I've just spent weeks in Japan, where the government very much seems to care.

Are you joking? Japan?

You do understand, that government really can't care, right? People, animals can care. An institution cannot. It is a social construct. It is an anthropomorphising projection to attribute care or hate or thoughtfulness or any other emotional human attributes onto social constructs.

Humans are just collections of cells, bacteria and some electrical impulses; all vying for survival in a hostile world.

By your definition, anything made up of anything can’t “care”.

Corporations can care, they usually care a lot about for example profits. Governments can care, the ones you’re accustomed to might care a lot about the image of the country or their own image; some can be interested mostly in the survival and prosperity of the country and its citizens though. Politicians, CEOs, Executives etc; can be self serving.

Similar to our own bodies cells: those can be self-serving too. We call that situation cancer.

With which bacterial cell am I speaking?