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Behind the Screens
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18143 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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11 / 1990 |
4,437 Words |
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Interview With Tetsuo Kondo, Sadako Ogata, and Akiyuki Konishi
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From behind the unseen screens of Japan's government, its tightly knit business community, its public, and its culture, The World & I presents Japan unabashed: a frank view of its country, as well as the United States and the world today.
The discussion participants included Tetsuo Kondo, Liberal Democratic Party member of the Diet (Japan's parliament) representing Yamagata and a former vice minister of finance in the Diet responsible for economic planning who also specializes in science and technology issues; Sadako Ogata, professor of international relations at Sophia University in Japan and former minister to the Japan mission at the United Nations in New York; and Akiyuki Konishi, former editor in chief of the Mainichi Shinbun, Japan's third largest newspaper, and now Mainichi's special correspondent in Washington, D.C. Current Issues editor Laurie Burras conducted the interview.
THE WORLD & I: Some Japan scholars have suggested that the Japanese study decline, such as the Kennedy theory and others, in order to avoid it. What secrets have the Japanese Learned?
OGATA: The Kennedy book was very popular. That's true. The Japanese wanted to figure out how the United States was going to move in the future. But I don't think the Japanese are worried too much about declining yet, because they are thinking more in terms of still becoming a bit more global than before. We are still growing.
Japanese economic influence, and maybe some political weight accompanying that economic influence, used to be very much limited to the Asia-Pacific region. But I think our economic interests, and, maybe, influence is becoming much more global. I don't think, however, that most Japanese feel that they are a global power yet.
KONDO: If you ask Japanese leaders if they ponder the fate of declining empires or study America so that Japan may not decline, I don't think so. I mean, we don't have that kind of perception. We are determined to do economic things, not because we are trying to prevent our decline as a great empire, but because they are the right things to do.
KONISHI: Compare Nakasone with Kaifu. Kaifu is almost female. But he is much more popular that Nakasone. If you compare Nakasone's peak of popularity with Kaifu's present popularity, Kaifu is much higher. So, in fact, it is machoism that is on the decline, and gone, from my point of view. But, of course, that causes a lot of frustration among some very influential and loudmouthed people.
A retiring hegemon
W&I: How is the United States viewed in Japan today? Is it seen as a waning empire, as some analysts have suggested?
OGATA: I think so. It is viewed as a somewhat declining empire. Or the preferred term is hegemon, because empires usually come with territorial outreach concepts, images. The American outreach was much more in terms of military influence, economic influence, rather than actual territorial domination.
But I think a declining superpower is the general impression. I think this
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