 Laura, think tech. It's the one o'clock block. It's looking to the east and we are in touch with Steve Zercher in Kobe, Japan, where he is a professor and dean at the Kansai Gaidai University there. Welcome back to the show, Steve. Nice to see you. Yeah, thank you so much. Always a pleasure to share stories with you, Jay, about what's going on in Japan and contrast that with what's going on in the United States. Yeah, and well, sometimes the operative word would be to compare rather than contrast because Japan follows the United States in so many ways. But can you talk about the current situation in terms of the number of coronavirus cases and deaths right and how the government and the community is reacting. Sure. Yeah, I agree with your point that politically from World War Two America has followed in the footsteps, especially when it comes to foreign policy and other major issues but at least on COVID. Japan has not followed the United States, which has been a fortunate thing. So like for example, I just want to show your American viewers. I'm wearing a mask. I'm in my office here by myself but I'm still wearing a mask. It's funny to see in Japan. I'll be driving on the road. People are in their cars by themselves wearing a mask. It's just it's so fundamentally a part of the Japanese culture that they wear masks, even when they're by themselves. It's like my wife when she's talking on the phone. She's bowing. You know the person of course on the other side of the phone doesn't know that she's bowing but it's such a part of culture. She'll say I didn't get those I must thank you so much. So this mass culture is certainly an example of something very distinct. If you want to compare to United States right where masks become a political issue. This is a statement isn't it. It is. It's remarkable. Yeah, but they're really saying is look at me. I am community minded. Look at me. I care about the people in the community and I'm a good person because I'm wearing a mask. Yeah, there's a subtle maybe even stronger than subtle social pressure in this country to adhere to community goals and standards. And masks are a fundamental part of that protect like the use of masks before COVID. For two reasons, and it was usually during this time of year 50% of the people were using masks. The first reason is because of allergies. So they're trying to protect themselves from breathing the pollen. The second is if you're sick. You don't want to infect others. So you wear a mask to protect other people. That always when I've got here as a student and I recognize people are wearing masks, not to protect themselves always, but to protect others. It was like, wow, this is very different from where I come from from America. Yeah, but you know, from a medical point of view, that's pretty much so people think that it's going to protect them but it's actually protecting everybody else from yes. That's right. And you're wondering where that where that fits in terms of the Japanese perception, but let's let's talk about, you know, what's going on in terms of the case. Sorry, I kind of, yeah, I was, I was going into my professorial role there and avoiding that the question from the student and talking about things that I want to talk about but anyway, let me address your question. I just took take a look at the last statistics. So in total, so far, you know, the Japan is at 18,476 infections. Now just to put that into perspective, the US yesterday had 36,000 infections. So the US yesterday in one day had more to twice as many infections as Japan has had this entire period. It's remarkable. The number of deaths to it's it's completely off the scale difference between Japan and the United States so Japan even though, as I was mentioning to you before we went on air. There seems to be a little bit of an upward tick. In terms of the infections for a long run there they were in the 20 to 30 range. They're going into the 50 and 60 range. This is just in Tokyo alone for the country is probably 80 to 100. But overall Japan is still considered to be a success in terms of how I wouldn't say the government necessarily but how the culture, how this mask part of the culture has helped to defeat COVID. If you compare Japan to the other G seven countries which are all in much more difficult situation France and Germany, United States and so forth. Well, when you you've been parallel to us in so many ways. So, okay, we were hesitant to start doing anything. You were hesitant to start doing anything. Correct. Then we got into a kind of national lockdown. You got into a national lockdown. Right. And, you know, everybody was mindful of social distancing. Okay, and then and then the next step was reopening, you know, and I think Trump had a lot to do with that. He got up and said we're back. We're done. Yeah, all finished, which was really an absurd statement because there was no evidence whatsoever to support the fact that we were done and we finished and we had beaten it we won the war. It was kind of ridiculous. And I think that affected the world. Everybody, you know, so many countries took that to heart, even though there was no evidence to support it. And the, and the word of the day was reopened and Japan reopened. Okay, so the question is when Japan reopened the Japan take off the masks, stop doing social distancing. It was interesting to observe the mask phenomenon still continues, even with the lifting of the national emergency. So, as I mentioned, people in their cars are using masks at a much higher level than before. When you go on the streets in the train stations, 99% of the people are wearing masks so even though the government is not saying that or repeating that as a message. The Japanese society as a whole has incorporated that into a protective measure so that is continuing after the national emergency was lifted though. Incrementally you could see day by day, the business was increasing so traffic was getting heavier the trains were were more filled a business activity was picking up. So it took about a week or so of kind of incrementally regaining the same kind of economic energy that existed before the national emergency before COVID actually took place. So, I think you know I'll be is influenced by the United States America, Japan is influenced by the United States strategies and policies, but also in Japan just like in the United States the influence of business on the Japanese government, especially the current party actually the only party that's run Japan since World War Two, the LDP the Liberal Democratic Party, I mean they're funded by the government by the business and so forth. So, Abe had to balance the interest of public health against the interest of business. I think in the United States case Trump really didn't care so much about the public health. He was more interested in the economy returning to a higher level as soon as possible I don't even know if he was pressured by the businesses to do that. Maybe it was just because of his own political concerns, but Abe waited the appropriate period of time. The incidence of COVID infection had remained flat for quite a while. So we followed international standards here in Japan before the national emergency was lifted and there was complaining from the business community that he was taking too long. But I think he actually did did balance things appropriately and if the WHO was to take a look at what Japan did. They would give Japan a thumbs up whereas if they look at the United States it's a disaster. Everybody who looks at what's going on United States considers it to be a disaster. Well, just one point. You know in the United States, the people who run the big companies, you expect that they would lobby anybody who held the reins. They would communicate with Trump and they would say you've got to open the economy. And I think in Hawaii we had some of that. The hotels, you know, they may not be locally owned, but they do provide jobs. Luffy Hanuman, right? Luffy Hanuman, I'm sure he was part of it to say we got to reopen now. This is these are my constituents, the hotels got to reopen. So there was pressure on David Hegay and various others in government from, you know, from essentially lobbying groups. But it didn't work that way in Japan, does it? I mean, the big, what do you call it, KK? The big KK wouldn't come around and try to lobby Abe, would they? Not as strongly, not as directly, but the LDP is very closely affiliated with business interests and it always has been from the 1950s. But Abe has to weigh those things out. I don't think it takes Toyota calling Abe and saying, look, you know, you need to open things up so people buy cars again in Japan. But he's conscious that that's his base, one of the bases of power for their management of the government and their control of the government. But I would agree with you, I'm not a political scientist. So this is my own speculation on this, that the influence of business is there, but it's not as explicit. You know, I'm sure Trump gets phone calls from his buddies, you know, like the casino industry, even though he was a failure in that and maybe he's not regarded very highly by the casino companies, but I'm sure there were a few phone calls saying, hey, look, you know, we're losing X amount of money every day because we're shut down. You know, can you kind of push things along a little bit? I'm sure that that happened. That wouldn't happen here, though. Yeah, yeah. So now, you know, so, okay, runs a parallel worth comparing. Yeah. So then the, you know, Abe opens and then the numbers go up. No surprise. Yeah, it's a lag. It's a lag of about six to seven weeks. But yeah, that's what we're experiencing right now. So does that mean that there's a pause right now? They call it pause, right? A pause in the reopening? Does it mean he's turning it back a little bit or a lot? No. What is he doing to deal with the problem of increased numbers? Right now, there's just a kind of a cautionary approach, okay? This is not good, that these numbers are now picking up. This is not what we expected. Many people in Japan have concluded that Japan had won. You know, so this is not welcome news. When the consensus comes to an agreement that, okay, we're Japan, we don't know how we did this exactly, but we defeated COVID. We're better than the other countries that are struggling. Now there's some evidence showing that maybe that's not quite as true as what they had hoped. So there's no comment yet so far. And as I mentioned in Tokyo, where of course the biggest problem is there's an election next week and the governor, the incumbents, who is a heavily heavy favor, not a word. She's quiet on this. She's not saying anything about this. Maybe after the election is over, she'll say, hey, look, if these numbers continue like this, we're going to have to go back and I'll have to encourage people to stay home again. These businesses where the infections are occurring at a higher rate than we expected, we'll have to close again. That's possible. Right now, we're in kind of a wait and see mode. So it's not as bad though as Florida or Texas, you know, where the hospitals are being overwhelmed and, you know, there are serious issues. Graphically, we're following the same curve. But in terms of the numbers, it's much, much smaller. We're talking hundreds, not tens of thousands, like the US has faced. So I was telling you about an article that somebody sent me this morning from the Atlantic, which has very thoughtful, very perceptive articles. And this article was entitled, Something Along the Lines, has the US given up on COVID? I mean, have we decided that we can't do much about it? Right. And we might as well just lay back and enjoy it. And I mean, it's really sad to think that, to even to have, even to positive as a proposition. But there is evidence in this country that a lot of people, mostly the Trump followers have, it's been politicized and they have given up. They don't care about social distancing. They don't care about masks. They don't care about community events. And yeah, right. They don't care. And I'm not sure exactly what their mindset is. Like part of it is they, they follow him. He doesn't wear a mask. And he puts it down. And he doesn't take this thing very seriously. He never did. So they follow him on that. So it's a statement of, in their view, patriotism, that warrior like mentality, we're at war and I'm going to show you how strong I am. I'm going to ignore all this liberal talk about how we should care for each other and help people survive through a pandemic. I'll take my chances. It's just kind of interesting because the Atlantic, the writer in the Atlantic puts it slightly differently. You guys are, you're giving up on something you could be doing. And this is a very dramatic kind of result, but there are a lot of people in this country, actually both sides of the aisle who go out in the streets, participate in community events, including demonstrations and counter demonstrations, who talk at each other without masks, who sprayed droplets all over each other with virus. It's not a surprise that the virus sort of multiplies in that context. And before you know it, you have a reinfection. This is not a surprise, but it is a surprise that so many people are so either ignorant or willful about showing how courageous and warrior like they are. Anyway, so I'm wondering if that phenomenon existed any degree at all in Japan. No. Yeah, it just doesn't. If Abe was to go out there and say, let's say the secondary infection rate continues and increases. If he doesn't do anything, he will be harshly criticized, even by the conservative media because fundamentally, his job is to protect the welfare of the citizens of Japanese people. And already his ranking, his rating rates have sunk significantly, because the government really hasn't been proactive in the sense that Taiwan was or New Zealand or Korea, or, you know, China belatedly. You can compare Japan to other Asian countries that did a much better job in managing this. Japan fortunately has been overall successful, but I think there's more cultural reasons for that, or actually there's unknown reasons for that. No one really can say explicitly why Japan's done so well. So if he was to say, oh, well, you know, there's nothing we can do, throw his hands up in the air, and Japanese people die as a result of that, he'd be out. His own party would kick him out. That is unimaginable in the political context of Japan. You know, again, it gets back to this community sense. His responsibility, just like every other citizen in Japan, is to wear the mask, right? And he wears a mask. He's not like Trump who doesn't wear a mask. He wears a mask because he's also contributing to public security and public health symbolically, and also he probably believes that's the right thing to do as well. So that kind of fatalistic, you know, kind of libertarian-ish, frankly irrational thinking that you're talking about in the Atlantic article apparently is addressing, that fortunately doesn't exist in this country. You know, sometimes when I'm talking to my parents, I mentioned that I'm living in the civilized country and you're not. You know, America sometimes behaves in ways that are just totally inexplicable. But Jay, you know, fundamentally, this, when it comes to politics, you might study economics initially, you know, we, one of the assumptions in order to support all the economic theories is that we're humans were rational and they'd make the right decision. You know, if you don't have that assumption, then of course, economic theory just falls apart. But the fact is, behavioral economics has proven that humans are not rational. And they do stupid things that are counterproductive to their own interests all the time. And what you're describing is a perfect example of people behaving in this partisan way to find logic, to find their own interests. You know, it just proves how irrational we are as a human race. Some are more irrational than others. I mean, there's a gradation on this. There's some parts of me, I'm sure, that's irrational. But when it comes to protecting my family's health, or even as a foreigner in Japan, I wear a mask. You know, I do that because I want to also be a part of a functioning community. So I make that commitment as well here. You know, this is a really a study and we don't have it so starkly presented as now of the way human communities make decisions. You know, if you leave it up to the crowd, you know, query whether the crowd, you know, the uninitiated, maybe untrained, maybe leaderless crowd, will they ever be able to find consistently good policy. The answer is I'm sorry but probably not. At the end of the day, and especially in a complex world, a world full of science and technology and environmental degradation and viral threats like this. You have to have experts and you have to have experts who will tell people what to do, because people want to listen. I mean, even in Japan they want to listen they want to, they want to delegate it all to Abe, you take care of it. You don't do a good job will let you know, but you know, we are just, we are delegating this power to you so that you will do the right thing and we will follow you. And that, you know, to a large extent, it works in Japan but it also works in the other Asian countries that you met. Yeah, Singapore would be the example that comes to mind immediately. They're having a bit of a relapse too. But, you know, in the US, it's libertarianism it's the independence is the exceptionalism is, you know, we'll get through this no matter what what we do or what I do. The problem there is that would work if you have a leader who says wait a minute, wait a minute. Let me give you some straight poop here from incredible government agencies, and you believe me and you believe them. I'm going to tell you what to do, and then you want to do it. Even that is imperfect because a lot of people in this country won't do it anyway. Never. But what when you have a president like we have now. It's really out of control. He's wrong on everything. People are going to listen to him and most people. And so you don't have a single voice speaking public policy is being made in the street. How exactly can that be right. It's not working. You can look at the results. I mean, you can't argue with the lack of results that the United States has had it's number one in terms of infections number ones in terms of deaths. 36,000 infections yesterday J. I just looked at it before the show started. That's incredible. It was below 20. I mean, that's still horrible. But now it's almost doubled. Well, and the guy from the CDC said, you know, for every case that we know of this 10 we don't. Yeah, 10 so it could be a multiple huge multiple of that. Right. Infection. So J of this means I when am I going to be able to visit the United States I don't know. You know if I if I went to the United States today. I could do it of course and America would accept me and have to go through quarantine, but you know who would not allow me to come back. Japan. I wouldn't even allow me to get on the plane. Oh, you can always go to Europe. I'm only kidding. Yeah, so all these doors are coming down between continents between countries and to some extent between states, despite the commerce clause in the Constitution. What we have is a general shutdown. And, you know, again, it's a question of leadership. Again, it's a question of nipping in the bud, you know, stitch in time saves nine problem is though and I would like to ask you about this. This social social experience that we're having where people people do not respect the leader or the leader is not worthy of respect whatever it is. There is a single voice telling us what to do. Are we going to be able to recover from that. How do we recover from that. How do we change it, change it to a place where people are so desperate. Okay, that they'll, they'll take advice from a credible leader and there are credible leaders somewhere who emerge right now I don't see that happening. Yeah. What I have there is that I look at my business career. And I've worked for startups. So that takes a certain amount of energy when you're starting from scratch to try and address a problem or accomplish a goal, which is what the United States had the opportunity in February, March, April, you know completely didn't do anything. I've worked for turnarounds, you know where I go into a situation where the GM had been fired it's a complete mess the reputation of the company is horrible. That is so much more difficult to do. That's the worst job that I've had I had to do that two or three different times to clean things up. It takes a tremendous amount of energy it takes strong qualities of leadership. So, you know, if we do have a new president. If Biden becomes president does he have the charisma, the capability, the leadership quality to try and write the ship. You know, without that kind of leadership at that level. I don't see how the problem can be solved and I frankly, we haven't talked about us politics I don't know if Biden's the right person to do that. Maybe he designated to someone else in his cabinet or staff to be the corona virus czar you know to have someone in a leadership role to try and lead the country out of the mess that it's in right now. But even if that person was the best person possible and had all these skills and it done this type of thing before. I don't know Jay. It's it's it's tough. It's really hard. Well you raise a very interesting thought. And that is that sometimes you have a bad leader. And the public sort of shoves off from that leader they criticize that leader won't take advice for good reasons. Okay, then that leader is out. The public throws them out like somebody else. To me, I've seen this happen I won't name names but I've seen this happen, where now there's a better leader, theoretically, a better leader in office. But the public and the media. They're there in a culture of criticism. They're in a culture of let's bring that guy down let's bring him down. They're all politicians are bad. We can't trust anyone. And so the second guy who was pretty good leader and straight shooter and all that. He can't make traction, because the community around him is so negative on politicians in general. And I suspect that, you know, we may see that in the case of Biden, the elected, and, you know, everybody, a sigh of relief, but then you get back into that rhythm of, well, he didn't do this right and he didn't do that right. And let's get some raw meat news, even though it's small stuff and criticize them for this that and the other thing. And before you know it his credibility is is just as bad as a fellow who preceded him. I worry about that. Yeah, yeah, I think that's a that's a practice, a phenomenon in United States politics, you know, like like with Obama and Ebola virus in hindsight that was handled as as well as it possibly could have. And the results of that were minimal. You know, in the beginning stages of that there was a fear that what's happening now with COVID would happen with Ebola but he was very proactive but at the same time J to your point he was constantly criticized by the Republican Party by Trump even saying you know it's a disaster so that's a that unfortunately is a phenomenon of American politics that even a good leader will have to face. Yeah, I, there's no way around that, because if Biden becomes president, you know, at the minute after he becomes president the Republican attack media machine Fox News and all the other associated news sources the the great what Clinton call it the the great right wing echo chamber will begin to target Biden or whomever and they'll have to fight through that. Yeah, I since I live in Japan and I look at American media. Well actually started with the Iraq war and how badly that was mismanaged by the New York Times even the you know the papers you would think would do a better job. I'm getting a little bit disillusioned with American media now and of course I read the New York Times in the Wall Street Journal, but I'm cynical about that I don't trust them. So, because even they were swayed by the trends at that time and were doing things that actually made things worse. Again, just briefly there. There isn't much of a opposition media here. It's been kind of pressured out of existence there is a slightly liberal liberal left wing leaning newspaper called the Asahi newspaper but during the Abbe administration. They've been attacked several times again not not legally the kind of indirectly so it's somewhat silenced them so we don't really have that that play of interaction of media generally the media Japan is supportive of the government and supportive of business. Well you know it goes down to what one more point we're going to be out of time but yeah we're over time Jay. But one more point is this though that you know to have an effective leader you have to have followers. And if nobody is going to follow somebody for a good reason or a bad reason. It doesn't work the system doesn't work. And it's all about the social compact. It's like we get into a deal to embrace a given system. A system of laws a Constitution what have you some principles and that means that we embrace leaders who are selected by that system. Okay, and I think we are now in a place where we can see pretty clearly that the system that people don't respect the system. The social compact for many people in this country I don't know I'll ask about Japan. For many people. It's not worth the powder. They no longer have confidence in it and therefore they no longer have confidence in the leaders that are selected, whether they be on one side the aisle or the other. I mean if the social fabric is torn. It goes beyond one administration. And all I'm saying is I think there's real issues about whether you can repair Humpty after after after this administration is the same kind of thing happened in Japan. Um, no, not to that degree. There is recognition that their government fails. I mean there's many, many cases like mismanagement of the pension fund or periodically there's corruption. That's exposed by the media so that I think Japanese people recognize that the government is fallible is corrupt in many instances. The leaders are not strong. They recognize that but I don't think this culture this society is at the point where there's a disbelief that the government will fail or that the government doesn't represent us or the government is not important. Probably over my years in Japan the sense that the government is ineffective that sense is grown, but it's nowhere near to the point that you're describing in the United States. So obvious numbers are going down and there's jockeying going on right now within the LDP to replace him so he may be out maybe by the end of this year or early next year. And a new leader will step in and probably the people initially will embrace that new leader and his numbers will be in the 60 to 70% range. The cycle will begin again until he proves to the people that somehow he's also not as effective as what they initially had hoped. So I would say that that breakdown in democracy, which is so clear in the United States. There should be a topic maybe J you explore with your other groups potentially that is democracy still effective in today's world. I mean you can make a strong case looking at America that maybe it's no longer effective. But here anyway that sense of cynicism and that sense of disconnectedness with the government effectiveness or the government ability is not as strong and that's part of Confucianism kind of the social cultural history of Japan, as opposed to this libertarianism or this, you know, this exploration sense that you know Americans were people who came from another country and settled it, you know settled it. No Chomsky talks about this. Also, you know genocide was an element of that I don't want to get into the harsh politics of that but anyway that conquering sense of mentality and exploring mentality. It's not something that Japanese have historically because according to Japanese history they've been here forever. Right, they've been here forever. It was their country. Of course there were natives here but that's kind of, you know, put over on the side. I think I so enjoy our conversations I look forward to our next one. And we certainly we should track on how this is all changing because it's so dynamic changing from day to day and I, and I feel that there'll be remarkable events in the interim, which we will need to talk about. It's a dynamic time that we're living in and you know most of the news is bad I try and focus on the positive aspects that are coming out of this to change that's now increasing in Japan within businesses within universities. But yeah overall this this is really tough. It's a tough period of time so we all need to draw an inspiration from somewhere I don't know maybe the leaders that we're looking to might not provide that. But maybe it has to come from within somehow. But anyway, I'm waxing philosophically now. valuable Steve Zercher, a professor and Dean at Kansai Gaida University in Kobe. Thank you so much for joining me and having this discussion I'm looking to the east.