George R. Packard
President, International University of Japan;
Director of the Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University, President, U.S.-Japan Foundation
George R. Packard was dean of SAIS from 1979 to 1993 and is now director of the Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies as well as professor of East Asian studies at the school. He is also president of the International University of Japan. From 1965 to 1967, he was chief diplomatic correspondent for Newsweek. Prior to that, he served as special assistant to U.S. Ambassador to Japan Edwin O. Reischauer. In March of 1998, he was appointed president of the U.S.-Japan Foundation.
Packard Report - Jun. 1998
As reported in May, there is a curious disconnect between the mood of official Washington and the mood of official Tokyo. In Washington, there is a sense of crisis, of impending doom as the Asian economic meltdown worsens and Japan slides into what looks like a bottomless recession.
In Tokyo, meanwhile, the government seems fixated on the July 12 Upper House elections, and does not appear to notice that the rest of the world is watching with horror as the yen weakens and the contagion spreads.
This is one reason why Deputy Secretary Summers is being dispatched today to Tokyo: to try to explain the anxieties in Washington about a downward spiral which could lead to world depression. This also explains why a Clinton-Hashimoto summit has been hastily scheduled for the second half of July. It has finally dawned on the Clinton Administration that it cannot ignore, by-pass or insult Tokyo without harm to its own interests.
At the same time, the "China Boom" continues to surge in the American media. Page one stories in the major newspapers are stressing the rise of capitalism, computers, Christianity and democracy throughout China.
This is an old story in America. Hungry entrepreneurs, grasping the size of the China market, have for almost two hundred years, been charmed and fascinated by this opportunity to sell American products to grateful Chinese consumers. Each time they have been bitterly disappointed. The Chinese do not, for one reason or another, live up to their high expectations. "This time will be different," they argue. Maybe so. But up to this moment, few have been able to make money in China.
At the same time, the Beijing Government is exacting many concessions from the Clinton administration, cleverly hinting that the success of his visit to China will be assured if only he drops his insistence on human rights, market-opening threats, and suppression of the sale of weapons to rogue nations.
China's biggest weapon right now is its potential to destabilize even further the Asian economies by devaluing the renminbi and setting off a wave of competitive devaluations elsewhere in the region. So far the Chinese Government has resisted internal pressure to do exactly this, but China's dependence on exports, and the weakening yen, are creating strong temptations to devalue. This is an extremely delicate issue, and one which could benefit from three-way US-Japan-China talks. But the Chinese are resisting such consultations at the senior official levels.
Clinton's nightmare, of course, is that Special Prosecutor Kenneth Starr will release his report to Congress on the various scandals (sex, campaign money and perjury) just as he appears to be scoring a diplomatic triumph in Beijing. Stay tuned. It could become true.
- English Version Archive -
2008/
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 | 11 | 12
2007/ 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 | 11 |
12
2006/ 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 | 8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12
2005/ 1 | 2 |
3 |
4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12
2004/ 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
9 | 10 |
11 | 12
2003/ 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
9 | 10 | 11 |
12
1999/ 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12
1998/ 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 | 7 |
8 |
9 |
10&11 |
12
