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Mulboyne wrote:It's always worth writing an article like this now and again on the basis that it'll generally be forgotten if nothing happens but you'll look great on the off-chance that student riots break out or if there is a military coup.
"Critics will always say, 'What about this or that (particular issue) that hasn't changed?' and my response is that a better barometer of change in Japan is not what has not yet changed, but how much has changed so rapidly in just 10 years...What was once unthinkable is now already happening," Kingston said.
LOS ANGELES -- For as long as I write this column on Asia, which enters into its 10th year next month, I doubt I'll ever witness anything as amusing or telling as the flareup that took place at the close of the University of Southern California's Asia Conference last month.
Until the very end, the two-plus-day event -- on "Japan's New Economy for Foreign Investors" -- had gone swimmingly. Everyone on the panel, from Toshiaki Ogasawara, the well-known publisher of The Japan Times, to the dynamic USC Annenberg School Dean Geoffrey Cowan, had agreed that Japan's economy was indeed a globalized flower garden opening up to outsiders faster than an overnight burst of spring. The consensus in the large hall at the elegant Shilla Hotel in Seoul was seemingly harmonious -- until a single dissonant voice boomed out.
The consensus-breaker was a normally placid Thai businessman who, like a Buddhist monk, ordinarily kept his true thoughts to himself. But he just couldn't take it any more and lambasted the entire panel for being in denial about the reality of Japan. He recounted a recent all-too-typical business trip in which he encountered at every step Japanese brick walls, closed Japanese minds and zipped-up Japanese markets.
If Japan is now trying to convince people it is suddenly entirely different, this foreign visitor wasn't buying.
Mulboyne wrote:"Japan At a Crossroads" will always gets more attention than "Japan Bumbling Along, Evolving"
Just as Japan's growth engine is accelerating, it is emitting disturbing sounds. This week investigators raided Livedoor, the acquisitive internet group, over possible financial irregularities. Two days later, the Tokyo Stock Exchange had to close early after surging orders overwhelmed its systems. The events have shattered the once-staid facade of corporate Japan. They suggest that while the economy is returning to normal, below the surface it is far from business as usual. What is less clear is whether what is going on is simply the country adjusting to unfamiliar challenges, or betokens structural problems that could hold it back.
"Japan At a Crossroads" will always gets more attention than "Japan Bumbling Along, Evolving"
Japan is at a crossroads: One path, paved by those who acknowledge past atrocities, leads to reconciliation, the other, built by those who ignore history, descends further into the oblivion.
Mulboyne wrote:Roger Pulvers puts his pundit hat on in the Japan Times:
In Japan, there's a 'quiet revolution' afoot
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