Japan Notebook

Some time around the middle of the last decade, Japan’s population began to shrink. The disappearing act has continued unabated: at the present rate of decline, this remarkable mono-cultural race will have all but become extinct within a hundred years. Worth a visit then, while stocks last: so I gratefully accepted an invitation from the business association known as Keidanren (like the CBI, only with influence). An early-morning meeting with Mr Takahisa Takahara provides a perfect snapshot of the consequences of population implosion. The business he runs, Uni‑Charm, is Japan’s biggest supplier of nappies; but now, said Mr Takahara, his firm sells more of the things to the incontinent elderly than to mothers with young children.

Other countries might consider large-scale immigrant labour as a response to the dramatic reduction in the working-age population — if only to help look after the old folk. In proudly homogenous Japan, that is not an option. There is a uniquely Japanese alternative, however: robots. The leader in this field is Honda; at its Fundamental Technology Research centre I am introduced to the newest version of Asimo, which it describes as a ‘humanoid robot with the world’s first autonomous behaviour control technology’. The four foot tall Asimo is definitely kawaii — a word the Japanese love and which is a stronger version of the English ‘cute’. He, or rather it, moves in such a fluid and human fashion that I soon forget I am engaging with a machine. The chief engineer on the project, Satoshi Shigemi, explains why Asimo is the size it is: ‘We thought it should be like a child in third grade, someone you would want to have with you all the time.’ In the circumstances of a plummeting fertility rate, this strikes me as poignant almost beyond words.