Root of Kobe Steel scandal unknown, but judgment is swift

JAPAN - and its media especially - are indulging in an orgy of self-flagellation or "Japan bashing" over the Kobe Steel affair, in which self-confessed lapses in product quality by the country's third-largest steelmaker are being treated as a cause for national shame.

The 1905-founded Kobe Steel, based in the city of the same name, admitted last week that it had falsified data for steel, aluminium and copper products supplied to other firms in many parts of the world for use in everything from aerospace and bullet trains to motor cars and nuclear power plants.

Since these metals were supplied to global giants such as Toyota, General Motors and Ford as well as to aerospace leviathans Boeing and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and used also in nuclear reactors, the disclosures have triggered international alarm.