OPINION: Japan needs true vision of peace toward next 80 years

Kyodo News

24-07-2025

HIROSHIMA - In 1979, a Harvard University Professor and American sociologist, the late Ezra Vogel, published a book that became a runaway bestseller in both Japan and the United States. While most commentators at the time focused on its eye-catching main title, "Japan as Number One," the subtitle was equally compelling: Lessons for America.
Vogel at times joked that his book had sold for the wrong reasons. He had tried to understand and explain the societal forces behind Japan's economic miracle, but an even stronger motivation had been his alarm at America's decline. He thought it was Japanese society as a whole that carried lessons for America.
Living in Japan, I find myself periodically revisiting Vogel's book, reflecting on its ongoing relevance for our times. As America moves in directions unknown to its allies, enemies and maybe even to itself, what lessons might he have drawn for Japan today?
He would start with a reality check of Japan's deep-rooted challenges: a region fraught with geopolitical tensions, the constant risk of large-scale natural disasters, an aging and declining population and other woes.
Yet he would also be the first to remind of Japan's strengths, such as its peace credentials, its resilient democracy and rule of law, its educated population, its safety, world-class cultural traditions and public institutions.
In light of the political and societal changes unfolding in the United States, however, I believe there are at least three immediate areas where Japan needs to significantly speed up its transformation. These are in peace diplomacy, higher education, and environmental sustainability.
How can Japan maintain its peace credentials in a period of increasing security threats and military buildup in the region? How can it ensure its own protection and safeguard alliances, while at the same time preserving the Peace Constitution's legacy? How can it control a rising military budget without damaging the country's social fabric at a time of competing national expenditures?
My peace activist friends in Hiroshima often criticize their government for not providing meaningful leadership in nuclear disarmament negotiations. On the other hand, considering Japan is under the nuclear umbrella of the United States, the government's stance is bound to be, at best, a difficult balancing act.
Despite such constraints, Japan can do more to articulate its own unique and genuine vision of peace. Tokyo remains far too deferential to Washington. As times change, the world needs a more independent expression of what Japan means when it says peace.
As to higher education, Japanese universities lag significantly in global rankings, with its best performer, the University of Tokyo, currently at around 28th. Despite decades of policies to consolidate and internationalize, the sector struggles to attract foreign talent.
Japan's affordable higher education and attractive culture and society could be strong draws for international students, particularly at a time when many worry about the U.S. administration's policies on student visas and unsettling moves to muzzle academic freedoms.
Yet language barriers and a lack of professional opportunities for foreign graduates remain daunting. I have worked with many bright students in Japan who ultimately, and reluctantly, left the country after graduation to settle elsewhere.
This is a great loss. Japan needs to attract and keep foreign graduates and young professionals, helping them integrate much more easily. Language acquisition is key.
Finally, it is clear that the current U.S. administration has decided to abdicate its environmental leadership role. Japan can step in to fill the gap but currently punches far below its weight: in a 2024 OECD survey of 30 countries, Japan ranked 23rd in sustainability.
Despite technological prowess and a vast potential for renewable energy from geothermal, solar, and tidal sources, it is still highly dependent on fossil fuels for its energy needs.
While ordinary citizens diligently sort out the mountains of plastic waste the country produces, groundbreaking innovation in waste management or the circular economy still seem in the distant future. Efforts to decarbonize infrastructure and promote green architecture lag, and the promised green revolution advances more at a crawl.
For a country that seamlessly marries high-end technology with mottainai and wabi-sabi traditions, Japan is a natural source of leadership in addressing environmental threats. It should seize the chance.
Eighty years after the war Japan has overcome many challenges, but it cannot remain as it is. To paraphrase the main character in "The Leopard" by author Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, "For things to remain the same, everything must change."
(Nassrine Azimi, a co-founder of a global initiative called Green Legacy Hiroshima which promotes peace through atomic-bombed trees, was an original member of the U.N. Institute for Training and Research and served as the first director of its Hiroshima Office.)