President's Message
Let me welcome you personally to the JCIE web site with a few words about ourselves and mention a few words about our recent activities and our future plans.
Reflecting on JCIE’s activities provides me with an opportunity to think about the role that civil society organizations such as our own can play in helping to promote constructive relations between Japan and the world within the evolving international context. In recent years, we have been carrying out our efforts in the framework of our Global ThinkNet, CivilNet, and Political Exchange Programs and these activities have become increasingly interconnected. We have been conducting policy research and dialogues with countries around the world, facilitating international collaboration among civil society organizations, and promoting dialogue and cooperation among political leaders. As I have stated many times, JCIE owes a deep debt of gratitude to the many foundations, corporations, research institutes, opinion leaders, and others who have supported us and worked together with us over the years, enabling us to carry out our work with consistency and professionalism. With their assistance, we have worked hard to create and strengthen collaborative networks among major institutions and individual leaders in a wide range of fields.
As I think about the various JCIE activities, one trend that stands out is that, as the international environment has shifted and as new developments have arisen in the issues facing the global community today, JCIE has been able to react quickly and effectively, creating the necessary linkages by drawing on the networks and relationships that we have cultivated over the years in a broad and diverse range of fields. This has also made me increasingly conscious of the catalytic role that nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations such as ours can play in contributing to foreign relations and promoting exchange, and I believe that even greater efforts are needed in this area.
Responding to Global Challenges
This is a time when Japan is expected to step to the fore and contribute on the international scene, affording it an opportunity to significantly enhance its international role. The types of global issues we face, such as climate change and infectious diseases, share a common characteristic: their solutions require close cooperation among diverse sectors. In 2004, for example, at the request of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, JCIE launched the Friends of the Global Fund, Japan (FGFJ), which carries out activities that involve medical experts, business leaders, politicians, journalists, NGO leaders, scholars, and others. That experience has convinced me that efforts to address global issues are opening up a new dimension in international exchange and cooperation. JCIE has received positive feedback for its work in these new areas thanks in large part to our ability to actively develop cooperative, cross-sectoral programs. That, in turn, is possible because our status as a nonprofit and nongovernmental organization has enabled us to gain the trust of, and build strong ties with, diverse sectors.
Contributing to Global Governance and Regional Community Building
Another trend that I would like to emphasize here is the increase in JCIE activities related to strengthening regional ties. In recent years, East Asia has started to play an increasingly central role in global governance, taking its place alongside North America and Europe. It is clear from the history of regional community building in both North America and Europe that there is a very effective role to be played by the types of human and institutional networks that are created through intra-regional exchange and cooperation efforts.
JCIE has been working actively in this field, as demonstrated by the research and dialogue projects conducted under the Asia Pacific Agenda Project (APAP). In addition, one area of particular emphasis has been the examination of how an increasingly integrated East Asia community will affect relations with the United States and Europe, and how this trend might serve to strengthen East Asia’s relations with other regions rather than leading to isolation or conflict. The specific themes we have been addressing in this area include Japan-China-US relations, Europe-Asia relations, and US Congressional views of East Asia. I should also note that the publication of our newsletter, East Asian Insights, which analyzes new developments related to East Asian community building, is drawing particularly wide interest. We believe that these types of activities can play a significant role in assisting the emerging East Asia community to contribute to global governance.
Looking to the Future
In addition to the priorities described above, JCIE has been adopting new approaches and developing more active programs in a number of areas, including the promotion of research and dialogue on human security, the substantive strengthening of ongoing bilateral dialogues with major countries, the encouragement of community-level exchanges as part of internationalization efforts in Japan, and the facilitation of corporate philanthropy. In all of these diverse activities, we are emphasizing the involvement of young Japanese participants. For example, we are organizing research projects on China-Japan-US relations and on bilateral US-Japan relations that have younger experts at the core of the research teams, and we are seeking to include junior Diet members in study groups and task forces. I would also like to note here that, with the expansion of our JCIE/USA staff, we are now able to carry out an even broader range of cooperative projects.
There have been increasingly vocal concerns raised recently in Japan that those in the United States and other countries around the world have been losing interest in Japan, and that global opinion leaders and international research institutions have been paying little attention to research and dialogues related to Japan. There are also those who take the somewhat simplistic view that this trend results from the fact that relations with Japan are relatively stable, with few contentious issues as compared to the past. Through JCIE’s work, we have been sensing that the presence of Japan—particularly in contrast to China—has clearly decreased in international conferences and collaborative research projects, and it seems that this declining interest in and involvement with Japan among the relevant actors overseas is in fact accelerating.
A number of individuals in the international community have also begun to express concern about this trend, bemoaning the decline in activity among Japanese research institutions and international affairs organizations, which is partly a result of declining financial support. In light of this situation, we at JCIE, as one of only a few nongovernmental organizations in the field of international exchange and cooperation in Japan, feel a deep sense of responsibility to further strengthen our institutional capacity to carry out research and dialogue.
I would like to express my thanks once again to the many, many individuals who have participated in and contributed to JCIE’s various endeavors, and ask for your continued guidance and support in the years ahead.
Tadashi YamamotoPresident, JCIE