“繼續保持逐步復甦基調” 維持經濟評估

Recently the NHK News on-line reported the following:

「緩やかな回復基調が続いている」 景気判断を維持

6月17日 9時10分

動画を再生する

政府は今月の月例経済報告で「緩やかな回復基調が続いている」という景気判断を維持したうえで、イギリスで来週行われるＥＵ＝ヨーロッパ連合からの離脱の賛否を問う国民投票などを念頭に、海外経済のリスクに留意する必要があるとしています。

政府は１７日、関係閣僚会議を開き、今月の月例経済報告をまとめました。それによりますと、『個人消費』は「消費者マインドに足踏みがみられるなかおおむね横ばいとなっている」、企業の『生産』は「横ばいとなっている」という判断をともに据え置きました。
一方、『企業収益』は円高や中国経済の減速などの影響で業績が伸び悩んでいることから「高い水準にあるものの、改善に足踏みがみられる」として判断を下方修正しました。
また、『消費者物価』については物価の動きを示す指標が低下したことを受けて「緩やかに上昇している」から「このところ上昇テンポが鈍化している」に表現を改めました。
ただ、政府は景気の現状について大きな変化はみられないとして「このところ弱さもみられるが、緩やかな回復基調が続いている」という判断を維持しました。
そのうえで、先行きについては、イギリスで来週行われるＥＵ＝ヨーロッパ連合からの離脱の賛否を問う国民投票などを念頭に、「海外経済の不確実性の高まりや金融資本市場の変動の影響に留意する必要がある」としています。

(試譯文)

While the government in this month's monthly economic report stuck to its judgment on the business situation in saying that "a gentle convalescent basis would continue", it supposed that it was necessary to note the risk in overseas economies, bearing in mind a plebiscite would be performed next week in United Kingdom to ask about whether its people would approve or disapprove their leaving from EU = European Union.

On the 17th the government held a related ministerial meeting and this month's monthly economic report was complied. According to that report, it was said that two judgments had came up and would stay; one was regarding ‘consumer spending’, it was “when stepping into the mind of consumers it appeared to have an almost flat consumer sentiment”. About the ‘production’ of the enterprise, it was "a sideways crawl".

On the other hand, the judgment on "business profit" was to be revised downward due to the influence of a strong yen and the slowing down of Chinese economy, both caused a stagnating performance; “although it’s in a high standard, steps for improvement could be seen".

About "the consumer price", while it was noted that the index showed movements in price drops, there was a change in its presentation in words: from "at a slow rising tempo" to "recently the rising tempo had been dull".

The government assumed that a big change was unlikely regarding the current state of the business conditions, and the government maintained its judgment in saying that “recently a weakness was also noted, yet a gentle convalescent basis would continue".

Moreover, in the short term, bearing in mind the plebiscite to be performed next week in England to approve or disapprove its leaving from EU= European Union, it was supposed that "it's necessary to note the influence of rising uncertainty in overseas economies and a fluctuation in the financial capital market".

 

So Japan is still cautiously optimistic about its economy in the short term.

Minamata: Pollution and the Struggle for Democracy in Postwar Japan

Recently I have read the following book. The main points in the last three chapters 7, 8 and 9 are:

Book title: George, Timothy. 2001. Minamata: Pollution and the Struggle for Democracy in Postwar Japan. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center: Distributed by Harvard University Press.

Main points:

Ch. 7. In 1968 the Minamata disease victims began to find that they were no longer alone and ignored. Patients of pollution disease elsewhere in Japan and people in the country as a whole began to show an interest in their plight.(p.179) Beginning in 1968 a new network of supports reached a new national audience, finally the 1959 settlement was replaced by another solution that was far more fair and comprehensive in 1973.(p.179).

- the moment that marked the beginning of this new and ultimately decisive round was the creation of the Citizens’ Council for Minamata Disease Countermeasures in January 1968. The immediate reason for the establishment of this council was the need for an organization to host the upcoming visit, facilitated by Ui Jun, of patients of Niigata Minamata disease who had filed a suit against Showa Denko in 1967. (p.179). Among the Citizen’s’ Council members were several Chisso employees from the no. 1 union. (p.180)

-pressure was building up in many ways. In May 1968 a national alliance for pollution countermeasures was established, with the Niigata group as its core members.(p.183) In August the no. 1 union made Japanese labor history by issuing its famous ‘declaration of shame’.(p.184)

In September a newspaper reported that Chisso’s vinyl chloride plan was also discharging waste laden with organic mercury. There was no doubt that the government would find Chisso to be the cause of Minamata disease. All parties concerned began to position themselves to what would happen. (p.186)

- the announcement was accompanied with a breakdown of Kumamoto Minamata disease patients: one patient in 1953, 12 in 1953, 14 in 1955, 51 in 1956, six in 1957, five in 1958, and the finally four in 1960. Forty two had died and 12 were hospitalized. (p.188)

- the main point of finding that organic mercury from Chisso’s factory had caused the Minamata disease was correct. Yet some conclusions were incorrect, for example it implied hat only fish and shellfish in Minamata by were dangerous. In fact the contamination had spread over a much wider area. They were discharged not only from acetaldehyde facilities, but also from vinyl chloride production process which was continued until 1971. (p.190)

- in October, the mutual aid society decided to ask Chisso for compensation for the deceased and surviving patients. (p.191). They petition to the government for the establishment of standards for compensation. (p.192) On June 14th 1969, 112 people in 28 families filed suit against Chisso in Kumamoto district court to demand compensation. (p.197)

- on May 26, a group of Ministry of Health and Welfare employees distributed flyers criticizing their Ministry. They asked why did they permitted the authorities to take negative attitude, and suggested that they should join hands to take a hard look at the irregularities occurring. (p.201)

- no one seemed to know or care how many uncertified patients were there, but one of them, Kawamoto Teruo, forced an end to this ignorance by 1971.(p.203)

- on March 24, 1968 the Kumamoto Prefecture Association of Civil Liberties Commissions announced its belief that the government had failed to clarify the cause of Minamata disease and was violating the human rights. (p.203)

- the assistance that Kawamoto and his group had received from Kumamoto and Tokyo was an indication of the broaden base of support for Minamata disease patients. Perhaps the most important new support group was the Tokyo Association to Indict. (p.211)

- Ch. 8. - the effort of patients and supporters in the second round of responses to Minamata disease led to a solution, one that represented a moral victory for the patients in contrast with the defeat of 1959. Yet it did not result in the establishment of legitimate and regularized procedures for a more democratic system of redress. The Minamata disease issue was not resolved through election or courts. The March 1973 court victory merely shifts the balance of power in that a direct negotiation would replace the 1959 solatium contract by the new July 1973 agreement. If postwar democracy was measured in terms of the success of popular action and a shift in the citizen-corporation-state power balance, then this second round certainly extended and enlarged it. (p.222)

-there were three points at issue in the trial. First, Chisso was guilty of negligence in discharging the organic mercury. Second, the 1959 agreement had prevented the victims for further compensation. Finally, if the first two clauses were favorable, what compensation should Chisso pay to the patients? (p.241)

- there was great relief but little celebration among the patients at the Kumamoto district court when they won their suit on March 20, 1973. (p.248) Chisso was ordered to make a one-time payment, the largest compensation that had ever been awarded by a Japanese court. To the patients, the victory meant a recognition that their complains were just and that they were owed restitution by a system that had no right to exclude them. (p.249)

- in a reversal of the behavior which Minamata and its citizens had been accustomed to for 65 years, during the negotiations, the executives of the company used exceptionally polite language while the patients spoke plain direct and even rude Japanese. The changed in tone of the discourse reflected a reversal rather than an elimination of the hierarchy governing the two sides. The patients were addressed as superiors and executives as inferiors. (p.251)

Ch. 9. - the 1973 settlement resolved the two most urgent issues in the Minamata disease incident: finding Chisso legally responsible and providing relatively reasonable compensation for all certified patients.(p.263) By providing financial assistance to Chisso, the government abandoned "the polluter pays principle". The system was extended in 1994 when Chisso was unable to pay the interest it owed. Even though 10,353 people were compensated under the new agreement by 1999, many victims were still left uncompensated. (p.271)

Minamata: Pollution and the Struggle for Democracy in Postwar Japan

Recently I have read the following book. The main points in chapters five and six are:

Book title: George, Timothy. 2001. Minamata: Pollution and the Struggle for Democracy in Postwar Japan. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center: Distributed by Harvard University Press.

Main points:

Ch. 5.Citizen’s Council for Minamata Disease Countermeasure was established in January 1968. This organization signaled the beginning of a period of experimentation with new forms of social citizenship and in citizen-corporation-state relationship (p.125).

- certified Minamata diseases patients received payment from Shin Nitchitsu under the December 1959 solatium agreement, but the money was far from enough to support those who had no other income.(p.144)

- the most heartrending development during these “years of silence” was the confirmation that many children born with cerebral palsy and other problems in fact had a congenital form of Minamata disease.(p.149).

Ch.6 .in the mid-1960s, it was by no means seemed that pressures were building towards an explosion. Patients and fishermen were being compensated according to the pattern set up in 1959. Yet changes were taking place in Minamata and Japan that would inaugurate a second round (in 1968) of responses to Minamata disease. (p.154)

- in 1958 almost no average citizens of Minamata showed or acted on any feeling of sympathy for the disease victim, few residents took the side of the patients. (p.154) Yet due to the action of a few people, the history on Minamata took a new direction. One of them was Akasaki Satoru, he was a city employee working as liaison between patients and the city government in driving patients to the hospital and bringing university doctors to the patients’ home. (p.155)

- another one was Ishimure Michiko who was the most important person in the movement on behalf of Minamata disease patients. As a writer she had developed a distinctive writing style, she presented the experience of common people. (p.155). She worked with people outside Minamata, one of them was photographer Kuwabara Shisei, and  organized photo exhibition for this photographer in order to spread the message of the disease.(p.157).

-another outsider was Harada Masazumi of the Kumamoto university medical school who was interested in learning more about the disease and had written a few books on the disease. (p.158) Ui Jun was another outsider whose commitment to the disease even it had harmed his own careers in the academia; he was graduated from the University of Tokyo. (p.160)

- Ui Jun discovered Dr. Hosokawa’s cat experiments and the latter told Ui to disclose this experiment to Ishimure. Through group effort, Ui published an annotated collection of documents on the story of the Minamata story. An abbreviated version was published in July 1968. (p.161) His book inspired others to be active on behalf of the disease victims. Ui became an assistant at the University of Tokyo in 1965.

- in the early and mid-1960s, the weakening of Shin Nitchitsu and its bitter splits with both the union and much of the city removed some of the constrains on those in Minamata who might wish to join Ishimure and Akasaki in activism. (p.162)

The Goi plant (in Chiba near Tokyo) that was run by Chisso Sekiyu Kagaku (Chisso Petrochemical) was under construction in 1962 and put into production in 1963. (p.163)

- strikes in the city in 1962-63 caused a split in the union, between the original union and the new second union. The most interesting group to appear during the strike was the Minamata Cultural Collective (established in 1962) which included Ishimure Michiko, Akasaki Saoru and Matsumoto Tsutomu. These three would become the founder and the core of the Citizen’s Council for Minamata Disease Countermeasures in January 1968. (p.167)

- Minamata disease and its victims might well have remained unheard and forgotten without the catalyzing effect of the Niigata pollution outbreak. Niigata Minamata disease was caused by a factory owned by Showa Denko at Canoes on the Agno River. A few scientists including Ui Jun, Hosokawa and Harada rushed to Niigata after the disease was discovered in June 1965. (p.175) They set up a support network for the victims who sued the company in 1967 and won the case in 1971. (p.176)

(to be continued)

Minamata: Pollution and the Struggle for Democracy in Postwar Japan

Recently I have read the following book. Its main points are:

Book title: George, Timothy. 2001. Minamata: Pollution and the Struggle for Democracy in Postwar Japan. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center: Distributed by Harvard University Press.

Main points:

Ch. One. This book describes the three rounds of responses to Minamata disease (a mercury poisoning event happened in Minamata starting from the 1950s). The first round began with the discovery of the disease in 1956 and ended with a partial settlement in 1959. It was an inconvenience and embarrassing dispute to the enshrined high growth as the project of post war Japan. The solution concluding the first round of response consisted of sympathy payment to victims. (p.7)

- Minamata was a story not just about environmental and human cost for rapid modernization, it was also about a corporation hiding its guilt, and the collusion at all levels of government and society, including the scientific community and media that allowed the tragedy to happen and then to be covered up.(pp.7-8).

- the second round was in the late 1960s and early 1970s, partly because of Minamata and other frightening environment diseases had appeared. It became both possible and virtuous for citizens to be politically active. Minamata was brought to the center stage. (p.8)

-yet problems remained – many victims were uncertified and therefore ineligible for compensation.  In the third phase, a full solution to the Minamata disease was agreed upon in 1995-6. (p.8)

- a problem remained: many victims were uncertified and therefore ineligible for compensation, the question of government responsibility remained unsettled. A third full solution to the Minamata disease was agreed upon in 1996. (p.8)

- Minamata incident raised a question central to an understanding of democracy in post war Japan, it was a site of industrial pollution, and it was the locus of the development of new forms of civic action. (p.8)

- a societal response to an environmental disaster said a great deal about the society. (p.9) Minamata was more than a symbol of the dark side of high growth and the flowering of citizen’s movement in fighting the corporation and a state (p.10) Minamata was the best example of how the Japanese people had tested and redefined the meaning of what they called not citizenship, civil society, but postwar democracy. (p.10)

Ch. 2 - Minamata from 1907 to 1955 shared much of the experience of Japans’ century of modern development that began in the mid-1800s. Before the coming of the factory, it was an active but pre-industrial economy. Minamata served as the home base of a company that was active through the Japanese empire and symbolized the leading edge of technological and industrial development. In 1945, Japan lost its overseas empire.  When demand for compensation for Minamata disease seemed likely to harm the company, many citizens would rally to defend it in order to defend the city. (p.40)

- fishing required less community cooperation than rice farming. Factory work and the slow spread of a cash economy also served to weaken this traditional fishing community. (p.41)

Ch.3. the unknown disease that afflicted Hamamoto Tsuginori was officially discovered on May 1, 1956. (p.45) Finally there was the effort by the victims to struggle with the disease, to obtain compensation for their suffering and losses. There were efforts of the company to evade responsibility, and city groups to protect the company in order to protect Minamata. (p.45)

- Ui Jun used a four-stage model to describe Minamata disease and Japan’s other major pollution incidents. First people became aware of the pollution; second, a search of the cause. At the third stage, counter theories were issued or sponsored by the polluter; in the fourth stage all the theories neutralized each other. (p.47) Between 1956 and 1959 the Minamata went through the first three stages. The fourth stage started in 1959 to 69. (p.47)

- in 1957 and 1958, the search for the cause was carried on mostly by the laboratories of the Kumamoto university medical school. (p.51)

- In late 1959 MITI needed to avoid harming the chemical industry (Shin Nitchitsu). The nation’s economic growth depended on increasing the international competitiveness of Japanese industry. (p.63)

Ch. 4. At the end of 1959, Minamata witnessed a three-part solution: the payment of compensation to fishing cooperatives, the awarding of sympathy money to patients, and the construction of pollution control equipment (which failed to remove the mercury pollution). This was a victory for Shin Nitchitsu. (p.71)

- the victim’s defeat highlighted the extreme weakness, politically, economically, socially, and physically. The victims were failed by the Left, by the media, and by their own leaders, and they were opposed in a united front of nearly all other organizations and citizens in Minamata. The conclusion to this first round of responses highlights the persistent contradiction between Japan’s democratic constitution and its political attitudes and practices. The second round which began a decade later, illustrated the important changes that occurred during 1955 to 1965. (p.71)

- compensating the victims of the disease appeared as mere an afterthought in the events of 1959 in Minamata. Part of the reasons was that the Minamata disease patients families mutual aid society, founded in 1957, was smaller, weaker and more divided than the Minamata fishing cooperative, or the Kumamoto prefectural alliance of fishing cooperatives. The mutual aid society did have one thing these other groups lacked: a colorful, imaginative leader known as Watanabe Eizo. (p.102)

- even before they demanded restitution from Shin Nitchitsu, the Minamata diseases patients, most of them were fishermen that had families immigrated to the city region, were objects of discrimination. For many years, fishing hamlets represented a rural life-style considered to be poor and dirty. (p.105)

- With the conclusion of agreement with the fishing cooperatives of Minamata of Kumamoto prefecture with the patients, the first full and final solution to the Minamata diseases issues was almost completed. If new patients appeared, a mechanism was in place to certify and pay them. The third promise was the pollution-control equipment which the company had rushed to install. It was a highly publicized system consisted of a cyclator and sedifloater designed by the Ebara Infilco Company. But the cyclator was planned before Kumamoto University announced its organic mercury theory that explained the cause of the disease. (p.115)

- the real crux of the matter was an imbalance of power. Suing the company would have meant challenging the political economy of the nation as a whole. In 1959, the victims lacked the political, social, and economic power necessary to do this. (p.120)

- the victims were not passive in 1959, but they were unable to find the support needed to tip the balance of power in their favor. When victims and their supporters brought the struggle to Tokyo over a decade later, they changed the rules of the game, and changed them more permanently. (p.121)

(to be continued)

日本人在海外過活達到131萬多人, 是過去最高

To-day the NHK News on-line reported the following:

海外在住の日本人 過去最高の１３１万人余りに

6月9日 4時09分

海外に３か月以上滞在したり、永住したりしている日本人の数は去年１０月の時点で、これまでで最も多い１３１万人余りとなっていて、国別では東南アジアを中心に増加率が高い一方、中国では減少していることが分かりました。

外務省が去年１０月の時点で、海外に３か月以上滞在したり、永住したりしている日本人の数を大使館などを通じて調べたところ、合わせて１３１万７０７８人と、前の年よりおよそ２万７０００人増え、これまでで最も多くなりました。
国別に見ますと、アメリカが４１万９６１０人と最も多く、次いで中国が１３万１１６１人、オーストラリアが８万９１３３人で、この３か国で全体のおよそ半数を占めました。
また、前の年と比べた増加率はベトナムが８．５％、タイが４．９％など、東南アジアの国を中心に高くなった一方、中国は前の年より２％減り、３年連続の減少となりました。
これについて、外務省は「経済成長が続く東南アジアでは日系企業の進出に合わせて、日本から赴任する従業員の数も増えているとみられるが、中国では大気汚染の悪化などの影響で、日本人従業員の赴任が減っているからではないか」と話しています。

(試譯文)

It was understood that as of October last year the number of Japanese who stayed in the foreign countries for more than 3 months, or resided permanently had reached a peak of about 1,310,000 people; and on individual country basis, the rate of increase was high centering on Southeast Asia, yet it also showed a decrease in China.

When the Ministry of Foreign Affairs through its embassies checked the number of the Japanese who stayed at foreign countries for more than 3 months or resided permanently as of October of last year, the number was 1,317,078 people in total, approximately a 27,000 people increase compared with the previous year and became the highest increase so far.

By individual countries, the United States had the highest with 419,610 people, followed by China with 131,161 people and Australia with 89,133 people; these three countries accounted for approximately half of the total amount.

Also, about the rate of increase compared with the precious year, Vietnam was 8.5%, Thailand 4.9 % etc. There was an increase centering on countries in Southeast Asia. China compared with the previous year had a two 2 % decrease and was a continuous decrease for 3 years.

About this, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that “in Southeast Asia, a continuous economic growth was seen together with a moving-in of Japanese-affiliated firms. There was an increase in the number of employee assignment from Japan. In China, could it be that due to the influence of air pollution deterioration, the assignment of Japanese employee to there being reduced?"

  It seems that Japan is increasing its trade connection with the Southeast Asian counties. 

Assembled in Japan: Electrical Goods and the Making of the Japanese Consumer

Recently I had read the following book. The main points in the second half of the book are:

Book title: Partner, Simon. 2000. Assembled in Japan: Electrical Goods and the Making of the Japanese Consumer. Berkeley: University of California Press

Ch.6 talks about a final key to the prosperity in Japan. It was the cheap labor of the underprivileged classes, particularly the young women. Cheap labor was Japan’s traditional advantage. It was surprisingly appropriate to the manufacture of the transistor in radios and TV. Japan made the potable transistor radio a great export success.

- When MITI learned that Totsuko had signed a contract without its approval, a major fracas ensued. According to Morita, it showed that the MITI bureaucrats could not see the use of such a device and were not eager to grant permission of the transistors industry. But according to Partner, the real issue was MITI’s reluctance to authorize a small and relatively unknown company to spend precious foreign exchange on a technology that might not be exploited effectively. (197)

- In conclusion, the book suggests four key to Japan’s prosperity. The first was the media, in particular the broadcasting, they understood the importance of mass communication and succeeded in bring TV to Japanese much sooner. The second was technology; the 1950s witnessed a great wave of technology importation. The third theme was the domestic market; a broad consuming middle class in Japan was envisioned. The final theme was Japan’s advantage in low-cost labor. (228)

- Partner criticizes Chalmers Johnson for too much focusing on MITI’s virtuoso use of the specific group of tools, including foreign exchange, foreign capital control, direct government finance and tax incentives. Partner asserts that many of these tools had little relevant to electronic consumption. Banking arrangement played virtually no role in spurring Japan’s consumer electronic industry. (232). MITI seemed to have underrated the importance and potential of consumer electronic.  MITI’s policy towards the creation of a domestic television industry was ambiguous (232). The role of MITI was to suppress import of consumer-oriented technologies in favor of strategic industrial technologies such as chemical and machine tools. Television was consumer industry and could not be considered as strategic. In the end MITI did little more than following the trend of the market when it approved 37 companies to import television technology while originally 3 to 4 would be adequate. (233)

- Partner listed out three reasons for the importance of electrical goods in Japan’s postwar history. He quotes five essential components of the early postwar era as a golden age of economic growth. These included the economic and political hegemony of the US, the rapid development of new technologies, the free market economic, the spread of ‘Fordist’ production and management techniques and lastly a transnational system of manufacturing. (234)

- Why then did Japan acquire such a dominant role in global electrical goods market when other low-wage countries were unable to match this achievement? The answer was that Japanese companies could master product technology, quality control, marketing in order to benefit from this low wage advantage. (239)

- As Japanese companies had no domestic military market to fall back on, they put their best people into the development of consumer application. As early as 1962, Sony came out with the world’s first fully transistorized television. (240)

- Technology could be seen as an enabler. It depended on the process of growth and social changes.  Mass purchase of labor-saving goods such as washing machine was dependent on sufficient change in traditional family structure in order to make the labor of women worth saving. (241)

- Business leader were dependent on the availability of new technologies, and on the effects of those technologies on society for the success of their endeavors. The relationship among business, technology and social changes were dynamic, mutually dependent, and was as complex as the labyrinthine workings of history itself. (242)

Assembled in Japan: Electrical Goods and the Making of the Japanese Consumer

Recently I have read the following book. Its main points are as follows:

Book title: Partner, Simon. 2000. Assembled in Japan: Electrical Goods and the Making of the Japanese Consumer. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Main points:

- the goal of the book was to examine the arrival of a mass consumer society in Japan (2).

-Partner argues that one of the keys to the prosperity of the electrical goods industry was the creation of a middle-class consuming public. By end of 1950s, consensus had emerged that consumption was a key ingredient in the political economy of high growth. There was an issue about the gender role. It entered the book in two ways:  companies came to see the housewife as a decision maker and manager of household consumption. At the same time electrical goods companies depended on the female workers to work for extremely low wages (3).

- Behind the growth of postwar Japanese electronic goods industry laid a profound continuity. Everything happened in the 1950s and 60s, including technologies, consumer culture, government policies and high growth had its antecedent in the prewar and war time eras (4).

Ch. One talks about the technologies and consumer culture, government policies and high growth that had its antecedent in the prewar and war time era. Yet continuities of growth and government policy were not enough in explaining the dynamic of Japan’s electrical technology. In explaining the role in the creation and growth of mass consumer market which came to Japan with explosive suddenness in the mid-1950s and helped Japanese electrical goods to achieve international competitiveness, the single most powerful motive propelling Japans’ technology development was the nation’s urge to achieve military parity with the West (42).

Ch.two. Notably the absent from MITI’s vision of Japanese’s economic future was the consumer. The consensus that personal consumption should play an important role in Japan’s economy and social recover did not emerge until several years later as discussed in chapter 5. This chapter concluded that the occupation years represent a fascinating period in 20^th century Japanese history. There were many forces at work. Both the American and Japanese tried to develop plans to introduce essential into Japan, but in most cases the motive was for personal gains. Between them, these diverse interest developed something approach a common vision for the future of Japan. The introduction of foreign technology was one key. Another was the creation a middle-class society structure that had mass demand for consumer goods. The third factor was the emphasis on the technology of mass communication with TV in particular. Cheap labor was a recipe for prosperity. (70)

Ch. 3 - the book argues that while entrepreneurs saw immense business opportunities in the emerging new technologies of mass communication, a newspaper manager Shoriki forged alliance with politicians, bureaucrats, and investors to bring television to Japan.In the conclusion, Partner argues that a common argument had credit the rapid introduction TV to MITI’s prescient industrial targeting. This argument failed to stand on its own. If MITI did see the potential in domestic television industry, it certainly failed to envision the development of an export powerhouse. (105)

Ch. 4 argues that the feast of technology represent only part of the story. Japanese companies had developed not only new products but also marketed their products. Japanese companies imported a wide range of production, management and marketing technique.

Ch. 5 - talks about the domestic market in Japan. As early as in the 1950s Japanese business leaders saw the American-style middle-class society was crucial to Japanese prosperity. These businessman pioneered new markets for expensive electoral products.

(to be continued)