Japan's new government of Yukio Hatoyama has proudly been collecting banner headlines about how under his rule Japan is going to be a new player in world politics, stand up for itself, not be so dependent on the United States and help forge a new East Asian community.
However, all the while, the government has done nothing - except exacerbate - the main question, which is whether Japan will be able to afford any of these ambitions.
There is a debt time bomb ready to blow up the country's economy and its ambitions. The question is not whether Japan goes bankrupt, but when and how big the explosion will be, how many people will get caught by it and with what damaging repercussions for the rest of the world.
The problem has been growing for years, but Japanese officials are quick to claim it is less of a problem than the US faces, with its much smaller debt. This is because chunks of US debt are owed to foreigners whereas Japanese government debts are owed to Japanese. This is true, but it will not make it any less painful when the debt bomb explodes.
Japan's gross public debt surpassed 218 per cent of gross domestic product this year, said the International Monetary Fund. It will soar to 227 per cent next year and to 246 per cent by 2014. A report from JP Morgan Chase says Japan's debt-gross domestic product ratio could hit 300 per cent by 2019.
No country has ever faced numbers like these. The Japanese story is something of a mystery. US analysts are worried about American debts at 80 per cent of GDP. But not only has the Japanese government been able to go on borrowing, interest rates on 10-year government bonds have dropped from 7.1 per cent in 1990 to 1.4 per cent this year. US 10-year bond yields are 3.5 per cent.
Foreign analysts say the very size of the debt and the fact that the government will have to borrow more means the situation is going out of control. Recession has bitten a deep chunk out of Japan's GDP and its economy is 10 per cent smaller than a year ago. Tax revenues are down more than a quarter.