WEF annual meeting in Davos may be described as the world famous place for the so-called “Track II” dialogue by members of the global society. On the year of its 39th anniversary WEF opened Japan Office in Tokyo. I understand that the Tokyo office is the fourth office of WEF in the world. How exciting! But then, why? Might it be because of their high expectations for Japan? Then, we certainly must do our best.
On September 4th and 5th, a meeting to announce the opening of Japan office was held in Tokyo. Large number of people gathered making this meeting very lively. As the election of the Shugi-in (i.e. House of Representatives) just ended with the implication of the possibility of establishment of historical new administration, Mr. Hatoyama, the head of Democratic Party of Japan (and Davos meeting caucus) joined to deliver a reassuring message. I also participated in the panel afterwards.
In the afternoon of the opening day of this meeting I left for New Delhi. Arriving early next morning via Singapore I went straight to the meeting titled “India and Japan of Clean Energy Technology”(Ref.1, 2). The conference opened with the keynote lectures of Dr. Pachauri of IPCC (it’s been a year) and myself followed by a number of presentations from Japan introducing ecological technologies through which they seek “Win-Win” partnership of India and Japan. Ambassador Domichi also came to greet, and we had an honor of having him at the reception party in the evening.
India has a population of 10 million with expectation of annual 6-8% growth in economy for many years to come, but to my regret, Japanese business people residing in India are only 3,300 in total. Isn’t this sad? Although high potentials for establishing “Win-win” partnerships exist, we have such few Japanese doing business in India. I think this is such a waste of opportunity, as I always say. (Ref.1) Chinese and Korean industries are making quick moves into India. I did point this out clearly to people participating from Japan.
At Sotokufu, the office of governor-general of Taiwan. The bust behind us is Sun Yat-sen.
Next day, I went to Taipei to join in with my colleague at GRIPS, Dr. Sunami and others. Here again, the topic is “Japanese clean energy technologies” but it seems that the world does not know how good Japan is in this field. Japan’s existence is not prominent. Why? I discussed on this, too. In this global age, it is important to recognize your advantage or weakness about global issues and collaborate with others so that you can quickly spread into the society or the world. This “Creation of new social values.” is what the innovation of the 21st century is all about.
After Taipei, I went to Dalian via Shanghai to participate in the “New World Champions”, the so called ‘Summer Davos’ organized by WEF. It’s a bit busy travel, but this is diplomacy, making friends world wide. The first New World Champions took place in Dalian, the second in Tensin. Participants included many young business people so naturally the event was quite energetic.
From the very first day I attended 3 sessions. I was happy to hear that as many as 80 people came from Japan and was participating actively. I saw many friends from the day 1. Dr. Yoko Ishikura’s Blog also reports on this event so please take a look. Premier Wen Jiabao of the People’s Republic of China delivered a speech as in the first and second meetings. He talked about the policies China took to respond to this global economic crisis, explaining how their outcomes were, how the current status is, and sent out strong confident message that China is ready and willing to continue taking up responsibilities.
In the evening, I attended several receptions including Japan dinner hosted by Taiyokeizai no Kai.
