本期導讀
本文節選自《經濟學人》20210102期。日本的數位化水平十分落後。今年九月剛剛就任的日本首相菅義偉（Suga Yoshihide）聲稱要大力推進政府數位化轉型，但具體結果怎樣還是讓我們拭目以待吧。
Digitising government in Japan
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Suga Yoshihide is dragging the bureaucracy into the digital era
HIRAI TAKUYA keeps a tablet computer propped on his desk and an Apple Watch on his wrist. It is an unusual look for a Japanese politician. As Japan’s new minister of digital reform, his task is to make the stubbornly analogue Japanese government work a bit more like him.
tablet 本意是「藥片」，在這裡表示平板電腦。prop 意思是「支撐」analogue 指「（電子處理方法）模擬的」
Japan has some of the world’s best digital infrastructure, with top-notch mobile and broadband networks. Yet interacting with government agencies often involves slogging through labyrinthine offices and leafing through paperwork. In a survey of 30 countries in the OECD, a club mostly of rich countries, Japan ranked last in terms of providing digital services: only 7.3% of citizens requested anything from the government online in 2018, a fraction of Iceland’s 80%, and behind even countries considered relative technological backwaters, such as Slovakia and Mexico.
top-notch 意思是「最好的，一流的」slog 表示「埋頭苦幹；堅持不懈地做」，常用於 slog through sth.labyrinthine 指「迷宮式的」，名詞形式是labyrinth（迷宮）leaf through sth. 是個固定搭配，表示「匆匆翻閱；瀏覽」fraction 意思是「 小部分；少量」backwater 本意是「（河流的）滯水」，多用於指「與世隔絕的（或缺乏生氣的、落後的）地區」
Suga Yoshihide, Japan’s prime minister since September, has vowed to 「advance digitisation in government」. He is not the first to make such a promise: an e-government strategy announced in 2001 set the goal of putting all of Japan’s administrative procedures online by 2003. Yet as of 2019 just 7.5% of the nearly 56,000 processes handled by the national government can be completed online. Mr Suga, however, is putting more weight behind the drive to digitise than any of his predecessors. A new 「digital agency」 is being set up to oversee reforms. The creation of such a body not only signals the commitment of the prime minister, argues Nomura Atsuko of the Japan Research Institute, a think-tank in Tokyo, it also protects the project from the political winds.
vow 意思是「立誓；發誓」，也可作名詞表示「（尤指宗教的）誓，誓言」。predecessor 指「前任；原先的東西」；類似的 successor 則表示「接替者；繼任者，後繼的事物」oversee 意思是「監督；監視」，類似於supervisebody 在這裡意思是「機構，部門」，比如 a regulatory body 就表示「監管機構」think-tank 指「(尤指政府的)智囊團，智庫」
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