Corporate POWER: Not Always Effective, Even in Japan

Japan was spared the perils of the Ukrainian official "multivector" approach; it was not made public in Ukraine as its strategic partner. There is no strategic link with Japan in the form of a gas pipeline. It is so very far away.

Information about current Japanese society is fragmentary and superficial. At the mention of the Land of the Rising Sun, one thinks of school textbooks on the end of World War II, Kurosawa films, and world-renowned electronic equipment and automobiles.

The Japanese Embassy in Kyiv recently staged a series of lectures about modern Japanese society, inviting Prof. Diasaburo Hashizume from the Tokyo Institute of Technology. Judging from the packed audiences, the topic interested not only Orientalists and college students studying Japanese. After one such lecture Mr. Hashizume told The Day's Oleh Ivantsov about certain social peculiarities in Japan.

Q: There is a stereotype concerning Japanese economic and social accomplishment: your success is the result of a combination of traditional corporate values of Japan and Western technologies. Do you agree?

  DIASABURO HASHIZUME

A: That's only part of the truth. The Japanese have always had a cautious understanding of the need to have Western technologies and means of community organization. However, our attitude to our own national traditions and specificities has always been very pedantic. Here the most important point is balance. Perhaps this century's Japanese history is a succession of periods of openness, borrowed from Western, European civilization, and periods of seeking national aloofness.

Q: Would you refer to Japanese society as corporate in terms of wielding power and decision-making?

A: Yes, in this sense it can be called corporate. Often we never know who is actually the author of a decision, and decision-making procedures remain closed to public view. Usually the author and originator of such decisions is whoever has real power and influence. Take the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Many in Japan believe that the man really "in" is Mr. Takeshita, the former Prime Minister, but there is no supportive evidence. I would call such a situation a depersonalized corporatism.

Q: The crises gripping Russia and Indonesia showed that, all distinctions apart, corporate power is ineffective in both countries. Or maybe the reason is in the corporate principles?

A: I don't think that crises like those in Indonesia or Russia can be predicted. Now corporate political thinking is a different story. Inherently inert, it does not allow for swift and effective efforts at a time of crisis. I also think that the Japanese Finance Ministry headed by Mr. Miyadzawa is showing one such example of obsolete corporate thinking in facing a financial threat.

Q: In one of your lectures you said that Ukraine reminds you of China. I don't think that many Ukrainians would agree with you. How exactly Ukraine is like China?

A: I mean the territory in the first place, you have vast arable lands, long distances between cities, modern urban architecture, and so on. And your being unaccustomed to and unprepared for a market economy. These two aspects make me compare Ukraine with China where I have traveled more than once.

Q: In Ukraine we have regular polls to determine how much the populace trusts the main institutions of power, and of late this trust has dropped very low. For example, only one in ten Ukrainians trust the President and Parliament and Cabinet are no better off. What about Japan? What do your statistics say?

A: We usually poll to know how much we trust our Cabinet. First, after the elections (in Japan the Cabinet is formed by the winning party or coalition and the Prime Minister is actually the head of the state - Ed.) about 50% of the populace say they trust their government, then the percentage drops more often than not. 20% is considered a critically low level and if it is 10% the government will fall at most six months later, or will resign, which is best. We have never had such low indices as you do now and I would be hard put to comment on your figures. Perhaps for the Japanese the personal factor in power does not have so much importance.