This is obviously a controversial area, and before I get into trouble here, I should also acknowledge that as soon as we admit that there are legitimate things such as intellectual property rights, then there is a strong case for getting the state’s apparatus to defend these, in the same way that it defends other property rights such as our cars and our houses.
Those meetings have given me a first-hand look at the difficult challenges that the current economic situation poses for Japan's leaders and for the Japanese people. The economic situation here is indeed enormously complex. It involves not only structural, monetary, and fiscal problems but also underlying political and social forces, which have at times limited the flexibility of policy.