Gen Kanai

Can Tokyo Regain Its Luster as a World Financial Center?

Great post. It is obvious that Japan is not prepared to make the sacrifices necessary to regain it's position as a WFC. The government may 'say' that they want that, but the reality is clearly less convincing, and the market responds by listing elsewhere, by moving offices outside of Japan, etc. Without any radical change in policy, Japan will continue to be marginalized and fall further into the shadow of China, which, when you consider the history of Asia from more than just the 20th century, makes more sense.

More Japanese Polarization: Only the Truly Global Will Prosper

Darrel, I appreciate your sentiment but who would you point to in Japan as a "truly global" enterprise.

I've worked for the "leading" Japanese automaker and the leading Japanese consumer electronics brand and neither enterprise was "truly global" by my own estimation (i.e. board of directors and senior executives 90%+ Japanese.)

What Happened to Mitsubishi Motors? (GS, DCX)

I just don't see any future for Mitsubishi Motors except for a govt. restructing, which I think would be a mistake. Japan has more than enough competition in the car industry, Mitsubishi Motors has a horrendous record of safety problems and recalls, and Mitsubishi as a keiretsu is more than busy with everything else that it's doing.

We've seen the Japanese govt. step in to save Daiei and I predict the same would happen here, even if I think that in the long term it isn't the right use of Japanese taxpayers' funds.

Merrill Lynch's Jesper Koll, "Japan is Back, For Real This Time"

Scott146, two good ideas but let me play devil's advocate.

Japan can't afford to build a big mililary because, 1) they don't have the people to do so, and 2) it is a politically sensitive move to do so. If you follow Japan's news, you know that Koizumi is trying to get changes made to the constitution to allow for a real military. Even if that is voted in, it will take generations for Japanese citizens to be comfortable with the idea of a military like Japan had previously. For over 50 years, Japan has been without a real military. Also, note the fact that Japan's Asian neighbors are not at all comfortable with Japan's moves towards a real military. That's another perspective that cannot be ignored. Japan's profile in Asia and it's history means that they cannot do anything without impacting others in this region. Finally, more Japanese in a professional military means less people to work. Japan may not be able to afford that.

As to your comments re: Japan's space program, I think that the govt. has been working to raise the profile of Japan's space program including the launches of satellites in the past few years, and then the recently reported high-altitude tests of prototypes in the Australian Outback. I agree it's an important growth area.

Merrill Lynch's Jesper Koll, "Japan is Back, For Real This Time"

One other comment- when I use a MovableType bookmarklet to generate a link from your blog to post a link to my blog, I get some errors with the character between "Blog" and "Merrill". Not sure if you can change that character to a hyphen or emdash but...

Merrill Lynch's Jesper Koll, "Japan is Back, For Real This Time"

Good summary. Koll is always quotable.

I'm one of the most skeptical and bearish on Japan but I do think there has been a significant change.

That said, I know for a fact that Japanese companies are still tied to informal keiretsu and do not always go for the cheapest vendor. Relationships are so powerful in Japan they often trump economics.