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Opportunity and Challenge in the Pacific Basin
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15854 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
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1 / 1989 |
2,730 Words |
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Richard V. Allen
Richard V. Allen is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution
and served as national security adviser to President Reagan. |
The boom years of the last decade have permitted Asian modernization to progress at breathtaking speed. Given the renewed U.S. commitment to Asia during the 1980s and, with notable exceptions, freedom from the burdens of maintaining effective military deterrent forces, Asian nations have reaped great dividends. The standard of living has shot upward, the quality of life has greatly improved (although large pockets of poverty persist, especially in Southeast Asia), and the future appears bright.
The capitalist ethic, almost second nature to Asians, has combined with a dedication to hard work long since gone from the industrialized West. Some in the West even criticize the Asians for working too hard, and the fabled hard-working Japanese, now on the verge of being able to afford to work less, glance nervously over their shoulders at the hard-charging Asian competitors from Korea, Taiwan, and other countries.
In the United States this Asian dynamism, once a source of wonder and admiration, is increasingly seen as a key ingredient in the chronic U.S. trade deficit. In a politically charged atmosphere, we hear of growing concern about so-called unfair trading practices (widely attributed to Asian countries), which result in a loss of jobs at home and, if we are able to believe the more strident politicians, the permanent decline of the U.S. living standard "unless we do something about it now." In practice, this is a demand for quick solutions, always political in nature and almost always protectionist in practice.
Frustration with Japan is at the center of the argument--a frustration fueled by Japan itself. If any nation can be singled out as the beneficiary of the protection and the generosity of the United States in the past four decades, it is this wartime enemy. Japan's climb to success and riches is unarguably the result of sacrifice and hard work on the part of Japan's greatest and only abundant resource, the Japanese people. Highly educated, highly motivated, and totally dedicated to achieving excellence in their own society and in the world, the Japanese have created a special society. That special character is also the source of much of Japan's trouble in the world today, especially in the United States, where anti-Japanese sentiment is growing rapidly.
A Superior Society
Because the Japanese consider themselves a special, even a superior, society, their society has become exclusionist. Despite all the trappings of
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