HONG KONG — Even Google couldn't believe it. Asked to supply its best information about Koji Tanami, Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda's second "best available" candidate to be governor of the Bank of Japan (BOJ), the search engine instantly responded, "Do you mean Bank of Japan tsunami?"
The prime minister might like to picture himself as a brave man facing a tsunami of impossible issues blown by the winds and tides of outrageous fortune, but in nominating Tanami, he was behaving like a silly boy building sand castles too close to the incoming tide. Sure enough, his nominee was immediately washed away by the opposition Upper House, leaving the central bank without a head for the first time since World War II.
Nothing better illustrates the barrenness of Japan's political landscape than the failure to find someone to succeed Toshihiko Fukui as BOJ governor. However, the shabby affair is more than just the question of who should run the central bank: It is symptomatic of a country in decline and run by political dinosaurs.