A Visit to the Official Residence of the Japanese Ambassador in New York City By Shari Cooperman, MBA ‘09 On Friday evening, November 7, approximately 50 members of the Japanese Business Association (JBA) at Columbia Business School gathered at the official residence of Ambassador Motoatsu Sakurai, consul general of Japan in New York City. Following opening remarks from Mr. Masaya Ueda, consul of the Economic Division of the Consulate General of Japan in New York, as well as Ambassador Sakurai, JBA members had the opportunity to hear from three experts regarding the recovery and strengths of the Japanese economy, and about some of the country’s newest environmental technologies.
The first speaker was Professor Hugh Patrick, director of the Center on Japanese Economy and Business (CJEB), and R. D. Calkins Professor of International Business Emeritus, Columbia Business School. His topic was "Japanese Financial Institutions’ Recovery from the Financial Crisis and the Lessons Learned." Professor Patrick acknowledged that we are living in extraordinary times and emphasized that as business students, we should avoid taking an immediate, crisis-situation perspective – and instead, learn from the past in order to take a long-run perspective on the future. Professor Patrick specifically outlined several lessons that the United States has, and has not, learned from the Japanese financial crisis in the 1990s, during which the country experienced a tremendous consolidation of its banking system due to non-performing loans. The United States learned that it is essential to respond quickly to a crisis – as it took 14 years in Japan to "fix" the non-performing loans. Further, the United States realized, albeit somewhat reluctantly, that government capital must be injected into the country’s financial institutions to prevent short-term markets from freezing entirely.
However, Professor Patrick said the United States did not learn from the Japanese that it is crucial to define a very bad worst-case scenario at the first signs of economic trouble; nor did the United States learn how to properly educate its public on a financial crisis and the importance of "Wall Street for Main Street" – instead, American officials had to hurriedly push Americans to just trust that they were doing the right thing with the country’s tax dollars. These lessons, of course, fall within the subtext of fundamental differences between the Japanese and American economies and ideologies. The prevailing belief in the United States is that markets fix themselves, where as the Japanese tend to favor government intervention when things go wrong. Further, there is greater technical economic expertise in American government (i.e. Ph.D.s in Economics) than there is in Japanese policymaking, which theoretically implies that when the American government does intervene in its capital markets, it will make a sound decision.
The second speaker was Mr. Kazumasa Okubo, senior visiting research associate of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute (WEAI) and CJEB, who spoke about the "Attractions of Japanese Economy and Business." Mr. Okubo first pointed out that because Japan is on a different economic cycle than those of other industrial countries – growing while the Western world is struggling, and stagnant while others are booming – Japanese investments provide great opportunities at the times they are needed most. Second, Japanese companies have made great social reforms in the past 15 years, which have removed previously existing inefficiencies that ultimately plagued their performance. Finally, Mr. Okubo noted that Japan clearly ranks among the top countries in the world in several areas, such as manufacturing, animation, restaurant culture, tourism, environmental technology, and fashion, which makes him cautiously optimistic about the future of Japanese business.
The third speaker was Gen Ito, president of Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) New York, who spoke about "Climate Change and Japanese Environmental Technologies." Mr. Ito’s remarks centered around the notions that a country must take risks to achieve environmental returns, and that global carbon emissions are one of the most pressing issues in the world and must be addressed by technology. Mr. Ito specifically mentioned that Japan’s midterm strategy is to try to level off emissions by 2030 with existing technologies, and thereafter reduce emissions with some of the promising new technologies the country has in its pipeline. He noted that Japan currently has 21 in development, with an emphasis on solar and plug-ins/fuel cells in automobiles.
Following the speakers’ presentations and discussion with the audience, JBA members headed to the second floor of the Ambassador’s residence for a successful networking reception.