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Web-only Exclusives November 30, 2000 From Our Correspondent: Hirohito and the War A conversation with biographer Herbert Bix From Our Correspondent: A Rough Road Ahead Bad news for the Philippines - and some others From Our Correspondent: Making Enemies Indonesia needs friends. So why is it picking fights? |
Week of May 8, 1998
JAPAN-U.S. Tokyo will back the U.S. militarily in the Taiwan Strait, the Korean peninsula and the Spratly islands, according to the Yomiuri Shimbun. It is the first time the area has been clearly defined and made public since the two signed a security agreement in September 1997.THE YAMAGUCHI DISTRICT COURT ordered the government to pay $2,300 to three of 10 South Korean "comfort women," who had demanded $4.3 million in damages and an official apology. It was the first verdict by a Japanese court on the government's use of women from occupied Asia to serve in brothels in WW II.
Week of May 1, 1998
THE GOVERNMENT WILL PAY "COMFORT MONEY" to South Korean women used by Japan as sex slaves during World War II. Under a plan approved by the cabinet, Seoul will offer $25,300 to each of 152 South Korean survivors known to have been used as "comfort women" by the Japanese army.Week of April 24, 1998
On Japan, Beware the Humor of the Times
Here's the conventional wisdom: Japan is hanging by its fingernails above a precipice, threatening to drag not only Asia but the world into an economic chasm, while the government throws down scant lengths of twine in an attempt to pull the bloated economy back to solid ground. Right? Well, the precipice is real - there is no way to deny $616 billion in non-performing loans that Japanese banks admit to and perhaps many more billions in hidden bad debts. And the 16-trillion yen stimulus package, including 4-trillion yen in tax cuts announced by PM Hashimoto Ryutaro, does not address underlying structural problems hobbling the economy. But is collapse imminent?There are plenty of savvy people prepared to put forward a contrarian view, and economist Richard Jerram of ING Barings in Tokyo is one of them. "People are projecting cyclical problems into the future and claiming they are structural, just as in the late 1980s people were saying Japan would always grow at 5% because Japan had reinvented economics," Jerram says. He thinks today's bears are changing their arguments to fit their worries that: first, the government would do nothing, then that it would deliver too little too late, then that the package would not work without tax cuts, and now that the tax cuts will go uselessly into savings instead of spending. Just as Japan did not invent the perpetual boom, it has not invented eternal gloom, Jerram points out. He quotes the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter: "In any prolonged period of economic malaise, economists, falling in like other people with the humor of their times, proffer theories that pretend to show depression has come to stay."
THOUSANDS OF BANKRUPT JAPANESE FIRMS reported a post-war record of 15.1 trillion yen - $116 billion - in liabilities in the fiscal year to March, according to Teikoko Databank's monthly survey. The number of insolvent firms rose 17.4 % to 17,439 cases, the sixth largest figure for a fiscal year since World War II.
Week of April 17, 1998
The newly appointed governor of the Bank of Japan, Hayami Masaru, told Parliament that more than 100 BOJofficials may be reprimanded for accepting improper levels of dining and entertainment from the private sector. Nine bankers have been questioned by the Diet about their role in the growing bribery scandal.Week of April 10, 1998
Yamaichi, the country's fourth-largest brokerage, finally closed its doors on March 31. It buckled in November, after hiding $3.3 billion in losses. The firm's remaining 40 offices across Japan closed and the last 3,162 staff fired. "I think this was a good company for not only the staff but for our clients as well," an employee saidWeek of April 3, 1998
About 200 airships will be launched into the stratosphere by 2005 as an alternative to satellite-based communications. Dubbed Skynet, the plan will float the 260-m-long, solar-powered aircraft 20 km above Japan, where winds are stable. The devices will be equipped with telecommunications relay equipment.Week of March 27, 1998
"The conditions of the economy at present are very, very severe as GDP [gross domestic product] may show negative growth for the year to March 1998," Omi Koji, director-general of the Economic Planning Agency, warned. Last month he would admit only that the economy was "stumbling sideways" - not contracting.Week of March 13, 1998
Philippine Foreign Secretary Domingo Siazon wants new mechanisms to strengthen ties between Southeast Asia and Japan amid economic turmoil in the region. At a meeting in Manila he called for an "ASEAN-Plus" relationship of mutual cooperation to include security issues, too.The yen dropped when finance minister Matsunaga Hikaru called for new investigations of "Mr. Yen" - Sakakibara Eisuke, a top financial bureaucrat. In 1991 Sakakibara allegedly pressured Daiwa Securities Co. to return money a friend had lost in trading through the brokerage. Sakakibara had already been cleared in the case.
Week of February 27, 1998
The finance ministry scandal has "utterly betrayed trust in the entire administration," PMHashimoto Ryutaro said in his policy address to the Diet. Two more institutions - the Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi and Sumitomo Bank - were implicated in charges of bribery involving high level bureaucrats at the Ministry of Finance.Week of February 20, 1998
UPDATE Why Tokyo Is Keeping Tabs on Aum
While figure skaters and skiers compete in the Winter Olympics in Nagano, 180 km to the northwest, Matsumoto Chizuo - better known to the world as Asahara Shokou, right, leader of Japan's Aum Shinrikyo religious group - remains on trial in Tokyo. Aum's poison gas attack in the Tokyo subway on March 20, 1995 left 12 people dead - a horror that sprang into many minds when the Japanese reassured the world that their Olympic security arrangements could deal with any terrorist threats.Until shortly before that announcement, Aum was discounted as a menace. In January 1997, the Public Security Investigation Agency (PSIA) had decided not to ban Aum because it felt the group no longer posed a threat to society. But, while no one expects Aum to launch an attack in Nagano, the PSIA did issue an alert on Feb. 3, saying the sect is rebuilding. The PSIA now warns: "The Aum Supreme Truth continues to be active, and should remain under close surveillance." The agency claims Aum has 28 branch offices, with 1,500 members living in about 100 groups in Japan. An Aum spokesman denied the report, calling it "one-sided."
The investigators say Aum is bankrolling its rebirth with the profits from a chain of six retail computer stores. The discount outlets brought in about 400 million yen ($3 million) in profit last year. Matsumoto Reika, a teenage daughter of the 42-year-old Asahara, now leads the group. Of the 400 Aum members rounded up after the gas attacks, about 150 returned to the group upon release. That core is enticing other former members to return to the fold. Recruiters are also targeting elite schools such as Tokyo and Keio universities.
As for guru Asahara, his last public utterance was on Jan. 16 at his trial, now in its 22nd month. He spoke for five minutes and, after proclaiming his complete innocence, contended: "Therefore it is abnormal that this trial will continue." The final session of the trial of Matsumoto Tomoko - Asahara's wife - for murder was held on Jan. 27. The prosecution will make its sentencing recommendation for her on Feb. 25. Meanwhile, she is seeking a divorce.
"THE ECONOMY IS STAGNANT," the Economic Planning Agency admitted in its February report. Its January judgment was that the economy was at a "standstill." Is it contracting? The agency's head, Omi Koji, says no. His preferred interpretation: "I say that the economy is stumbling sideways." Fundamentals remain firm, he said.
Week of February 13, 1998
TOKYO AND WASHINGTON agreed on a four-year transitional accord to liberalize their bilateral civil aviation markets. The Japanese say the deal redresses the "inequality" of the current treaty, which has been in place for 46 years. The agreement will facilitate competition and could lower prices for consumers.CHINA-JAPAN After talks in Tokyo between Chinese Defense Minister Chi Haotian and his Japanese counterpart, defense agency director-general Kyuma Fumio, the two countries agreed to allow their warships to visit each other's ports. Chi's six-day trip was the first official visit to Japan by a Beijing military chief since World War II.
Week of February 6, 1998
Finance Minister Mitsuzuka Hiroshi resigned after two ministry officials were arrested for tipping off banks to upcoming inspections in exchange for lavish entertainment. Mitsuzuka, who is said to have a knack for pork-barrel politics, is the third minister to step down since PM Hashimoto Ryutaro shuffled his cabinet in September.Week of January 23, 1998
"We asked vaccine makers to prepare a vaccine to protect 730,000 people from influenza this winter, but the stock for the entire winter is almost gone now," a health official said. Hong Kong's deadly bird flu has panicked thousands of Japanese into seeking flu jabs which have no effect on the H5N1 virus.Week of January 16, 1998
WINTER OLYMPICS Light snowfall in Nagano eased fears that El Ni–o would ruin the Winter Olympic Games scheduled to open Feb. 7. The organizing committee is prepared to bring in truckloads of snow from other resorts to the cross-country venue if necessary.SIX OPPOSITION PARTIES, which agreed to form a voting bloc in the parliament, will urge the government to introduce six trillion yen ($45 billion) in tax cuts to boost the stalled economy. They are worried that PM Hashim oto Ryutaro's proposed two trillion yen tax cut is inadequate to buoy national sentiment.
Week of January 9, 1998
As we predicted, senior conservative politician Ozawa Ichiro dissolved the New Frontier Party (NFP). Jan. 1 was set as the founding day for his Liberal Party, which will seek reduced income and residential taxes and enhanced security ties with the U.S. In all, six opposition parties might rise out of the ashes of the NFP.News from Japan in 1997
News from Japan in 1996
News from Japan in 1995
