Japan

Tokyo This week was the tenth anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake, the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in the country. It, along with the tsunami it triggered, claimed an estimated 19,000 lives. I was walking in the Shibuya district of Tokyo when the quake knocked me off my feet. I recall being first puzzled (why am I falling?); then awestruck, as I glanced up at a thin concrete ‘pencil’ building swaying gently like a flower in the breeze. Two women on a balcony seemed to be, bizarrely, unaccountably, laughing. Then I became aware of a man running towards me, gesticulating frantically and, oddly for Japan, swearing. When the

‘Analytical intelligence, absolutely. Emotional intelligence, zero’. That was Tony Blair’s withering assessment of his successor Gordon Brown. It is a description which could as easily be applied to Japan’s beleaguered prime minister Yoshihide Suga. The former chief cabinet secretary, long-time right-hand man and ‘brain’ of long serving PM Shinzo Abe is showing alarming Brownite tendencies in his handling of the media and political relationships. Amid plummeting poll ratings the rumour is that he’ll be lucky to make it to his first anniversary in power. Like Gordon Brown, Suga took over as PM from a three-time election winner. The unexciting Shinzo Abe was no ‘Bambi’ Blair – though they had spouses who

Any long-term resident of Japan will know that ‘reading the air’, as the locals put it, is an essential skill for understanding what is really being communicated behind the glossy lacquer box patina of courtesy and understatement of Japanese discourse. Bad news is never expressed directly and you need to decode the subtle hints embedded in seemingly anodyne comments to get to the truth. For example, if a Japanese doctor ever tells you ‘it’s hard to say’ when you ask about your test results, it might be time to start getting your affairs in order. As for the Tokyo Olympics 2020/21 (a saga approaching the length and complexity of the

Japan may have avoided being locked down this winter, but is its longest serving PM Shinzo Abe about to be locked up? That is the alarming prospect that faces Abe as he struggles to explain his role, and that of his advisors, in a scandal that has beset him in and out of office for over two years. The allegation is that events organised for Abe’s constituents and assorted followers, including cherry blossom viewing parties, held between 2016 and 2018, were subsidised by his support group to the tune of around of around 30 million yen (£210,000 pounds). The undeclared payments, it is claimed, were in contravention of election law.

As a Scot, I found the news that my country had registered, by some distance, the most drug-related deaths in Europe last year profoundly depressing. But my sprits sank even lower when I saw the reaction. Rather than provoking a genuine debate about how to tackle this crisis, the dismal statistics merely set off yet another round of the Holyrood vs Westminster blame game. There were wearily predictable calls for more money, more treatment programmes, more ‘consumption rooms’, more methadone, and even, for those under the illusion that it isn’t virtually the de facto situation anyway, legalisation. It seems to be accepted as a fact now that a significant number

Few politicians have come out of the corona crisis as well as Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike. As the face of the metropolitan area’s official response to the pandemic, the 68-year-old former cabinet minister has won plaudits for her nightly face-masked updates and guidance briefings. For her efforts, she was rewarded with a landslide in last week’s gubernatorial election. But with a recent surge in cases in the Tokyo area, Governor Koike has become embroiled in a war of words with the national government that could have long-term implications. The latest infection figures in Tokyo (which have risen to around 150 cases a day) have alarmed many, but as ever with

Japan has announced a colossal stimulus package (£1.75 trillion) as it attempts to breathe life into its Covid-19 damaged economy. But with its finances already in a parlous state before the pandemic struck, economists and policy makers around the world are nervous about where this dramatic intervention in one of world’s most fiscally conservative nations could lead. One of the biggest problems Japan could face is its own currency. The Yen has traditionally been a safe haven in times of global uncertainty but not, it appears, right now. A fall of nearly 10 per cent against the dollar was recorded in March, as investors rushed to the world’s most powerful

Japan’s Covid ‘State of Emergency’ is now officially over. Tokyo, the last of Japan’s 47 prefectures to be officially released from restrictions, was declared safe(ish) on Monday, meaning its cautious three-step programme of reopening all commercial premises and entertainment venues can begin. The war over Corona may have been won here, but with a host of competing theories and interested parties hoping to claim credit, the battle to decide how it happened is just beginning. Japan’s official death toll from Covid-19 has not yet reached 1,000. This is in a country of 126 million people with densely packed cities, where people live a cheek-by-jowl existence on public transport, in compact