Not to disagree with you or the commenters pointing out other Japan-specific factors, but I think there is one more possible explanation for the project's failure: its top-down, government-bureaucrat-led nature. I've lived in Japan for forty years and have worked at a national university for the past twenty. The government regularly launches initiatives, sets goals, and promotes catch phrases that are supposed to lead to greater progress and prosperity. But, because the initiators and funders are often only tenuously connected to the complex and dynamic reality, the projects become rigid and wasteful, and eventually wither and die, more often than not.
> The government regularly launches initiatives, sets goals, and promotes catch phrases that are supposed to lead to greater progress and prosperity.
Some stuff has worked pretty well. I registered for a MyNumber card after years of dragging my feet. Now I can check how much tax I've paid, how much I have in my retirement fund, health insurance things, and a bunch of other stuff from my phone in like 10 seconds all from a single app. Previously I'd need to take a half day off, bring my wooden stamp to the appropriate government office, and wait for 10-30 minutes in order to make sure my stuff is in order.
I'm actually amazed how well it works.
Japan also builds infrastructure really fast.
It's not perfect, and some things lag behind other countries, but some things blow some other countries out of the water. If anything, I'd say the government moves pretty quickly with a lot of decisions (one consequence of being what's effectively a one party state, I suppose). Companies, particularly big ones, are more risk-averse.
For tech and immigration Japan has it all figured out.
No illegal immigration because illegal
No cheesing population growth because over time - a long time - it will repair itself
No high tech because it's not a good thing per se - fax machines and such
Basically the difference between a short term gains company versus long term gains. And look at many of their businesses, many proud to be 1000+ years old and such. Now that's long term gains.
And so the MyNumber as in my view a poor decision. In USA We have had something like MyNumber for a very long time, but because now it's been hacked, now it is called EveryonesNumber. So now I can check how much tax my neighbor has paid, how much my neighbor has in their retirement fund, my neighbor's insurance, a bunch of other stuff in like 10 seconds for like 400 million neighbors.
I've lived in Taiwan for a while, not nearly as long as you have in Japan, but long enough that I have a couple observations I'd be interested in your take in, about "old hats" such as yourself.
The first is that the folks that immigrated decades ago tend to hold on to the perception they had upon arrival to the country, and the various impressions, for the rest of their lives there, and these impressions inform all future observations they have about the country. For example in Taiwan a lot of older American immigrants will talk about things like crime or the police as if it was still the KMT era when Taiwan was basically a different country, and their thoughts are really strange to hear when considering modern taiwanese police (who are basically teddy bears) or crime rates (extremely low).
The second is that, having spend decades in the country to which they immigrated, which is probably longer than they lived in their origin country, they seem to view everything that strikes them as odd, inefficient, or bad, as unique to their new home country. In this case such as your perception of Japan as being lead top-down by bureaucrats, when that description to me applies to basically every liberal democracy on earth. Thus:
> The government regularly launches initiatives, sets goals, and promotes catch phrases that are supposed to lead to greater progress and prosperity. But, because the initiators and funders are often only tenuously connected to the complex and dynamic reality, the projects become rigid and wasteful, and eventually wither and die, more often than not.
imo, this is true for most government-led initiatives in nearly every country on earth. Not that I'm arguing against government-lead initiatives because they do result in sometimes incredible things like train infrastructure, spaceships, the internet, medical breakthroughs etc, but for the most part it seems politicians make big pitches to get elected and then just maintain status quo.
Obviously Japan has some uniquely bureaucratic things about the culture as a whole (lol faxes), but on the other hand this doesn't seem to be an obstacle considering they have some of the safest pedestrian-friendly streets in the world, some of the best public transit, an excellent healthcare system, low crime rates, low homelessness, low unemployment, etc. On the ground they're doing much better than many countries.
What do you think? You probably know much more about such things given your time in Japan as well as the fact that you work at a university.
Thanks for the thought-provoking comments and questions! I'm away from my computer right now—in a coffee shop at Ueno Station in Tokyo, in fact. I'll reply again at length tonight or tomorrow.
Regarding old-timers: I’m sure the people you met in Taiwan are, as you said, several decades behind in their perceptions of the country where they live, but I really don’t know how typical that is. Among the long-term foreign residents of Japan that I know, there are several broad categories: those who have completely assimilated into the country and language; those who have settled down here with an identity divided between Japan and their home country; and those whom I think of as typical expats—living and working here, but knowing little of the language, having a social life that revolves around embassies, foreigners’ clubs, and international schools, and definitely not expecting to stay for the rest of their lives. I fall somewhere between the first and second categories. But even the more expat types here are not likely to have the same out-of-date perceptions that you have noted in Taiwan: Japan, while having changed a lot over the decades I’ve been here, has not undergone a similar transformation in government or social conditions.
As far as the tendency to overgeneralize based on one’s local experience—well, I am certainly guilty of that, and, as a sibling comment notes, most people are. Regarding government-led reforms in Japan, as several sibling commenters also noted, some have been quite successful. Most of my direct experience has been with government initiatives in education, and I have seen directly how those top-down programs can lead to waste and failure. Some prominent examples: The abandoned attempts to reform the main university entrance examination for English [1] and to reduce the number of classroom hours in primary education (“yutori education,” [2]), and the only partially successful G30 program aimed at “globalizing” university education [3]. I have heard complaints from scientist colleagues about similarly misguided government initiatives aimed at promoting specific areas of scientific research. The Fifth Generation Project would seem to be an example of that.
Enjoy the rest of your stay in Japan. I was in Ueno yesterday to lead some students on an excursion around Ameyoko and then to Asakusa. I’m teaching a class this semester on 19th-century foreign descriptions of Japan, based on a book I edited a few years ago [4]. We will be contrasting those writings with tourists’ descriptions today in social media, and I wanted the students—who themselves come from more than a dozen different countries—to spend some time observing first-hand today’s tourists and the places they visit. It was fun. This afternoon, I will lead another short excursion to Shinjuku, Kabukichō, and Shin Ōkubo.
> The second is that, having spend decades in the country to which they immigrated, which is probably longer than they lived in their origin country, they seem to view everything that strikes them as odd, inefficient, or bad, as unique to their new home country.
I would bet that people that never emigrated are even worse about that.
I cant help but say: Americans tend to see high crime rates even when sitting in the safest city in the world. It seems like Americans almost culturally see it as a duty to be afraid.
Pretty easy! I have plenty of immigrant friends that never learned mandarin and they've been getting by for anywhere between 6-14 years without issue. I recommend learning mandarin of course but for any given thing you need to do there's usually an English escape valve e.g. the English speaking counters at the tax office.
Japan has stagnated and had debt problems over those 40 years. May I ask you if you saw these as they began to accrue and if you think there is a long term strategy to address them?
Seems to me as an alien to the culture, that Japan is uniquely happy to continue on conservatively (culturally) without giving in to medium term fixes(e.g. immigration) but with no long term plan for the economics or population. Is this because of a different cultural view on those things and whether they are successes, or failures?
I’m afraid issues like debt and macroeconomics are outside my expertise. I can only describe my own personal experience: I worked as a freelance translator and copywriter in Japan from 1986 to 2005, and almost all of my clients were Japanese companies. While that period saw the rise and bursting of the bubble economy and what has since been called the Lost Decade (or Decades), I personally felt no effect. My income grew steadily throughout that period, and I experienced no impact from the bursting of the bubble. Superficially, the Tokyo and Yokohama areas where I have lived never looked like they were suffering from economic stagnation. Just yesterday, on the train from Tokyo to Yokohama, I was struck by several large new office buildings going up just north of Shinagawa and the many construction cranes visible elsewhere.
