Korea wins the Nuclear power plant bid at United Arab Emirates – Part3

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As a follow up of my report on the victory of Korea which I have been writing about in a series of Part 1 and Part 2, below are some interesting reactions of Korea, France and other countries

By the way, the person in charge of this project in Abu Dhabi referred to in my previous column (Part 2) is ‘Prince Mohammad’, correctly ‘The Crown Prince Mohammad’.  I have had the honor of seeing him twice in person sometime ago and just by listening to him I could clearly see his wisdom and intelligence.  This Crown Prince Mohammad is the person who is mentioned as the ‘top management’ in the comment #1 which I have quoted in my report Part 2.

As always,The Economist or Chuo Nippo of Korea (Japanese site) provide us with some movements.  How shocking it was for the French, the top of the world, is described in the report of ‘France 24’ titled ‘UAE nuclear deal: a French flop?’.  France has already started planning the next strategy  based on the analysis of this defeat.

Chosen Nippo continues to send us vivid reports and follow ups.  Here are some titles of the articles which I have quoted from the site.  I think Japan can learn much from this kind of information

●Exporting nuclear power: Reversal after reversal, behind the scene of negotiation (Part 1); in Japanese
●Exporting nuclear power: Reversal after reversal, behind the scene of negotiation (Part 2); in Japanese

●Exporting nuclear power: Search for target after UAE, total war in opening doors of overseas nuclear market. (Part 1); in Japanese
●Exporting nuclear power: Search for target after UAE, total war in opening doors of overseas nuclear market. (Part ２); in Japanese

●Exporting nuclear power: ‘This contract makes Korea brother of UAE for 70 years’; in Japanese
●Exporting nuclear power: ‘Impressed by Korean spirit of “let’s try and see”.’; in Japanese

A Glowing Achievement for Korea

KEPCO Clinches Mega Nuclear Plant Deal with UAE

Then, what are the reactions of Japan?  I have written on it in my earlier reports (1 and 2).  My advice is to learn from the contents in this Part 3 or elsewhere, compare and think hard.  Winning and losing is a part of competition, so reflecting and humbly learning from the experience would be the first step to next move.

I think that difference of top management of the organization; whether the leader is a ‘winner in tournament’ (basically, one who avoid mistakes will make it through) or one who ‘won in league’ (one who learn lessons from his/her defeats will climb up the ladder) will be clear and causes effects at situations like this.  Refer to books by Kazuhiko Toyama, ‘Yubi ippon no syunen ga shyobu wo kimeru (A finger-tip of obsession decides the winner), ‘Kaishya wa atama kara kusaru (A company will rot from the head)’ or Ref.1 .  People without any personal experience of fighting hard in their young age tend to lack spirit of learning lessons from defeat, or seeing chances for growth in defeat ? in other words, these people lack adventurous sprit, spirit of entrepreneur, value of‘nails that stick out’ (Ref.1, in Japanese)

For Japan that failed to grow and now suffered ‘lost 20 years’ after the bubbles, 2010 will without doubt be the crucial year.

Korea wins the Nuclear power plant bid at United Arab Emirates – Part2

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What were the reactions to the victory of Korea in the international bidding on nuclear plant contract?  Here are some examples which I have gathered through my local sources.

1.  ‘The result was no surprise, but certainly was shocking.  Nuclear power project is accumulation of SYSTEM in every sense, and that Korea proposed a lower price by 10% and has won the trust of UAE suggests the reality of decline in competitiveness of Japanese industry.  Japanese industries stressed in their presentation only its high techs and quality of appliances, without any comments on the safety control of government or how capable Tokyo Electric Company (giant electric producing house of Japan) is in running the system, which was a sharp contrast to the overall aggressive presentation of Frenh team. The difference of their view (an ‘easy way’ of thinking based on the faith on their technologies) apparently caused a miss-match between Japan and the expectations of the customer (Japan has neglected the importance of building network of ‘personal connections’, which takes time).  This sort of difference was such that I hear some leaders of UAE have actually given advice to Japanese top leaders about it.’

2. ‘Whole Korea worked on this, by contrast.  I feel that we have to send young people to overseas and invite foreign talents to Japan ? this is, in my view, the only way for Japanese to recognize how fast the world is changing.  In fact my company also lost a competition for a mega project at Abu Dhabi to a Korean company.  We absolutely have to make people more international minded- which I believe that this is the key to the success of management in the future.’

3. ‘This success was not only good for strengthening ties between Abu Dhabi and Korean electric company but also in other fields (semiconductors, ICT, energy (Masdar), education, etc.)’

4. ‘People say that Korea was outstanding in following 3 ways on this bidding of nuclear plant agreement, that in fact the proposal was the State of Art; 1) Competitive price, 2) Shortest construction period, 3) Offer of support for education and human resource development in nuclear energy field at UAE ‘

5. The President of Korea, worried about the situation, sent a large mission to UAE, including the President of KAIST as the core member. KUSTAR (Ref.1), was designated as the only university in UAE to offer courses in nuclear energy.  This opened the way for Korean Professors on nuclear energy to visit UAE, and students from UAE to study at KAIST.’

6. ‘Korea was trying to see things as Abu Dhabi would see: it perceived the needs of Abu Dhabi, what kind of cooperation it was looking for.  Korea understood that human resource development was the key to survival for Abu Dhabi.  This is why Korea won the heart of the Crown Prince.  I understand that the Crown Prince and the Korean President became close enough to have direct conversation by cell phone (reference is available on Chosun online, as I have introduced to you in my column, part1)’

7. ‘Also, responding to a remark that ‘Korea is unable to produce all necessary parts or components of the nuclear power plants, so it must order them to other countries’, Dr. Myung Seung Yang, President of Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) commented that ‘In shipbuilding and semiconductors also, we don’t make them 100% domestically, but import necessary technologies from overseas.  What is important is the fact that Korea possesses the ability to design, run, and maintain those systems as a whole and export them’.’

8. ‘In contrast, Japan was dwelling too much on the special performance of parts, praising self as the ‘excellence in manufacturing (‘monozukuri’) giant.’

9. ‘I see clearly how Korea attacked Abu Dhabi as one nation.  Korea, confident after winning this bid in UAE, is now moving forward to other markets such as Turkey or Southeast Asia.  President Lee has experience of working for a construction company, so he seems to have giving advices in makings of the plan presentation to be submitted to Abu Dhabi and helping staffs to polish it.’

In contrast, the leaders of Japan was busy with the domestic issues following the Administration change to new political party, so there may have been a huge difference in the level of support by the government.  You can use this as an excuse, if you would….PM Hatoyama visited India at the end of the year and announced that ‘Japan will support nuclear plants in India’ (who advised to say so?), but obviously it was a bit late to notice the trend.  I wonder what sort of outcomes this comment is going to produce in the future

In India also, Korean business people (in Japanese) (Ref.1 in English) are known for their hard work, so even if we do have some technologies on clean energies, this does not necessarily allow us to feel safe.

To share this experience at UAE among government and industries, analyze the reason for defeat (Dr. Ikujiro Nonaka is also point this out repeatedly,learning from failures…), make good plans for the next step, and act ? this is most important.  I am writing this column precisely for this reason.

Basically, current age is not of ‘just manufacturing ability (‘monozukuri’)’, but of‘the entire story telling (‘monogatari’)’. (in Japanese).  Also, the time has changed to ‘Demand ? driven’ innovation.

Korea wins the Nuclear power plant bid at United Arab Emirates – Part1

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In the end of last year, news that surprised the world came in.  There were some reports on newspapers about this international call for building and operating 4 nuclear reactors for the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and this had been quite a topic of the time.  Japan, France, U.S.A., and Korea raised hand.  Two joint teams of Japan and the United States; Toshiba –Westinghouse and Hitachi - GE.  From France, Areva, the strongest  in the world (I think Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is in collaboration).  Korea was a new member in this Big Business.  Toshiba team retired early so there remained only 3 for competition.

And Korea won.

I wonder how shocking this was for Japanese industries.  France must have had strong confidence since President Sarkozy was involved actively in campaigning.  Naturally the result must have been quite a shock to France.  Some articles said that there is a chance for Korea because ‘Korea offers lower price’.  But this was not the only reason as you will see in sites which I quote to you below.

In Japanese:
Nikkei, Mainichi,Sankei, Reuter,


Asahi writes about Hitachi on its New Year issue.

On the other hand, let us see what is going on at the field, and how things are reported in Korea.  After all  it is a big news that calls for attention.

In English:
Reuters, Wall Street Journal, Korea Times

Japanese translation of Korean Newspapers:
The Chosen Nippo  (English version is The Chosun Ilbo)  offers a lively report in ‘Part1 and Part 2’ (both in Japanese.  For Japanese text in PDF, please refer to Japanese site of this posting.)
　　

Chuo Nippo (English version is JoongAng Daily ) has several (Ref.1, 2)  (in Japanese) (Ref.3 ) (in English)

Editorial shows that Korea is not just rejoicing over the victory (in Japanese)  (Ref.1) (in English)

The point is how to handle and move this kind of National-level highly competitive projects.  There is much to learn from Korea.

Nobel Peace Prize Speech by President Obama, My concerns about Japan

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The whole world was watching and paying attention to President Obama’s speech on his Nobel Peace Award ceremony ?　what he will say.  After all, there were great controversies about awarding him the Nobel, and USA has just decided to send troops of 30,000 to Afghanistan.

Unlike the days when television was the only live visual media, now we have tools to see the lecture on our computer screen (Ref.1), repeat it as we like, read the text, examine how it is treated on variety of major newspapers of the world, or editorials.

Although the awarding committee’s decision was controversial, and the timing of the award speech was very challenging, I think that the script was very good, very much effort was put in.  I can well imagine the difficulty and effort the President and his staffs made for this.  Especially, President Obama has been pressed particularly hard with issues such as sending additional troops to Afghanistan, its poor economy with high unemployment rates, handling of financial institutions, healthcare policy reform, etc…so challenging that the polls were indicating declines in the support of the President.  In such circumstance, the words of the Leader matters so much.

I happened to be in Washington DC at the occasion. In the Washington Post in its December 11th issue, the President speech in Oslo was well received (Ref.1, 2), as the ‘President of America in wartime’ and the role of USA in these several decades, in accord with the philosophy and ways of thinking of President Obama.  In our age, many people express their opinions through new tools such as blogs, but the weight of the words of the leader of a nation is incomparably heavy.

Articles on the New York Times (Ref.1) can be taken also as good references.

Comments before the ceremony by ‘experts’ on what they thought President Obama should say at Oslo just was also an interesting collection. 

By the way, I found another interesting article on the same day’s Washington Post titled ‘Does Japan still matter?’ .  The message was to ask readers not to forget Japan, a country which is forgotten now.  It ends by saying ‘So far, Japan’s new government has not defined policies that could restore economic growth and lift the country out of its funk. But America should be hoping that it can. And if it wants to regain some confidence, it makes sense to treat Japan as though it matters. Because it does.’

On the other hand, the New York Times of the same day has a column with a title  ‘Obama’s Japan Headache’

I am sad – no, worried about a series of unsteady messages from the leaders of Japanese government.  They continue to be insular minded and lack enthusiasm or energy to send out messages to the outside world. However, the fact is that the words of Prime minister or ministers even in many seemingly insignificant occasions are followed and read by the rest of the world, even when they are addressed to domestic audience.  But the problem is that many abroad (or even in Japan) cannot see what Japanese policy makers are actually thinking.  It is dangerous to under-evaluate the impact of the spoken words of the leaders.  You cannot take back what you have said.

The problem lies not only in government.  The other day, a team of guests from a well known ‘Think tank’ in Washington DC visited me and during our discussion they asked me, “Why did Keidanren close their Washington office early this year?”  Does everyone in Japan know this?  I imagine so.  I knew it, too, but was so embarrassed in answering.

Anyway, the age of Internet is convenient but also provides you risks.  Your ability, words, actions, or thoughts will be known to the world often in seconds, and be mindful it is hard to convince people abroad with reasons that work just for Japanese people.  The leaders of this global age, admitting that each has their own situations and problems to face, carry very, very heavy responsibilities.

Conference at the World Bank ? and ‘Let’s work at the World Bank’

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On December 10th and to 11th, I joined a conference organized by the World Bank in Washington DC, ‘2009 Global Forum: Building Science, Technology and Innovation Partnership for Building Capacity’

I have been helping plan this meeting since last year (Ref.1)through this year. Dr Peter McPherson (we met this April ) and we wrapped up the session with several recommendations about the role of World Bank in the future.

From Japan, senior councilor Mr Iwasaki of the cabinet administration office and Dr. Ko Ito at JICA gave nice presentations.

The outline of my recommendation was: 1) As is clear from the presentations of two days, each developing country that receives support embrace different priorities (not only poverty, but conditions like primary education, etc), and from variety of stake holders that work on variety of activities for developments, many new model activities to be models could be discussed as emerging successes; Science Academies, Universities, or research centers are implementing their networks, collaborations with embracing developing countries; in the face of the world that is increasingly becoming flat (for instance, cell phones), consider  how to take advantage of this new advances; and the importance of taking into consideration the differences and overlapping of ODA policies of each recipient and donor countries. 2) The great advantage of the World Bank is that it has routes of direct communication to every government thus is able to make mid-long term and focused recommendations. 3) These new kinds of successes presented at the conference may not fit neatly to such public institution as a Bank, but Bank could consider it as its policy to spread this sort of projects. 4) Bank could invite people who carried out these successful projects, or its leaders, to serve as　'World Bank Science Envoys or Ambassadors’. 5) Introduce innovative activities, recognize them as World Bank 'Flag-ship’ model projects, post them on web sites, search for possibilities of applying them at local communities.  By doing so encourage local communities to adapt policies that are practical so as to, in the end, enhance the possibilities of national policies being put into action..

Comments by the participants of this meeting are posted on YouTube for your reference.  I will inform you once reports or websites are ready.

During my stay in Washington DC, I had opportunities to see people such as Ms Izumi Kobayashi, the Executive Vice President at MIGA of World Bank Groups、one of the shining Japanese women (she is hopping all over the world）、His Excellency Fujisaki, Ambassador to the United States of America, and science attache of the embassy, Dr. Inutsuka, Dr. Hitoshi Murayama who is active at University of California at Berkeley and University of Tokyo,Dr. Calestous Juma (Ref.1) of Harvard University, Dr. Ohde of Hitachi Washington DC, and some of senior executives and officials of the National Academy, senior scientists of National Cancer Institute.

Thus, I have been invited for dinner three nights each in DC, by these friends with their friends, thus plenty of time for lively discussions.

The President of the World Bank Dr. Zoelick recently visited Japan.  World Bank wants to hire more Japanese staffs and senior staffs.  I think even working there just as a transfer for a few years provides you a great chance of learning of developing and widening human network.  Also many nice things can happen such as understanding the world movement or advancing your own career and vision for future business opportunities.  If you are interested in research careers, World Bank has a history of nurturing so many experts; Dr. Stieglitz of Nobel Prize on Economic or Dr. Nicholaz Stern of the ’Stern Report’- to name just a few.  How about thinking big, drawing a larger picture about yourself, your company or even your country?  I think this is a very good opportunity.

Thank you so much to everyone who were so kind to me during my stay in Washington DC.

‘Cartels of the Mind: Japan’s Intellectual Closed Shop’ and ‘Jigyo Shiwake (sorting out operations)’ related to Science Research

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‘Cartels of the Mind: Japan’s Intellectual Closed Shop’, 1997, provides critical insights into the insular mind-set of intellectual establishments of Japanese society. The book was written by Dr. Ivan Hall, an American scholar widely considered as one of the leading ‘expert on Japan’ who studied about Japan (B.A. and M.A. at Princeton University, and Ph.D. at Harvard University) and have stayed in Japan for more than 20 years under various titles, including Professor (as well as correspondent, cultural diplomat, professor at Gakusyuin University and a few other universities).  Its Japanese translation (1998) carries a short and straight title, ‘Chi No Sakoku’ or ‘Closed Mind of the Intellectuals’.

The content of this book is as follows:

Introduction: “NORMAL COUNTRY” –Foreign Intellectuals Need Not Apply
1. LEGAL LANDING –The Attorney’s Narrow Beachhead
2. SEGREGATED SCRIBES –The Foreign Correspondents
3. ACADEMIC APARTHEID –The Peripheral Professoriategr
4. PASSING PRESENCES –Scientific Researchers and Foreign Students
5. MANIPULATED DIALOGUE –Cowing the Critics
Conclusion: WAKE-UP CALL –Let the Daylight In

Each fact explained in this book is true, and I concur and support his sharp-eyed points.  Please refer to an article of interview with Dr. Hall, or book reviews (Ref.1(amazon.co.jp, in Japanese),  2 (Amazon.com)),    He also gave a lecture in Japan three yeas ago.(Ref.1 )

The opinion of Dr. Hall is essentially the same as what I have been pointing out repeatedly (Ref. 1, 2, 3 in Japanese) (Ref.4, 5 in English) in this blog posting and elsewhere for a long time. The people with ‘high intellectual levels’ in Japan, university professors are ‘Sakoku (‘closed shop’) (Ref.1 in Japanese, 2 in English ) So naturally universities become deprived of stimuli, thus drawing a wrong vision of future to the students in whose hands our future relies.  A society embracing so many graduates from such universities will suffer from the enhanced spread of ‘Sakoku mind’.  Is this what we want for the future of Japan?  I urge professors of the Japanese universities to be alert and do something about this.

The message of this book resonates with the analysis and opinion of Karel Von Wolfren, a journalist and another ‘expert on Japan’, as expressed in a series of his books such as ‘The Enigma of Japanese Power’ or ‘A False Realities of a Politicized Society (Japanese title: ‘Japan-a system that do not make people happy) ’.

DPJ (Democratic Party of Japan) that took over the administration recently went through ‘Jigyo Shiwake (sorting out programs)’, a very open and simple process of cutting budget off from variety of projects and this became a hot topic.  Doesn’t this remind us of ‘Cultural Revolution’ of China sometime ago?  Nobel laureates, Presidents of the universities, etc. from academia expressed deep concern and criticism about it, but people at large seemed to have evaluated this process positively as providing transparency in understanding the process of policy decision process.  There are, on the other hand, criticisms such as objectives not being clear enough, or the decisions being made in too short a time.  Regarding science and technology programs, there were also discussions about how the large-scale research, the Supercomputer project being a typical example, should be conducted.  What do you think?

I think that in a large-scale research we should include foreign specialists in the discussion right from the start of planning and open our large scale facilities to scientists of the world as part of the strategic collaboration of nurturing human resource (Ref.1) (both in Japanese). In many cases, I hear shallow excuses of secondary importance such as large scale facility projects that affect Japanese industry foundation must be run by Japanese only, or including foreigners is a risk to patent safety.

We need to consider more seriously about how the ideas that change the world (Ref.1) emerge and come into shape or who comes up with those great ideas.  In other words, we should do better on the ways we use our policy planning and funding by the public money.  In this context it was good that the new government made policy making process more open to the public.

Again and as always, I must say that scientific community is as ‘Sakoku minded’ as any other Japanese professional community.

Lively ‘Open Research Forum 2009’

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The day after returning from Dubai I went for a panel ‘Global Agenda and Japan’ (Ref.1) (in Japanese) in ‘G-SEC 3rd annual conference’, a part of the series of lectures and panels  (in Japanese) named ‘ORF 2009’ organized by Keio University.  Many programs were running simultaneously and there was a lively mood in the air reflecting the fact that a large number of the participants were young people.

The panel (video) started with a great keynote lecture by Mr. Yoichi Funabashi, Editor in Chief of the Asahi Newspaper.  Then, Dr. Heizo Takenaka hosted the panel of Mr. Funabashi and three of us who just returned fromDubai and Fujairah the day before; Drs. Tamura, Kondo and myself.  Dr. Motohisa Furukawa could not make it because his work at the government office was ‘Super’ heavy.

The people in this panel were all those who could see Japan clearly from ‘outside’ so the discussion was very active.  I wished there was more time ? we ran out of it too quickly.

Perhaps you may feel that I am basically talking about the same theme recently (global change, the ‘strength’ and ‘weak points’ of Japan, etc.).    However, the audience is different every time, so I keep on talking about these matters even if it sounds repetitious.

Global Agenda Council

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From GEW I flew via Kansai Airport to Dubai.  I was one day late for the‘Global Agenda Council’ (GAC) (Ref.1), hosted by World Economic Forum.

I　arrived Dubai very early in the morning, checked in at Jumeirah Al Qasr Hotel, the same hotel as last year, took a quick shower and went off to the conference. I was here at GAC last year (Ref.1), too.

Building agenda through a process of ‘Brain Storming’ by various leaders of the world will, without doubt, increasingly become important in this quickly flattening global age.  While I admit that participating in a number of Councils is intense and tiring, it is still very exciting, enlightening, and rewarding because you learn so much by exchanging different views and thoughts.
 
However, Future of Japan (FoJ; Co-chaired by Dr. Takenaka and myself but Dr. Takenaka was unable to come to Dubai this time.) was exhausting.  We – Drs. Heizo Takenaka, Yoko Ishikura, myself, and several others – did prepare draft plans in Tokyo but at the morning session in Dubai a drastic change was recommended, became a different story, and we had to re-write.  We worked very hard concentrating to make our recommendations on an agenda of the Davos meeting to be held in January.

After this morning session, everybody kept on being busy attending various Council sesions.  I joined in sessions on Innovation and a few others.  There was an additional joint session with FoJ and Future of China, Future of Korea.  We asked Dr. Ishikura to moderate this session, too, because she is a very good and effective moderator.  Many of the members of the three Councils, Japan, Korea and China, know each other through various WEF conferences such as Davos and Dalien.

Various scenes from the forum are on the web, for your reference.

The FoJ meeting resumed again late in the afternoon.  Mr. Charles Lake of Aflac, Mr. Mitachi of BCG  (in Japanese), and Mr. Tsuchiya of WEF Tokyo Office (Dr. Ishikura was very tired as you can imagine) concentrated for 3 hours to develop a new plan.  I was sorry that Dr. Ishikura had to bear such huge burden that whole day.  Of course everybody was extremely helpful, but I think we should think of better ways of processing our Council paper .  I honestly think so.

After a long day of hard work, we went to the same restaurant as last year,‘Zheng He’ to have dinner and cheer up.  This was a nice change.

Next day, I participated in several wrapping-up sessions and enjoyed them very much.  The forum closed at about 2:30 pm.

西山田中わたし田村近藤さんPhoto1　　Marco Poloi in JAL Hotel Photo2

Photo1; At the lobby of JAL Hotel in Fujairah. From left, Drs. Nishiyama, Tanaka, myself, Tamura, and Kondo
Photo 2; At Marco Polo, a restaurant at JAL Hotel in Fujairah

To kill the spare time before our departure from Dubai on 03:45 next morning, five of us; Dr. Akihiko Tanaka of the University of Tokyo （I met him just 2 days before;   Dr. Tanaka is Vice President of Internal Relations）,Dr. Jiro Tamura of Keio （One of the authorities on Study of Negotiation, who works together with Dr. Daniel Shapiro of Harvard Law School, who runs Program on Negotiation – a young but very sharp, nice man）、Mr. Kohei Nishiyama, founder of Elephant Design （a fantastic company!）, Dr. James Kondo who is leading Health Policy Institute, and myself chartered a car and went to Fujarirah, one of the seven emirates of theUnited Arab Emirates located at strategically important point along the Strait of Hormuz at Persian Gulf.

The travel took about 2 hours one way and the town was not so lively but we enjoyed driving the desert going through rocky mountain arriving at the coast by sunset.  Oil stations, and old mosques were things to see.  The JAL Hotel at Fujairah was pretty nice and we decided to stop by for dinner. It was a good opportunity to get more acquainted to each other (for example, we found out that Dr. Tanaka of politics was an Apple freak for 30 years and his iPhone content was quite something) and we had a good time.

We arrived at the airport by midnight.  I met several Japanese participants at the lobby and climbed into the plane for the return trip.  Thank you all for your good job well done!

 

 

APEC Business Summit, Dialogue with Mr. Lee Kwan Yew

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IMG_1968 top Chaingi airport

After returning from Singapore on November 6th, I spent a busy week giving lectures and attending meetings and then rushed back to Singapore again on 12th forCEO Summit, a part of APEC, where I was invited to attend.  Quite a number of companies were participating.  As you may see on the web, the program was very nicely organized; there were many speeches and panels by the political leaders of the participating countries.  Of course, the official meetings by the government of each member country are scheduled separately.  It was a pity the President Obama’s arrival had to be delayed, affecting a number of events.  Videos of lectures and summaries (Ref.1) are available for your reference.  

The theme inevitably was focused on current economy status and the policies crafted by each government focusing on the region covered by APEC.  Each leader delivered strong message (how do you evaluate them after hearing and watching the videos?) but I would say that Thai, Malaysia, and Korea were among the most impressive.  Of course the words of Mr. Hu Jintao naturally had strong impact since China is the “engine” country that drives today’s world economy.  Prime Minister Hatoyama also sent out firm words in the ending of the two day conference.  Japan will host the next APEC conference in 2010, followed by the United States in 2011.  I expect everyone in charge of our government to develop, for the coming months, a clear vision of transformation of “Japan in global age” showing high the flag of CHANGE, build a truly good agenda, and carry them out to 2011.

IMG_1952 Hatoyama PM Hatoyama giving speech

Among the panels, the one on Sovereign Wealth Fund was impressive (Norway is the 2nd in the world in size and their investment selection has high reputation because of their criteria that focus on how much clean and green the companies are and to become).  Secretary of Commerce of the U.S. was also very good.  Although it was a great chance for Japanese industries to demonstrate their vitality I regret to say that I saw only few executives from Japanese companies , thus their presence was weak.  However, Mr. Mikitani of Rakuten talked in a good high spirit at a panel.  Enjoy visiting the sites of this meeting.

I would definitely say that the most moving event during these two days was the last panel on 13th, a Dialogue with former Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kwan Yew  (he currently holds the title of Minister Mentor).  Mr. Lee is now 86 years old, but briliant and just awesome.  His thoughts, understanding and insight of world affairs today, perspective about the future is overwhelmingly impressive.  I was very much moved just like others who were there.  Ten days earlier, he had a meeting with President Obama at the White House.  The moderator touched on this upon introducing Honorable Lee, and from then on everything was dialogue.  Mr. Lee’s response to the questions from audience was also impressively outstanding.  I met with many high officials of Singapore including a few ministers, all having worked with Mr. Lee Kwan Yew, and when asked everybody replied with a feeling of affection and respect saying “A person like Minister Mentor is very rare even in this whole wide world”.  A young Japanese entrepreneur CEO whom I met at the venue told to me ‘I was so moved I had goose flesh !.’

When a nation has a great leader we know it.  Such a nation nurtures great number of leaders.  This is true not only in the field of politics but also in universities, industries, and government offices.  In current Japanese society, it is important that everybody (especially those who are in high positions) reflect their own responsibilities of the posts and think objectively and rationally whether their performances are truly deserve the posts.  You should not come up with any ‘excuses for being unable to do’. The core issue is what to do and act upon it in this rapidly changing global age.

I am truly grateful to the government of Singapore for inviting me to such a wonderful conference.