2007 Commencement Address
Our Asia-Pacific Future: Realities and Challenges
By Kazumasa Kusaka, former vice-minister for international affairs in the Japanese Ministry of Economics, Trade and Industry (METI).
June 16, 2007
Chancellor Fox, Dean Cowhey, faculty, family and friends, and especially members of the graduating class:
“I should warn you all, I don’t do commencement speeches in English every day. In fact, at times like this I find myself wishing Japan’s technology for robots could be improved a little more. But I can see you’re all planning to listen to me, so I had better start.”
Today it is my great honor to speak to you, and I would like to leave the Class of 2007 with three key messages.
The first message is that the Pacific is now the center of global gravity. You are fortunate in having chosen the right location for your graduate education.
My second message is that serving the “public interest” is much more than the narrow definition of working for a traditional government administration. NGOs and the private sector are integral players, and the private sector will increasingly contribute to the public interest.
And my third message is that with your excellent education and qualifications, you are well equipped with what I believe is the most necessary skill for the 21st century: the ability to identify and analyze key information and use it to craft solutions. This is a lifelong asset that will serve you well.
I graduated with a masters degree in public affairs in the US exactly 30 years agoļ¼ I had a chance to visit this beautiful region at that time, which was still a bit sleepy even though Sony had just established its main television production in North America.
I was able to renew my acquaintance with San Diego in 2000 when I came back to participate in the APEC Energy Ministers Meeting. Fellow participants at that meeting were Bill Richardson and Bambang Yudhoyono (now president of Indonesia). We were all struck by how the San Diego region had become one of the most dynamically developing regions in the US, led by industries such as biotechnology and IT.
Coming back to La Jolla in 2007, I can see how IR/PS is ideally positioned, both geographically and in terms of academic content. There can now be no doubt that the global focus has shifted from the Trans-Atlantic to the Asia Pacific. There are strong synergies among the Pacific Rim countries that have begun to result in de facto integration, in contrast to Europe with its institution-driven integration. Fortunately, too, the Japanese economy has at long last returned to good health, and Japan’s renewal and innovative dynamism present new opportunities as a platform for growth in East Asia.
Globalization, as you learned in your first quarter here at IR/PS, means that geographic distance is becoming less of an issue. The Pacific Ocean no longer represents the barrier that it did, but rather is turning into a vehicle for further integration, with distance continuously being reduced by trade liberalization, negotiated multilaterally through the WTO and bilaterally and regionally through Free Trade Agreements. The signing of the United States-Korea Free Trade Agreement is just the latest in a growing network of such trade-enhancing agreements across the Pacific.
With this backdrop there can be no doubt that the Class of 2007 faces an exciting future but one that will present many challenges. You will need to play a constructive part in responding to these.
Let me give some concrete examples. The global demand for energy is forecast to expand 150% by the year 2030. In developing countries, demand is expected to double. Brazil, Russia, India and China will require fifty percent more energy than the US. It’s not that the world is running out of fossil fuel reserves. Crude oil reserves are expected to last forty years, natural gas seventy, and coal two hundred years. But the two trillion dollars worth of investment required to meet global demand up to 2030 has not been forthcoming. It is vital that oil- producing countries improve the investment environment.
There are further issues relating to geographic dependency. Then there are the serious environmental issues involved with greenhouse gases and global warming, other pollutants and acid rain. With surging energy demand, those issues will become more threatening.
The critical problems of the 21st century are global, whether energy security, the environment, or financial volatility. First, individual countries recognize that they have to work together. No single government can solve these problems on its own. Second, because of the complex nature of the issues, policy-makers have to work together, such as in energy policy, environmental policy and economic policy. And third, policy-makers have to work across sectors and interact with private businesses, the academic community and local groups within their national boundaries.
Government, the private sector and NGOs are increasingly partners with joint social responsibility. When I say “partners”, this does not imply that relations are necessarily cozy, because tensions emerge from time to time, just as they would with any family. But the important emerging insight is that the public good is made up of contributions from all of us regardless of where we stand on a particular policy issue, and regardless of the capacity in which we work. We all need to come together, with a like mind, in search of global solutions. So no matter whether you work in the government, in the private sector, or in NGOs, in addition to the languages of the Pacific region that you already speak, you all should endeavor to be “trilingual” in the language of government, and the language of business, and that of NGOs.
I have learned from the negotiations I have conducted in my career that the key is to begin with a full understanding of the political, economic and social constraints that each side is dealing with at home. It is better to share a corner with your negotiating counterpart, rather than confront him or her across the table. It is only then that each side can understand the needs of the other, and draw up strategies for effectively working on the domestic players and their vested interests.
Solving many 21st century problems will be like running a marathon. It’s important to run smoothly so that you can reach a “runner’s high”, at which point your effort becomes sustainable. Plus, it’s important to actually finish, just as the legendary Greek messenger Pheidippides did.
To return to my area of expertise, it is becoming painfully clear that we will not reach global environment policy targets by 2010. I have two things to say about that. First, 2010 is too short-term of a target for technology to play its full role. It’s like running the first phase of the environment marathon really fast. It was a good try, but the fact that we won’t be able to make it by 2010 does not mean we shouldn’t keep running, or that we shouldn’t have tried and taken the risk when we were young and able to bounce back.
How can we achieve energy security and protect the environment in countries that are undergoing rapid economic growth and population expansion? To overcome trade-offs with economic growth and energy security policy goals, one solution can be technological innovation. But the question then is how to mobilize resources, both financial and human, in a market where the private sector controls most of the resources. As you have learned at IR/PS, for companies to invest in R&D, they have to be able to profit from their technological innovation, which only works if their research results in profitable products. But consumers may not want to pay for this R&D. The introduction of energy efficiency technology and alternative energy sources need long lead times.
This is where politics and government regulation comes in. The science and technology community, the economic community, and the environment community all have roles to play. The role of Government is to help potentially green consumers reveal their preferences in the market and help assure the strength of the market for environment-friendly products. We can provide some Gatorade to the runners, if you wish, by offering tax incentives etc.
You might think this sounds easy enough, but we need to do this at the global level, and it will only happen if the private and public sectors in all countries work together toward this one goal.
What I have said so far about global solutions also applies to your careers. As you graduate from IR/PS, you are, in a way, starting to design the marathon of your career. You want to have fun, and of course you want to be successful. On the road ahead and especially early in your careers you can be assertive and work to attain significant individual achievement. But remember that the first three miles will not make the race, and in the 21st century going alone will probably not make it either.
As you move up and tackle bigger assignments, you will have to work with others. Teamwork is never easy, as you probably experienced in some of your IR/PS classes. Obstacles such as sectionalism, personal priorities or fragmented organizations can wipe out all good intentions and hard work. But working with others is the only way. I believe the only way to stay upright in this difficult trade-off is to ground your careers on a deep moral commitment to solving global problems and become a team player toward that goal.
I am optimistic as I close my remarks. We all agree that technological innovation has brought an overload of information. This means that today’s knowledge is becoming obsolete at a faster and faster rate. In the long run, we sustain leadership – in our careers and as individuals – only through the capability of analyzing new information independently, efficiently, and effectively. As graduates of IR/PS you are now superbly equipped with the tools and knowledge to do just that, and to contribute to solving the pressing global issues of the 21st century. If you use your IR/PS toolbox, while developing an attitude of global cooperation and a solution-oriented mindset early in your careers, you will, without doubt, rise to the school’s mission of becoming leaders of the Pacific Century. I wish you all the best!
