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Nov.07.2015 KIP Forum "The misunderstandings in the context of globalism"
Mr. Ichiro Fujisaki, The former ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to the US
For our November forum, we invited Mr. Ichiro Fujisaki as our speaker. He served as an ambassador to United States in 2010 and is currently the president of the Japan-America Society and a professor concerned with international strategy in Sophia University. The lecture was about the misunderstandings of globalism. He told us the role of an ambassador to USA from his own experience and, what we should know as a Japanese when we go abroad.
In the first half, Mr. Fujisaki gave us some quizzes on diplomacy between Japan and America and then he talked about 3 categories that are often misunderstood in the context of globalism, which are “country”, “communication”, and “language study”. He also mentioned the 4 topics that Japanese people should be aware of when going abroad. The first is to know the progress of the Great East Japan Earthquake disaster reconstruction. The second is to have knowledge and an opinion about nuclear power plant. The third is global warming and the last one is the issue of refugees. I felt that it is important to know about the situation of our country of an international issue in order to get involved with people all around the world. For communication, Mr.Fujisaki told us as many emphasize how Japanese people should be more expressive of their thoughts and often ignore the importance of listening to others, listening to them should have more weight in communication. He made it clear that in order for Japanese to live through this global era, receiving information is as important as conveying.
In the latter half, we had a group discussion on 2 themes. The first one was “Having little progress in the earthquake disaster reconstruction, is it acceptable to proceed preparing for the 2020 Olympics?” We can expect the economic effect of Olympics, but focusing on the Olympics may lead to neglecting the damaged places in Japan, so one group said that it is necessary to draw attention to the region by mass media. There was another group that said we could invite the people living in a temporary housing to the Olympics for free. Another discussion topic was “Should Japan participate in international community by providing military forces?” People who agree think that playing a military role can enhance the country’s influence on international community. However people who disagree think it is different from current world. Finally, the conclusion did not come out. Both topics were actively discussed because they were important topics for Japan. Finally, I would like to express our gratitude to Mr. Fujisaki for taking time to speak to us.