LONDON — The reported remarks to members of the foreign press in Tokyo on Oct. 14 by Shizuka Kamei, Japan's minister for financial issues, made me wonder whether he was living in the real world — where nations are interdependent and must compete to survive.
Was he just dreaming about an idealized and imaginary Japan when it was hailed as "No. 1" economically?
His statements, if correctly reported, were strongly and unjustifiably anti-American and critical of market-based capitalism. His criticism of the attempts by Junichiro Koizumi to liberalize the Japanese economic structure to ensure that Japanese industry remains internationally competitive struck me as not only unfair but also regressive.