Japan’s economic model is broken. Output fell in the first quarter by 4 per cent; a record decline. Its economic structure, however, is only one facet of Japan’s problems. The country is approaching an election when a change in government seems likely. This is a chance for the country to debate what it would like to be. It must be seized.

Japan is the world’s second largest economy. Its export-led strategy, however, has beached the country, leaving it at the mercy of others’ appetites. The largest contributor to the first-quarter dive was the decline in exports which, in turn, drove down private investment.

Japan is suffering because demand has fallen in the deficit consumer nations, hobbling it along with much of east Asia. But Japan’s exporters were also knocked back by the strengthening of the yen; at its January 2009 zenith, the currency was 50 per cent stronger than during its summer 2007 nadir.