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[NYT보도] "일본은 강대국 될수 없어" (2002.08.13)

지난 10여년간 일본에 전세계적으로 주도적인 역할을 주문했던 미국 행정부와 지식인 사회에선 이제 “일본은 세계문제에서 영향력이 크게 쇠퇴한 중간 국가(middling state)로 자리를 잡아간다”는 회의론이 확산되고 있다고 뉴욕타임스가 11일 보도했다. 타임스는 “일본 경제의 거품과 ‘초(超)강대국’의 꿈이 꺼진 지 12년이 지나도록 일본은 정실(情實)주의에 기초한 정치 제도의 역기능을 부정할 뿐이며, 일본의 계속된 쇠퇴는 미국의 아시아 외교·군사 정책에 깊은 영향을 미칠 수 있다”고 밝혔다.

◆ “일본은 중간 국가” 견해 확산 =미국 지식인 사회가 일본에 대한 희망을 완전히 포기한 것은 아니다. 미국 인디애나주(州)의 민간 연구소인 ‘허드슨 연구소’의 허버트 런던(London) 소장은 7월 31일 월스트리트 저널에 기고한 ‘일본의 재부상(Japan Will Rise Again)’이라는 제목의 글에서 “100%의 문자 해독률과 안정된 지도력, 고(高)부가가치 상품들, 숙달된 서구식 경영 방식 등을 고려할 때, 일본의 장래에 대한 확신을 버리기 힘들다”고 밝혔다. 지난 1960년대에 신흥 초강대국으로서의 일본을 예견하는 것이 ‘위험스러운’ 예측이었듯이, 일본은 지금의 역경을 얼마든지 극복할 수 있다는 주장이다.

타임스는 그러나 “부시 행정부 내에선 일본이 전세계적인 ‘거물 국가’로 다시 등장하리라는 데 대한 의문이 갈수록 늘고 있다”고 밝혔다. UCLA의 로널드 모스(Morse) 교수는 타임스에 “일본의 전세계적인 공헌은 객관적으로 볼 때 오히려 보잘것없으며, 일본이 계속 쇠퇴하더라도 해외에 미치는 부정적인 충격은 거의 없다”고 말했다. 이제 일본은 ‘중간 국가’로서의 제자리를 찾아갈 뿐이라는 견해다.

◆ 러시아와 중국의 아시아권 부상 =이미 ‘일본 모델’은 아시아에서 추종자가 갈수록 줄고 있는 실정. 타임스는 “중앙아시아에서 한반도에 이르는 아시아에서 앞으로의 시대는 러시아와 중국 간 외교·경제 경쟁이 되리라는 견해가 많다”고 소개했다. 또 지금처럼 미사일 방어(MD)체계 등에서 러시아와 미국이 더욱 가까워지면, 미국에 일본의 전략적 중요성과 대(對)중국 제어용으로서의 가치는 더 약해진다는 것. 타임스는 “일본의 교착 상태는 경제적 힘이 전혀 없으면서도 활발한 외교력을 발휘하는 러시아와는 대조적”이라고 평가했다. 타임스는 또, 일본은 중국의 부상에 위협을 느끼고 혼란스러운 대응을 하고 있다며, “일본은 막대한 경제 원조와 같은 ‘유화’ 정책과 고이즈미 준이치로 총리의 신사 참배 등과 같은 ‘도발’ 사이에서 불안하게 반응한다”고 밝혔다.

◆ 근본 원인은 일본의 고립성 =일본은 1868년의 메이지(明治) 유신 이후와 2차 대전 패망 이후에 역동성을 보였다. 그러나 당시와는 달리, “지금의 세계는 (일본보다) 더 빨리 변하고 있고, 일본이 지난 10년간 놓친 시기는 회복이 불가능할지도 모른다”고 타임스는 분석했다. 일제(日製) 가전제품의 뛰어난 성능과 마케팅 실적에도 불구하고 이런 ‘상대적인 낙후성’을 초래한 근본 원인으로, 전문가들은 ▲북한과 엇비슷한 수준의 형편없는 영어 구사 능력 ▲국가와 제도를 외국인에게 열지 않는 폐쇄성을 꼽는다고 타임스는 전했다.

( 李哲民기자 3Dchulmin@chosun.com">chulmin@chosun.com )


The New York Times
August 11, 2002, Sunday, Late Edition - Final
SECTION: Section 4; Page 5; Column 4; Week in Review Desk
LENGTH: 1411 words
HEADLINE: The World: Setting Sun?;
Japan Anxiously Looks Ahead
BYLINE: By HOWARD W. FRENCH
DATELINE: TOKYO

YEAR in and year out since Japan's financial bubble burst in 1990, American presidents have needled and cajoled the country's leaders to fix their economy and restore Japan to its rightful place in the world.

Gradually, though, as this country has continued its drift, a more skeptical view has begun to gain ground: Japan is returning to its rightful place in the world, that of a middling country of vastly diminished and still declining importance in world affairs. From the ashes of World War II, Japan enjoyed one of the fastest economic rises ever seen. Its successes made it widely envied by developing nations everywhere, as an example of how much a democratic, capitalistic country could achieve in a short period of time. Now, if its decline continues, it could have profound implications for American diplomatic and military policy in Asia.

Twelve years after its stock market collapsed, along with its dreams of superpower status, Japan is still frozen in denial about a dysfunctional political system built on institutionalized cronyism. By contrast, the United States is already seeing strong stirrings of reform just weeks into a crisis over business ethics.

Not everyone is ready to turn out the lights on Japan. The Hudson Institute, for example, has just published a book titled "The Re-Emergence of Japan as a Super State." In a recent opinion column in The Wall Street Journal, the institute's president, Herbert London, cited Japan's "100 percent literacy rate, stable leadership, products valued in world markets, mastery of Western management techniques and a belief in purposeful communal action," and concluded "it is not hard to be confident in Japan's future."

But recent signals from Washington suggest much greater skepticism, as diplomats say the Bush administration has increasing doubts that Japan will ever again become a global mover and shaker.

It is not just that Japan is not what it used to be. Some analysts say even its decline matters far less than it might once have, because it failed, when times were still good, to convert some of the immense wealth it had accumulated into more lasting power and influence.

"Looked at objectively, Japan is a rather insignificant power in terms of its contributions to the rest of the world," said Ronald A. Morse, a professor of Japanese studies at the University of California at Los Angeles who is also an executive with a telecommunications firm here. "If the country keeps receding, or even disappeared, there is hardly anything that would have a major negative impact abroad. The reason this sounds shocking is because everybody still remembers the Godzilla image of a Japan not so long ago that was going to swallow up America."

For other observers, however, Japan's long slide has huge implications for the future of Asia and beyond. Japan is a model for few in Asia these days, and with the country's diplomacy in disarray, those who take their cues from Tokyo are a fast dwindling number, leaving a vacuum that may be filled by less closely allied friends of the United States, or by outright rivals.

Indeed, from Central Asia to the Korean peninsula, many analysts believe the coming decades are shaping up to be a competition for diplomatic and economic sway between Russia and China. And if Moscow and Washington draw closer, that would only accelerate Japan's declining influence in Asia, and make Japan less able to serve as a counterweight to China.

I F the Japanese really lost hope, they might start thinking more about acquiescing in Chinese power," said Robyn Lim, an expert in international relations at Nanzan University in Nagoya, "so Japan's return to some semblance of economic health is a vital interest of the U.S. for both security and economic reasons.

"How to influence Japanese policy is the big problem, since the leadership is now completely paralyzed."

Japan's stalemate is especially striking when compared to the energetic diplomacy of Russia, another diminished Asian power, and one with virtually no economic hand to play. Still, by virtue of its nuclear prowess and proximity to central Asia, the Caucasus and eastern Europe, Russia has gone in the blink of an eye from nuclear enemy of the United States to strategic partner, even contemplating cooperation on missile shield development. Over that same stretch, Japan, which was disarmed by the United States in 1945 and remains pacifist, has never overcome its ambivalence about American missile shields, despite its longstanding alliance with Washington.

The rise of China presents Japan with its greatest challenge since the Second World War, but has left Tokyo seeming both intimidated and confused, shifting nervously between appeasement with generous development assistance, and provocations. These include visits by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to a controversial shrine, Japan's imperial army veterans and trade spats.

Japan's discomfort reflects what experts say are the painful choices that loom as its population shrinks and ages dramatically.

Some Japanese may be tempted to rearm and go it alone behind a leader like Tokyo's popular governor Shintaro Ishihara. Mr. Ishihara is a sort of East Asian Jean-Marie Le Pen, who demonizes ethnic minorities and taunts China as well as the West, as in his famous 1989 book, "The Japan That Can Say No." But with low economic growth its best-case outcome, realism will oblige Japan to cling ever more tightly to the United States for its security.

Japan's recent failure of dynamism is of a piece with a pattern seen at least since 1868, when the Meiji Restoration threw off feudalism and two centuries of isolationism to meet the challenge from the West. The country has veered between catastrophes, marshaling its energies fantastically well toward recovery, as after World War II, and then blindly holding on until the next crash.

What's changed is that the world moves far faster now, and squandered moments, even Japan's lost decade, may be irretrievable. The country's moment of truth may have been in the Persian Gulf war in 1991, when, as Yoichi Funabashi, the international affairs commentator of the Asahi Shimbun newspaper, wrote, "Japan found itself merely an automatic teller machine, one that needed a kick before dispensing the cash."

AS inadequate as mere checkbook diplomacy is, the Japan that is being written off today is increasingly unable even to play that game the way it once did because of its huge debt and pension woes. But even when Japan had wealth to spare, it was unable to overcome the deep historic wounds left over from its imperial conquests of the 1930's, or to systematically strengthen its political and economic ties with Asian neighbors.

"If you look beyond the United States, the countries that have been able to play a significant role in the world of ideas are all rather second-rate European countries: the British, the French, even the Swedish," said Sheldon M. Garon, a historian of Japan at Princeton University. "Japan has contributed very little to the discussion. They don't really have the vision to become world citizens, and have done a really horrible job of promoting alternatives to American dominance."

Perhaps the most essential element in Japan's relative decline is its insularity. Although familiar, this feature of the country reflects a great irony. With its mastery of the production and marketing of consumer electronics, Japan was an early mover in globalization. And yet here again it has failed to adjust, placing alongside isolated North Korea in international rankings of English-speaking ability. Meanwhile, even Japan's coming population crunch has failed to open the country to immigrants.

As the country's bureaucrats cook up one costly high tech plan after another in hopes of putting Japan back into the driver's seat, few here seem to have realized that money alone doesn't build Silicon Valleys. No, that is a task for open societies that draw on the world's best brains.

"I see only two things Japan can do, and they are inseparable: opening up the country and its institutions," said Jean-Pierre Lehmann, a longtime Japan specialist at I.M.D., a graduate management school in Lausanne, Switzerland. "But I don't see this happening, because Japan just doesn't want foreigners. Meanwhile, you can't rebel in Japan, so the most talented young people are leaving the country or are simply resigned."
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GRAPHIC: Photo: Business school graduates in Tokyo get psyched at a ceremony to start their job search. (Reuters)

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