Nine people were missing as a result of the collision, but Mr Mori chose not to interrupt his game and continued playing for another two hours. Japan remains the world's second-biggest economy, and its prosperity is a key ingredient in the economic health of many of its trading partners, including Australia. But many among Japan's business and political elites fear that the country is teetering on the brink of disaster. The Finance Minister, Kiichi Miyazawa, and the Bank of Japan have conceded that falling prices that have characterised the economy for the past 18 months are becoming a downward deflationary spiral. Lower prices are leading to lower profits and incomes, which in turn result in declining spending and investment, and shrinking economic activity generally.
Decisive action is needed to end the spiral, but no sign of it is on the horizon.
Mr Mori, whose popularity rating is now measured in single digits, is Prime Minister by virtue of being president of the Liberal Democratic Party, the dominant partner in the ruling coalition. The Liberal Democrats, who have formed the basis of nearly every Japanese government since 1955, are themselves essentially a loose coalition of contending factions, whose leaders have typically had close ties to influential corporate executives, especially in the construction industry. The party factions and their business allies have become a closed circle, who share out the prizes of political power and patronage among themselves and presume that voters will anoint whatever deal they have reached at the next election. The system has long frustrated Japanese who hope for a more vigorous and open democracy, but few expect it to change, because there is no serious rival to the LDP's supremacy. Mr Mori's government has been beset by allegations of fraud and misuse of public funds, and he has said that the LDP will hold an election for party president earlier than the due date in September, indicating that he is prepared to resign.