Japan Watching: Society, Politics, Culture, Economy, Environment, And the World

American intellectual Ezra Vogel once wrote a book entitled "Japan as number one".  In reality, it never really was.  But now it’s official, Japan is number 3.  The total size of its economy has just been overtaken by China.

The question is: does it matter?  Is China now more powerful and important than Japan?  According to a Financial Times headline, "China's jump signals shift in global power".  This may be somewhat simplistic.

It’s easy to underestimate Japanese NGOs.  Japan does not have the same NGO tradition as many Western countries.  Government and business have always occupied much of the societal space.  But Japanese NGOs are very active, as are overseas volunteers.  And they work very closely with JICA, Japan’s development co-operation agency.

Asia’s economic miracle has traversed several crises.  Today, it is pulling through the global financial crisis quite admirably.

Regional cooperation in Asia has for the most part been led by the Association of South East Asian Nation (ASEAN) grouping.  As Asia makes more solid strides towards creating a community, it is high time that the Big 3 of China, Japan and Korea take the lead.  And this leadership should have a solid base in Japan, the country where Asia's miracle started.

The Japanese do not have a very positive view of the influence of the US, China, South Korea, North Korea, United Kingdom, Pakistan, India, France, South Africa, Israel, Canada, European Union, Russia, Iran, Brazil, or Germany.  They do not even have a very positive view of their own country, Japan!  This is the conclusion of a recent BBC World Service poll across 28 countries conducted by GlobeScan based on almost 30,000 interviews globally.

Is this cultural diffidence?  Are the Japanese becoming a lost, lonely and confused tribe?

This year we are celebrating the centenary of one of the major events in Japanese militarism, that is, Japan’s annexation of Korea.  According to American author James Bradley, this initiative was encouraged by then US President Theodore (“Teddy”) Roosevelt and very much suited American interests at the time!

First there was “Japan bashing”.  Then there was “Japan passing”.  Could “Japan bashing” be making a return, thanks to Toyota, US troop issues in Okinawa, whaling, dolphins and blue-fin tuna?

Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama dreams of creating an East Asian Community.  But he does not yet have a strategy.  And he and his government are never too clear about which countries would be members.  Most particularly, they are not clear about whether the US should be in or out. 

Much is being made of the fact that China’s economy will very soon exceed the Japanese economy, and become the world’s second biggest economy.  This is an impressive achievement, even though China’s GDP per capita is only one-tenth that of Japan, and its population ten times greater.  The size of GDP weighs heavily for strategic power, and fast growth provides new markets.  Bytheway, China’s exports have just overtaken Germany, and China is now also the world’s biggest exporter.

But Korea is also rapidly catching up on Japan. 

Japan should be ashamed of its record on human trafficking, or modern day slavery.  And its government needs to do a lot more to tackle this problem.

Japan's Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama is promoting the idea of an East Asian Community.  Recent research by the Human Genome Organisation's (HUGO) Pan-Asian SNP Consortium shows that peoples of East and South Asia indeed started as one community, despite the region's current substantial cultural and linguistic diversity.