Word: reformer
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...Maybe so, but a number of voices around Tokyo's Otemachi financial district remain worried. Although Japan Inc. is no doubt making progress on some structural-reform initiatives and investors are enjoying a respite from gloom and doom, many doubt whether all the ingredients are in place for a genuine, lasting recovery. "The weakness in the preceding year was hard to explain," says Richard Jerram, chief economist at ING in Tokyo, "but a lot of people are trying to make this [rally] into something it isn't." Scratch beneath the surface on some of the headline-making numbers and Japan...
...economy were basically healthy, then most of the recent economic indicators would justifiably be taken as the classic signs of an economy in recovery." But Japan's economy is not basically healthy, he argues, at least not yet. Although there have been some gains in areas such as financial reform (for example, bad loans at the nation's large banks declined in 2002 for the first time in six years), progress in other areas of the economy has been scanty. Deflation persists, public debt still totals a daunting 140% of GDP and unemployment remains relatively high...
...Indeed, despite frequent claims that structural reform is finally taking hold, Japan Inc. overall is not getting measurably more efficient. Although many companies have successfully cleared out excess debt, labor and capacity by cutting costs and streamlining operations, Katz argues that such improvements have so far been confined mainly to large companies. That's good news for lots of punters, but it is less significant for the economy as a whole. Katz notes that according to the Finance Ministry, Japan's 5,600 largest companies employ only 11% of the workforce and account for just 17% of GDP. And although...
...long operated with virtual impunity, earning a reputation with citizens as unprincipled thugs more concerned about hitting arrest quotas and fleecing the masses than protecting and serving. But after several highly publicized incidents of malfeasance and incompetence, China's cops are undergoing a process of unexpected introspection?and even reform. Over the past several months, the Ministry of Public Security, the national police force, has banned the use of torture during the interrogation of suspects, abolished "custody-and-repatriation" rules that enabled police to detain migrant workers with little cause, and ordered city cops out of their stations and into...
...Chinese reformers argue that real improvement will come only if police subject themselves to oversight by prosecutors' offices. But Zhou has resisted this?and has even moved in the opposite direction. Unlike his predecessors, he has been named vice chairman of the party's powerful Political and Legislative Affairs Committee, which oversees judicial matters. That means everyone from the Minister of Justice to the country's top judges must gain Zhou's approval when prosecuting sensitive cases. And he has replicated the system at lower levels by encouraging local chiefs to lead their towns' political committees, giving them the power...