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Japan’s economy is not unfamiliar with crises. Just over a decade ago, the country faced an unprecedented disruption when the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami not only killed more than 15,000 people, but also created a nuclear disaster that snarled supply chains for weeks.
Dependent on external inputs and reliant on global markets, companies were forced to adapt. In the country that invented lean manufacturing, many started to carry more inventory in preparation for the next shock.
Toyota has said that processes put in place during that time helped during the early part of another unforeseen crisis: the COVID-19 pandemic. But even the world’s largest automaker has not been immune from the shortages of semiconductors and other parts that have plagued car makers everywhere — including Japanese-owned plants here in the Southeast U.S.
For more than a year, quarantines, lockdowns and restrictions on internal movements and inbound travel have wreaked havoc on the Japanese economy, which has yet to return to pre-pandemic GDP levels even after a sharp upswing in growth during 2021.
Japanese Consul General Kazuyuki Takeuchi, who represents his country in the Southeast, says that by their nature, disasters are usually unpredictable, and each one carries new consequences and teaches new lessons.
“It’s quite difficult to prepare for every kind of crisis,” said Mr. Takeuchi, an economist by training, in a wide-ranging Consular Conversation with Global Atlanta held at The Carter Center in February.
Perhaps because of its experience with the natural world ruining its plans, and because of conglomerates’ penchants for long-term business planning, COVID has not shaken Japan’s commitment to trade and global integration. As many countries debate about which industry value chains need to be brought back home, Japan has kept a steadfast commitment to multilateral engagement.
“Japan cannot survive without free and open trade,” Mr. Takeuchi said during the luncheon sponsored by Miller & Martin PLLC and Delta Air Lines. “The world has been so interconnected and the flow of international trade has been so big, that if we wanted to decide by ourselves what to produce and what not to produce, that sacrifices economic efficiency, so in that sense we have to have a very long-term perspective, and we have to rely on the academic sector to educate each country to the desired direction.”
Mr. Takeuchi’s views may be born from his education in economics before joining the foreign service in 1985, as well as his experience in a distinguished career that includes a short stint heading up the economic security division of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2007, just as the world tumbled into a financial crisis.
Mr. Takeuchi later worked three years as minister-counsellor and deputy head of mission at the Japanese embassy in Myanmar, three years as minister at the embassy in Germany and three years as deputy chief of mission at the Japanese embassy in Austria immediately before coming to Atlanta. (His journey in diplomacy was inspired in part by reading a novel about a diplomat as a young man.)
In the Southern U.S., he said, Japanese companies are present in a much bigger way than in Europe, and they have become adept at localizing executive leadership and operating as American firms.
“That’s the greatest difference of the Japanese businesses in the United States and Japanese businesses in other regions,” he said, venturing that many Japanese executives recall a time during the 1980s when they were not welcome in the U.S. “There was a time of the so-called trade war between the U.S. and Japan a long time back, and we haven’t forgotten the memory of it. They think that it’s important is to become part of the country.” That approach was integral to helping Japanese-owned firms in the U.S. retain workers during the early part of the pandemic, according to surveys conducted by the Japan External Trade Organization’s Atlanta office.
Internationally, Japan’s companies have also embraced the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals as a part of their corporate citizenship, building on the country’s own considerable record of development funding.
Echoing a strain of “conscious capitalist” thinking in the world today, Mr. Takeuchi hinted that while aid is the right thing to do, it also helps with trade by growing prosperity and creating markets for Japanese exports. Southeast Asia, which was the target of Japanese aid in the 1960s and ‘70s, he said, is a prime example: Now, it’s a set of dynamic economies where Japanese manufacturers fare well.
Driving Global Development
Before heading up the economic security bureau, Mr. Takeuchi worked at the Japan Bank of International Cooperation for more than two years the mid-2000s with responsibility over sub-Saharan Africa, where he traveled to many countries and saw the Chinese government’s largesse in action.
“Chinese assistance very much overwhelming the continent. Everywhere I went, we had to hear about huge amounts of aid by the Chinese government. But at the same time, I strongly felt a delicate consideration in working on assistance with African countries: Just giving money does not work at all,” he said, noting that it was vital to work with organizations with substantial on-the-ground knowledge.
Agencies like his former bank and the Japan International Cooperation Agency — somewhat equivalent to USAID — looked for organizations that had experience in delivering programs with satisfactory outcomes, such as The Carter Center.
Japan has given $22 million to The Carter Center for health programs since 1989, a sum that has aided its campaign to eradicate the parasitic disease of Guinea worm. From 3.5 million cases in the 1980s, the Carter Center-led campaign, in partnership health ministries and other partners across Africa, has reduced the number of cases to just 15 last year, putting eradication within sight.
Meagan Martz, senior associate director of development at the Carter Center, said volunteers from the Japanese Overseas Cooperation (a government-sponsored group similar to the U.S. Peace Corps) have also sent personnel into the field to help work on Guinea worm eradication.
“We hope that this will be the second disease eradicated after smallpox and the first disease eradicated without the use of a vaccine or medication,” Ms. Martz said during welcome remarks in which she also highlighted a community-led project to build a traditional Japanese bell tower on the site of the Carter Center.
Set to be constructed using traditional materials and Japanese carpentry methods, the structure will house what’s being called the Peace Bell, a temple bell that originated in Konu, Japan, just outside of Hiroshima. Sent to be melted down for ammunition during World War II, the bell somehow escaped unscathed and ended up in the hands of a British collector before making its way across the pond. The Japanese Consulate General purchased the bell and gave it to President Carter as a gift in the 1985.
Jessica Cork, a vice president at zipper firm YKK and the chair of the Japan-America Society of Georgia, related this history and the former president’s role in welcoming Japanese investors to Georgia during his time as governor, as well as his support for Japan during and after his presidency. She took guests of the Consular Conversation on a stroll to the actual wooded location up near the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library where the bell tower will be situated.
The bell will serve as a touchpoint for Mr. Carter’s strong ties with Japan. After welcoming YKK as Georgia’s one of first investors during the 1970s, Mr. Carter visited the country for the YKK’s 50th anniversary in 1984. He also visited the Shoganji temple in Konu in 1990, where the Peace Bell originated, and rang a replica that now hangs in the same location. The newfound bond formed the basis of a sister-city relationship with Konu (now incorporated into Miyoshi city) and Americus, Ga., which lies close to Plains, Mr. Carter’s hometown.
The former president returned to Konu in 1994 for the opening of what some jokingly called the “other” Carter Center — Jimmy Carter Civic Center — in Konu. “Carter Street” is the town’s main downtown thoroughfare. Last September, members of the Konu community sent the president video messages on his 97th birthday.
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Learn more about the Consulate General of Japan in Atlanta here.
Learn more about the Peace Bell Project and donate here. About a third of the $300,000 needed has been raised to date.
Learn more about the Carter Center here.