The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 18 | Issue 4 | Number 9 | Article ID 5349 | Feb 15, 2020

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Celebrating the “New” Japan

Gerald Curtis

Abstract: The 2020 Olympics will be held in aJapan that confronts challenges that are aworld apart from the Japan of the 1964Olympics. None is more profound than Japan’sdemographic dilemma. The population pyramidhas been inverted from what it was half acentury ago when Japan was a vigorous nationbursting with vitality and hope. The upbeatmessaging in 2020 can’t obscure questionsabout how Japan will cope with seriouseconomic and security challenges.

The 1964 Tokyo Olympic Summer Games werea grand coming out party for a “new” Japan.Just 19 years earlier Japan had surrendered tothe Allied Powers to end a war that had leftJapan prostrate, Tokyo leveled by firebombs,Hiroshima and Nagasaki destroyed by atomicweapons, the nation destitute and demoralized.Back in 1964 the world was turning its gaze ona Japan both democratic and peaceful, and withan economy that had been growing at anaverage rate of 9.3 percent annually since1955. That achievement earned for Japanmembership in the OECD, the Organization forEconomic Co-operation and Development, inthe same year it hosted the Olympics.

Tokyo was bursting with energy and thenational mood was upbeat when I arrived inTokyo for the first time in the summer of 1964to spend a year there studying Japanese. Mylodging was a four and a half mat tatami roomthat had a small entranceway that doubled as acloset, a Japanese-style toilet (meaning a

ceramic slab on the floor with a hole in themiddle), and a tiny alcove with a sink and asingle-burner gas stove. No shower, no bath, noheat. But for ¥3,000 yen a month -- $8.30 at thethen fixed exchange rate of 360 yen to a dollar -- it was a steal. I bought a kerosene stove, asmall table, a couple of cushions, and aninexpensive futon that in a letter I wrote to myparents after a night of sleeping on it Idescribed as being ”like an air mattress withoutthe air,” what Japanese call a senbei buton,bedding as thin as a rice cracker.

This was how a lot of people lived in Tokyo in1964. It was not unusual when visitingsomeone’s home on a cold winter day to begreeted with “Dozo, sono mama de,” “please,just as you are,” meaning to keep your overcoaton. The standard of living was low but thesense that things were improving right in frontof people’s eyes was palpable. Prime MinisterIkeda’s promise made in 1960 to double thenational income within ten years was met injust four. A consumer boom gathered speed,driven by Japanese eagerness to purchase the“3 C’s” -- a car, a color television set, and an airconditioner (a “cooler”). However modest theircurrent living conditions, people wereenergized by the belief that the coming yearswould bring prosperity for themselves and evenmore so for their children.

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Japanese torch bearers run toward the TokyoOlympic Stadium, 1964. Source: Newsweek.

(https://www.newsweek.com/2016/03/18/japan-tokyo-2020-olympics-433780.html)

How different the situation as Japan preparesto welcome the return of the Olympics to Tokyo56 years later. There is neither optimism northe energy that was evident in 1964. By the1980s the Japanese economy had reacheddizzying heights, leading to predictions that the21st century would be Japan’s. As that decadecame to a close, author James Fallows pennedan article in The Atlantic asserting that theUnited States needed a new containmentstrategy in order to survive Japan’s economicchallenge (James Fallows, “Containing Japan,”The Atlantic, May 1989). No sooner had theFallow’s article appeared, however, than theJapanese economy took a nosedive. Japan’sdream of becoming number one disappeared asits economy fell into a deflationary trap thatpersisted for two decades, and from which itstill has only barely emerged.

When he became Prime Minister in 2013, AbeShinzo sought to break deflation’s back byappointing a new President of the Bank ofJapan, Kuroda Haruhiko, with a mandate topursue an aggressive and unconventionalmonetary policy with the goal of ramping upthe inflation rate to 2 percent. The theory wasstraightforward: deflation discouragesinvestment and consumption since it createsthe expectation that prices will be lower in thefuture than they are now; in f la t ionexpectations, on the other hand, create

incentives for consumers to open their walletsand for companies to invest in plant andequipment before prices rise. But reality hasstubbornly refused to validate this inflationtargeting theory. After seven years of the AbeAdministration and on the eve of the 2020Olympics Japan’s two percent inflation goalremains as elusive as ever.

With news that the International OlympicCommittee had decided to choose Japan as thehost country for the 1964 summer Olympicgames, the Japanese government went on aspending spree to get Tokyo and the countryready for the big event. Old buildings wererazed to make way for a stadium and otherOlympic facilities. The city’s two main trolleylines were eliminated (with the remaining onessoon to follow), streets were widened andrepaved, and an elevated highway that circledthe city was put up in record time. Theshinkansen, the world’s first “bullet train,”began service between Tokyo and Osaka tendays before the Olympic opening ceremony. Amonorail connecting Haneda airport to Tokyowas completed just in time as well. However,the monorail terminated at Hamamatsucho, notquite in the center of the city, because costoverruns for the shinkansen, which in the endcost a billion dollars, did not leave enoughmoney to bring it to Shinbashi or Tokyo Stationas originally planned. The 1960 Rome Olympicscost $30 million. Four year later, as SportsIllustrated put it, “Japanese have spent $1.9billion to dress up ugly old Tokyo.”

Little thought was given to aesthetics or theenvironment in the mad dash to upgrade thecity’s infrastructure. Built almost entirely overwater, the monorail destroyed fishing andaquatic farming operations and turned formerlybusy and picturesque waterways into pools ofstagnant and polluted water. At places theelevated highway was built just a few feetabove existing structures, including the famedNihonbashi, the Meiji era bridge that is thepoint from which all distances from Tokyo are

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measured. But criticism of cost overruns andpoor urban planning were drowned out by theroar of excitement generated by the coming ofthe Olympics to Tokyo.

Putting Japan’s best foot forward as Olympichost not only meant upgrading the city’sinfrastructure. Just as important was makingsure that Japanese did not embarrass thenation by their behavior. The governmentlaunched a nationwide movement to educatepeople about how they should comportthemselves with the eyes of the world focusedon Tokyo. Included in this movement was acampaign to improve public morals under threekey words -- “cleanliness, order, kindness” --and five promises: not to break into a queue,not to smoke while walking, not to throw trashin the street, not to spit, and not to get drunk inpublic places. An item left out of the campaignliterature but one I remember all too well wasthe campaign to have men give up the habit ofstopping to urinate in the street after anevening of bar hopping, something thathappened so often I stopped being surprised byit.

That Japan needed a nationwide campaign totry to put a halt to such behavior may be hardto believe for anyone familiar with Tokyo today,where you see neither garbage cans nor litteron the city’s streets, where people do not breakinto lines (or cross a street when the light isred) or spit, much less urinate, on the sidewalk.Now Japanese regularly criticize Chinesetourists for doing some of the things thatJapanese were being admonished not to do halfa century ago.

In 1964 270,000 foreign visitors traveled toJapan. Compare that with the 40 millionforeigners the Japanese government expects tovisit Japan in 2020. Also compare the defensive,how to behave campaign the governmentconducted in 1964 with the optimistic viewoffered by Muto Toshiro, the Tokyo OlympicCommittee CEO, that the 2020 Olympics would

give Japanese the opportunity to experiencediversity in their own midst and thus become “acatalyst for Japan to become a fully inclusivesociety.” (interview, November 2, 2017). Anunrealistically rosy expectation to be sure, butan indicator of growing recognition amongJapanese that their society needs to becomemore diverse and open.

Japan had a population of 96 million when theOlympics came to Tokyo in 1964. Thepopulation continued to grow until 2010 whenit hit a peak of 128 million. It has declined by 2million people in the years since then, and thepace of population decline has gathered speed.The consensus view among demographers isthat the population will be about 116 million in2030, 107 million in 2040, and 97 million by2050. In other words, 30 years from now theJapanese population will be roughly what it wasat the time of the 1964 Olympics.

However, the demographic picture presentedby 97 million Japanese in 2050 will bedramatically different from what it was in 1964.In that year, Japan’s population was young andgrowing. Only 6 percent of people were over65. Today 25 percent of Japanese are 65 orolder; by 2050 more than a third of thepopulation will be over 65.

Just as dramatic is the increase in the numberof the very old. Not only will a quarter ofJapanese be over 75 in 2050. Even morestart l ing is the increase of Japanesecentenarians. There were just 153 Japaneseover the age of 100 when the Olympics wereheld in Tokyo in 1964. By 2019 that numberhad mushroomed to 71,238. A 1998 UnitedNations demographic survey estimated thatthere would be more than a quarter of a millionJapanese centenarians in 2050; more recentJapanese projections suggest that that numbermay be closer to a million.

Preparing for “an era where people live past ahundred” (jinsei hyakunen jidai) has become apopular topic in the Japanese mass media, and

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it raises daunting public policy challenges.These include how to fund the health insuranceand pension system without imposing anintolerable financial burden on people ofworking age while at the same time providing asufficient level of support for the elderlypopulation; how to provide housing, nursingcare, and welfare facilities for very old peoplewho are living alone in ever larger numbers;how to raise the birth rate to slow the pace ofpopulation decline; and what to do aboutbringing foreign workers to a country where“immigration” remains a taboo word. AI mayrender truck drivers redundant and make itpossible for robots and computers to take overmany other jobs currently performed byhumans. But in that event, how likely is it thatJapan will make the drastic reforms to itseducation system, corporate culture, and publicfinance needed to encourage innovation andrisk taking and to give people the skills neededto succeed in a 21st century globalizedeconomy?

One would like to think that Japan’s politicaland business leaders will come up with boldpolicies to successfully meet these challenges.What we have seen over the seven years thatPrime Minister Abe has been in office offerslittle reason for optimism on that score. Abegenerated enthusiasm both at home and amongforeign investors when he announced the“three arrows” of Abenomics (an aggressive,deflation busting monetary policy, fiscalspending to jump start the economy, andstructural reforms to drive a private sector ledgrowth strategy that would then permit thegovernment to reduce the government’s fiscaldeficit). But it did not take long before itbecame apparent that the arrows were fallingfar short of their target.

The Bank of Japan, having blown up its balancesheet without generating the inflation that wassupposed to follow, has resigned itself to thereality that it has nothing in its toolbox thatwould be effective in jacking up the inflation

rate. Nor can it raise interest rates and beginto exit from its easing policy given Japan’sanemic growth rate. It has found itself with itshands tied.

On the government side, Abenomics hascombined bold rhetoric with policies that are atbest halfway measures. Structural reformshave been scattershot and timid. Fearing thewrath of elderly voters, Prime Minister Abe hasavoided proposing changes to the nationalhealth insurance and public pension systemsthat would make them sustainable over thelong run, changes would require reducingbenefits and increasing fees and that wouldinvite a backlash from the voting public.Rather, it has taken the politically safer tack ofrelying on deficit financing to prop up theeconomy and to support popular socialprograms. As a consequence, Japan is in aleague of its own when it comes to the ratio ofgovernment debt to GDP. In 2019 it reached anew high of 253 percent. At number two,Greece has a debt ratio of 183 percent.

The demographic and other challenges Japanfaces have caused anxiety and apprehensionamong the public to be sure. When publicopinion polls query Japanese about thecountry’s future prospects, many cite a litany ofconcerns: low economic growth and stagnantwages, growing income inequality, a pensionand health insurance system under increasingstress, an education system that does not do anadequate job of preparing children to besuccessful in a globalized economy, and so on.A 2014 cabinet office poll, for example, foundthat while 33.2 percent of respondents believedthe future was “bright,” some 60 percentthought it would be “dark.”

But this concern about the future state of thenation is more than offset by the high level ofsatisfaction people express about their personallife situation. The cabinet office has conductedan annual survey on life satisfaction since1963. In the survey conducted in 2017, three

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quarters of the respondents indicated that theywere satisfied with their lives, the highestpercentage of satisfied respondents since thesurvey began the year before the last TokyoOlympics. Over half of those surveyed said theirincomes were adequate and 45 percentbelieved they had sufficient assets and savings.Three out of four said they had all the durablegoods they needed, and nearly nine out of ten(88.8 percent) indicated satisfaction with theirhousing situation. Overall, nearly two-thirds(64.5 percent) expressed confidence that theirlife situation would be pretty much the same inthe future. Only 9.4 percent were optimisticthings would get better, and 23.7 percentworried that they would get worse. (CabinetOffice 2017)

This odd marriage of pessimism, satisfaction,and complacency has produced what is perhapsthe most impressive feature of Japanese socialpsychology today and makes it so differentfrom what it was when the Olympics last cameto Tokyo. It is not only that people no longerbelieve as they did then that the future isbound to be better than the present for themand their children. More important is thatdeflated expectations about the future have notcreated a groundswell of demands for changebut, to the contrary, have made all the strongeraversion to risk taking and to major publicpolicy changes that people fear might makethings worse rather than better.

When queried in the 2017 cabinet office pollmentioned above about the kind of society theywish to see in Japan, most Japanese opted forthe status quo. Only 13.8 percent ofrespondents to the survey responded that theywould like to see a society that gives priority tothe pursuit of higher economic growth. Aplurality (42.8 percent) said they prefer to seeJapan move forward in a moderate, balancedmanner. Nearly three of every five respondents(61.4 percent) said they had achieved a level ofmaterial affluence sufficient enough that theynow wanted to emphasize personal fulfillment (

kokoro no yutakasa) rather than the acquisitionof more material goods.

There are people, mostly among the younghighly educated elite, and especially amongthose who have experienced life outside Japan,who are eager to break away from conventionalcareer paths, take risks, and seek success inunconventional ways. There is anecdotalevidence that their numbers are increasing, butthey remain a small minority. Whether in termsof political attitudes or personal ambition, theJapanese public today is more conservativethan at any time over the half century I havebeen observing Japanese society.

All of this is to say that the Olympics in 2020wil l be held in a Japan that confrontschallenges that are a world apart from theJapan of the 1964 Olympics. None is moreprofound than Japan’s demographic dilemma.The population pyramid has been inverted fromwhat it was half a century ago. It has a narrowbase of young, productive people and is topheavy with the elderly. Faced with a decliningand aging population, political leaders havebecome hooked on supporting year on yearlarge fiscal deficits to keep the growth rateabove zero and to fund popular domesticprograms. Given strong public opposition,especially among older voters, to paying highertaxes for those services, the continuedballooning of the government debt is likely tocontinue unless and until a financial crisisforces policy change.

In addition to its domestic challenges Japan hasnational security concerns that did not exist thelast time the Olympics came to Tokyo. Theyinclude China’s emergence as a superpower,North Korea’s possession of nuclear weapons,growing uncertainty about America’s role inthe region, and the unravelling of a US-ledinternational order that provided theframework of stability, predictability, opennessin the international trade regime, andAmerica’s overwhelming economic and military

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power that made possible Japan’s economicprosperity and security.

Prime Minister Abe’s strategy for protectingJapan’s interests in this uncertain andunpredictable international environment hasseveral prongs. At the center is the priority hehas given to nurturing a close personalrelationship with President Trump. His effort tokeep the US government from coming downhard on Japan to force it to change what Trumphas characterized as unfair Japanese tradepractices and inadequate military spending hasbeen successful, so far. But there is littleconfidence in Tokyo that this strategy willcontinue to be effective, especially in hissecond term should Trump win the 2020presidential election. For that matter, there islittle confidence that Japan will be able todeflect strong pressure on trade and defensespending should a Democrat win the election.

So, while doubling down on an effort to keep astrong alliance with the US, the Japanesegovernment has been pursuing other objectivesas well, less in order to hedge against theUnited States as it is an effort to augment theUS security role in the region. Abe hasstretched the government’s interpretation ofwhat is permissible in the name of self-defenseto permit the acquisition of greater and moreoffensive military capabilities and to engagenew military missions, including collectivedefense operations with the United States.

Since becoming prime minister in 2012 Abe hasbeen unflagging in his efforts to strengtheneconomic and security ties with other countriesin the Indo-Pacific region. After PresidentTrump withdrew American support for the 12member Trans-Pacific Partnership tradeagreement, Prime Minister Abe became aleader in the successful effort to rescue theagreement, now renamed the Comprehensiveand Progressive Agreement for Trans-PacificPartnership, otherwise known as TPP-11. Healso has crafted security relationships with

Australia, India, and countries in SoutheastAsia, especially the Philippines and Vietnam,with the goal of strengthening the balance ofpower in East Asia and to at least delay if notprevent the People’s Republic of China fromreplacing the United States as the hegemon inEast Asia.

Like every other East Asian country, and manycountries elsewhere in the world, Japan doesmore trade with China than with the UnitedStates. And like others it is trying to square thecircle of dependence on China for economicprosperity and on the United States for itssecurity. At some point Japan may be forced tomake a choice between the US and China, butJapan’s leaders are doing what they can to keepthat day of reckoning from coming anytimesoon.

Foreigners who travel to Japan for the TokyoOlympics and broadcasters around the worldwho focus their camera lenses not only on theOlympic games but on the country that ishosting them are bound to be impressed withwhat they find: a safe, clean, and orderlysociety of more than 120 million people whoprize civility, good manners, honesty, hardwork, and cooperation. If anything, thesefeatures of Japanese society are even strongernow than they were in earlier years, and theystand in stark contrast to the bitter socialdivisions and political polarization that haveproduced populist us-against-them politics inthe US and other democratic countries.

Becoming modern -- or now, post-modern -- onJapan’s own terms is the storyline of Japan’shistory since Commodore Perry’s Black shipsentered Edo Bay in 1853. And a new version ofthat storyline, of a technologically advancednation that has managed to weave a seamlessweb combining 21st century values with thenation’s traditional culture, is one Japanese willuse the 2020 Olympic Games to promote. Thatis as it should be, but it leaves unaddressedquestions about what Japan will do to deal with

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the challenges it faces when the athletes andthe visitors to the Olympics leave Tokyo andthe celebration is over.

There is much less room for complacency aboutJapan’s future than many Japanese seem toassume. Whether the issue be how to protectJapan’s national security or manage itsdemographic transition, how to encourageinnovation or promote gender equality, or howto handle any number of other issues thedecade now coming to a close has witnessedmuch more brave talk than decisive action. Atthe present time it seems more likely than notthat the coming decade will see a continuationof a pattern of small incremental steps taken todeal with problems that demand a moreconcerted and bold response.

This is disappointing but hardly surprising in ademocracy where the priorities of politicalleaders are driven by the imperatives ofelectoral politics. Nor is it surprising that theJapanese government and business leadersshould want to accentuate the positive,eliminate the negative, and latch on to theaffirmative, to quote the apt lyrics from an oldJohnny Mercer song, when it comes to the 2020Tokyo Olympics, especially when they couldend up costing Japan in excess of $26 billion,more than three times the original forecast.

What future historians make of the broadersocial significance of the 2020 Olympic Gameswill be decided in part by how Japanese publicpolicy with regard to the economy and foreignpolicy evolves over the rest of the decade. The

late Kato Koichi, a senior politician in theliberal wing of the Liberal Democratic Party,used to like to reassure me (and I thinkreassure himself) that Japan will be okay, thateven with ineffective political leaders orinadequate policy measures Japan would beokay because of the strength its social bondsand the resilience of its people.

He may have had it right. Japan has ceded itsposition as the second largest economy toChina and will sooner or later be pushedfurther down the GDP hierarchy by India and intime by Indonesia. But in terms of GDPmeasured on a per capita basis, and moreimportantly, in terms of the quality of life --access to clean water, safe food, absence ofserious crime, longevity, and other quality oflife measurements -- Japan is and will continueto be one of the world’s most civilized countriesfor many years to come. So, in 2020 the worldwill get a close-up view of a new “new” Japan.It is a very different country from the one I firstgot to know at the time of the last TokyoOlympics. But it remains a fascinating one withstrengths and weaknesses the rest of the worldwould do well to understand better than itdoes.

References: Cabinet Office, 2017. CabinetO f f i c e P u b l i c O p i n i o n P o l l J u n e .(https://survey.go-online.go.jp/h29/h29-life/gairyaku.pdf)

This article is a part of the Special Issue: Japan’s Olympic Summer Games -- Past andPresent, Part I. See the Table of Contents here (http://www.apjjf.org/2020/4/APJ.html).

Gerald Curtis is the Burgess Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Columbia and taughtthere between 1968-2015. From 1974-1990 he also served as head of the Weatherhead East

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Asian Institute and also was an advisor to the Japan Foundation, the Asia Society, The AsahiShimbun and Newsweek Japan, among other organizations. He has written several booksincluding The Logic of Japanese Politics(https://www.amazon.com/Logic-Japanese-Politics-Gerald-Curtis/dp/0231108435/?tag=theasipacjo0b-20)(1999), The Way of Japanese Politics (1989) and Election Campaigning JapaneseStyle (1968). geraldlcurtis@gmail.com (https://apjjf.org/mailto:geraldlcurtis@gmail.com)