I think Fratemate and jrmyl addressed the previous post that I think is riddled with inaccuracies!
But I'll bring my own perspective to the topic. First, the international market and specially the market here in Japan has changed many times over in the 12 years that I have been here and that has affected the failure rates in great part at AJX, the market today is not the market where hundreds of experienced pilots were furloughed from carriers in the US, OZ, the EU and they were looking where to hang their hat, that was the time that I came as a DEC, In my class 2 guys didn't make it as DEC's (about a 10%)
One was nothing more than attitude, you know the type, the "I'm this airline's salvation type" The other came from flying the classic 74 and had a hard time with the FMS, fell into the multiple discontinuities trap and didn't know how to get out of it, if you have to request a hold and spend two or three turns on the racetrack just to setup a STAR and a transition, the Japanese are going to start taking points away from the scorecard. His sim partner offered help, let's come in our day off and get into the FMS trainer and set it up a dozen times, that would have taken care of it, but he always had something else to do so he didn't make it.
I personally never encountered any attitude from the F/O's here, quite frankly half of them don't know if you came as a DEC or not, we are all contract pilots, we understand that longevity here is a loose term and that we really have no contractual entitlements to an upgrade evaluation nor a command, that is the contract world!
I agree that this will not affect in any way the upgrade evaluation schedules for the 76 and the way that they rolled out the requirements, I believe that they are targeting a small group of pilots, in fact I believe this is directed to the guys that are trying to escape the sands, and judging by the guys from the ME3 that are already here, the success rate should be pretty high for somebody that is a 777 captain or a 787 captain in the ME, to get checked on the line here as a DEC.
I've said it many times that training here is not difficult, it is long, repetitive and boring, but not difficult..., They do have a particular (almost pedantic) way of running their training, you adapt and learn the Kabuki performance as instructed and you will be fine, if you start trying to change the dialogue on the scene and improvise because you know better, they'll find a way to get rid of you, even if you do know better!