IT’S spring and there’s a scent of change in the air. For the first time in history, His Imperial Majesty the Emperor welcomed the incumbent president of the Caribbean nation of Haiti. For the first time in over 20 years, the Emperor and the Empress danced in public, and one of Japan’s most acclaimed architects, Toyo Ito, is being celebrated by the world through the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize.
The media worldwide are heralding Japan’s economic awakening. Japan’s stock market is roaring, its overvalued yen finally falling, and the Bank of Japan is spending many trillions of yen. So far, Japan’s rally is based on politics. The economic reality is yet to be proven.
Cautious Optimism
Still, many of Japan’s business people are cautiously expressing optimism “with a large question mark,” as an official in Tokyo’s heavily industrialized Ota ward said to me this week. “Companies have high expectations, but it is unclear when they will feel the effects of Abenomics. Or whether they will experience it at all. There is still much skepticism and uncertainty.”
On the streets of Tokyo few people feel any change yet. Many are apprehensive. “I don’t notice any difference,” a small business owner in Tokyo told me while walking his dogs. “It is just the stock market and large companies. Small companies are struggling. I have no expectations that things will get better. They are just creating another bubble.”
Naturally, Tokyo Journal hopes the skeptics will be proven wrong and Prime Minister Abe’s risky economic experiment will bear fruit.
North Korean War Threats
One experiment we don’t want to bear fruit comes courtesy of our neighbor North Korea. It has once again explored the limits of overly aggressive negotiation techniques. Many foreign media seem to take the reclusive regime’s bellicose rhetoric at face value.