Word: japanism
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...seized by visions of a rerun of 1997's "Asian contagion," when a financial crisis in Thailand triggered stock crashes from Jakarta to Moscow to New York. On Feb. 28, as this new outbreak of investor gloom spread, India's main stock index tumbled 4%, Singapore's dropped 3.7%, Japan's fell 2.9%, South Korea's lost 2.6%, and Hong Kong's slipped...
...That helps to explain why, for example, Japan's stock index took such a hit on Feb. 28 after approaching a seven-year high earlier in the week. Toyota, Sony et al would surely feel it if a slowdown in the U.S. proves sharper than expected. But will it? On the same day that the dismal durable goods number came out, a monthly survey of U.S. consumer confidence rose unexpectedly, and so did the latest figures for existing U.S. home sales. In other words, a painful U.S. slowdown is not, by any means, a given. And for those...
...that skill is still in the service of a military that is, as the name says, a self-defense force - with most of the actual force provided by Japan's omnipresent American allies, treaty-bound to defend Japan. (The division of labor is obvious at Iwakuni - the U.S. keeps nearly half of the base to itself, shares most of the rest with Japan, which solely operates only 0.5% of the property.) Still, as the country's politics change to allow a more assertive foreign policy, Japan may not remain a stealth military power for long...
...specter of a rearming and aggressive Japan gives the rest of Asia flashbacks to WWII, but the truth is that Iwakuni, like all Japanese military facilities, is far more defensive than offensive. While missile-armed FA-18 Hornets launch daily from the American side of the base, Japan's hangars are filled with craft like the MH-53, which sweep for mines, and the US-1A, a giant propeller-powered flying boat that has participated in hundreds of sea rescues...
...actual lunch. But Lt. Sagawa has a much surer hand that I do. "Once you get in that seat, you know right away who can do it and who can't," he says, with the confidence of years of training. It's not just superior technology that makes Japan's military better in many ways to its Asian neighbors, but superior human capital - not unlike the formula Japan used to become the world's second-largest economy...