Japan Approaches the Breaking Point

[thomasglee]

We can see a generational change taking place in Japan.

Japan Approaches the Breaking Point

The fate of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) was reversed Sunday when the House of Councillors, the upper house of Japan’s parliament, faced a serious defeat in elections. The loss comes less than one year after the DPJ’s celebrated “regime change” in August 2009, in which it seized power from the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which had ruled Japan for nearly all of the preceding half century.

It is hard to read the election results as anything other than a rebuke to the DPJ. The party ditched its leadership in June after failing on a primary campaign pledge to redefine aspects of its relationship with the United States, and the new leadership — led by Prime Minister Naoto Kan — appeared to emerge with a stride. But the initial failure may have left deeper wounds than first realized. Moreover, Kan’s immediate proposal of ambitious fiscal reforms provoked a negative reaction from a public already worried about global economic uncertainty. He was likened to the infamous Ryutaro Hashimoto, the prime minister who attempted to correct Japan’s public finances too quickly after a recession and was blamed for triggering a relapse. The election defeat appears to be the result of such economic fears.

While the party’s coalition remains in control of the more powerful House of Representatives, it has lost the opportunity to dominate both houses and push its preferred legislation through with minimal resistance. Instead, it faces an emboldened opposition, the possibility of a hung parliament and the inevitability of internal feuding within its party. The DPJ appears to be entering the same whirlpool of short-lived leaders and ceaseless factionalism that it blamed on its predecessors and cited as an example of what it sought to overcome in its quest to revitalize Japan.

Thus, high hopes that the DPJ’s rise to power would instantaneously “revolutionize” Japan — hopes that STRATFOR was quick to dash in 2009 — have now officially flopped. Extended political malaise has been confirmed as the complement to Japan’s two-decades-long economic malaise.

Yet it would be incorrect to say that the country is stagnant. The DPJ’s members are younger and have less political lineage than those of the LDP, and the DPJ remains committed to altering structural defects in the country’s economic and political status quo. Moreover, the surprising success of the upstart Your Party shows that the will to change in Japan is spreading and is by no means limited to one party.

“Extended political malaise has been confirmed as the complement to Japan’s two-decades-long economic malaise.”

This groping for a new path is important to watch. Despite Japan’s apparent immobility on the global stage, it remains an economic and military giant. STRATFOR has frequently reminded readers that Japan’s history and strategic imperatives reveal a distinct pattern in which periods of internal chaos give way to abrupt manifestations of unified purpose and adroit shifts in foreign policy. Japan’s wars with Russia, China, Southeast Asia and the United States over the last century and a half reveal an inherent power to affect the course of global affairs during its periods of extroversion, as well as its several periods of commercial dominance.

The question we continue to pose is: When will the current period of fecklessness end and something new begin? The recent elections suggest that a breaking point has not yet been reached, but another round of indecisiveness can only mean that the inevitable is drawing closer.

Another question is whether Japan’s change will be precipitated by internal factors, external factors or both. Demographic decline is a trend underlying the other problems. It is worth noting that one of the most influential forces contributing to Japan’s current state of affairs — for better and worse — is the economic and military rise of China. If China continues on its current upswing, it will quickly surpass Japan economically and grow in stature as a perceived threat to Japanese security. If China suffers a serious economic slowdown or disruption, which internal Chinese cycles and global economic conditions suggest, it will impact Japan’s economy, raising risks and opportunities. Either scenario — not to mention other possible shocks — could shake Japan out of its drift.

[gerald]

The Great Unraveling.
Below are two comments to a post on Zero Hedge

by Cognitive Dissonance
on Sat, 03/26/2011 - 23:05
#1104505

Thank you for your editorial comment Banzai7. We don't often get hear the artistic master speak at such length because you would rather let your art be your voice.

The unraveling of various civilizations over the past several thousand years pretty much follows the same well worn path. While our history books have neat timeline charts indicating beginning and end dates of the Romans, the Greeks, the Egyptians and Aztecs etc, we all wish it were that neat and clear cut.

I see the unfolding Fukushima nuclear disaster as the perfect analogy of the unfolding disaster of civilization. If you think about nuclear fission in a very general way, it is a controlled chaotic reaction. In essence what is going on is one struck billiard ball is hitting another and then another and then another in an orderly and controlled manner. This crashing of balls, this nuclear reaction creates heat which is used to generate electricity. Same as a coal and gas fired plant except the source of the heat is a nuclear reaction rather than a chemical reaction.

As a side note, uncontrolled fission is the very same reaction only not orderly, thus the rate of balls colliding into other balls exponentially increases until a massive amount of collisions occur nearly all at once, consuming most the fissionable material in an instant and unleashing a tremendous amount of energy aka an explosion. All the heat is released at once rather than over months and years. While I'm certain nuclear engineers will find fault in my description, this is an analogy folks so relax.

The unraveling of a/our civilization is very similar to a controlled reaction progressing to an uncontrolled reaction except that each collision doesn't release energy, but instead removes energy while still destabilizing the structure next door. So the man made disasters, be they social, political or economic, accelerates exponentially. This begins to seriously weaken the overall structure which itself destabilizes the other units around it, causing more chaos and failure. The powers are desperately trying to reassert control even as their tools and methods are becoming less and less effective. The civilization reactor is running away from them and us. So while the first 20% of the overall degradation might take 80% of the overall time, the final 80% of the collapse occurs in the last 20% of the total time of failure.

The explosions in units 1 through 4 happened over a 4 day period of time. While at first we thought this was indicative of most of the damage done, we are now seeing it was actually just the enabling events and the truly destructive collapse is to follow. Things are beginning to escalate and might just rapidly unravel. We don't really see this at the moment, at least not clearly, because the news flow is restricted and thus we learn about events days, even a week after the fact. This means what's happening today won't be disclosed until 3, 5, 7 days from today if at all.

The same can be said for our civilization. While it appears that things are escalating rapidly and much damage has already occurred, we aren't being told what's happening in real time thus we aren't very aware of the true pace of the unraveling or the existing damage. We know we are being lied to and we can speculate about what's going on. But we don't really know and won't until it's too late. The final 20% of the total time of collapse will witness the last 80% of the damage. Both for Fukushima and the great unraveling, we ain't seen nothing yet.

It doesn't need to go down this way folks. We just need to stand up and demand it stop. I'm not talking about armed resistance or even protests. The powers that be know how to counteract this direct affront, this symmetrical resistance. Their defensive systems are designed to crush a direct attack. We simply need to withdraw and not participate. 20% of us refusing to pay our bills, not go to work, stop banking with the Ponzi banks or buy anything on credit and all the other great ideas presented here on ZH and elsewhere will bring it all to a stop by the end of the year and probably sooner.

But if we continue to participate we are enabling, even fueling, the final plunge that will be the most destructive part of the collapse. We just need to be the marginal player here folks because the system has no more slack to absorb marginal black swan events such as our withdrawal which is asymmetrical in nature.

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by YouBetYourLife
on Sat, 03/26/2011 - 23:18
#1104522

What a great post, CD. So true; so much to contemplate. Unfortunately, as I suspect you would agree, the chance of the perilous momentum being deflected or reversed is small. It's going to take a severe shock, I'm afraid, to cause fundamental change.

[fanlynne]

A massive 8.9/9.0 magnitude earthquake hit the Pacific Ocean nearby Northeastern Japan at around 2:46pm on March 11 (JST) causing damage with blackouts, fire and tsunami.Over 230 aid workers from U.S, U.K & China entered Ofunato, a destroyed towns. All of them were speechless at the devastation of tsunami.let's hope Japanese people can be strong and recover from the huge disaster soon....
Which maple do you prefer old or new? I stil need to think a little but i kinda like old one maybe

[John]

The above has been reported as a spam-bot post.

Let's wait another day and see if Lynne is for real, or just another
bot trying to trying to fool us. Perhaps she'll say something intelligent
that has nothing to do with sales.

I have to delete spam messages practically every day, sometimes several
times a day, but this one is a little ambiguous. We'll see.

John