'Japanization' needn't be an economic curse word

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http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nb20111128jp.html

Everybody walks in fear of Japanization these days. Everybody wants to avoid their version of the lost decade. They don't want to see their economies become locked into a never-ending spiral of deflation, Japanese-style.

What will they do, they ask themselves, if their politicians become as impotent as their Japanese counterparts?

Europeans dread it. Americans suspect they already have it and hang their heads in dismay. The image on the cover of The Economist depicting Barack Obama and Angela Merkel in Japanese attire haunts positively everyone. Clearly, Japanization is now everyone's worst nightmare.

This is a sad state of affairs, and yet there is more to Japanization than meets the fearful eye. More to the point, Japanization could well be interpreted as something entirely different from what people assume it means at the moment.