Draft:Corruption in Japan

Japan is ranked 16 out of 180 countries in Transparency International's 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index. The 180 countries of the Index are scored on a scale of 0 ("highly corrupt") to 100 ("very clean") according to the perceived corruption in the public sector and then ranked by their score. Japan's 2023 ranking was based on a score of 17.

Despite Japan’s high ranking as non-corrupt, the country has a long history of political corruption. Dating back to the Meiji Restoration and the transition from feudalism to a modern system, corruption has had a place in Japanese politics. The rapid modernization of the political system led to great deals of corruption due to the new levels of power in the country. Domestic and foreign bribery are two main components of corruption in Japanese politics.

Effects
Corruption hurts economic development by blocking optimal resource allocation in important industries such as automobiles and technology. This happens in markets, industries, and agriculture. It misallocates resources and disrupts the price mechanism of a well-organized market by incorrectly setting prices on unwanted goods, misaligning the market with supply and demand. This leads to less efficient use of resources and a lack of trust from the public to buy products and services. This results in entrepreneurs taking risks that lower the rewards for their companies. This worsens the harm to the developing economy by shrinking a growing market and discouraging foreign investments in other big companies due to the lack of integrity formed towards companies affected by corruption.

Corruption greatly hinders the encouragement of entrepreneurship for future entrepreneurs living in Japan. Politicians and bureaucrats may add and remove rules in favor of large companies to be ahead of their competition while hurting small businesses, which creates unfair competition and inefficiency in competitive markets. This is done by bribing politicians and bureaucrats to run the market in large companies' favor while favoring connections over talent. These rules created by politicians and bureaucrats set a higher barrier for new entrepreneurs to enter the current market. This discourages future entrepreneurs from starting their own small companies due to the unfair competition set in stone by corruption. Entrepreneurs from both big and small companies are key to a country's developing economy because they grow their GDP. Without them, it harms innovation and economic diversification in small and medium markets in Japan.

Countermeasures
In April 2023, the Liberal Democratic Party Headquarters for the Promotion of Digital Society Project Team on the Evolution and Implementation of AIs, released "The AI White Paper: Japan's National Strategy in the New Era of AI." This comprehensive document outlines Japan's strategic approach to leveraging AI technology while addressing potential ethical and governance challenges. One of the white paper's central themes is preventing corruption within the technology sector. The strategy emphasizes robust regulatory frameworks, transparency in AI development processes, and the implementation of strict ethical guidelines to ensure that AI technologies are developed and used responsibly. Furthermore, the white paper advocates for establishing independent oversight bodies to monitor AI applications and prevent misuse. By focusing on these preventive measures, Japan aims to foster a trustworthy and secure digital ecosystem that can support sustainable growth and innovation without falling prey to corruption and unethical practices.

Recent Corruption Cases
As one of the world’s leading economies in the 1980s, Japan experienced high levels of corruption. This large economic boost led to many instances of corruption often including bribery. This corruption laid the groundwork for current corruption scandals. Notably, in 2017 the Moritomo Gakuen scandal became public when then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sold heavily discounted state-owned land to Moritomo Gakuen. In 2020, Tsukasa Akimoto, a member of the Japanese House of Representatives, was caught in a bribery scandal involving gambling and bribery. After accepting bribes from a Chinese gambling operator, Akimoto became one of the biggest supporters of legalizing casinos in Japan.