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30.05.2004
Prof: Japan can make comeback
‘It can reclaim role as economic engine’
PETALING JAYA: Japan can reclaim its role as the economic engine of Asia and play a significant part in stimulating the region’s economy.
Prof T.J. Pempel, director of the East Asian Institute in the University of California, Berkeley, said that Japan, being the second largest economy in the world, also has to change its diplomatic approach if it wanted to be taken seriously by its neighbours and the world.
“Japan has a very well established democracy. Despite this, the last 10 to 12 years has seen the economy of the country in shambles with low GDP and rising unemployment rates, to name a few.
“Japan’s economy at this point can only look good if you look at it upside down,” he added, during a public lecture entitled “The Uncertain Giant: Will Japan have a Bigger Role Play after a Decade of Stagnation?” at Menara Star here on Friday.
Prof Pempel said the Japanese corporate sector, unlike its political system, had undergone overhauls. Two years ago, Japan was lagging behind in the Internet world. Today, almost every household has broadband.
“Every teenager in Japan has seven cell phones to match their clothes,” he said.
Among others, Prof Pempel touched on the likely implications of the Japanese economic recovery within and outside its boundaries and whether Japan’s role in Iraq was an indication that it would take a more active and even assertive military role overseas in future.
Prof Pempel gave another talk at Gurney Hotel in Penang yesterday afternoon.
The lectures were jointly organised by the Asian Centre for Media Studies, Star Publications (M) Bhd, Japan Foundation and the Malaysian Association of Japan Studies.
31.05.2004
Scholar: Japan poised for a comeback
CHOONG KWEE KIM
PENANG: Signs of a Japanese economic and military turnaround are present but its role can be one of co-operation with China and the United States rather than competition, said a scholar on Japan.
University of California Berkeley's director of the East Asian Institute Prof T.J. Pempel said Japan which had undergone a decade of stagnation, was poised for a comeback.
“Japan has tremendous human resources of a high talented pool of smart people who are well educated, a deeply entrenched institution of democracy, and has corporations with first grade global competitiveness.
“The ground for its transformation remains rather shaky but in the long run if Japan does have a larger role to play, it's along one of co-operation with China and the United States rather than as a singular dictator of the agenda to which everyone else will have to adhere to,” he said in his public lecture entitled The Uncertain Giant: Will Japan have a bigger role to play after a decade of stagnation? at Gurney Hotel here yesterday.
Prof Pempel said Japan had taken a more active role in the UN peacekeeping effort in different parts of the world and had maritime self-defence force in the Indian Ocean and also sent troops to Iraq.
Though the number was small, he said such military presence signalled Japan's active use of its military muscle just as China was also playing a large military role by mobilising its military force and missiles off the coast of Taiwan.
He said Japan, China and the US were poised to play a larger military role across the region here but they need not be seen as competitive.
He said it was important to recognise that Japan and China were both part of the Asean+3 financial arrangements designed to offset future Asian financial crisis and both had a lot of defence and military co-operation as well as competition.
“I am also encouraged by the fact that China and Japan are taking an active role in the six-party talk designed to create a nuclear-free Korean peninsula,” he added.
He said Japan's economic turnaround was driven by a number of corporations making radical overhauls that were poised for success.
“Much of Japan's economic growth is due to investments in China and the success of Japanese companies with production facilities in China causes an increase in greater integration of the Chinese and Japanese economy.
“This is important to reduce a sense of competition and they realise that they each have something to gain from one another,” said Prof Pempel who had given a separate lecture on the same topic a day earlier at Menara Star’s Cybertorium in Petaling Jaya.
Prof Pempel’s lectures were jointly organised by the Asian Centre for Media Studies, Star Publications, the Japan Foundation and the Malaysian Association of Japan Studies.
Present at the talk yesterday were Star Publications (M) Bhd regional director Datuk Seri Kamal Hashim and Japan Consul General to Penang Takahito Narumiya. |
