Economist.com Cities Guide: Tokyo Briefing - September 2005

News this month

A landslide

September 11th brought a far-from-unexpected result in the elections to Japan's lower house of parliament, with the Liberal Democratic Party-led coalition government of Junichiro Koizumi, Japan's prime minister since 2001, winning a two-thirds majority in the snap poll. The LDP took 296 seats in the 480-member lower house, and its coalition partner, the New Komeito Party, won a further 31. The main opposition party, the Democratic Party of Japan, lost 64 of its 177 seats.

The result is a vindication of Mr Koizumi's agenda to reform both his own party and Japan's troubled economy. It also strengthens the LDP's stranglehold on Japan's democracy, where it has held power for all but ten months of the past half-century. Mr Koizumi, although basking in victory, confirmed that he still intends to step aside in September 2006.

Textbook tantrum

The debate over how to teach Japanese history flared up again in September, when one of Tokyo's 23 wards began using a textbook that many say whitewashes the country's wartime atrocities. When the book passed the Ministry of Education's screening process earlier this year, it provoked fury from China, South Korea and other victims of Japan’s imperialist era. Until recently, the textbook was used only in a handful of schools, allowing the government to play down its importance. But with two public schools in Tokyo now using the book, the national total of students reading it is about 16,300—or 0.44% of all junior high school pupils.

The Japanese Society for History Textbook Reform, which produced the book, has been emboldened by Suginami ward's decision. The society, made up of revisionist historians and academics, will publish a new geography textbook in time for 2009, which is the next window for submitting new textbooks to the government screening process. The book is expected to include contentious labelling of small islands that are claimed by China.

Coral claims

Japan and China need not wait for the geography textbook to argue about territory. Two modest rock outcroppings in the Pacific Ocean, known in Japan as Okinotorishima, are at the centre of a dispute that has already provoked sour exchanges.

China's government claims that the outcroppings are too small to be considered islands, so their presence does not extend Japan’s fishing rights into waters they say are their own. Meanwhile in Tokyo, thousands of miles away from the islets, the Fisheries Agency is working on a scientific solution to the issue. The agency has asked for ¥400m ($3.7m) in next year’s budget in order to study ways to encourage coral to grow faster, to increase the landmass of the two rocks to the point where they are indisputably considered islands.

Quaking

Tokyoites are generally fatalistic when the subject turns to earthquakes. But their famous sang froid turned into a cold sweat in early September, when scientists revealed disturbing new geological findings. It seems that Tokyo is built on a fairly thick layer of soft loam that is, in turn, enclosed by a hard mortar-shaped bowl of bedrock. The new theory, according to university researchers working with the Central Disaster Prevention Council, is that in the event of a major quake, seismic waves would “echo” back and forth between the walls of the bedrock, thereby extending the shaking of the soft topsoil.

It has been 82 years since the Great Kanto quake destroyed most of Tokyo, claiming nearly 150,000 lives. Until recently, city authorities believed they had done everything possible to minimise the potential damage of future earthquakes. But Masanori Hamada, a professor at Waseda University, warns that planning has not taken into consideration the “long-cycle seismic vibrations” that Tokyo's peculiar geology would create. Matters were not helped by a recent announcement that a lift cable in the Mori Tower, Tokyo’s tallest office block, snapped during an earthquake 200km away in Niigata last October.

Place your bet

With the professional baseball season nearing its denouement, hopes are high in Osaka that its notoriously inconsistent team, the Hanshin Tigers, may be about to break a 20-year losing streak and claim the coveted Japan Series Championship. The economic effects of a Hanshin win are expected to be huge, with more people eating out, travelling to live games and buying Hanshin-branded goods. For those who believe Hanshin will win, the Goldman Sachs Rokko Oroshi equity warrant offers a basket of nine stocks (railway company, brewery, clothing maker, etc) that could enjoy a boost in the event of a victory. For cold-hearted realists in Tokyo, who revel in Hanshin’s potential for last-minute disaster, Goldman Sachs offers a “put” option on the warrant, enabling them to short-sell Osaka.

Panda panic

Grudgingly admitting defeat, officials at Ueno Zoo in the centre of Tokyo have sent a childless giant panda back to her home in Mexico. In December 2003, Shuan Shuan was loaned for a year from Chapultepec Zoo in the hopes that the she would appeal to Ling Ling, the 20-year-old star attraction of Ueno Zoo and a panda who has historically shown scant interest in procreation. His long-term companion, Tong Tong, died of cancer five years ago without producing an heir, underlining the considerable difficulty of persuading captive pandas to breed.

Shuan Shuan’s visit to Japan was extended by a second year, during which time she became a favourite with visitors. Unfortunately, Ling Ling remained unimpressed.

Catch if you can

October 2005

Gustave Moreau

Until October 23rd 2005

The Japanese are fond of Gustave Moreau (1826-1898), a French symbolist who taught at Paris's École des Beaux-Arts. His elaborate, fin-de-siècle classicism has garnered him fans here, as has his role as a sensei (renowned teacher) for such artists as Pierre Matisse and Georges Roualt. The Moreau Museum in Paris has lent several important pieces, including “The Unicorns” and “The Apparition” (pictured), to Tokyo's Bunkamura Museum. Moreau's rather overwrought depictions of Biblical themes may not be for everyone, but the gallery and museum at the Bunkamura are well worth exploring.

Bunkamura Museum of Art, Dogenzaka 2-24-1, Shibuya-Ku, Tokyo 150-8507. Tel: +81 (03) 5777-8600. Shibuya station. Open: daily, 10am-7pm, Fri-Sat until 9pm. Tickets: ¥1,300.

See also the Bunkamura's website.

More from the Tokyo cultural calendar