...effective and especially Japanese housewives are said to become disgusted when they see Ozawa’s face on their TV screens. In the winter of 2009-10 one was given the impression from newspaper front pages that Ozawa was alleged to have committed mass murder or high treason instead of having connived with his secretaries to what at worst might be seen as an administrative misdemeanor, of a kind that elsewhere in advanced countries would hardly have been noticed. The public prosecutor had to concede not to have found evidence against Ozawa, but the Asahi newspaper (which tends to take the lead in such matters) came with an editorial saying that he was still guilty, and the justice people pulled a never before used trick out of their hats. A few years before they had introduced a law based on an arrangement that had originally been established by McArthur’s occupation of Japan but was hardly ever invoked. It provides for a special council consisting of ordinary citizens with the power to demand mandatory indictment. That the judge did not accommodate the officials who used this utterly transparent trick is very good news for Japan, where more than 99% of cases brought to trial...

...which had been in power since 1955. Being in power did not, under Japanese circumstances, mean actually governing. And that defect became a central theme in the national discussion at the time, which was widely supported by numerous editorials and series of articles in the main newspapers. A general conclusion was that politicians ought to do what the voters had elected them for: to represent them by designing policies attuned to the many domestic and international changes that had turned the de facto national economic policy of unlimited expansion of productive capacity into a source of numerous problems. Some nine months followed with a political atmosphere that could almost be called euphoric. When that died down groups of reformist politicians remained in splinter parties, which combined and re-combined and eventually congealed into the DPJ under the guidance of Ozawa. There was never any question about Ozawa as a master politician, and a brilliant strategist, who had a broader and more imaginative view than his colleagues of what was needed to make Japan what he called ‘a normal country’. He wrote a book about it. In 2009 Ozawa demonstrated his unquestioned electoral genius by leading this new party, the first genuine...

Which Obama was visiting Moscow this week? The Obama of the outstretched hand or the Obama of incontestable opinion? In his speech to students of the New Economic School (which was created with support from the West after the demise of the Soviet Union) both Obamas were on display. The presence in the audience of the last president of the Soviet Union, Michael Gorbachev, seemed to underline the new start, the “reset”, which this American president says he wants to achieve in relations with Russia. The outstretched hand: “To begin with, let me be clear: America wants a strong, a peaceful, and prosperous Russia. This belief is rooted in our respect for the Russian people, and a shared history between our nations that goes beyond competition. Despite our past rivalry, our peoples were allies in the greatest struggle of the last century.” And: “So as we honor this past, we also recognize the future benefit that will come from a strong and vibrant Russia. Think of the issues that will define your lives: security from nuclear weapons and extremism; access to markets and opportunity; health and the environment; an international system that protects sovereignity and human rights, while promoting stability...

I just heard that Newsweek will no longer have a bureau with correspondents in Tokyo, and that the Los Angeles Times has begun to cover Japan out of Seoul, Korea. When the Newsweek bureau chief goes, Tokyo loses one of its most thoughtful foreign correspondents. These are merely the latest developments in the gradual marginalization of Japan as a source of news and stories about how things might be done differently in different civilizations; in other words: of Japan as a source of knowledge. TV, the main source of information for the vast majority in most places, lost interest in Japan some years ago. It illustrates the unfortunate fact that our sources of knowledge and the way we go about gathering this knowledge are quite heavily dependent on fashion. Not so long ago it was believed that if you wanted to know our contemporary world you could not do without knowledge of Japan, especially if you wanted to do business. Most of that kind of attention reserved for Japan, as reflected by books, articles, and general discussion, has been switched to China. This is not difficult to understand. Editors do not find Japan sexy enough anymore, nothing much appears to...

There could hardly be a greater difference between the United States and Japan than when their heads of government change. The American president decapitates, as it were, the government entities staffed by career officials and brings in a double layer of new appointees who, he hopes, will do his bidding. The new Japanese prime minister must be painstakingly heedful of balancing factional interests of the ruling party as he selects members of a cabinet, and those newly chosen top politicians are subsequently treated as temporary visitors in the ministries they ostensibly head. If these Japanese politicians are lucky, and survive more than one of the regular cabinet reshuffles, the top bureaucrats who work theoretically underneath them may perhaps help realize a small pet project that will be associated with their name. In the context of the ubiquitous thorny question of how much politicians should listen to bureaucrats or bureaucrats should be guided by elected representatives, the balance between the two has in both countries swung to extreme and opposite ends. But Japan and the United States have still something in common. Something that has suddenly become highly relevant in the United States. Among American government entities, there are a couple...

...endorsed the story that Merkel was allowed to dominate with in the headlines. This helped stoke strong indignation that spread over the northern euro countries; why should we, well-behaved taxpayers, have to bail them out? By the time the German broadsheet Das Bild had created a commonly accepted picture portraying hard-working Germans versus irresponsible Greeks there was no going back for the Chancellor. That tabloid, along with the domestic financial interests and their allies, blocked a return to rational analysis of the bank crisis, preoccupied as she was with minimizing threats to her staying on as chancellor in a new coalition after next year’s elections. There were other possible beginnings that would have allowed a sound approach to the controversy from a different direction. Such as low German domestic demand compensated for by years of voluminous German exports to peripheral Europe, including Greece, which required funds for buying that German stuff; funds happily being pumped into southern Europe by German banks. As these were raking in premiums and interest, their credit risk analysts slept soundly because the credit rating agencies had given their blessings with blanket triple A ratings for all the euro countries. Is Greek governmental irresponsibility then only...