Making a More Stable Japan Prime Minister Tweet

Sometimes tweets from the government here in Japan send up red flags for me. Below is one of those tweets. A very suspicious way of looking at the statement below is that government officials are already rubbing their hands together thinking of things that they can do to make a “more stable” Japan… more stable probably also implies more government control.

The biggest problem of government control in Japan is not the people who, as sadly illustrated by the latest disaster, are very resilient, industrial, cooperative people on the whole. The problem is the government’s backyard – the car makers that are never held accountable and use their government connections to protect their interests, TEPCO who will probably never be taken to task for the problems in the nuclear reactors and disaster response system that exacerbated (or directly led to) the problems now, and the myriad of companies who benefit from the existing amakudari (descent from heaven) system in Japan by which the big businesses, government, and yes even the media are all mutually influential through connections at the top, and what I sometimes think is an US (big business and government) versus THEM (consumers and citizens) attitude.

The example I often use is how television stations often work together and communicate about the timing of commercials.

If anyone is interested in an interesting bit research – try to find information on how Ikea entered the Japan market and some of the challenges they met, or why you buy foreign cars through domestic car dealers in Japan, the Uniqlo story, or even why Pepsi is sold through Suntory.

Anyway, all this editorial from one small tweet shown below.

I think the flags were mostly set off by the last word. They are not reconstructing the infrastructure, power systems, monopolies of some corporations… they are looking to improve the SOCIETY…