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Japanese Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita used last week's economic summit in Toronto to showcase Japan's growing involvement in global affairs. Takeshita unveiled a $50 billion foreign-aid package before the meeting that would make Tokyo the world's largest donor. Japan also announced a debt-relief program for Third World countries and agreed to phase out import quotas on oranges and beef.
But the Japanese are still torn by conflicting emotions over their proper place in the sun. A new nationalism is bubbling up through the country that has little to do with old dreams of imperial conquest. Rather it is based on a pride in Japan's achievements and a desire for other nations to recognize its status. At the same time, the Japanese are sometimes seen by outsiders as lacking clear goals for their country or any abiding sense of how to put their wealth and power to use. "There must be some ideal that we have that would appeal to mankind," says Hideaki Kase, a former Ministry of Foreign Affairs officer and writer on security affairs. "Britain has the Magna Carta, France its Liberte. Americans have their Revolution. Even the Russians and the Chinese created socialist models to copy."
Part of the problem is that Japan has never articulated an exportable ideology, such as democracy or Communism. As a homogeneous island people who were long cut off from other nations, the Japanese have an almost tribal sense of their own identity. "Japan has never had a foreign policy," observes John David Morley, an expert on Japan and author of Pictures from the Water Trade. "It has had wars, it has colonized parts of Asia, but apart from that its experience in dealing with other nations is still very primitive." Nor have many older Japanese been free of an attitude -- some claim an almost racist conviction -- that Japan's uniqueness makes it impossible for others to copy its success.
The Japanese are bound by a web of mutual obligations that link every individual to every other. But this lattice of relationships has no meaning outside Japan -- a fact that can profoundly distress older Japanese who venture to other lands. The lessons of a lifetime are suddenly useless: the rest of the world simply plays another game.
Now Japan is swept by debate over the merits of kokusaika, or & internationalization. Book after book on Japan's future rolls off the presses and is stacked up in bookstores in attractive displays. Coffee shops, homes and office towers are beginning to ring with talk of new ideas. The discussions are part of a consensus-building process called nemawashi, whereby all sides of an issue are aired. Only then can agreement be reached on the proper course of action. Once the Japanese make up their minds, though, they can move very fast. The country's astonishing growth since World War II resulted from a national resolve to rebuild the ravaged economy.
Today the discussion reflects an increasingly international-minded youth. More than 60% of Japan's 122 million people were born after the war. Innocent of both the conflict and its aftermath, the young are less concerned with Japan's uniqueness or other obsessions of the national psyche. They travel widely, identify with youths of other nations, and are as familiar with Michael Jackson and Budweiser beer as they are with Toyotas and Sony Walkmans.