The author of this blog will answer to your questions and comments. And this is the only place in the world where you can engage in free discussion with people from English, Japanese, Chinese and Russian speaking areas.

Author: akiokawato

  • A Yellow Warning Light Is Flashing for U.S. Finance

    A yellow warning light is now flashing over America’s financial markets. Excessive Treasury issuance has been driving up long-term interest rates. This could lead to a sharp decline in Treasury prices, a fiscal crisis, and a loss of confidence in the dollar. It could also trigger a stock-market crash, severely reducing the wealth of America’s middle class.

    .

    Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been quite openly pressing Japan to raise interest rates. This also amounts to telling Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to put the brakes on “Takaichinomics.”

    .

    At first sight, this seems strange. If the Bank of Japan raises rates, Japanese investors may shift some of their money out of U.S. assets and back into Japan. That could put additional upward pressure on long-term U.S. interest rates.

    Yet Bessent has not changed his position.

    He may be thinking as follows. If the yen is allowed to depreciate further, the eventual reversal—perhaps triggered by a Bank of Japan rate increase—could be extremely abrupt. Money would then rush out of the United States and back into Japan, sending U.S. interest rates sharply higher and Treasury prices lower.

    Presumably, Bessent wants the yen’s decline to be reversed gradually.

    .

    But It Is Difficult to Move Financial Markets “Gradually”

    .

    The 1985 Plaza Accord was intended to produce a controlled depreciation of the dollar through coordinated action by the Group of Five—the United States, Japan, West Germany, France, and Britain.

    But once the market started moving, it rushed in one direction like an avalanche. The dollar averaged about 237 yen in August 1985, immediately before the agreement. One year later, in August 1986, it averaged only 154 yen.

    .

    If the Bank of Japan raises rates now, its intention may be to produce only a gradual adjustment. The market, however, may again turn into an avalanche.

    Bessent may already be behind the curve. By continuing to apply pressure after the most favorable moment has passed, he could inadvertently help set off precisely the violent market reaction he wants to avoid.

    .

    The Yen Is More Dangerous Than It Looks

    .

    This may sound exaggerated. But it is worth remembering that the yen has long played a substantial role in American financial markets.

    For many years, investors have borrowed low-interest-rate yen, converted the money into dollars, and purchased higher-yielding U.S. Treasuries, other bonds, and stocks. This is the classic “yen carry trade.”

    .

    Alongside it stands a much larger flow of Japanese long-term savings into foreign securities. This is not necessarily a carry trade in the strict sense, because the money is not always borrowed. Nevertheless, both kinds of investment have helped sustain demand for American financial assets.

    .

    Both Japanese and Foreign Investors Participate

    .

    The carry trade itself adds to downward pressure on the yen. As the yen depreciates, food and other imported goods become increasingly expensive in Japan. Japan’s economy also appears to shrink when its GDP is measured in dollars.

    So who is engaging in this yen carry trade?

    If foreigners are doing it, one is tempted to become indignant. If Japanese investors are doing it, one might feel inclined to publicly condemn them.

    But the conclusion is rather prosaic: both Japanese and foreign investors are participating.

    Their basic motive is the same: holding higher-yielding dollar assets has generally been more profitable than holding low-yielding yen assets. To that extent, Japanese investors themselves have contributed to the yen’s seemingly endless depreciation.

    .

    How Large Is It?

    .

    It is difficult to define precisely what should be counted as a “yen carry trade.”

    Some cross-border investments appear in Japan’s balance-of-payments and international-investment statistics. Other transactions—particularly derivatives, foreign-exchange swaps, and off-balance-sheet positions—are recorded only partially or appear in entirely different sets of statistics. Some private positions cannot be identified at all from publicly available data.

    .

    The first category includes purchases of U.S. Treasuries and other foreign securities by Japanese financial institutions, such as Japan Post Bank, the Government Pension Investment Fund, the Norinchukin Bank, life insurers, major commercial banks, and regional banks.

    .

    The second category includes foreign-exchange transactions, swaps, derivatives, and leveraged positions held by banks, hedge funds, proprietary trading firms, and other investors.

    .

    According to the Bank for International Settlements, global trading in the dollar-yen currency pair averaged roughly $1.37 trillion a day in April 2025 (please note that this is turnover in both directions—including spot transactions, forwards, swaps, and options—not the outstanding size of the yen carry trade). Some positions are highly leveraged. Consequently, their effect on markets can be several times greater than the amount of capital originally committed.

    .

    If Japanese institutional investors begin repatriating funds at the same time as leveraged carry positions are being unwound, U.S. long-term interest rates could move substantially. Under severely disorderly conditions, a movement of tens of basis points cannot be ruled out (though, no reliable single estimate exists, because the underlying positions are not fully observable).

    .

    Japan’s Large Financial Institutions Matter

    .

    Investment by Japanese public and large private financial institutions is especially important.

    Until the 2001 reforms, Japan’s postal savings and pension funds deposited the majority of their assets with the Ministry of Finance’s Fund Management Department, which allocated them for public infrastructure investment (a program known as “Fiscal Investment and Loan Program”). Since 2001, Fiscal Investment and Lending has been significantly scaled back, and postal savings and pension funds have been required to manage their own assets and generate profits. They have allocated a large portion of those assets to the purchase of U.S. Treasury bonds, as these bonds can absorb large amounts of capital and offer relatively high yields.

    .

    As of March 2026, Japan Post Bank held approximately ¥88.2 trillion (about 550 billion US dollars) in “foreign securities and related assets.” At the same date, the pension fund GPIF held approximately ¥73.4 trillion (about 460 US dollars) in foreign bonds. As regards the US Treasury securities only the GPIF held approximately $230 billion—as of March 31, 2026. That was equivalent to approximately one-eighth of GPIF’s total assets.

    The Post Bank and GPIF would not dispose of all these securities at once. They are long-term investors that adjust their holdings in accordance with changes in the market. Nevertheless, its sheer weight in the market is undeniable.

  • A World History Free from Both Eurocentrism and Orientalism　２

    (The source text of this series is “In Search of Lost Modernity” by Akio KAWATO.

    The English edition of this book (originally written in Japanese) is on

    https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hiRK7kjbX0Hxd2NOxPqtQlVWgjDHgKCr/edit

    https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MB0Me9P5Lpa2HGceuJUdMqqQ2CRHQSxa/edit

    The copyright belongs to the author, Akio Kawato

    .

    This installment of the series challenges the long-held belief that “the world’s civilizations emerged almost simultaneously in Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indus River Valley, and the Yellow River Basin.” In fact, traces of even older civilizations have been discovered elsewhere, and the true picture remains unclear.)

    .

    Ancient Civilizations Beyond the “Four Great Civilizations”

    .

    Civilizations arise when production expands, people gather, and a leader emerges to unify them. The definition of “civilization” isn’t fixed, and the term itself didn’t come into use until the modern era. The word “civil” (referring to urban residents aware of their rights) was used in the Greek and Roman periods, derived from the Latin word civis. In other words, the process of people becoming more advanced in both material and spiritual aspects is called civilization.

    .

    There’s also a related term, “culture,” which refers to people’s customs and art, regardless of their level of material development.

    In this discussion, we’re focusing on civilizations. Let’s begin by exploring ancient civilizations beyond the well-researched “Four Great Civilizations” of Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley, and the Yellow River.

    .

    Ancient Civilizations in Europe

    .

    In what is now eastern Turkey, archaeological sites dating back around 10,000 years suggest the use of irrigation for agriculture—much earlier than the traditionally accepted start of farming.

    On the shores of the Black Sea, in the modern-day Bulgarian port city of Varna, a cemetery and settlement dating back to around 5000 BC were discovered in 1972. Over 3,000 artifacts made of gold, copper, and ceramics were uncovered in the cemetery, with a total weight of around 6 kg. The craftsmanship in the gold objects was particularly advanced. There is also evidence of trade with the Aegean Islands, the northern Caspian Sea, and the Mediterranean’s Aegean region.

    Further south, on the Mediterranean island of Malta, numerous megalithic temples have been discovered, dating from around 4500 to 2500 BC. These temples are larger in scale than the Varna ruins, but no settlements have been excavated nearby, leaving much about this civilization a mystery.

    .

    Even during the Roman Empire, Europe north of the Alps was considered little more than forested wilderness, yet evidence of ancient civilizations has been found in this region, too. While Stonehenge in southern England (thought to have been built between 2500 and 2000 BC) is widely known, another significant site is Newgrange in modern-day Ireland. Built between 3000 and 2900 BC, Newgrange is about 500 years older than Egypt’s Great Pyramid of Giza and roughly 1,000 years older than Stonehenge. However, since no other structures have been discovered at Newgrange, its purpose—whether astronomical or funerary—remains unconfirmed. Unlike ancient Egypt, it seems the people of Newgrange did not have a highly organized state.

    .

    What we can gather from these discoveries is that long before the unification of Egypt around 3000 BC, early civilizations resembling city-states were emerging across various parts of Europe, engaging in long-distance trade. This suggests that civilization did not suddenly appear in Egypt out of the darkness of a primitive age.

    .

    This does not mean that European civilization is older than Egyptian civilization. In Egypt, agricultural civilization had developed even before the kingdom was established. Although excavations have not progressed very far, it is known that agriculture began in the Egyptian region at least by 5000 BC.

    .

    In any case the traditional “world history” narrative, which claims that civilization began simultaneously in four regions—Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, and China—across the vast Eurasian and African continents, seems as questionable as the Big Bang theory. The Eurasian landmass is continuous, and there are no clear boundaries between the “four great civilizations.” Let’s explore some examples of this interconnectedness.

    .

    Ancient Civilizations of Central Asia

    .

    It is likely that a civilization once existed in Central Asia and around the region of modern-day Turkey, serving as a bridge between the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, and the Yellow River. While southern Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are largely covered by vast deserts today, remnants of past capitals can still be found on hilltops scattered throughout these areas, once nourished by rivers that no longer flow. Many ruins likely remain buried beneath the sands.

    .

    One notable group of ruins is associated with the “Oxus Civilization,” an urban culture thought to have emerged around 2400 BC during the Bronze Age. Excavations led by Soviet archaeologists after World War II uncovered a vast area spanning southern Turkmenistan along the Amu Darya River into southern Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and northern Afghanistan.

    In southern Turkmenistan, the Oxus River, which flowed from east to west until the 16th century, supported an irrigation-based agricultural civilization. The Oxus River, originating in the Hindu Kush mountains, splits into the Amu Darya, which flows west into the Aral Sea. From there, it cuts across modern-day Turkmenistan through the Uzboi Valley before eventually emptying into the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea, near today’s Turkmenbashi. In 1557, English merchant Antony Jenkinson passed through this region, observing that extensive irrigation was depleting the Oxus and transforming the once fertile area, abundant in fruit trees, into an encroaching desert.

    .

    The “Oxus Civilization” is also referred to as the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC), with Bactria referring to northern Afghanistan and Margiana to areas in modern Turkmenistan. This civilization thrived on irrigation farming and bordered the Andronovo culture to the north, a society of nomadic tribes. Artifacts from the Bactria-Margiana culture show similarities with those of the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, and early Persian civilizations.

    .

      Meanwhile, the nomadic tribes of the Andronovo culture may have been precursors of the Aryan civilization, which later spread to Persia and northern India. Although this civilization helps fill the geographic and cultural gap between Mesopotamian and Indus Valley civilizations, research on the Oxus sites is still in its infancy, largely due to limited excavations and the absence of written records, which only became possible after the fall of the Soviet Union.

    .

    Moving forward in time, Sogdian merchants from the Sogdiana region (southern Uzbekistan to southern Tajikistan)—whose kingdom was eventually destroyed by Genghis Khan—played a key role in trade between China and the Middle East. These merchant families formed trade networks that operated at the termini of caravan routes, pooling funds to purchase goods and then distributing profits to their investors.[2] This form of long-distance trade mirrored Mediterranean trade practices, such as Venetian maritime ventures, but relied on camels crossing deserts. Such trade has likely existed for thousands of years, as evidenced by records of lapis lazuli from Afghanistan reaching Mesopotamia and Egypt as early as the 4th millennium BC.[3] This may explain why the Bronze and Iron Ages unfolded almost simultaneously across the distant cultural regions of the Yellow River, the Indus Valley, Mesopotamia, and Egypt.

    .

    Scythia

    .

    Civilizations often spread to other regions in two main ways: through trade and conquest. Nomadic peoples, in particular, spread civilization by conquest. When they began using horses and bows, nomadic tribes became formidable military forces, leading to the formation of vast empires. The Mongol Empire is a well-known example, with the Timurid Empire in Central Asia being one of the last.

    Since ancient times, various nomadic tribes have inhabited the northern half of the Eurasian continent, but we know very little about their histories. Tracing the movements of each tribe, or how Bronze and Iron Age technologies spread across regions, is nearly impossible.

    .

    One of these nomadic tribes was the Scythians, who were active primarily in what is now southern Ukraine. They are thought to have been Indo-Iranian-speaking, often referred to as Aryans. The term “Aryan” originally referred to a group associated with Caucasian lineage and has since been co-opted by supremacist ideologies and other groups claiming ancient lineage. However, the term remains vague and lacks a precise definition.  

    .

    Some believe that the Scythians intermarried with early Germanic groups (another ambiguous term) to form the Slavic people. Genetic analyses of the Slavs suggest this might be possible, but there is much diversity among Slavic and Germanic groups, making it difficult to determine the exact truth.

    .

    What we do know is that the oldest artifacts from Scythian culture have been found in Tuva in southern Siberia, dating back to the 9th century BC. Scythian metalwork in gold and silver—preserved in collections like the Hermitage Museum in Russia—is of notably high quality, primarily dating from the 8th to 4th centuries BC. However, these dates are later than the advanced metalwork of the Zhou Dynasty in China (circa 1046-256 BC). And Scythians who controlled parts of what is now Iran were eventually expelled by local powers, as their rule was based on plundering, suggesting their level of civilization may not have been particularly high.

    .

    Thus, while nomadic tribes likely acted as intermediaries among the “Four Great Civilizations,” the Scythians may not have played a significant role in this. Even if Scythians were skilled metalworkers, their achievements came after the Zhou Dynasty, by which time Chinese metalwork had already reached high levels of refinement. This makes it unlikely that the Scythians were key in transmitting these technologies, especially since bronze work in China dates back to the earlier Shang Dynasty.

    .

    The Hittites: A People of Iron

    .

    Even today, iron is foundational to weapons and industrial machinery. The Hittites are thought to have laid the groundwork for ironware. Known as Hattu, Hete, or Hetu, their exact homeland remains uncertain, but they were part of the Indo-European language family and built a significant empire centered in what is now central Turkey. Founded at the end of the 17th century BC, they conquered Mesopotamia in 595 BC using advanced iron weapons.

    .

    At the time, the Hittites were a powerful force in the Mediterranean, alongside Egypt, Babylonia, Cyprus, Mycenae, and others, forming alliances and engaging in trade. Numerous diplomatic documents (cuneiform on clay) have been uncovered, particularly in Amarna, the ancient capital of Egypt. Among these are exchanges between the Hittite king and the Egyptian pharaoh, but the communications mostly involve simple requests for doctors and medicine, showing that diplomacy wasn’t particularly elevated.

    Setting that aside, the Hittites are credited with inventing the method for producing steel. While pig iron existed earlier, it was the Hittites who developed steel suitable for weapons by adding carbon.

    .

    Although they kept this technology to themselves, their civilization fell around 1177 BC, possibly due to the mysterious “Sea Peoples” who swept through and destroyed many Mediterranean societies. This collapse may have led to the spread of steel-making knowledge across the world. The fact that the eventual use of iron weapons started in China only during the Warring States period (5th century BC), before the unification under the Qin dynasty, supports this idea.

    .

    Thus, it seems there was an exchange among the “Four Great Civilizations”, or between the Mediterranean, the Orient and China. However, questions remain about exactly who was involved in these exchanges and whether they were driven more by conquest than trade. 

    Just as there is “dark matter” between stars whose nature we do not fully understand, there may have been a similar, unexplained “dark matter” on the Eurasian continent.

  • Will China’s Humanoid Robots Replace the Chinese?

    Chinese humanoid robots that can run, jump, and perform all sorts of acrobatic feats have been attracting a great deal of attention lately. Watching them, one might even begin to wonder whether the day will come when China’s 1.4 billion people themselves are replaced by robots.

    Well, that is a joke. But what, then, has happened to Japan, a country that once seemed to have a particular fondness for humanoid robots?

    .

    Remember Sony’s robot dog Aibo and Honda’s ASIMO? At the 2005 World Expo in Aichi, Toyota even demonstrated a robot that could play the trumpet, precisely controlling its artificial “lips” to produce the notes.

    .

    Back then, ordinary Japanese were fascinated by humanoid robots. Yet Japan’s major corporations eventually stopped pursuing their development. Behind that decision was a fairly simple judgment: there was no large market for humanoid robots.

    After all, robots used in factories or homes do not necessarily have to look like human beings. If all you want a robot to do is substitute for human arms and legs, companies such as FANUC and Yaskawa Electric already command substantial shares of the global market for industrial robotics and related equipment.

    .

    So it would hardly be surprising if some Japanese engineers who could not give up their dream of developing humanoid robots were eventually hired by Chinese companies at generous salaries and passed on their expertise. There is nothing particularly unusual about this. Throughout history, technology and skilled people have moved across borders—from the Orient to Europe, from Europe to the United States, and from the Korean Peninsula to Japan (and vice versa).

    .

    (SONY’s AI robot “Aibo”is a dog)

    .

    Some people say that China’s humanoid robots are not really acting autonomously—that somewhere behind the scenes, a human being is jumping and twisting around while the robot simply receives signals and copies the movements. But judging from the videos, that does not appear to be the whole story.

    .

    One reason Japan can still take some comfort is that Japanese manufacturers remain extremely strong in some of the precision components essential to advanced robots. Nabtesco alone, for example, says it holds about 60 percent of the global market for precision reduction gears used in the joints of medium- and large-size industrial robots. Japanese companies have also traditionally been very strong in servo systems as well.

    .

    But this advantage should not be exaggerated. China is rapidly localizing the production of key robot components, and in some areas it already has enormous manufacturing capacity. If Japan simply sits back and takes comfort in its present technological lead, China may eventually overtake it there as well.

    .

    Our last hope, then—joking, of course—may be that the Chinese themselves will all be replaced by robots.

  • A World History Free from Both Eurocentrism and Orientalism 1 Introduction

    I’m starting a new series here.

    The title is “A World History Free from Both Eurocentrism and Orientalism”

    The source text is “In Search of Lost Modernity” by Akio KAWATO.

    The English edition of this book (originally written in Japanese) is on

    https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hiRK7kjbX0Hxd2NOxPqtQlVWgjDHgKCr/edit

    https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MB0Me9P5Lpa2HGceuJUdMqqQ2CRHQSxa/edit

    (The copyright belongs to the author, Akio Kawato).

    .

    Today is the first installment. Let’s start with a basic understanding of the contemporary world ,

    where modern values are being trampled upon.

    .

    In Search of Lost Modernity

    Introduction

    Right before our eyes, modern civilization is wearing away. In the United States, the rise of President Trump has replaced the principles of liberty and democracy with the raw pursuit of power and self-interest. In Western Europe—the birthplace of modern civilization—economic growth has stalled, and people, demanding more redistribution, have turned to populist politicians for solutions.

    .

    It was not supposed to be this way. Since the Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century, living standards improved for countless people, who then gained the right to vote and established parliamentary democracy. The path was not always straight, but by the second half of the twentieth century, even Japan had joined this process, creating a free society with relatively little inequality. Industry, by generating massive added value, was expected to deliver what Jeremy Bentham once called “the greatest happiness of the greatest number”—a positive-sum advance for all.

    .

    Yet inequality has only deepened in advanced countries. Across the globe, developing nations and former socialist states—unable to generate self-sustaining cycles of growth—have grown increasingly resentful. Why has this happened? Why are we destroying the very civilization we ourselves created?

    .

    The root of the problem comes down to one thing: a failure of distribution. In the United States, shareholders, executives, and even union leaders take oversized shares of the pie, while ordinary employees are treated like expendable objects, discarded in waves of layoffs. In Western Europe, the problem is reversed: workers’ rights are so strong that they obstruct fiscal discipline and the rational management of enterprises. In Japan, meanwhile, companies boosted exports through a weak yen but failed to pass the gains along in the form of higher wages. As a result, real incomes have fallen, and consumer spending has stagnated.

    What is needed is a fairer mechanism of distribution—both domestically and globally. Imagine, for instance, that once a country’s per-capita income reaches a certain level, it would devote a set percentage of any increase in tax revenue to programs designed to narrow income gaps at home and abroad.

    .

    But Is “Modernity” Worth Defending?

    Still, one might ask: is the “modernity” we speak of here—its values of liberty and democracy, and its principle of a market economy free from direct state intervention—truly genuine? Or is it merely a cloak for hypocrisy and self-interest?

    In many cases, the people who champion “freedom” are either elites or intellectual dissidents. For elites, “freedom” often functions as a mantra to protect their position and wealth from the have-nots. For dissidents, the meaning of “freedom” is more authentic, but even they are often too absorbed in their own struggles to think about the broader public.

    .

    Democracy, for its part, gives rights to the many who lack privilege. But the masses, in turn, can empower populist leaders, who use their authority to plunder the wealth of the better-off. Democracy can thus slide into dictatorship.

    .

    Be it as it may, liberty and democracy are rooted in human nature itself. Even a puppy resists being held back on a leash.

    And when free human beings gather to make decisions, only democratic methods allow them to function effectively. That is why, instead of using lofty words like “liberty and democracy”—which often carry a whiff of hypocrisy—it may be better to use plainer language such as “protecting our rights and our way of life.” Such words are easier to understand and would resonate around the world. They capture the essence of John Locke’s “liberty” and Bentham’s “greatest happiness of the greatest number,” simplified into a form people can grasp intuitively.

    .

    The East and the West: Are They Irreconciable?

    Recently, Western intellectuals have grown self-critical, even excessively so. Writers like Andre Gunder Frank, in his ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age, argue that modern civilization was built on Western exploitation of Asia, and that before the nineteenth century the world economy was dominated by China and India.

    Exploitation certainly occurred—Japan itself became an exploiter in the twentieth century—but it would be wrong to dismiss Western modernity as mere plunder. The West’s values of individualism and rationalism were essential for improving human life. Because Asia lacked those values, it could not make the leap into an industrial society.

    Rudyard Kipling once wrote, “Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.” But the difference between East and West is not destiny. Neither side is inherently superior, nor must the world wholly submit to one or the other.

    .

    The Flow of This Book

    This book, written over the course of nearly three years of the COVID-19 pandemics, follows a coherent thread. It does not focus on the tedious succession of monarchs, but on changes in mechanisms of governance, shifts in economies and societies, and on religion not as doctrine but as a struggle for institutional power. It avoids both Eurocentric perspectives and the shallow romanticizing of Eastern mysticism.

    The main themes are as follows.

    .

    Greece, Rome, and the Chaos after Rome’s Fall

    The Orient and Islam

    Medieval Western Europe

    The Black Death and the End of Feudalism

    Mediterranean cities like Venice and Florence

    Early Modern Period, the Netherlands

    The Industrial Revolution and the Rise of Modernity

    .

    Volume II

    China’s Development Model—Was it Viable?

    The Rise of European Modern States

    Industrial Revolution

    Spread of Industrial Revolution

    Mutation of Modernity

    Human Physical Modification

    Modernity is not a Monopoly of the West

    .

    This book does not claim to offer prescriptions for the future of the world. Instead, it seeks to reexamine the values of modernity—liberty, democracy, sovereignty—and strip away our wrong assumptions and biases, leaving behind a purified set of materials from which new prescriptions might be built.

  • The U.S. Marine Corps Is Changing — and So Is Its Role in Japan

    Watching the current war with Iran, one striking feature is that U.S. Navy warships, particularly aircraft carriers, are staying away from the Strait of Hormuz—or perhaps are simply unable to get close to it. Presumably, the danger posed by mines, as well as Iranian missiles and drones, is simply too great.

    .

    If we transpose this situation to the Far East, the implications are significant. In a Taiwan contingency, not only would it become increasingly difficult for U.S. aircraft carriers to enter the immediate theater of operations, but the way the Marine Corps—expected to play an important role in the region—fights and deploys would also have to change.

    .

    So I asked ChatGPT to look into the matter. It turns out that the Marine Corps began changing its doctrine and force structure several years ago. The basic idea seems to be this: instead of trying to send a massive force into the theater after war has broken out, position small units at key locations beforehand.

    What follows is an exchange between Kawato and ChatGPT.

    .

    Kawato:

    I have a question about the U.S. Marine Corps. With the proliferation of cheap unmanned weapons, it has become increasingly difficult for Marines to conduct amphibious landings on enemy-held territory. Large and slow amphibious assault ships themselves would make inviting targets for the enemy and might no longer be usable in the traditional way.

    I remember seeing an article in a Japanese magazine about the restructuring of the Marine Corps, but I can no longer find it. Are there U.S. or Japanese publications discussing this? What do they say? And are there articles or papers examining how this restructuring might affect the Marine Corps presence in Japan?

    .

    ChatGPT:

    Yes, there are. And the direction of the change is quite clear.

    The article you remember was probably discussing the sequence of reforms known as Force Design 2030—now generally referred to simply as Force Design—together with the creation of the Marine Littoral Regiment (MLR) and the concept of Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO).

    Your basic question—“Has large-scale amphibious assault against a defended enemy become increasingly impractical?”—is very close to the starting point of these reforms.

    The Marine Corps, however, has not gone so far as to say, “Therefore, we no longer need amphibious ships.”

    Instead, it is trying to reorganize its forces around a combination of large amphibious ships, smaller and more dispersed vessels, unmanned systems, and small Marine units operating from islands and other forward positions.

    .

    Under Force Design, the Marine Corps is shifting away from traditional large ground-combat formations toward forces that are lighter, more dispersed, and have a lower signature—meaning they are harder for the enemy to detect—and that can operate even inside the enemy’s missile-engagement zone.

    As for large amphibious ships, the Marine Corps has not proposed abolishing them. On the contrary, its 2023 Force Design update explicitly envisioned amphibious ships serving in the future as “motherships” for manned and unmanned systems.

    In this concept, amphibious ships would remain offshore and deploy smaller craft, aircraft, and unmanned systems. Small Marine units positioned in advance on islands and other strategic locations would conduct reconnaissance, anti-ship operations, and air defense.

    .

    The Marine Corps plans to reduce its traditional force structure by roughly 12,000 personnel by 2030 while shifting resources toward long-range precision fires, unmanned systems, and anti-ship capabilities.

    .

    As a result, the Marines in Okinawa have, if anything, become more important.

    Japan’s Ministry of Defense explains this point in its Defense of Japan 2024 white paper. The 12th Marine Regiment at Camp Hansen in Okinawa has been redesignated as the 12th Marine Littoral Regiment (12th MLR). Unlike a traditional artillery regiment, the new formation is designed to integrate anti-ship capabilities, air defense, logistics, and ISR—intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance.

    .

    The concept behind the new Marine Corps is no longer simply to station tens of thousands of Marines on Okinawa and then launch a massive amphibious assault from there. To simplify the geography, the battlefield it is preparing for runs along the line: Okinawa–Miyako–Ishigaki–Yonaguni–Taiwan–the Philippines.

    .

    Put simply, part of the Marine Corps is evolving from a force that attacks from the sea onto the land into something resembling a land-based naval force that hides on islands and denies the enemy use of the surrounding seas.

    The Marines are trying to transform themselves from a force that lands on enemy territory after war begins into one that is already operating inside the enemy’s weapons-engagement zone before hostilities begin. These are the Stand-In Forces.

    .

    Under this concept, there is no need to wait until a Taiwan conflict erupts and then send amphibious ships charging into the combat zone. Marines would already be deployed in peacetime in places such as Okinawa and Japan’s southwestern islands, allowing them to move rapidly into combat posture if war breaks out.

    .

    There are, however, major weaknesses in this concept.

    Some retired Marines and other critics argue that the Marine Corps does not have sufficient maritime transportation to move small units rapidly from island to island, and that its existing vessels are inadequate to implement the concept. Others point to the enormous difficulty of supplying dispersed units once combat begins.

    .

    And as drone and AI-enabled surveillance improves rapidly, the basic assumption underlying EABO—that small, dispersed units will remain difficult to find—may itself become questionable.

    This will probably be one of the biggest challenges facing Force Design in the years ahead.

    .

    This concept has already moved well beyond the stage of being merely a plan for the future. In June of this year, the 12th Marine Littoral Regiment in Okinawa actually received NMESIS anti-ship missile systems and MADIS counter-drone and air-defense systems.

    In other words, the Marine Corps in Okinawa has already begun its real-world transformation from a traditional amphibious landing force into a force designed to deny an adversary access to key straits and maritime areas.

  • Could U.S. Treasuries Take a Tumble in September?

    Simon and Garfunkel used to sing: August, die she must, The autumn winds blow chilly and cold, September, I’ll remember,
    A love once new has now grown old. Are the U.S. treasuries following a similar fate?

    .

    The amount of outstanding U.S. government debt has now grown to slightly more than one year’s GDP.

    When Treasury securities mature, the government repays them while simultaneously borrowing roughly the same amount again—often at different maturities and interest rates. On top of that, it issues additional debt to finance new deficits. As a result, the total keeps growing.

    .

    This year as well, the Treasury is holding auctions in several rounds throughout the year, but both the number and size of the auctions happen to be particularly concentrated around this time. That is one reason movements in U.S. long-term interest rates are now attracting increasing attention.

    .

    Quite apart from the Treasury market, the financial condition of America’s nonbank financial institutions has also become a focus of concern.

    After the 2008 Lehman crisis, large U.S. banks were subjected to layer upon layer of regulation—including the Volcker Rule—designed to prevent them from using their own funds for speculative trading. But there are numerous financial institutions collectively known as “nonbanks” that are not subject to the same regulations. They sometimes even operate with money or financing provided by major banks, investing funds in relatively speculative assets.

    When interest rates rise, stock prices tend to come under pressure. Nonbanks heavily exposed to speculative equities can therefore run into serious financial trouble. And if that begins to undermine confidence in the major banks that have lent money to them, the result can be a seizure in financial markets: everyone starts wondering whether everyone else may be on the verge of collapse, and nobody wants to lend.

    .

    Thus, the U.S. financial market currently faces two potential sources of crisis: the Treasury market and the nonbank financial sector. If a crisis originates in one or the other, the effects on the dollar and stock prices will differ. If the two erupt at roughly the same time, movements in the dollar and equities could become considerably more complicated.

    So I discussed the outlook with ChatGPT. What makes Chat interesting these days is that it no longer seems merely to retrieve information from somewhere. It studies the material, puts the pieces together, and constructs its own outlook.

    .

    Author:

    Dear Chat, suppose U.S. interest rates rise further and it becomes increasingly difficult for the Treasury to sell its debt. What happens then? What happens to stock prices and the dollar?

    Separately, could concerns about the creditworthiness of nonbanks cause the financial system to seize up? And if so, what would happen?

    During the 2008 Lehman crisis, what happened to interest rates, stock prices, and the dollar over the following two years?

    And what happened during the two years following the 1985 Plaza Accord?

    Give me a brief answer in bullet points.

    .

    ChatGPT:

    1) If U.S. Treasuries become increasingly difficult to sell and long-term interest rates rise further, treasury prices would fall and long-term yields would rise. Mortgage rates, corporate bond yields, and the cost of corporate borrowing would also increase.

    Stocks would generally fall. High-P/E AI and technology stocks would be particularly vulnerable, because higher interest rates reduce the present value of future earnings.

    The dollar could initially rise, as capital flows into the United States in search of higher yields.

    But there is a critical distinction. If interest rates are high simply because inflation is high, that is one thing.

    If yields begin rising because investors are losing confidence in U.S. government debt itself, the dollar could eventually turn downward. That is the most dangerous point.

    In other words, the bad scenario would be falling Treasury prices + falling stocks + a falling dollar—a U.S. version of a “triple decline.”

    .

    2) Now what if a crisis of confidence in nonbanks occurs at the same time?

    That could undermine confidence in the major banks that have lent money to those institutions, producing a credit contraction in which “the money is there, but nobody wants to lend it.”

    The assets held by the nonbank financial sector have been estimated at as much as $86 trillion (!), with perhaps around $22 trillion potentially exposed to risk.

    In mid-August, one hedge fund—part of the nonbank sector in the broad sense—collapsed, prompting financial regulators to conduct an on-site investigation. This demonstrated the authorities’ growing concern about what may be lurking inside the nonbank financial system.

    .

    3) During the 2008 Lehman crisis, interest rates initially plunged.

    The federal funds rate stood at 4.25% at the beginning of 2008, but by December it had been cut to 0–0.25%.

    Stocks nevertheless collapsed. The S&P 500 fell about 57% from its autumn 2007 peak to its March 2009 bottom.

    It then staged a spectacular rebound, rising roughly 80% from the bottom by the end of 2010.

    Surprisingly, the dollar initially rose after the crisis erupted.

    Investors around the world rushed into cash and U.S. Treasuries, and the dollar’s effective exchange rate rose by roughly 12% during the second half of 2008.

    In other words, even though the crisis originated in the United States, investors bought dollars.

    From the spring of 2009 onward, however, as the panic subsided, the safe-haven rush into dollars reversed and the dollar weakened.

    So the basic pattern of the 2008 crisis was:

    credit collapse → stock-market crash → temporary dollar rise → massive Federal Reserve easing → sharp decline in interest rates → stock-market rebound and dollar decline.

    .

    4) The two years following the 1985 Plaza Accord

    (This was an entirely different story.)

    In September 1985, the G5 governments deliberately agreed to push down the dollar.

    The dollar fell from around ¥240 to the dollar to the ¥120 range by the end of 1987—almost a 50% decline.

    U.S. stocks, however, rose substantially. The stock-market boom continued from 1985 through the first half of 1987.

    Then came October 19, 1987—Black Monday—when the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 22.6% in a single day.

    In Japan, meanwhile, the Bank of Japan lowered its official discount rate from 5% to 2.5% in an effort to prevent the sharp appreciation of the yen from damaging the economy. The resulting flow of money into stocks and real estate helped create the Japanese asset bubble that followed.

    .

    5) What happens this time if credit markets seize up, bankruptcies increase, and the economy falls into recession?

    The Federal Reserve would probably be forced eventually to cut interest rates, provide massive liquidity, and possibly resume large-scale purchases of Treasuries and other securities.

    The sequence could therefore look something like this:

    Act One: rising interest rates.
    Act Two: a credit crisis.
    Act Three: Federal Reserve intervention, followed by a sharp decline in interest rates.

    .

    6) What about gold?

    Gold is a secondary issue here, but an interesting one.

    During the 2008 Lehman crisis, gold was bought alongside U.S. Treasuries as a safe-haven asset. This time, however, if Treasuries themselves were to lose investors’ confidence, gold could become virtually the only major safe-haven asset left. Gold prices have already begun rising sharply.

    There is an important qualification. As happened in 2008, when market participants suddenly find themselves short of cash, they may sell whatever liquid assets they have—including gold. Gold prices could therefore fall temporarily even after an initial surge.

    But once central banks, particularly the Federal Reserve, respond with massive monetary easing and large-scale purchases of government securities and other measures to contain the crisis, interest rates would fall. Gold could then begin another major advance, as in fact happened from 2009 through 2011.

    .

    And even if the next crisis takes on the appearance of a general “sell America” movement, there is still no economic power capable of simply replacing the United States. So it would not be the end of the world.

    .

    (The yen would probably rise sharply, which would substantially increase Japan’s GDP when measured in dollar terms. But she can hardly play the role of the US)

  • The End of Oak Street: A Horror Story About America Today

    The day before yesterday, I went to see a new US movie The End of Oak Street. It is a horror movie in which an ordinary, middle-class suburban neighborhood is suddenly transported hundreds of millions of years into the past, leaving its residents to be chased by dinosaurs. The film was directed by David Robert Mitchell, born in 1974.

    .

    I came across a Japanese review that said, essentially, “I don’t understand what this movie is trying to say.”

    But anyone who has been watching what is happening in American society today may feel that its meaning comes through loud and clear……

    About thirty years ago, an American woman I knew, a specialist on Japan, said something to me that has stayed in my mind ever since.

    “American society is becoming frightening. There are more and more fanatics, whether over religion or politics. You begin to wonder what someone might say—or even do to you—if you express the wrong opinion. It feels as though your neighbors are somehow becoming different people.”

    .

    That was thirty years ago. Since then, America has become increasingly polarized between Republicans and Democrats, while political and religious fanaticism has grown more intense. The Trump administration, to my mind, represents a concentrated form of this trend. In its language, attitudes, and approach to power, America sometimes seems to be retreating into something rougher and more primitive—a world of imperialism and pre-modern power politics.

    I thought The End of Oak Street was an expression of precisely this fear.

    .

    So I asked ChatGPT to look at how American and other Western critics were interpreting the movie. Here is what it found:

    .

    —–The movie has only just been released, but reviews are already appearing.

    One of the most interesting is Justin Chang’s review in The New Yorker. Rather than treating it simply as a dinosaur movie, Chang reads it in the context of a theme that has run through David Robert Mitchell’s work: alienation.

    On the surface, the residents of Oak Street make up an ordinary American middle-class community. In reality, however, they are isolated from one another, and even their families are coming apart. The film goes so far as to suggest that, under some circumstances, the human beings may be more brutal than the dinosaurs.

    .

    The English-language edition of Le Monde comes even closer to my own interpretation. It sees the movie as a critique of the “sanitized myths of American suburbia,” with the dinosaurs representing a kind of primordial chaos that shatters the illusion of middle-class stability. More broadly, it interprets the film as dealing with the collapse of the cultural narratives on which contemporary America has long relied.

    .

    From this, I (ChatGPT) would read the movie less as a film criticizing Trump personally than as a film about modern America moving backward into its own past.

    In an ordinary dinosaur movie, the dinosaurs come into the modern world.

    In this movie, it is Oak Street that is sent back into the past.

    .

    Old attitudes concerning race, religion, sex, and immigration—values that many Americans believed they had already overcome—are returning. In international politics, too, nineteenth-century concepts such as spheres of influence, territorial acquisition, tariffs, empire, and deals among great powers are making a comeback.

    And ordinary people suddenly find themselves having to survive according to the rules of this resurrected “primitive world.”

    (The above is considerably shortened from ChatGPT’s original answer.)…….

    .

    One other thing struck me. One of the film’s main characters, the father of the family, was fired from his company a year earlier. Yet he simply cannot bring himself to tell his family. Instead, he delivers pizzas to keep the household going.

    That, too, seems to me an image of America today.

    And that one hit me as a jobless rather close to home.

  • Rethinking Japan’s Place in a Rising Asia

    (This article appeared in Newsweek Japan on August 18.)

    On August 8, news broke that both South Korea and Taiwan had surpassed Japan in exports during the first half of this year.

    Since the mid-1990s, I had already grown weary of hearing the world sneer that “Japan is finished—even in Asia.” This latest news felt almost like the final blow.

    .

    Some 160 years ago, Japan opened itself to the outside world, absorbed Western civilization and technology, broke free of the China-centered regional order, and emerged as the dominant power in Asia. After its defeat in World War II, a chastened Japan—chastened in part by others—changed course.

    It supplied Asian countries with capital and technology and helped lead their economic development through what economists called the “flying geese” model. Has Japan now lost its position in virtually every field?

    .

    No. There is little point in indulging in national self-pity.

    During Japan’s high-growth era, exports accounted for much of its economic expansion. Today, exports are equivalent to about 44 percent of GDP in South Korea and as much as 65 percent in Taiwan. Japan, by contrast, now has a much larger domestic economy, and exports amount to only about 23 percent of GDP. Even if we were to count production by Japanese companies overseas as exports, the figure would probably be only around 30 percent.

    .

    In other words, Japan still has competitive advantages in machinery, materials, electronic components, and other areas. As long as it can maintain a sustainable trade balance through such exports and thereby help preserve the value of the yen, it can rely more heavily on expanding domestic demand to raise living standards.

    .

    South Korea and Taiwan have become formidable economic powers, and so have the ASEAN countries. In this new era, Japan should abandon its old mindset of obsessing over maintaining its “rank” in Asia. Perhaps because government offices in the samurai-ruled Edo period (1603–1868) were hereditary and each family occupied a fixed place in an elaborate social hierarchy, Japanese people remain unusually sensitive to questions of rank and status even today.

    .

    Put simply, Japan should stop trying to act like the big man in Asia. As Asian countries become increasingly modern and increasingly similar to one another, Japan should instead see itself as something like the coordinator of the group—working alongside its neighbors rather than standing above them.

    .

    When it comes to maintaining peace in Asia, we should recognize what is probably the underlying reality.

    Perhaps no country—including China—seriously believes that it can invade and conquer another country by force. Perhaps the people of no country are really eager to fight to the death if they are attacked. And perhaps the United States is not truly prepared to come to their rescue, either.

    .

    If so, the real calculation of most governments is probably much more prosaic: they are better off securing their interests within the existing framework. No one wants to launch an invasion under the eyes of the world, fail spectacularly, suffer humiliation, and wreck their own economy in the process.

    Japan should understand this underlying reality and build upon it.

    .

    Asia could, for example, develop something comparable to the Helsinki Final Act adopted in 1975 by European countries, the United States, the Soviet Union, and Canada through the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. Its basic principles would include a commitment not to change borders by force and to promote cooperation and exchanges among countries.

    .

    Now that American power has receded, the existing alliance system will remain important. But alongside it, Japan may also need to engage in a flexible balance-of-power game among the countries of the region—including China.

    .

    Economically, Japan should remember that it is also a major importer.

    The leading ASEAN economies export goods to Japan worth roughly one-third of what they export to the United States. Japan should therefore work to sustain the principles of free trade and investment by strengthening institutions and frameworks such as the WTO and the CPTPP, or TPP-11.

    .

    In finance, meanwhile, China appears reluctant to pursue the full internationalization of the renminbi, since that would ultimately require greater liberalization of capital transactions. Japan can therefore continue making an important contribution by maintaining and expanding yen-based currency-swap arrangements for use during financial crises and by making international payments easier and more efficient.

    .

    This summer, on my way home from an escape from the heat in Northern Europe, I changed planes in Singapore.

    Singapore’s per capita national income is by far the highest in Asia—nearly three times Japan’s. I expected its airport to be dazzlingly sleek and futuristic.

    Yet during my transit, I found the atmosphere surprisingly untidy: worn and somewhat grubby sofas in a pay lounge for ordinary travelers, accompanied by the incessant clatter of dishes being washed. It felt quite different from Japan’s Narita Airport.

    .

    In Japan, things are done properly—right down to the cleaning of the restrooms. Foreign workers, too, tend to adapt to these standards. Japan has built a society in which a certain ethic, sense of responsibility, and habit of “doing things properly even when nobody is watching” remain deeply rooted.

    By preserving such a society, Japan may be able to contribute something important to the deeper modernization of other Asian countries.

    .

    The days when Japanese could expect to be respected simply because they were Japanese are over. The hierarchy among Asian nations is becoming increasingly fluid. Standing must now be earned through performance.

    So Japan had better get to work.

  • The Emperor of Japan: Myths and Facts

    During the first half of this year, revision of the Imperial House Law became a major issue in the Diet. The Imperial House Law is a statute, separate from the Constitution, that lays down various rules governing the Imperial Family.

    The main purpose of the proposed revision was to address the shrinking size of the Imperial Family, now down to just 14 members, which has placed an increasingly heavy burden of official duties on those who remain.

    .

    Under Japan’s present Constitution, the Emperor has no political powers. Therefore, a minor change in the status could not evoke large interests. Yet the question of whether Princess Aiko, the only child of the current Emperor Naruhito, should eventually be allowed to inherit the throne had itself become a highly political issue. Many opposition parties, as well as a substantial part of Japanese society, are open to the idea of a female emperor.

    .

    Prime Minister Takaichi, on the other hand, draws much of her support from conservatives within the Liberal Democratic Party. She thus finds herself in the delicate position of being Japan’s first female prime minister while being politically unable to push for a woman to ascend the Chrysanthemum Throne.

    .

    What Are the Emperor and the Imperial Family?

    .

    The Constitution, which establishes the political framework of post-war Japan, begins with a chapter on the Emperor. Its basic provisions are as follows:

    .

    Article 1. The Emperor shall be the symbol of the State and of the unity of the people, deriving his position from the will of the people with whom resides sovereign power.

    .

    Article 2. The Imperial Throne shall be dynastic and succeeded to in accordance with the Imperial House Law passed by the Diet.

    .

    Article 3. The advice and approval of the Cabinet (Government) shall be required for all acts of the Emperor in matters of state, and the Cabinet shall be responsible therefor.

    .

    Article 4. The Emperor shall perform only such acts in matters of state as are provided for in this Constitution and he shall not have powers related to government.

    .

    Under Articles 6 and 7, these “acts in matters of state” include:

    appointing the prime minister as designated by the Diet and the chief judge of the Supreme Court as designated by the Cabinet;

    promulgating amendments to the Constitution, laws, cabinet orders and treaties;

    convoking the Diet;

    dissolving the House of Representatives;

    proclaiming general elections;

    attesting instruments of ratification and other diplomatic documents as provided for by law;

    and performing ceremonial functions.

    .

    The actual decisions hereby are made by the Cabinet—the government. The Emperor possesses no governing power with his authority drastically curtailed following Japan’s defeat in World War II.

    .

    The Imperial House Law

    .

    The Imperial House Law governs succession to the throne, the establishment of a regency, membership in the Imperial Family, imperial mausoleums and tombs, and the Imperial House Council.

    Article 1 provides:“The Imperial Throne shall be succeeded to by a male offspring in the male line belonging to the Imperial Lineage.”

    .

    The main purpose of the current effort to revise the law is to deal with the decline in the number of members of the Imperial Family; until now, female members of the Imperial Family have been required to leave the Imperial Family upon marrying commoners.

    One amendment, therefore, would allow them to retain imperial status after marriage.

    Another would allow male descendants of the former collateral branches of the Imperial Family—branches whose members lost imperial status after World War II—to be adopted into the present Imperial Family. And If that adopted male gets a son, that son will have the right to succeed to the throne.

    .

    In sum the number of imperial family members may slightly grow, whereas Imperial succession is left to male line. The question of whether Japan should permit a female emperor has for now been put aside. The present Emperor is still in good health, and perhaps the thinking is that there is no need to divide the country now over the question of succession.

    .

    A More Rational Debate

    .

    I personally have no particular attachment to the imperial institution, nor do I have a fixed position on what form it should take. But in the twenty-first century, I would like to see the many “myths” surrounding it carefully examined, the facts separated from assumptions, and the subject discussed rationally and openly. Otherwise, we will never know the true nature of early Japanese history.

    .

    Such a discussion should also take account of the rights and feelings of the members of the Imperial Family as human beings. The Emperor and members of the Imperial Family do not enjoy many of the constitutional freedoms ordinary Japanese take for granted—freedom of speech, freedom in choosing where and how to live, and freedom of occupation, among others.

    Under the present Constitution, sovereignty resides with the people. The Emperor is neither a sovereign ruler nor, constitutionally speaking, explicitly designated as head of state. He is a mere “symbol.”

    .

    But what does it mean for a living human being to be a symbol? One can easily imagine the difficulty of constantly having to ask oneself: What am I supposed to do? What am I not supposed to do?

    With that in mind, I would like to examine several of the “myths”—in the sense of deeply rooted assumptions—that surround the Japanese monarchy.

    .

    Has the Imperial Line Really Been Unbroken for All Time?

    Emperor Jimmu

    According to legends, Emperor Jimmu founded Japan at Kashihara in Nara in 660 BC. At that time China was in the Spring and Autumn period and had no unified empire. Qin would not unify China until 221 BC.

    The Nihon Shoki (an official history), or Chronicles of Japan, was finally completed in AD 720, more than a century after the founding of China’s Tang dynasty. This must have been presented to the Tang court in an attempt to have Japan’s status ranked higher than that of the various kingdoms on the neighboring Korean Peninsula. With this in mind the Japanese authority may have introduced the figure of Emperor Jimmu. They pushed the origins of the imperial line far back into antiquity. Emperor Jimmu’s supposed reign begins in 660 BC, giving Japan an extraordinarily ancient dynastic pedigree. But neither written evidence nor archaeology has established Jimmu as a historical individual.

    .

    The chronology presented in Nihon Shoki itself gives reason for skepticism. Jimmu is said to have lived to the age of 127, while the eleventh emperor, Suinin, supposedly lived to 140. The sixth emperor, Kōan, is said to have occupied the throne for 102 years. The reign lengths assigned to the early emperors are plainly incompatible with normal human lifespans.

    It is only with the tenth emperor, Sujin, that we begin to approach a ruler for whom some historians see a possible historical basis.

    Jimmu’s tomb is mentioned in some old sources, but references disappear in later centuries and its location was eventually lost. The present mausoleum of Emperor Jimmu beside Kashihara Shrine (built in 1890 in memory of the late Jimmu) was identified as such only in the final years of the Tokugawa shogunate, after consideration of several possible sites.

    .

    Emperor Sujin

    With the tenth emperor, Sujin, the references in the Nihon Shoki and other sources become much more substantial. Some features of these accounts have led to speculation that Sujin may have represented a new political force that entered the Yamato region (the central part of Japan) from outside.

    One striking episode is his removal of Amaterasu—the supposed ancestral deity of the Imperial Family—from the palace. Worship of the local deity Ōmononushi then assumed great importance, with the local Miwa clan playing a central ritual role.

    The Miwa clan has in turn been associated in various theories with Izumo, in present-day Shimane Prefecture on the Sea of Japan coast, while Ōmononushi has sometimes been identified or closely associated with Ōkuninushi, the great deity of Izumo.

    This has prompted some writers to speculate that Sujin, rather than Jimmu, may preserve a distant memory of a conquering group that entered Yamato, perhaps from the direction of Kyushu via Izumo. On this interpretation, the story of Jimmu projected such an event more than nine centuries backward into a mythical past.

    .

    An “Ōjin Dynasty”?

    A possible break in the line descending from Sujin is sometimes associated with the fifteenth emperor, Ōjin.

    According to the traditional account, the fourteenth emperor, Chūai—a son of the legendary hero Yamato Takeru—went to Kyushu to campaign against the Kumaso and died there suddenly.

    His consort, Empress Jingū, then supposedly assumed power as regent and launched the famous expedition against the “Three Kingdoms of Korea.” She returned and subsequently gave birth to a son who would become Emperor Ōjin.

    .

    Neither Jingū’s historicity nor the traditional account of her Korean expedition can be established as historical fact. Korean chronicles contain records of military encounters with forces from Japan(Wa), but they do not corroborate the Nihon Shoki story of Jingū’s conquest of the peninsula.

    .

    The chronology surrounding Jingū and Ōjin is also extraordinarily difficult to reconcile with normal lifespans. The traditional dates and reign lengths clearly contain legendary or artificial elements. Immediately upon her return, Empress Jingū gave birth to Prince Hondawake. She continued to serve as regent for the next 69 years, and in 390, Prince Hondawake—later known as Emperor Ōjin—is said to have ascended the throne. Since Emperor Ōjin would have been 70 years old at that time, and he reigned for a full 41 years thereafter, this means he passed away at the age of 111.

    .

    This discrepancy raises an intriguing possibility. Perhaps Japan in this period experienced serious internal conflict, and a new political force that had risen in Kyushu—or possibly in areas connected with southern Korea—advanced to the central part of Japan and eventually established the political order associated with Emperor Ōjin.

    .

    Significantly, the enormous tombs traditionally attributed to Ōjin and his successor Nintoku are not in the heart of the Yamato Basin but in the Kawachi region of present-day Osaka. This concentration of giant tombs suggests that Kawachi was one of the principal centers of political power in this period.

    Whether that amounted to a separate “Ōjin dynasty,” however, remains a matter of historical interpretation rather than established fact.

    .

    A “Keitai Dynasty”?

    .

    If we provisionally call this the “Ōjin dynasty,” its direct male line is traditionally considered to have ended with the twenty-fifth emperor, Buretsu, who died without an heir.

    The surviving political elite then selected a distant imperial relative, Prince Ōdo, from the Hokuriku region (facing the Sea of Japan)—traditionally associated with present-day Fukui, though his precise origins and political base remain debated.

    Yet although he had supposedly been invited to assume the throne, he did not immediately establish himself in the Yamato Basin. He was proclaimed Emperor Keitai in 507 and spent many years at a succession of palaces before finally entering Yamato.

    This peculiar sequence has long attracted historians’ attention. Some have interpreted Keitai as the founder of a new ruling line, while others emphasize continuity with the preceding Yamato monarchy.

    .

    Anyway, it is from Keitai that the genealogy leading to the present Imperial Family becomes substantially more secure. The Japanese imperial institution therefore unquestionably has an extraordinarily long history and is probably the world’s oldest surviving hereditary monarchy.

    But the claim of an absolutely unbroken line stretching literally back to Emperor Jimmu is another matter. The earliest genealogy contains unmistakably legendary elements, and there may have been major dynastic or political discontinuities during the formative centuries of the Yamato state.

    .

    Japan Within Eurasia

    .

    Discussions of the Imperial Family often become strangely heated as soon as terms such as bansei ikkei—“an imperial line unbroken for all ages”—or male-line versus female-line succession enter the conversation.

    .

    But the Imperial Family consists of living human beings. Like other Japanese, their remote ancestors ultimately came from populations that migrated into the Japanese archipelago from various parts of continental Eurasia and maritime Asia. There is no historical reason to regard them as beings fundamentally separate from the rest of humanity.

    .

    The Yamato Basin itself was home to powerful clans such as the Miwa, Aya, and Katsuragi. The region contains the Takamatsuzuka and Kitora tombs, whose chambers are decorated with magnificent paintings reflecting continental East Asian cosmology: courtly figures and the four directional guardian deities—the Black Tortoise, Azure Dragon, White Tiger, and Vermilion Bird. They testify to the extraordinary intensity of cultural connections between ancient Japan, the Korean Peninsula, and China.

    .

    About 25 kilometers to the northwest, at Ikaruga, the Fujinoki Tomb yielded a spectacular collection of gold and silver grave goods, many of which are now displayed locally. Their workmanship evokes the cosmopolitan artistic world of Eurasia. Some decorative motifs have parallels stretching far across the continent, illustrating how far artistic ideas and techniques could travel in antiquity.

    .

    The Nihon Shoki itself contains numerous references to Ōjin’s relations with the Korean Peninsula, particularly with Baekje. It was during Ōjin’s reign, according to the traditional account familiar to generations of Japanese schoolchildren, that the scholar Wani came from the peninsula bringing Chinese learning, including the Analects and the Thousand Character Classic.

    Horse equipment also begins to appear much more prominently in Japanese archaeological sites during the Ōjin period, another indication of the intensification of connections with the Korean Peninsula and the Eurasian continent.

    .

    The ancestors of the Japanese people came to the archipelago over many thousands of years from different parts of continental and maritime Asia. There is no reason to imagine that the ancestors of Japan’s ruling families existed outside these larger movements of people and culture.

    And what would be wrong with that?

    Nothing.

    Even if some ancestors of Japan’s Imperial Family came to the archipelago through the Korean Peninsula, that obviously does not mean that modern Japan owes political allegiance to South or North Korea. Ancient population movements have nothing to do with the sovereignty of modern states.

    What matters today is that the Constitution and the law clearly define the Emperor’s role and powers, while society also recognizes that the Emperor and the members of the Imperial Family are human beings with dignity, feelings, and rights of their own.

    We should be able to deal with the imperial institution pragmatically, judging each question on its merits. There is no need to fanatically impose one’s own assumptions on everyone else.

  • Putin’s Visit to Japan’s Northern Territories

    Yesterday, Putin visited Japan’s Northern Territories—the islands north of Japan that the Soviet Union seized by force at the end of World War II, expelled their Japanese residents from, and has refused to return ever since. The Japanese media went into an uproar.

    .

    It is embarrassing. All Japan accomplishes by making such a fuss is to advertise to the world the humiliation of having had its territory taken by another country and being unable to do anything about it. And the louder Japan protests, the more Russia will use the issue as a bargaining chip.

    —“Oh, you really hate this that much? Well then, lift one of your sanctions against Russia, and maybe I’ll promise not to go there again (for a while).”

    That is exactly the game Moscow would play.

    .

    At a time like this, Japan’s prime minister should speak not just to Russia, but to the world. All she has to do is say something like this to reporters:

    “President Putin, having invaded Ukraine by brutal force, may suddenly have remembered the Northern Territories and become nervous himself: ‘What if Japan decides to take those islands back by brutal force?’

    Don’t worry, Mr. Putin. Japan remains committed to resolving this territorial dispute through negotiations. You, too, should stop attacking Ukraine and return to negotiations. If you do that, I will be in a position to lift sanctions and resume negotiations with your country on concluding a peace treaty.”

    .

    There is little point in confronting Russia alone with legal arguments and logic when Moscow has no intention of budging.

    The real task is to bring world opinion over to Japan’s side.

    .

    It is high time Japan learned how to play that information game. Prime Minister Takaichi, with her streetwise instincts and the feisty spirit often associated with women from Kansai, ought to be quite capable of it.

日本のトレンド

世界のトレンド

基本記事

このサイトについて

このサイトのオーナーについて

リンク