LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- Sustainable globalization needs Japan to be actively involved, if only because of the size of its economy. For its part, Japan stands to contribute a great deal to globalization. The Japanese establishment, however, has hobbled the country with gerontocratic governance, obsolescent institutions and sclerotic thinking. What is most alarming is that while there is a proliferation of strident reactionary and chauvinistic voices and forces, those of globalism and liberalism are muted.
The fact that there are antiglobalization chauvinistic constituencies in Japan is hardly surprising; they exist everywhere. What is very disconcerting is that there are no vocal Japanese constituencies supporting a liberal, open global order. This is true not only in Japan, but also in Japanese representation abroad.
In the Geneva Japanese mission to the World Trade Organization it is the Ministry of Agriculture that calls the shots, partly because of its strong presence and numerous delegations. Nippon Keidanren (the Japan Business Federation), on the other hand, sends a low-level delegation once a year, consisting of a very perfunctory one-day visit with no press conference or communique.