World View from Japan

The Japanese people like to predict what is going to happen in a new year. They keep on talking which baseball team will win the championship, looking into paper fortunes in the shrine or expecting preferable moves in stock market. Mainichi Shimbun conducted a discussion by four Japanese scholars on international issues in 2017. Realizing overwhelming instability in the world, they are optimistic on the future of Japan, because of stable administration led by Shinzo Abe.

On how to recognize current situation of the world, Chancellor of Prefectural University of Kumamoto, Makoto Iokibe, realizes two powers challenging United States and Europe. One is Islamic extremist, or Islamic State, which showed its limit by having a state targeted by others. Another is China, which also faced its limit in its advance to South China Sea. In the meantime, there came up movements in United States and European Union that indicated internal collapse.

President of National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, Takashi Shiraishi, predicts a change in United States strategy on globalization. “While the strategy has been maintained with four elements: free transportation of capitals, free trade, promotion of democracy and international order with multi-lateral ruling, Donald Trump takes unilateralism, is not interested in promotion of democracy, and unlikely to promote free trade. It is only free transportation of capitals that will survive,” argued Shiraishi.

Professor in Graduate School of University of Tokyo, Akio Takahara, focuses on a tendency, in which major states that have maintained world order after World War II, or Russia and China, exercise their power to achieve its own goal, violating international laws. “Both nations compete with United States, and their internal situation is not stable,” analyzed Takahana, “and those instability and volatility stem from dependence on market economy. Every nation faces a problem of how to stabilize its society without growth.”

Professor at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, Akihiko Tanaka, does not see any big change by Trump. “As seen in the selection of new staffs in his cabinet, Trump will not make major change in security or economic relation with U.S. alliance including Japan,” said Tanaka. Takahara sees Japan as one of the possible leaders in the world when the future of U.S. or E.U. is obscure. Iokibe recognizes the role of Japan as bridging disconnection, expecting Japan to encourage Trump realize U.S. role to maintain world order. Shiraishi believes that Trump administration will maintain rebalancing policy toward Asia-Pacific region. Well, let us see this year.