Three magic arrows and now five interlocking rings. The more Shinzo Abe’s quest to breathe life into Japan’s economy goes on, the more it resembles something dreamt up by JRR Tolkien. Now he has sharpened two of his three economic arrows and grabbed the powerful Olympic rings, the Japanese prime minister is one step closer to slaying the Deflationary Dragon that has been terrorising the land for nigh on 15 years.
But not everything is happy in the Land of the Rising Sun. Deadly poison continues to spew from the northern lands of Fukushima. The ordinary folk do not yet feel prosperous, and they remain sceptical that Abenomics is anything more than a fleeting illusion. Former enemies across the sea, alarmed by what they regard as Japan’s lurch to the revisionist right, think of Mr Abe more as Sauron, the evil necromancer, than Gandalf, the benevolent wizard.
These difficulties aside, Mr Abe has had the prodigious luck enjoyed by the protagonists of many fantasy adventures. If it had not been for escalating tensions with China in the run-up to the election in December 2012, the leadership of the Liberal Democratic party – and hence Japan – would have almost certainly gone to a less hawkish politician. Then, as far back as November, before he was even elected, let alone before he put his economic plan into action, the markets began to move decisively in his favour. Stocks surged and the yen fell.