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November 22, 2024
 

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Yukio Suzuki
COMMENTARY
Jul 21, 2003
Japanese-style management deserves updated appraisal
Japanese-style management was once widely acclaimed as ideal. Since the collapse of the bubble economy, though, it has been discarded as a model for its incompatibility with reform. Now the system is being revaluated, and active debate is going on in the business community on how to adapt it to changing...
COMMENTARY
Mar 21, 2003
Perhaps society is the problem
Like a parrot, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has been repeating the same phrase: "There will be no economic growth without structural reform." At last he is being forced to make a policy turnaround to implement a package of antideflation measures to stimulate domestic demand. The reversal has been...
COMMENTARY
Jan 6, 2003
Time to rock economic boat
After remaining in the doldrums for more than 10 years, the Japanese economy is now plagued by deflation. The Tokyo Stock Exchange's benchmark Nikkei index has fallen to the 8,500 level, and the nation's unemployment rate remains high. Last fall the government announced a policy package for expediting...
COMMENTARY
Sep 10, 2002
Making Japan's voice heard
Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi is doing a good job -- much better than expected. She has made few blunders since she assumed the post Feb. 1, aside from the trouble over the inept bureaucratic handling of the Shenyang Japanese Consulate incident involving North Korean asylum seekers.
COMMENTARY
Jun 4, 2002
Wake-up call on diplomacy
Shenyang, in northeast China, is a city of historical significance for both Japan and China. Formerly known as Mukden, it was the last battlefield in the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War. Imperial Japan, emerging as a modern power after the Meiji Restoration, won a do-or-die war with imperial Russia, which...
COMMENTARY
Jan 7, 2002
Fine-tuning needed for globalization
In the new year, the world will have to grapple with daunting political and economic challenges that surfaced toward the end of the 20th century. The terror attacks in the United States on Sept. 11 -- which The Economist called the "the day the world changed" -- complicated the problems.
COMMENTARY
Aug 10, 2001
Noblesse oblige in short supply
The immediate task for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is to wrap up a specific reform package. While his slogans — "Structural reform with no sacred cows" and "No economic recovery without structural reform" — are basically supported here and abroad, stock prices have continued to fall.
COMMENTARY
Jun 18, 2001
Moving toward real reform
The Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy, an advisory panel to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, has drawn up guidelines for a range of structural reforms planned by his administration. These policy outlines, designed to reshape Japan's outmoded economic society, are by and large acceptable.
COMMENTARY
May 14, 2001
Signs of creative destruction
Japan today needs what the economist Joseph A. Schumpeter once called "creative destruction." The immediate need is to shake up the political and economic systems from the ground up. Without such drastic changes Japan will not be able to regain vitality.
COMMENTARY
Mar 26, 2001
Too little too late for reform?
In a dramatic policy reversal, the Bank of Japan has shifted its priority from cutting interest rates to expanding the money supply. The shift involves changing the key target for monetary adjustment from uncollateralized call-money rates to private banks' demand-deposit balances in the central bank....
COMMENTARY
Feb 5, 2001
Complacency fatal for Japan
Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori recently traveled to Davos, Switzerland, to attend the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. He stayed there for only half a day, returning home immediately after delivering a speech.
COMMENTARY
Dec 12, 2000
Economic outlook is gloomy
Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori faces an uncertain future after surviving a no-confidence motion against his Cabinet in the Diet last month. Koichi Kato, a leading dissident in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, and fellow rebels had vowed to vote for the opposition-sponsored motion, but they changed their...
COMMENTARY
Oct 2, 2000
Japan's ills threaten the world
Japan's Naoko Takahashi won the gold medal in the women's marathon in the Sydney Olympics Sept. 24. In winning the tough race on a difficult, up-and-down course, she established an Olympic record and became the first Japanese woman to win an Olympic marathon gold medal. She also gave Japan its first...
COMMENTARY
Sep 4, 2000
Japan flounders without goals
The disturbing thing about Japan today is that it lacks a clear sense of national purpose even though the 21st century is close at hand. The economic slump of the 1990s is often described as a "lost decade" or a "second surrender" (after the defeat in World War II). But it is not just the stagnant economy...
COMMENTARY
Jul 18, 2000
A new era unfolds in Taiwan
I was part of a Japanese media group that visited Taiwan June 18-21, took part in joint interviews with President Chen Shui-bian and his predecessor Lee Teng-hui, and came away with strong impressions of their leadership skills.
COMMENTARY
Jun 13, 2000
Future rides on this election
The Japanese archipelago will be deafened by the din of election campaigning for the Lower House for about two weeks beginning today. Given the growing public distrust of politics, however, the ranks of voters who claim no party affiliation are swelling. Political parties have repeatedly embraced unprincipled...
COMMENTARY
May 1, 2000
Winner takes all? Not yet
The New York stock market remains volatile, even after rebounding from its worst-ever decline in points that was posted April 14. Following the crash, the Tokyo stock market also nosedived; it is troubled by even more jitters than Wall Street. Some analysts say the recent replacement of some of the stocks...
COMMENTARY
Apr 3, 2000
Partial reform will not work
The Japanese-language version of "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations," by David Landes, professor emeritus of history and economics at Harvard University, has been published. The translator of the book, Keio University Professor Heizo Takenaka, notes that gaps are widening between winners and losers in...
COMMENTARY
Jan 10, 2000
Samurai values to the rescue
The biggest challenge for Japan as it greets the new millennium is implementing drastic political, economic and educational reforms, comparable to those carried out in the Meiji Restoration and after the end of World War II. Plans must include major fiscal reform, restructuring of the banking system,...
COMMENTARY
Sep 7, 1999
Merge -- and then to work
The blockbuster deal to combine Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank, Fuji Bank and the Industrial Bank of Japan may be compared to an epic drama. Act one has opened with fanfare. But what if discord develops between the director and playwright? What if the actors turn out to be hams? What if the stage settings are...
Two of America’s biggest debt holders are dumping Treasurys
The U.S. Treasury building in Washington. Investors in Japan and China sold a pile of U.S. debt in the last quarter, just before the U.S. presidential election.
Russia fired experimental ballistic missile at Ukraine, Putin says
Ukrainian firefighters work on a spot following an airstrike in Dnipro on Thursday.
Ishiba aggravates his own political failures with diplomatic faux pas
Prime Minster Shigeru Ishiba is greeted at the APEC summit in Lima by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday. The Japanese leader was criticized for remaining seated while meeting several world leaders at the event.
Japan's 3.31 million visitors in October set monthly record
Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto in December 2023. Famous autumn leaf colors contributed to increased tourism demand last month from many markets across Asia, Europe and North America, the Japan National Tourism Organization has said.
Japan ranks last in romance satisfaction for second straight year
In a survey of 31 countries, Japan ranked last in terms of those who felt loved, with just 51% of respondents saying so.
The slow-burn success of ‘A Samurai in Time’
A 19th-century warrior gets struck by lightning and wakes to find himself in 21st-century Kyoto in Junichi Yasuda’s surprise hit “A Samurai in Time.”
Around a quarter of Japan married couples in their 20s met through dating apps
A survey released by an organization promoting “Good Couples Day” shows that 24% of couples in their 20s met their marriage partner through a dating app.
'Tokyo Swindlers': Get deep into the minds of real estate con artists
In Ko Shinjo's "Tokyo Swindlers," a group of con artists manipulates real estate giants into falsified deals within the highly competitive, quick market.
Japan, U.K. and Italy discuss inviting more countries to joint fighter project
A new concept model of a next-generation fighter jet to be jointly developed by Japan, Britain and Italy is on display in Farnborough, Hampshire, in July.
Haruki Murakami's 'The City and Its Uncertain Walls' gives deep deja vu
For “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” translated into English by Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami confronts the ghosts who won't leave him alone.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?
By Kathryn Wortley

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

Azabudai Hills, Tokyo’s green new downtown ‘village’
Azabudai Hills, Tokyo’s green new downtown ‘village’

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