Japan's Political Upheaval and New Beginnings
Unicorn — Koizumi Cabinet Resigns En Masse! — National Diet Dissolved. Fresh Election Called for Reconfirmation! — The Pacific's Aftermath Continues Unabated. — Dismissing It as "Just a Game" Will Cost You Dearly.
December 26, 2004. Only six days remained until the new year. Yoo Jae-won, having enjoyed a pleasant Christmas holiday, was spending a leisurely Sunday. His relaxation, however, looked thoroughly ordinary. Lounging on a plush sofa, he surfed the internet on his iWorks laptop—the same hobby he had enjoyed before his regression. One might have expected him to grow tired of it, yet he never did. The internet remained endlessly fresh and filled with fascinating content.
A prime example was the flood of news currently dominating Nextcom's Japan section. The war crimes and rightward shift of the Japanese Empire, triggered by The Pacific, had exploded beyond control and struck Japan like a thunderbolt. The United States and even Europe now condemned Japan in unison—an absolute nightmare for the Japanese people. In the past, nations might have hesitated out of deference to Japan's economic power, but now even African countries spoke out without reservation.
Japan had worked hardest to conceal its war crimes, ignore victims' voices, and portray itself as a benevolent nation. That very effort now returned as a boomerang of deep betrayal. Korea was not the only victim; many East Asian nations had suffered under Japanese imperial rule, so they spoke with one voice without difficulty. The Japanese were unaccustomed to international finger-pointing and hatred. Moreover, the rightward shift had been orchestrated by a small clique of far-right organizations and politicians, while ordinary citizens had merely followed passively—most had little interest in politics to begin with.
Yet as global opinion shifted dramatically from summer into winter, a shared realization emerged: continuing this way would lead to disaster. This consensus dealt a heavy blow to Prime Minister Koizumi's approval rating. Already down to the high thirties, it plunged into the low thirties by early December. The decline showed no sign of stopping—each new poll shaved off another one or two percent. By the twentieth, his rating had fallen below twenty percent, placing his premiership in jeopardy.
Ultimately, Prime Minister Koizumi had no choice but to resign the entire cabinet and dissolve the Diet in a desperate bid for reversal. His only path to survival was to secure a fresh mandate by winning a majority of seats and regaining the premiership. Even if the Liberal Democratic Party regained its status as the largest party, however, Koizumi and the architects of the rightward shift would find no place left for them. Their political careers were finished regardless of the party's fortunes.
"It's too early to relax," Yoo Jae-won muttered. Koizumi was finished, yet Jae-won remained tense. The Japanese people had toppled the cabinet not out of genuine remorse, but out of fear of international ostracism. Furthermore, the opposition lacked a clear center of gravity and could easily reverse course. In his previous life, Japan had experienced a single regime change followed by a sharp political regression. When the alternative proved ineffective, voters had returned to the familiar LDP, which then pursued an even more aggressive rightward shift.
This time would be different. Yoo Jae-won had no intention of leaving Japan's political landscape untouched. Should the Democratic Party of Japan win a majority, he was prepared to use every means necessary to prevent the same mistakes from recurring. Only then could the tragic history of Japan—and East Asia—be prevented from repeating.
"Japan is settled for now. Let's check the Korean news."
Having had his fill of Japanese headlines, Yoo Jae-won clicked over to Nextcom's Korean news page.
— Korea and the U.S. Agree to Revise SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement)!
While Japan's Liberal Democratic Party crumbled under the aftershocks of The Pacific, Korea was rising as the linchpin of America's East Asian strategy. Especially after Yoo Jae-won's one-on-one meeting with President Al Gore on December 7, Korea's standing within the highest levels of the U.S. government had risen another notch.
Exactly half a century had passed since the Korea-U.S. alliance was forged. As Jae-won had said, it was time to graduate from the internship phase and become equal partners. Many in the United States—particularly senators—found Korea's elevated status unsettling. Yet President Al Gore's overwhelming re-election mandate, combined with support from U.S. intelligence agencies, ensured the revision passed smoothly.
Improved relations with North Korea, Korea's swift escape from the IMF crisis, and the success of its IT revolution had transformed the Korean Peninsula's importance from the 1990s. It was now the optimal forward position from which to contain China and Russia. Most compelling of all was that it was Yoo Jae-won's homeland and a major hub for ID Group. Both President Gore and American intelligence officials had witnessed Jae-won's explosive growth firsthand since he began operating in the United States. The information superhighway project Gore had championed during the Clinton administration had originated in Jae-won's mind. U.S. intelligence agencies had benefited repeatedly from their collaboration with him, beginning with the Unabomber case. Moreover, the IT revolution Jae-won was leading remained very much ongoing. Artificial intelligence—once purely theoretical—was becoming tangible, and ID Group stood at the forefront of its development. For such a man, elevating Korea's status was a trivial matter.
As a result, Korea finally secured America's long-sought agreement to revise the SOFA. The U.S. also approved the sale of advanced reconnaissance assets such as the Global Hawk, previously withheld. Discussions on a Korea-U.S. FTA between equals began moving forward rapidly. This marked the beginning of a true partnership, not merely an alliance in name.
"President Roh will handle the renegotiations well," Jae-won thought. While some past Korean presidents had been mocked as pushovers, President Roh's negotiating skills were objectively among the best. Even in his previous life, he had secured a reasonably balanced Korea-U.S. FTA—so balanced, in fact, that the United States later requested renegotiation, claiming it was disadvantageous. That agreement had been reached during the Bush administration, when the American president frequently clashed with Roh. Now the counterpart was Al Gore, with whom Roh communicated well, and the peninsula's circumstances were entirely different. Jae-won's expectations were correspondingly higher.
After catching up on Korean news, Yoo Jae-won picked up a game controller. It looked quite different from the Xbox 2 pad—it was the DualShock 3 for the PlayStation 3. Sony had kept its promise to gamers worldwide and released the PlayStation 3 on schedule. Sales had begun alongside the announcement during Thanksgiving, priced at the same $499 as the Xbox 2. Gamers hoping Sony would chart a different course were disappointed, yet matching the Xbox 2's price had been an enormous burden for Sony. The PlayStation 3's launch specifications were significantly upgraded from the version released in Jae-won's previous life. Its proprietary CELL CPU and NVIDIA G70 GPU offered substantially higher performance, memory capacity had increased, and hard drive space had grown. The adoption of Blu-ray, the next-generation optical medium, had also driven up manufacturing costs dramatically.
Logically, Sony should have raised the price, but competition with the Xbox 2 forced it to match the $499 tag. Unable to increase the price or reduce specifications, Sony still failed to win praise from gamers. The bizarre architecture of the CELL CPU made game development and optimization far more difficult than on the Xbox 2.
"Hmm. As expected, only Gran Turismo is worth playing."
After booting up the PlayStation 3 and surveying the available games, Jae-won launched Gran Turismo once again. He had purchased the console on release day with his own money and played whenever he had a spare moment. The problem was the scarcity of worthwhile titles. Even the Xbox 2 lacked a large library of AAA games, but Sony's situation was worse. The CELL CPU's theoretical power was impressive, yet translating that power into actual games required far more research. Gran Turismo was one of the few titles that properly showcased the next-generation hardware's capabilities—though it remained exclusive to PlayStation due to Sony's contract.
"Where did I put the steering wheel?"
Jae-won searched for the wheel, determined to play the racing game properly. The new year would soon bring increased responsibilities, leaving little time for leisurely gaming. Tiffany was attending Chevron's year-end charity event, so this was truly his own time. Though he could enjoy real-life Gran Turismo whenever he wished, he much preferred racing safely in the living room rather than behind the wheel of an actual supercar.
Soon immersed in the game, Yoo Jae-won raced intently along the virtual track.
A few days later, the eventful year 2004 came to an end, and 2005 dawned. The first signal of the fresh year was Japan's House of Representatives election. Of the 480 seats, the Democratic Party of Japan secured 301, achieving the first change of government in the postwar era. Politicians who had accelerated the rightward shift were all defeated, while new faces—including Yukio Hatoyama—entered the Diet in large numbers. Ichiro Ozawa, who had led the Democratic Party's landslide, emerged as the likely next prime minister.
Looking back at 2004 from ID Group's perspective, while the company had poured everything into the Xbox 2 and The Pacific, other subsidiaries had also achieved significant growth and transformation. The most visible achievement was the graduation of the first class from Deokjin Institute of Technology—an enormous milestone for the ID Foundation.
Although the ID Foundation was a global organization, its strongest operational bases were in Korea and the United States, with Korea being the most developed. Through the Deokjin Academy Foundation, vertical integration from kindergarten through university had been completed. The last piece, Deokjin Institute of Technology, had finally produced its first graduates after four years. The number, however, was only 244 students. As a single-department college, the original enrollment quota had been roughly 600, yet only one-third had graduated. The cause was the strict retention policy.
Korean universities were typically difficult to enter but easy to graduate from. Deokjin Institute of Technology was different—both admission and graduation were extremely difficult. That a school founded only four years earlier had become so selective spoke to the caliber of applicants it attracted. Graduates received substantial preferential treatment when applying to ID Group, a powerful incentive in an era when employment had become a critical economic issue. ID Group consistently ranked at the very top of desirable workplaces, offering the best working conditions and compensation packages that had no equal worldwide. Base salaries were high enough that overtime was unnecessary, and year-end bonuses rivaled the annual salaries of many small and medium-sized company employees. Above all, the title of working at the world's leading IT company carried a magical power that eased worries about the future.
Consequently, Deokjin Institute of Technology's admission standards rose with each passing year, now surpassing even Seoul National University's computer engineering department—the nation's most prestigious program. Students who cleared that formidable hurdle naturally envisioned a rosy future. Yet instead of the sitcom-style college life they expected, an intensely rigorous routine awaited them. More than half of the required major courses were conducted in English, taught by professors recruited from Stanford or ID High Tech research institutes. Furthermore, any student whose GPA fell below 1.6 faced immediate retention and had to repeat the semester. All evaluations were absolute, so retention was entirely the student's responsibility. The generous scholarship system only added pressure—most students received scholarships, making academic failure a personal failing. Two retentions resulted in loss of scholarship benefits; three led to expulsion.
Surviving this system required relentless study of both English and major subjects. Those who succeeded, however, received sweet rewards. All 244 graduates of the inaugural class were offered internship positions at ID Group, as promised. That day was today. And Yoo Jae-won's schedule consisted of attending the welcome ceremony for the Deokjin Institute of Technology graduates who had flown in on a private jet.