"Why do we have to aim for the world's No. 1 — what's wrong with being the world's No. 2?"
Ever since that short question about Japan's vaunted K computer was posed live on national television in November 2009, Japan's policymakers have been haunted by their need to justify the ¥112 billion of taxpayers' money the project has soaked up since 2006.
The questioner was the sharp-tongued Diet member Renho, and she was directing her arresting inquiry at science and technology ministry bureaucrats summoned to one of the government's jigyō shiwake (budget-reviewing) sessions.