Hyundai Motor and kimonos

The opera "Madame Butterfly," one of the three masterpieces by Italian composer Giacomo Puccini, is the story of a Japanese geisha. Premiered in 1904 in Milan, the opera had its setting in Japan, a rare selection at the time. China, which is much bigger in size than Japan, appeared more than 20 years later, in 1926, through Puccini’s posthumous opera "Turandot." The hero of "The Magic Flute," an opera composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, is a Japanese prince lost in ancient Egypt. It was composed in 1791, the time of the Edo period in Japan. Mozart never traveled to Japan but seemed to have liked the country.

Japan started modernization in the Meiji period and sought to “escape from Asia,” later expanding throughout the globe to become the symbol of Asia in the 20th century. The country, however, underwent its “lost decade” of the 1990s, the earthquake in March and the crisis at the Fukushima nuclear plant, suffering further damage to its economy. The latest issue of the U.K. magazine The Economist placed on the front cover U.S. President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Japanese kimonos under the headline, “Turning Japanese: Debt, Default and the West’s New Politics of Paralysis.”

The Economist mainly criticized the brinkmanship in the U.S. over the debt ceiling and lack of German leadership in keeping Greece in the euro zone, but Japan must have felt insulted. The magazine called the U.S. debt debate "kabuki-like" after the classical Japanese dance-drama. On the struggle between the U.S. Republican and Democratic parties, it said this was the same division between the "ins and outs" that plagued Japan. Japan thus became a symbol of the worst.

While Samsung Electronics catching up with Sony in the mid-2000s, Hyundai Motor is just about to surpass Toyota. Hyundai sold 3.19 million cars worldwide in the year’s first half, 1.95 million by Hyundai Motor and 1.24 million by Kia Motors. Toyota sold just 3.01 million cars over the same period. Perhaps affected by losing its world No. 4 ranking, Toyota corrected its global sales forecast to 3.71 million units, including joint overseas ventures that provide half the investment. “Made in Japan,” which once commanded a reputation for high quality, is waning.

Editorial Writer Ha Tae-won (triplets@donga.com)