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BOOK REVIEW
Japan's turning point, quest for identity
Japan Unbound: A Volatile Nation's Quest for Pride and Purpose by John Nathan

Reviewed by Yoel Sano

Japan may well be at a historic turning point, according to John Nathan's Japan Unbound: A Volatile Nation's Quest for Pride and Purpose. The country spent much of the 1990s in recession after the 1980s boom years, while the United States, the rest of Asia, and even Europe powered ahead. Yet during the "lost decade", as

many Japan watchers have called this stagnant period, the country - largely unreported by the international media - has undergone a slow transformation that has profound implications for the rest of the world.

Indeed, Japan still boasts the world's second-largest economy, and a formidable financial and industrial base. Add to this the fact that under Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi the country is becoming increasingly active in Asian affairs, and it becomes pretty clear that what happens in Japan still matters, and will affect the region, relations with the US, and quite possibly the wider world.

At the heart of Japan's transformations is the country's ongoing search for its identity. It has been said for more than a century that Japan is torn between East and West, but few authors have written about this cultural dilemma faced by the country with as much insight and understanding as Nathan, who has translated several works of Japanese literature into English, and has written two other books about Japan. Instead, most recent books about Japan's woes have been a bland analysis of productivity and economic figures, mainly focusing on Japan Inc and the problems of the governing Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Nathan's book stands out because he examines in a highly readable manner the social forces that are being unleashed upon ordinary people and their families.

In doing so, Nathan looks at these forces in the domain of the school, the family home, the corporate world, the new entrepreneurial sector, popular comic books, and the debate over Japan's history books. Last, he profiles two prefectural governors who could embody the new Japan, namely the Scandinavian-style quasi-social-democratic Yasuo Tanaka of Nagano prefecture, and the highly nationalistic and somewhat militaristic Shintaro Ishihara of Tokyo.

First up, though, is a frontline report from a high school in middle-Japan. Japan's education system has long been characterized by (or criticized for) its orderliness, discipline, and rote learning that stifles individual thinking. The portrait that emerges, however, is one of near breakdown. Although bullying has long been a feature of school life, school violence is increasing - and not just among the students. Nathan shows that increasingly teachers are unable to control their classes, let alone educate pupils and instill a sense of the importance of education. More teachers are being assaulted and are suffering mental breakdowns.

Teachers are blaming the culture of individualism - long championed by reformists - for turning the school into an extension of the home, where kids are not bound by rules. Not only that, but many students are opting to drop out of the education system altogether and lock themselves in their rooms for months - even years - reading comic books or playing computer games, a phenomenon documented in and outside of Japan as hikikomori, self-withdrawal.

Breakdown of families, traditional values
This disorder has been caused not only by the intense "exam hell" or crammer school pressure that Japan's children have faced, but also by a breakdown of the traditional family structure. Traditional values of respect, obedience and fealty have all lost significance, as overworked fathers spend less time with their children, while mothers aggressively channel all their energies into getting the kids into the right schools or universities.

Of course, these phenomena are not unique to Japan, and indeed have been written about for years in a Western context. Nor does it mean that Japan is necessarily heading for a period of anarchy. But they are nonetheless having a destabilizing effect on society.

Meanwhile, Japan's sarariman (Japanese pronunciation of "salary man", an ordinary, white-collar male office worker) fathers, who for decades were the motor of corporate Japan, are also coming under increased pressure, as job losses stemming from corporate restructuring - although still less severe than in the West - are depriving them of their self-worth. Nathan believes that the degree to which the company man identified with his organization has not been adequately understood in the West, since identification with a group means so much in Japan.

This loss of worth can lead to fatal consequences. Nathan points out that in 1998, Japan's suicides increased by 35 percent to more than 30,000 for the first time in the postwar era, and have remained above 30,000 annually since. Even this may be an underestimate, with one mental-health center director estimating that there are as many as 50,000 suicide attempts per year, with as many as 10 times that number being treated in walk-in clinics. As such, the director calculates that as many as 5 million Japanese may be contemplating suicide at any one time - approximately 4 percent of the population of about 128 million.

On a more positive note, the phasing out of lifetime employment is gradually creating new business practices that may offer Japan an opportunity to attain once again its high rates of economic growth. But, as Nathan points out, this is a slow process, one that is thus far being shaped by outsiders. Most notable of these is Carlos Ghosn, the Brazilian-French-Lebanese corporate warrior who took over as head of Nissan Motors in 1999 after years of heavy losses and managed to bring the company back into profit by 2001 after carrying out some ruthless restructuring. Nathan rightly poses the crucial question of whether Nissan could have made these changes on its own initiative:

Is Nissan an anomaly, as many Japanese business leaders insist, or will Japan's re-emergence as a global competitor require the radical changes in corporate culture that Ghosn has brought to Nissan? ... the challenge will be to install American pragmatism uncomplicated by sentimental "familial" considerations while preserving the loyalty and selfless dedication to ensuring the success of the group which has fueled Japan's productivity in the postwar era.

New culture of defiant entrepreneurship
However, as a measure of the resistance to change, Nathan cites the chairman emeritus of Nippon Electric Corp (NEC), who states that the Nissan turnaround is a product of attitudes and ways of behaving that are irreconcilable with Japanese society and culture.

As a result of Japan's rigid working environment, an increasing number of the country's corporate high-fliers are opting to become entrepreneurs, but again the outlook is mixed, since Japanese society dislikes those who strike out on their own. Those who have done so have often had a Western education or have worked in Western banks or consultancies, or, in the case of Masayoshi Son, the founder of Softbank, have come from a minority background. Son is a third-generation ethnic Korean.

Such unsettling changes across virtually all aspects of Japanese society are understandably prompting more Japanese to ask themselves what kind of society they want to live in, and "what does it mean to be Japanese? What are the source and nature of Japan's uniqueness?" And in such a climate, according to Nathan, nationalism is gaining ground.

Admittedly, an upsurge of nationalism in Japan is probably inevitable, given the taboos that have been imposed on such expression since the end of World War II. The real question, therefore, is whether this will develop into a healthy nationalism more akin to patriotism, or something uglier and more akin to fascism.

In praise of Japan in World War II
The latter may be gaining ground, judging by the high popularity of manga (comics/graphic novels) that espouse hyper-nationalism. Nathan profiles one such author, Yoshinori Kobayashi, whose Arrogant-ism Proclamations (ArroProcs) series portraying Japan's wartime role in a positive light has sold tens of millions of copies since they were launched in 1991. Volume I concludes with an unrepentant tribute to the war:

The truth is: The Great East Asian War [World War II] was an epic poem that expressed the full range of our Japanese spirit.

The miracle of our early victories
The horror and poignant beauty of our retreat
This was Japan's war!
We fought alone against the West;
We had an obligation to fight;
And when the war had ended, the map of the world was transformed - the age of imperialism had come to an end.

May I be a little arrogant? The day will come when this war is reappraised for what it truly was, the most beautiful, cruel, and noble battle ever waged by mankind. Let us express our thanks to those brave heroes who transcended themselves on our behalf.

Far from being the deluded but relatively harmless fantasies of an extremist, these manga promoting a positive view of Japan's wartime role have created a climate wherein the writing of a "New History" of Japan has taken root. Key to this is the publication and distribution in Japan's schools of new history textbooks that minimize Japan's atrocities against its Asian neighbors in the Pacific War. Already, these textbooks have led to deep resentment and sharp criticism from China and the two Koreas in particular - all three of which suffered brutal Japanese occupation in the first half of the 20th century.

Japan's new nationalists defend these books on the grounds that the teaching of the Japan-as-criminal version of history is undermining the national self-worth and engendering self-loathing. One defender of the New History cited by Nathan is Kunio Yonenaga, who said of the new doctrine:

"To me, the New History is like the Bible. The Bible is a story, a tale about love for mankind and how life should be led. Its facts aren't important. Some are correct and some are inaccurate. What matters is that it inspires us in a positive way. The new history has the same effect. It's a story that teaches love for our country, and it's written like the Bible. It even has angels in it."

Despite such an endorsement, it would be wrong to suggest that all Japanese are accepting the New History without resistance. Nathan tracks the formation of the New History and the debate it has prompted in Japan's school boards. However, he also notes that when the New History was released in a commercial edition in June 2001 (the first time a textbook had been marketed to the public) it was among the 10 best-selling titles in Japan, and had sold 720,000 copies by February 2002. Against this backdrop, supporters of the New History hope it is setting a new benchmark for school history texts.

The spiritual leader of Japan's neo-nationalists is Tokyo prefectural Governor Shintaro Ishihara, a novelist-turned-politician who quit the ruling LDP to run as an independent, and is using his position and the capital as a base from which to transform Japan into a more assertive and militaristic power. Ishihara frequently tops polls as Japan's most popular politician, so his activities are worth watching.

New Japanese voices: Reject the US
Ishihara first came to the attention of the Western media in 1989, when he published a book called The Japan That Can Say No in which he demanded that Japan end its traditional subservience to the United States and called for Japan to build up its military capabilities. Ishihara's hostility to the US has waned slightly in recent years, as he has focused his energies against a rising China and a nuclear-armed North Korea, but were he to get his way, Washington would likely find that the US-Japan relationship would become considerably more awkward. Ishihara has blamed the US for triggering the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, and accuses the US of racism toward Japan. Relations with China would also suffer. In 1999 he rattled Beijing by inviting the Dalai Lama to Tokyo City Hall (the invitation was declined) and he became the most senior Japanese politician to visit Taiwan since 1972.

Yet like many anti-Western nationalists the world over, Ishihara admires many things Western, such as Italian food and American baseball bats, underscoring his own ambivalence to the West, despite his strong nationalism.

The antithesis of Ishihara is Yasuo Tanaka, another author-turned-politician who won the governorship of Nagano as an independent in 2000, and has used his position to roll back vested interests such as the LDP-dominated construction-industrial complex. In particular, he blocked the building of new dams, which would have generated money for construction companies and local politicians, while damaging the local environment and sapping central government coffers, since the government subsidizes such projects. Of course, vested interests in the prefectural assembly ousted him, but he went to the polls and was overwhelmingly re-elected in September 2002 (see The hero of God's Mountain, September 6, 2002).

Tanaka has championed more open government and has sought to portray himself as a man of the people, along the lines of a Scandinavian-style social democrat. Indeed, if Japan is caught between East and West, the growing divergence between the US and Europe may soon mean that Japan would have the choice of two Westernisms. Tanaka represents the European option.

For now, though, like Ishihara, Tanaka has sought to use his prefectural power base as a platform to change the way Japan is governed - with some degree of success. Indeed, the fact that more and more independent candidates are being elected governors of Japan's 47 prefectures seems to suggest that voters are finally becoming wary of the long-ruling LDP.

Other voices: Japan as the Sweden of Asia
In many ways, Ishihara and Tanaka are the embodiment of two alternative visions of Japan's future. The former is - his anti-Americanism notwithstanding - a George W Bush-style tough leader, who likes to portray himself as commander-in-chief by presiding over military exercises in Tokyo. The latter aims to make Japan the Sweden of Asia.

Nathan concludes by suggesting that despite Ishihara's anti-Chinese rhetoric, there has been a new emphasis in recent years on the Chinese (and, to a lesser extent, other Asian) origins of Japan's culture. To support his view, he cites the growing popularity of Chinese and Korean films and other popular culture in Japan, the fact that more Japanese are opting to vacation in China (and vice versa), and that more Japanese are learning Chinese.

Nathan's explanation here may be somewhat simplified. Pop culture is prone to fads and fashions. Also, it's not unusual for there to be no correlation between pop culture and political harmony; Japanese pop culture has long been popular in South Korea, despite the latter's hostility toward Japan. Nonetheless, the China-shift is a trend to watch.

In addition, Nathan notes that many Japanese were offended by the United States' comparison of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, seen as a military attack on a military target, and the perceived self-righteousness with which Washington has been pursuing the "war on terror". Although Ishihara has described the US as "the second Mongol Empire" from early 2003, the United States has also come under criticism from the opposite end of the political spectrum. Governor Tanaka is adopting a more center-left European-style critique, urging Americans to look around at the consequences of US interference in others' affairs.

This, coupled with the alleged pro-China shift, leads Nathan to see the possibility that in future Japan and China - which together control 40 percent of investments in US Treasuries - can move to pressure the US economy. Yet he suggests that Japan's alleged new-found fondness for China would merely be trading one big brother (the United States) for another, and would not resolve Japan's dilemma about East and West, identity and assertion.

Actually, that would depend on how China - itself caught between its own traditions and Westernization - defines itself. If Japan latches on to an Asian China, then it has aligned itself with its Asian roots. If Japan aligns with a "torn" China, then its own East-West dilemma will continue.

Overall, though, Japan Unbound is a tour d'horizon of the social forces that have been shaping Japan for several years now, and will likely shape it for another generation. Some readers may be disappointed that Nathan makes no real judgment on Japanese society, nor does he prescribe solutions for Japan's ills, but he is wise not to do so. Japan should solve its cultural dilemma by itself. A chapter on the changing role of women and the role of ethnic minorities and immigrants in shaping the new Japan would have been greatly welcome, since change in any society is often driven by groups who are marginalized. The book also has importance in that it raises issues for other countries or societies caught between East and West, and between modernization and tradition, such as China, Russia, and the Islamic world.

This book is a must read for anyone wanting to understand where Japan is, and where it is going.

Japan Unbound: A Volatile Nation's Quest for Pride and Purpose by John Nathan. Published by Houghton Mifflin, February 2004. ISBN 0618138943. Price US$25.

Yoel Sano has worked for publishing houses in London, providing political and economic analysis, and has been following Northeast Asia for many years.

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Apr 17, 2004

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