Japan Faces Agricultural System Collapse, Structural Challenges

Kenichi Ohmae, Japan's leading management consultant and bestselling author, presents 23 pressing challenges facing Japan and the world along with proposed solutions in his new book "Japan's Issues 2026-2027." The book offers insight into global perspectives from a Japanese conservative-liberal viewpoint.

Last year was tumultuous, and this year appears to follow a similar trajectory. The world has been thrown into disarray by U.S. President Donald Trump's overt America-first policies, tariff bombardments, and unpredictable shifts. The Ukraine war shows no signs of ending in its fifth year, with Trump's intervention compounding the tragedy. The conflict could expand beyond Gaza to potentially include Iran. The author advises "maintaining distance from Trump, buying time, and acting prudently."

Meanwhile, China faces a deepening real estate bubble estimated at approximately 2 quadrillion won, while the U.S. and China are locked in an artificial intelligence supremacy race. The author diagnoses that Japan is likely to suffer direct damage from these developments.

Ohmae also focuses on Japan's chronic structural problems. He highlights the "Reiwa Rice Crisis," which saw rice prices double within a year, exposing the collapse of agricultural policy systems. He points to labor shortages stemming from an unprecedented annual population decline of 900,000, immigration policy dilemmas, passive educational curricula, and Japanese companies mired in factory-style management despite the AI era.

Citing Germany's GDP surpassing Japan's despite having a much smaller population, he emphasizes the need for productivity innovation through bold openness, including English as an official language and job-based employment systems.

The author also urges Japan to establish independent survival strategies rather than relying solely on the United States amid geopolitical upheaval, including AI advances represented by China's DeepSeek. He argues Japan needs not mere amendments to the post-World War II constitution but an entirely new decentralized constitution created from scratch.

On the Dokdo issue, while stating Japanese politicians need not be sensitive about it, the author cites the islands' lack of economic value as justification—a claim that represents a distorted Japanese perspective on the territorial dispute.

Price: 25,000 won.