CHANGE
2006 Jan/Feb
VIEWPOINTS
by Sam Jameson
Japan is a country in which nothing ever changes without a lot of talk beforehand. A lot of talk however, does not necessarily mean that change will occur. Even when it looks like dramatic change, appearances can be deceptive. In 1986, then Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro created a furor when he lifted a politically-imposed 1% limit of the GDP on defense spending. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger predicted the move would open the door to Japan becoming a military giant. In fact, defense spending never exceeded the 1% limit. In only three years since 1986 did defense spending technically creep over 1% to a peak in 1989 of 1.013% - which, if rounded off to the nearest whole percent, was still 1%. In every year since 1990, budgets have remained below 1%. The upshot is that Nakasone announced a change that never occurred. Even on a personal level, change is not always what it seems. Iwakuni Tetsundo astounded most Japanese in 1977 by quitting his job as an investment banker in the London office of Nikko Securities and abandoning a possible shot at the presidency of what was then Japan's third largest securities company. "Separating from Nikko Securities meant separating from Japanese society... Leaving a company? For a Japanese, that's almost like saying good-bye to God," Iwakuni said. He quit to stay in England and allowed his daughters to achieve their dream of finishing secondary education in English and going on to college overseas. If his children had been sons though, "certainly I would have thought that they must go to the University of Tokyo - and that they must work for a company like Mitsubishi or Hitachi," he said. "I probably would have, willingly, accepted that promotion, and probably would not have dared to leave Japanese society." Iwakuni, who is now a member of the House of Representatives, thought that his daughters "did not have to go through the rigors of Japan's gakureki shakai (a society based on grades at the best Japanese schools)" - the standard pattern for success in Japan. Huge changes do occur: The transformation of Japan from a military government to a democracy; the emergence of "one-nation pacifism" that kept Japan free of war for 60 years; a postwar economy that regained its 1941 GDP in just 11 years after the defeat and became the world's second largest only to plunge into a "bubble" of speculation followed by 16 years of stagnation and financial institutions crippled by bad..... <<BACK

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