Japan's right-wing bravado

Even as the Japanese economy falters, some politicians and lawmakers in the country are more interested in stirring up nationalism than addressing people's real concerns.

Addressing a Lower House audit committee on Monday, Shintaro Ishihara, the governor of Tokyo, and Yoshitaka Nakayama, the mayor of Ishigaki, sought to whip up dangerous passions with the fiction that the people of Ishigaki, Okinawa, would be at risk as China wanted to build a military base on the Diaoyu Islands.

The breakdown of family and community ties and the decline of jobs for life in the world's third-biggest economy have left the country groping for new certainties and many people are becoming attracted to a dangerous nationalism.