Bending Adversity: Japan and the Art of Survival (45 page)

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.

12. ASIA EX-JAPAN

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.