The marketing and information technology revolutions that have mushroomed over the past 20 years have sped up the flow of worldwide manpower and wealth as well as the globalization of economic activities. The accelerated integration, development and reforms that countries have undergone have boosted the world’s total gross domestic product (GDP) from $20 trillion in 1989 to last year’s $60 trillion.

Following the historic fall of the Berlin Wall was the reunification of East and West Germany in Europe. The series of events that ensued, from the establishment of the European Union in 1993, to the creation of the euro, a unified regional currency in 1999, and the bloc’s eastward expansion in 2004, signaled that a new type of political and economic entity has taken shape.

In the US, lax regulation of its capital market and the adoption of a strong dollar policy have resulted in a ceaseless inflow of speculative capital from abroad, which, together with a flood of financial products and high-flying speculative crazes, have turned Wall Street into a sheer haven of gamblers. The omnipresent games with capital have also contributed to the explosive development of the IT industry in the US. Blossoming IT technology, new concepts and new commercial models were used as an important tool to snatch more wealth. However, the world had to pay the bill for speculation in Silicon Valley as the IT bubble burst in the US in 2000. The increasingly fierce speculation in Wall Street finally triggered the outbreak of the worst global financial crisis in decades.

Radical changes in the world’s political landscape have offered rare opportunities for China to push ahead its historical reform and opening-up initiative. With two decades of booming development, the country’s GDP has expanded 11-fold and China is the world’s top country contributing to global economic growth.

The US abandoning its Japan policy from containment to support during the Cold War period resulted in decades-long high-paced economic development in Japan and its No 1 economic status in Asia. However, Tokyo’s failure to follow the trend of globalization and make innovative reforms in a timely manner after the end of the Cold War has hampered the country’s further development. In the past two decades, Japan’s GDP has only maintained a 1.4 percent growth rate, much lower than the world’s average of 5.8 percent. Its GDP share in the world’s total has also drastically declined from 15 percent in 1989 to 8 percent in 2007. Frequent spats in Japan’s political arena and frequent leadership transitions have also resulted in its failure to work out a national plan to adapt to globalization.

Public eagerness for bolder reforms amid the global crisis contributed to the election of the first black president in the US and the first power transition in a real sense in Japan. However, Wall Street, the epicenter of the global financial crisis, has failed to push forward some fundamental reforms following the outbreak of the crisis, as reflected by some Wall Street financial bodies receiving government subsidies on the one hand and distributing bonuses to management on the other. The US government’s failure to reform the rules of the game and put in place effective financial supervisory mechanisms make possible a new round of financial storms.

Under the double impact of a shrinking US market and the appreciation of the yen, the staggering Japanese economy has been in a difficult predicament, as reflected by salary cuts and the bankruptcy of a growing number of enterprises.

At the Beijing-Tokyo Forum held in Dalian, China in early November, Japanese financial elites still believed that the US dollar would be the world’s currency of payment in the future, although they thought new financial storms will occur and the dollar would continue to devalue. Such a belief has hampered their pursuit of a regional financial system in East Asia.

At the forum, participants from both countries had heated debates about the concept of the East Asia community, an idea advocated by Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama not long ago. However, Hatoyama neither made substantive clarifications about the community nor put forward a concrete timetable for its construction.

According to International Monetary Fund estimates, the GDP of East Asia, including ASEAN, China, Japan and the ROK, is expected to exceed that of the euro-zone countries next year and match that of the US in 2014. Thus, the establishment of a cohesive community in the region will serve the interests of all regional members. To this end, East Asia should first set up a free trade agreement within the region and try to dismantle barriers that hamper the free movement of talent and wealth between members. Viable measures should be taken to strengthen coordination among members on economic and monetary policies for the final construction of an EU-like bloc.

The author is a professor with Tokyo Keizai University.

China Daily 2009年12月2日に掲載。

Japan needs to boost its tolerance and confidence in engaging China and its people to promote bilateral ties, particularly at the grass roots, Zhou Muzhi, a Chinese professor at Tokyo Keizai University, told China Daily in an interview.

Zhou, who has studied, worked and lived in Japan since 1988, said the attitude of Japanese society toward China has seen a delicate shift – simultaneous with the ups and downs in Sino-Japan relations in the last decade, as well as affected by Japan’s economic situation and its position in the region and the world.

Japan had been nurtured by an irrational “China threat mentality” as its neighboring country China experienced rapid growth in its economy and society, Zhou said.

China’s previously unimaginable progress startled its neighbor, compared with a stagnation in Japan, triggering a “lack of confidence and intolerance” in Japan that resulted in a fear of China’s growth.

These could be seen in media reports of China in Japan, Zhou said.

“The Japanese media has chosen to portray China in a way that caters to a conservative mentality in society,” Zhou said, citing coverage of the tainted dumplings cases as an example.

“A large number of Japanese people cannot really understand the real China,” he said.

Last January, more than 10 people in Japan reported stomachaches, vomiting or diarrhea after eating frozen dumplings made in China.

A thorough investigation by Chinese authorities showed that an individual had deliberately caused the poisoning and the incident was not a lapse in food safety resulting from pesticide residue, as many in Japan had assumed.

The fanning of one-sided media reports in Japan subsequently hurt the reputation of Chinese food products in Japan and caused a slump of China’s food exports to Japan.

Zhou added there have also been a good number of media reports exaggerating China’s pitfalls and demonstrating “China as a country set to fall”, all based on their own assumptions.

“Japanese people’s sentiment toward China may stem from the fact that China is growing into a global power,” Zhou said, as he reiterated the media’s essential role in bridging differences between Japan and China, as well as deepening understanding of the two nations at grass roots.

Still, Zhou said Japan continues to show less confidence to engage people from China in a number of other instances.

Admitting foreign students into Japan in the last few years has become less flexible than years ago, he said.

Educational statistics have shown that the number of Chinese students heading for Japan has declined in the last few years.

In 2008, 14,160 students went to study in Japan, recording a 150 percent decline from 2004.

“It is more difficult for Chinese students to be issued a visa to study in Japan and the process got more complicated with the finger-printing process,” Zhou said, adding that many Chinese students in Japan have to wait for years before getting credit card applications approved.

The university professor also said that in the university, scholarship and job opportunities, once open for grabs, are now very limited compared to years ago.

“This may be a reflection of Japan being less open-minded and engaged,” Zhou said.

But he said the new Japanese government, headed by Yukio Hatoyama that was elected by the public amid hopes for a stronger economy and better living standards, should also bring about more confidence and tolerance among Japanese people to engage China with a positive mentality.

The author is a professor with Tokyo Keizai University.

China Daily 2009年11月2日に掲載。

（１）日本と中国の大型協力案件として欧州から日本に至るユーラシア大陸横断の広域インフラ（鉄道、道路、光ファイバー網など）整備と沿線開発を進める構想がでてきた。
（２）現代版「絹の道」といえるこの構想が進めば、エネルギー資源や食糧の輸送が効率化でき、それらの世界的な需給ひっ迫も防げる。
（３）計画が大掛かりなだけに、公的な資金だけでは賄えず、民間の長期資金を呼び込む工夫が求められる。

中央アジアの問題解決のカギ

中国の江沢民国家主席が昨秋日本を公式訪問した際に行われた「日中両国の二十一世紀に向けた協力強化に関する共同プレス発表」の中で「ユーラシアランドブリッジ構想」が、今後の両国経済協力の目玉の一つとしてとり上げられた。
この構想は、直接には中国の江蘇省連雲港を中心とする東部沿海地域からオランダのロッテルダムまでをつなぐユーラシア大陸横断広域インフラ（鉄道、高速道路、航空網、光ファイバー、パイプラインなどで構成）を整備し、その沿線開発も進めるものである。政府レベルでの青写真づくりはこれからで、それに向け筆者の考えを述べたい。

ユーラシア（日本を含む）は人口、国内総生産（ＧＤＰ）、エネルギー資源確認埋蔵量で世界の約四分の三を占める最大の大陸である。冷戦時代、ユーラシアは、その東・西端に市場経済体制の国を有し、中間の広大な地域は計画経済体制下にあった。冷戦後中央アジアはソ連から解放されたが、民族主義、宗教などをめぐる問題が噴き出している。
その意味でユーラシアでの広範なインフラ整備は、中央アジアはもちろん域内全体、及び域外との連携を強め、「開かれたユーラシア」の実現に重要な役割を担う。ユーラシアランドブリッジ（以下ランドブリッジ）は、ユーラシア大陸の東西の基軸を成すものである。古代ユーラシアに交流と繁栄をもたらしたシルクロード（絹の道）の現代版として、日本を含むユーラシア諸国の産業構造、貿易構造を大きく変えうる。
カスピ海・中央アジアには巨大なエネルギー資源が眠っている。この地域の多くの国にとっては、資源輸出が当面の開発戦略のなかで唯一けん引力を期待しうる分野となっている。欧州では石油、天然ガスの需要増が当面既存の供給者からの調達で賄えるうえ、複雑な国際政治・民族問題により中央アジアから欧州へのパイプライン建設が阻まれる状況では、東向けのルートがより現実的だろう。
中央アジア諸国の国民経済の形成、市場経済への移行、民族問題の沈静化は、各国の資源輸出戦略の成否にかかっているといっても過言ではない。