Kiyoshi Kurokawa's blog （en）

China Ranks 2nd, Japan Goes Down to the 3rd in the World in GDP; From the Article of The Economist

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GDP of Japan which used to be the 2nd largest in the world fell to 3rd after China.

This news itself is not so much to worry about because GDP is strongly affected by the size of the population. China with population 10 times larger than Japan to overtake her (Japan’s) position of the 2nd in the world ranking of the GDP was something that was predicted for a long time the only question being ‘when’.

What truly matters is the GDP per capita.  Japan has fallen off the position of the 2nd in GDP per capita the world and has keeping places somewhere around 18th or so for quite a while.  This is not surprising, since, to begin with, Japan’s GDP has not grown in the least for these 15 years.  I suspect that Japan is the only nation in the OECD (in Japanese) that has not achieved any growth in GDP for these 15 years.

Up to date no signs of growth are observed in Japan, and few in the world expects little sign of change from Japan, thus no investments come to Japan.  Changes in other OECD nations are obvious since the 2008 ‘Lehman Shock’ but Japan is still lingering in that terrible situation of ‘no economic growth, increasing its dept only.’ 

The Economist, as always, is pointing out the important issues clearly in its article of August 19th ‘Watching China whizz by’.　Views of Professor Ishikura, one of my friends, appear in the article, too.  As I say, larger corporations can not make decisions or is late when they do.  As the article points out, big companies are basically all the same in their conducts, our government does not dare to let incompetent companies down so it makes many ‘Zombie companies’ surviving.  This will discourage new enterprises to emerge.  Don’t they realize that the market and business of the world has changed drastically?   We are now in the age of ‘Demand-driven、Open and Disruptive Innovation.’

Anyway, as you see in the chart in The Economist the rate of growth of economy in China is extraordinary.

Not knowing your partners, not having multitudes of networks of friends of long time in growing developing nations can constitute big handicaps for our future growth.  Just to give you an idea, for example, the estimated growth rate of the whole Africa is 5.6%.  What are your business strategies?

Youths in Action - A New Project By Grameen and Japanese Youths

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As I have reported to you several times in this website, the very first project run by Japanese kicked off by the initiatives of Mr. Saisyo and other students of Waseda University (they are currently on the leave of absence of course) and Grameen Bank, Bangladesh.

The name of the project is "‘The Dragon Cherry Blossoms‘ of the poorest country in Asia" (in Japanese) e-education program.

As you see in the blog of Mr. Saisyo (in Japanese), the Asahi Shinbun newspaper published an article on this in Japan.  A series of coverage is also scheduled to appear on ‘Soto Koto’ magazine.  The first report （in Japanese） was already published.  Do you see how hard they are working?  I am very pleased.  Please support them in any way you can.

They have taken the students of the village on a bus to see the Dhaka University campus – a 7 hours travel.  I think this sort of ideas and actions will never occur  unless you actually live at the place and think locally.  According to the e-mail and photos from Mr. Saisho （in Japanese）;

“Yesterday, I took the village high school students to a study tour to Dhaka University.  This idea came because I saw the students having hard time trying to imagine themselves ‘entering Dhaka University’.  ‘We might as well take them to the place! ‘ that was the concept of this plan.”
“ ‘It was my lifetime experience!!!’ was their reaction.  The tour was a huge success.”

Was Saisyo-kun’s report.

What kind of experience was this to the village children, parents, or villagers?  Of course this will, I would say, eventually affect the way Dr. Yunus and the people at the Grameen Bank see Japanese young students and people.

This is a good example of the basic concept of Citizen Diplomacy.  Universities, not to speak of companies, have responsibilities to support and encourage such youths.  This sort of activities of private sector will be a good brand toward the future. Sucn activites of private sector are indeed ‘social enterprises’, the ‘strategic investments’.  We don’t necessarily have to depend on governments.  After all, how could we depend on grown up people who almost automatically respond by excuses saying ‘A good idea, but not possible to do because,,,’ , ‘we don’t have budgets….’, or rely to that never changing education policies? We should rather think and come up with ideas on how to support these activities by the youth.  The last thing we need to do is to discourage the ambitions of the youths (Ref.1).

 

Japan-Korea Exchange, Happy Gatherings

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Speech by President Lee on August 15th was for about 20 minutes.  Regarding the relations with North Korea the President expressed 3 strategic steps of partnerships based on ‘Peace’, ‘Economy’, and ‘Korean Reunion’.  I would like to read it if English and/or Japanese translations of the full text were available.

During my stay at Seoul, I was given lots of opportunities to meet people.  To my lecture at the Seoul National University, my old and new colleagues in nephrology, the science of kidney, gathered on the occasion and Dr. Narry Kim (Ref.1,2) a L’Oreal Prize Laureate of the year 2008 kindly came to the confenerce.

In the evening of 13th, the day I arrived at Seoul, I had dinner with Dr. Ju (Ref.1) whom I have introduced to you before.  Dr. Sumio Ishida, the specialist of the history of medicine in Korea (Dr. Ishida has many writings on the history of medical educations in The Netherlands and Korea) and Professor Lee, Heung-Ki (who studies history of hospitals in Korea at the Seoul University) (Dr. Lee’s photo is uploaded at the top of the previous column posting) also gathered and we all celebrated the happy reunion.  Dr. Ju is now 89 years old, but he is still very clear-headed; a truly wonderful person.
 
In the evening of August 15th, we invited a Korean female sophomore student of Waseda University who is currently spending her summer vacation with her family in Seoul.  She used to live in Japan until 5 years old because of her parents’ work and her Japanese is impressive.  Her older brother is studying in Canada.  She is very focused about her career goal and told me that she chose Waseda because of that goal.  She was selected to be a recipient of the scholarship (in Japanese) offered this July by the alumna of Waseda University  (in Japanese). I was very delighted to learn this good news.  I would like to see more and more of such mutual exchanges of young students to take place.

In the morning of 16th, the last day, I came across by chance with Dr. Tsutomu Nakada (in Japanese)(Ref.1) at the Executive Lounge of the Hotel.  I talk to him once in a while over a telephone but he happened to arrive at Seoul the day before yesterday and was leaving for Japan today.  What a coincidence!  This kind of unexpected encounter is apparently one of the hidden pleasures of traveling.  We enjoyed a brief catch ups.

Lunch was with Dr. Han Seung-Soo.  Dr. Han had been appointed to a series of ministers of the Government of Korea, is well known in international arena, was President of the 56th session of the General Assembly of the United Nations (on the very morning of his inauguration ceremony the September 11 happened in NYC….), was a Professor of the Seoul National University.

Dr. Han Seung-Soo published a book ‘Beyond the Shadow of 9/11’  which records one year of his experience as the President of the General Assembly of the United Nations.  This book is a very impressive work which I highly recommend especially to those who seek careers in diplomacy or United Nation and other international istitutions.

Japan and Korea are neighbors.  We share and have long history of deep relations in various fields such as economy, politics, and culture….for over 1,500 years.  We are the most important partner to each other in this globalizing world.  To perceive whatever issue as ‘two neighbor nations in a big framework of the world that is changing dramatically’ and to think accordingly is crucially necessary and important.

This was also one of main messages of my lecture at the Seoul National University which I have reported to you in my previous posting.

Nuclear Plants in the Middle East; Japan has ‘Soft Power’ on Public Infrastructure

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I have posted in January a series of 6 reports (Jan.2nd, 3rd, 5th, 12th, 20th, and 23rd ) about the news of Korea having won the international competition in bidding for the nuclear power plants in Abu Dhabi.

In Japan, social infrastructure of cities such as energy, water, railway, electric power generation-distribution systems were constructed primarily by public service enterprises.  The cost (or a large franciton of) was covered mainly by our tax money.

Were you aware that this is precisely the ‘Soft Power’(Ref.1) that Japan can take pride in?

In the world today where many countries are rapidly developing, social infrastructure is huge business opportunities.  Loans, donations, i.e. public ODA, are good as they are but there is also an alternative for Japan to grow together by building ‘Win-Win’ relationships with those countries through investment in their social infrastructure systems.

In the August 2nd issue of ‘Globe’, the Asahi shinbun featured a special report on the nuclear plants in the Middle East.  Please take a look and think about their points.

Discussions on this seem to be accelerating in Japan recently and I feel that my reports on Abu Dhabi offer a lot of information and insights that you will find useful. There are in some places of these postings where my expressions are moderate than I really meant, though ….  Anyway, the point I wanted to make clear was the critical importance of developing human resource and building its networks for business in this global age.  Strategic thinking and actions are utterly needed to achieve this goal.

This is one of the major themes that I discuss in this website again and again.

NHK TV Broadcast: Global Health- Chatham House

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Recently I have posted a report on ‘From G8 to G20’ meeting on Global Health- Chatham House、London.

I also reported that NHK television crew joined us to cover this meeting.

The NHK made two sets of 30 minutes English programs ‘Asian Voices: Global Health’ based on interviews with the main participants of this meeting.

Dr. Shigeru Omi, former WHO member appears as a guest commentator in ‘Part 1’ and I appear in ‘Part 2’, both hosted by Ms Aiko Doden, who speaks very nice English.

This program will be broadcasted on Cable TV at overseas, but in Japan and elsewhere will appear On-line for several times.

Please check the Cable TV and On-line broadcast schedule （in Japanese） of ‘Part 1 and Part 2’.

‘Part 1’ comes in 6 series starting from 11:10 am, August 7th (Sat) through 7:10 am, August 8th (Sun).

‘Part 2’ consists of 5 series starting from 11:10 am, August 14th (Sat) through early morning; 5:10 am, August 15th (Sun).

I was actually a little nervous when the interview was done without any rehearsals so I imagine that there must be several places here and there that make me blush if I see the video clips (though I haven’t seen it, yet).  But after all, in the Global age, what matters in “English is ‘the content’, ‘to speak’ and not in the least ‘pronunciation’”.

I invite you all to see this program.

See-D Contest: Technologies Appropriate to Local Needs Will Save the World

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The ‘See-D’ which I introduced to you recently, was held at the Fukutake Hall of University of Tokyo on July 31st Saturday.  About 200 people participated, mainly young students, including those who by coincidence came across the event and decided to join.  Kopernick is one of the important supporters of this meeting..

This event is hosted by Ms. Riku and Mr. Tsuchiya (also members of MIT D-Lab, currently living in Boston), D-Lab Japan office, other organizations, and some students from Boston who are in Japan for their summer vacation.  These people are the main driving force for planning and carrying out this conference.

It is very important that such projects/actions are created, spread and encouraged for action, particularly by young people.

At the See-D conference room, twitter and Ustream（Ref.1) were displayed on the screen in real time.  Live program with East Timor through Skype enabled the audience to  communicate by writing some comment via Post-It to moderating staff.  The three people in East Timor responded in English and those comments were instantaneously summarized in Japanese and shown on the Screen; a kind and considerate service!  The report of this event is posted on the web site of See-D Japan  (in Japanese).

Those gathered are eager and enthusiastic in search for what they could do. Three panelists with overseas experiences through JICA programs shared their work and thoughts with us.  One of them was Mr Ide who now works at Sumitomo Chemicals and its mosquito net or BetNet in Tanzania. I met him first time last March year in my flight to Dubai, sitting next to each other and we met a few time since then.

I had an opportunity to further encourage them in my ending remarks.  Here again my focus was on ‘the importance of first hand experience' (Ref.1, 2)　and ‘advice to take leave of absence from school and go abroad’.  I think the event was very hot.  I had the same impression by browsing through the many tweets. 

Anyway, everybody was so lively and high spirited.  The conference fully utilized high-technologies, too.  It was truly a motivating, good, happy conference.  By the way, Mr. Miyoshi (in Japanese)  whom I have introduced in this site many times, currently working in Bangladesh, also joined via twitter.

After this meeting, I moved to join ‘Global Health Summer Course'  which we co-host with the University of Tokyo.  It was almost 7 pm, but everybody was still working hard to make policy recommendations, presentations, having discussions. Thanks to all participants and staffs.  Tomorrow, they will present their policy recommendations in the presence of several legislators.

University of Tokyo and Health Policy Institute Co-Organize ‘Global Health Policy Summer Program’

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Global Health is now a hot topic at the University of Tokyo.   In this context, our Health Policy Institute and the University of Tokyo co-organized‘Global Health Policy Summer Program 2010’ (in Japanese.  English version will be posted soon) with participation of about 30 very eager and movited students (including graduate students and those who are currently studying abroad).  I joined this event on the opening day, July 26th, and enjoyed mainly interactive dialogues for 90 min. The session was carried out half in English and half in Japanese.

Everyone spoke up actively which I think resulted in good exchange of views.  After my speech, Professor Kenji Shibuya, the host from the University of Tokyo, gave another session in English.

As always, I asked the participants to send me e-mails, which they responded, so I continue to hear and exchange views even after the event.  Through these correspondences I realized how each student are thinking hard in spite of all sorts of difficulties and uncertainties that they feel because of their strong interest to this topic.  I sincerely wish that their experience in this program will help each of them think about next steps, in whatever way possible, in the future.  I look forward to seeing what sort of policy recommendations they will come up with.

Fly and soar, you future leaders of the Global Health! 

At Chatham House: From G8 to G20, Issues on Health and Development

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Photos by the courtesy of NHK Asian Voice and HPI-Japan

Chatham House in London is more formally known as The Royal Institute of International Affairs, one of the world’s top Think Tanks on international issues, a place for debates, famous also for the rule often referred to as the ‘Chatham House Rule’

This Chatham House, CSIS, an American Think Tank in Washington DC (Ref.1), and  our Health Policy Institute Japan have spent about a year preparing for this meeting at the Chatham House which was held on June 30.  The meeting was scheduled at the timing of the G8 Summit in Canada that took place a few days earlier, and the theme of the meeting was ‘Global Health: What’s next for the G20? Investing in health and development’.　

Its agenda, panel speakers, and sponsors were all superb.  I understand that the total number of participants was around 200.  Dr. Shigeru Omi (in Japanese), former regional director of WHO Western Pacific Regional Office, represented the government of Japan.  Also, some Japanese officials in London were present including Minister Oka of Japan Embassy, from JETRO, and NHK crew came to report this meeting.  I would like to extend my sincere thanks to them all.

Now and in the future, such process of independent Think Tanks or other non-governmental institutions hosting and organizing conferences to set global agendas to lead discussions that in the end can come up with some overall understandings or agreements is and will be extremely important.  Organizing and participating in such conferences have been a very good experience to us, too.  I myself was honored to have a role of listening to the discussions of the day and wrapping them up in the closing.  We also tried to make clear what we could do with the outcomes of this meeting, or what our next steps could be.

These things are easy to say, but actually to reach to this point was truly a tough task. I did write several postings on this process in this site (Ref.1, 2, 3) in addition to the reports which are posted on the web site of the Health Policy Institute, Japan.  Most importantly, we must understand that in the global world, building ‘personal’ credibility/trusts’ amongst ‘colleagues of the world’ is the basis of everything. 

It seems to me that one of the fundamental problems of Japan lies in the conventional attitude of the majority of the Japanese people who think that those global issues must be handled by ministries in charge, i.e. government offices or bureaucrats, or big companies if talking about industry.  In other words, our society is not yet mature enough as the ‘Civil Society’ - at least in my view.

So, let us all together nurture as many human resources and capitals as possible who are capable of taking actions based on the deep understanding of the importance of actions by independent individuals who do not necessarily rely on ‘governmental authorities’, as well as the importance of development of mutual trusts in individual levels, particularly in this ‘global’ and ‘flat’ world.

Doha, Qatar-3: Education in the Global Age, Concerns About Japan

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In this Global age, of fast growing Asia, with expectation of great change ahead, education in Japan has ‘more than enough’ of problems. 

Since the major work force in academic, political, and industrial arena of Japan today are comprised of those who went through the conventional school system, having  spent the 20 years of Japan ‘bashing→passing →nothing→missing’ time period with people who experienced the golden age of high economic growth of 60s to 90s, I can not but help suspecting they hardly recognize the fundamentals of education reform towards the global age.

In comparison to the population, number of Japanese people having been educated in overseas universities (undergraduate) is too small.  I presume also that there are only but few who got into (overseas) graduate schools through official entrance exams, finished full courses and graduated.  This goes particularly for male students most of whom are likely to have earned MBA under the support of ‘dispatch’ program of ‘institutions’ such as companies or government offices.

True that there were some historical backgrounds uniqe to Japan of education system , but still, Japan among growing Asian countries has exceptionally smaller number of people in comparison to its population who have gone through overseas (US and UK) higher education or who have been at ‘Boarding Schools’ (in US and UK) where ‘elites’ are nurtured.  And yet, the so called ‘leaders’ of Japan preach us ‘the vision for education’ in high pitch.

Of course, top universities of Japan are quite good.  However, even today, the ‘elites’ in Japan (in politics, enterprises, governments – and I wonder how things are at universities…) do not have good command of spoken English, and to be honest with you, generally speaking their ‘passion’ is weaker than the elites from China or Korea not to speak of their ability to appeal themselves and sending out messages at international arenas.

At Doha we had sessions on ‘Education’, and it was quite clear that every country was very serious about nurturing/educating next generation, thus prepared for the global age.  All were fully aware that the issues they face were different from those in the conventional education of the past.

In this sense, the message on education by Queen Rania of Jordan was wonderfully focused on its essence.  I urge you to listen to her on web (資料１).  She was without doubt one of the most wonderfully influential and committed person in this forum.

May 30 - June 2 columns in the blog of Dr. Yoko Ishikura are also a very good source of additional information to what I have reported in this ‘Doha, Qatar　series’ postings.  By all means, I recommend that you visit her site.

Doha, Qatar -2: Global Redesign Summit and Madame Sadako Ogata, President of JICA

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The purpose of this visit to Doha is to attend the ‘Global Redesign Summit’.  Programs and other information are posted on the web, but at this meeting all documents and reports abide the ‘Chatham House Rule’, a style that do not disclose the identity of the speakers, and its exceptions are very limited.  Therefore, we need to obtain consent from the host of the conference and the speakers in order to reveal who said what, even in a blog like this.

The intention of the agenda of this Summit as I understand is to pick up issues from the discussions of the past ‘Global Agenda Councils’(Ref.1, 2), focus, have them further discussed at this Summit and carry the results perhaps to the next Davos Meeting in January using them as the basis of discussions at panels and other programs so that some kind of global actions may arise.

As usual, the programs were divided into several themes in which I found one interesting session titled ‘Oceans’, an unusual theme.  ‘Oceans’ has been one of my interest for a while, and since the content looked attractive, I decided to join.

I had an impression that participants were carefully chosen and invited (though many naturally could not come due to other obligations) for this Summit, with members of the ‘Global Agenda Council’ as the core.

Since I have been helping the work of the World Bank on Development (Ref.1) for 2 years as a ‘volunteer’, I joined mainly in the sessions related to ‘Development’.  Committee members presented each point in about 5 minutes to express their views from their own standpoints to set issues for the discussions that followed.  The number of participants was about 50 or at most, 100 in each session, so it was a comfortable size to exchange views and discuss.

In such meetings, you are given opportunities to listen to many experts that make very good points, hear different views, observe the way good discussions are conducted, and hear the views of many leaders of the fields.  Also, you learn how to express your view within a limited time frame, how to lead discussions, expand the scope, or to introduce new viewpoints.  I always learn a lot from this sort of events.
 
As I have reported to you in my past columns, President of JICA, Madame Sadako Ogata is a wonderful speaker and one of the true leaders of the world.  Each word of her comments is very clearly understood by other participants, appreciated - and by the way she was invited to appear in 4 panels including the closing Plenary Panel.   This extraordinary talent and insights that Madame Ogata embraces is quite visible and valued at the annual main Davos meeting, also.  Such an extraordinary character is found in a very few people even by the global standard.  The last panel 'A Framework for the Future' was conducted by a male host, two male panelists and 4 female panelists.  The president of Finland (female, was a minister of foreign affairs for 5 years, has been the president for 9 years, originally was an activists at NGO.) commented on this fact at her closing remarks.  Such structure of participants would be hard to imagine at comparable panels in Japan.

I was fortunate enough to spend quite a time with Dr. Sadako Ogata, and was impressed to know her broad networks of people including many (former) heads of the states of so many nations.  She has been in touch with them personally for 10-20 years.  This is quite extraordinary and therefore a proof how people appreciate and trust her.  She is truly the pride of Japan.  Ogata-san visited Kabul, Afghanistan, a few months ago, and will head for Egypt after this meeting; she is practically hopping around the world. She does not appear this Summit as President of JICA, but as an individual, thus she came here alone, no staff, even at her age and the position. What a remarkable and honorable lady she is.

Participants from Korea (staff members from the Blue House- I am acquainted with several young staff such as G20 Sherpa Ahn Ho-Young (Ref.1) and Professor of Political Science, Moon Chung-in ), China representatives from political arena and academics impressed us with their clear and relevant comments at a Plenary as well as their skilful handling of the questions and answers that followed.
 
I urge Japanese youths to participate more aggressively in such ‘opportunities’; to learn how to discuss and ask questions at panels and follow good examples.  Try, fail, learn, and grow.  Gradually you will get used to being in such ‘places’.  By all means, take every opportunity to be at such events.  Failing to do so will result in even more low presence of the Japanese.  Besides, it is also an excellent chance for your global network building.