After Japan’s triple-headed disaster on 11 March 2011 — the 9.0 earthquake, 10 meter tsunami, and nuclear crisis — many began to refer to the tragedies as ‘3-11’.

This was borrowing from the symbolism of 9-11 in the United States and the response to terrorist events on 11 September 2001. It suggested that the Japanese events were of such as scale as to be a historical watershed moment for Japan.

There were two interpretations of Japan’s predicament.

The first was that it marked the end of Japan’s golden age in the second half of the twentieth century. China had overtaken Japan as the second largest economy in the world; Japan faced huge demographic challenges; confidence in the political capacity to deal with mounting government debt had collapsed.

The alternative view was that, phoenix like, Japan would resurrect itself from crisis. Historically, events like modernisation during the late 19^th Century, the rebuilding following the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake and its 140,000 deaths, and reconstruction after World War II were cited as precedents.

Immediately after the disaster, I thought a third way more likely. Just as the 1995 Kobe earthquake did not signal a massive shift in Japan, it seemed unlikely that the Sendai disaster would either. Indeed, given the political, economic and social upheaval in 1995, what is surprising is how ‘normal’ everything seemed in 1996 with the LDP back in power, economic stagnation unresolved, and the Aum terrorists in jail. Tragic beyond belief though the Sendai disaster had been, it was not a likely harbinger to a radically different Japan.

This sanguine view underestimated, I confess, the impact of the stress on the population of Tokyo of living with the constant threat of nuclear irradiation, and the recurring aftershocks from the Sendai quake. While the natural disasters of the earthquake and tsunami may not have changed much in Japan, the unfolding man-made disaster of Fukushima could yet have lasting effects on the Japanese people’s attitudes towards the costs of development, the environment and the political affairs.

Three months on, my contrarian view that, beyond the immediate impact of the human tragedy,  the triple disaster changes little of Japan as we know it. The strength of cultural tradition and embedded institutions hold strong against shocks of nature and technological failure.

What evidence is there to sustain this view?

The recent victory of the pro-nuclear candidate in the election for the Aomori governorship, with 75 per cent of the vote, is one bit of evidence. The tragedy has receded from world headlines around the world. The economic and social effects of the disaster are confined narrowly to the Pacific Tohoku region and northern Tokyo. And most significantly, there has been a return to ‘normal’ national politics with prime minister Kan running the gauntlet of a no confidence motion, his unresolved future, Ozawa’s re-emergence, and talk of an LDP return with a ‘grand coalition’.

This is not a message of pessimism. It’s an optimistic story. It puts the impact of the disaster in its local perspective. It rates highly the capacity of Japan, above almost any country in the world, in managing the response to a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and 10 meter tsunami, with only one major technology crisis — at Fukushima. It’s hard to think of another society with such resilience and ability to respond so quickly and effectively to these problems.

The doomsday prognosis of natural disasters is not only hogwash; it encourages the irrational and extremists such as the Aum cult to justify antisocial behaviour.

Japan’s disaster of 11 March is hardly a 9-11 moment. It saw a huge and tragic loss of life. But above all it is a testament to the fortitude of Japanese institutions and traditions, Japan’s willingness to invest in preparation for these national emergencies and a witness to Japanese society’s resilience in the face of nature’s awesome power.

Kent Anderson is Director of the School of Culture, Language and History in the College of Asia and the Pacific at the ANU. This essay appears in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun (Nikkei) today.

1. The demographics of the triple disaster in Japan
2. Japan’s triple disaster and climate change policy
3. Keeping Japan’s disaster-damaged auto supply chains competitive

Author: Kent Anderson, ANU

I argued recently in the Australian Literary Review that the unpredictable natural disasters of Japan — the 9.0 earthquake, 10 meter tsunami and nuclear crisis — should not be shoehorned unnecessarily into a broader narrative about the direction of Japanese society, but it is still important to consider the wider implications of the tragedies.

In particular, the human tragedy of the 11 March disasters in Japan has an interesting demographic angle. As has been widely reported, Japan is a rapidly aging and low birth society. But, the demographic profile differs significantly by region. That uneven distribution means that the tsunami’s impact has not been indiscriminate, but demographically biased against the elderly.

Despite the macro-trends, urban Japan remains youth oriented and dynamic. Young adults have long left the countryside for the capital or the regional centres. As such, Tokyo remains a young and vibrant city, and finding good childcare remains a challenge as the 20-somethings and 30-somethings concentrate here with their only child. This scarcity and cost, of course, only exacerbates the tendency to have fewer children.

The same demographic profile — more young adults and comparatively fewer children and elderly — is also true for Japan’s regional centres, namely Sapporo, Sendai, Nagoya, Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe, Hiroshima and Fukuoka.

The key point regarding the disasters is that while Tokyo and Sendai shook fiercely during the earthquake, the amount of destruction and death in these densely populated urban areas was surprisingly limited given that a 9.0 quake is effectively off the scales for planning purposes. This is a testament to the architectural design of Japan, but it also reinforces the point that the damage and destruction was caused overwhelmingly by the tsunami. And, the tsunami did not hit any urban areas, but rather the sparsely populated small coastal villages of northeastern Japan.

Japan’s small coastal villages have undergone a significant greying ‘sea change’ over the past few decades with the hollowing out of the coast by the white-collar and industrial baby boomers and their children. This has left the baby boomers’ elderly parents and their agriculture and fishing siblings as the remaining residents of the coastal villages. One demographic positive of this is that farm families are comparatively fertile and these prefectures have had better than the national average in birth rates.

When the tsunami hit that very rural coast, however, it was ruthless. It captured all those in its path, but some demographic groups were better placed for eluding that path than others. The school-age children produced by the slightly better fertility rates could largely be saved by institutional planning. In the window between the earthquake, tsunami warning and coming of the wave, the schools were able to make a relatively orderly removal of children to designated higher ground. Some of their parents were okay as well, able to jump into the family car and speed up the valleys. Unlike their urban cousins, rural Japan has wide automobile ownership and disproportionately superior road infrastructure due to pork barrelling particularly during the long economic stagnation.

The elderly and infirm, however, were largely not able to rely on either Japanese institutionalised disaster preparation or individual mobility. Disproportionately the elderly were living alone in

the proverbial ‘grandmother’s house,’ which had been preserved when the baby boomers and youth moved away.

This demographic truth of a disproportionate impact on the elderly will have consequences for the rebuilding of Japan. If the government moves too quickly to rebuild infrastructure it will over-capitalise. For example, it will build more schools, post-offices, streets and plumbing than needed by the replacement demographic. Acting too quickly, it is foreseeable Japanese urban planners might use the most common template — that of an outer-suburb ‘bed-town’ or what we might call ‘nappy valley.’ It is very unlikely this is the demographic that will repopulate these areas.

There is an interesting Japan-specific twist on the likely returning demographic. Surviving relatives who live in Sendai and Tokyo will inherit land where families or patriarchs/matriarchs have been lost. Land in Japan and its associated ancestral plots carry obligations of maintenance, creating a hesitancy to sell the property for redevelopment. On the other hand, I foresee few of the former rural residents rebalancing life choices to return to seaside living. This seems particularly true with a heightened awareness of the danger of living on the coast in an area prone to serious earthquakes and tsunamis. Personal financing in Japan is also relatively tight at the moment following consumer reforms over the past decade. This means there is much less liquidity than when much of the lost building was made in the 1960s to 1980s. In short, despite the official zero interest rate, it is very likely that many of the surviving families and small businesses will not seek to or be able to rebuild.

Finally, this demographic story and its implications stand in stark contrast to the 1995 Kobe earthquake. Kobe is one of those regional cities that have both high population density and more than its fair share of people of working age. Kobe is also a vital port to the exporting nation. Moreover, the damage in both lives and destroyed infrastructure was less in the case of Kobe’s earthquake and fires. The urban dwellers in Kobe were also less culturally attached to the land making economically rational sales easier. Thus, immediately following the Kobe disaster people, businesses and the necessary financial partners were ready to return and rebuild, which they did with surprising speed.

Economically, the northeastern coastal towns will recover. The total economic contribution of this area was relatively small, and agriculture and fishing will be quick to return. The demographic make-up that creates a community, however, has been changed forever by the tsunami and that will be seen for the next generation, if not longer.

Kent Anderson is professor and director of the School of Culture, History and Language in the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific and holds a joint appointment with the ANU College of Law.

1. A hundred days after Japan’s triple disaster
2. Japan’s triple disaster and climate change policy
3. Japan’s earthquake and its economic impact

Languages are back in the news. As part of the national curriculum debate, English is one of the first cabs off the rank and Languages Other Than English are following in the second group.

The National Asian Languages and Studies in Schools Program also adds limited funding for the next three years to promoting four targeted languages.

Moreover, there is the slow burn of the crisis of language learning at both secondary level, where a pitiful 12 per cent of students who complete secondary schooling take languages in their final exams, and at the tertiary level, where the number of languages taught has fallen from 66 to less than 30 in the past decade.

This discourse is taking place against the backdrop of the financial crisis, which only heightens how important languages are in our rapidly and deeply globalised world, where the pension incomes of Australians are tied to the economic fortunes of North Americans, Asians and Europeans.

This is what globalisation ultimately means: international dependency of a depth that has never been experienced in human history.

When the economic and social fortunes of all countries are so directly and closely tied to those of other countries a debate about overcoming the all too real language education crisis in Australia is very much to be welcomed.

However, the way the national conversation about languages is framed is disappointing and ultimately futile. Australia has unique potential as an Anglophone but multilingual country with European institutions and traditions, at the edge of the fastest growing and most dynamic part of the world, with Asian friends and neighbours. Few would believe we have lived up to our national potential, which is only available through a rich understanding of a multitude of languages.

Despite recent intensified interest in language education we are concerned that today’s debates risk entrenching three fallacies.

The first is the ‘English will do’ fallacy. The second is that we have to choose between Asia and Europe. The third is that language education serves only a utilitarian purpose, a fallacy which argues that we need foreign language skills exclusively to serve the utilitarian purpose of promoting trade and international political relations.

Let us examine each of these misconceptions in turn. Too many advocates of languages fear that recognition of the unique and unparalleled importance of English in the world diminishes the case for other languages.

We feel the complete opposite is true. The reality of the global lingua franca role of English is undeniable. Recent estimates are that close to one-third of the population of the world either knows or is studying English.

Australia has a vast benefit derived in English medium education. To remove the native speaker advantage, countries in Asia, Europe and the Americas whose national languages are not English increasingly offer specialised business, technology and science programs in English to compete in this promising market. So why is this not bad news for other languages?

Because the millions of Chinese, Germans and Paraguayans who are learning and using English to communicate with Bulgarians and Americans alike are adding English to their Chinese, German and Spanish. As they become bilingual, it is only native speakers of English who remain monolingual. The disadvantage is reversed. While not knowing English is a disadvantage, knowing only English is a disadvantage too.

The second fallacy is the categorical choice we are often enjoined to make. Put aside Europe, we are part of Asia; or reject Asia and cleave to Europe. The dichotomy is absurdly false.

Is the French and Spanish spoken throughout the Pacific an Asian or European language; what about the Cantonese spoken in Canada?

More significant than the silliness of trying to apply Middle Aged typology to a 21st century mobile world, we need national language capability in both so-called Asian and European languages.

Each particular language has its distinctive needs. What Australia needs to do to ensure a national language capability in Vietnamese and Hindi, Spanish and German, is unique to each of those languages.

There is no Asian language category; even so-called character based languages are radically different from each other. We must teach in our schools and universities the key languages of Asia and the key languages of Europe. We must also support languages that do not fit neatly into secure geographic categorisations but which are important for Australian national interests (Arabic, Russian, and world languages such as Spanish).

Moreover, a humane and sophisticated languages policy sensitive to national need must find ways to support Aboriginal and community languages.

We should have a policy that aims to conserve the remarkable contribution that immigrant communities from all over the world make to the nation. Of course we agree that our schools cannot teach all languages, but students and communities provide these programs in vast numbers.

The final fallacy, and in some ways the deepest and most troubling, is the almost exclusively utilitarian approach to language learning that much of the recent discussion has taken. Of course, the trade and security reasons for studying languages are enormously important on a variety of levels, but ultimately the reason students should learn and study languages is a humanistic one.

First, we know that students may start a language for utilitarian purposes, but the research also teaches that it is what language brings beyond some potential future job that keeps students studying until their language proficiency is functionally useful.

Studying languages allows our students to encounter human differences in their most natural way and thereby to open themselves to an exploring and understanding of the self based on learning about the other.

There will always be a need for short term and specialised niche language teaching in particular languages, but the providers of this kind of training can do so best on the basis of a successful apprenticeship in bilingualism in schools.

Ultimately this is why we compel young Australians to be schooled. We want them to experience rich, humanistic education that asks questions about the civilisations of Europe and Asia, not to mention the Americas and Africa.

A language education policy that takes seriously the highest intellectual, cultural and civilisational ideals of the great experiences of humanity must be global, taking in both Asian and European and fusing these together to help forge a uniquely Australian world literacy.

Kent Anderson is professor of Asian studies and law at the Australian National University and director of the faculty of Asian studies. Joseph Lo Bianco is professor of language and literacy education at the University of Melbourne. This article originally appeared here in The Australian.

1. Asia literacy: making a good policy better
2. The education game
3. Education in China: a path to unity with diversity

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has made ‘Asia Literacy’ a key goal for his government. I am one of the strongest supporters of this agenda. Nevertheless, let me identify two significant issues that hamper our current approach.

First, Asia Literacy is a term that has to be interpreted broadly. It is commonly given too restricted a meaning. Doubtless the prime minister sees Asia literacy in its broadest meaning but it is important that language alone, however critical, will not make us an Asia literate nation.

On the language front, Asia Literacy in practice is represented by the National Asian Languages and Studies in Schools Program (NALSSP),essentially is a cheaper version of the Rudd-designed National Asian Languages and Studies in Australian Schools Program, or NALSAS, that ran from 1994-2002. NALSSP will put $62.4 million over three years into developing secondary teaching of Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian, and Korean.

Targeting these four languages as priorities is a pretty good bet. China is our largest trading partner; Japan is our largest export market; Indonesia is our closest neighbour; and if you were going to pick one country on which to take a punt Korea as our fourth largest trading partner provides pretty good odds.

Focus on these four languages, however, may yield short term gains but leave us exposed in the long term. On the one hand, few would have bet economically on Japan in 1950, China in 1970, or India in 1980. On the other, who would have predicted the need for Japanese speakers in 1930, Vietnamese speakers in 1950, or Arabic speakers in 2000. The ability to predict economic rise beyond a decade is fraught at best and the ability to predict crises is inherently the practice of a nearly impossible art.

Because picking ‘winners’ and ‘losers’ is so difficult, allowing more autonomy at the school level to select what best meets the local needs may be the best way to go. A mixed approach of targeted languages and local choices is another option. Under that scenario, my personal advice to school principals is to consider the option of Hindi and Tagalog along with Korean, and in light of our increasing engagement with our Pacific neighbours, French and Spanish.

Asia literacy and NALSAS-type funding also has unnecessarily created a vehement divide within the languages community. The European languages, community languages, and world languages professionals have seen the Rudd programs as coming directly at their expense. Whether justified or not the targeting of Asian languages has left those promoting and teaching the non-identified languages feeling that they are likely to get less of a static pie.

This is problematic because successful implementation of NALSSP-type policies requires support of the language programs in the local departments of education as well as schools. Asking French teachers to convert to teaching Indonesian may not be realistic in any event, and it leaves much passive aggressive resistance within the system.

The second major issue of Asia Literacy is the non-language half. One of the problems with promoting simply more languages generically is that for a predominately mono-linguistic country, this can be perceived as threatening as learning languages can be seen as ‘too hard’, elite, and ‘wog-ish’. A very reasonable response has been to encourage the learning of ‘Asian studies’ in English, as well as Asian languages, under the rubric of Asia Literacy.

Language without an understanding of the context in which it operates is an empty vessel. Inclusion of Asian studies is critically important as is relating language to other professional study. The risk is that Asian studies is used to dumb-down Asia Literacy. Indian cookery is substituted for an understanding of the Partition. The Beijing Olympics is taught rather than the Cultural Revolution. Manga and Anime substitute for The Tale of Genji and The Seven Samurai. And generalist Asian and international studies courses contain no depth.

Don’t misunderstand me: I think cookery, Olympics, and pop culture are all things worthy of teaching, but just as we need to teach our children about nutritious eating we also need to introduce them to substantive Asian studies. Failure to get the English language portion of Asia Literacy right will alienate both educators who need to find the space within in a crowded curriculum and students who can pick a bludge faster than you can say konnichi-wa.

It is in Australia’s short- and long-term interest to be ‘the most Asia-literate country in the West’. NALSSP-type programs will help achieve this. Less prescription on the languages covered and more depth to the non-language Asian studies aspects will shorten the odds of Asia Literacy delivering its promise.

1. How to improve Australia’s Asia literacy
2. Australia’s Asia literacy and an Asia Pacific Community
3. The language education debate: Speak, and ye shall find knowledge

Most driving accidents are caused by not appreciating the dangers in our blind spot – the overtaking truck, the momentary lapse of concentration. The same is true in international relations: consider how Schapelle Corby irrationally derailed Australia’s relations with Indonesia, or how the abduction issue in Japan derailed the historic engagement with North Korea. These are evidence of how events fired by domestic populism and fanned by tabloid media can undermine the most rational, calculated gains in international relations.

The Australia-Japan relationship has two blind spots that could undermine the obvious, rationally calculated collaboration on economic, political, security, and other affairs that make Australia and Japan the potential ‘bookends of peace’ in the Western Pacific. For Australia, the blind spot is underestimating the significance for Japan of China. For Japan, the blind spot is underestimating the significance for Australia of whales. These issues play in to domestic politics in both countries in unpredictable ways.

Australians have been told repeatedly that they ‘punch above their weight’ in international affairs and in Japan in particular. This is true when we plan, prepare and understand what special value it is that we can add to the international conversation. It is not true simply because we are Australians and export a lot.
Prime Minister Rudd’s recent visit to Japan received much less Japanese media coverage than it might have. Public reach is important in the conduct of international affairs. Australia does not automatically register on the Japanese radar screen. The preparation and planning of official trips to Japan have to take into account meticulously the highly organised nature of Japanese government. The Japanese public has a ‘them and us’ attitude on China. It is a central factor in Japanese international political psychology. Getting across to the Japanese public where we stand on managing the China relationship is important beyond being a large exporter and a good place to holiday. It gives us more street cred.

On the Japan side, there is little appreciation for the importance of the whaling issue and where most people come from on this issue in Australia (and New Zealand). Japanese officials in Australia might understand but in Tokyo the Ministry of Foreign Affairs allows the conservative fishing voice to carry the day because it assumes mistakenly that our passion over whales is roughly the same as the US. Tokyo fails to grasp the depth of Antipodean unwillingness to trade environmental issues for economic ones, which distinguishes us from the US. Not to mention the populist and nationalist sentiments that let losse taking whales ‘from our territory’.

Neither of these blind spots is accidents waiting to happen. But recognising them and adjusting policy they can be used to each other’s advantage. Knowing that Japan views the world through a China lens, can give Australia an extra lever in relations with Japan. Similarly, understanding the populist and nationalistic concern for whales in Australia, would allow Japan to modify its policies and buy goodwill in Australia. Good driving is not only about knowing where you are going (about vision and direction), and taking short cuts when they present themselves (about tactics and strategy), but it also about avoiding potential accidents lurking just out of your view (about the blind spots).

1. The state of the relationship with Japan
2. Whaling a small issue in relations between Australia and Japan
3. Whaling: What can law add to science, economics, ethics and politics?

A report submitted to Japanese Prime Minister Fukuda this week from 80 members of his Liberal Democratic Party proposing a drastic increase in the number of immigrants allowed into Japan. The report recommends immigration to a level of 10 per cent of the population. As the population is now roughly 128 million people, this would be roughly 13 million people or about 11 million more foreigners than there are in Japan today (yes, a population around half that of Australia’s moving to Japan)

The first issue I ask about (see ABC Radio) is Japan’s homogeneity, multiculturalism, and xenophobia. As Tessa Morris-Suzuki has most convincingly taught us, Japan is not purely homogeneous. Yet, by any standards it is probably the most homogeneous country in the world by ethnicity, religion, social-economic class, media and educational socialisation, history (and had a long period as a closed-country — the sakoku period). The introduction of a large number of people not within that mainstream will without a doubt result in friction. I assert this without commenting normatively on whether that is a good thing or bad thing. The virtue or otherwise of homogeneity is a matter for another day.

Consider the increase in Iranians following the first Gulf War or the increase in South Americans in response to liberalisation of permanent residency for ethnic Japanese foreigners in the early 1990s. Neither of these was as smooth as might have been possible. But, where have large influxes of ethnic minorities ever gone smoothly? Thus, I reject that the idea that Japan is xenophobic while acknowledging that the high ration of homogeneity in Japan makes multiculturalism more difficult.

An increase of immigration of the size suggested will without a doubt cause social friction, tension, and conflict. It will result in more questions about foreigner crime, and other anti-social behaviour will be attributed to the increase in foreigners. Most reading this will know that foreigner crime is over-reported in Japan and that once visa-overstaying is taken out of the mix, your average Japanese is more likely to be a criminal than your average foreigner in Japan. It is, in fact, the elderly who account for the largest increase in crime in Japan, which is understandable considering the Lost Decade and aging population. However, one should not underestimate the difference between domestic organised crime, which can appear familiar and controllable, and foreign-led organised crime, which is the primary source of anxiety in Japan because it seems to breach so many of the unwritten rules (eg use of guns, tacit understanding with police, visibility).

My second point in response to questions was about demographic change in Japan. The immigration proposal is directly linked to the aging and shrinking population in Japan. It is argued that increasing immigrants will address the shortfall in the working-aged population necessary for the economy to maintain if not grow. This is also repeated in the most recent government report on immigration which notes present policy is to have ‘more open acceptance of skilled foreign workers…[and] responding to a population-decreasing society’.

Demographic change is the biggest issue facing Japan for the next half century. It impacts all issues: politics, security, law, health, and everything in between. Thus, it is important touchstone to constantly return.

Immigration, however, is not a very effective way to impact aging demographics. Migrants tend to be too old and bring too many elderly with them to have serious impact on a country’s demographic profile. Nevertheless, in a multi-pronged approach to the demographic issue, it is one tool that can be used, along with policies aimed at increasing female and elderly employment participation rates and other policies to increase the birth rate.

The truly radical policy I would like to see the Japanese government explore further in responding to the demographic challenges is changing society to allow for a shrinking population. Can we envision a world where everything is not driven by growth of economic outputs, but rather using efficiency gains and fundamental changes in societal priorities to value a less financially robust but hopefully more humanistically balanced society? I admit this has not a small amount of Utopianism to it, but in light of global warming, energy crisis, food shortage, urban congestion, pollution, and so forth, I argue it is time to explore this vein seriously.

Finally my third point is a political one about an influx of foreigners. As we have seen in Australia, not to mention Europe and everywhere else receiving large in-takes of migrants, large incoming migration will attract a conservative response. I have no doubt Japan and its policy makers are smart enough to understand these equations and do the cost-benefit analysis necessary to make the decision regarding whether addressing demographic pressures is acute enough to warrant the predictable side-effects.

Japanese big businesses are pushing for an immigration policy that allows them to remain competitive in the globalised market. Politicians from an unexpected corner—the conservative heart of the long ruling Liberal Democratic Party—have responded with this provocative proposal. The benefit of the proposal is it exposes in the barest terms the struggle between economic growth and demographic change facing Japan. The proposal will most likely eventually be watered down, but an increase in skilled migration such as we are seeing coming from the Philippines and Indonesia for nurses and aged carers that directly addresses needs of the changed society is welcome. In addition and perhaps more importantly, however, Japan—and other aging and decreasing child birth countries following Japan such as Australia—need to begin to explore how a country can live with a smaller economic footprint so that prosperity in the post-developed state is not measured by those developing state markers of annual GDP growth.

1. Making migration work: Lessons from New Zealand
2. What Japan can do about its malaise
3. Japan searches its soul over Akihabara