TOKYO and LONDON -- The 17th annual meeting of the U.K.-Japan 21st Century Group -- the bilateral think tank set up by Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher way back in the '80s -- took place this year on Awaji Island in Kobe Bay, island of gods and puppets and, of course, of earthquake fault lines -- a chill reminder that the whole landscape of life can shift suddenly and violently and that nothing is totally secure or permanent in human affairs.

The central theme at the gathering was the predictable and obvious one that all foreigners bring to such international meetings nowadays, namely: When is Japan going to recover, revive, restructure, turn around, pick up, catch up, take off again, stop stagnating, go forward or however you like to phrase it?

The question is simple, the answers extremely complicated.