I was called to a content committee
meeting with members of the diet to debate pop culture and Cool Japan. Here are
the answers that I gave.
Q. How do you view the
competitive power of Korea?
A. Korea’s strategy is clear. Since the administration
of Kim Dae-jung, 1) Their strategy fuses content and home electronics, software
and hardware. 2) Their strategy concentrates on the international marketplace.
3) Their strategy involves intense government support.
Japan has a lot to learn from their strategy.
Q. What should we do to
enter foreign markets?
A. The government should concentrate on distribution. Japanese
industry has not yet fully realized how to use the net. Also, Japan has very
few broadcasting slots overseas. In the U.S., there are tens of channels in
Chinese, 13 channels in Korean, but only one channel in Japanese.
Q. What is causing this
problem?
A. I could offer copyright laws and piracy concerns as the
issue. However, I believe that the biggest factor is lack of will. Companies
that have eaten up the domestic market lack incentive to go for the
international market. However, I believe that this situation has come to an
end.
Q. Does the government need to be involved or should it be left
to economics and culture?
A. Professor Joseph Nye has an international political theory of
“Soft Power.” Content policy, even more than
industrial policy, should be valued as a cultural and political policy as well.
The government should be involved because content policy has more to do with
culture than with industry, and is more about international relations than just
domestic policy.
Q. Do you have any hints?
A. I hope that we will take advantage of the Tokyo Olympics. It’s an
opportunity to distribute content overseas, improve the domestic
infrastructure, and promote the expansion of content.
Q. Any other aspects of
Japanese culture?
A. If you ask foreigners living in Japan what they would like to
bring back to their own countries, they teach you many surprising things. For
example, many people value our education system in which elementary students
take turns on lunch duty serving their classmates. Also, whereas many people
are afraid of the police in their home countries, in Japan anyone can feel
comfortable asking them for help. These are things that foreigners would like
to spread in their countries. I’m certain there are many more aspects of our
culture that we are not yet aware of that can be presented to the world.
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