Intensifying our intelligence
and
creativity for the new century
Shinji Fukukawa
Senior Adviser, GISPRI
Looking
back the passing 20th century, we have witnessed a momentous transition
from the stage of confrontation and stagnancy to the one of coexistence
and growth.
Countries in Asia and Africa, which had been the colonies of Europe
and America at the beginning of 20th Century, started to win their
independence by the middle of the century. After two world wars in
the first half of the century, the world successfully avoided the
third war in the second half through the bi-polar framework between
USA and USSR. Then, the Cold War between the East and West ended with
the break-up of the Berlin Wall, in October, 1989.
In the first half of the century, world economy saw the growth of
industrial civilization supported by petroleum supply at the beginning,
but was followed by the overall stagnancy as a result of the Great
Depression, the rise of protectionism and the chaos caused by wars
and battlements. In the second half of the century, however, the world
economy striven with free trade and technological innovation under
GATT and IMF, recorded around 4% average in annual growth. At the
same time, we saw a tremendous rise of a new automobile industry,
while a large fleet of jet airplanes opened the age of mass transportation
in the aviation sector. Today, the revolutionary telecommunication
technologies are the most blossoming.
Now, what we should expect for the 21st century?
First of all, the trend is to value the telecommunication technology
revolution and to focus on the market-oriented methodologies, which
will eventually lead us to the globalization of our economy. Economic
globalization will certainly vitalize economic activities and the
development of information technologies will stimulate the expansion
of intellectual activities. On the other hand, these changes may generate
contradictions and confrontations. In a highly developed information
society, information will link to more information, so the information-literate
people will get even more information-literate, which may eventually
lead to the adversity of information monopolization.
Our recent experiences already taught us how the speculation activities
have been intensified by the free movement of goods, money and information
in the world economy. As the world economy will expand, concerns over
destruction of global environment, and the instability of foods and
energy supply will expand. These developing countries with less readiness
for future economic development will likely suffer from the economic
gap with other countries widening further.
Further, economic globalization will likely to bring the equalizing
effects on economic powers among developed countries and developing
countries closing into the developed countries. As a result, the world
begins to take a multi-polar structure. Probably, Japan and Europe
will have stagnant economy, while China and the rest of Asia will
increase their economic powers. Even in the United States, which is
showing the unprecedented growth today, how its society retains a
binding power will significantly affect its national power. Multi-polarization
of the world structure will make it more difficult to build international
consensus in any matters. The failure of WTO in Seattle last December
clearly demonstrated such difficulty.
In view that economic globalization will be necessary for the development
of world economy, it is essential to maintain free trade, conserve
global environment, stabilize currency exchange rate, and provide
financial assistance and technological cooperation. The key is whether
major developed countries can maintain the trust and undertake policy
coordination.
International politics will enter the age of Pax Consortis(the world
peace maintained by concerted efforts). This will be another consequence
of world's multi-polarization. If economic globalization progresses,
it will likely to instigate the heightened identity with religions
and ethnic groups, igniting regional confrontation and the increased
tensions between ethnic groups. In some cases, it may lead to the
rearrangement of nations, with crisis and threats more diversified
and augmented.
Moreover, while the 20th century world order relied largely upon the
decision-making of national governments and international institutions,
the model for the 21st century will likely find international corporations
and NGOs taking bigger roles. It is clearly indicated in the international
corporations having greater voices in the standardization of e-commerce,
and international NGOs actively influencing the formulation of global
environmental policies.
As a major trend, the world governance needs to be built within the
framework of joint operation system led by international organizations.
In such governance system, however, consensus building will be extremely
complicated and difficult. It will be essential to develop a new scheme
that can bind together the trust and coordination efforts in an international
community.
Furthermore, the changes in population profile will alter the world
power structure and exert considerable effects on the world governance
framework.
The population explosion in the developing world, which is the major
source of global population increase, will lead to the destruction
of global environment, damages to the human health, and severity in
poverty. In the process, the developing country world will likely
to be divided into two extremes.
On the other hand, the population decline and the aging society in
the developed countries especially notable in Japan and Europe, will
bring down the rate of savings, increase the burden of social welfare
cost, aggravate the fiscal structure, raise interest rates, restrain
technological innovation, deteriorate the quality of education, restrain
aid capacity, and provoke the resurgence of protectionism. These factors
will certainly afflict significant influences over the economic globalization
and international governance.
In addition, people will likely to encounter various problems including
the relationship between technological development and humanity, and
the management of friction between different cultures.
I have a strong concern in finding the 21st century a century of instability,
unthinkable for the continuation of 20th century. In order to overcome
such instability, the mankind must intensify the intelligence and
creativity, and strengthen their mutual trust. We have to seriously
consider how Japan can contribute for a human society in the 21st
century.
