What Japan needs to do

Sunday, Jan. 13, 2013

With its economy spluttering, large parts of its northeastern region still devastated by the effects of the mammoth Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011 and releases of radioactive materials that followed its population shrinking and aging at unprecedented rates and its citizens despairing of dysfunctional politics, Japan's entry into a new Year of the Snake appears unlikely to yield much of the steady progress that these years traditionally herald.

Indeed, the country's myriad problems including fundamental divisions over such crucial issues as energy, defense and trade policies can appear so deep-seated as to make it difficult to know even how to begin to set things right. In an effort to cast some light into this darkness, The Japan Times has enlisted a range of especially talented individuals to respond to a simple question: What are the three most important things that Japan must do in 2013?

Comprising business people, artists, academics and politicians, our 10 respondents offer a stimulating and diverse array of suggestions to help this country reset its course for the better before 2014's Year of the Horse gallops in with all its supposed symbolism of nobility, class, speed and perseverance ...

A grandson of Arinobu Fukuhara, who founded today's Shiseido Co. Ltd. as Shiseido Pharmacy in 1872, Yoshiharu Fukuhara devoted his career to the family firm, leading it for more than a decade through 2001 and overseeing its rise to become one of the world's largest cosmetics companies. Long active as an advocate for cultural policy reform, he has been Director of the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography since 2000.

Once again this year, Japan particularly in the fields of politics and the economy will probably remain more or less at a standstill. But we can't just complain and hold our heads low; we must think deeply about the kind of country we want to leave for the next generation and act positively to create that. To do that, we should:

1) Develop the ability to see the unseeable: We can't just rush to embrace whatever simplistic buzzwords politicians and the media throw at us. We must voice our responses to them clearly yes or no and, in addition, we must develop the ability to see the truth that lies hidden behind the data we are shown. The key lies in improving education, in a broad sense.

2) Value diversity: In the name of specialization, modern life has tended to divide human beings into narrow categories. But the fact is that there is no such thing as an economics person, a cultural person or a consumer; each person not only works, but makes, consumes and plays. We have to think about the world as we would about individuals with myriad components.

3) Reappraise the world along the often undervalued axis of culture: Culture is something that is born from humans' desire to live a better life. If each and every one of us creates his or her own idea of richness, and expresses that to the world in their own way, then it will contribute to Japan's strength as a nation, and we will be able to create a country that has a clear role and a clear value in and to the world.

An economics professor at Doshisha University Graduate School of Business in Kyoto, Noriko Hama is also a Japan Times columnist.

Excerpt from:
What Japan needs to do