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May 05, 2024
 

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JAPAN IN THE GLOBAL ERA

COMMENTARY / JAPAN IN THE GLOBAL ERA
Jul 1, 2002
Scapegoat seekers fuel nation's decline
LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- It is natural when one has domestic problems to look for foreign scapegoats. The United States' paranoia over Japan's trade surplus and foreign-investment binge in the 1980s is a good example. While most nations reflect this general syndrome up to a point, the Japanese seem to be pretty much in a league of their own. What dispirits a lot of foreign observers of Japan as well as many disaffected Japanese is the absence of vigorous internal debate within establishment circles about the country's homegrown problems. Talk to officials and they are almost invariably on the defensive. Talk to lots of other people and they are almost invariably resigned and often defeatist.
COMMENTARY / JAPAN IN THE GLOBAL ERA
Jun 17, 2002
How to avert the risk of war with China
LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- In the rolling green countryside of West Sussex in South England, there is an estate called Wilton Park. Some readers of this column may be familiar with the place and the institution it has become: "Wilton Park conferences" occur throughout the year bringing together politicians, officials, business executives and academics for several days to discuss some of the key topics of the planet. It is an excellent environment for this kind of meeting; quite grand, yet intimate and comfortable, and "inspirational."
COMMENTARY / JAPAN IN THE GLOBAL ERA
Jun 10, 2002
Going 'international' is a matter of trust
Fifteenth in a series
COMMENTARY / JAPAN IN THE GLOBAL ERA
Jun 3, 2002
Can a nation learn from Nissan's success?
LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- The twin announcements that Nissan made a record profit of 372 billion yen last year and that Carlos Ghosn has been appointed chief executive officer of the parent company, Renault, as well as retaining the presidency of Nissan, are an extraordinary landmark.
COMMENTARY / JAPAN IN THE GLOBAL ERA
May 20, 2002
Parochialism produces few world leaders
LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- Following the appearance of one of the recent articles in this series on Japan in the global era, a colleague of mine, Dominique Turpin, who has been doing research on Japanese industry for some 20 years, came into my office and said, "Jean-Pierre, when are you going to start proposing solutions?" Some readers may be wondering the same thing. There are three answers to that question.
COMMENTARY / JAPAN IN THE GLOBAL ERA
May 6, 2002
Le Pen's philosophy is all too familiar
LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- The results in the first round of the French presidential elections on April 21 hit like a seismic shock. Veteran rightwing extremist Jean-Marie Le Pen took second place. There are many reasons why. Some are statistical: Sixteen candidates across the spectrum split the votes of the mainstream parties. There are, however, far more profound and worrying reasons. Racism is a feature, especially in working-class areas where immigrants tend to congregate. Crime is rising, and there is a good deal of insecurity. The proportion of immigrants in France is high, and they have not been well assimilated.
COMMENTARY / JAPAN IN THE GLOBAL ERA
Apr 22, 2002
Gerontocracy and its perks sap resources
LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- In 1999 I was invited to participate at a conference held in Tokyo under the title of "Management Challenges for the 21st Century." The first and keynote speaker was Jack Welch, former chief executive officer of General Electric, followed by about a dozen CEOs of major Japanese companies and, lastly, the president of IMD, Peter Lorange, and myself.
COMMENTARY / JAPAN IN THE GLOBAL ERA
Apr 8, 2002
Absence from round table reflects prevalent pattern
LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- A number of readers of this column have been writing to me directly, mostly, I have to say, to agree and to complement what I am writing with illustrations of their own. Some readers, however, have told me they are upset. That is good! If revolutionary leaders of the mid-19th century such as Shoin Yoshida, Yukichi Fukuzawa, Toshimichi Okubo had not been upset, Japan would have remained a feudal backwater and today would probably be comparable to Myanmar.
COMMENTARY / JAPAN IN THE GLOBAL ERA
Apr 1, 2002
Pundits part of the problem, not its solution
LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- For years the Japanese government has been arguing that, as one of the biggest financial contributors to the United Nations, it should have a permanent seat on the Security Council. Japan does indeed bring lots of money to the U.N., but it does not bring much else. One of the greatest deficits of Japan in the global era has been that of leadership. And one of the primary reasons for the leadership deficit is the deficit in ideas.
COMMENTARY / JAPAN IN THE GLOBAL ERA
Mar 18, 2002
'Gerontocrat' academicians with myopia
LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- After Harvard Professor Ezra Vogel's famous book "Japan as Number One" appeared in 1979, the West experienced a "learning from Japan" boom. I fully participated in this movement in both of its manifestations: publications, seminars etc., and the establishment of university Japanese studies programs. My doctoral thesis at Oxford in the late 1960s had been on Japanese economic history (technology transfer and "modernization" in the late Edo and early Meiji eras (1840-1885).
COMMENTARY / JAPAN IN THE GLOBAL ERA
Mar 11, 2002
Business schools buck international trend
Seventh in a series
COMMENTARY / JAPAN IN THE GLOBAL ERA
Mar 4, 2002
'Inbred' universities dragging Japan down
LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- A former Japanese student of mine, now a member of the economics faculty of one of Tokyo's leading universities, remarked on an occasion when we were having lunch together that, "Larry Summers would not have been appointed professor in a Japanese university." Summers is quite an exceptional fellow by any standard. Now 47 and president of Harvard University, he was made a full tenured professor of economics at Harvard at the age of 28. In the early '90s he was chief economist to the World Bank and then served as secretary of the Treasury in the second Clinton administration.
COMMENTARY / JAPAN IN THE GLOBAL ERA
Feb 18, 2002
No surprise investors shun 'homely' Japan
LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- For a nation to be competitive in the global era, above all it has to be attractive. That, argues my colleague Stephane Garelli, author of the annual IMD World Competitiveness Yearbook (WCY), is the ultimate criterion in determining how nations compete in the global era. Attractiveness is measured in terms of how successful nations are in attracting foreign (or retaining domestic) capital and talent, the two most vital economic resources.*
COMMENTARY / JAPAN IN THE GLOBAL ERA
Feb 11, 2002
Argentina's decline holds lessons for Japan
LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- A J.P. Morgan analyst in Tokyo was quoted by The Globalist (Dec. 21) as saying, "Japan now faces the choice: either restructure its economy or become the Argentina of the 21st century -- a spent power." One would not have imagined even just a very few years ago that Japan and Argentina would be uttered in the same breath. The comparison, which of course must not be pushed too far, is nevertheless intriguing, for various reasons.
COMMENTARY / JAPAN IN THE GLOBAL ERA
Feb 4, 2002
English-language deficit handicaps Japan
LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- In 1984 I was invited to give a public lecture at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. I began by apologizing for the fact that I would not be able to deliver my lecture in Dutch. I went on to remark that had I been alive at the time of Erasmus, I would have given my lecture in Latin. Many centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire, Latin was still the lingua franca (common language) of the intellectual elite across Europe.
COMMENTARY / JAPAN IN THE GLOBAL ERA
Jan 21, 2002
Charades begin with 'Narita neurosis'
LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- Some 10 years ago, a Japanese student at an institute in Bologna where I was a visiting professor produced an essay in which he wrote "because Japan has a unique culture, it is misunderstood and discriminated against by other countries."
COMMENTARY / JAPAN IN THE GLOBAL ERA
Jan 14, 2002
Still hurtling down the nationalist track
LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- In early 1997 I was hosting a reception at a Geneva hotel following a workshop on trade issues when a Japanese official took me aside. Looking at me conspiratorially, he whispered, "Professor Lehmann, I have an important question to ask you: How long do you think it will be before China catches up with Japan?" I looked at him gravely and replied, "Oh, I am not sure, Harada-san (not his real name), maybe about three weeks."
Japan says Biden's description of nation as xenophobic is 'unfortunate'
The National Diet building in Tokyo
With eye on China, defense chiefs agree to bolster interoperability
From left: U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Australian defense chief Richard Marles, Japanese Defense Minister Minoru Kihara and Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro hold a joint news conference in Honolulu on Thursday.
The 'outsiders' creating some of Japan's greenest spaces
Rows of irises resemble a rice field at the Peter Walker-designed Toyota Municipal Museum of Art.
Japan drops to 70th in press freedom rankings
A businessman reads a newspaper outside a train station in Tokyo.
Traders spooked by intervention risk trim record yen shorts
Traders edged back from record bets on yen weakness this past week, in a period that included a likely bout of intervention by Japan to prop up the currency.
Kishida sets sights on energy and climate in South America trip
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will use a policy speech in Sao Paulo to set out his vision for ties between Japan and South America, almost 10 years after former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe advocated for stronger ties between the two in the same city.
Yellow sand allergy: A health issue made worse by climate change
A screenshot of the Meteorological Agency's satellite image of clouds and yellow sand (in pink) on Sunday.
Climate change, chalky grains and the risks for Japan’s rice farmers
A farmer plants seedlings in Satsumasendai, Kagoshima Prefecture. Japan’s self sufficiency rate for rice is nearly 100%, compared with 38% for food overall, on a calorie basis.
Japan wants you to spend more with ‘luxury tourism’
Performers play a traditional drum unique to Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, in the prefectural capital of Kanazawa on March 16 to mark the extension of the Hokuriku Shinkansen line to Tsuruga Station in Fukui Prefecture.
Theaster Gates’ ambitious ‘Afro-Mingei’ brings Black Chicago to Tokyo
Theaster Gates' “A Heavenly Chord” lines up church pews before seven speakers and a Hammond B3 organ, a type of electric organ prevalent in Black American churches.

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Rows of irises resemble a rice field at the Peter Walker-designed Toyota Municipal Museum of Art.
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