Tadashi Yamamoto, president of the Japan Center for International Exchange, spoke at the Library on Nov. 20 from an unusual perspective, at least for someone from Japan.
Mr. Yamamoto drew on his more than 30 years of experience as the leader of one of that nation's very few early nonprofit and nongovernmental institutions. Not until legislation was passed in 1996 had there been any substantial development of the nonprofit and nongovernmental sectors there.
Former ambassador Michael Armacost, now head of the Brookings Institution, introduced the speaker. The lecture was cosponsored by the Mansfield Center for Public Affairs. The Mansfield American-Pacific Lecture series explores the shared and competing interests that underlie U.S.-Japan policy debates.
From March 1991 until January 2000, Mr. Yamamoto served as a member and executive director of the late Prime Minister Keizo Obichi's commission on "Japan's goals in the 21st century." That experience led him—and the 50-member commission—to believe that radical reforms in the Japanese government were needed.
One of the most important of the commission's recommendations was to urge a shift from "governing to governance." In other words, the centralized bureaucratic style of Japanese governing should be reduced. Second, the commission recognized a need to "empower the individual" in Japanese society. The nation needs greater citizen participation in public affairs and to develop a much larger group of "public intellectuals." To enable individuals to give "full rein to their abilities and creativity," there has to be a significantly greater emphasis on individualism over the traditional group approach, which leads to stasis.
Mr. Yamamoto concluded by noting two trends that he believes offer hope of radical reform: the large increase in the number and variety of nongovernmental and nonprofit organizations operating in Japan without bureaucratic guidance, and, second, the willingness of some young lawmakers to introduce legislation that is antithetical to traditional bureaucratic interests. He is optimistic that Japan is headed in the right direction, toward an era of new initiatives that will energize its society.
