That's encouraging. The problem is that I have seen and heard about too many reports concerning Japanese people with American nationality who had their lives made difficult by Japanese officials - there's been a bit of a clampdown lately. There's at least one other regular poster on this forum who has also heard about similar instances.
One only needs money and time and perseverance to acquire British citizenship. I have no idea if it is even possible to regain Japanese nationality. Even if not many instances of denaturalisation occur doesn't mean that it can't happen. The stakes are too high to be leaving your future to the whims of bureaucrats and politicians.

Japanese bureaucracy is often described as 'paternalistic'. Worth reminding ourselves that the three greatest fears in this culture are: fire, earthquake, father.

I am not going to try sitting picking over the data with anyone. What I find striking is that I and others (that is how this thread started), who travel the world just aren't seeing the universe as Fingelton is seeing it. Japan, outside the big cities, really has an extremely decayed look compared to even the rust belt in the US and mid level European countries.

Fingleton wrote a similar piece in The Atlantic some time ago. I emailed him then, referring him to this tread among other things (he responded, but not to this point).

Could you provide some links about recent situations in which dual-citizens (American/Japanese) have had such experiences? I've not heard of this happening in my circle - my understanding up to this point is that if you're discreet, they leave you alone.

I'm actually in the process of contacting a Japanese immigration lawyer on this situation. I've done a fair amount of research on this so I'm pretty sure I understand the situation, but I'd like to be sure and will pass along any information I get.

No - these were mostly transmitted verbally, although I did see some reports some years ago which I haven't been able to find again.

However, here's a link Jib71 posted when this subject was discussed in 2008
http://mailman.japaninc.com/pipermai...08/000053.html
It explains at least one of the ways those with dual nationality are being identified.

Fingleton is just wrong and has been for a long time. Briefly,

Life expectancy and birth is mostly a function of how much people drive, eat and shoot each other. In developed countries it tells you almost nothing about the economy.

To measure unemployment in Japan they ask if you have looked for a job in the last two weeks. In the U.S., it's 6 week. Use the U.S. methodology in Japan and male unemployment jumps 60% and female unemployment doubles.

If no one invests in your country, you will almost by definition have a current account surplus.

As you say, this isn't a secret, it is just that there are many people (in central Tokyo especially) that would rather the outside world knew little or nothing about it. The decay does look a bit more "pristine" than say Detroit, IMHO !

As far as I can tell, it is, but you have to go through the naturalization process. There is a simpler process for "regaining" nationality if you were a Japanese national at birth but your parents did not follow the necessary reporting procedures.

Back on topic, the current account surplus should not even be a talking point given that it is apparently on its way out the door.

Tell me about it. LapInfant would have been forced down this route if grandfather hadn't come over from Tokyo. Even with his competency and fluency it took nearly 3 days of his one week stay at the embassy to sort it out. I've no idea how other families where it's the working father who is Japanese are supposed to conjure up that amount of free time from with all the other demands a new baby brings.

Hmm.

So, for a while now I've figured that Japan is doomed(tm) in the medium-to-long term thanks to demographic issues; but I've also assumed that after 20 years and counting of recession, at some point in the not-too-distant future there will be at least a dead cat bounce when things perk up for a while.

Consider eg. the previous anecdote about Japanese food factories all being 20+ years old: not upgrading your factories is a sensible short-term measure for cutting expenditures, but at some point those old factories will fall apart, and they'll do so before the Japanese stop eating. So somebody at some point will have to invest in new tooling, and if enough of this happens at the same time, the economy rebounds. And sure enough, at least before 3/11, there were occasional blips in the media saying that 20 years of belt-tightening has paid for Japanese companies, which are leaner and much less leveraged than they used to be, and the rebound point where investment starts again was just on the horizon.

But I'm starting to be less sure -- maybe business confidence remains so low that they'll just import everything from China instead and let Japan's rust belt rust. Thoughts?

More and more they will just continue to hollow out the middle class like they have in the States. They will continue to import ever more food from overseas (they have huge production bases in China/Thailand/Vietnam). Do you remember the chilled gyoza debacle? The rust will keep on getting rustier and Tokyo will lose ever more of it's shine as the rot that has set in else where in the country has no place else to go!

Some more grist for the doom mill. Nothing really new, but a couple of fairly amazing statistics:
http://www.wilsonquarterly.com/article.cfm?AID=2143

a little bump for this old thread.

Nikkei reached its all-time high 25 years ago yesterday:

Tokyo�s Stock Bubble: 25 Years on From Nikkei Peak

http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2...e-nikkei-peak/

A quarter-century ago on Dec. 29, 1989, Japan�s Nikkei Stock Average finished the year at an all-time high of 38916, more than twice its current level. In retrospect, it�s clear the market was at bursting point, but at the time the mood was still confident, with some analysts predicting a surge beyond 45,000 by the end of 1990.

�Japan�s stock market spawns two kinds of investors: believers and skeptics. The believers are getting rich. The skeptics are getting sore,� Marcus W. Brauchli, then a staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal, wrote in an article published Jan. 2, 1990. �Just when the market seems top-heavy, it heads even higher,� he said.

Check out this link from the article http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2...arket-outlook/.

One of the more egregious forecasters from 1989 had the rather comical name Pelham Smithers. Sure enough, he is still going strong with a boutique research firm on Japan and appears on Bloomberg UK once in a while.