I have recently posted a report on this web site about the ‘Asia Vision21’ which was held in Singapore under the auspices of Harvard University and National University of Singapore, Lee Kwan Yew School of Public Policy.
Number of ｐarticipants from Japan was seven (7), including a member of House of Representative Yoshimasa Hayashi of Liberal Democratic Party (former Minister of Defense, etc.), Ambassador to the UNESCO, H.E. Yamamoto, former Vice Minister of Finance for International Affairs and current President and CEO of JBIC, Mr. Watanabe. Everyone spoke up actively on various issues and I was told that hosts from Harvard welcomed it saying that the presence of Japanese participants were quite high this time. I was so glad to hear it.
In relation to this event, I had an opportunity to meetMr. Jun Kurihara (photo), a Senior Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School of Government who has rather unusual career (though it is not unusual at all outside of Japan…) He was also appointed to a Non-resident Research Director at Canon Institute for Global Studies last year. Mr. Kurihara is quite an ‘Out of Box’ type researcher, an earnest learner, and is involved in various activities independently. He writes reports ‘Cambridge Gazett’ at Canon Institute for Global Studies , and is also delivering Newsletters by the same name (Ref.1,2) (in Japanese)
Mr.Kurihara and myself
I was impressed by the rich content of the reports and newsletters which apparently indicates his deep insights and width of research he goes through.
Such networks of Kurihara-san’s based on local activities as an individual could not have been build unless he/she succeeds in gaining personal trust between the people he/she encounters. They are truly the individual’s personal ability and achievements which has nothing to do with his/her social status and institutions he belongs
Here, I will post a link to his report commenting on the report of ‘Asia Vision 21’ （Ref.1, 2） (in Japanese). I was flattered to know that he thought my comments interesting. He also comments on activities of others.
I sincerely wish to see more people with respectable positions emerge who are able to get more and more actively involved in heated discussions in global arena.