Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis

by Jared Diamond

  At the same time, some of my Japanese students, and many other Japanese people, point to numerous apologies offered by Japanese politicians, and ask, “Hasn’t Japan already apologized enough?” A short answer is: no, because the apologies sound contrived, unconvincing, and mixed with statements that minimize or deny Japanese responsibility. A longer answer is to compare Japan’s and Germany’s opposite approaches to dealing with their respective legacies of recent history, and to ask why Germany’s approach has largely convinced its former enemies while Japan’s approach has not convinced its main victims China and Korea. Chapter 6 described the many ways in which Germany’s leaders have expressed remorse and responsibility, and in which German schoolchildren are taught to face up to what their country did. Chinese and Koreans might be convinced of Japan’s sincerity by Japanese responses analogous to Germany’s: for instance, if Japan’s prime minister were to visit Nanking, fall on his knees before Chinese spectators, and beg forgiveness for Japan’s wartime massacres at Nanking; if throughout Japan there were museums and monuments and former POW camps with photos and detailed explanations of Japanese wartime atrocities; if Japanese schoolchildren were routinely brought on school outings to such sites in Japan, and to sites outside Japan such as Nanking, Sandakan, Bataan, and Saipan; and if Japan devoted much more effort to depicting wartime non-Japanese victims of Japanese atrocities than to depicting Japanese victims of the war. All of those behaviors are non-existent and unthinkable in Japan, but their analogues are widely practiced in Germany. Until they are practiced in Japan, Chinese and Koreans will continue to disbelieve Japanese scripted apologies, and to hate Japan. And as long as China and Korea are armed to the hilt while Japan remains without the means to defend itself, a big danger will continue to hang over Japan.

  All peoples depend for their existence on renewable natural resources, including trees, fish, topsoil, clean water, and clean air. All of those resources pose problems of management, about which scientists have already accumulated much experience. If the world’s forests and fisheries were managed according to recommended best practices, it might be possible to harvest forest products and aquatic food for the indefinite future, in quantities sufficient to meet the needs of the world’s current population. Sadly, though, much actual harvesting is still destructive and non-sustainable. Most of the world’s forests are shrinking, and most fisheries are declining or have already collapsed. But no country is self-sufficient in all natural resources; all countries have to import at least some resources. Hence in most countries there are government agencies, branches of international environmental organizations (like World Wildlife Fund and Conservation International), and local environmental organizations hard at work to solve these problems.

  The problems are especially acute for Japan. Until 1853, while Japan was closed to the outside world and did negligible importing, it was self-sufficient in natural resources. Forced to depend on its own forests, and alarmed by their declines in the 1600’s, Japan pioneered in developing scientific forestry methods independently of Germany and Switzerland, in order to manage its forests. Now, because of Japan’s population explosion since 1853, rise in living standards and consumption rates, large population crammed into a small area, and need for raw materials essential for a modern industrial economy, Japan has become one of the world’s biggest importers of natural resources. Among non-renewable resources, almost all of Japan’s needs for oil, natural gas, nickel, aluminum, nitrates, potash, and phosphate, and most of its needs for iron, coal, and copper, have to be imported. Among renewable natural resources, Japan ranks variously as the world’s leading or second-or third-leading importer of seafood, logs, plywood, tropical hardwoods, and paper and pulp materials.

  That’s a long list of essential resources for which Japan depends on imports. As any of these resources becomes depleted worldwide, Japan will be the first or one of the first countries to suffer the consequences. Japan is also the major country most dependent on imported food to feed its citizens. Japan today has the highest ratio (a factor of 20) of agricultural imports to agricultural exports among major countries. The next highest ratio, that for South Korea, is still only a factor of 6, while the U.S., Brazil, India, Australia, and quite a few other major countries are net food exporters.

  Japanese thus have good reason to view their country as resource-poor. One therefore expects that Japan, as the developed country with the most extreme dependence on resource imports, would be driven by self-interest to become the world’s leading promoter of sustainable resource exploitation. In particular, the rational policy would be for Japan to take the lead in sustainable exploitation of the world’s fisheries and forests on which Japan depends.

  Paradoxically, the reverse is true. As a director of World Wildlife Fund–U.S. and Conservation International, I hear a lot about the national policies of resource management with which these two organizations deal. I also hear a lot about Japan’s policies in particular, from my Japanese friends and colleagues. Japan appears to be the developed country with the least support for and the strongest opposition to sustainable resource policies overseas. Japanese imports of illegally sourced and non-sustainably harvested forest products are much higher than those of the U.S. or of European Union countries, whether calculated on a per-capita basis or as a percentage of total forest product imports. Japan is a leader in opposing prudent regulation of ocean fishing and whaling. Here are two examples.

  My first example involves Atlantic and Mediterranean Bluefin Tuna, which is especially prized and consumed in Japan as sashimi or sushi. A single big imported tuna fish recently sold in Japan for the stunning price of more than $1,000,000. Those tuna stocks are in steep decline from overfishing, and that’s stimulating counter-efforts to preserve this valuable resource by agreeing on sustainable catches and by imposing fishing quotas. Incredibly, when those tuna stocks were proposed in 2010 for international protection (so-called CITES listing), Japan wasn’t the initiator of the proposal. Instead, Japan viewed it as a diplomatic triumph to have succeeded in blocking the proposal.

  My second example is that Japan today is the leading and most insistent whaling nation. The International Whaling Commission determines quotas for hunting whales. Every year, Japan legally circumvents those quotas by killing large numbers of whales for the supposed purposes of research, then publishes little or no research on those dead whales and instead sells them for meat. Yet Japanese public consumer demand for whale meat is low and declining, and whale meat is wasted for dog food and fertilizer rather than for human consumption. Maintaining whaling represents an economic loss for Japan, because its whaling industry has to be heavily subsidized by the government in several ways: direct subsidies to the whaling ships themselves; additional costs of more ships to escort and protect the whaling ships; and the hidden costs of so-called “foreign aid” paid to small non-whaling countries that are members of the International Whaling Commission, as a bribe in return for their pro-whaling votes.

  Why does Japan pursue these stances? My Japanese friends suggest three explanations. First, Japanese people cherish a self-image of living in harmony with nature, and they did traditionally manage their own forests sustainably—but not the overseas forests and fisheries that they now exploit. Second, Japanese national pride dislikes bowing to international pressure. Japan especially does not want to be seen as giving in to the anti-whaling campaigns of Greenpeace and the Sea Shepherd, and to international pressure to regulate the Bluefin Tuna fishery. One could describe Japan as “anti-anti-whaling” rather than pro-whaling. Finally, awareness of Japan’s limited home resources has led it for the last 140 years to maintain, as the core of its national security and a keystone of its foreign policy, its claimed right of unrestricted access to the world’s natural resources. While that insistence was a viable policy in past times of world resource abundance, when supplies exceeded demands, the policy is no longer viable in today’s times of declining resources.

  To an outsider like myself, who a
dmires Japan, its opposition to sustainable overseas resource use is sad and self-destructive. Efforts to grab overseas resources already drove Japan to self-destructive behavior once before, when it made war simultaneously on China, the U.S., Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands. Defeat then was inevitable. Now, too, defeat is again inevitable—not by military conquest, but by exhaustion of both renewable and non-renewable overseas natural resources. If I were the evil dictator of a country that hated Japan and wanted to ruin it without resorting to war, I would do exactly what Japan is now doing to itself: I would destroy the overseas resources on which Japan depends.

  Finally, let’s consider what lies ahead for Japan in the light of our 12 predictive factors. As a mere academic exercise, we could just ask whether our factors predict that Japan is or is not likely to succeed in solving its current problems. More usefully, we can suggest how understanding of the predictive factors could be used by the Japanese to craft solutions, and to cut through some of the obstacles that they are now creating for themselves.

  One cause for optimism is Japan’s history of success at resolving crises (factor #8 in Table 1.2). Twice in modern times, Japan has provided outstanding national success stories of re-appraisal and selective change. The most drastic changes came with the Meiji Restoration beginning in 1868. The forced opening of Japan by Commodore Perry’s fleet in 1853 raised the specter that Japan, like so many other non-European countries, might be taken over by Western powers. Japan saved itself by a crash program of selective change. It jettisoned its international isolation, its government by a shogun, its samurai class, and its feudal system. It adopted a constitution, cabinet government, a national army, industrialization, a European-style banking system, a new school system, and much Western clothing, food, and music. At the same time, it retained its emperor, language, writing system, and most of its culture. Japan thereby not only preserved its independence, but also became the first non-Western country to rival the West in wealth and power. Again, after World War Two, Japan made further drastic selective changes, jettisoning its military tradition and its belief in its emperor’s divinity, adopting democracy and a new constitution, and developing or reviving an export economy.

  Another big cause for optimism is Japan’s track record of patience and ability to recover from failure and defeat (factor #9), as acknowledged by Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, whose criticisms of Japan I quoted previously: “In spite of my experiences during the Japanese occupation and the Japanese traits I had learned to fear, I now respect and admire them. Their group solidarity, discipline, intelligence, industriousness, and willingness to sacrifice for the nation make them a formidable and productive force. Conscious of the poverty of their resources, they will continue to make that extra effort to achieve the unachievable. Because of their cultural values, they will be lonely survivors after any catastrophe. From time to time they are hit by the unpredictable forces of nature—earthquakes, typhoons, and tsunamis. They take their casualties, pick themselves up, and rebuild.… I was amazed at how life was returning to normal when I visited Kobe in November 1996, one-and-a-half years after the [massive] earthquake. They had taken this catastrophe in their stride and settled to a new daily routine.”

  Other factors of my checklist in Japan’s favor are the freedom of choice that Japan gains from being an island archipelago without neighbors sharing land borders (factor #12), offset by its overwater proximity to China and Korea; its strong national identity, pride, and cohesion (factor #6); the friendly support or at least benevolent neutrality that Japan receives from its many trade partners other than China and Korea (factor #4); and the available models that other countries offer for solving some of Japan’s main problems, should Japan choose to draw on those models (factor #5: see below). Further major advantages of Japan are its economic strength, its human capital, its culture, and its environment as discussed in the first pages of this chapter.

  Offsetting these advantages are three factors on my checklist. I mention them not in order to foster pessimism, but instead to focus attention on attitudes that Japan will have to change if it is to succeed in solving its current problems. One obstacle is a traditional core value that has now become inappropriate because of changed circumstances (factor #11): Japan’s continued effort to secure unrestricted access to the world’s natural resources as if they were superabundant, instead of leading international cooperative efforts to harvest dwindling resources sustainably. Another obstacle is Japan’s narrative of World War Two that focuses on self-pity and viewing Japan as the victim, rather than on accepting Japan’s responsibility for the war and for Japanese actions (factor #2). In national politics as in personal life, no progress can be made towards solving a problem as long as one denies one’s own responsibility. Japan will have to follow Germany’s example of acknowledging responsibility, if Japan wishes improvement in its relations with China and Korea.

  The remaining obstacle is what appears to me a lack of honest, realistic self-appraisal in several key spheres (factor #7). Two examples are those just-mentioned issues of imported resources and World War Two narrative. Another example is Japan’s mistaken belief in the supposed cardinal importance of preventing population decline. While a decline from the current 127 million to 20 million would indeed pose problems, I see no disadvantages in a decline to 80 million, and instead a huge advantage: namely, reduction of Japan’s hunger for imported resources, which has cursed modern Japanese history. Japan is strong because of its many qualitative advantages discussed at the beginning of this chapter, and not because Japan’s current population happens to be 127 million and equal to Mexico’s rather than 81 million and equal to Germany’s.

  Still another area calling for self-appraisal is immigration. That’s the method that many countries use to solve problems that Japan perceives as serious: especially, the declining ratio of young workers to older retirees, the few available options for child care, and the inadequate number of caretakers for older people. One option is for Japan to consider immigration modeled on Canada’s highly successful immigration program, or on the experiences of Japanese emigrants themselves to the U.S. and to South America. An alternative option is for Japan to continue to say no to immigration and instead to put into practice some of the obvious alternatives: e.g., expanding the native Japanese workforce by removing the well-known obstacles keeping women out of the workforce, and greatly expanding the number of term visas issued to guest workers to serve as child-care providers, nurses, and caretakers for old people. There is no secret about these various possible solutions, each of which has its own advantages and disadvantages. What’s required is to bite the bullet, reach consensus on one solution, and avoid the current continued paralysis.

  How will all of these questions work themselves out for Japan in the next decade? Realistically, the problems that Japan now faces are less formidable than the ones that it faced when its long policy of isolation was abruptly ended in 1853, or when Japan lay shattered in defeat in August 1945. Japan’s successes in recovering from those traumas give me hope that today, once again, Japan can selectively re-appraise its core values, jettison those values that no longer make sense, retain those that still do make sense, and blend them with some new values appropriate to changed modern circumstances.

  FIG. 8 Map of the United States

  CHAPTER 9

  WHAT LIES AHEAD FOR THE UNITED STATES? STRENGTHS, AND THE BIGGEST PROBLEM

  The U.S. today—Wealth—Geography—Advantages of democracy—Other advantages—Political polarization—Why?—Other polarization

  As of the moment that I write these lines, the U.S. is not experiencing an acute crisis comparable to that of Japan following Perry’s uninvited visit on July 8, 1853. However, most Americans will agree that the U.S. does face serious problems. Many would agree that our current situation rates as a slowly unfolding crisis, like that of post-war Germany or Australia. Our problems include internal ones of American society and politics, as well as e
xternal ones of foreign relations.

  For example, among our foreign relations problems, many Americans are concerned about the long-term threat to us from the rise of China, which already has the world’s second-largest economy after that of the U.S. China’s population is more than four times bigger than ours. China’s economic growth rate for years has consistently exceeded not only ours but also the growth rate of every other major country. It has the world’s largest number of soldiers and (after the U.S.) second-largest military spending. It has possessed nuclear weapons for half-a-century. It already outstrips the U.S. in some spheres of advanced technology (such as alternative energy generation and high-speed rail transport). Its dictatorial government can get things done much faster than can our democracy hobbled by two parties and by checks and balances. To many Americans, it seems only a matter of time before China overtakes us economically and militarily. We increasingly hear claims that the 21st century will become an Asian century—specifically, a Chinese century.

  I agree that these concerns cannot be lightly dismissed. On the one hand, throughout my life, in each decade there have been reasons to consider that particular decade as posing the toughest problems that we Americans have ever faced—whether it was the 1940’s with World War Two against Japan and Nazi Germany, the 1950’s with the Cold War, the 1960’s with the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam War that lacerated American society, and so on. But even when I tell myself that we should be suspicious because every decade has seemed at the time to be the one offering the most cause for anxiety, I still have to agree: the current decade of the 2010’s really is the one offering the most cause for anxiety.

  Hence it seems appropriate, after the previous chapter discussing what lies ahead for Japan, to consider in this chapter and the next one (Chapter 10) what lies ahead for the U.S. Just as in the case of my chapter on Japan, I’ll avoid focusing one-sidedly on what’s wrong with the U.S. Instead I’ll first ask what are the U.S.’s long-term fundamental advantages. For each of those advantages, I’ll briefly evaluate China in that same sphere, in order to assess the realism of our fears that time is on China’s side and against us. Of course, other countries besides China—especially North Korea, Russia, and Afghanistan—pose problems for the U.S. But it’s more useful for the purposes of this book to compare the U.S. with China than with those other countries, which pose more narrowly focused problems for the U.S. than does China. I’ll then set out what I see as the U.S.’s current fundamental problems—not the problems of immediate concern for the 2020 elections, but the problems that I expect to remain at the forefront over the next decade. As in the preceding chapter on Japan, I’ll discuss just problems specific to the U.S., and I’ll save for Chapter 11 the broader world problems that also affect the U.S. Finally, I’ll ask whether this book’s dozen outcome predictors suggest what may help us or hurt us in solving those fundamental problems.