He could stifle the country entirely, economists say, if he pushes ahead with his vaunted reform plans too quickly. It seems everything has weakened slightly. It's a far cry from 1989, when Japan briefly saw its economic output and its stock-market value surpass the United States. News of Japan's beleaguered banks, of punch-drunk investors dragging the yen and Nikkei lower, and of the nation s declining trade surplus, off 60 percent, are just the latest in a long stream of negatives out of Tokyo. Even the mighty Japanese electronics industry, once the foundation on which Japan became an economic monster, is reeling from a plunge in demand from the West.
Experts call for wholesale reform to the finance sector.
Yet fear in a repeat of 1997 looms, then Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto's Big Bang reforms came too quickly and precipitated a disastrous economic slump.