Japan's time of troubled reflection

THE past week has been a time of troubled reflection in Japan - reflection on natural and man-made disasters, on war and peace, hostility and reconciliation and on where the rapidly ageing nation - which is also the world's third largest economy - is headed in the foreseeable future.

The sense of angst and division among the Japanese over such issues has been clearly discernable as the nation marked the fourth anniversary on Wednesday of the terrible earthquake, tsunami and nuclear catastrophe which occurred in Fukushima on March 11, 2011.

That awful event and that north-east Japan is still being hit by hundreds of aftershocks, creating an underlying sense of insecurity, is bad enough. But the fact that Japan has still to come fully to terms with its wartime past and learn to live with its neighbours is also eroding the national psyche.