Bài tập tình huống về toàn cầu hóa case study 6 this nation is an island

This Nation Is An Island
Japan's insularity is becoming a drag on its economy and threatening its future.
By Christian Caryl and Akiko Kashiwagi | NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated May 12, 2008
To understand Japan's economic milieu, you could do worse than to look at the
current battle between famed British hedge-fund manager Christopher Hohn and the
Japanese government. In January, Hohn, an activist investor who runs the Londonbased Children's Investment Fund, decided to double its stake in J-Power, Japan's
largest electricity wholesaler, hoping to trim fat and boost returns at the top-heavy
firm. The Japanese government promptly rejected the bid, citing nebulous concerns
about "maintenance of public order." Hohn, who has been involved in shake-ups at
ABN Amro and Deutsche Börse, wasn't deterred.
He's enlisted EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson to plead his case to the
Japanese, and has petitioned Brussels to begin trade sanctions. While the situation
seems unlikely to evolve into a full-blown trade battle, Tokyo has clearly drawn a line
in the sand.
The resistance toward not only Hohn, but many other foreign investors, encapsulates
growing Japanese anxiety about their economy and place in an increasingly
competitive global environment. Japan, of course, has always had an ambiguous
relationship to the outside world. Throughout its history the country has oscillated
between pathological suspicion of foreigners and eager imitation of alien ways.
Recently some of the buried legacy of isolationism—manifested in a stubborn
resistance to foreign investment and a reluctance to capitalize on the opportunities of
globalization— has been coming back to the surface. And it's happening, arguably, at
a moment when Japan can least afford it. In an age marked by the rise of the
sovereign wealth fund, the non-Western multinational and near-instantaneous capital
flows, Japanese insularity, say critics, is becoming a luxury that the country can no
longer afford. "In the old days, foreign investors had no choice but to invest in Japan,
and Japan could afford to respond to their calls [for change] gradually," says Kengo
Nishiyama, strategist at Nomura Securities. "Today it has competitors in emerging
countries; unless Japan moves fast, its relative attractiveness could fade."
To be sure, Japan is still plenty wealthy. It's the world's second largest national

economy, it's the world's leading creditor nation and its blue-chip corporations still
wield immense prestige and power around Asia and the globe. Yet Japan's relative
position in the global economy has been dragged down by its own structural
weaknesses (like its sagging demographics and slowing productivity) even as other
countries are joining the ranks of the wealthy. In rankings of per capita GDP it has
fallen from the No. 2 position 15 years ago to No. 18 today. Its share of the global
economy has slid from 18 percent in 1994 to 10 percent in 2006. These shifts aren't


absolute; view Japan's performance through the lens of purchasing power rather than
nominal GDP figures (which can be distorted by exchange rates), and the situation
doesn't look quite so dire. Yet the trend is clear.
Yukio Noguchi, a professor of finance at Waseda University, says that Japan is
missing out on what he calls "the 21st-century version of globalization" based on the
free flow of capital and knowledge. He has also coined a phrase that captures what he
considers to be the essence of modern-day Japan: shihon sakoku (a closed capital
nation).
Modern-day Japan is closed in two fundamental ways. First is its striking reluctance
to allow foreign direct investment (FDI). Within the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development, the club of the world's wealthy industrialized nations,
Japan ranks dead last in terms of its ability to attract FDI. According to the Japanese
Cabinet Office, the country's ratio of FDI to GDP in 2006 was 2.5 percent—compared
with 8.8 in Korea, 13.5 in the United States, 25.1 in Germany and 44.6 in the U.K.
The reason is a host of political and bureaucratic impediments—from product
regulations to cross-shareholdings—that make it hard for foreigners to build up large
shares in Japanese firms. "It all just sort of encourages foreign investors to look
elsewhere, where investment rules are more transparent and predictable," notes Peter
van den Heuvel, head of the trade section of the EU delegation in Japan. According to
him, the attitude in Japan is that " 'we are very good; we don't need you all. If you
want to come to Japan, work on our terms.' But that's not what international business

is all about."
Increased investment from outside would bring countless benefits to the economy—
not only fresh management expertise and ideas but also a competitive jolt that could
spur innovation and productivity. And that's exactly the sort of inspiration Japan
desperately needs if it is to overcome the limits of a work force that's both shrinking
and graying. The last three Japanese governments have called robust growth in FDI an
"indispensable condition" if the aging economy is to prosper in the 21st century.
Japanese officials vow to increase the level to 5 percent of GDP by 2010—but that
"seems extremely difficult," says van den Heuvel. "And if they do [achieve], it's still
then a low level."
The other problem is Japan's inability to get better returns out of its assets. Little over
half of individual financial assets—over $15 trillion—are kept in the form of bank
deposits, which yields almost no returns. And most of them are in yen, with foreigncurrency denominated assets accounting for less than 5 percent. That's hard to do at
home, given the country's near zero interest rates and lingering deflation. Koji
Shimamoto, chief strategist at BNP Paribas Securities, Japan, notes that the Japanese
approach to financing pensions, for example, has always tended to be insular by
definition—consisting of investments in Japanese government bonds and equity. In
the old days, he says, "[t]hat was OK since it was the domestic economy that was
growing. Today, Japan needs to seek outside markets for growth. Yet we don't seem to
be equipped to make the change." Noguchi notes that compared with other developed
countries, Japan's outward investment is conspicuously low. At 10.3 percent of GDP,
it's merely about half that of the United States'.


Case in point: Japan's relationship to its own Asian hinterland. While other Asian
countries were busily setting up free-trade agreements and trying to boost regional
cooperation over the past decade, Japan remained aloof. Only recently has Tokyo
woken up—to find itself lagging far behind Beijing, which has been especially
aggressive in setting up FTAs with its regional trading partners.
According to a recent study of global capital flows by the McKinsey Global Institute,

most of Japan's cross-border investments are in developed markets such as North
America or Europe. But it's Asia that has been the source of the world's most dynamic
growth for years, and it's there, surprisingly, that Japan remains a minor player. From
1990 to 2006, the report notes, Japan's share of global financial assets in Asia fell
from 23 percent to 12 percent, while China's share increased from less than 1 percent
to 5 percent. The report also says the financial assets of Asian countries outside Japan
are growing much faster and that emerging markets have seen their share of financial
assets slowly rise over time. By 2006, the report noted, financial assets in other Asian
countries grew to $18.8 trillion, just shy of Japan's $19.5 trillion. While Japan's total
financial assets remained flat, the rest of Asia's grew with astounding rapidity—led, of
course, by China. For the time being, the study concludes, "Japan remains shut out of
Asia's financial integration."
That judgment seems particularly ironic in light of the Japanese government's oft
expressed intention to transform Tokyo into an Asian financial hub that might one day
rival London or New York. For about one year now Japanese officials have been
pushing the idea of an "international zone" in the city's downtown area where
overseas bankers, insurance companies and investment funds could enjoy
cosmopolitan culture and liberal regulation. The supporters of Tokyo's bid argue that
making the city into a hub would give a much-needed jolt to Japan's calcified business
culture by fomenting competition and spurring the modernization of its relatively
staid financial establishment. "To make Tokyo change we need to have an
international financial center here," says Ken Yagi, CEO of Bayview Asset
Management, a Japanese investment fund based in Tokyo.
Sounds like a great idea—except that, given recent developments, it now seems
virtually dead in the water. The recent turbulence in world financial markets has
triggered a flight from Japanese stock markets that has sliced away nearly a quarter of
the value of Japanese shares since last summer—despite the fact that Japanese credit
institutions have had only minimal exposure to the subprime crash. A key reason is
that foreign investors, who began piling into Japanese shares during the 2001–2006
term of the reform-minded prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, have lost faith in the

reform ability of his successors, including the present government of Prime Minister
Yasuo Fukuda.
Others say they've been disillusioned by the efforts of corporate managers and
bureaucrats to prevent foreign shareholders from exercising significant control over
Japanese companies. The case of the Children's Investment Fund is only the most
recent. Last fall, the Bull-Dog Sauce Co.—a 100-year old iconic company—diluted
the shares held by Steel Partners, a U.S. investment fund that was angling for a
takeover. The move was later approved by Japan's Supreme Court. "From the
investors' point of view, this suggests that there is an enormous risk" in investing in
Japan, says Nomura's Nishiyama.


Many members of the Japanese elite seem to like it that way. Tony Miller of the
investment fund Ramius Capital says the problem is less a matter of irrational
xenophobia than a deep fear of change, no matter who's bringing it. "The concern that
companies with entrenched management have is that a new investor will come and
force them to change doing business the way they have for years," says Miller. "They
have the same level of resistance to domestic agents of change as they do to foreign
agents of change." The establishment's fear is quite understandable. Thanks to the
protections they've enjoyed at home, Japanese companies are now valued far less
highly by the global market than international rivals are, making them potential
targets for foreign takeovers—such as Arcelor Mittal v. Nippon Steel, the world's
largest steel maker. Hence the recent rush among Japanese companies to set up poison
pills and other takeover defenses—including a revival of cross-shareholdings, which
allow a conglomerate to protect its subsidiaries behind a complex mesh of ownership
ties. Under the cross-shareholding scheme, companies own shares with each other on
the long-term basis and mutually become "stable shareholders." Such cozy webs
appeared to be disappearing under Koizumi.
Then again, a lot of the reluctance to open up seems to have its roots in plain old
complacency. Ordinary Japanese can be forgiven for thinking that their economy is

still big and rich enough that there's no need to court outsiders. "On a certain level
Japan just doesn't need money from the outside world," says R. Taggart Murphy, a
professor of international business at Tsukuba University. "It's not like the U.S., which
daily requires inflows of foreign savings." Kiyoshi Kurokawa, special adviser to the
Japanese cabinet, frets that fewer Japanese are traveling to the United States to study
—in striking contrast to the Indians and Chinese who are queuing up for foreign
M.B.A. degrees. Kurokawa notes that one recent South Korean TV-sitcom told the
story of two Koreans who fall in love at Harvard. "Can you imagine? For the Japanese
that would be impossible." Tsuyoshi Komori, president of Mercer Japan, says there's
"not enough sense of urgency here. The domestic market is so big that many people
think they don't have to change right away."
Exhibit A: the striking lack of conversational English among many educated Japanese.
In the past, says Komori, many assumed that they didn't need English, given that the
primary task of the economy was making things for export. "Manufactured goods in
and of themselves served as the medium of communication. But now the structure of
the Japanese economy is changing. The service industry, which requires personal
communications, matters far more than before." Whatever the reasons, it's clear that
something has to give. Japanese companies, says Komori, have to globalize
themselves. "The nature of money has changed profoundly in recent years," he says.
"Capital moves so much faster than it did before. And Japanese companies [still
putting emphasis on the consensus] just can't keep up with the trend."
So, how to break out of Japan's self-imposed culture of isolation? There are no quick
fixes, as the obstacles are deeply rooted in Japan's economic model.
Some voices in Japan, including ex-economic reform czar Heizo Takenaka, are now
calling for assets to be diversified into higher-return investments—perhaps via a
Japanese sovereign wealth fund à la China or Abu Dhabi. Any unwinding of those
American bonds would cause the yen to rise, something that no one in Tokyo wants to
see.

But beyond the sheer economic challenges, there are massive cultural hurdles to
overcome before Japan can take its rightful place in the global economy. The
broadcaster NHK recently aired a memorable exchange between Charles Lake, a
former U.S. trade official and present-day business executive in Tokyo, and a few of
his fortysomething friends from the days when he attended Japanese school as a
young expatriate. Over dinner, Lake—who also happens to be the head of the
American Chamber of Commerce in Japan—found himself defending Western
investors against the accusation that they're "vultures" who buy shares in Japanese
companies merely so that they can plunder them and run. One of the Japanese friends
wondered aloud whether Americans can work for American interests without
somehow shortchanging Japan. When Lake responded that it's not a "zero-sum
situation," one of the men shook his head skeptically. "If Japanese people say
something is win-win, I'd understand that. But if an American says it's a win-win, I'd
think, 'Is that true? Does he really mean it?' " The name of the documentary that
contained the scene is revealing: "Nihon Banare," or "Battle Against Japan Passing."
It's a phrase that's becoming ubiquitous, as Japan watches the world go by.
© 2008
1. Describe the situation of FDI in Japan. (Employ the concepts from the last
session, e.g. inflow, outflow, gross fixed capital formation…) Contrast it with
those of other OECD countries. From materials in the article, summarize the
explanations why FDI in Japan was so poor.
2. From the information from the last session, can you work out other reasons
why Japan did not encourage foreign investment? What is your verdict about
the role of the Japanese government vs. the attitude of anti-investment of
Japanese companies?
3. What do you think about the paradox of “pathological suspicion of foreigners
and eager imitation of alien ways” and the success of Japanese economy after
the Second World War? Any guess about the development of the Japanese
economy in the future?
4. Think about this: they seem to be ‘conservative,’ implementing kinda

‘protectionism,’ they was very successful, and seem to be less successful
recently… What can we learn from the case, from the perspective of Vietnam?
What lessons for Vietnamese companies doing business with Japanese
partners?