For Japan, and especially this recession-wracked western city, hosting the World Cup is a dream come true. Trains, planes and hotels will be full.
Restaurants and bars will serve hundreds of thousands of visiting fans. And local economies will get a much-needed boost.
The World Cup is nothing short of a nightmare for Hiroshi Sato and his living mates, who reside just across the road from Osaka's Nagai Stadium. They're homeless and have the added misfortune of building their cardboard houses and tents near one of Japan's World Cup venues. Local police have been dropping by to let them know they'll soon be evicted.
"We'll just have to find another place to stay," complains Sato, 55, who has lived on Osaka's streets since losing his job at an air-conditioner factory just over three years ago.
Sato is among the rapidly growing ranks of Japan's homeless.
Almost unheard of five years ago, at least 30,000 live on the street, mostly in Tokyo and here in Japan's second-biggest urban area. Their increasing presence is the most obvious sign that the nation's 11-year slump is hitting some very hard.
The homeless "are growing in number and this has become a huge social issue," says Tsuyoshi Inaba, who works with the Resource Center for Homeless Human Rights.
Stories like Sato's were never supposed to exist amid Japan's cradle-to-the-grave lifetime employment system. Compared with cities like New York or Washington, Japan's homeless problem seems trivial. In general, homeless here aren't the public nuisance folks in other nations claim street-dwellers to be. Overt drunkenness, drug use and panhandling aren't major social problems in Japan.
But in a nation that's always gravitated more towards socialism than every-person-for-his-or-herself capitalism, even a handful of homeless is shocking to Japanese. It's a reminder that far from ending, Japan's malaise is deepening and manifesting itself in ways that seemed unthinkable a few years ago. It also could be a harbinger of things to come.
In a nation suffering from a crisis of confidence, the sight of more homeless people collecting cans and sleeping in train stations is a jolting one. For no longer is Japan's downturn hitting those toiling at the margins of society, but those at the center of it. It's now possible for salarymen who earn a handsome wage one day to be yen-less and homeless the next.
Increasing homelessness complicates things for Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi as he tries to trim government spending.
Revitalizing Japan means many deadbeat companies may go bust and downtrodden areas will have to do without economy-boosting construction projects. Bottom line, unemployment will skyrocket.
Japan may be in its third recession in a decade, but one hardly gets that impression. Telltale signs of recession one finds in other nations are curiously absent here. Because Japan's slump is largely a corporate one, not a consumer one, most are still employed and socking away savings. So far, banks have kept fragile companies afloat, cushioning households from the pain.
When there's a recession virtually anywhere else, you know it. But in cities like Tokyo, Osaka and Sapporo, swanky shopping districts are still abuzz. Glitzy stores are packed with people plopping down hundreds of dollars for names like Gucci, Hermes, Louis Vuitton and Prada. Whiskey bars are full of office workers dropping US$20 for a shot of single-malt scotch.
At the margins, though, one can find signs of Japan's slide, particularly in Osaka. Between 1991 and 1999, for example, while Japan's national economy lost 2.1 percent of its jobs, Osaka lost 13 percent. Many of the jobs moved overseas to low-wage countries.
Huge manufacturers like Matsushita Electric Industrial Co, Sanyo Electric Co and Sharp Corp moved factories to China. Many others are planning to.
On this day, Sato has little to do but sit in his blue tent and read some newspapers he pulled out of a trash bin. He'd woken up at 4am and taken his place in a job queue, hoping one of the scouts searching for day laborers would select him. "My back is no good anymore, but on a really good day, I can come away with Japanese yen 10,000 (US$80) working on a construction site or unpacking trucks."
But good days are becoming rarer. A year ago, Sato says, there were fewer men looking for work. Worse, the newcomers are younger and stronger, leaving Sato, a man in his mid-50s, having to talk his way into jobs. "Many days like today, I find myself sitting, with nothing to do, thinking `How did this happen?'"
Japan's homeless problem is sure to get worse before it gets better. That's because Osaka is a microcosm of trends unfolding around the nation. The city rested on its laurels after decades of rapid growth and watched China and other competitors take away the capital and jobs it long took for granted. Now, Japan finds itself uncompetitive in a world joined by globalization.
As jobs disappear, an increasing number of Japanese are being forced to fend for themselves. Since Japan lacks a broad social safety net to catch those who suddenly find themselves jobless, a growing number have no choice but to live on the streets. The homeless trend caught Tokyo largely off guard. In Osaka, there are at least 10,000 homeless. Some observers think the figure is closer to 15,000.
"The main cause of this increase in homelessness is job losses that the economic recession brought about," says Hiroyuki Fukuhara, an economist at Osaka City University. "However, insufficiencies of the social [safety net] system in Japan have also pushed them into homelessness."
The nation is under increasing pressure to fix those cracks.
On April 26, nearly 300 homeless people rallied outside Parliament in Tokyo to demand more government help.
Chanting "Listen to the voices of the people who live outdoors," protestors urged lawmakers to provide more shelters and job-placement and medical-care programs.
The national government has come up with some money, but only a fraction of what's needed. Last year, for example, Tokyo budgeted Japanese yen 780 million to fund 11 "Self-Dependent Support Centers" that offer food, health checks and job counseling. But that was Japanese yen 110 million less than the previous year.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
INSPIRING: Taiwan has been a model in the Asia-Pacific region with its democratic transition, free and fair elections and open society, the vice president-elect said Taiwan can play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) told a forum in Taipei yesterday, highlighting the nation’s resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges. “Not only can Taiwan help, but Taiwan can lead ... not only can Taiwan play a leadership role, but Taiwan’s leadership is important to the world,” Hsiao told the annual forum hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation think tank. Hsiao thanked Taiwan’s international friends for their long-term support, citing the example of US President Joe Biden last month signing into law a bill to provide aid to Taiwan,
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
STATE OF THE NATION: The legislature should invite the president to deliver an address every year, the TPP said, adding that Lai should also have to answer legislators’ questions The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday proposed inviting president-elect William Lai (賴清德) to make a historic first state of the nation address at the legislature following his inauguration on May 20. Lai is expected to face many domestic and international challenges, and should clarify his intended policies with the public’s representatives, KMT caucus secretary-general Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said when making the proposal at a meeting of the legislature’s Procedure Committee. The committee voted to add the item to the agenda for Friday, along with another similar proposal put forward by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The invitation is in line with Article 15-2