FOREWORD
1. Pico Iyer, ‘Now is the Season for Japan’, New York Times, 22 March 2012.
2. Interview with author, Boston, May 2011.
3. Quoted by Kenneth Pyle, Japan Rising, pp. 320–21.
4. Yoshio Sugimoto, An Introduction to Japanese Society (2nd edn), p. 13.
5. Iyer, ‘Now is the Season for Japan’.
6. Interview with Masakazu Yamazaki, ‘Live Life to the Full, Knowing that it is Fleeting’, Asahi newspaper, 14 March 2012.
1. TSUNAMI
1. Joshua Hammer, Yokohama Burning, p. 62.
2. ‘The Genius of Japanese Civilization’, The Atlantic Monthly, vol. 76, no. 456 (October 1895), pp. 449–58.
3. Hammer, Yokohama Burning, p. 64.
4. Kenneth Change, ‘Quake Moves Japan Closer to US and Alters Earth’s Spin’, New York Times, 13 March 2011.
5. Ibid.
6. Remarks to author, Rikuzentakata, June 2012.
7. European Space Agency, 9 August 2011, http://www.esa.int/esaEO/SEMV87JTPQG_index_2.html
8. Story recounted to author by Hirotoshi Oikawa, resident of Rikuzentakata, in August 2011.
9. Interview with author, Rikuzentakata, August 2011.
10. Robert Mendick and Andrew Gilligan, Sunday Telegraph, 20 March 2011.
11. Michael Wines, ‘Japanese Town Still Hopes as Reality Intrudes’, New York Times, 22 March 2011.
12. From an account by Kazuyoshi Sasaki, related to author, Rikuzentakata, August 2011.
13. Interview with author, Rikuzentakata, August 2011.
14. Carl Hoffman, ‘Lessons from Japan’, Popular Mechanics, 1 August 2011.
15. Gordon Fairclough, ‘Hope of the Lone Pine’, Wall Street Journal, 9 July 2011.
2. BENDING ADVERSITY
1. ‘Japanese Emperor: I am Praying for the Nation’, Korea Herald, 17 March 2011.
2. Report by Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation, quoted in Martin Fackler, ‘Evacuation of Tokyo Was Considered after Disaster’, International Herald Tribune, 29 February 2012.
3. Ibid.
4. Tyler Brule, ‘Tokyo with the Dimmer Switch On’, Financial Times, 19 March 2011.
5. Hiroshi Fuse, ‘Saga Over Using Firewood from Tsunami-hit Area in Kyoto Bonfire Shows Cultural Gap’, Mainichi Daily News, 20 August 2011.
3. SHIMAGUNI
1. Interview with author, Los Angeles, January 2009.
2. Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel, see pp. 426–49.
3. Story related to the author by Pico Iyer, a biographer of the Dalai Lama, Nara, March 2012.
4. In some ways, it could be argued that Japanese culture is less able to absorb foreign influence than other cultures. As Donald Keene points out, English speakers use the word ‘robot’ with, almost certainly, no knowledge that it was derived from the Czech. But in Japanese, written in the katakana script reserved for imported words, it is for ever preserved as an alien word. See Donald Keene, Seeds in the Heart, p. 10.
5. Yoshihiko Noda, prime minister from September 2011 to December 2012, loved to lower expectations with self-deprecatory remarks.
6. Author’s observation during visit to Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, 2006. In another moment of stress, a young kamikaze pilot, foreshadowing Japan’s defeat in war, compared his country, and perhaps himself, to a ‘carp on the cutting board’. The pilot, Hachiro Sasaki, died at the age of twenty-two on a kamikaze mission. Quoted in Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, Kamikaze Diaries: Reflections of Japanese Student Soldiers.
7. Joji Mori, Nihonjin – Karanashi-Tamago no Jigazo (‘Japanese – Self-portrait of a Shell-less Egg’), 1977, Kodansha Gendai Shinsho.
8. ‘Nippon: Japan Since 1945’, BBC documentary (conceived and written by Peter Pagnamenta), 1990.
9. See Karel van Wolferen, The Enigma of Japanese Power, p. 348.
10. David Pilling, ‘. . . And Now for Somewhere Completely Different’, Financial Times, 15 February 2008.
11. Pico Iyer, ‘Now is the Season for Japan’, New York Times, 22 March 2012.
12. Alan Macfarlane, Japan Through the Looking Glass, p. 197.
13. Interview with author, Kyoto, September 2003.
14. Macfarlane, Japan Through the Looking Glass, p. 220.
15. Gavan McCormack, Client State: Japan in the American Embrace, p. 8.
16. John Dower, Embracing Defeat, pp. 278–9.
17. McCormack, Client State, p. 13.
18. Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel, pp. 426–49.
19. Jeff Kingston, Temple University, remarks to author, Tokyo, July 2007.
20. Andrew Gordon, A Modern History of Japan, p. 65.
21. Yoshio Sugimoto, An Introduction to Japanese Society (2nd edn), p. 62.
22. ‘Japanese Author Murakami Wins Jerusalem Prize’, Agence France Presse, 16 February 2009.
23. Telephone interview with author, January 2008.
4. LEAVING ASIA
1. Description of Christianity in an edict of 1825 issued by the Tokugawa bakufu, cited in Marius Jansen, The Making of Modern Japan, p. 266.
2. Gavan McCormack, Client State: Japan in the American Embrace.
3. Ian Buruma, Inventing Japan: From Empire to Economic Miracle, p. xi.
4. Kenneth Pyle, Japan Rising: The Resurgence of Japanese Power and Purpose, p. 107.
5. Interview with author, Seattle, April 2011.
6. Interview with author, Tokyo, October 2011.
7. George Sansom, A History of Japan to 1334, pp. 14–15.
8. Ibid., p. 63.
9. Ibid., pp. 51–9.
10. Donald Keene,The Japanese Discovery of Europe, 1720–1830, p. 27.
11. Andrew Gordon, A Modern History of Japan, p. 3.
12. Ibid., p. 19.
13. Not counting the seven years from 1945 when it was directly controlled by the US Siam, modern-day Thailand, also escaped colonization.
14. Jansen, Modern Japan, p. 64.
15. Ibid., p. 92.
16. George Feifer, Breaking Open Japan, p. 61.
17. Jansen, Modern Japan, p. 277.
18. Keene, 1720–1830, p. 16.
19. Ibid., pp. 147–52.
20. Buruma, Inventing Japan, p. 6.
21. Cited by Keene, 1720–1830, p. 21.
22. The eta today are known as burakumin. Until recently, they were still discriminated against and respectable families would sometimes hire private detectives to ensure that their offspring did not unwittingly marry into an untouchable bloodline.
23. Quoted in Keene, Japanese Discovery of Europe, p. 22.
24. Ronald P. Toby, State and Diplomacy in Early Modern Japan, p. 225.
25. Jansen, Modern Japan, p. 205.
26. Yukichi Fukuzawa, The Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa (trans. Eiichi Kiyooka), p. v.
27. Ibid., p. 86.
28. Description by the magistrate of Uraga, cited by Feifer in Breaking Open Japan, p. 5.
29. Fukuzawa, Autobiography, p. 109.
30. Ibid., p. 91.
31. Feifer, Breaking Open Japan, p. 4.
32. Pyle, Japan Rising, p. 78.
33. Ibid., p. 75.
34. Ibid., p. 78.
35. Interview with author, Boston, May 2011.
36. Fukuzawa, Autobiography, p. 335.
37. Kakuzo Okakura, The Book of Tea.
38. Buruma, Inventing Japan, p. 31.
39. Quoted in Kenneth Pyle, The Making of Modern Japan, p. 87.
40. Quoted by John Dower, Embracing Defeat, p. 21.
41. For a detailed discussion of the various estimates of war casualties see John Dower, War Without Mercy: Race & Power in the Pacific War, pp. 293–301.
42. Pyle, Making of Modern Japan, p. 143.
43. Cited by Jonathan Bailey, Great Power Strategy in Asia: Empire, Culture and Trade, 1905–2005, p. 128.
44. Ibid.
45. Justin Wintle, Perfect Hostage: Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma and the Generals, p. 104.
46. Buruma, Inventing Japan, pp. 46–7.
47. Quoted in Gordon, A Modern History, p. 132.
48. Pyle, Making of Modern Japan, p. 164.
49. Gordon, A Modern History, p. 170.
50. Pyle, Making of Modern Japan, p. 187.
51. Ibid., p. 178.
52. Quoted in Donald Keene, So Lovely a Country Will Never Perish: Wartime Diaries of Japanese Writers, pp. 16–17.
53. Translated by Keene, So Lovely.
5. THE MAGIC TEAPOT
1. Recollection to author, Tokyo, April 2011.
2. Shijuro Ogata was deputy governor for international relations, formerly one rank below the full-fledged deputy governor.
3. Shijuro Ogata, unpublished memoirs in English, based on Harukanaru Showa (The Distant Showa Years), published by the Asahi newspaper, 2005.
4. Remark to author, Tokyo, July 2002.
5. John Dower, Embracing Defeat, p. 45.
6. For a superb analysis of how propaganda shaped American views of the Japanese and vice versa see John Dower, War Without Mercy: Race & Power in the Pacific War.
7. ‘Nippon: Japan Since 1945’, BBC documentary (conceived and written by Peter Pagnamenta), 1990.
8. Lunch with the FT, Paul Krugman, 26 May 2012.
9. South Korea has begun to close in on Japan when measured on a purchasing power parity basis, which takes into account the cost of living across countries.
10. Cited in Roger Buckley, Japan Today, p. 85.
11. Grave of the Fireflies (Hotaru no Haka), 1988.
12. ‘Nippon: Japan Since 1945’.
13. The Americans did provide food shipments to relieve hunger and malnutrition.
14. See Dower, Embracing Defeat, pp. 525–46.
15. ‘Nippon: Japan Since 1945’.
16. Quoted in Buckley, Japan Today, p. 5.
17. ‘Nippon: Japan Since 1945’.
18. Ibid.
19. Michael E. Porter et al., Can Japan Compete?
20. ‘Nippon: Japan Since 1945’.
21. John Nathan’s lovely phrase in Sony: The Private Life, p. 4.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid.
24. John Nathan, ‘Sony’s Boldness Wasn’t “Made in Japan”’, Wall Street Journal, 11 October 1999.
25. Andrew Pollack, ‘Akio Morita, co-founder of Sony and Japanese Business Leader, Dies at 78’, New York Times, 4 October 1999.
26. Masahiro Yamada, comments to author, Tokyo, February 2005.
27. ‘Nippon: Japan Since 1945’.
28. James Abegglen, 21st Century Japanese Management, p. 15.
29. ‘Nippon: Japan Since 1945’.
30. Boston Consulting Group press release, 4 May 2007.
31. See for example Gavan McCormack, The Emptiness of Japanese Affluence.
32. That was partly to distract attention from the political turmoil as Japan’s left fought against the right over the US–Japan security alliance and other social issues.
33. Buckley, Japan Today, p. 73.
34. In truth, as many countries have found, the catch-up phase of development is much easier than when economies reach maturity.
35. Bill Emmott, The Sun Also Sets, p. 5.
36. ‘Nippon: Japan Since 1945’.
37. Ibid.
38. Kenneth Pyle, The Making of Modern Japan, p. 271.
39. Email exchange with author, August 2012.
40. Stephen Miller, ‘He Chronicled the Rise of “Japan Inc” and its Distinct Brand of Capitalism’, Wall Street Journal, 12 May 2007.
41. Cited by Emmott, Sun Also Sets, p. 8.
6. AFTER THE FALL
1. For newspaper accounts of Mrs Inoue and her remarkable ceramic toad, see David Ibison, ‘What Happened to the Gifted Toad?’, Financial Times, 30 September 2002; and Steve Burrell, ‘How a Lucky Toad Spawned a Bank Scam’, Australian Financial Review, 19 August 1991.
2. http://www.savills.co.uk/_news/newsitem.aspx?intSitePageId=72418&intNewsSitePageId=116038-0&intNewsMonth=10&intNewsYear=2011
3. Bill Emmott, The Sun Also Sets, p. 120.
4. Correspondence with Clyde Prestowitz.
5. In the eighteen years to 2008, all the extra spending combined amounted to around 28 per cent of GDP. Markus Bruckner and Anita Tuladhar, ‘Public Investment as a Fiscal Stimulus: Evidence from Japan’s Regional Spending During the 1990s’, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Working Paper, April 2010.
6. Richard Lloyd Parry, ‘Found in Translation’, The Times, 22 January 2005.
7. Haruki Murakami, After the Quake, p. 116.
8. Interview with author, Tokyo, June 2003.
9. David Pilling, ‘Doomsday and After’, Financial Times, 19 March 2005.
10. Interview with author, Tokyo, January 2003.
7. JAPAN AS NUMBER THREE
1. Calculation provided by Masaaki Kanno of JP Morgan, Tokyo. The 1995 Nikkei average was 17,355.34. By June 2012, it had fallen to 8,638.08. To find out how much Y100,000 would be worth in today’s purchasing terms, one needs to apply a value of the GDP deflator, which measures inflation (or deflation) over time. Kanno suggests using the GDP private consumption deflator, which makes Y100,000 in 1995 worth Y112,000 today. If a broader measure of the GDP deflator is used, it would be worth Y122,000.
2. Akio Mikuni quoted by David Pilling in ‘Heads Down’, Financial Times, 17 May 2003.
3. Martin Wolf, ‘Japan on the Brink’, Financial Times, 14 November 2001.
4. Telephone conversation with author, 2011.
5. Measured in purchasing power parity terms, which takes into account the cost of goods in different countries.
6. A value not adjusted for inflation (or deflation).
7. Calculations based on figures from the International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook Database, April 2012.
8. Figures provided by Masaaki Kanno of JP Morgan, Tokyo.
9. In purchasing power parity terms, China’s economy had been bigger than Japan’s for many years before 2010.
10. According to the ‘Urban Land Price Index’ published by the Japan Real Estate Institute, national average land prices in March 2011 were 62 per cent below their 1991 peak, with commercial land down 76 per cent and residential land down 48 per cent.
11. Teizo Taya, special counsellor to Daiwa Institute of Research and a former Bank of Japan board member, estimated that total outstanding loans shrank from Y600 trillion in 1995 to Y400 trillion a decade later.
12. Interview with author and Michiyo Nakamoto, a Financial Times colleague, Tokyo, March 2012.
13. Nicholas Eberstadt, ‘Demography and Japan’s Future’, in Clay Chandler et al. (eds.), Reimagining Japan: The Quest for a Future that Works, pp. 82–7.
14. Jesper Koll, director of equity research at JP Morgan. Even with their high yen, many Japanese find cities such as London and Singapore very expensive, yet offering lower-quality goods and services.
15. International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook Database, April 2012.
16. If we want to compare average real per capita annual growth rates since 2002, Switzerland grew at 1 per cent, Germany at 1.3, Brazil at 2.7 and China at 9.8.
17. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, ‘Harmonised Unemployment Rates’, March 2012.
18. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, ‘Divided We Stand: Why Inequality Keeps Rising’, 2011.
19. Ibid.
20. Yoshio Sugimoto, An Introduction to Japanese Society (2nd edn), p. 57.
21. Peter Hessler, ‘All Due Respect, an American Reporter Takes on the Yakuza’, The New Yorker, 12 January 2012.
22. European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control, International Statistics on Crime and Justice, 2010.
23. Given a US population of 315 million and a Japanese one of 127 million, the US prison population is proportionately ten times higher.
24. Interview with author, Tokyo, July 2011.
25. Richard Jerram, personal correspondence, January 2013.
26. Japan’s net debt, which some argue is a better measure, was about half that in 2012, but still an uncomfortably high 113 per cent.
27. Gavan McCormack, The Emptiness of Japanese Affluence, p. xiii.
28. Botswana has very low debt and is well managed.
29. Peter Tasker, ‘The Japanese Debt Disaster Movie’, Financial Times, 27 January 2011.
30. Telephone interview with author, May 2011.
31. There are dangers in inflation too, says Ito. If, for example, prices started rising by 4 or 5 per cent a year, the government would need to pay much higher interest on its debt. The paradox is that, because of subdued economic activity and therefore rock-bottom borrowing rates, the government can easily manage its debt payments. That makes the Japanese government perversely wedded to low growth. To get out of that fix, it must tread what Ito calls a ‘narrow path’.
32. Peter Tasker, ‘How to Make Monkeys out of the Ratings Agencies’, Financial Times, 11 August 2011.
33. Richard Koo, The Holy Grail of Macroeconomics: Lessons from Japan’s Great Recession.
34. Martin Wolf, ‘Unreformed, But Japan is Back’, Financial Times, 7 March 2006.
35. Some economists argue that private debt should be included and is, perhaps, an even greater vulnerability and predictor of crisis than public debt. By this measure US debt rises to 250 per cent of GDP. Taking into account Japan’s higher savings rate, on this measure, the US debt position is actually worse than Japan’s. See a paper by Steve Clemons and Richard Vague, ‘How to Predict the Next Financial Crisis’, 2012.
36. ‘Arigato for Nothing, Keynes-san’, Wall Street Journal Europe, 24 May 2012.
37. Peter Tasker, ‘Japan Needs a Radical to Tackle its Godzilla-size Public Debt’, Financial Times, 28 June 2012.
38. Paul Krugman, ‘Nobody Understands Debt’, New York Times, 1 January 2012.
39. Interview with author, Tokyo, November 2006.
40. In fact, spending on benefits rose substantially because of what are called ‘automatic stabilizers’, including higher unemployment and social security payments when economies are in recession or growing slowly.
41. Anatole Kaletsky, ‘Britain is Losing the Economic Olympics’, Reuters, 25 July 2012.
42. Email correspondence, January 2013.
43. Niall Ferguson, ‘Obama’s Gotta Go’, Newsweek, 19 April 2012.
44. Jon Hilsenrath, ‘Fed Chief Gets Set to Apply Lessons of Japan’s History’, Wall Street Journal, 12 October 2010.
8. SAMURAI WITH A QUIFF
1. ‘Lionheart’ was also the name of his weekly newsletter which at its peak had some 2 million subscribers.
2. Gregory Anderson, ‘Lionheart or Paper Tiger? A First-term Koizumi Retrospective’, Asian Perspective, vol. 28, no. 1, 2004, pp. 149–82.
3. Hideaki Omura, a junior member of the Hashimoto faction, quoted in the Financial Times, 21 April 2001.
4. Interview with author, November 2003.
5. Heizo Takenaka, The Structural Reforms of the Koizumi Cabinet, p. 7.
6. She later proved a little too outspoken and became almost comically unpopular with the cautious bureaucrats of the foreign affairs ministry who spent all their time briefing against her. Koizumi fired her in January 2002; Japan’s first female foreign minister had lasted just ten months.
7. Takenaka, Structural Reforms, p. 26.
8. http://www.kantei.go.jp/foreign/koizumispeech/2001/0507policyspeech_e.html, accessed 1 January 2012.
9. Interview with author, Tokyo, October 2003.
10. Interview with author, Tokyo, October 2003.
11. Takenaka, Structural Reforms, p. 17.
12. Recollection to author, October 2011.
13. Interview with author, Tokyo, October 2003.
14. Tim Larimer, ‘Japan’s Destroyer’, Time, 17 September 2001.
15. Shares were treated as part of the banks’ capital.
16. David Pilling, ‘Advocate of “Hard Landing” May Join Debt Team in Japan’, Financial Times, 3 October 2002.
17. David Pilling and Mariko Sanchanta, ‘Japan Central Bank’s Bad Loan Warnings Fall on Deaf Ears’, Financial Times, 25 September 2002.
18. Gillian Tett, ‘Revealing the Secrets of MoF-tan’, Financial Times, 31 January 1998.
19. Takenaka, Structural Reforms, p. 76.
20. Newsweek, October 2002.
21. Takenaka, Structural Reforms, p. 87.
22. Resona’s capital adequacy ratio, which measures the amount of core capital a bank has against its risk-weighted assets, fell below 4 per cent. The shortfall came about as a result of auditors’ stricter interpretation of how banks should account for deferred tax assets, credits on future tax bills. In Japan, these were considered suspect since there was no guarantee banks could make future profits against which to offset those assets. See ibid., pp. 96–104.
23. Ibid., p. 109.
24. David Pilling, ‘Rising Sum’, Financial Times, 15 November 2006.
25. Adam Posen, ‘Send in the Samurai’, in Clay Chandler et al. (eds.), Reimagining Japan: The Quest for a Future that Works, p. 104.
26. Spending on public works had risen to about 6 per cent of gross domestic product in the late 1990s when the government was seeking to use stimulus measures to jolt the economy into life. By the end of Koizumi’s term, this had fallen to around 3 per cent of GDP. See Peter Tasker, ‘Japan Needs a Radical to Tackle its Godzilla-size Public Debt’, Financial Times, 28 June 2012.
27. David Pilling, ‘Japan’s PM Turns his Back on Big Government’, Financial Times, 19 July 2002.
28. Interview with author, Nagano, July 2002.
29. David Pilling, ‘Tokyo on Road to Normality as S&P Upgrades Debt Outlook’, Financial Times, 24 May 2006.
30. David Pilling, ‘Japan’s Economy and the Koizumi Myth’, Financial Times, 17 October 2007.
31. Interview with author, Fukuoka, January 2003.
32. David Pilling, ‘Land of the Rising Inequality Coefficient’, Financial Times, 14 March 2006.
33. Noritmitsu Onishi, ‘It’s a Landslide for Koizumi’, International Herald Tribune, 12 September 2005.
34. Takenaka, Structural Reforms, p. 129.
35. Interview with author, Tokyo, May 2002.
36. David Pilling, ‘Japan’s Post Office Sell-off Could Prove Hard to Deliver’, Financial Times, 20 April 2005.
37. David Pilling, ‘Storming the Castle, Koizumi Shakes up the World’s Biggest Financial Institution’, Financial Times, 13 September 2004.
38. Patricia Maclachlan, University of Texas at Austin, in remarks to author, April 2005.
39. Julian Ryall, ‘Ex-LDP Stalwart in Epic Battle’, South China Morning Post, 8 September 2005.
40. Norimitsu Onishi, ‘Koizumi Party, Backing Reforms, Wins by a Landslide’, New York Times, 12 September 2005.
41. Ibid.
42. David Pilling, ‘Koizumi Expects Speedy Passage of Postal Bills’, Financial Times, 21 September 2005.
43. David Pilling, ‘A Second Chance for Koizumi’, Financial Times, 10 September 2005.
44. David Pilling, ‘Koizumi Vindicated’, Financial Times, 13 September 2005.
45. Interview with author, Nagano, 2006.
46. By the late 2000s, Japan’s Gini coefficient was 0.329 compared with 0.345 in the UK and 0.378 in the US and an OECD average of 0.314. The higher the number, the greater the inequality, with 0 as perfect equality and 1 as absolute inequality. By contrast, Sweden has a Gini coefficient of 0.259 and Germany of 0.295, making both more egalitarian societies than Japan, although both actually saw a sharper rise in inequality than Japan in recent years. Chile, also an OECD member, has a coefficient of 0.494. See ‘Divided We Stand: Why Inequality Keeps Rising’, OECD, 2011.
47. Pilling, ‘Land of the Rising Inequality Coefficient’.
48. Tetsushi Kajimoto, ‘Income Disparities Rising in Japan’, Japan Times, 4 January 2006.
49. Interview with author, Tokyo, March 2007.
50. Takehiko Kambayashi, ‘“Tide of Populism” Decried’, Washington Times, 16 June 2006.
51. Telephone interview with author, 2011.
52. Interview with author, Tokyo, March 2007.
53. Interview with author, Kyoto, April 2011.
54. Interview with author, Hong Kong, May 2012.
9. LIFE AFTER GROWTH
1. David Pilling, ‘Reasons to Doubt the Doomsayers’, Financial Times, 14 March 2007.
2. In 1966, the Year of the Fire Horse, which came around once every sixty years, the fertility rate plummeted to 1.58. That was because girls born in that year were reputed to be cursed with sending their husbands to an early grave. In 1967, the fertility rate bounced back strongly.
3. Keizai Koho Center (Japanese Institute for Social and Economic Affairs), ‘Japan 2011, An International Comparison’.
4. According to the United Nations, Britain had an average fertility rate of 1.82 from 2005 to 2010.
5. Official figures supplied by the Silver Human Resources Centre, Tokyo.
6. George Magnus, The Age of Aging, p. 35.
7. David Pilling, ‘Radical Steps Needed to Unlock Japan’s Labour Market’, Financial Times, 16 January 2004.
8. ‘Japan’s Centenarians at Record High’, BBC, 12 September 2008.
9. United Nations, ‘Life Expectancy at Birth, 2005–2010’.
10. Interview with author, Tokyo, July 2011.
11. Magnus, Age of Aging, p. 72.
12. Ibid.
13. Masahiro Yamada, interview with author, Tokyo Gakugei University, March 2012.
14. It is worth comparing Japan’s situation with Russia’s, where the population fell for fifteen straight years after the break-up of the Soviet Union, though it has ticked up again since 2009. In contrast to Japan, that was the result of collapsing life expectancy. At fifty-nine, male life expectancy in Russia is more than twenty years lower than in Japan. Clearly there is more than one route to a declining population.
15. Magnus, Age of Aging, p. 40.
16. Ibid., p. 42.
17. Ibid., p. 55.
18. Interview with author, Tokyo, July 2011.
19. In fact, Japanese youth are very sceptical about the pension system. The working assumption of many seems to be that it will be bankrupt by the time they retire and that they will need to make their own arrangements.
20. Magnus, Age of Aging, p. 70.
21. Pilling, ‘Radical Steps Needed to Unlock Japan’s Labour Market’.
22. Ironically, this is partly because, anxieties about the future aside, there is now a higher sense of financial stability than in the post-war years when there was a strong memory of poverty.
23. Jesper Koll of JP Morgan calculates that people over sixty-five own 75 per cent of the Y1,000 trillion in net financial wealth. That will either be spent during their lifetime or, in part, captured by the government in the form of inheritance tax. When today’s youth retires its savings are likely to be far more limited.
24. The ministry of health and the ministry of education have not always seen eye to eye over pre-school education.
25. According to data from the Conference Board, from 1995 to 2011, Japan’s output per hour rose 1.71 per cent annually compared with 1.87 per cent for the US. Output per hour was about 60 per cent of US levels, reflecting a much more inefficient – or more liberally staffed – services sector.
26. World Bank figures. A high female participation rate in the labour force cannot be taken as an automatic proxy of economic advancement or women’s rights. The ‘best’ performing countries in terms of female participation include China (67 per cent), Vietnam (68 per cent) and Mozambique (85 per cent).
27. Atsushi Seike of Keio University says the range of work available to Japanese women has expanded, though prejudice about a woman’s supposedly warmer hands still means you will never see a female sushi chef. But women are operating bulldozers and driving trucks in what Seike calls the ‘feminization of construction’.
28. Kathy Matsui, ‘Womenomics’, Goldman Sachs paper, October 2010.
29. Interview with author, Tokyo, February 2003.
30. Coco Masters, ‘Japan to Immigrants: Thanks But You Can Go Home Now’, Time, 20 April 2009.
31. Remarks to author, Tokyo, October 2011.
32. According to OECD numbers, which are meant to be roughly comparable across nations, Japan’s youth unemployment rate in 2012 of 8.0 per cent compared favourably with almost all other advanced nations. By comparison, the US number was 17.3 per cent, the UK 20.0 per cent and Spain an extraordinary 46.4 per cent, OECD iLibrary, ‘Employment and Labour Markets: Key Tables: 2. Youth Unemployment Rate’.
33. Estimate from Jesper Koll, director of equity research at JP Morgan.
34. Ibid.
35. Conversation with author, Tokyo, March 2012.
36. Jonathan Soble, ‘In Search of Salvation’, Financial Times, 5 January 2012.
37. Ibid.
38. Kaoru Yosano, interview with author, Tokyo, April 2006.
39. Soble, ‘In Search of Salvation’.
40. Christian Oliver, ‘Samsung Poised to Overtake Rival HP in Sales’, Financial Times, 29 January 2010. Note that the decline of Japan’s electronics industry has become so commonplace that Samsung’s extraordinary profit compared with that of its Japanese peers did not even strike the headline writer as worthy of note.
41. Michiyo Nakamoto, ‘Scrutinising Stringer’, Financial Times, 22 June 2006.
42. Yasuchika Hasegawa, ‘Toward a Lasting Recovery’, in Clay Chandler et al. (eds.), Reimagining Japan: The Quest for a Future that Works, p. 49.
43. In fairness, the same lament could be made of the UK or even Germany.
44. Some Japanese scientists may be at a disadvantage because their papers tend to be written in Japanese, meaning they get fewer citations.
45. Interview with author, Tokyo, July 2011.
46. Daisuke Wakabayashi, ‘How Japan Lost its Electronics Crown’, Wall Street Journal, 15 August 2012.
47. Masayoshi Son, ‘Beyond Nuts and Bolts’, in Clay Chandler et al. (eds.), Reimagining Japan: The Quest for a Future that Works, pp. 57–8.
48. Figures supplied by Dealogic.
49. Norihiro Kato, ‘Japan and the Ancient Art of Shrugging’, New York Times, 21 August 2010.
50. On a purchasing power parity basis, which takes into account the cost of goods across countries, China had overtaken Japan many years before.
51. It blipped up again in 2006 before beginning a steady, if so far gradual, descent in 2007.
52. The UN Human Development Index is, as it happens, a fairly simple combination of per capita income, life expectancy and education/literacy.
53. Per capita income measured on a purchasing power parity basis. In dollar terms, it has a per capita income of less than $2,000.
54. Natsumi Iwasaki, ‘What Would Drucker Do?’ in Clay Chandler et al. (eds.), Reimagining Japan: The Quest for a Future that Works, pp. 133–7.
55. Stephen Miller, James Abegglen Obituary, Wall Street Journal, 12 May 2007.
10. THE PROMISED ROAD
1. Interview with author, Tokyo, January 2003.
2. Yutori is also applied to education, meaning a system that places less emphasis on rote-learning and a crammed curriculum and more on critical thinking. Many older Japanese see the adoption of ‘yutori education’ as one reason for falling standards and continued economic difficulties.
3. Masahiro Yamada, ‘The Young and the Hopeless’, in Clay Chandler et al. (eds.), Reimagining Japan: A Quest for a Future that Works, pp. 176–80.
4. Ibid.
5. The survey was produced by the Japan Productivity Center.
6. Interview with author, Tokyo, July 2004.
7. ‘Held Hostage to Public Opinion’, New Zealand Herald, 1 May 2004.
8. Yoshio Sugimoto, ‘Class and Work in Cultural Capitalism: Japanese Trends’, The Asia-Pacific Journal, 40-1-10, 4 October 2010.
9. Camel Cigarettes, cited in Jeff Kingston, Japan’s Quiet Transformation: Social Change and Civil Society in the Twenty-first Century, p. 38.
10. Mure Dickie, ‘Osaka Mayor Has Old Guard Running Scared’, Financial Times, 19 May 2012.
11. Eric Johnston, ‘Hashimoto Admits Affair, Doesn’t Deny “Cosplay”’, Japan Times, 20 July 2012.
11. FROM BEHIND THE SCREEN
1. These two articles were written by Beate Sirota Gordon, a translator for the administration of General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers. She later said that it was vital to institutionalize women’s rights, since traditionally women had been ‘treated like chattel; they were property to be bought and sold on a whim’.
2. ‘Women’s Economic Opportunity: A new global index and ranking’, Economist Intelligence Unit, 2010.
3. The Gender Inequality Index (2011) seeks to measure women’s disadvantage in the areas of reproductive health, empowerment and labour practice. The empowerment sub-category measures women’s representation in parliament and access to secondary and higher education. The labour element is measured by women’s participation in the workforce, which may not adequately take into account the type of work performed.
4. The authors of the Gender Inequality Index report, for example, are careful to mention the limitations of the index, pointing out that much data is difficult to collect and that it makes no attempt to measure gender-based violence, participation in decision-making or even asset ownership.
5. Mariko Sanchanta, ‘Japan Weighs Female Quotas in Politics’, Wall Street Journal, 24 June 2011.
6. Mineko Iwasaki, interview with author, Kyoto, September 2003.
7. Gail Lee Bernstein, quoted by Kenneth Pyle, The Making of Modern Japan, pp. 152–3.
8. Yayoi Kusama, Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama, p. 112.
9. Mari Yamaguchi, ‘Japanese Rape Scandal Puts Spotlight on Club’, Los Angeles Times, 14 September 2003.
10. Yumi Wijers-Hasegawa, ‘Gang Rape Ringleader Gets 14 Years’, Japan Times, 3 November 2004.
11. William Pesek, ‘A Failure to Innovate’, Bloomberg News, 13 February 2007.
12. The rate went from 1.28 per 1,000 in 1990 to 2.27 in 2001. It has since fallen back to around 2.0. That compares with 3.6 in the US. Interestingly, Japan had a very high divorce rate in the late nineteenth century. This then fell consistently until 1964 when, along with rapid industrialization, it started to rise again.
13. Jeff Kingston, Contemporary Japan, pp. 67–70.
14. Ibid., pp. 69–74.
15. Remark to author, Nara, March 2012. In fact, more Japanese men marry foreign women, though such marriages often involve men in rural parts of Japan finding brides from poorer Southeast Asian countries.
16. Machiko Osawa and Jeff Kingston, ‘Japan Has to Address the “Precariat”’, Financial Times, 1 July 2010.
17. Yoshio Sugimoto, ‘Class and Work in Cultural Capitalism: Japanese Trends’, The Asia-Pacific Journal, 40-1-10, 4 October 2010.
18. Kingston, Contemporary Japan, p. 71.
19. Not her real name. A few minor details have been changed.
1. Remarks to author, Manila, December 2012.
2. ‘Beijing and Seoul Denounce Visit’, International Herald Tribune, 14 August 2001.
3. Interview with author, Tokyo, July 2002.
4. John Dower, Embracing Defeat, p. 28.
5. Ian Buruma, The Wages of Guilt, p. 92.
6. Interview with author, Tokyo, July 2012.
7. Buruma, Wages of Guilt, p. 143.
8. Ibid., p. 64.
9. Interview with author, Tokyo, November 2003.
10. In Japanese the word she used for god was kami, which could be translated as ‘spirit’. It can be used as much for the gods that are said to inhabit the rivers and trees as for the spirits of soldiers who died serving the emperor.
11. After its defeat of Russia in 1905, Japan took over the administration of the South Manchurian Railway, which gave it a foothold in Manchuria. Its influence spread after the Russian Revolution of 1917. In 1931, in what has become known as the Mukden Incident, the Japanese military staged an attack on the railway as a pretext for invading all of Manchuria. It went on to establish the puppet state of Manchukuo under Puyi, the ‘last emperor’ of China’s Qing Dynasty.
12. Kenneth Pyle, The Making of Modern Japan, p. 201. The fact that Vichy France allowed Japan to occupy its colonial possessions in Indochina because of Japan’s alliance with Nazi Germany rather undermines the argument of Japan as liberator. The French continued to administer the area, the rough equivalent of modern Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, under Japanese military occupation.
13. For a detailed account of Saburo Ienaga, see Buruma, Wages of Guilt, pp. 189–201.
14. Remarks to author, August 2004. In 2006, a Tokyo court ruled that it was unconstitutional to oblige teachers to stand in front of the national flag or sing the national anthem. But subsequent rulings by the Supreme Court quashed similar cases, saying it was not illegal to require teachers to stand. See David Pilling, ‘Japanese Teachers Freed from Singing National Anthem’, Financial Times, 22 September 2006.
15. Interview with author, Tokyo, December 2006.
16. Kenneth Pyle, Japan Rising, p. 373.
17. Koizumi did attend the inaugural Boao Forum, intended to become a sort of Chinese Davos, in April 2002.
18. Hugh Williamson and Ray Marcelo, ‘United Nations Warns on Asian Tensions’, Financial Times, 12 April 2005.
13. ABNORMAL NATION
1. Kokka no Hinkaku or ‘Dignity of a Nation’ was the title of Masahiko Fujiwara’s 2005 book.
2. John Dower, Embracing Defeat, p. 454.
3. David Pilling, ‘Abe to Work Towards New Japanese Constitution’, Financial Times, 31 October 2006.
4. David Pilling, ‘To Befit the Reality’, Financial Times, 1 November 2006.
5. Interview with author, Tokyo, August 2006.
6. Japanese military officials explained that if, say, North Korea launched a missile, Japan would need to shoot it down before it knew for sure whether it was headed for Japan or another country. If the missile turned out to have been headed for the US, then, by shooting it down, Tokyo would have engaged in collective self-defence. If, on the other hand, it waited until it was sure the missile was going to land on Japan, it might then be too late to attempt to shoot it down at all.
7. David Pilling, ‘Abe Assumes Command of “Pacifist” Forces’, Financial Times, 1 May 2007.
8. Interview with author, Tokyo, March 2004.
9. Gavan McCormack, Client State: Japan in the American Embrace, p. 198.
10. Norimitsu Onishi, ‘Abe Rejects Japan’s Files on War Sex’, New York Times, 2 March 2007.
11. Yukio Hatoyama, ‘The Wrong Memorial’, Financial Times, 13 August 2001.
12. Martin Fackler, ‘Cables Show US Concern on Japan’s Readiness for Disaster’, New York Times, 4 May 2011. The cables in question were leaked by Wikileaks.
13. Interview with author, Tokyo, July 2006.
14. Troop numbers have gradually dwindled from about 50,000 when Koizumi was in office.
15. Steve Rabson, Okinawa: Cold War Island, p. 79.
16. Interview with author, Naha, Okinawa, January 2006.
17. Interview with author, Tokyo, January 2006.
18. Edwin Reischauer, former US ambassador to Japan. Recounted in Yoichi Funabashi, Alliance Adrift, p. 129.
19. Quoted in Kenneth Pyle, The Making of Modern Japan, p. 233.
20. See McCormack, Client State.
21. Shintaro Ishihara co-wrote the book in 1989 with Sony co-founder Akio Morita, arguing that Japan should be more than a mere ‘yes man’ to the US.
22. Martin Fackler, ‘Japanese Leader Gives in to US on Okinawa Base’, New York Times, 24 May 2010.
23. Martin Fackler, ‘US Relations Played Major Role in Downfall of Japanese Prime Minister’, New York Times, 3 June 2010.
24. Japan had other territorial disputes with both Russia and South Korea. In both cases, the situation was the reverse of that with China. Japan claimed what it called the Northern Territories, but these had been administered by Russia, which called them the Southern Kuriles, since the end of the war. It also claimed what it called Takeshima island, which was administered by South Korea as Dokdo.
25. Taipei, which also claimed the islands as part of Taiwan, called them Daioyutai.
26. Quoted by Han-Yi Shaw, ‘The Inconvenient Truth Behind the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands’, http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/19/the-inconvenient-truth-behind-the-diaoyusenkaku-islands
27. Mure Dickie and Kathrin Hille, ‘Japan’s Arrest of Captain Angers Beijing’, Financial Times, 8 September 2010.
28. Yoichi Funabashi, ‘Japan–China Relations Stand at Ground Zero’, Asahi newspaper, 9 October 2010.
14. FUKUSHIMA FALLOUT
1. The Official Report of The Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission, Survey of the Evacuees (Appendices).
2. Ibid.
3. Gerrit Wiessmann, ‘Germany to Scrap Nuclear Power by 2022’, Financial Times, 30 May 2011.
4. Hiroko Tabuchi, ‘A Window into Chaos of Fukushima’, International Herald Tribune, 11 August 2012.
5. Some of the following description is taken from Jonathan Soble and Mure Dickie, ‘How Fukushima Failed’, Financial Times, 7 May 2011.
6. Martin Fackler, ‘Evacuation of Tokyo Was Considered After Disaster’, International Herald Tribune, 29 February 2012. In practice the evacuation of such a massive city would take weeks or months, rendering such an exercise, to all practical purposes, impossible.
7. Tabuchi, ‘A Window into Chaos of Fukushima’.
8. Evan Osnos, ‘The Fallout: Letter from Fukushima’, New Yorker, 17 October 2011.
9. Tabuchi, ‘A Window into Chaos of Fukushima’.
10. Soble and Dickie, ‘How Fukushima Failed’.
11. Norimitsu Onishi, ‘Safety Myth Left Japan Ripe for Nuclear Crisis’, New York Times, 24 June 2011.
12. Interview with author, Tokyo, August 2011.
13. Onishi, ‘Safety Myth Left Japan Ripe for Nuclear Crisis’.
14. Hiroko Tabuchi, ‘Braving Heat and Radiation for Temp Job’, New York Times, 10 April 2011. Also see, Jake Adelstein, ‘How the Yakuza Went Nuclear’, Daily Telegraph, 21 February 2012.
15. Interview with author, Tokyo, March 2012.
16. Onda Katsunobu, interview with author, Tokyo, March 2012.
17. Tabuchi, ‘A Window into Chaos of Fukushima’.
18. Gerald Curtis, ‘Stop Blaming Fukushima on Japan’s Culture’, Financial Times, 10 July 2012.
19. Account by Jonathan Soble, Financial Times correspondent, Tokyo.
20. Peter Landers, ‘Japan Snaps Back with Less Power’, Wall Street Journal, 29 July 2011.
21. Interview with author, Tokyo, June 2011.
22. Tepco announced its intention to raise electricity prices in Tokyo and the surrounding area to compensate for the cost of compensation and the nuclear clear-up.
23. Ben McLannahan, ‘Japan Deficit Rises to Record in January’, Financial Times, 21 February 2012.
24. Martin Fackler, ‘Japanese Leaders, Pressed by Public, Fret as Nuclear Shutdown Nears’, New York Times, 5 May 2012.
25. Interview with author, Tokyo, August 2011.
26. Interview with author, Tokyo, March 2012.
27. Interview with author, Tokyo, July 2012.
28. Andrew Dewitt et al., ‘Fukushima and the Political Economy of Power Policy in Japan’, in Jeff Kingston (ed.), Natural Disaster and Nuclear Crisis in Japan, pp. 156–71.
29. Rebecca Bream, ‘GE Chief Warns on Nuclear Prospects’, Financial Times, 3 August 2012.
30. At Y42 per kilowatt hour for solar, the tariff was twice that set by Germany and three times that of China.
31. Mariko Yasu, ‘Softbank’s CEO Wants a Solar-powered Japan’, BloombergBusinessweek, 23 June 2011.
32. Mari Iwata, ‘Renewable Hopes in Japan Fall Short’, Wall Street Journal, 3 July 2012.
33. Kaneshima Hironori, ‘Feed-in Tariff Energy System Gets Under Way’, The Daily Yomiuri, 3 July 2012.
34. Landers, ‘Japan Snaps Back with Less Power’.
35. Jonathan Soble, ‘Japan to Phase Out Nuclear Power’, Financial Times, 14 September 2012.
36. Inevitably, police and organizers’ estimates of crowd sizes differed greatly.
37. ‘Japan’s Anti-Nuclear Protests’, The Economist, 21 July 2012.
38. Correspondence with Jeff Kingston.
39. Landers, ‘Japan Snaps Back with Less Power’.
40. Kyung Lah, ‘Former Japanese Leader: “I Felt Fear” During Nuclear Crisis’, CNN.com, 28 May 2012.
41. ‘Nuclear Leaks Hit Marine Life’, Metro, 17 June 2011.
42. ‘Butterfly Mutations Found Near Fukushima’, Associated Press, 16 August 2012.
43. Hiroko Tabuchi, ‘Japan: Estimate of Cancer Toll’, New York Times, 18 July 2012. Original study: John E. Ten Hoeve and Mark Z. Jacobson, ‘Worldwide Health Effects of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident’, DOI 10.1039/c2ee22019a www.rsc/org/ees
44. Pico Iyer, ‘Heroes of the Hot Zone’, Vanity Fair, 1 January 2012.
45. Hiroko Tabuchi, ‘Inquiry Sees Chaos in Evacuations After Japan Tsunami’, New York Times, 23 July 2012.
46. Mure Dickie, ‘A Strange Kind of Homecoming’, Financial Times, 10 March 2012.
47. Osnos, ‘The Fallout: Letter from Fukushima’.
48. Translated by Hiroko Tabuchi, http://www.zerohedge.com/article/letter-fukushima-mother
49. David Pilling, ‘Japanese People Make Mandarins Feel Nuclear Heat’, Financial Times, 31 July 2011.
15. CITIZENS
1. Gerald Curtis, talk at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan, Tokyo, September 2005.
2. Jeff Kingston, ‘The Politics of Disaster, Nuclear Crisis and Recovery’, in Jeff Kingston (ed.), Natural Disaster and Nuclear Crisis in Japan, p. 192.
3. Ibid., pp. 188–9.
4. Simon Avenell, ‘From Kobe to Tohoku’ in Kingston (ed.), Natural Disaster, p. 60.
5. Figure provided by Kiyomi Tsujimoto.
6. Avenell, ‘From Kobe to Tohoku’, p. 54.
7. Telephone interview, February 2012.
8. Jeff Kingston, Japan’s Quiet Transformation: Social Change and Civil Society in the Twenty-first Century, p. 3.
9. Email correspondence, August 2012.
10. Remarks to author, Tokyo, June 2005.
11. David H. Slater, Nishimura Keiko and Love Kindstrand, ‘Social Media in Disaster Japan’, in Kingston (ed.), Natural Disaster, pp. 94–108.
16. AFTER THE TSUNAMI
1. Related to author, Ofunato, June 2012.
2. David Pilling, ‘Japan: The Aftermath’, Financial Times, 25 March 2011.
3. The word for sea bream, tai, is contained in the word omedetai, which means ‘congratulations’. For that reason it is considered to bring good fortune.
4. ‘“Miracle Pine” Preservation Plan Questioned Over Y150m Cost’, Japan Times, 23 July 2012.
5. When I checked in September 2012, it had 7,584 ‘Likes’.
6. In July 2013, the preserved tree, its scaffolding removed, was lit up with an LED display. The plan was to leave it illuminated for an entire year, Asahi newspaper, 29 June 2013.
AFTERWORD
1. John Dower and other scholars have long argued that this view is too simplistic. Of the classic example of stasis followed by rapid change, Dower told me, ‘The challenge was to revise the view that Japan, prior to the Meiji Restoration, had been this stagnant society, this dark feudalistic society. Then, so the story goes, you come to this Meiji miracle and they are transformed. Of course, what we see now is this terrific dynamism going on in all aspects of [Tokugawa] society and that becomes the baseline for understanding why Japan was able to move so fast after Meiji.’
2. Interview with author, Boston, May 2011.
3. Jonathan Soble, ‘Japan Warms to “Fire Ice” Potential’, Financial Times, 12 March 2013.
4. Remarks to author by Lionel Barber, editor of the Financial Times, Jakarta, March 2013.
5. Ben McLannahan, ‘Abe Takes First Step on Road to Recovery’, Financial Times, 11 January 2013.
6. Telephone interview with Peter Tasker, Arcus Investments, April 2013.
7. Shinzo Abe, address to Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Washington DC, 22 February 2013.
8. Martin Wolf, ‘The Risky Task of Relaunching Japan’, Financial Times, 5 March 2013.
9. Bond prices fall when interest rates rise and vice versa.
10. Jonathan Soble, ‘Abe Pushes for More Women in Senior Roles’, Financial Times, 19 April 2013.
11. Telephone interview, April 2013.
12. Dealogic, ‘Global Cross-border M&A Volume by Acquirer Nationality, 2012’.
13. Mure Dickie, ‘Tokyo Warned Over Plans to Buy Islands’, Financial Times, 6 June 2012.
14. Amy Qin and Edward Wong, ‘Smashed Skull Serves as Grim Symbol of Seething Patriotism’, New York Times, 10 October 2012.
15. ‘A Squall in the East China Sea’, Financial Times Editorial, 21 August 2012.
16. In fact, as prime minister, Abe went on to open negotiations with Moscow over four disputed islands.
17. John Garnaut, ‘Xi’s War Drums’, Foreign Policy, May/June 2013.
18. Jonathan Soble and Kathrin Hille, ‘Abe Blasts China over Maritime Incident’, Financial Times, 6 February 2013.
19. ‘Panetta Tells China That Senkakus Under US–Japan Security Treaty’, Asahi newspaper, 21 September 2012.
20. Ben Bland, ‘Asean Chief Warns on South China Sea Spats’, Financial Times, 28 November 2012.
21. Graham Allison, Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, in ‘Thucydides’s Trap Has Been Sprung in the Pacific’, Financial Times, 21 August 2012.
22. Address to CSIS, Washington DC, 22 February 2013.
23. David Pilling, ‘The Son Also Rises’, Financial Times, 15 September 2006.
24. Toko Sekiguchi, ‘Japanese Prime Minister Stokes Wartime Passions’, Wall Street Journal, 25 April 2013.
25. Yuka Hayashi, ‘Abe Seeks to Rewrite Pacifist Charter’, Wall Street Journal, 25 April 2013.
26. Ibid.
27. Gideon Rachman, ‘A Gaffe-prone Japan is a Danger to Peace in Asia’, Financial Times, 12 August 2013.
28. Paul Kennedy, ‘The Great Powers, Then and Now’, International Herald Tribune, 13 August 2013.
29. Remarks to author, Tokyo, July 2013.
30. Remarks to author, Tokyo, July 2013.
31. Pew Research Center, ‘Global Attitudes Project’, 11 July 2013.
32. Interview with author, Tokyo, March 2012.
33. Kenneth Pyle, The Making of Modern Japan, p. 99.
34. Address to CSIS, Washington DC, 22 February 2013.
35. Keizai Koho Center (Japanese Institute for Social and Economic Affairs), ‘Japan 2013, An International Comparison’.
36. International Monetary Fund, World Outlook Economic Database, April 2013. Even on a purchasing power parity basis, which adjusts for prices across nations, the Japanese are on average four times richer than their Chinese counterparts.
37. City-states such as Singapore and Qatar, both richer than Japan in per capita terms, are too small to provide meaningful comparisons. South Korea and Taiwan have both successfully emulated Japan’s economic development, but neither has quite caught up with Japanese living standards, and both face demographic problems every bit as severe as those of Japan. Other fast-growing economies in Asia, Latin America and Africa are still leagues behind Japan’s economic and industrial prowess.