Rough Transcript

Mark Melton
Welcome back to the Foreign Policy ProvCast. My name is Mark Melton, I’m the managing editor for Providence, and today I am talking with Josh Walker, who is the President of the Japan Society, and we’re going to be talking about Japan for a little bit today. In the past couple of episodes, we have talked about other countries in East Asia, including China and Hong Kong, and to kind of continue that trend, we’re talking about some more countries in the area. So first off, Josh, thank you so much for joining us today. 

Josh Walker
Thanks for having me, Mark. It’s always great to be back particularly with this pandemic. It’s just good to be connected and talk about these important issues as we have some pretty big anniversary is coming up in Japan. 

Mark Melton
Right. Well, one is the bombing of Hiroshima, which happened 75 years ago, August 6. So right now, we’re recording this on August 5, and we’re going to try to get this podcast out as soon as possible. And yeah, we also have the Nagasaki anniversary. Are there any others that I’m missing? 

Josh Walker
No, you got it. You know, you’ve got Hiroshima, August 6. You got Nagasaki Three days later, August 9th, and then the end of World War II and Japan’s full capitulation to the US on August 15. So it’s kind of a big week, particularly for Japan. I think Americans are probably more focused on their own political environment, but it from a foreign policy point of view, 75 years since the end of World War II and what that…kind of that post-World War II environment that liberal international order, so-called a means and whether we’re at another inflection point 75 years later, it’ll be interesting to talk about. 

Mark Melton
Yeah, well, it’s not uncommon for Americans to be focused on our domestic issues all the time. 

Josh Walker
Absolutely. 

Mark Melton
I think the only time we really talk about foreign issues is when it applies to our domestic politics. 

Josh Walker
I think that’s absolutely right. 

Mark Melton
So my first question is the last time you spoke for Providence, you were in the process of leaving your position at Eurasia Group to become the President of the Japan Society. So could you describe what the society does? 

Josh Walker
Absolutely. So you know, back then, when I was speaking at both the conference for Providence and also doing other things, I was really coming at it from a geopolitical risk point of view as the head of Japan and kind of global initiatives over at Eurasia group. But moving to Japan side, it’s a different world. We’re the largest and the leading nonprofit and resource focused on US-Japan relations. We’ve been around since 1907. It’s headquartered in New York, it’s had some pretty notable leaders, including John D. Rockefeller III, that gave us the current space, the office that we occupy in this beautiful building right across the street from the UN. And it’s really been the kind of the beating heart of the US-Japan relationship. Particularly when…back in that period of time after World War II, there was a real need to repair the public image of both Japan and also US-Japan more broadly, talking about the arts, the culture, the history, but even the business, technology, and policy, and also education. We have the largest Japanese Language Center outside of Japan. We also have the largest Japanese Language Film Festival that we just wrapped last week in North America. So we do a lot of cool things and it’s part of who I am, as you know, having grown up as a son of a Southern Baptist missionary kid in Japan where my parents have been faithfully serving for almost 4 decades now. So it really brings the best of a lot of what I bring to the table. So it’s a great opportunity, I’m excited to be the 20th President up here. 

Mark Melton
And as the United States focuses more attention on East Asia., what geopolitical role or global role does Japan play as an ally and partner in the region? 

Josh Walker
Yeah, that’s a great question. I think, you know…starting with the basics, it’s obvious that Asia is having a moment, right? It’s not just about COVID-19 and the response of the way Asian nations have dealt with it, versus those of us in the West, particularly the US have not been able to deal with it and we can have a whole debate of whether that’s because they wear mask and it’s more normal in terms of culture. But I think the larger geopolitical question about America’s role in Asia, it’s clear that we’re moving from a transatlantic century into a Trans-Pacific century, and that Asia, which represents over half of the world’s population and economic output is becoming this outsized important continent for every country, particularly the United States. We have the, you know, kind of great advantage of going from sea to shining sea. So we kind of have shifted from the east coast and the Atlantic space, where we always were looking to Europe and particularly Britain as one of our closest allies. Now increasingly looking to Asia, and when you look at where the big flashpoints or major conflicts of the future are going to be not just US-China, which is all over the news every day, but also on the Korean peninsula and also in places in the Indo-Pacific. Japan plays an outsized role, particularly because of our history that 75 years of shared alliance that we’ve had since the end of World War II after the end of occupation. You know, Douglas MacArthur. Japan plays a really important role because it is the third-largest economy in the role world. It has a lot to offer, and it also has a different posture and a different set of ambitions in the current environment than it did 75 years ago as this defeated enemy that some have described as having embrace defeat by not having a military force that I’m sure we’ll talk about.

Mark Melton
Right. Speaking of not having a military force, so Japan’s constitution says “the country renounces both war as a sovereign right and a threatened or use of force as a means of settling international disputes.” So Japan cannot maintain land, sea, or air forces. And instead, they have the self-defense forces, which my understanding is the difference between an offensive weapon and a defensive weapon, yet it’s kind of a gray area. But how has this arrangement either helped in frustrated The United States?

Josh Walker
Yeah…no, that’s very diplomatic to say, it’s a gray area because really, you’re right to be on offense or defense, particularly when it comes to weapons is a very…very gray area. 

Mark Melton
The way Japan has dealt with this is kind of the debate about article nine of the Constitution, which lays out exactly what you said, which is that it’s a renunciation of kind of military aggression which is obviously a direct outgrowth of what happened in the 1930s, which was a rise of fascism and the militaristic domination of Japanese domestic politics by the military, which led to World War II and kind of the conquering and the atrocities that took place both in Manchuria, China, but also obviously in Korea that we still hear about and still have repercussions between the Republic of Korea and Japan. But really, you know, self-defense forces is a euphemistic name because over time, particularly in the contemporary environment and particularly under Shinzo Ave, who’s the longest-serving Prime Minister in Japanese history, he’s made it very clear that he thinks article nine needs to be reimagined and the way that article nine reads is pretty explicit, as you said that…you know, basically renounces the use of force and it basically says, we’re not going to go anywhere outside of our territory. But in a world in which threats kind of emanate from overseas, how can you renounce that? How can you simply wait? Is it really just you wait until somebody hits you with military force then you have to go back? What happens if…we’re talking about nuclear weapons? What if you’re talking about cybersecurity threats? Like, what does that mean? And so I think, there’s been a real reckoning in Japan and what I would say about the way this has worked in Japan is the law has remained in place, the Constitution of Japan has remained more or less unchanged since Douglas MacArthur put it in place and left, back in 1952. But the way in the practice of the legal norms, the kind of the justification. The way in which the Japanese diet, which is the Congress and also the Ministry of Defense, which only became a ministry, by the way in the last decade, has really been dealing with guidelines of engagement for the self-defense forces have really been changed. And to your point about how America has been frustrated, I think America would love to see Japan throw off all of the kind of restraints that it currently has because we don’t worry about Japan as a military force. You know, over the last 75 years, Japan has clearly demonstrated itself that it is a force for good and a force for peaceful prosperity in the world and in the region. When you think about who contributes the most to the UN and to development around the world, Japan is certainly in the top ranks of those countries and clearly, when it comes to military adventurism, it doesn’t have the capacity, nor does it have the desire, and I think there’s a real pacifist streak that runs in Japan, where people remember what happened 75 years ago when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. What World War II really led to in terms of costs, maybe even better than the way Americans still remember that, because it’s easier to remember a war that you lost than a war that you want. And so, I think that there is a feeling in America and particularly in this administration, the Trump administration, that Japan should do more, it is the third-largest economy. It should play a larger role in particularly the American military forces that are protecting Japan and the nuclear umbrella that we provided Japan should be compensated higher. And so, the debate about how much of the American forces should be paid for by Japan has become a pretty contentious issue and it’s something that’s ongoing and everyone is watching, particularly in a presidential year like this one.

And last week, it was reported that lawmakers in Japan are pushing for the country to have the right to strike missile launch sites in North Korea and China. And so, what are the prospects of this change happening? And can we expect any other constitutional changes? And do the people of Japan support these kinds of moves?

Josh Walker
Yeah, you know, I mean…headlines are misleading. When I saw some of these headlines, whether, in Reuters or Wall Street Journal, it had that headline that Japan was going to change and have the first strike capability and there are pictures of these missiles. You know, when you actually look at what happened, this was basically an exchange that took place between the Minister of Defense, Taro Kono, answering questions from an opposition diet member, the question was simply posed, you know, would Japan be able to strike other countries? And the answer was yes if we thought there was an imminent threat. So if North Korea specifically was about to launch one of its ballistic missiles at Japan, and there was evidence of it, would Japan be able to go in and defeat and kind of knock that out? That would be a defensive posture, we would all agree, right? In terms of, you know, you’re about to launch it, you’ve got the code ready to go. We’re going to take it out, that would be something that we would all think would be within the rights of self-defense, but that is in fact striking. First, it is striking another country. So that would, you know, kind of change the posture of Japan. But I think that the bottom line is Japan has to be prepared in a world, that it lives in a very difficult neighborhood where you’ve got not just North Korea, which is the most egregious transgressor of international order, but you’ve also got Russia and China, and you’ve got other, you know, non-state actors that are there. Japan has to assume the worst and it needs to prepare for it. So, you know, I think that the prospects of changing article nine are not changing anytime soon. I think it’s the implementation, the getting the Japanese people open to the idea that the world is such a dangerous place. This is really a Hobbesian world in which we live and we need to really strike back at the jungle that’s going to attack us, and that we can’t always expect the United States to just be there…to just to protect us first. America will always be there, but America is not going to go first. I don’t think America is going to eliminate a threat immediately because that isn’t in our national interest. Japan needs to take ownership of that. And so I think, the government in Japan, particularly Prime Minister Abe, who’s currently experiencing very low poll numbers because of the COVID outbreak and because he’s been somewhat quiet as of recent and particularly given what’s happened with the Tokyo Olympics that we can talk about. But I think that the prospects of it happening in the short term are very low. I think, really, there needs to be a real mandate for change. One of the things that Abe has gotten in trouble is every time he’s really pushed on article nine changes, a lot of people have accused him of being too nationalistic, and there’s still a taboo in Japan of being too overtly military focus, even when it comes to military planning. So I think there’s still a culture that needs to be worked through. Japan is a consensus-driven society that needs to have these conversations in a more harmonious way.

Mark Melton
And previously, some have argued that America’s alliances with both Japan and South Korea have helped create stability in the region. So is this true? And or let me rephrase that. Is it still true? And why should Americans care about these alliances?

Josh Walker
Yeah, it absolutely has been true. When you look at the history between Japan and South Korea, it was actually a pretty good story. There were horrible things that happened during war, obviously, Japan had occupied Korea for a period of time. But afterward, there was a treaty and Japan and Korea both as allies of the US and also market-driven democracies and economies, particularly in the 80s and 90s, really were working together and it was much easier for Americans to have these two allies where American forces were based mostly with the army aside in South Korea, obviously, given the history of the Korean War, and mostly on the Navy, Marine, and kind of Air Force side in Japan, given the archipelago, it was kind of a nice compliment. But increasingly, because the US has been absent from the scene and has not been playing as strong of a role, the Japanese and Koreans have been going back and forth, and a lot of it has to do with domestic politics, right? It’s always popular in South Korea to blame the Japanese for everything and the comfort women issue has always been a tricky one for both the Japanese and Koreans to settle in. And even though there had been agreement before, you know, different leaders came in and they had different motivations. And so I think the Japanese are just frustrated and there’s a what we call for Korea fatigue in Japan, and a real feeling in Korea that the Japanese haven’t really atone for their sins in the same way they would like. And I think really, you know, you can kind of pin this directly to American leadership and Americans not being as actively involved. And I think that really why Americans need to care about this is, if things got bad and let’s say that Korea decided that its own economic interests no longer aligned with the US and they’d rather align with China and… Korean forces… American forces in Korea were to leave, there’s really no place for them to go other than to Japan. And if there were to be an attack in the neighborhood, you would need coordination among our allies, particularly Japan and Korea, which are the two largest economies and two largest bulwarks against Chinese, Russian, and North Korean kind of aggression. And so, it’s really a force multiplier the way I think about this. Korea and Japan are force multipliers not just with their own, you know, military and self-defense forces, but also in terms of having a forward posture where we have our assets stationed there, you know, you’ve got the Seventh Fleet that’s actually headquartered out of Yokosuka, Japan, it’s the only outside of America fleet that you have stationed there. And you’ve got the similar kind of situation with our forces in Korea that are under the UN umbrella still, given that the Korean War is still technically ongoing. So until there’s some type of agreement, we really do need our South Korean and Japanese allies not just to get along with us bilaterally, but to really make sure that trilateral relationship is working, which it was up until a couple of years ago and things have just really taken a nosedive and America has really been absent on that stage, which is just unfortunate, in a lot of different ways.

Mark Melton
And what are the prospects of, you know, China and South Korea moving closer together? Like do we see any evidence of that going on now?

Josh Walker
Yeah, I think we see a lot of evidence of that. You know, when you think about China’s posture during this last year and particularly in COVID, it really has been trying to convince everyone that they’re the victims in the world and that kind of the US…US as a superpower is a real threat to these other countries and there is a receptive audience to that. You know, when you think about public opinion, you know, Japan is very both dependent but also favorable towards America. And that’s independent of Donald Trump as President, which obviously leads to a series of political conversations. But in South Korea, that’s not the case there is there is this streak of anti-Americanism in South Korea that’s kind of been fostered…and by South Korean leadership and Moon Jae-in, obviously, who obviously has his own political problems at home. And I think that the Chinese have been playing a much stronger hand in domestic politics because they’re closer, they seem to have a much more aggressive disinformation campaign that they’re waging in Korea, and certainly, with North Korea, the whole discussion between the US and North Korea, which was a big focus of the Trump administration in the first half of the administration, and still you can’t rule it out in terms of an October surprise, where you know, Trump could get desperate enough that he would do anything to find a way to make peace with his buddy in Pyongyang. I think that’s a real threat and that that directly leads to kind of a schism between the US and South Korea, if not done correctly. It’s always been a challenging relationship and then when you add in the tensions with Japan, and you add in Chinese aggressive behavior and kind of their public diplomacy campaign that they’re waging against us, it is kind of a recipe for disaster in the future.

Mark Melton
And tensions, as we were talking about with China, like so tensions between the US and China have increased significantly during the Trump administration. So we have the trade war. Later we have oppositions to technology companies like Huawei, and then this past week, Tiktok even though right now Tiktok is kind of up in the air is to looks like Microsoft might get it. And then we also have the COVID-19 pandemic, and all of the, you know, the China propaganda, and then the focus on China there. So how has Japan fit into this geopolitical rivalry between the US and China? And are they getting caught in the crossfire?

Josh Walker
Yeah, it’s a great question and one that I wish more policymakers were talking about because Japan is absolutely our most critical ally in this confrontation. It’s clear that we’ve moved from an engagement policy with China to one of confrontation. You know, Mike Pompeo’s speech at the Nixon library, spoke volumes, both symbolically but also with what he said. And you know, clearly, the last 40 years of engagement policy with China has not led to what many people had hoped for. I don’t think any of us had hoped that there would be a free and democratic China. But I do think that many of us had hoped that particularly with economic interdependency, China would kind of, you know, adapt a little bit more to the world order and not try to set up parallel structures like they’ve done across, you know, it’s a Belt and Road initiative and its own near abroad. So I think Japan is really being caught between making a choice with its closest security ally, the United States, and its closest economic market in China, and increasingly, the Japanese are taking America side, not necessarily, because the administration has been very suave or sophisticated or has swagger on its diplomacy. But because it sees its own national interest tied up. I think, you know, when you think about the rivalry with China, you know, one of the things that we talked a lot about Eurasia group was how there’s different levels of this when it comes to the economic level, the US and China can compete, but still find ways of having win-win structures. When it comes to diplomacy, there’s still ways that the US and China can compete around the world, but still, find a win-win. It’s on geotechnology in the areas you just mentioned about Huawei, and TikTok, and the 5G Network and Internet Security where it’s really a zero-sum game, it’s either American or Chinese companies that are going to get the business and if you are on a Chinese network, can we ever believe that your privacy and your data will be protected? And I think Japan has come to that same realization, and kind of really been supporting the US side and trying to find ways of working. So on the geotechnology side, I think that Japan is trying to figure out how we can work with American technology companies, largely in Silicon Valley to find ways of partnering, you know, Japan used to be this big technology giant in the 80s and 90s, with all the names that we know, from Sony, to NFE, to Panasonic, etc. Those companies are not in the same tech space that the Googles or the Apples, or the Facebook, or Amazons were in or the Microsoft for that matter. But I think it is increasingly finding itself aligning more…the real kind of wildcard here, and when you talk about being caught in the crossfire, it’s not that Japan has been caught in the crossfire, but it is finding itself in a difficult global space because particularly our European allies are frustrated with the Trump administration specifically, and thinking that Trump and his team is being too kind of simplistic, it’s very black and white with China and the US right now. And particularly with COVID, you know, this would have been an opportunity to come together. COVID is something that doesn’t see nationality, or race, or anything else. And so rather than calling this the China virus or whatever else you want to call it, this could have been opportunity to come together, but instead, it’s become a dividing line and unlike in the Cold War, where we were on the free side, and kind of they were on the bad side, increasingly, China’s painting itself in a much better way of saying look like go to one alternative to an American led order, we can help you figure out ways of getting cheaper technology, cheaper internet, and a lot of people say we don’t care about the future ramifications. For today, China’s giving us a better deal. So I think that’s where Japan is really getting caught…between the United States, and Europe, and some of our other traditional allies, and is really finding it more difficult, though, Japan is playing more of a bridging role than ever had and I think Japan’s own independent national interest and its own foreign policy is playing a bigger role that sometimes I don’t think those in Washington fully appreciate because we’re so used to looking at Japan like our little brother.

Mark Melton
What is the opinion of Japanese people of both like China and the United States? 

Josh Walker
You know, it’s interesting. I think it’s been changing as of late. You know, if you would ask me this question before COVID-19, I think it was very clear that people were souring on China and really, there was, you know…Japan has been going through close to a 20 to 30 year period of kind of relations getting more and more frosty because there has been a feeling since the hosting of the World Cup back in the 2000s. That China just doesn’t respect rule of law and doesn’t really want to work with others. And so whether it’s in the South China Sea, or the Senkaku Islands that have led to major flashpoints, or whether it’s privacy or Japanese companies trying to do business in China, it’s been a pretty bad experience for Japan. So I would say that the China hawks have been on the ascendancy in China for a very long time, much more, you know, at least over the last couple of decades. As opposed to the US where really, it’s only been in the last couple of years on the Trump administration, there’s been a real consensus that China is a problem and that we need to confront China and kind of with force. And so I think opinions in Japan have largely been fairly positive of the US. And really, they’ve been independent of the President’s personality. When you think about last year, which you know, brought in a brand new Japanese Emperor and this idea of Reiwa, you know, Donald Trump went to Japan two times in the period of close to three months, right? Going to meet the Emperor for the first time, he was the first leader, head of state to meet the new Japanese Emperor, and then he was back there for the G-20 summit in Osaka. And, you know, Prime Minister Abe and Donald Trump have…have a bromance of sorts where they’ve gotten along very well, particularly on the golf course. Abe was the first leader to meet with Trump when he was the president-elect in the Trump Towers back in November of 2016. So, you know, I think there’s a lot of goodwill that’s been built up on a personal level, the real question is, how does that lead…from a country level? And I think COVID-19 has dampened the enthusiasm for the US because they’re watching in horror as a country, the size and the power of the United States has not been able to deal with what from their perspective, obviously, is a bad outbreak in a pandemic, but the numbers are just the scale is so off. It’s clear that COVID-19 found America’s Achilles heel, and you know because we don’t have a nationalized or public health care system that works in the same way. You know, we’ve had fights between state and local governments and the federal government, and the response has just been lacking in every different way, and the difference between the way Japan has handled this and where there’s about, you know…there’s about 1000 or so dead versus the United States where we’re well over 150,000. It’s just so hard to kind of keep a straight face and not just hold your head in shame with the way that we’re being perceived around the world as Americans today, including in Japan.

Mark Melton
So speaking about the Coronavirus, as a comparison, I’ve pulled up the numbers here. And so Japan has had around 40,000 cases. In comparison, the state that I grew up in Mississippi has 62,000 and Japan has 1000 deaths, Mississippi has 1700 deaths. So as a comparison of how some of the different countries are doing, of course, Mississippi has a population of a little less than 3 million. And Japan, what is Japan’s population?

Josh Walker
Depending on when you count it because…of how quickly it’s going down, but it’s well over 100 million. So you know, that you’re talking about, you know, literally, you know, a 30 times difference between those two and to see, you know, a state in America, like Mississippi, you know, exceed Japan is just, you know, the scale is just it’s hard to fathom.

Mark Melton
And my understanding is that Abe, as you had mentioned earlier, Abe has kind of manage the relationship with Donald Trump pretty well. And if I’m not mistaken, like Japan wasn’t hit with the same level of tariffs as other trading partners. So, is that accurate? Or have I missed something there? And then like, Is there a fear of a future trade war?

Josh Walker
Yeah, no, I think you’re right. Abe has done a really good job of managing Donald Trump. There have been times that Donald Trump has said some pretty egregious things about Japan, particularly as a candidate, he has a very clear viewpoint on Japan, kind of eating America’s lunch, some of the same things he said about China. But in practice, and in terms of what they’ve done, you know, they were able to do a first round free trade agreement between the US and Japan that helped Japan be exempted from some of the tariffs and some of the trade war rhetoric that the Trump administration has waged on other countries, particularly China, but even allies around the world. And so I think that Abe has really successfully single handedly, from a personal point of view, manage Donald Trump in a way that few have fully appreciated. And I think it really plays into the anxiety in Japan about what happens this year in a presidential election because there is a general feeling in Japan. Historically, at least, that most of the story longest relationships that Japan has ever had have been with Republican presidents, you can go back to Nakasone and Reagan, you can go back to Koizumi and George W. Bush. But there’s kind of the feeling that the general republican party has always been more on the national security side, which kind of pre-emanates and puts Japan in a privileged place when you think about the theater of major conflicts, as we talked about at the beginning of the show. So I think there is this fear that if there were to be a change, you know, just because, you know, I think Trump in some ways is an anomaly. He’s more of a populist than a traditional Republican candidate, as we know, but for this election, what does it mean, if there were to be a Joe Biden president in January? And so I think the Japanese are looking at this and you know, I think there are pros and cons. it’s not as black as white as it might be for some of our European allies that would love nothing more, particularly Angela Merkel and Germans to see the Trump administration come to an end and kind of reset the relationship in the way they believe the United States should behave on the international scene.

Mark Melton
So how do you think US relations with East Asia and Japan might change if Joe Biden becomes president?

Josh Walker
You know, I think that there will be a kind of a reestablishment of multilateralism and kind of institutions. I think under the Trump presidency, it’s really been a personalized diplomacy. So for Japan, as I’ve mentioned, that worked out fairly well, because Japan understood early on and Abe, in particular, seemed to have Trump’s number. In fact, a lot of regional allies, including and then even European allies, were coming to Abe to say, how do we deal with Trump because early on people like Justin Trudeau of Canada, or Emmanuel Macron of France seemed to have the same experience with Trump. But then something always ended up breaking those relationships, something always made, President Trump mad Abe stayed in his good graces. And so the question is if Joe Biden becomes president, will there need to be a new prime minister to reset relations with Japan, even if things go back to a more dare I say normalized diplomacy or cadence there were things like the South Korea-Japan relationship will have more oversight, will have more us leadership in the Indo-Pacific. You know the one thing about the Trump administration is particularly in the Indo-Pacific, they have clearly made this a priority. So there are initiatives that are ongoing, there is a close personal relationship between Trump, and Modi of India, and Abe of Japan. And so, it won’t be as extreme as the change you’ll see in Europe. But I do think the Japanese are thinking long and hard about this. And I think the question is, you know, even if Joe Biden becomes president, I don’t think the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the TPP, that was negotiated under Obama will come back overnight, which will be a real problem for the Japanese because they keep on wanting America, as the largest economy in the world, to join. And so I think that relations in general on the official level, will kind of be reset, and the opportunity will be there. But really, the proof will be in the putting in terms of how the different cabinet-level secretaries and the different people that come back in, are going to actually operationalize this because I think a lot of our East Asian allies have gotten used to dealing with Trump, and they kind of are used to dealing with some of the more personal and Twitter diplomacy that they’ve been dealing with.

Mark Melton
And finally, like, so Japan was supposed to host the Olympics this summer. But obviously that didn’t happen because of the pandemic. And so it’s supposed to happen next year, sometime, and how has this delay affected Japan? And what role can the Olympics play in Japan’s global relations?

Josh Walker  
Yeah, no, it’s a real bummer. In a lot of different ways. I was supposed to personally be in Japan right now, to celebrate the Olympics. You know this is the second time that Japan would be hosting the Summer Olympics, the first time being in 1964. And I think people underestimate just how important Olympics are because Olympics are really our coming-out party in a global stage. And I was reading an article recently in the New York Times, it basically said that up until the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, which was really this coming out party for China as a global power. 1964 was the most…it had the most impact on Tokyo and on Japan of any other Olympics in history. And the reason they focused on that is if you go to Japan and Tokyo today, all of the architecture you’re going to see is basically from that period. Because remember, as we celebrate the 75th year of the end of World War II, it also means that all of Tokyo was decimated with firebombings during the war because America wanted, you know, complete and utter submission. And so Tokyo was a destroyed city. And so from 1945 until 1952, the occupation of Japan, and then from 1952 to 1964, Japan was rebuilding itself. And so they use the Olympics as an opportunity to showcase things like the bullet train, and the famous Shinkansen, or all of the architectural wonders that you think of when you go to Japan. A lot of them are connected to the Olympics, including subways and some of the big towers that are there. And so I think that 2020 would be a lot different, you know, in 1964, Japan couldn’t really come out of the gate in terms of you know, being rah-rah militaristic and national in Japan. But 2020 was really to show that Japan is back on a global stage and it’s really stepping out of the shadow of the World War II legacy, which 1964 embraced in some ways. And so I think that it was a real missed opportunity, but of course, with the way COVID is, I don’t know if anybody would want to go. We can’t travel, American Citizens aren’t really allowed into Japan right now because of travel restrictions. So hopefully, when the Olympics kick off next year 2021, this might be the first global event that we’re able to celebrate assuming that we have the vaccine sometime at the beginning of next year. And this will be a real opportunity to kind of celebrate and the one thing Japanese really do well, there’s a term in Japanese ‘omotenashi’, which means ‘Japanese hospitality.’ It’s not the aggressive southern hospitality that probably you and I are used to where you kind of pull up a chair on the porch and get a sweet tea, and if you don’t eat something, grandma’s gonna be mad at you, it’s really kind of watching to see what you appreciate. And then without even saying anything…without any verbal exchange, kind of the unwritten hospitality of welcoming the world to Japan. And I think it’s really an opportunity for Japan to showcase its global relations. When you think about Tokyo as this global hub. Increasingly, as China becomes more of a rival to the US, I think Tokyo is going to become a place of respite, and also Japan is this island of stability, whether it’s from COVID, or whether it’s from populism and politics, Japan is a pretty well functioning place. And so as a result, it’s an opportunity for the world to gather to celebrate as a human spirit defeating this horrible pandemic that really is a once in 100 year effect. But I think, you know, it’s an opportunity for Japan to take that rightful place, you know, I’ve made the comment before that, the last three Olympics will have taken place in Asia, we had the Winter Olympics in Korea in 2018, we’re supposed to have the Summer Olympics in 2020, now delayed to 2021. And then 2022 is supposed to be China’s Winter Games. You know, if the Japanese Summer Olympics get canceled, I think that’s gonna have a larger implication and larger impact in terms of the role of these geopolitical forces. But I think the Olympics, whether it’s the number of gold medals, you win, or medals that you win during the Cold War, that now has transitioned to a US versus China. And so I think Japan hosting and in that theater will be really important for all of us to watch. But I think we’re all rooting for Japan, and all excited about coming out of the current environment so we can celebrate the human spirit at these Olympics that were really important to us.

Mark Melton
Well, Josh, thank you very much for joining us on the Provcast today. Arigato, and we’ll have to have you back on soon.

Josh Walker  
Dou itashimashite, it’s always great to be back to Provcast and to talk about all these important issues. I hope that it’s helpful in some way and I look forward to continuing the conversation.