Many people already have talked about Japan’s lost decades started from early 90’s. Prof. Nobuo Ikeda described the situation as “doing only cosmetic fixes on the building with structural damages after an earth quake”. Even if the doors were fixes and walls were repainted, the building will collapse someday. I cannot agree with Prof. Ikeda more.
Beneath the symptoms such as stagnated economic growth, rapidly aging population, and massive public debt there must be a root cause of the Japan’s issues. I think that the root cause of these issues is Japan’s loss of its national cause.
After Meiji restoration of 1868, Japan’s national goal was to get rich and be strong. After WWII, the goal became to recover from the ruins of WWII and get rich. Living in Japan in 70’s I could sense that people had a sense of common goals back then. After Japan became the 2nd biggest economy and ordinary Japanese people started to enjoy the fruit of their economic successes, Japan lost its national cause.
After 80s, Japanese politicians and bureaucrats seem to have no goal. Without goals, there will not be any action plans and milestones, thus Japanese officials are just focusing on doing what there have been doing. They are like a motorist who doesn’t know where to go and just move around in a parking lot. The first step to get out of the situation is to admit that they don’t have a goal and start open discussions to come up with new national goals.
There are ideas such as making Japan like a mini USA (multicultural and multiethnic Japan with its strong market economy) or making Japan like an Asian version of the Netherlands (keenly adapting to global economy and forgetting about the past glory). There may not be a country model to follow.
Even if the government cannot change, Japanese people will. In the aftermath of WWII, Japanese people eagerly learned English and gained knowledge from abroad. When the situation changes Japanese people still can show their remarkable resilience.
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ReplyDeleteI agree with your view that Japanese government is drifting without clearly defined goals. Japan is a democratic country, so theoretically speaking, Japanese people themselves can decide their own fate by electing their representatives in the Diet. Mysteriously, Japan people have also been in a state of political apathy for many recent years.
ReplyDeleteAs far as Japan keeps its democratic political system, change must come from its nationals. Probably, we have to wait for some shocking events to take place to wake the people up. The events can be either economic, political or social.
P.S.
I have a suggestion regarding the format of your articles. You might want to insert a blank line between two paragraphs. It would make readers' life easier.
That is true. The change must come from its people in a democratic nation. Some events / crises will influence the speed of their changes especially in Japan where me-tooism is way too common. If majority of Japanese people change the way of their thinking, the rest will follow.
ReplyDeleteI hope more and more Japanese people get information through English and gain different perspectives.