- 14 Mar 2002
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Japanese businessmen stage the revolution: the Tokyo Tea Party.
DAVOS-Japan needs to end bureaucracy's power-elite group
Japanese businessmen, academics and politicians cast aside their traditional reserve on Friday and called for an oriental version of the Boston Tea Party to end the bureaucratic elite's grip on power in Tokyo. The call, by a group of Japanese at the World Economic Forum, an annual high-profile gathering of the world's powerful, reflected their frustration at a decade of economic stagnation.
The group has just published a paper called "Blueprint for Japan", aimed at laying bare some of the underlying causes of the country's problems such as high debt and lack of competition. The group said the radical changes needed would only be possible if the Japanese population, still affluent and content despite a decade of economic stagnation, really found out how their taxes were wasted and government corruption flourished.
"We need some kind of a revolution," said Jiro Tamura, a law professor at Keio University. "For the Boston Tea Party to happen, which it will, people will have to understand the tax system and corruption," said Joichi Ito, chief executive of venture capitalist firm Neoteny, referring to the dispute over tea taxes which triggered the U.S. fight for independence from Britain.
=> http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=2104836
DAVOS-Japan needs to end bureaucracy's power-elite group
Japanese businessmen, academics and politicians cast aside their traditional reserve on Friday and called for an oriental version of the Boston Tea Party to end the bureaucratic elite's grip on power in Tokyo. The call, by a group of Japanese at the World Economic Forum, an annual high-profile gathering of the world's powerful, reflected their frustration at a decade of economic stagnation.
The group has just published a paper called "Blueprint for Japan", aimed at laying bare some of the underlying causes of the country's problems such as high debt and lack of competition. The group said the radical changes needed would only be possible if the Japanese population, still affluent and content despite a decade of economic stagnation, really found out how their taxes were wasted and government corruption flourished.
"We need some kind of a revolution," said Jiro Tamura, a law professor at Keio University. "For the Boston Tea Party to happen, which it will, people will have to understand the tax system and corruption," said Joichi Ito, chief executive of venture capitalist firm Neoteny, referring to the dispute over tea taxes which triggered the U.S. fight for independence from Britain.
=> http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=2104836
