Rebirth in Japan: The Heiress Who Conquered the World

Friday, November 11, 1988

9:00 AM

Kasumigaseki, Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications Building, Vice-Minister’s Office

The air in the office was even heavier than yesterday, thick with a suffocating, gunpowder smell.

Clang!

A videotape slammed onto the mahogany desk. The black plastic casing cracked from the impact.

The man who threw it was the Director-General of the Industrial Policy Bureau at MITI. This elite bureaucrat, usually known for his composure, was red-faced with his tie askew. He looked like an enraged bull.

”Look! Look for yourselves!”

The Director-General pointed at the videotape, his spit nearly hitting the Vice-Minister’s face.

”This is a news recording from NBC in the US this morning. Clayton Yeutter named names at a Congressional hearing. He said Japan is building an ’Electronic Iron Curtain’!”

He leaned forward, hands planted on the desk, staring down the Vice-Minister and the NTT Vice President with overwhelming presence.

”For the sake of one of NTT’s rotten network cables, for that pitiful monopoly profit, do you want to drag Toyota, Sony, and Panasonic down with you?!”

”If the US triggers ’Super 301’ and imposes 100% retaliatory tariffs on Japanese cars, can your Ministry of Posts take responsibility for that?!”

The Vice-Minister’s face went ashen. He clutched a handkerchief tightly but couldn’t get a word out.

The NTT Vice President beside him remained stubborn.

”Director-General, please watch your language,” the Vice President said, pushing up his gold-rimmed glasses. His tone was stiff.

”This isn’t just about commercial interests. This is about national telecommunications sovereignty. If we allow American routers to march in unopposed, Japan’s financial data and communication secrets will be exposed to the Pentagon without reservation. This is a matter of principle.”

”Principle?”

The MITI Director-General laughed out of sheer anger.

He turned and pointed out the window toward Otemachi.

”Just yesterday, because of your so-called ’principles,’ the Tokyo Stock Exchange halted for ten minutes and tens of billions of yen evaporated. People in the financial sector want to tear your switches apart right now.”

”Listen. The Minister of Foreign Affairs is already on his way to the Prime Minister’s Official Residence.”

The Director-General coldly straightened his collar.

”What we want are exports, foreign exchange, and markets for cars and semiconductors. If your stubbornness triggers a trade war, we will not hesitate to push NTT out to take the bullet.”

With that, he grabbed the videotape, turned on his heel, and slammed the door behind him.

Bang!

The noise shook the portraits of past ministers on the wall.

Dead silence filled the office.

The NTT Vice President’s expression was grim. He looked at the Vice-Minister and said through gritted teeth, ”Vice-Minister, we cannot back down. Once we open this gap, our monopoly on Type I Telecommunications Business is over. We must hold firm on the point of ’technical security.’”

The Vice-Minister rubbed his temples tiredly.

”Then let’s see how the afternoon hearing goes. If you can prove, technically, that the S-Food system is indeed toxic, there might still be a chance.”

2:00 PM

Nagatacho, Second Members’ Office Building of the House of Representatives, First Committee Room

”Special Hearing on Telecommunications Technical Security”

Though nominally a hearing, it felt more like an arena where two eras were colliding.

On the left side of the long table sat the NTT technical delegation. A sea of dark gray suits — white-haired University of Tokyo professors and several stern-faced senior engineers. Thick stacks of technical drawings and data reports were piled before them, like an insurmountable wall.

On the right side of the long table, only one person sat.

Shimomura Tsutomu.

He wore a faded gray hoodie and heavily worn sneakers. He hadn’t brought any documents. In front of him was only a black Toshiba T3100 laptop and a silver mechanical stopwatch.

He was chewing gum, occasionally blowing a bubble.

Behind them, in the tiered gallery, sat executives from major banks, securities firms, and trading companies, along with dozens of reporters armed with cameras and microphones.

A faint scent of blood seemed to hang in the air.

”...In summary, ISDN is the cornerstone of future communications.”

The technical consultant for NTT, an emeritus professor from the University of Tokyo, had just finished his forty-minute presentation. He tapped the complex topology diagram behind him with a pointer, his voice loud and arrogant.

”Communication networks require centralized management and a controllable signaling system. TCP/IP, a protocol originating from the US military, is essentially a ’best-effort’ transmission mode. It has no central control. Data packets bounce around like headless flies. If such uncontrollable technology is connected to the national backbone network, it’s a time bomb!”

The zaibatsu representatives in the audience were confused by the jargon, but out of habitual respect for authority, some still nodded slightly.

”Thank you, Professor, for your excellent presentation.”

The presiding lawmaker turned to the right.

”Next, we will hear from the technical representative of S-Food, Mr. Shimomura Tsutomu.”

Shimomura stood up slowly.

He didn’t walk to the podium or look at the complex charts. He simply pressed the power button on his laptop. The screen lit up, emitting a faint blue glow.

”I don’t understand signaling, and I don’t understand centralization,” Shimomura said. His voice was lazy, carrying a hint of disdain that made the NTT delegation frown.

”I only know one thing: time is money.”

He picked up the silver stopwatch from the table and held it up.

”The professor just spent forty minutes on theory. Let’s do an experiment.”

”Suppose everyone here is a trader at Nomura Securities. The market has just crashed, and you need to send a sell order.”

Shimomura’s finger hovered over the laptop’s Enter key.

”This simulates the network environment when NTT’s switches were overloaded yesterday.”

He tapped Enter and pressed the stopwatch simultaneously.

Click.

The second hand began to move.

No one spoke. The entire committee room fell into an eerie silence.

One second.

Two seconds.

Three seconds.

This artificial silence felt unbearable. What was only a few seconds felt like a century under everyone’s gaze.

Four seconds.

Five seconds.

Beep.

A red pop-up finally appeared on the computer screen:

Shimomura stopped the stopwatch.

”5.2 seconds.”

He looked at the bankers in the audience, whose faces were starting to pale.

”In the financial markets, what does five seconds mean?”

”It means by the time you want to sell, the price has already hit limit down. It means by the time you want to buy, the opportunity has vanished.”

”Just yesterday, because of this damn 5.2-second delay and the subsequent system crash, Nomura Securities’ proprietary trading desk suffered a book loss of over 1.2 billion yen. Three thousand interbank transfers at Sumitomo Bank timed out and were returned.”

Shimomura’s voice wasn’t loud, but it stabbed precisely into the weak spot of every capitalist present.

”You pay tens of billions in communication fees to NTT every year, and what you buy is this 5.2 seconds of ’security’ and ’stability’?”

A commotion stirred in the gallery.

The bankers whispered to each other. Their looks toward the NTT delegation shifted from respect to doubt, and then to anger.

Talk about authority meant nothing to them. In the financial world, time was life. They would pay hundreds of millions in rent for high-end office space just to shave off a few milliseconds. Now they were being told their time was being stolen by over five seconds? How was that different from killing them?

”Next, this is our system.”

Shimomura hovered his hand over the keyboard again. This time there were no theatrics. His fingers became a blur as he typed a command:

./route_test -target:JP_Exchange -load:MAX

Snap.

The Enter key was struck hard.

The instant his finger left the key, the black screen with green text erupted. Countless points of light representing data packets exploded outward.

”Simulating core node failure,” he said casually, pressing a hotkey.

On the screen, the main transmission link was severed. If this were NTT’s circuit-switching system, the screen would be covered in red error messages and despairing busy signals.

But here, those points of light didn’t hesitate. Like living mercury, they dispersed in the microseconds after the main path broke and automatically found countless tiny bypasses — perhaps a server in Chiba, or a gateway in Yokohama.

They bypassed the red ”death node” and reconverged at the destination within milliseconds.

A line of green text popped up in the center of the screen:

He hadn’t even had time to press the stopwatch he’d just raised.

”0.012 seconds.”

Shimomura glanced at the screen, a mocking smile curling on his lips.

He casually tossed the mechanical stopwatch onto the table. Now meaningless for this demonstration.

Clatter.

The silver metal hit the hardwood with a sharp, piercing sound that echoed through the silent hearing room.

”This is TCP/IP packet switching. It doesn’t need central control, and it doesn’t need to ’apply’ for a route from anyone.”

Shimomura pointed at the data streams on the screen, still automatically adjusting their paths like they were breathing.

”Precisely because it has no ’center,’ it cannot be killed. When one path is blocked, the data automatically finds another. Even if you blow up the server rooms in Tokyo, as long as there’s a single telephone line to Osaka, the data will survive.”

”It is alive. It is a decentralized beast.”

He turned and pointed a finger rudely at the thick pile of hierarchical diagrams in front of the NTT delegation.

”And NTT’s stored-program control switching system...”

”That is fine porcelain. It looks rigorous, beautiful, and fits the aesthetic of every bureaucrat. But if even one piece breaks, it’s a total shambles.”

”That is dead. It’s a dinosaur destined to be buried in the earth.”

Shimomura leaned forward with his hands on the table, his eyes hidden behind messy hair as he stared at the titans who controlled Japan’s economic lifeblood.

”Everyone here is smart. Would you rather drive a ’perfectly safe’ vintage car that stalls every five minutes and leaves you on the side of the road...”

”Or would you rather drive a Ferrari that might be a bit bumpy, but will never stop and can carry your capital across a cliff?”

He straightened up, chewed his gum, and spat out the last line.

”In this market where every second counts, lack of flow is death.”

Boom —

After a brief moment of breathless silence, the gallery exploded.

Capitalists have no country, only profits.

For these financial sharks who fought in the ocean of money every day, things like national security or technical sovereignty were utter nonsense compared to the massive losses caused by a ’5-second delay’.

”This is absurd!”

A Managing Director from Nomura Securities stood up, pointing at the NTT Vice President with a face ashen with rage.

”We pay exorbitant line rents every year, and yet you can’t even guarantee the most basic real-time trading? If S-Food’s technology can achieve 0.1 seconds, why are we being forced to use obsolete technology?!”

”Exactly! We need an explanation!”

The representative from Mitsubishi Bank also slammed the table.

”If Tokyo’s financial market becomes less efficient than New York or London because of technical barriers, who will take responsibility?!”

The situation instantly spiraled out of control.

The old NTT professor was trembling with rage, trying to explain ”theoretical superiority” into the microphone, but his voice was quickly drowned out by angry questions.

The officials from the Ministry of Posts shrank into their chairs, their faces deathly pale. They knew the tide had turned.

Once the capitalists defected for the sake of profit, the so-called administrative barriers would be as fragile as paper.

In the very last row of the gallery corner, Saionji Satsuki sat quietly in the shadows, wearing a large pair of sunglasses.

She was dressed in her Seika Academy uniform with an English book on her lap, looking like a student who had wandered in by mistake.

She watched the agitated zaibatsu titans below, the humiliated NTT executives on stage, and then glanced at Shimomura Tsutomu, who was blowing a bubble with his gum.

”A perfect performance,” she whispered softly.

She closed the book on her lap, an interdisciplinary classic by Kevin Kelly.

Its title was — Out of Control.