Japanization: What the World Can Learn from Japan's Lost Decades

Chapter 4The Fukushima EffectHow Rampant Cronyism Holds Japan Back

The coastal city of Natori is typical for northeastern Japan. Located along the fertile plains of the Masuda River, Natori is part of Miyagi Prefecture, one of six that make up the Tohoku region, a remote area known as much for breathtaking scenery and severe weather patterns as for its thriving fishing and agriculture trades. For Natori’s 72,000 people, the morning of March 11, 2011, was one like any other. The forecast was for rain that Friday, the fish market was abuzz with activity, school buses shuttled children to class, and office workers were toiling away with thoughts of the weekend. No one could have known Natori was hours away from global infamy.

At 2:46 p.m. that day, a magnitude 9 earthquake, the biggest known to have ever hit modern Japan, struck roughly 43 miles east of Tohoku’s Oshika Peninsula. The ground under Natori rumbled violently for an estimated six minutes. But that was just the beginning of the day’s deadly events. Thirty minutes later, the first signs of water appeared in the city center. What started as a slow trickle morphed into giant waves as high as 133 feet. Within two hours, a city with known roots back to 1867 virtually disappeared.

Natori became ground zero for the world’s first images of what Japanese call “3/11.” It was featured in the first news footage that blanketed a world that had come to think of tsunamis as a concern for developing nations, not a first-world power ...