stronger protections against intellectual-property pirates could yield all kinds of collaboration, even a world-beating green car capital of the world run by Japan and China, Japan market analysts say.
Closer ties to China require some semblance of trust. There are positive signs. DJP leaders have said they would not continue visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, a bone of contention because Japanese war criminals are buried there alongside regular World War II soldiers. And the two countries recently struck a deal to strengthen Asian currency reserves—putting equal amounts of yen and yuan into the reserve pot, underscoring a joint commitment in Asia. Peter Petri, a senior fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu, calls this deal "a very important event" that says "we're in this together, and even though the future is that China will be the dominant economy, Japan has a lot to contribute, too."
For Japan, Asian development must mean more than tighter economic relations with the Middle Kingdom. Japanese officials and companies are looking to strengthen ties with Australia, India, and Southeast Asia. The only high-profile Japanese corporate acquisition in Asia recently was Daiichi Sankyo's purchase of the Indian drugmaker Ranbaxy, and India has replaced China as the No. 1 destination for Japanese aid money. Japanese aid to ASEAN countries is growing, too. "The Japanese are increasingly going to invest in India, Vietnam, and Indonesia to balance the growth of China," says Michael Green, the Japan chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He also notes that the Japanese lobbied hard to include India, Australia, and New Zealand in the East Asian summit, first held in 2005, in order to "buffer Chinese influence."
Tokyo's new focus on Asia could, conceivably, restore its image as a power in the world. To become "the center of the center of global growth," as Curtis puts it, would make Japan more central to global diplomacy and politics as well. Closer ties to China could set up Japan as more of a buffer between the U.S. and China, and less of a protectorate of the United States. It could make Japan more of a major player in multilateral diplomacy, and less of a junior partner in a special relationship with the United States. "You can see Japan making a broader strategic outreach with new bilateral security agreements reached with Australia and India," and in the June meeting of defense ministers from the U.S., Japan, and South Korea, notes Green. But Japan has always been a one-dimensional economic power and, to regain global clout, it needs a return to real world-leading growth. That's not what Japan's next governors—whether from the LDP or the DPJ—are talking about. They dream of middle-power models, at most.
By Rana Foroohar | NEWSWEEK
Published Aug 15, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Aug 31, 2009
Japan is heading into a landmark election in a state of freefall. Stagnant since the early 1990s, Japan's economy fell off a cliff in the last quarter, dropping 15.2 percent in the worst collapse of any industrial nation in decades. Automakers—Toyota, Nissan, and Honda, once the heart of the Japanese industrial miracle—saw exports fall 70 percent in April, and were forced to shutter factories to clear inventory. Since pocketbook issues decide elections, it's not surprising that Japanese voters appeared poised to toss out the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), only the second time it has lost power in half a century.
Meanwhile, China is launching direct challenges to Japan's position as the leading economy in Asia. Beijing recently launched an official campaign to build a green car industry, a field in which Japan still holds a commanding lead. Some Japan watchers compare China's green car project to Sputnik, the Soviet satellite that trumped American preeminence in science and technology in the 1950s. Just as alarming, China has been making noises about replacing the dollar as the sole international reserve currency, and has begun conducting regional financing deals in Chinese yuan instead, a push Japanese officials see as a direct threat to the yen as well. "It brought home the fact that the yen is not used in this way by others," notes Yasuo Ota, an editorial writer for Nikkei. The worry grew in July, when top Chinese officials flew to Washington, D.C., to continue their high-level "strategic dialogue": "That caused concern, because the Japanese feel that we need to be involved in any conversation about security in the region," notes Shinzo Kobori of the Institute for International Policy Studies in Tokyo.
So Japan is preparing to usher in a new government against a backdrop of worry that the nation is already Asia's political and economic also-ran, prematurely playing No. 2 to China. It's all happened fast. When this decade opened, Japan's economy was still almost four times the size of China's, but in recent years China looked set to surpass Japan by 2010 or shortly thereafter. Now, with China still growing at 8 percent a year and Japan shrinking, commentators in Japan have been forced to admit that the switch will likely come even sooner. "It's nonsense for us to continue talking about competing with China [for sole leadership in Asia] when their economy will surpass ours by next year," says Kobori, echoing the sentiments of other academics, writers, intellectuals, and even younger politicians within Japan.
There's a growing, reluctant consensus that Japan will have to find a new role. From the Meiji Restoration—the great flowering of Japanese innovation and reform in the 1860s—until recently, Japan "had basically one goal: catch up with the West and be accepted as a great power. They achieved that in the '80s, but they've never figured out what to do for an encore," says Columbia professor and Japan expert Gerald Curtis. "Japan today is a tired country." The old model—work hard and save to finance exports to the West—is clearly broken. (The other top developed export power, Germany, has also been particularly hard hit by the global recession, as all the rich consuming nations of the West enter what looks to be a long period of slow growth and weak demand.) With Asia emerging as "the center of the global economy, its new growth engine, Japan now has to figure out how to put itself at the center of that center," says Curtis.
The opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) clearly sees Japan as a regional Asian power, and no longer a nation tied only to the West. DPJ leader Yukio Hatoyama has denounced the global free-market consensus, of which Japan was once a happy member, blaming "globalism" and "U.S.-led free-market fundamentalism" for the current crisis. His vision amounts to a retreat inward, beefing up "fraternity" at home with a stronger welfare state, and more generous pensions and child support, while refocusing Japan's trade and investment strategies on East Asia. Alarmingly, however, the DPJ manifesto did not even mention "growth" until it was attacked by the LDP, suggesting that the DPJ doesn't quite get its predicament. Maintaining Japan's comfortable standard of living won't be possible without growth.
American and Japanese intellectuals have compared Japan's new position to Canada's, or Switzerland's—rich, content powers that have learned to thrive alongside giant neighbors. The problem, says MIT Japan expert Richard Samuels, is that it would be a painful "deep dive" for Japan to go the way of Canada, which has an economy more than three times smaller, and smoother relations with the U.S. than Japan has with China. The Asian powers have a rough history dating to the Japanese occupation of China in World War II, and often competing interests in trade and security. Japan is still protected by the U.S. nuclear umbrella, now primarily against possible future threats from China.
Others have suggested that a more fitting model could be found in France, the wealthy co-leader with Germany of a powerful regional bloc. Japan and China might play this role together in Asia. The DPJ has even proposed French-style child subsidies to boost the country's birthrate, which would revive some of the economic dynamism Japan has lost as a result of having the world's most rapidly aging population. Of course, the EU started as the European Coal and Steel Community, a postwar French-German alliance to share resources; China and Japan are still fighting over offshore oil rights and atrocities from World War II. The huge gap in average yearly incomes—$34,080 in Japan and $2,000 in China—will make it difficult for them to work together as regional leaders, the way Germany and France do.
Yet the benefits of an aggressive regional strategy are clear—France, for example, has boosted its per capita income by 42 percent since the formation of the European Union in 1993, and no one doubts that it has gained greatly by leveraging the common market. Japan could do the same. Goldman Sachs predicts that the major emerging markets, led by China and India, will overtake the combined GDP of the G7 by 2027, a decade faster than previously thought. By 2010 China will account for an amazing 30 percent of global consumption growth, more than the G3 and double that of the U.S. The Japanese, who have hitherto focused more on economic ties to the U.S. and Europe, are slowly beginning to realize that they would do well to ride this train.
Growth is imperative, whether the DPJ acknowledges it or not. Economists often talk about how the Japanese need to boost domestic consumption, which has been flat for a decade, to make up for falling exports. But the domestic market is shrinking. The population peaked in 2004 at 128 million, and is projected to fall to 90 million by 2055. The ratio of working-age to elderly Japanese fell from 8:1 in 1975 to about 3:1 in 2005, and will probably shrivel to about 1.3:1 in 2055. This means "there is no viable model for increasing domestic consumption [to the extent needed]," says Kobori. The Japanese are currently putting 5 percent of their GDP into fiscal stimulus, and still nothing is happening. America is putting 2 percent in, and is now in recovery. "What we need is a new model based on more regional integration," says Kobori. "If we can't find that model, we are in trouble."
Japanese businesspeople are hunting for one: on a recent visit to top companies in Japan, Curtis found executives talking less about naiju (domestic demand) than about jun-naiju (pseudo–domestic demand), a new phrase that means demand in the home region of Asia. "The idea is to integrate Japan into the heart of this new and growing Asian 'domestic' market, not only by selling to middle-class Chinese and Southeast Asians, but also by increasing Japanese investment in Asian companies; further liberalizing import and export markets, particularly in very closed areas like agriculture; and working more closely with China and other less-developed countries in areas like the environment, technology, and energy," says Curtis.
In recent years, trade flows to China in particular have increased rapidly; in 2000 exports to the U.S. from Japan were about five times those to China; now the figures are nearly equal (though it's important to note that most of what goes to China are high-tech components for assembly versus finished goods). Flows could be further increased if Japan would dismantle trade barriers and encourage more export of, for example, expensive luxury agricultural products like its very high-quality rice to Asia's nouveau riche, while allowing penny-pinching Mrs. Watanabes at home to buy more cheap, mass-produced foods from China. Ultimately, trade in finished goods will rise, too. Manufacturers are starting to focus more research and marketing dollars on Asian consumers rather than Western ones in order to boost regional exports of Japan's upscale cars and consumer goods. The DPJ platform calls for an increase in aid to develop Asia as a way of helping bolster those middle-class consumers.
In other ways, Japan is still strikingly Western-oriented. It is typically one of the top four investors in China, yet it still sends nearly three times more of its direct investment in factories and companies to the United States. Experts say Japan tends to pigeonhole China as a place for low-end outsourcing, and is particularly fearful of intellectual-property theft in China because relatively high-cost Japanese manufacturers lose everything if their ideas are stolen. Stronger protections against intellectual-property pirates could yield all kinds of collaboration, even a world-beating green car capital of the world run by Japan and China, Japan market analysts say.
Closer ties to China require some semblance of trust. There are positive signs. DJP leaders have said they would not continue visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, a bone of contention because Japanese war criminals are buried there alongside regular World War II soldiers. And the two countries recently struck a deal to strengthen Asian currency reserves—putting equal amounts of yen and yuan into the reserve pot, underscoring a joint commitment in Asia. Peter Petri, a senior fellow at the East-West Center in Honolulu, calls this deal "a very important event" that says "we're in this together, and even though the future is that China will be the dominant economy, Japan has a lot to contribute, too."
For Japan, Asian development must mean more than tighter economic relations with the Middle Kingdom. Japanese officials and companies are looking to strengthen ties with Australia, India, and Southeast Asia. The only high-profile Japanese corporate acquisition in Asia recently was Daiichi Sankyo's purchase of the Indian drugmaker Ranbaxy, and India has replaced China as the No. 1 destination for Japanese aid money. Japanese aid to ASEAN countries is growing, too. "The Japanese are increasingly going to invest in India, Vietnam, and Indonesia to balance the growth of China," says Michael Green, the Japan chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He also notes that the Japanese lobbied hard to include India, Australia, and New Zealand in the East Asian summit, first held in 2005, in order to "buffer Chinese influence."
Tokyo's new focus on Asia could, conceivably, restore its image as a power in the world. To become "the center of the center of global growth," as Curtis puts it, would make Japan more central to global diplomacy and politics as well. Closer ties to China could set up Japan as more of a buffer between the U.S. and China, and less of a protectorate of the United States. It could make Japan more of a major player in multilateral diplomacy, and less of a junior partner in a special relationship with the United States. "You can see Japan making a broader strategic outreach with new bilateral security agreements reached with Australia and India," and in the June meeting of defense ministers from the U.S., Japan, and South Korea, notes Green. But Japan has always been a one-dimensional economic power and, to regain global clout, it needs a return to real world-leading growth. That's not what Japan's next governors—whether from the LDP or the DPJ—are talking about. They dream of middle-power models, at most.
The Rise of the Opposition
How did Tokyo's new ruling party come to power?
By Jayshree Bajoria, Council on Foreign Relations
Sep 2, 2009
The Democratic Party of Japan's (DPJ) landslide victory in August served as a watershed moment in the country's electoral politics. Japan, a parliamentary democracy, had been dominated by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), governing by itself or in coalition with others for nearly all of the past half century. But the falling popularity of the LDP, an economy in decline, and growing public dissatisfaction with politics gave a historic opportunity to the opposition. The DPJ had gained a majority in the upper house of the Diet (Parliament) in 2007 and had since emerged as a viable alternative to the LDP. This political change in Tokyo could have repercussions for the U.S.-Japan alliance, especially on matters of security. Washington has often stressed that Japan—a major military, economic, and political ally—is a cornerstone in U.S. foreign policy in the region. Analysts say Washington will have to change the way it deals with Japan.
Single-Party Dominance: The '1955 System'
Post-World War II Japan experienced a decade of contentious politics. In 1955, amid a society and polity marked by ideological divisions, the conservative, liberal, and democratic parties united to form the Liberal Democratic Party. This was the emergence of decades-long, single-party dominance, and what many Japan specialists call the "1955 system." Gerald L. Curtis, a Columbia University professor, notes in the 1999 book The Logic of Japanese Politicsthat there were four pillars of policymaking supporting the 1955 system. Besides one-party dominance, he says the other pillars were public consensus in support of policies to achieve a goal of catching up with the West; large interest groups with links to the political parties; and a bureaucracy of immense prestige and power.
The LDP was initially supported by farmers, merchants, and small business owners. But by the end of the 1970s, Curtis writes, it "had successfully transformed itself from a traditional conservative party into a modern catchall party," drawing support from all social strata. He explains the LDP drew popular support by emphasizing themes of economic recovery, rapid industrial growth, and " 'GNPism'—an ideology that focused on aggregate national indicators of economic progress, on the gross national product."
In 1993, the LDP lost power to an eight-party coalition, only to return to power less than a year later in coalition with the Japan Socialist Party. Curtis calls this a "definitive end to an era in which political competition pitted conservatives against progressives," another defining feature of the 1955 system. In 1994, the Japanese Parliament passed legislation to reform the electoral system. Under the 1955 system, Japan had a proportional-representation system where members of the lower house were elected in multimember districts. The new system that came into force in 1994 provides for 300 lower-house members out of a total of 480 to be elected in single-member districts (meaning the candidate securing the majority of votes in each district wins) and the rest in 11 regional proportional-representation districts. The new electoral system created the possibility of a two-party system, says Sheila A. Smith, the Council on Foreign Relations' senior fellow for Japan Studies.
'Consumer Tastes Have Changed'
Fifteen years after electoral reforms were instituted, Japan saw a political changeover when the DPJ, the largest opposition party, led by Yukio Hatoyama, overtook the LDP. The DPJ was formed in 1998 as a merger of four smaller parties and was later joined by a fifth. A mix of both right- and left-leaning members, the DPJ won control of the upper house in 2007. Analysts say the reason the traditionally risk-averse Japanese voters were ready to gamble on the DPJ was because the LDP has failed to respond to the fundamental changes in Japanese society. "It's the same reason General Motors went bankrupt," says Curtis. Both the LDP and GM, he says, "didn't understand consumer tastes had changed, the market had changed, and people wanted something else." Experts say the LDP has failed to respond to the changing needs of an aging population that demands access to medical facilities and social welfare, not more roads. "This is not just about parties, and not just about political systems," says Smith. "We're also watching a transformation at a broader social level in Japan and a desire for greater and better types of political participation."
But the DPJ has an uphill task ahead. It remains untested as a party in power. Plus, being an amalgam of left, centrist, and right-leaning politicians, it is troubled by internal factions, primarily between its conservative and liberal wings. Richard J. Samuels, director of the Japan program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says, "In Japanese politics, factions don't always represent different policy divisions," but in the DPJ's case it has major policy divisions on issues of defense forces and the U.S.-Japan alliance. In particular, the party has been divided on the issue of revising Article 9 of the Constitution, which forbids Japan from maintaining a military or from using force internationally for any reason.
Promise of Reform
The Japanese economy has been hit hard by the global economic crisis, suffering a yearlong recession. It only began to emerge from the slump with less than 1 percent growth in its GDP in the second quarter of 2009, but most economists do not see a quick recovery. The unemployment rate rose to 5.4 percent in June, and Japan remains vulnerable to any faltering in export demand.
The DPJ advocates economic and administrative reforms, but some experts say the party lacks details on how it will pay for and implement these plans. "The DPJ proposes a reformist, left-of-center domestic agenda for Japan," says Weston S. Konishi, an analyst in Asian affairs at the Congressional Research Service. One of the main objectives of the DPJ, says Konishi, is to "strengthen Japan's cabinet's decision-making authority over the powerful bureaucracy, thus changing the long-held power dynamic in which politicians have less power over policymaking than the bureaucrats." The party hopes this will reduce the influence of vested interests over policymakers, he says.
Japan's Parliament, compared with most industrialized democracies, is structurally weak, as is the office of the prime minister and his cabinet. CFR's Smith says under proposed reforms, the bureaucracy and the politicians will have to craft a new relationship. Also, to reduce bureaucratic control over policymaking, it will require the country to develop alternate centers for policy expertise, such as think tanks and nongovernmental organizations, or tap the business sector for fresh ideas, she says.
To fix Japan's struggling economy, the DPJ has proposed a large-scale stimulus package to increase household disposable income through more tax cuts and direct payment transfers. Its two-year, nearly $218 billion stimulus proposal includes a per capita child allowance of nearly $3,300 per child per year. Edward J. Lincoln, director of the Center for Japan-U.S. Business and Economic Studies at New York University's Stern School of Business, says a DPJ victory may have a positive economic impact. He says the sense of empowerment among Japanese voters, as a result of achieving change in government, may improve consumer confidence in the economy, and they may become more willing to spend money.
Many economists in the West, who have been advocating for Japan to move from a more export-oriented economy to a more consumer-driven one, favor such measures to stimulate domestic spending in the hope it might boost imports of U.S. goods and services. The DPJ also has proposed a free-trade agreement with the United States. Lincoln sees little hope of that. Agriculture remains the sticking point in the trade relations of the two countries. The DPJ, like the LDP, favors agricultural policies that protect domestic farming interests, while the United States pushes for Tokyo to liberalize its agricultural sector and lower import tariffs.
'A Japan That Can Say No'
The change in political power in Tokyo could have ramifications for its alliance with Washington. Japan, the second-largest economy in the world, is United States' fourth-largest trade partner, with more than $205 billion in two-way goods trade. It is also home to more than 50,000 U.S. military personnel, and is crucial to U.S. plans for maintaining peace and security in Northeast Asia especially at a time of increasing concern about a nuclear North Korea and a rising China. The DPJ has stressed a foreign policy that's more independent of Washington and an "equal" alliance relationship with the United States.
Several experts recommend broadening dimensions of security to include energy efficiency and climate change to play to Japan's strength and move toward achieving a more symmetrical U.S.-Japan alliance.
The DPJ has sent conflicting signals on its policy toward the U.S.-Japan alliance, as it grapples with intraparty divisions and struggles to differentiate itself from the ruling LDP, says Konishi. While the party has toned down its message on several alliance issues, its 2009 election manifesto proposes the revision of the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement, a reexamination of the realignment of the U.S. military forces in Japan, and the role of U.S. military bases there. In the past, it has been opposed to continuing Japanese military support for refueling ships in the Indian Ocean involved in the U.S.-led war effort in Afghanistan. The party has also opposed the transfer of 8,000 U.S. Marines from the Okinawa base to Guam by 2014. According to the 2006 plan for realignment of U.S. forces, Japan would shoulder $6.09 billion of the total estimated $10.27 billion cost for the relocation to Guam. The DPJ disagrees with the cost Japan would have to bear. It is also opposed to the relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station from Futenma to Nago, both in Okinawa prefecture, preferring the base to be relocated outside Okinawa.
MIT's Samuels says that in the future, "Japan is going to be more willing to say no to the United States" on issues not in Japanese interests. But most analysts do not foresee any major changes in the alliance. They also don't see Japan playing a more active role internationally, despite its status as the second-biggest global economy. Analysts, both in Japan and in the West, have often expressed disappointment at Japan's shrinking role in the world, especially at its reluctance to assume a larger military role in the region and the world.
Japan's efforts to increase its international stature by becoming a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council have also been futile so far, despite the fact that it is the second-largest contributor to the U.N. regular budget. In 2004 Japan joined forces with India, Germany, and Brazil to seek expansion of the U.N. body. But as this CRS report notes, though the United States under the Bush administration backed Japan's bid, it did not support the joint proposal and "opposed taking a vote on expanding the Security Council until a 'broader consensus' on reforming the entire organization" could be reached. China, meanwhile, has repeatedly opposed Japan's bid for a permanent seat on the Security Council.
However, some Western experts recommend broadening the dimensions of security to include energy efficiency and climate change to play to Japan's strength and move toward achieving a more symmetrical U.S.-Japan alliance. "We should get the public to think about the importance of Japan and Japanese leadership on some of these new dimensions of security," said Joseph S. Nye Jr., former U.S. assistant secretary of defense, speaking at a recent Japan-U.S. security seminar. Japan's lesser role in the global arena has been accompanied by China's increased participation, raising concerns in Washington on how to manage China's rise. Nye says working on tripartite projects involving the United States, Japan, and China that deal with energy, energy security, or climate change would help to "dramatize the fact that Japan is an equal partner."
Bajoria is a staff writer for the web site of the Council on Foreign Relations, whose web site this essay is reprinted from.
By Jayshree Bajoria, Council on Foreign Relations
Sep 2, 2009
The Democratic Party of Japan's (DPJ) landslide victory in August served as a watershed moment in the country's electoral politics. Japan, a parliamentary democracy, had been dominated by the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), governing by itself or in coalition with others for nearly all of the past half century. But the falling popularity of the LDP, an economy in decline, and growing public dissatisfaction with politics gave a historic opportunity to the opposition. The DPJ had gained a majority in the upper house of the Diet (Parliament) in 2007 and had since emerged as a viable alternative to the LDP. This political change in Tokyo could have repercussions for the U.S.-Japan alliance, especially on matters of security. Washington has often stressed that Japan—a major military, economic, and political ally—is a cornerstone in U.S. foreign policy in the region. Analysts say Washington will have to change the way it deals with Japan.
Single-Party Dominance: The '1955 System'
Post-World War II Japan experienced a decade of contentious politics. In 1955, amid a society and polity marked by ideological divisions, the conservative, liberal, and democratic parties united to form the Liberal Democratic Party. This was the emergence of decades-long, single-party dominance, and what many Japan specialists call the "1955 system." Gerald L. Curtis, a Columbia University professor, notes in the 1999 book The Logic of Japanese Politicsthat there were four pillars of policymaking supporting the 1955 system. Besides one-party dominance, he says the other pillars were public consensus in support of policies to achieve a goal of catching up with the West; large interest groups with links to the political parties; and a bureaucracy of immense prestige and power.
The LDP was initially supported by farmers, merchants, and small business owners. But by the end of the 1970s, Curtis writes, it "had successfully transformed itself from a traditional conservative party into a modern catchall party," drawing support from all social strata. He explains the LDP drew popular support by emphasizing themes of economic recovery, rapid industrial growth, and " 'GNPism'—an ideology that focused on aggregate national indicators of economic progress, on the gross national product."
In 1993, the LDP lost power to an eight-party coalition, only to return to power less than a year later in coalition with the Japan Socialist Party. Curtis calls this a "definitive end to an era in which political competition pitted conservatives against progressives," another defining feature of the 1955 system. In 1994, the Japanese Parliament passed legislation to reform the electoral system. Under the 1955 system, Japan had a proportional-representation system where members of the lower house were elected in multimember districts. The new system that came into force in 1994 provides for 300 lower-house members out of a total of 480 to be elected in single-member districts (meaning the candidate securing the majority of votes in each district wins) and the rest in 11 regional proportional-representation districts. The new electoral system created the possibility of a two-party system, says Sheila A. Smith, the Council on Foreign Relations' senior fellow for Japan Studies.
'Consumer Tastes Have Changed'
Fifteen years after electoral reforms were instituted, Japan saw a political changeover when the DPJ, the largest opposition party, led by Yukio Hatoyama, overtook the LDP. The DPJ was formed in 1998 as a merger of four smaller parties and was later joined by a fifth. A mix of both right- and left-leaning members, the DPJ won control of the upper house in 2007. Analysts say the reason the traditionally risk-averse Japanese voters were ready to gamble on the DPJ was because the LDP has failed to respond to the fundamental changes in Japanese society. "It's the same reason General Motors went bankrupt," says Curtis. Both the LDP and GM, he says, "didn't understand consumer tastes had changed, the market had changed, and people wanted something else." Experts say the LDP has failed to respond to the changing needs of an aging population that demands access to medical facilities and social welfare, not more roads. "This is not just about parties, and not just about political systems," says Smith. "We're also watching a transformation at a broader social level in Japan and a desire for greater and better types of political participation."
But the DPJ has an uphill task ahead. It remains untested as a party in power. Plus, being an amalgam of left, centrist, and right-leaning politicians, it is troubled by internal factions, primarily between its conservative and liberal wings. Richard J. Samuels, director of the Japan program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says, "In Japanese politics, factions don't always represent different policy divisions," but in the DPJ's case it has major policy divisions on issues of defense forces and the U.S.-Japan alliance. In particular, the party has been divided on the issue of revising Article 9 of the Constitution, which forbids Japan from maintaining a military or from using force internationally for any reason.
Promise of Reform
The Japanese economy has been hit hard by the global economic crisis, suffering a yearlong recession. It only began to emerge from the slump with less than 1 percent growth in its GDP in the second quarter of 2009, but most economists do not see a quick recovery. The unemployment rate rose to 5.4 percent in June, and Japan remains vulnerable to any faltering in export demand.
The DPJ advocates economic and administrative reforms, but some experts say the party lacks details on how it will pay for and implement these plans. "The DPJ proposes a reformist, left-of-center domestic agenda for Japan," says Weston S. Konishi, an analyst in Asian affairs at the Congressional Research Service. One of the main objectives of the DPJ, says Konishi, is to "strengthen Japan's cabinet's decision-making authority over the powerful bureaucracy, thus changing the long-held power dynamic in which politicians have less power over policymaking than the bureaucrats." The party hopes this will reduce the influence of vested interests over policymakers, he says.
Japan's Parliament, compared with most industrialized democracies, is structurally weak, as is the office of the prime minister and his cabinet. CFR's Smith says under proposed reforms, the bureaucracy and the politicians will have to craft a new relationship. Also, to reduce bureaucratic control over policymaking, it will require the country to develop alternate centers for policy expertise, such as think tanks and nongovernmental organizations, or tap the business sector for fresh ideas, she says.
To fix Japan's struggling economy, the DPJ has proposed a large-scale stimulus package to increase household disposable income through more tax cuts and direct payment transfers. Its two-year, nearly $218 billion stimulus proposal includes a per capita child allowance of nearly $3,300 per child per year. Edward J. Lincoln, director of the Center for Japan-U.S. Business and Economic Studies at New York University's Stern School of Business, says a DPJ victory may have a positive economic impact. He says the sense of empowerment among Japanese voters, as a result of achieving change in government, may improve consumer confidence in the economy, and they may become more willing to spend money.
Many economists in the West, who have been advocating for Japan to move from a more export-oriented economy to a more consumer-driven one, favor such measures to stimulate domestic spending in the hope it might boost imports of U.S. goods and services. The DPJ also has proposed a free-trade agreement with the United States. Lincoln sees little hope of that. Agriculture remains the sticking point in the trade relations of the two countries. The DPJ, like the LDP, favors agricultural policies that protect domestic farming interests, while the United States pushes for Tokyo to liberalize its agricultural sector and lower import tariffs.
'A Japan That Can Say No'
The change in political power in Tokyo could have ramifications for its alliance with Washington. Japan, the second-largest economy in the world, is United States' fourth-largest trade partner, with more than $205 billion in two-way goods trade. It is also home to more than 50,000 U.S. military personnel, and is crucial to U.S. plans for maintaining peace and security in Northeast Asia especially at a time of increasing concern about a nuclear North Korea and a rising China. The DPJ has stressed a foreign policy that's more independent of Washington and an "equal" alliance relationship with the United States.
Several experts recommend broadening dimensions of security to include energy efficiency and climate change to play to Japan's strength and move toward achieving a more symmetrical U.S.-Japan alliance.
The DPJ has sent conflicting signals on its policy toward the U.S.-Japan alliance, as it grapples with intraparty divisions and struggles to differentiate itself from the ruling LDP, says Konishi. While the party has toned down its message on several alliance issues, its 2009 election manifesto proposes the revision of the Japan-U.S. Status of Forces Agreement, a reexamination of the realignment of the U.S. military forces in Japan, and the role of U.S. military bases there. In the past, it has been opposed to continuing Japanese military support for refueling ships in the Indian Ocean involved in the U.S.-led war effort in Afghanistan. The party has also opposed the transfer of 8,000 U.S. Marines from the Okinawa base to Guam by 2014. According to the 2006 plan for realignment of U.S. forces, Japan would shoulder $6.09 billion of the total estimated $10.27 billion cost for the relocation to Guam. The DPJ disagrees with the cost Japan would have to bear. It is also opposed to the relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station from Futenma to Nago, both in Okinawa prefecture, preferring the base to be relocated outside Okinawa.
MIT's Samuels says that in the future, "Japan is going to be more willing to say no to the United States" on issues not in Japanese interests. But most analysts do not foresee any major changes in the alliance. They also don't see Japan playing a more active role internationally, despite its status as the second-biggest global economy. Analysts, both in Japan and in the West, have often expressed disappointment at Japan's shrinking role in the world, especially at its reluctance to assume a larger military role in the region and the world.
Japan's efforts to increase its international stature by becoming a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council have also been futile so far, despite the fact that it is the second-largest contributor to the U.N. regular budget. In 2004 Japan joined forces with India, Germany, and Brazil to seek expansion of the U.N. body. But as this CRS report notes, though the United States under the Bush administration backed Japan's bid, it did not support the joint proposal and "opposed taking a vote on expanding the Security Council until a 'broader consensus' on reforming the entire organization" could be reached. China, meanwhile, has repeatedly opposed Japan's bid for a permanent seat on the Security Council.
However, some Western experts recommend broadening the dimensions of security to include energy efficiency and climate change to play to Japan's strength and move toward achieving a more symmetrical U.S.-Japan alliance. "We should get the public to think about the importance of Japan and Japanese leadership on some of these new dimensions of security," said Joseph S. Nye Jr., former U.S. assistant secretary of defense, speaking at a recent Japan-U.S. security seminar. Japan's lesser role in the global arena has been accompanied by China's increased participation, raising concerns in Washington on how to manage China's rise. Nye says working on tripartite projects involving the United States, Japan, and China that deal with energy, energy security, or climate change would help to "dramatize the fact that Japan is an equal partner."
Bajoria is a staff writer for the web site of the Council on Foreign Relations, whose web site this essay is reprinted from.
A French Kiss From Japan
Its new leader is decidedly Left Bank.
By Peter Tasker | NEWSWEEK
Published Sep 11, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Sep 21, 2009
There's more to Japan's new first couple than meets the eye. The prime minister's wife, Miyuki Hatoyama, claims to have befriended Tom Cruise in a previous life when he was, apparently, Japanese. Meanwhile, the prime minister himself has been behaving like the reincarnation of a French intellectual.
The evidence is an article titled "A New Road for Japan" that prospective prime minister Yukio Hatoyama wrote for a Japanese magazine just before the election. In terms that would be familiar to any Gauloise-puffing black-turtleneck-wearing denizen of Paris's Left Bank, the future prime minister lambastes "U.S.-led globalization."
Hatoyama warns that under "immoral" financial capitalism, human dignity has been lost and people turned into accounting entries. But there is good news too. The era of U.S. unilateralism is coming to an end, "as a result of the failure of the Iraq war and the financial crisis."
Referencing the construction of the EU, Hatoyama proposes the creation of an Asian political bloc, built around a single currency for the region. Domestically, he recommends "a politics of fraternity" to protect Japanese citizens from "the winds of market -fundamentalism."
What about the future of the U.S.-Japan military alliance? Hatoyama sees Japan as "caught between" the two great powers of China and the U.S. Though the U.S. is a necessary counterweight for the time being, it has no role in Hatoyama's East Asian version of the EU. There is no hint of a commonality of values between Japan and the U.S.; no mention of democracy or human rights, let alone free trade.
When a summary of the article appeared in the foreign press, diplomats and alliance managers on both sides moved quickly to calm the resulting brouhaha. Hatoyama's comments had been taken out of context, we were told. It was a storm in a sake cup. The U.S.-Japan relationship was as strong as ever.
The problem with that view is that Hatoyama's article (a full-length English version is available on his Web site) is so obviously heartfelt. Furthermore, there is nothing radical about his views, though the style was unusually cerebral for a Japanese politician. Similar opinions are common across the political spectrum, from the conservative wing of the Liberal Democratic Party to the social democratic wing of Hatoyama's own Democratic Party of Japan.
Pessimism about U.S. economic prospects is rife, and an Asian currency bloc currency has long been a dream of the Japanese Ministry of Finance. Both the Japanese elite and public grudgingly accepted the introduction of -American-style capitalism as part of the grand bargain that tied the two countries together after World War II, but they have long been uncomfortable with its emphasis on shareholder value and massive differentials in pay.
The bargain worked like this. The U.S. offered Japan the shelter of its nuclear umbrella and access to the world's -highest-spending consumers, ever ready to pluck up the latest gadgets produced by Japanese companies. In return, Japan was an ever-loyal ally, willing to play host to U.S. military bases a few hundred miles off the Soviet Union's eastern flank.
The grand bargain lost its raison d'être with the end of the Cold War, but there were still enough common interests to keep it intact. Until now, that is. U.S. consumers are tapped out, and Japan's dependence on overseas demand has turned out to be a source of vulnerability. Energizing domestic demand is the new priority for Japan, just as rebuilding savings must be for the U.S.
Japan has to reconsider the bets it has placed on its chief ally. To put it bluntly, can a country with the massive and ballooning deficits of the postcrisis U.S. afford far-flung and expensive military commitments that have only vague justifications in terms of national interest? Or will the U.S. gradually disengage militarily in Asia, closing bases and leaving allies to handle their own security—as cash-strapped Britain did in the 1950s and 1960s? It all depends on whether the U.S. returns to healthy growth. In any case, Japan has to think further ahead than the next electoral cycle. Unlike the U.S., it is in Asia for keeps.
Asia's new geopolitical map is already being drawn. As China's economic presence grows, Japan will be tempted to hedge its bets, as Hatoyama hinted. And, as Japan suspects, it's likely that the U.S. will do some triangulation of its own. Would the U.S. really defend Japan's interests at the cost of its own relationship with China? The twists and turns of U.S. policy on North Korea—a minor irritant for the U.S., but a huge strategic challenge for Japan—give ample grounds for doubt.
Like it or not, these issues are not about to go away. We should be grateful to the French intellectual who has just taken over as Japanese prime minister for giving them an airing.
Tasker is a founding partner of Arcus Investment.
By Peter Tasker | NEWSWEEK
Published Sep 11, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Sep 21, 2009
There's more to Japan's new first couple than meets the eye. The prime minister's wife, Miyuki Hatoyama, claims to have befriended Tom Cruise in a previous life when he was, apparently, Japanese. Meanwhile, the prime minister himself has been behaving like the reincarnation of a French intellectual.
The evidence is an article titled "A New Road for Japan" that prospective prime minister Yukio Hatoyama wrote for a Japanese magazine just before the election. In terms that would be familiar to any Gauloise-puffing black-turtleneck-wearing denizen of Paris's Left Bank, the future prime minister lambastes "U.S.-led globalization."
Hatoyama warns that under "immoral" financial capitalism, human dignity has been lost and people turned into accounting entries. But there is good news too. The era of U.S. unilateralism is coming to an end, "as a result of the failure of the Iraq war and the financial crisis."
Referencing the construction of the EU, Hatoyama proposes the creation of an Asian political bloc, built around a single currency for the region. Domestically, he recommends "a politics of fraternity" to protect Japanese citizens from "the winds of market -fundamentalism."
What about the future of the U.S.-Japan military alliance? Hatoyama sees Japan as "caught between" the two great powers of China and the U.S. Though the U.S. is a necessary counterweight for the time being, it has no role in Hatoyama's East Asian version of the EU. There is no hint of a commonality of values between Japan and the U.S.; no mention of democracy or human rights, let alone free trade.
When a summary of the article appeared in the foreign press, diplomats and alliance managers on both sides moved quickly to calm the resulting brouhaha. Hatoyama's comments had been taken out of context, we were told. It was a storm in a sake cup. The U.S.-Japan relationship was as strong as ever.
The problem with that view is that Hatoyama's article (a full-length English version is available on his Web site) is so obviously heartfelt. Furthermore, there is nothing radical about his views, though the style was unusually cerebral for a Japanese politician. Similar opinions are common across the political spectrum, from the conservative wing of the Liberal Democratic Party to the social democratic wing of Hatoyama's own Democratic Party of Japan.
Pessimism about U.S. economic prospects is rife, and an Asian currency bloc currency has long been a dream of the Japanese Ministry of Finance. Both the Japanese elite and public grudgingly accepted the introduction of -American-style capitalism as part of the grand bargain that tied the two countries together after World War II, but they have long been uncomfortable with its emphasis on shareholder value and massive differentials in pay.
The bargain worked like this. The U.S. offered Japan the shelter of its nuclear umbrella and access to the world's -highest-spending consumers, ever ready to pluck up the latest gadgets produced by Japanese companies. In return, Japan was an ever-loyal ally, willing to play host to U.S. military bases a few hundred miles off the Soviet Union's eastern flank.
The grand bargain lost its raison d'être with the end of the Cold War, but there were still enough common interests to keep it intact. Until now, that is. U.S. consumers are tapped out, and Japan's dependence on overseas demand has turned out to be a source of vulnerability. Energizing domestic demand is the new priority for Japan, just as rebuilding savings must be for the U.S.
Japan has to reconsider the bets it has placed on its chief ally. To put it bluntly, can a country with the massive and ballooning deficits of the postcrisis U.S. afford far-flung and expensive military commitments that have only vague justifications in terms of national interest? Or will the U.S. gradually disengage militarily in Asia, closing bases and leaving allies to handle their own security—as cash-strapped Britain did in the 1950s and 1960s? It all depends on whether the U.S. returns to healthy growth. In any case, Japan has to think further ahead than the next electoral cycle. Unlike the U.S., it is in Asia for keeps.
Asia's new geopolitical map is already being drawn. As China's economic presence grows, Japan will be tempted to hedge its bets, as Hatoyama hinted. And, as Japan suspects, it's likely that the U.S. will do some triangulation of its own. Would the U.S. really defend Japan's interests at the cost of its own relationship with China? The twists and turns of U.S. policy on North Korea—a minor irritant for the U.S., but a huge strategic challenge for Japan—give ample grounds for doubt.
Like it or not, these issues are not about to go away. We should be grateful to the French intellectual who has just taken over as Japanese prime minister for giving them an airing.
Tasker is a founding partner of Arcus Investment.
Nintendo Fans Flock to Tokyo Gaming Parties
Japan September 22, 2009, 10:59AM EST
Nintendo Fans Flock to Tokyo Gaming Parties
Square Enix's Dragon Quest lures hard-core players, but the Nintendo DS's mainstream appeal draws non-gamers to Tokyo's electronics district
By Kenji Hall
"I heard this was the mecca." That's how a petite 24-year-old woman—a self-described infrequent gamer—explained her decision to grab her Nintendo DS gaming console and head to the Yodobashi Camera store in Tokyo's Akihabara electronics district one recent Sunday afternoon. Her idea of mecca: On the sidewalk near the store entrance, more than 150 people playing Dragon Quest IX: Hoshizora no Mamoribito ("protector of the starry skies"), a game of monsters, swords, and dungeons, on portable DS consoles.
They stood, leaned against the building, or sat, staring at their machines, occasionally flicking at the buttons or the touchscreen. One man lounged on a stowaway canopy chair he had brought. A few had parked themselves inside a café facing the sidewalk. Akihabara seemed a good place for it: Crammed with shops selling electronics, anime, and manga, the district is a magnet for Japan's nerdy hobbyists and collectors, known as otaku.
The gathering might have been dubbed a gaming party if not for the fact that there was nothing social about it. Except for a few young couples and families, nobody spoke to anyone else. They drew bemused looks from passersby and occasionally spilled into the walkway, forcing store officials to make an effort at crowd control. The scene was strangely reminiscent of the silent raves in New York, San Francisco, and London, in which people met at public spaces to dance to music playing on their own Apple (AAPL) iPods.
Dragon Quest's Popularity
Over the past two months, thousands have made the pilgrimage to Yodobashi Camera's sidewalk. Some were lured by word of mouth. The young woman, who clutched a pink Nintendo DS wrapped in a furry case the shape of a teddy bear's head, said friends had told her about it. Many others read about it online on blogs or news sites, or came across it by chance. "We've had people fly from Hokkaido," Japan's northernmost island, said one store official, who asked not to be named because the store's policy was not to comment. "We had four guys pull up in a car from Nagoya," a city three hours' drive away.
Although it's not well-known overseas, the Dragon Quest franchise has a huge following in Japan. Since the original was released in 1986, every addition to the series has sold 1 million units—the benchmark for a hit game—ranking among the industry's top-selling titles.
In the game, players navigate characters through a fantasy realm full of monsters. Players can buy armor, weapons, and other items. As they go, they pick up experience points, gain strength, and discover new levels. Dragon Quest IX differs from past versions because it taps the DS's wireless antenna. Typically, the antenna links devices for multiplayer action or connects users via Wi-Fi to the Internet for downloading games or online play. With Dragon Quest IX, the DS wirelessly locates nearby machines and automatically sends or receives items such as treasure maps and clothing. So newbies can get help from seasoned players who have already unlocked secrets. The chances of rare finds are better when more players are around. And because there's no messaging function, players never know who is on the other end, skirting privacy concerns.
Analysts were predicting strong sales for Dragon Quest IX but were unprepared for the game's instant popularity. Dragon Quest VII (Dragon Warrior VII overseas), released in 2000 for Sony's (SNE) PlayStation console, holds the series sales record, at 3.9 million units. Dragon Quest IX, priced at $62, already looks set to shatter that. In just the first week, publisher Square Enix sold 2.34 million copies. Two months after its release, the game has sold more than 3.8 million units, according to Tokyo market researcher Enterbrain. Square Enix has set its sales target at 5 million units—a level few games in Japan ever reach.
Keeping the DS Fresh
While the global recession has flattened gaming industry revenues, Dragon Quest IX's sales show that some titles defy economic trends. That's encouraging for many developers planning to release DS games this year. It's also a boost for Nintendo, which has sold 108 million DS machines since the console was released in late 2004, outstripping rival Sony's PlayStation Portable by nearly 2 to 1. Normally by this stage, a gaming machine starts losing momentum. But to keep the DS looking fresh, Nintendo gave the console a makeover in November, adding a camera and other new features. This fiscal year Nintendo predicts it will sell 30 million units, just 1 million fewer than last year.
Square Enix saw promise in the DS sales. But when the Tokyo company announced it would make a new Dragon Quest for the DS first, longtime gamers protested. They felt it was a mistake given the machine's appeal to people who don't normally buy games and its less robust system, say Square Enix officials. The company won't say whether it's working on a version for the PSP, which seems to have worked in its favor. "I bought the DS just so I could play Dragon Quest IX," said Yusuke Takeda, a 25-year-old Tokyo resident who works part-time jobs and is a hard-core gamer. "No other gaming device has this wireless feature. But I was surprised to find this many people in Akihabara."
The gaming party seems to have sprung up naturally. It's not clear why they chose Yodobashi Camera's flagship store in Tokyo, but its size and location near Akihabara station make it a key venue for video game launch events. Store officials say people started showing up within days of the game's July 11 release. At first they gathered inside on the sixth floor, where the store sells gaming hardware and software. But soon the crowd was too big to ignore.
Store officials say they had never seen anything like it. Since most people played quietly near a sign for a Wi-Fi hotspot targeting DS users, the store couldn't oust the visitors for making a ruckus. But at night and on weekends, Dragon Quest players would clog the space between the elevators and escalators, and store officials worried about a fire hazard. By late July, Yodobashi Camera posted signs directing Dragon Quest players to an area on the sidewalk marked off by orange pylons and signs for Ruida's Tavern, the name of a place in the game. Two weeks later, during Japan's midsummer holidays, the silent mass swelled to more than 300 people a day.
The bizarreness of the scene wasn't lost on Ichiro Ogawa, whose DS showed that he had spent 237 hours and 9 minutes playing the game. "This new communication tool brought all these people here," said the 31-year-old resident of Saitama, north of Tokyo. "And yet they don't even communicate with each other."
Hall is BusinessWeek's technology correspondent in Tokyo.
Nintendo Fans Flock to Tokyo Gaming Parties
Square Enix's Dragon Quest lures hard-core players, but the Nintendo DS's mainstream appeal draws non-gamers to Tokyo's electronics district
By Kenji Hall
"I heard this was the mecca." That's how a petite 24-year-old woman—a self-described infrequent gamer—explained her decision to grab her Nintendo DS gaming console and head to the Yodobashi Camera store in Tokyo's Akihabara electronics district one recent Sunday afternoon. Her idea of mecca: On the sidewalk near the store entrance, more than 150 people playing Dragon Quest IX: Hoshizora no Mamoribito ("protector of the starry skies"), a game of monsters, swords, and dungeons, on portable DS consoles.
They stood, leaned against the building, or sat, staring at their machines, occasionally flicking at the buttons or the touchscreen. One man lounged on a stowaway canopy chair he had brought. A few had parked themselves inside a café facing the sidewalk. Akihabara seemed a good place for it: Crammed with shops selling electronics, anime, and manga, the district is a magnet for Japan's nerdy hobbyists and collectors, known as otaku.
The gathering might have been dubbed a gaming party if not for the fact that there was nothing social about it. Except for a few young couples and families, nobody spoke to anyone else. They drew bemused looks from passersby and occasionally spilled into the walkway, forcing store officials to make an effort at crowd control. The scene was strangely reminiscent of the silent raves in New York, San Francisco, and London, in which people met at public spaces to dance to music playing on their own Apple (AAPL) iPods.
Dragon Quest's Popularity
Over the past two months, thousands have made the pilgrimage to Yodobashi Camera's sidewalk. Some were lured by word of mouth. The young woman, who clutched a pink Nintendo DS wrapped in a furry case the shape of a teddy bear's head, said friends had told her about it. Many others read about it online on blogs or news sites, or came across it by chance. "We've had people fly from Hokkaido," Japan's northernmost island, said one store official, who asked not to be named because the store's policy was not to comment. "We had four guys pull up in a car from Nagoya," a city three hours' drive away.
Although it's not well-known overseas, the Dragon Quest franchise has a huge following in Japan. Since the original was released in 1986, every addition to the series has sold 1 million units—the benchmark for a hit game—ranking among the industry's top-selling titles.
In the game, players navigate characters through a fantasy realm full of monsters. Players can buy armor, weapons, and other items. As they go, they pick up experience points, gain strength, and discover new levels. Dragon Quest IX differs from past versions because it taps the DS's wireless antenna. Typically, the antenna links devices for multiplayer action or connects users via Wi-Fi to the Internet for downloading games or online play. With Dragon Quest IX, the DS wirelessly locates nearby machines and automatically sends or receives items such as treasure maps and clothing. So newbies can get help from seasoned players who have already unlocked secrets. The chances of rare finds are better when more players are around. And because there's no messaging function, players never know who is on the other end, skirting privacy concerns.
Analysts were predicting strong sales for Dragon Quest IX but were unprepared for the game's instant popularity. Dragon Quest VII (Dragon Warrior VII overseas), released in 2000 for Sony's (SNE) PlayStation console, holds the series sales record, at 3.9 million units. Dragon Quest IX, priced at $62, already looks set to shatter that. In just the first week, publisher Square Enix sold 2.34 million copies. Two months after its release, the game has sold more than 3.8 million units, according to Tokyo market researcher Enterbrain. Square Enix has set its sales target at 5 million units—a level few games in Japan ever reach.
Keeping the DS Fresh
While the global recession has flattened gaming industry revenues, Dragon Quest IX's sales show that some titles defy economic trends. That's encouraging for many developers planning to release DS games this year. It's also a boost for Nintendo, which has sold 108 million DS machines since the console was released in late 2004, outstripping rival Sony's PlayStation Portable by nearly 2 to 1. Normally by this stage, a gaming machine starts losing momentum. But to keep the DS looking fresh, Nintendo gave the console a makeover in November, adding a camera and other new features. This fiscal year Nintendo predicts it will sell 30 million units, just 1 million fewer than last year.
Square Enix saw promise in the DS sales. But when the Tokyo company announced it would make a new Dragon Quest for the DS first, longtime gamers protested. They felt it was a mistake given the machine's appeal to people who don't normally buy games and its less robust system, say Square Enix officials. The company won't say whether it's working on a version for the PSP, which seems to have worked in its favor. "I bought the DS just so I could play Dragon Quest IX," said Yusuke Takeda, a 25-year-old Tokyo resident who works part-time jobs and is a hard-core gamer. "No other gaming device has this wireless feature. But I was surprised to find this many people in Akihabara."
The gaming party seems to have sprung up naturally. It's not clear why they chose Yodobashi Camera's flagship store in Tokyo, but its size and location near Akihabara station make it a key venue for video game launch events. Store officials say people started showing up within days of the game's July 11 release. At first they gathered inside on the sixth floor, where the store sells gaming hardware and software. But soon the crowd was too big to ignore.
Store officials say they had never seen anything like it. Since most people played quietly near a sign for a Wi-Fi hotspot targeting DS users, the store couldn't oust the visitors for making a ruckus. But at night and on weekends, Dragon Quest players would clog the space between the elevators and escalators, and store officials worried about a fire hazard. By late July, Yodobashi Camera posted signs directing Dragon Quest players to an area on the sidewalk marked off by orange pylons and signs for Ruida's Tavern, the name of a place in the game. Two weeks later, during Japan's midsummer holidays, the silent mass swelled to more than 300 people a day.
The bizarreness of the scene wasn't lost on Ichiro Ogawa, whose DS showed that he had spent 237 hours and 9 minutes playing the game. "This new communication tool brought all these people here," said the 31-year-old resident of Saitama, north of Tokyo. "And yet they don't even communicate with each other."
Hall is BusinessWeek's technology correspondent in Tokyo.
Japan Loves You, Brother
Japan's new prime minister is spelling out what his personal philosophy of "yuai" means for his country. The result may redefine the nation's place in the world.
By Devin Stewart | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Oct 28, 2009
Even before Yukio Hatoyama became Japan's prime minister in August, people in the country and abroad have tried to grasp his personal philosophy of yuai, an idea that translates loosely into "fraternal love" and has been ridiculed by the press and politicians alike. The conservative Sankei Shimbun newspaper worried about the concept's origins, tracing it back to the liberté, egalité, and fraternité of the French Revolution and comparing Yukio Hatoyama to a modern-day Robespierre, albeit sans guillotine. The moderate newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun doubted something so lofty could be understood, much less applied on a global level. And despite Hatoyama's assertion that his brand of fraternity is "combative," rooted as it is in revolution, his political opponents have derided it as impractical and "as mushy as ice cream."
Yet yuai is more than just a tempting target. This week, in Hatoyama's first parliamentary address since taking office, he began spelling out how this fuzzy-sounding notion would be applied to policy. On both a domestic and international level, it would stress the importance of coexistence with others and a respect for differences. Guided by a spirit of fraternity, he said, Japan would seek to temper the turbulence of globalization by promoting the free market, while also boosting domestic social safety nets. Japan would take a moral leadership role on the world stage by aiding poor countries in their fight against climate change. And it would agree to cut CO2 emission by 25 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 if other rich countries reciprocate. In essence, he suggested, the philosophy would elevate Japan more than ever before into the community of nations that are now tackling transnational issues such as climate change, the financial and economic crisis, nuclear proliferation, and terrorism.
In so doing, Hatoyama's vision would go far beyond that of his predecessors, who have been trying for decades to coin a catchphrase that would somehow provide a signpost for understanding Japan's place in the world. Some of these ideas understood Japan primarily in relation to the world's great powers. DPJ chairman Ichiro Ozawa talked of Japan as a "normal country"—by which he meant that Japan would have a foreign policy of its own, independent of the United States. Other ideas were more nationalistic in tone, such as former prime minister Shinzo Abe's idea of Japan as a "beautiful country" or Taro Aso's of Japan as the "thought leader" of Asia. Still others attempted to position the country as the premier power in Asia, with Japan dubbed the head of "the flying geese." But all of these formulations seemed to position Japan against others, rather than putting it in a truly global context. Yuai, by contrast, identifies Japan as an independent actor that is also part of a much larger and integrated global system. Indeed, the universal rhetoric seems appropriate for a time of universal problems.
Hatoyama's grandfather Ichiro is said to have stumbled upon the idea in a book he discovered while in political isolation, forced out of Japanese politics by the U.S. occupying forces in the early 1950s. The book, titled Totalitarian State Against Man, was written in the 1930s by Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, the originator of the idea of a unified European community. He argued that fraternity was the key to building a peaceful society and striking a balance between freedom and equality. In his view, too much freedom yielded anarchy; too much equality yielded tyranny. The elder Hatoyama was so moved by the author's ideas that he translated the entire book into Japanese while living in Karuizawa—a resort town near Tokyo—and in 1953 he began promoting the idea to postwar Japan, a nation in which bureaucratic politics tightened its grip and Marxism was growing increasingly popular. He believed fraternity could inspire a Japanese society in disarray by offering an alternative to the extreme of Marxism.
His grandson has tried to translate these ideals into today's terms. Japan's direction of inclusiveness—the idea that new institutions should be open and pluralistic—is in line with the Obama administration's emphasis on consultation with the community of nations. Hatoyama supports the global goal of eliminating nuclear weapons. In his speech to the Parliament, known in Japan as the Diet, Hatoyama promised to "build an economy for the people" at home by stimulating consumer spending so the country doesn't have to rely so much on exports for growth. He suggested tax cuts and funding for child care, and promoting domestic industries like nursing, education, and tourism to create jobs. Abroad, Hatoyama aims to position Japan as a "bridge for the world" between the East and the West, between rich and poor countries, and "between diverse civilizations," while also providing leadership on global issues. For instance, the government recently announced it would lend Indonesia the equivalent of $400 million to fight climate change, and that same week, the prime minister urged India to make its own commitments to battle the global problem. Japan has also indicated that it will apply this lofty idea on a regional level by emphasizing sustainable and inclusive growth in the Pacific as Japan's chairmanship of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation approaches in 2010.
All of these initiatives suggest that yuai is a vast improvement over previous philosophies. It is an attempt to forge a new identity for Japan, one that allows it to lead as part of a team and one that puts one of the world's largest economies at the forefront of those nations seeking solutions to the world's problems.
Stewart is program director and senior fellow at Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs and a fellow at the Truman National Security Project.
By Devin Stewart | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Oct 28, 2009
Even before Yukio Hatoyama became Japan's prime minister in August, people in the country and abroad have tried to grasp his personal philosophy of yuai, an idea that translates loosely into "fraternal love" and has been ridiculed by the press and politicians alike. The conservative Sankei Shimbun newspaper worried about the concept's origins, tracing it back to the liberté, egalité, and fraternité of the French Revolution and comparing Yukio Hatoyama to a modern-day Robespierre, albeit sans guillotine. The moderate newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun doubted something so lofty could be understood, much less applied on a global level. And despite Hatoyama's assertion that his brand of fraternity is "combative," rooted as it is in revolution, his political opponents have derided it as impractical and "as mushy as ice cream."
Yet yuai is more than just a tempting target. This week, in Hatoyama's first parliamentary address since taking office, he began spelling out how this fuzzy-sounding notion would be applied to policy. On both a domestic and international level, it would stress the importance of coexistence with others and a respect for differences. Guided by a spirit of fraternity, he said, Japan would seek to temper the turbulence of globalization by promoting the free market, while also boosting domestic social safety nets. Japan would take a moral leadership role on the world stage by aiding poor countries in their fight against climate change. And it would agree to cut CO2 emission by 25 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 if other rich countries reciprocate. In essence, he suggested, the philosophy would elevate Japan more than ever before into the community of nations that are now tackling transnational issues such as climate change, the financial and economic crisis, nuclear proliferation, and terrorism.
In so doing, Hatoyama's vision would go far beyond that of his predecessors, who have been trying for decades to coin a catchphrase that would somehow provide a signpost for understanding Japan's place in the world. Some of these ideas understood Japan primarily in relation to the world's great powers. DPJ chairman Ichiro Ozawa talked of Japan as a "normal country"—by which he meant that Japan would have a foreign policy of its own, independent of the United States. Other ideas were more nationalistic in tone, such as former prime minister Shinzo Abe's idea of Japan as a "beautiful country" or Taro Aso's of Japan as the "thought leader" of Asia. Still others attempted to position the country as the premier power in Asia, with Japan dubbed the head of "the flying geese." But all of these formulations seemed to position Japan against others, rather than putting it in a truly global context. Yuai, by contrast, identifies Japan as an independent actor that is also part of a much larger and integrated global system. Indeed, the universal rhetoric seems appropriate for a time of universal problems.
Hatoyama's grandfather Ichiro is said to have stumbled upon the idea in a book he discovered while in political isolation, forced out of Japanese politics by the U.S. occupying forces in the early 1950s. The book, titled Totalitarian State Against Man, was written in the 1930s by Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, the originator of the idea of a unified European community. He argued that fraternity was the key to building a peaceful society and striking a balance between freedom and equality. In his view, too much freedom yielded anarchy; too much equality yielded tyranny. The elder Hatoyama was so moved by the author's ideas that he translated the entire book into Japanese while living in Karuizawa—a resort town near Tokyo—and in 1953 he began promoting the idea to postwar Japan, a nation in which bureaucratic politics tightened its grip and Marxism was growing increasingly popular. He believed fraternity could inspire a Japanese society in disarray by offering an alternative to the extreme of Marxism.
His grandson has tried to translate these ideals into today's terms. Japan's direction of inclusiveness—the idea that new institutions should be open and pluralistic—is in line with the Obama administration's emphasis on consultation with the community of nations. Hatoyama supports the global goal of eliminating nuclear weapons. In his speech to the Parliament, known in Japan as the Diet, Hatoyama promised to "build an economy for the people" at home by stimulating consumer spending so the country doesn't have to rely so much on exports for growth. He suggested tax cuts and funding for child care, and promoting domestic industries like nursing, education, and tourism to create jobs. Abroad, Hatoyama aims to position Japan as a "bridge for the world" between the East and the West, between rich and poor countries, and "between diverse civilizations," while also providing leadership on global issues. For instance, the government recently announced it would lend Indonesia the equivalent of $400 million to fight climate change, and that same week, the prime minister urged India to make its own commitments to battle the global problem. Japan has also indicated that it will apply this lofty idea on a regional level by emphasizing sustainable and inclusive growth in the Pacific as Japan's chairmanship of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation approaches in 2010.
All of these initiatives suggest that yuai is a vast improvement over previous philosophies. It is an attempt to forge a new identity for Japan, one that allows it to lead as part of a team and one that puts one of the world's largest economies at the forefront of those nations seeking solutions to the world's problems.
Stewart is program director and senior fellow at Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs and a fellow at the Truman National Security Project.
Raising Japan’s Profile
Hatoyama wants a leadership role.
By Devin Stewart | NEWSWEEK
Published Nov 6, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Nov 16, 2009
Even before Yukio Hatoyama became Japan's prime minister this summer, his philosophy of yuai, an idea that translates loosely to "fraternal love," had been ridiculed. The conservative Sankei Shimbun newspaper worried about the concept's origins, tracing it back to the liberté, egalité, and fraternité of the French Revolution and comparing Hatoyama to a modern-day Robes-pierre, sans guillotine. The moderate newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun doubted something so lofty could be understood, much less applied, on a global level. And despite Hatoyama's assertion that his brand of fraternity is "combative," rooted as it is in revolution, his political opponents have derided it as impractical and "as mushy as ice cream."
But yuai is more than just a tempting target. In October, in his first parliamentary address since taking office, Hatoyama began spelling out how this fuzzy-sounding notion would be applied to policy. Guided by a spirit of fraternity, he said, Japan would seek to temper the turbulence of globalization by promoting the free market while also boosting domestic social safety nets. Japan would take a moral-leadership role on the world stage by aiding poor countries in their fight against climate change. And it would agree to cut CO2 emissions by 25 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 if other rich countries reciprocated. In essence, he suggested, the philosophy would elevate Japan more than ever before into the community of nations that are now tackling transnational issues such as climate change, the financial and economic crisis, nuclear proliferation, and terrorism.
Hatoyama would go far beyond his predecessors, who tried for decades to coin a phrase that would signpost Japan's place in the world. Some of these ideas understood Japan primarily in relation to the world's great powers. Democratic Party of Japan chairman Ichiro Ozawa talked of Japan as a "normal country"—by which he meant that Japan would have a foreign policy of its own, independent of the United States. Other catchphrases were more nationalistic in tone, such as former prime minister Shinzo Abe's "beautiful country" or Taro Aso's "thought leader" of Asia. Still others attempted to position Japan as the premier power in Asia, with Japan dubbed the head of "the flying geese." But all these formulations positioned Japan against others rather than putting it in a truly global context. Yuai, by contrast, identifies Japan as an independent actor that is also part of a larger, integrated global system. Indeed, the universal rhetoric seems ap-propriate for a time of universal problems.
Hatoyama's grandfather Ichiro Hatoyama is said to have stumbled upon the idea in a book at a time when he had been forced out of Japanese politics by U.S. occupying forces. The book, titled The Totalitarian State Against Man, was written in the 1930s by Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, the originator of the idea of a unified European community. He argued that fraternity was the key to building a peaceful society and striking a balance between freedom and equality. In his view, too much freedom yielded anarchy; too much equality yielded tyranny. The elder Hatoyama was so moved by the ideas that he translated the book into Japanese and, in 1953, began promoting the idea to postwar Japan.
His grandson has tried to translate these ideals into modern terms. Japan's direction on foreign policy is in line with the Obama administration's emphasis on consultation with the community of nations. He aims to position Japan as a "bridge for the world" between the East and the West, between rich and poor countries, and "between diverse civilizations," while also providing leadership on global issues. For instance, the government recently announced it would lend Indonesia the equivalent of $400 million to fight climate change, and urged India to make its own commitment to the effort. Japan has also indicated that it will apply this lofty idea on a regional level by emphasizing sustainable and inclusive growth in the Pacific as Japan's chairmanship of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation approaches in 2010.
Yuai is both less mushy and less combative than critics suggest. It is a philosophy that suggests Hatoyama wants to forge a new identity for Japan in which it will lead as part of a team. But if it is to gain real traction, the prime minister will have to a find a balance between the merely inspirational and the concrete policies Japan demands.
Stewart is program director and senior fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs and a fellow at the Truman National Security Project.
By Devin Stewart | NEWSWEEK
Published Nov 6, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Nov 16, 2009
Even before Yukio Hatoyama became Japan's prime minister this summer, his philosophy of yuai, an idea that translates loosely to "fraternal love," had been ridiculed. The conservative Sankei Shimbun newspaper worried about the concept's origins, tracing it back to the liberté, egalité, and fraternité of the French Revolution and comparing Hatoyama to a modern-day Robes-pierre, sans guillotine. The moderate newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun doubted something so lofty could be understood, much less applied, on a global level. And despite Hatoyama's assertion that his brand of fraternity is "combative," rooted as it is in revolution, his political opponents have derided it as impractical and "as mushy as ice cream."
But yuai is more than just a tempting target. In October, in his first parliamentary address since taking office, Hatoyama began spelling out how this fuzzy-sounding notion would be applied to policy. Guided by a spirit of fraternity, he said, Japan would seek to temper the turbulence of globalization by promoting the free market while also boosting domestic social safety nets. Japan would take a moral-leadership role on the world stage by aiding poor countries in their fight against climate change. And it would agree to cut CO2 emissions by 25 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 if other rich countries reciprocated. In essence, he suggested, the philosophy would elevate Japan more than ever before into the community of nations that are now tackling transnational issues such as climate change, the financial and economic crisis, nuclear proliferation, and terrorism.
Hatoyama would go far beyond his predecessors, who tried for decades to coin a phrase that would signpost Japan's place in the world. Some of these ideas understood Japan primarily in relation to the world's great powers. Democratic Party of Japan chairman Ichiro Ozawa talked of Japan as a "normal country"—by which he meant that Japan would have a foreign policy of its own, independent of the United States. Other catchphrases were more nationalistic in tone, such as former prime minister Shinzo Abe's "beautiful country" or Taro Aso's "thought leader" of Asia. Still others attempted to position Japan as the premier power in Asia, with Japan dubbed the head of "the flying geese." But all these formulations positioned Japan against others rather than putting it in a truly global context. Yuai, by contrast, identifies Japan as an independent actor that is also part of a larger, integrated global system. Indeed, the universal rhetoric seems ap-propriate for a time of universal problems.
Hatoyama's grandfather Ichiro Hatoyama is said to have stumbled upon the idea in a book at a time when he had been forced out of Japanese politics by U.S. occupying forces. The book, titled The Totalitarian State Against Man, was written in the 1930s by Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, the originator of the idea of a unified European community. He argued that fraternity was the key to building a peaceful society and striking a balance between freedom and equality. In his view, too much freedom yielded anarchy; too much equality yielded tyranny. The elder Hatoyama was so moved by the ideas that he translated the book into Japanese and, in 1953, began promoting the idea to postwar Japan.
His grandson has tried to translate these ideals into modern terms. Japan's direction on foreign policy is in line with the Obama administration's emphasis on consultation with the community of nations. He aims to position Japan as a "bridge for the world" between the East and the West, between rich and poor countries, and "between diverse civilizations," while also providing leadership on global issues. For instance, the government recently announced it would lend Indonesia the equivalent of $400 million to fight climate change, and urged India to make its own commitment to the effort. Japan has also indicated that it will apply this lofty idea on a regional level by emphasizing sustainable and inclusive growth in the Pacific as Japan's chairmanship of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation approaches in 2010.
Yuai is both less mushy and less combative than critics suggest. It is a philosophy that suggests Hatoyama wants to forge a new identity for Japan in which it will lead as part of a team. But if it is to gain real traction, the prime minister will have to a find a balance between the merely inspirational and the concrete policies Japan demands.
Stewart is program director and senior fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs and a fellow at the Truman National Security Project.
Is the worst over for Japan's automakers?
Posted by: Ian Rowley on July 30
There is no denying Japan’s automakers took some extreme measures at the start of the year. As sales slumped around the world, nothing was safe from cost cutting. Mitsubishi Motors apologized before one press conference for not providing water as an emergency cost saving measure. The chief engineer of a new Lexus shared a car with two colleagues rather than take the bullet train from Toyota City to Tokyo, even though it took four hours versus 90 minutes on the train, to save $300 in train fares. More important: the likes of Toyota, Honda and Nissan slashed production at the start of the year—in some months trimming output 65% from a year earlier—as they battled to reduce inventories.
This week’s earnings results suggest the tough steps are paying off. After racking up huge losses in the first three months of the year, Honda, Nissan, and Mazda have all posted better than expected results for the April-June period. Honda, one of only three Japanese carmakers, to make an annual profit in the financial year that ended on March 31, surprised analysts yesterday with a small profit. Today’s its stock rose 8%. Nissan, which posted a smaller than expected loss a couple of hours after Honda’s results, surged 10%. Mazda’s better-than-hoped $264 million loss also warrants a mention given that the Hiroshima-based carmaker exports about 85% of the vehicles it makes in Japan. That makes it especially vulnerable to the strong yen, which surged against other currencies last fall and remains at painful levels for exporters.
For all that, the recent recovery in confidence—and share prices—could prove fragile. One question mark is what will happen to auto sales once government incentive schemes come to an end. “Cash for clunkers” and tax breaks for eco-friendly cars are one reason for better-than-forecast results. In China, government measures, including boosting sales of cars with engines sizes of 1.6 liters or smaller, continue to stoke sales. In Japan, subsidies for eco-friendly vehicles, such as the Honda Insight and Toyota Prius, have propelled hybrids to the top of the sales rankings for the first time. But what happens when the government help runs out?
Then there’s the Toyota factor. The company, the world’s largest automaker, doesn’t reveal its quarterly results until August 4. Given its huge importance to the Japanese auto industry, if its numbers disappoint, the recent improvements in sentiment could quickly go into reverse.
There is no denying Japan’s automakers took some extreme measures at the start of the year. As sales slumped around the world, nothing was safe from cost cutting. Mitsubishi Motors apologized before one press conference for not providing water as an emergency cost saving measure. The chief engineer of a new Lexus shared a car with two colleagues rather than take the bullet train from Toyota City to Tokyo, even though it took four hours versus 90 minutes on the train, to save $300 in train fares. More important: the likes of Toyota, Honda and Nissan slashed production at the start of the year—in some months trimming output 65% from a year earlier—as they battled to reduce inventories.
This week’s earnings results suggest the tough steps are paying off. After racking up huge losses in the first three months of the year, Honda, Nissan, and Mazda have all posted better than expected results for the April-June period. Honda, one of only three Japanese carmakers, to make an annual profit in the financial year that ended on March 31, surprised analysts yesterday with a small profit. Today’s its stock rose 8%. Nissan, which posted a smaller than expected loss a couple of hours after Honda’s results, surged 10%. Mazda’s better-than-hoped $264 million loss also warrants a mention given that the Hiroshima-based carmaker exports about 85% of the vehicles it makes in Japan. That makes it especially vulnerable to the strong yen, which surged against other currencies last fall and remains at painful levels for exporters.
For all that, the recent recovery in confidence—and share prices—could prove fragile. One question mark is what will happen to auto sales once government incentive schemes come to an end. “Cash for clunkers” and tax breaks for eco-friendly cars are one reason for better-than-forecast results. In China, government measures, including boosting sales of cars with engines sizes of 1.6 liters or smaller, continue to stoke sales. In Japan, subsidies for eco-friendly vehicles, such as the Honda Insight and Toyota Prius, have propelled hybrids to the top of the sales rankings for the first time. But what happens when the government help runs out?
Then there’s the Toyota factor. The company, the world’s largest automaker, doesn’t reveal its quarterly results until August 4. Given its huge importance to the Japanese auto industry, if its numbers disappoint, the recent improvements in sentiment could quickly go into reverse.
Recession Can't Stop Japan's Online Shoppers
Japan September 4, 2009, 10:55AM EST
Recession Can't Stop Japan's Online Shoppers
A rise in the number of stay-at-home shoppers in Japan means the online shopping industry outstrips sales at department stores and convenience stores
By Hiroko Tashiro
It never rains but it pours for Japan's department store operators, once the driving force behind Japan's bubble-era consumerism. This summer already-flagging sales plunged further as recession-hit consumers cut back on spending. Nature didn't help out, either, as poor weather hurt sales.
Yet, even when the recession eases and the weather improves, don't expect a big bounce in sales. These days, Japan's recession-hit shoppers increasingly prefer to shop without ever leaving home.
The numbers are startling. Using data from the Japan Direct Marketing Assn. and Nomura Research Institute (NRI), the Nikkei daily estimates online shopping sales in Japan rose 22% to $67.2 billion. That's despite Japan's deepest recession in the postwar era savaging consumer confidence following the collapse of Lehman Brothers last fall.
If catalog shopping is also included, the figure rises to over $86 billion—or more than is spent in Japan's department stores or ubiquitous convenience stores. Noritaka Kobayashi, senior consultant at Nomura Research Institute in Tokyo, says that while the growth will likely slow due to the recession, the consumer e-commerce market will continue to outstrip other forms of shopping. Excluding eating out and other forms of consumption that can't be easily conducted online, Kobayashi reckons $2.2 trillion of consumption could be made from computers and cell phones. "A growing number of people are simply avoiding the trouble of visiting stores," he says. "This market has a big growth potential."
Sugomori: "Chicks in the Nest"
What explains Japanese consumers' shift to shopping online? In the last year, as the global recession pounded the Japanese economy, pundits began using the term sugomori ("chicks in the nest") to describe people who stay home to keep outside expenses to a minimum. Shopping online is not only often cheaper, especially when compared with expensive department stores, but it also saves on transportation and eating out while shopping.
Other reasons for the rapid expansion of online shopping in Japan are perhaps more compelling—and Japan-specific. One factor is undoubtedly the widespread use of high-speed Internet. Fast broadband connections are the norm in Japan, while high-speed Internet-enabled mobile phones are long established. NTT DoCoMo's (DCM) 3G service is now in its 10th year of operation. The upshot: Japanese young and old are comfortable and experienced online.
According to the Internal Affairs & Communications Ministry, the mobile-commerce market in 2007 was worth $7.8 billion, a 29% increase from the previous year. The NRI, meanwhile, estimates mobile phones account for about 20% of online shopping and that share will increase to 24.5% by 2013. "Sooner or later it will be half," says Kobayashi. He adds that many teenagers buy games, books, or accessories via mobile phone but never use a PC for e-commerce.
Superior Delivery Service
It helps that workers in Japan typically take long commutes, often in crowded trains. That leaves plenty of time to text, read the news, play games, or shop using a mobile phone.
Marketers are also getting savvier at appealing to mobile shoppers. While eBay (EBAY) isn't a big player in Japan, Rakuten, Amazon Japan, and Yahoo Japan are among Japan's most visited Web sites and are huge conduits for online shopping. Small players, meanwhile, are finding creative ways to woo Net-based shoppers. One example: In March, dozens of young women swarmed to the Tokyo Girls Collection fashion show. At the show, held in Tokyo's youthful Shibuya district, audience members could order what they saw on the runway using their mobile phones, via a dedicated retail site. In a single night, the show sold $615,000 worth of clothes.
Meticulous home-delivery service is another factor boosting online shopping. Delivery companies such as Yamato Transport, Sagawa Express, and JP Express are famously reliable. The companies usually offer to deliver within a two-hour time slot selected by the customer and are rarely late. They are also remarkably fast. Yamato, for instance, has a tieup with Amazon (AMZN) and other mail-order companies by which it offers next-morning delivery for orders made by midnight the previous day. And if the customer prefers, deliveries can be made to one of Japan's 50,000 convenience stores. For only a small extra fee, delivery firms will deliver frozen or chilled products, leading to the rapid expansion of online purchasing of fresh produce, such as freshly caught crab from Hokkaido or pineapple from subtropical Okinawa.
Payment options have evolved to meet customer needs and soothe fraud concerns. For consumers who don't want to input credit-card numbers over the Internet, Yamato and others offer a pay-on-delivery service. "These finely tuned delivery services are boosting the mail-order business," says Masao Ueda, chief researcher at the Distribution Economics Institute of Japan.
Tashiro is a correspondent for BusinessWeek based in Tokyo.
Recession Can't Stop Japan's Online Shoppers
A rise in the number of stay-at-home shoppers in Japan means the online shopping industry outstrips sales at department stores and convenience stores
By Hiroko Tashiro
It never rains but it pours for Japan's department store operators, once the driving force behind Japan's bubble-era consumerism. This summer already-flagging sales plunged further as recession-hit consumers cut back on spending. Nature didn't help out, either, as poor weather hurt sales.
Yet, even when the recession eases and the weather improves, don't expect a big bounce in sales. These days, Japan's recession-hit shoppers increasingly prefer to shop without ever leaving home.
The numbers are startling. Using data from the Japan Direct Marketing Assn. and Nomura Research Institute (NRI), the Nikkei daily estimates online shopping sales in Japan rose 22% to $67.2 billion. That's despite Japan's deepest recession in the postwar era savaging consumer confidence following the collapse of Lehman Brothers last fall.
If catalog shopping is also included, the figure rises to over $86 billion—or more than is spent in Japan's department stores or ubiquitous convenience stores. Noritaka Kobayashi, senior consultant at Nomura Research Institute in Tokyo, says that while the growth will likely slow due to the recession, the consumer e-commerce market will continue to outstrip other forms of shopping. Excluding eating out and other forms of consumption that can't be easily conducted online, Kobayashi reckons $2.2 trillion of consumption could be made from computers and cell phones. "A growing number of people are simply avoiding the trouble of visiting stores," he says. "This market has a big growth potential."
Sugomori: "Chicks in the Nest"
What explains Japanese consumers' shift to shopping online? In the last year, as the global recession pounded the Japanese economy, pundits began using the term sugomori ("chicks in the nest") to describe people who stay home to keep outside expenses to a minimum. Shopping online is not only often cheaper, especially when compared with expensive department stores, but it also saves on transportation and eating out while shopping.
Other reasons for the rapid expansion of online shopping in Japan are perhaps more compelling—and Japan-specific. One factor is undoubtedly the widespread use of high-speed Internet. Fast broadband connections are the norm in Japan, while high-speed Internet-enabled mobile phones are long established. NTT DoCoMo's (DCM) 3G service is now in its 10th year of operation. The upshot: Japanese young and old are comfortable and experienced online.
According to the Internal Affairs & Communications Ministry, the mobile-commerce market in 2007 was worth $7.8 billion, a 29% increase from the previous year. The NRI, meanwhile, estimates mobile phones account for about 20% of online shopping and that share will increase to 24.5% by 2013. "Sooner or later it will be half," says Kobayashi. He adds that many teenagers buy games, books, or accessories via mobile phone but never use a PC for e-commerce.
Superior Delivery Service
It helps that workers in Japan typically take long commutes, often in crowded trains. That leaves plenty of time to text, read the news, play games, or shop using a mobile phone.
Marketers are also getting savvier at appealing to mobile shoppers. While eBay (EBAY) isn't a big player in Japan, Rakuten, Amazon Japan, and Yahoo Japan are among Japan's most visited Web sites and are huge conduits for online shopping. Small players, meanwhile, are finding creative ways to woo Net-based shoppers. One example: In March, dozens of young women swarmed to the Tokyo Girls Collection fashion show. At the show, held in Tokyo's youthful Shibuya district, audience members could order what they saw on the runway using their mobile phones, via a dedicated retail site. In a single night, the show sold $615,000 worth of clothes.
Meticulous home-delivery service is another factor boosting online shopping. Delivery companies such as Yamato Transport, Sagawa Express, and JP Express are famously reliable. The companies usually offer to deliver within a two-hour time slot selected by the customer and are rarely late. They are also remarkably fast. Yamato, for instance, has a tieup with Amazon (AMZN) and other mail-order companies by which it offers next-morning delivery for orders made by midnight the previous day. And if the customer prefers, deliveries can be made to one of Japan's 50,000 convenience stores. For only a small extra fee, delivery firms will deliver frozen or chilled products, leading to the rapid expansion of online purchasing of fresh produce, such as freshly caught crab from Hokkaido or pineapple from subtropical Okinawa.
Payment options have evolved to meet customer needs and soothe fraud concerns. For consumers who don't want to input credit-card numbers over the Internet, Yamato and others offer a pay-on-delivery service. "These finely tuned delivery services are boosting the mail-order business," says Masao Ueda, chief researcher at the Distribution Economics Institute of Japan.
Tashiro is a correspondent for BusinessWeek based in Tokyo.
Japanese Clothing Retailer Lives Up to Its Name
September 26, 2009
By MIKI TANIKAWA
TOKYO — For someone whose stated aim is to dominate the global market for his product, Tadashi Yanai cuts an unassuming figure. He speaks softly about his passion for business but also about his firm belief that successful people will inevitably make mistakes, and then learn from them. His autobiography, published in 2003, is titled “One Win and Nine Losses.”
Mr. Yanai, 60, the founder and chief executive of the Japanese company Fast Retailing, has big ambitions: to be the world’s largest purveyor of cheap yet chic clothing in the next 10 years.
Fast Retailing owns Uniqlo, the so-called fast fashion chain whose square red logo with white characters now flies above 777 stores in Japan and 90 stores in China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, Britain, France and the United States.
It also owns the Theory clothing brand in the United States and two French brands, Comptoir des Cotonniers and Princesse Tam-Tam.
From its founding in 1963 as a family-run clothing shop, and despite a few setbacks along the way, Fast Retailing has generally lived up to its name. The company has forecast that sales for the year through Aug. 31 rose 16 percent, to ¥680 billion, or about $7.4 billion, while profits rose 20 percent, to ¥52 billion. Many analysts expect that the final numbers, to be announced Oct. 8, will exceed the forecast.
In a depressed market for retailers’ stocks, Fast Retailing’s shares have been buoyant, trading at a price/earnings ratio of 21.35. That performance has propelled Mr. Yanai, the company’s biggest shareholder, to the top of the current Forbes list of the richest people in Japan, with a net worth of $6.1 billion.
Yet despite its best efforts to expand globally, Fast Retailing still generates about 90 percent of its sales in Japan. Mr. Yanai wants to change that. His 10-year goal is to achieve annual sales of more than ¥5 trillion — more than the combined sales of competitors like Gap Stores, H&M and Inditex, which owns the Zara brand.
Fast Retailing’s latest overseas salvo will come Oct. 1 in Paris, with the opening of a Uniqlo flagship store on Rue Scribe — 2,000 square meters, or more than 21,000 square feet, of retail space just around the corner from the landmark department stores Galeries Lafayette and Printemps.
Even though cheap chic is thriving as consumers cut back, opening a flagship store in the world’s fashion capital could be the definition of chutzpah. Mr. Yanai sees it as a natural extension of the brand — and of his business style.
“We have grown to this from a ¥1 billion company in 1984, when we established our first Uniqlo shop,” Mr. Yanai said in a recent interview in his office in Tokyo.
“That is no less preposterous than what we aim to achieve” in the next 10 years, he added.
Most Uniqlo items go for just a few tens of dollars and rarely carry a retail price of more than $60, even for jackets and coats. In warehouselike stores, Uniqlo’s simply dressed salespeople stack up sweat shirts, turtlenecks and sweaters in vivid colors of all gradations, as if they were displaying crayons.
To keep costs low and quality high, Uniqlo manufactures in China under the watchful eye of Japanese executives who are handpicked by Mr. Yanai and have experience in textiles and design. To keep the buzz going, Uniqlo shops also offer some funkier items like “heat tech” underwear, which saves the wearer a layer or two on the top during winter’s cold.
Jon Wright, retail industry analyst at Euromonitor International in London, said Fast Retailing would have a fair shot at selling well in Europe.
“Uniqlo’s pricing structure is low enough to enable it to compete well with H&M and Zara,” Mr. Wright said. “It has a wider range of prices, which should make it better able to attract consumers who are trading down from higher-priced brands into the midmarket segment, not just people looking for bargains.”
Building its business globally will be crucial if Fast Retailing is to achieve its ambitious goals. Like every big Japanese consumer products company, it faces a deadline: Japan’s population is aging, and its youth population is shrinking. At the same time, the forces of globalization are bringing multinational competitors into the Japanese market.
“Companies that sell only in Japan will eventually not be able to sell even in Japan,” Mr. Yanai, who sprinkles the word “globalization” liberally into his conversation and public remarks, said recently in a news conference. “Corporations have to go global in order to survive.”
Like most companies that sell to the youth market, Uniqlo gets the word out about a new store or a new collection via a variety of media, including distributing leaflets in newspapers. But its strongest sell usually is word of mouth.
“We have been around for three years, and customers throughout New York know who we are and what our message is,” said Billy Lukas, manager of the Uniqlo store in New York. “Just having a flagship in the heart of SoHo really helped build the brand recognition throughout the country.”
Mr. Wright, the Euromonitor analyst, said acquisition targets should not be lacking, especially in Europe.
“The industry is comparatively fragmented, and the size of competitors means that they are not unaffordable,” he said. “The difficulty for Fast Retailing is choosing which company to take over, as the fastest-growing brands at the moment are invariably at the economy end of the market and therefore may not sit well alongside the company’s other brands.”
Fast Retailing is generally cautious about mergers and acquisitions, in part because Mr. Yanai is loath to overpay. The company lost a bidding war for the upscale retailer Barneys New York and gave up on a bid for the Hong Kong apparel company Giordano International in 2007.
Mr. Yanai is also mindful of past expansions that were undertaken too quickly and had to be rolled back. In 2001, Fast Retailing announced plans to open 50 Uniqlo stores throughout England in three years. The company set up 21 stores in one year, then realized that profitability was nowhere in sight for most of them. It folded all but five and, after a period of regrouping and reorientation, it is now back to 13 stores.
The opening of the Uniqlo flagship store in Paris follows several trial runs, including a store that opened in La Défense shopping mall near Paris in December 2007 and a pop-up store this summer in the city’s Marais district.
“One thing that stands out about Yanai-san is that he has experienced many, many mistakes in the past and learned from them,” said Hirotaka Takeuchi, dean of the graduate school of international corporate strategy at Hitotsubashi University, in Tokyo.
Fast Retailing also “promotes young talent to executive posts and lets them take up serious responsibility,” said Masayuki Kubota, senior fund manager at Daiwa SB Investments. “The company is not just about Yanai.”
Jun Yamashiro, 29, a Uniqlo store manager who supervises 80 employees in Shibuya, a trendy shopping district in Tokyo, concurs. “It’s a company that will give you an opportunity if you can prove yourself,” she said.
Copyright 2009
By MIKI TANIKAWA
TOKYO — For someone whose stated aim is to dominate the global market for his product, Tadashi Yanai cuts an unassuming figure. He speaks softly about his passion for business but also about his firm belief that successful people will inevitably make mistakes, and then learn from them. His autobiography, published in 2003, is titled “One Win and Nine Losses.”
Mr. Yanai, 60, the founder and chief executive of the Japanese company Fast Retailing, has big ambitions: to be the world’s largest purveyor of cheap yet chic clothing in the next 10 years.
Fast Retailing owns Uniqlo, the so-called fast fashion chain whose square red logo with white characters now flies above 777 stores in Japan and 90 stores in China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore, Britain, France and the United States.
It also owns the Theory clothing brand in the United States and two French brands, Comptoir des Cotonniers and Princesse Tam-Tam.
From its founding in 1963 as a family-run clothing shop, and despite a few setbacks along the way, Fast Retailing has generally lived up to its name. The company has forecast that sales for the year through Aug. 31 rose 16 percent, to ¥680 billion, or about $7.4 billion, while profits rose 20 percent, to ¥52 billion. Many analysts expect that the final numbers, to be announced Oct. 8, will exceed the forecast.
In a depressed market for retailers’ stocks, Fast Retailing’s shares have been buoyant, trading at a price/earnings ratio of 21.35. That performance has propelled Mr. Yanai, the company’s biggest shareholder, to the top of the current Forbes list of the richest people in Japan, with a net worth of $6.1 billion.
Yet despite its best efforts to expand globally, Fast Retailing still generates about 90 percent of its sales in Japan. Mr. Yanai wants to change that. His 10-year goal is to achieve annual sales of more than ¥5 trillion — more than the combined sales of competitors like Gap Stores, H&M and Inditex, which owns the Zara brand.
Fast Retailing’s latest overseas salvo will come Oct. 1 in Paris, with the opening of a Uniqlo flagship store on Rue Scribe — 2,000 square meters, or more than 21,000 square feet, of retail space just around the corner from the landmark department stores Galeries Lafayette and Printemps.
Even though cheap chic is thriving as consumers cut back, opening a flagship store in the world’s fashion capital could be the definition of chutzpah. Mr. Yanai sees it as a natural extension of the brand — and of his business style.
“We have grown to this from a ¥1 billion company in 1984, when we established our first Uniqlo shop,” Mr. Yanai said in a recent interview in his office in Tokyo.
“That is no less preposterous than what we aim to achieve” in the next 10 years, he added.
Most Uniqlo items go for just a few tens of dollars and rarely carry a retail price of more than $60, even for jackets and coats. In warehouselike stores, Uniqlo’s simply dressed salespeople stack up sweat shirts, turtlenecks and sweaters in vivid colors of all gradations, as if they were displaying crayons.
To keep costs low and quality high, Uniqlo manufactures in China under the watchful eye of Japanese executives who are handpicked by Mr. Yanai and have experience in textiles and design. To keep the buzz going, Uniqlo shops also offer some funkier items like “heat tech” underwear, which saves the wearer a layer or two on the top during winter’s cold.
Jon Wright, retail industry analyst at Euromonitor International in London, said Fast Retailing would have a fair shot at selling well in Europe.
“Uniqlo’s pricing structure is low enough to enable it to compete well with H&M and Zara,” Mr. Wright said. “It has a wider range of prices, which should make it better able to attract consumers who are trading down from higher-priced brands into the midmarket segment, not just people looking for bargains.”
Building its business globally will be crucial if Fast Retailing is to achieve its ambitious goals. Like every big Japanese consumer products company, it faces a deadline: Japan’s population is aging, and its youth population is shrinking. At the same time, the forces of globalization are bringing multinational competitors into the Japanese market.
“Companies that sell only in Japan will eventually not be able to sell even in Japan,” Mr. Yanai, who sprinkles the word “globalization” liberally into his conversation and public remarks, said recently in a news conference. “Corporations have to go global in order to survive.”
Like most companies that sell to the youth market, Uniqlo gets the word out about a new store or a new collection via a variety of media, including distributing leaflets in newspapers. But its strongest sell usually is word of mouth.
“We have been around for three years, and customers throughout New York know who we are and what our message is,” said Billy Lukas, manager of the Uniqlo store in New York. “Just having a flagship in the heart of SoHo really helped build the brand recognition throughout the country.”
Mr. Wright, the Euromonitor analyst, said acquisition targets should not be lacking, especially in Europe.
“The industry is comparatively fragmented, and the size of competitors means that they are not unaffordable,” he said. “The difficulty for Fast Retailing is choosing which company to take over, as the fastest-growing brands at the moment are invariably at the economy end of the market and therefore may not sit well alongside the company’s other brands.”
Fast Retailing is generally cautious about mergers and acquisitions, in part because Mr. Yanai is loath to overpay. The company lost a bidding war for the upscale retailer Barneys New York and gave up on a bid for the Hong Kong apparel company Giordano International in 2007.
Mr. Yanai is also mindful of past expansions that were undertaken too quickly and had to be rolled back. In 2001, Fast Retailing announced plans to open 50 Uniqlo stores throughout England in three years. The company set up 21 stores in one year, then realized that profitability was nowhere in sight for most of them. It folded all but five and, after a period of regrouping and reorientation, it is now back to 13 stores.
The opening of the Uniqlo flagship store in Paris follows several trial runs, including a store that opened in La Défense shopping mall near Paris in December 2007 and a pop-up store this summer in the city’s Marais district.
“One thing that stands out about Yanai-san is that he has experienced many, many mistakes in the past and learned from them,” said Hirotaka Takeuchi, dean of the graduate school of international corporate strategy at Hitotsubashi University, in Tokyo.
Fast Retailing also “promotes young talent to executive posts and lets them take up serious responsibility,” said Masayuki Kubota, senior fund manager at Daiwa SB Investments. “The company is not just about Yanai.”
Jun Yamashiro, 29, a Uniqlo store manager who supervises 80 employees in Shibuya, a trendy shopping district in Tokyo, concurs. “It’s a company that will give you an opportunity if you can prove yourself,” she said.
Copyright 2009
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