Japan Reaches Out By Hannah Beech

Posted by Yuka as Japan

By Hannah Beech / Tokyo Thursday, Nov. 20, 2008
When Kensuke Onishi decided to use his foreign university degree and fluent English to help internally displaced refugees in Kurdish Iraq, his Japanese mother’s friends told her they understood if she wanted to weep. After all, shouldn’t a dutiful Japanese son return home and work for a big company, like the droves of salarymen before him? But in 1996, Onishi founded one of Japan’s largest international NGOs, Peace Winds Japan, which operates everywhere from Sudan to East Timor. Today, the 41-year-old Osaka native has noticed that his countrymen no longer consider helping less fortunate foreigners a shameful occupation. Two former Peace Winds alumni now serve in the Diet, while Onishi recently has been fielding job queries from disillusioned investment bankers. “People in Japan live in such comfortable, peaceful conditions,” says Onishi. “I think more Japanese are realizing that it’s our duty to help out overseas and bring some of our values to the world.”
Is the world turning Japanese? Even as Japan’s domestic economy slips into recession and its politicians dither endlessly, the country’s overseas influence is reaching new heights. Limited by a postwar constitution from developing military power, Japan’s international clout relies on soft power, the term coined by Harvard professor Joseph S. Nye in 1990 to describe how countries “get what they want through attraction rather than coercion.” Today, a generation of idealistic Japanese is attempting to sway the world through cultural, social and economic means. Japan doesn’t tend to trumpet its efforts — understandable given the nation’s imperial past and historic disregard for national boundaries. When a Japanese real estate firm snapped up Rockefeller Center in the 1980s, the deal unleashed unease among some Americans, who feared that Japan was literally taking over America. But this time around, its campaign for global hearts and minds has been far more successful. According to a BBC poll this year, Japan ranks second in the world when it comes to a positive global image. (Germany barely edged out Japan for the No. 1 spot, while the U.S. was seventh.) “Soft power is a very strong force,” says Heizo Takenaka, Japan’s former Minister of State for Economic and Fiscal Policy. “If we have the right political leadership, it can be even more powerful.”

Japan’s charm offensive is taking shape on several fronts. Cash-flush Japanese banks, which have only just emerged from their own decade-long debt crisis, are infusing money into distressed companies such as Morgan Stanley. Japan Inc. is going on another of its famous investment sprees abroad, opening factories and representative offices across Africa and Asia. In October, the country’s central bank even offered part of its nearly $1 trillion in reserves to financially strapped nations like Iceland. In November, Japan also expressed willingness to lend up to $100 billion to the International Monetary Fund. But it isn’t just money that’s being spread around. “Because Japan’s financial system is the least tainted at the moment,” says Japanese parliamentarian Kotaro Tamura, “we have the opportunity to help save the world and spread a message of social responsibility.”

That’s new. Until recently, the idea of Japanese values conjured up little more than a picture of workaholic company drones. But throughout the world — even in places where Japanese colonialists once unleashed brutal wartime campaigns — the world’s second largest economy has suddenly been thrust into the unfamiliar position of exemplar. Developing countries such as Vietnam are studying how Japan refashioned its war-ravaged economy into a technological powerhouse that still maintains its cultural identity. Industrializing nations are looking for ecological guidance from a place that has managed to become an economic giant while still embracing a conservationist ethos. Still others gravitate toward Japan because of its trendy comic books and, not least, for its generous checkbook. Even though Japan has in recent years scaled back its foreign-aid commitments, the nation is still the top bilateral donor to many developing countries, including Cambodia and Nepal.

Japan is benefiting because of what it isn’t. The world’s renewed love affair with the nation has blossomed just as many nations are growing wary of the rising influence of Asia’s other superpower: China. Unlike Japan, China has done little to mask its global natural-resources grab. As a result, Japan outranked China in a June survey of soft-power effectiveness in six countries by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Far from China eclipsing Japan, as many once thought, the Middle Kingdom’s emergence has actually reawakened international admiration of its neighbor. “There’s a strong perception that China’s not doing enough for people’s rights,” says Yasushi Watanabe, co-editor of a new book called Soft Power Superpowers. “Japan is more naturally accepted as a member of the international community.”

The Japan Paradigm
As a kid growing up on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, Alimansyar knew Japan stood for one thing: really hip stuff. His parents’ generation might have looked askance at the historic aggressor, given its wartime record in East Asia. But for Alimansyar and other younger Indonesians, Japan represents a nation that transformed itself in record time from vanquished pauper to cutting-edge innovator. Today, Alimansyar teaches Japanese at the University of North Sumatra, and the school’s rapidly growing Japanese-language program is filled with 500 students who are often lured by Japanese cars, electronics and animé. “People in Indonesia look at Japan as a role model,” he says. “They want to know how Japan was able to rebuild itself from nothing into such an amazing country.”

Foreign interest in learning Japanese is stronger today than it was in the so-called bubble years when Japan’s economy was a more dominating force. In 2006, nearly 3 million people worldwide studied Japanese as a foreign language, triple the number who did in 1990, according to government statistics. “Foreigners used to learn Japanese for career reasons,” says Tsutomu Sugiura, an adviser for the Marubeni Research Institute in Tokyo. “But today they learn because they are interested in Japanese culture.” To help spread Japanese, the Japan Foundation, the nation’s rough equivalent to the British Council or Germany’s Goethe Institute, invites 500 foreign teachers from more than 50 nations to Japan each year for all-expenses-paid training programs. (Alimansyar is currently participating in the course.) The Foundation also plans to establish 100 Japanese-language hubs overseas by 2010, more than double those that existed just this May.

If many Japanese-language students had their druthers, they’d probably want a pair of cool cats to helm their classes. In May, Japan designated Hello Kitty as a tourism ambassador, two months after Doraemon, the aqua-hued robot feline, was named the nation’s first cartoon envoy. The designation of these two cat representatives symbolizes just how much Japan’s overseas reputation is tied to pop culture. That’s a connection that surely pleases Japan’s new Prime Minister Taro Aso. The 68-year-old premier, who is a self-confessed manga addict, has called for Japan to pursue what he calls “comic-book diplomacy.” (Last year, when he was serving as Japan’s Foreign Minister, Aso counted among his accomplishments inaugurating an International Manga Award that honors foreign artists.) Aso’s own internationalism is rooted in personal experience, a relative rarity among Japanese politicians. In addition to studying at Stanford University and the London School of Economics, he spent time in Sierra Leone and Brazil, where he ran family mining businesses. A vocal advocate of Japan’s foreign-aid efforts, Aso calls assistance for developing countries “a respectable means to export Japanese culture [and] an important means to disseminate Japanese values.”

Although he has barely had time to articulate his leadership priorities, Aso appears committed to burnishing Japan’s global influence. Over the past decade, the nation’s foreign-aid budget has nosedived. In the early 1990s, flush with cash from its long boom, Japan was the world’s largest donor. Now, it’s fifth. Aso might reverse the trend. In August, Japan’s Foreign Ministry requested a 13.6% increase in next year’s foreign-aid budget. In October, Aso made headlines when he signed off on a record $4.5 billion loan to India. That commitment followed on the heels of Japan’s promise in May to double the amount of aid it doles out to Africa by 2012. With China’s footprint in Africa growing ever larger, Japan has opened three new embassies on the continent.

Foreign aid, of course, isn’t an altruistic enterprise. When Japan promises money for, say, a road in Africa, Japanese companies tend to profit from the lucrative contracts. But Japanese aid is about more than just helping Japanese businesses. Just as some in American foreign-policy circles believe that the U.S. has a mission to spread democracy around the globe, an increasing number of Japanese are keen to seed the world with their ideals. One key principle is an ability to modernize without losing its roots. “The history of Japan in modern times,” says Kazuo Ogoura, president of the Japan Foundation, “is to have achieved advanced economic progress and democratic maturity without having abandoned cultural identity and traditions.” Environmental protection is another cherished value in a country that is home to the Kyoto Protocol. “The leaders of Japanese industry are aware that climate change is an important issue, so they are very focused on energy efficiency,” says Takashi Hongo, a special adviser to the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, which provides financing for poorer nations. “We can help developing countries enjoy the good life but to do so in a sustainable way.”

Giving Something Back
But Japan is about more than just thinking green. Despite a stagnant economy, life in Japan is still remarkably good. No wonder, then, that some Japanese are turning inward, cozy in their temperature-controlled bubble of convenience stores and well-designed boutiques. Glen Fukushima, a former head of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan, laments how, in international forums, Japanese tend to know a lot but are often unwilling to actually express themselves. Nevertheless, a sizable contingent of Japanese, who grew up in the era of globalization, see it as their homeland’s responsibility to engage with — and help — the rest of the world. Peace Winds founder Onishi is just one of a growing group of Japanese who have founded their own international NGOs. Instead of being automatically vacuumed up by domestic firms, many top university graduates are eager to work abroad. The number of Japanese who studied at foreign universities tripled from 1990 to 2004, to 82,925 students.

Those back home are eager to learn about the world, too. Onishi recalls how he signed on as a guest lecturer at two top Tokyo universities and wondered whether anyone would show up to hear about remote corners of the earth. Both courses ended up being oversubscribed, with some eager students forced to stand through the lectures. Another telling barometer is the number of Japanese specialist personnel working for the United Nations, which has increased to nearly 700 today from less than 500 seven years ago. “Among the Japanese public,” says co-editor Watanabe, “there’s a sense that since we were helped by other countries to rebuild 60 years ago, it’s a noble thing for us to do the same now.”

Such idealism drives recruits for the government-run Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV), which since 1965 has dispatched more than 30,000 people to do good in 70-plus countries. Today, the bulk of volunteers are women or older Japanese who are searching for meaning in their postretirement lives. Most contribute in fields that seem typically Japanese: planting stronger strains of rice, running environmental-training programs, teaching high school math and science. Chiyoko Ichishima, 33, helps female villagers near the Ugandan capital of Kampala build a local craft trade. “When Ugandans think of Japan, they immediately think of cars and other high-tech stuff,” she says. “But as a Japanese, it’s nice to be here and help promote Ugandan culture.”

Most of these volunteers toil quietly. JOCV lacks the global aura of the U.S. Peace Corps. Karaoke may be popular in the developing world, but Japan’s aid workers need to amp up the volume of their p.r. if locals are to recognize the source of all the largesse. Sadako Ogata, the former U.N. High Commissioner of Refugees, now oversees the Japan International Cooperation Agency, which, after a massive reorganization this year, has become the world’s largest bilateral development agency, with more than $10 billion at its disposal. Up next on the tireless 81-year-old’s agenda is publicizing more effectively all the aid work that her homeland conducts abroad. “Japan doesn’t go around bragging about what it has done,” says Ogata. “But Japan’s reticence and modesty has not been very helpful in terms of information about what it does in the world.”
Charity Begins at Home”

Other factors have forced the nation to look anew at its role in the world. A crucial consideration is the nation’s dwindling birth rate. Japan is running out of workers. To fill its factories and care for a graying population, the Asian nation will need to import ever greater numbers of laborers from abroad. What better way to lure skilled immigrants to Japan — ones who might be just as interested in moving to the U.S. or Australia — than piquing their interest in all things Japanese?

In much the same way, Japanese firms face a global imperative. They must expand overseas to maintain growth. There simply aren’t enough Japanese to buy their products back home. With domestic car sales slowing, Honda, for instance, just opened a second plant in Thailand so Japan’s second largest auto company can double its annual production capacity in the Southeast Asian nation to 240,000 cars. Japanese pharmaceutical firms have also bought up American and Indian rivals. Overall, in the first 10 months of this year, foreign acquisitions by Japanese firms soared nearly fourfold to around $67 billion, according to Recof Data Corp. If the shopping binge continues, Japan could log its largest ever yearly overseas-acquisitions tally.

Yet as much as Japan is exerting its influence abroad, the country needs to welcome the world to its shores, too. Back in the 1980s, during Japan Inc.’s first global foray, many of its mergers and acquisitions languished because overseas employees chafed under the strictures of Japanese management. In the same way, unless Japan relaxes its rigid immigration policies, cultivating foreign Japanophiles will be a waste of time. Indeed, in moving beyond Japan’s insular past, Prime Minister Aso might do well to take inspiration from a cuddly cat. Hello Kitty, it turns out, may not be ethnically Japanese. Her surname is not Suzuki or Sato but White. Her parents are named George and Mary. Yet the mouthless feline has prospered as one of Japan’s most successful exports, a fitting symbol of an open Japan. Arigato Kitty, hello world.

— with reporting by Yuki Oda and Michiko Toyama / Tokyo
From:www.time.com