Bending Adversity: Japan and the Art of Survival Read online

  16. AFTER THE TSUNAMI

  1.Related to author, Ofunato, June 2012.

  2.David Pilling, ‘Japan: The Aftermath’, Financial Times, 25 March 2011.

  3.The word for sea bream, tai, is contained in the word omedetai, which means ‘congratulations’. For that reason it is considered to bring good fortune.

  4.‘“Miracle Pine” Preservation Plan Questioned Over Y150m Cost’, Japan Times, 23 July 2012.

  5.When I checked in September 2012, it had 7,584 ‘Likes’.

  6.In July 2013, the preserved tree, its scaffolding removed, was lit up with an LED display. The plan was to leave it illuminated for an entire year, Asahi newspaper, 29 June 2013.

  AFTERWORD

  1.John Dower and other scholars have long argued that this view is too simplistic. Of the classic example of stasis followed by rapid change, Dower told me, ‘The challenge was to revise the view that Japan, prior to the Meiji Restoration, had been this stagnant society, this dark feudalistic society. Then, so the story goes, you come to this Meiji miracle and they are transformed. Of course, what we see now is this terrific dynamism going on in all aspects of [Tokugawa] society and that becomes the baseline for understanding why Japan was able to move so fast after Meiji.’

  2.Interview with author, Boston, May 2011.

  3.Jonathan Soble, ‘Japan Warms to “Fire Ice” Potential’, Financial Times, 12 March 2013.

  4.Remarks to author by Lionel Barber, editor of the Financial Times, Jakarta, March 2013.

  5.Ben McLannahan, ‘Abe Takes First Step on Road to Recovery’, Financial Times, 11 January 2013.

  6.Telephone interview with Peter Tasker, Arcus Investments, April 2013.

  7.Shinzo Abe, address to Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Washington DC, 22 February 2013.

  8.Martin Wolf, ‘The Risky Task of Relaunching Japan’, Financial Times, 5 March 2013.

  9.Bond prices fall when interest rates rise and vice versa.

  10.Jonathan Soble, ‘Abe Pushes for More Women in Senior Roles’, Financial Times, 19 April 2013.

  11.Telephone interview, April 2013.

  12.Dealogic, ‘Global Cross-border M&A Volume by Acquirer Nationality, 2012’.

  13.Mure Dickie, ‘Tokyo Warned Over Plans to Buy Islands’, Financial Times, 6 June 2012.

  14.Amy Qin and Edward Wong, ‘Smashed Skull Serves as Grim Symbol of Seething Patriotism’, New York Times, 10 October 2012.

  15.‘A Squall in the East China Sea’, Financial Times Editorial, 21 August 2012.

  16.In fact, as prime minister, Abe went on to open negotiations with Moscow over four disputed islands.

  17.John Garnaut, ‘Xi’s War Drums’, Foreign Policy, May/June 2013.

  18.Jonathan Soble and Kathrin Hille, ‘Abe Blasts China over Maritime Incident’, Financial Times, 6 February 2013.

  19.‘Panetta Tells China That Senkakus Under US–Japan Security Treaty’, Asahi newspaper, 21 September 2012.

  20.Ben Bland, ‘Asean Chief Warns on South China Sea Spats’, Financial Times, 28 November 2012.

  21.Graham Allison, Director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, in ‘Thucydides’s Trap Has Been Sprung in the Pacific’, Financial Times, 21 August 2012.

  22.Address to CSIS, Washington DC, 22 February 2013.

  23.David Pilling, ‘The Son Also Rises’, Financial Times, 15 September 2006.

  24.Toko Sekiguchi, ‘Japanese Prime Minister Stokes Wartime Passions’, Wall Street Journal, 25 April 2013.

  25.Yuka Hayashi, ‘Abe Seeks to Rewrite Pacifist Charter’, Wall Street Journal, 25 April 2013.

  26.Ibid.

  27.Gideon Rachman, ‘A Gaffe-prone Japan is a Danger to Peace in Asia’, Financial Times, 12 August 2013.

  28.Paul Kennedy, ‘The Great Powers, Then and Now’, International Herald Tribune, 13 August 2013.

  29.Remarks to author, Tokyo, July 2013.

  30.Remarks to author, Tokyo, July 2013.

  31.Pew Research Center, ‘Global Attitudes Project’, 11 July 2013.

  32.Interview with author, Tokyo, March 2012.

  33.Kenneth Pyle, The Making of Modern Japan, p. 99.

  34.Address to CSIS, Washington DC, 22 February 2013.

  35.Keizai Koho Center (Japanese Institute for Social and Economic Affairs), ‘Japan 2013, An International Comparison’.

  36.International Monetary Fund, World Outlook Economic Database, April 2013. Even on a purchasing power parity basis, which adjusts for prices across nations, the Japanese are on average four times richer than their Chinese counterparts.

  37.City-states such as Singapore and Qatar, both richer than Japan in per capita terms, are too small to provide meaningful comparisons. South Korea and Taiwan have both successfully emulated Japan’s economic development, but neither has quite caught up with Japanese living standards, and both face demographic problems every bit as severe as those of Japan. Other fast-growing economies in Asia, Latin America and Africa are still leagues behind Japan’s economic and industrial prowess.

  Select Bibliography

  Abegglen, James, 21st Century Japanese Management: New Systems, Lasting Values (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006)

  Adelstein, Jake, Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan (New York, Toronto: Random House, 2009)

  Bailey, Jonathan, Great Power Strategy in Asia: Empire, Culture and Trade, 1905–2005 (London: Routledge, 2006)

  Benedict, Ruth, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture (paperback edition, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1989)

  Bestor, Theodore, Tsukiji: The Fish Market at the Center of the World (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 2004)

  Bix, Herbert, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (paperback edition, New York: Perennial, 2001)

  Buckley, Roger, Japan Today (third edition, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999)

  Buruma, Ian, Inventing Japan: From Empire to Economic Miracle (paperback edition, London: Orion Books, 2005)

  — The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan (paperback edition, London: Orion Books, 2002)

  — A Japanese Mirror: Heroes and Villains of Japanese Culture (London: Jonathan Cape, 1984)

  Chambers, Veronica, Kickboxing Geishas: How Modern Women are Changing their Nation (New York: Free Press, 2007)

  Chandler, Clay et al. (eds.), Reimagining Japan: The Quest for a Future that Works (San Francisco: VIZ Media, 2011)

  Chiba, Kazuo, Please! Just Let Me Finish . . . : A Posthumous Collection of the Writings of Kazuo Chiba (Tokyo: Japan Echo, 2005)

  Chomin, Nakae, A Discourse by Three Drunkards on Government (translated by Nobuko Tsukui, eighth edition, Boston, MA: Weatherhill, 2010)

  Clancey, Gregory, Earthquake Nation: The Cultural Politics of Japanese Seismicity, 1868–1930 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2006)

  Curtis, Gerald, The Logic of Japanese Politics: Leaders, Institutions, and the Limits of Change (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999)

  Dale, Peter, The Myth of Japanese Uniqueness (paperback edition, London: Routledge, 1995)

  Daly, Herman, Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development (paperback edition, Boston: Beacon Press, 1996)

  Diamond, Jared, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (New York, London: W. W. Norton, 2005)

  Dower, John, Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, 9/11, Iraq (New York: W. W. Norton, 2010)

  —, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (paperback edition, New York, London: W. W. Norton, 2000)

  —, War Without Mercy: Race & Power in the Pacific War (paperback edition, New York: Pantheon Books, 1986)

  Emmott, Bill, The Sun
Also Sets: The Limits of Japan’s Economic Power (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989)

  Feifer, George, Breaking Open Japan: Commodore Perry, Lord Abe, and American Imperialism in 1853 (New York: HarperCollins, 2006)

  Fingleton, Eamon, In Praise of Hard Industries: Why Manufacturing, Not Information Technology, Is Key to Future Prosperity (Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1999)

  —, Blindside: Why Japan is Still on Track to Overtake the US by the Year 2000 (London: Simon & Schuster, 1995)

  Fujiwara, Masahiko, Kokka no Hinkaku [The Dignity of a Nation](Japanese edition, Tokyo: Shinchosha, 2005)

  Fukuzawa, Yukichi, The Autobiography of Yukichi Fukuzawa (translated by Eiichi Kiyooka, paperback edition, New York: Columbia University Press, 1966)

  Funabashi, Yoichi, Alliance Adrift (paperback edition, New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1999)

  Gluck, Carol, Japan’s Modern Myths: Ideology in the Late Meiji Period (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985)

  Gordon, Andrew, A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa to the Present (second edition, New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)

  Hammer, Joshua, Yokohama Burning: The Deadly 1923 Earthquake and Fire that Helped Forge the Path to World War II (paperback edition, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006)

  Hearn, Lafcadio, Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation (paperback edition, New York: Cosimo, 2005)

  Hersey, John, Hiroshima (paperback edition, London: Penguin Books, 1946)

  Hodson, Peregrine, A Circle Round the Sun: A Foreigner in Japan (London: Heinemann, 1992)

  Huang, Joseph, The Enigma of Japan (paperback edition, London: Minerva Press, 1996)

  Jansen, Marius, The Making of Modern Japan (Cambridge, MA, London: Harvard University Press, 2000)

  Johnson, Chalmers, Okinawa: Cold War Island (Cardiff, CA: Japan Policy Research Institute, 1999)

  —, MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925–1975 (paperback edition, fourth printing, Tokyo: Tuttle, 1992)

  Kaji, Sahoko, Hama, Noriko and Rice, Jonathan, The Xenophobe’s Guide to the Japanese (London: Oval Books, 1999)

  Kaplan, David and Dubro, Alec, Yakuza: Japan’s Criminal Underworld (paperback, Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995)

  Kaplan, David and Marshall, Andrew, The Cult at the End of the World: The Terrifying Story of the Aum Doomsday Cult (New York: Crown Publishers, 1996)

  Katz, Richard, Japanese Phoenix: The Long Road to Economic Revival (New York, London: M. E. Sharpe, 2003)

  Keene, Donald, So Lovely a Country Will Never Perish: Wartime Diaries of Japanese Writers (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010)

  —, A History of Japanese Literature, Volume I: Seeds in the Heart (paperback edition, New York: Columbia University Press, 1999)

  —, The Japanese Discovery of Europe, 1720–1830 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1969)

  —, Modern Japanese Literature (paperback edition, New York: Grove Press, 1960)

  Kelts, Roland, Japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture has Invaded the US (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006)

  Kerr, Alex, Dogs and Demons: The Fall of Modern Japan (London: Penguin Books, 2001)

  Kingston, Jeff (ed.), Natural Disaster and Nuclear Crisis in Japan: Response and Recovery after Japan’s 3/11 (London, New York: Routledge, 2012)

  —, Contemporary Japan: History, Politics, and Social Change since the 1980s (Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011)

  —, Japan’s Quiet Transformation: Social Change and Civil Society in the Twenty-first Century (London, New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004)

  Koo, Richard, The Holy Grail of Macroeconomics: Lessons from Japan’s Great Recession (London: John Wiley and Sons, 2011)

  Kusama, Yayoi, Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama (London: Tate Publishing, 2011)

  Macfarlane, Alan, Japan Through the Looking Glass (London: Profile Books, 2007)

  Magnus, George, The Age of Aging: How Demographics Are Changing the Global Economy and Our World (Singapore: John Wiley & Sons, 2009)

  McCormack, Gavan, Client State: Japan in the American Embrace (paperback edition, London, New York: Verso, 2007)

  —, The Emptiness of Japanese Affluence (revised edition, Armonk, NY, London: M. E. Sharpe, 2001)

  Miyazaki, Manabu, Toppamono: Outlaw. Radical. Suspect. My Life in Japan’s Underworld (Tokyo: Kotan Publishing, 2005)

  Morita, Akio and Ishihara, Shintaro, The Japan That Can Say No: Why Japan Will Be First Among Equals (Tokyo: Kobunsha, 1989)

  Morris-Suzuki, Tessa, Re-inventing Japan: Time, Space, Nation (paperback edition, New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1998)

  Murtagh, Niall, The Blue-eyed Salaryman: From World Traveller to a Lifer at Mitsubishi (paperback edition, London: Profile Books, 2006)

  Murakami, Haruki, After the Quake (New York: Alfred Knopf, 2002)

  —, Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche (paperback edition, London: Random House, 2003)

  Muruyama, Masao, Thought and Behaviour in Modern Japanese Politics (London, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1969)

  Nathan, John, Mishima: A Biography (paperback edition, Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2000)

  —, Sony: The Private Life (Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1999)

  Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko, Kamikaze Diaries: Reflections of Japanese Student Soldiers (Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press, 2006)

  Okakura, Kakuzo, The Book of Tea (paperback edition, London: Penguin Books, 2010)

  Ota, Masahide, Essays on Okinawa Problems (Gushikawa City, Okinawa: Yui Shuppan, 2000)

  Patrick, Hugh, Japanese Industrialization and Its Social Consequences (paperback edition, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1976)

  Porter, Michael et al., Can Japan Compete? (London: Macmillan, 2000)

  Pyle, Kenneth, Japan Rising: The Resurgence of Japanese Power and Purpose (New York: Century Foundation, 2007)

  —, The Making of Modern Japan (second edition, Lexington, MA, Toronto: D. C. Heath, 1996)

  Sadler, A. L., The Ten Foot Square Hut and Tales of the Heike (North Clarendon, VT: Tuttle Publishing, 1972)

  Sansom, George, A History of Japan to 1334 (paperback edition, ninth printing, Boston, Ruthland, Vermont, Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing, 2000)

  —, A History of Japan 1334–1615 (paperback edition, ninth printing, Boston, Ruthland, Vermont, Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing, 2000)

  —, A History of Japan 1615–1867 (paperback edition, ninth printing, Boston, Ruthland, Vermont, Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing, 2000)

  Seidensticker, Edward, Tokyo from Edo to Showa: The Emergence of the World’s Greatest City, 1867–1989 (paperback edition, North Clarendon, VT: Tuttle Publishing, 2010)

  —, Low City, High City: Tokyo from Edo to the Earthquake, 1867–1923 (paperback edition, London: Penguin Books, 1985)

  Singer, Kurt, Mirror, Sword and Jewel: A Study of Japanese Characteristics (London: Croom Helm, 1973)

  Smith, Patrick, Somebody Else’s Century: East and West in a Post-Western World (New York: Pantheon Books, 2010)

  —, Japan: A Reinterpretation (paperback edition, New York: Random House, 1998)

  Sugimoto, Yoshio, An Introduction to Japanese Society (second edition, Port Melbourne, Australia: Cambridge University Press, 2003)

  Takenaka, Heizo, The Structural Reforms of the Koizumi Cabinet: An Insider’s Account of the Economic Revival of Japan (translated by Jillian Yorke, Tokyo: Nikkei Publishing, 2008)

  Toby, Ronald, State and Diplomacy in Early Modern Japan: Asia in the Development of the Tokugawa Bakufu (paperback edition, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991)

  Umesao, Tadao, Seventy-seven Keys to the Civilization of Japan (paperback edition, Osaka: Sogensha, 1985)

  Van Wolferen, Karel, The Enigma of Jap
anese Power (paperback edition, fourth printing, Vermont, Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing, 1998)

  Vogel, Ezra, Japan as Number One: Lessons for America (paperback edition, Cambridge, MA, London: Harvard University Press, 1999)

  Walker, Stephen, Shockwave: The Countdown to Hiroshima (London: John Murray, 2005)

  West, Mark, Law in Everyday Japan: Sex, Sumo, Suicide and Statutes (Chicago, London: University of Chicago Press, 2005)

  Whiting, Robert, Tokyo Underworld: The Fast Times and Hard Life of an American Gangster in Japan (paperback edition, New York: Random House, 2000)

  Wintle, Justin, Perfect Hostage: Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma and the Generals (London: Hutchinson, 2007)

  Wood, Christopher, The Bubble Economy: The Japanese Economic Collapse (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1992)

  Zielenziger, Michael, Shutting Out the Sun: How Japan Created its Own Lost Generation (paperback edition, New York: Random House, 2007)

  Glossary

  Aum Shinrikyo: The doomsday cult led by Shoko Asahara that organized a sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in March 1995. The attack killed thirteen people and injured several hundred more.

  Bushido: The ‘way of the warrior’, or the code of ethics attributed to the samurai.

  Choshu: One of the four domains that rebelled against the Tokugawa shogunate in what became the Meiji Restoration. Some of Meiji’s greatest intellectuals were from Choshu. Shinzo Abe, who became Japan’s prime minister for a second time in 2012, has deep political roots in Choshu, modern-day Yamaguchi prefecture.

  Class-A war criminals: Those tried at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, also known as the Tokyo trials, for their leadership role in Japan’s ‘crimes against peace’. Japan accepted the findings of the tribunal, though its parliament does not recognize those convicted as criminals.

  Diet: The Japanese parliament.

  Edo: The name of the city where the Tokugawa shogunate lived. It gives its name to the ‘feudalistic’ period of rule by the Tokugawa family between 1603 and 1868. After the Meiji Restoration, which ended Tokugawa rule and established the foundations of modern Japan, the city was renamed Tokyo and became the capital.