Exclusive East Asia blog by Jim Frederick

Jim Frederick is Tokyo Bureau Chief for Time Magazine

Morning Optimism

The first ever World Economic Forum on East Asia to be held in Tokyo kicked off with high optimism this morning.  The first panelists at the first plenary session, answered its title, “Can Asia’s Growth Model Sustain Itself?” with an unequivocal yes. The entire panel was extremely upbeat, there was much talk about, “The new century belongs to Asia,” and “The center of gravity of the global economy is moving East,” and “India and China are the new economic powerhouses.” While I, too, am ultimately an optimist, I fear many are still not addressing the harder questions about Asian growth. I have to admit I found these breezy assurances to be a little rosy. My impression after living in Japan over the past years is that political risks are increasing dramatically, and there are economic concerns that often go unaddressed.  How are China’s energy needs going to be met without conflict? China may be a country that graduates 10 times more college graduates than the US or 10 times more engineers, or whatever statistics are being bandied about to prove that China is the new superpower, but it is also a country that has 800 million peasants, a phenomenon completely unique in human history. What about them?

The Crucial Economic Evolution

The morning sessions have frequently returned to this issue: Asia’s next step of economic development needs to move from export economies reliant on Europe and US to ones with mature, self-sustaining consumer demand. But that is an exceedingly difficult goal. Japan, for all of its success, still struggles with the fact that it’s reliant on its export industries. How will India and China fare any better?

Neat Gadget

The Spot Me gadgets that the World Economic Forum is distributing to participants are incredibly cool. The size of a small PDA, it has the complete schedule and list of participants programmed into them, but the neatest part is its radar function which checks the surrounding area and tells you who is sitting near you. Plug in the people you want to talk to, and the thing will buzz when one of them are in your range. Send messages to them, set up appointments, awesome. I had heard about a similar function that was used unsuccessfully as a dating-match service, but gizmos like this seem infinitely more suited towards business networking.

The Buzzword of the Day

Innovation. Everybody is talking about it, using the word incessantly, saying it is the key to competitiveness. It is all the rage, the way that “Quality” was several years ago. It is now such a cliché, however, and used so unconsciously and reflexively by all businesspeople, I fear that it is losing its meaning.

Afternoon Pessimism

In one of the PM sessions, I hosted a seminar on China, Japan and Korea and why they were having so much trouble getting along. My panelists were a distinguished bunch from Japan, China, Korea and the US. Here, the atmosphere was almost as pessimistic as the morinng was optimistic. Panelists SAID they were optimists, but they also said that they didn’t forsee much chance of things improving politically, perhaps for years. To me that sounded pretty grim. Economies could roll along unhindered all the way up to the countries’ coming to armed conflict, but political disagreements — over Japan’s Prime Ministers’ visits to Yasukuni Shrine, territorial disputes, disputes over energy resources — these were likely to rumble on indefinitely because the world, as one panelist put it, suffers from a “statesman deficit.” Many pointed to the EU as model of economic and political integration and cooperation but the consensus of this panel was that that type of development is a long, long way off. Hot Economics, Cold Politics has become the default way of referring to the state of Asia these days and it looks like that condition will be around for some time to come.

Comments

[Ajeet]

Hi,

Sorry to see that as usual the Republic of China was not represented .It is a wonder that all these forums have a great deal of accuracy without the participation of One of the worlds major trading partners.Believe me when I say that the PRC does not represent the ROC whatsoever in trading matters.

Thanks,
Ajeet

[CaptainChurch]

***365 of the planet's richest people, (including Bill Gates, who really donates $$$ to get tax write-offs to keep more of his billions), have as
much
$$$ as 2.6 BILLION of the poorest [which is totally obscene!!!]. That
is
only 43 more people than were in 1st Class on the TITANIC! [There were
322
of them] In order for these greedy rich to be so wealthy, they have to
keep
billions poor, many homeless! In this ordered Universe, there are
specific
blessings distributed by the 'Maker of All Things' to each of us; but
the
obscene rich have played the game of MONOPOLY for real and stolen away
the
opportunities of billions of people! They were initially given wealth
as a
shared trust, to see that all have some share in humanity {"Love your
neighbor as yourself" means that you see to it that your neighbor has
it
just as good as you do; all 6 billion of us on this "blue marble" are
neighbors & at least 33rd cousins--->Genesis 6:9 We ALL come from
Noah's 3
sons!}.....We should ALL have a share in humanity, but the rich hoard
instead of sharing, which was part of their deal that they ignore. In
the
USA, everyone (300 million) could be a millionaire if the rich were
JUST
millionaires (1 million $$ each). 'No poor, no homeless, no
dis-enfranchised, no communism/socialism' is the possibility when opportunities are equal for
all;
the economy would be 90% better because everyone is a participating
member,
and there would be no theft [99% gone]! It is time to start the
MONOPOLY
game all over again!!! In the opening part of the original film,
"Planet of
the Apes", the astronaut states the reason why he left modern
Earth
in a spaceship, never to return..."Because brother goes to war with
brother,
and men do nothing while their neighbor's children starve". We didn't
come
from animals, but began our existence as human; should we now act like
the
instinctual animals that live by "the survival of the fittest", where
there
is no love? Love is only something you can spend on God and other
humans...you cannot spend it on yourself, or anything lower....that is
not
love; that is "self"!
SEE--->"LOVE is the Real Thing" on
http://www.bev.net/users/homepages/JamesSorrell or http://jimsorrell.proboards33.com

"Poverty is the worst form of violence." Mahatma Gandhi [The father of India's
freedom].....The 1st Class rich on the TITANIC learned the lesson of
equality too late: when the ship went down, they all went down
together, no
matter where you were on the boat! Will the rich learn now, before it
is too
late....when the poor of the planet sink the ship by burning the
loveless
world down, each city, in one night....the fuse lit and the chaos
spread by
instant planet-wide communication of the beginning event??----------[From: "The Life of Emile Zola".........."You know that people don't want to see the starved face of truth; they would much prefer perfumed lies".] In the USA 90% of the dogs eat and live better than 30% of our children!
On the planet, 30% of humanity has no electricity!
----------The conscience of man must have another moment in time; in OUR time!---by Jim Sorrell
http://jimsorrell.proboards33.com
http://www.livelogcity.com/users/captainchurch
sorrell.james@gmail.com

[SolutionPoint]

Great Events. When is the South Asia's turn.

I've a India Investment Specific Blog - www.realestatetimes.in
Drop in sometime.