- Kato Hidetoshi's Data Base -
Development of Pacific Community Through Communications -An Asian Perspective
Publication Date: Submitted to Pacific Communication Research Council State University of San Diego, California, February 18, 1993
Publisher: Unpublished
At the occasion of the inauguration of Pacific Communication Research Council, I simply wold like to submit a rather lengthy memorandum to invite discussion. The following five items are not in logical order, though they are inter-related each other. I simply hope that some of my topics can contribute to the future activities of the Center and taken as the subjects of discussion.
From sub-arctic zone of northern China to tropical Indonesia under equator, from high mountains of Himalayas to small islands of the Philippines, and from Islamic Pakistan to Buddhist Thai, "Asia" is a vast and diversified region. Indeed, in terms of geography, Asia occupies one third of the surface of Eurasia, and the number of its total inhabitants is more than half of world population. Moreover, when the countries in the region, which counts more than 30, their respective history , society and culture, are closely studied, one will discover that each nation is unique and different from others.
It is true that both devoted Buddhist Sri Lanka and socialist dominated North Korea belong to Asia and the peoples of these countries claim that they are "Asians", but in reality, "Asia" is not one. Yet "Asia" is "Asia", not only as a geographic concept but as an entity which contains incredible potential for growth and development in the years to come.
In other words, all countries and peoples of Asia share one fundamental dilemma. On the one hand, we believe that Asia is one, and on the other, we know that Asia is desperately diversified and that the concept of " Asia " itself is a dangerous over-generalization.
In order to avoid this intricate question to a certain degree, in this presentation, I would like to focus my attention to a limited part of Asia, i.e., east Asia and southeast Asia, though I am not neglecting fellow neighbors of south Asia and central Asia. Therefore, when " Asia " is referred in this paper, it implies only Asian countries facing with eastern edge of the Pacific Ocean.
East Asia, which includes China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, and southeast Asia, consisted of ASEAN countries, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia may be seen as a block. In the first place, this block is an economic unit. Initiated by Japan after 1960s, Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore, often called "four tigers" have been increasing their industrial output, sometimes with two digit annual increase and their total GNP already surpassed that of the U.S. and EC. It is natural, therefore, that many economic analysts and politicians outside the region criticized and even feared the idea of more organized economic cooperation among these countries expressed by Prime Minister Mahatir of Malaysia early in 1990. After automobiles and electronic products of Japan, Korea has shown its power in ship building, Hong Kong in textile and watch, Taiwan and Singapore in electronics. Needless to say, Taiwan today is the biggest creditor country in the world. Thai, Malaysia, and Indonesia are growing very rapidly. Throughout the world, camera made in Japan, VTR made in Taiwan, sport shoes of Korea, watches produced in Hong Kong are everywhere. Peoples Republic of China also is coming up, and despite its many difficulties, its future is extremely promising. As a matter of fact, according to a recent economic forecast, China in 2020 may be the biggest economic power in the world.
Not only economic growth, but also in terms of culture, the countries of this part of Asia have common historical and cultural heritage, such as agrarian society based on paddy rice field farming, ancestor worship, and other everyday manners and customs. In terms of ethnicity, too, the peoples of these countries belong to the same race.
Most important aspect in the region, as suggested in the above paragraph, is the emerging regional cooperation. For instance, ASEAN countries have been working together in both public and private sectors. The governments of more developed countries continued to extend their foreign aid programs and projects to less developing neighbors. In business world, interdepen dence and cooperation in the region is most remarkable. Japanese business, for instance, has been working with their counter parts in the region during past few decades. As far as Japan is concerned, she cannot survive without keeping interdependence with other Asian nations.Such items as coal and iron from China, oil from Brunei, Timber from Indonesia and Malaysia, fisheries from Thailand, Japanese people will be starving in literal sense of the term.
Migrations among nations also are extremely visible in past several years. Brunei, for instance, rely its manpower almost totally on the Philippines. Though legally not permitted, without one million foreign workers from Thai, Indonesia, and other Asian countries, Japanese manufactur ing and construction business will face with serious problems. Singapore also is in need of temporary workers from Indonesia and Malaysia.
Above all, traditionally, cosmopolitan Chinese and Indians have been working vigorously everywhere in this part of Asia especially in business. These migrations are inevitable within the region.
In this context, communications within the region are vitally necessary so that peoples of the countries can achieve better mutual understanding and cooperation. As a matter of fact, in comparison with overwhelmingly heavy money flow and commodity flow within the region, both quantity and quality of information flow are still not satisfactory if not poor, though every efforts are made by concerned agencies and institutions about which our colleague Mr.Menon already introduced to us. We Asians need more and better communication within Asia.
Just like a nation cannot be isolated within Asia in today's world, Asia as a region is not, cannot, and must not be isolated from other parts of the world, especially from our Pacific neighbors in and across the ocean, namely Australia, New Zealand, Pacific islands, North America and South America.
Interestingly, historical reflection shows us that these Pacific rim countries of today share a similar experience of having had "discovered" by Europeans after 16th century. Not only "discovered" but also many of these nations have their colonial past. British Empire, for example, inflated its territory to India, Malaysia, and Hong Kong in her east bound expansion, while north America was colonized as the result of west bound British explorations.
And ironically, both sides of the Pacific did not know each other until mid 19th century when steam powered modern ships succeeded to make their voyage across the Ocean. For instance, China and Japan were re-discovered by Americans. The unfortunate war between the U.S. and Japan early in 1940s, by reflection, may be regarded as the result of mutual ignorance.
In spite of such historical misunderstandings and tragedies, however, both sides of the basin showed keen interest and made efforts in past century. Most remarkable example was massive migration from western edge to the eastern edge, i.e., immigration of millions of Chinese, Korean, and Japanese to the United States. Union Pacific railroad construction in the continental United States, pineapple plantations in Hawaiian islands, for instance, were impossible without those " orientals " who left their countries and decided to migrate to the free new nation. At the same time, the peoples of the new continent, especially Americans, did not hesitate to help the peoples of the other side of the Ocean. As for Japan alone, higher education institutions of 19th century were inaugurated by the assistance of more than one thousand American scholars who dared to spend several years in " mysterious Orient ".
Such new tradition of interaction and dialogue between both sides of the Pacific seems to have been accelerated in past few decades. On the one hand, incredible number of Asians, not only eat Asians but also Vietnamese and Thais, were very much eager to migrate to the to the United States, and millions of these new comers were accepted in this country, though quite a few ethnic problems and incidents took place elsewhere.
On the other hand, thanks to modern means of transportation, human mobility across the Pacific today is massive. Millions of tourists visit each other every year, and to take a trip from Tokyo to New York is as easy as is travelling from Tokyo to Kyoto. With the rise of television throughout the region, American movies attracted huge audience everywhere, and " American way of life ", i.e., material affluence with convenient household gadgets, has been almost absolute ideal for most of Asians in past decades.
By saying so, however, I would like to point out the difference of " mental map " between Asians and Americans, inclusive of north and south. It seems to me that Americans still look at east Asia as "far east" inheriting European perception rather than looking at the region as "near west". When I worked for East West Center in Honolulu about ten years ago with Dr.Bitterman, I often joked with my colleagues which directions were "east" and "west". From Asian view, American continent is apparently located in the "east". It won't be necessary, and non sense, to see the continent toward "west", all across Eurasia by way of Egypt, Mediterranean and the Atlantic ocean. Such perception should be reconsidered here not only for fun but also for serious educational issue. Let us compare two world, maps. In conventional American textbook, as we are familiar with, the Pacific Ocean is split along with international date line, while the Atlantic is located at the center. Its historical British origin is understandable, but for the idea and ideals of " Pacific Community ", this old map seems not appropriate as our shared mental image. Personally, I rather prefer to use east Asian version of world map of which center is the Pacific, even at the sacrifice of divided Atlantic. For educational purpose, I propose to let young people to study and compare the two maps so that they can make their first step to be bi-cultural, bi- imagery individuals
Language(s) is the most important factor in the construction of Pacific " Community ", since language is the basic means of communication. From various historical and cultural reasons, English is the dominant language used in the Community. However, serious attention should be paid to the fact that Asian languages are also used widely in the area. As a matter of fact, Chines is spoken by more than one hundred million people not only in China but also in many other parts of our community. In terms of number of people, Chinese speaking members of the community is absolute majority. Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Tagalog, Malay, and other languages are not negligible, too.
It is true that English, including pidgin English and other non orthodox English are spoken and understood in most parts of the community, and especially among intellectual circle, we do not have much difficulty in communicating each other. However, in Asian and Pacific countries which do not have colonial past, such as Chine, Japan, Thailand, English is practically and essentially alien language, and in these countries, it is not necessary to use English even as a second language. Also, according our survey data of language distribution of shortwave radio broadcast throughout the region, we discovered that English as language power is only little over one third of the language used by broadcasters.
My suggestion, in this context, is that, in order to establish well balanced Pacific community, we must emphasize the importance of bi-lingualism or even tri-lingualism as practiced in Singapore and certain Pacific island nations. Indeed, on western edge of the Pacific, millions of enthusiastic learners are studying foreign language. In Tokyo alone, for instance, there are 1,800 private foreign language schools other than formal educational institutions. In Hong Kong, Bangkok, too, you will find hundreds of language schools. Here in California, if my understanding is correct, Spanish is now becoming another language, and bi-lingualism is being materialized. But in New York, according to a recent survey, there are only 70 foreign language schools. I am not criticizing educational climate of the United States, but I believe that to study a foreign language or two is essential to construct our Pacific dialogue.
If my memory is correct, Andre Gide, a French author left a famous sentence which says "Once you learned a foreign language, you cannot hate the country where that language is spoken", and I am in complete agreement with his statement. My own imperfect English made me not to hate and to try to understand my English speaking colleagues and the people. Because of my poor Chinese, I am confident that I am more used to Chinese way of thinking than those who do not know the language.
As many linguists discussed in past century, a language is a part of, and intricate reflection of the culture where that language is spoken. In other words, to learn a language is more a matter of linguistic skill. It is the first step to know the way people think and behave. This is exactly the reason I stress the importance of mutual language learning among the peoples of Pacific rim countries, or the members of Pacific community.
At this point, one may argue that computerized automatic translation will solve the problem. Indeed, the engineers of both the United States, Japan and elsewhere have been working on this challenging technology, and I appreciate this new invention. However, I believe that language is the essential for human beings, who are able to feel, think, laugh, and cry. Machine translation is a convenient device for business and other practical matters, but a language, even a word is a crystallization of a culture which has centuries of history, and the meaning of a single vocabulary is too deep to be translated to other linguistic system. I would like to recommend bi- lingualism or multi-lingualism in education, in this context, for the future of Pacific community.
Information flow among nations has been one of the hottest issues in many international agencies, especially in UNESCO, in past two decades. The major point in the discussion was uneven and unbalanced flow of information between North (industrialized nations) and South (developing nations). It was argued that the flow from North to South was overwhelmingly huge while the reverse was almost none. For example, even a small news item from the United States, such as the name of President's pet dog, is well covered in many newspapers in Indonesia. But practically no newspaper in the United States reports such important topics as Ministerial meeting of ASEAN held in Jakarta. A common man on the street of Chiang Mai knows who the President of the United States is. On the contrary, I am afraid that a sophisticated intellectual executive in the center of New York knows the name of Prime Minister in Thailand, even though he may have Thai folk art objects in his living room, sometimes only knowing that his beautiful vase came from "Orient"
This is exactly the reason why "new world information order" was taken as a priority issue in UNESCO about a decade ago, and the international organization recommended strongly that more and stronger information flow from South should to North should be designed. Indeed, one-sided information flow simply means the information gap among nations. Ironically, as the episodic example mentioned above, in international communication, "information rich" are those who are in developing area and "information poor" are found in industrialized countries.
If international and intercultural communication within Pacific community should be innovative and constructive for mutual understanding, then our attention must be paid to the facts about information flow among the countries concerned. Many researchers already published research monographs on this particular issue, but for this conference, I re-examined how a Japanese newspaper reported about our neighbors, and discoursed that, as far as Japan is concerned, it was clear that Pacific community news has been relatively well covered in past three decades, though there have been unevenness in the amount of news as well as the areas (countries) picked up by the editors. For example, the news about Vietnam in 1972, and Cambodia in 1992, were tremendous because of obvious reasons.
But two facts worries me. In the first place, Japan is dominantly U.S. oriented and only very few news were reported from Asian neighbors. It does not mean that there was no important event in Asia. Personally, I know that in the capitals of major countries in Asia, there is at least a reporter from Tokyo headquarter, even a bureau office, and that these reporters send their articles to Tokyo everyday. But for the foreign news desk in Tokyo, a gate-keeper so to speak, seems to tend to think that the news about child rescue in Iowa is more important than that of religious friction in India.
In the second place, as the figures themselves talk, the amount of foreign news in Japanese newspapers have been declining in past three decades, despite of increasing "internationaliza- tion". The figures on the table might have happened to be incidental and my small sample may not reflect total trend. But it seems that Japanese press is gradually losing its interest in Pacific community, especially in Asia. It was ironical to discover that, in each year, the space devoted to airline and tourist advertisement to attract readers to Hong Kong, Bangkok, and other parts of Asia exceeded that of serious information from these countries.
In television programming, too, in spite of efforts of ABU and other agencies, especially collaborative work of Asia Vision, as far as Japan is concerned, daily regular news program from affiliated nations can be watched only through broadcasting satellite late at night, and the number of audience of the program seems to be extremely small in comparison with regular television night news at 9:00 p.m. of which contents are mostly domestic news.
By stating so, however, I would like to invite your attention to the concept and findings of "telegeography", first introduced by Dr.G.Staple in 1992. His findings give us the images of information flow, not in terms of media, but in terms of individual uses of telecommunication. In global context, it is remarkable that trans-Atlantic communication is absolutely the heaviest, approximately five times more than that of trans-Pacific. In the midst of this electronic age, physical distance does not mean any technical difficulty. You can make a phone call from Kuala Lumpur to Detroit instantly by direct dialing, or you can send your fax message from San Diego to Bandar Seri Begawan in the same manner. Yet, the amount and frequency of "Pacific Dialogue" seems to be not sufficient in comparison with "Atlantic Dialogue", especially in view of the population and the future promises of the community.
The second lesson which the maps give us is the fact that, quite contrary to our common sense assumption, the United States is relatively isolated from other parts of the world, while Japanese telecommunication world is more inter-connected with other countries. Or in other words, the U.S. is receiving country rather than sending country in international communication.
It is really strange, if not contradictory, that the United States is receptive in international telecommunication while she is the dominating power in sending information through media, as represented by global network of CNN. I suspect that the U.S. is listening to the requests from other countries who want to negotiate about the purchase of American TV programs.
Communication, by definition, should be reciprocal. If a sender talks too much, the listener will be bored or frustrated. If a listener is listening all the time saying nothing, then the speaker will be discouraged to continue to talk. Interaction and dialogue are essential in communication and mutual understanding. And against this context, our Pacific community is still immature. Like among small neighborhood community, our community needs more equal conversation inclusive of serious problems and backyard gossips, otherwise, our community will turn out to be a condominium where nobody knows who the next door neighbors are. Needless to say, such way of living is not worthwhile to be beautifully named "community".
One of the eminent characteristics of Pacific community is that the peoples of the countries in the region are extremely literate in the world today. Without single exception, all countries in the Pacific rim are famous, sometimes even notorious, for their zeal for education. "Examination hell" is not a monopoly of Japan but shared by Korea, China, and east Asia, and in these countries, for better or worse, to complete higher education is the token of citizenship, if not that of success. On the other side of the Pacific, the U.S. in particular, close to 40% of high school graduates attend colleges and universities. As the result, literacy rate of these nations is the highest in the world, and highly skilled engineers are everywhere.
In other words, this community has tremendous intelligent manpower. Despite certain communication problems mentioned above, this manpower is extremely encouraging factor, since quality of communicators, and peoples at large, is decisive for future improvements. If efforts are made among considerate and insightful policy makers and communication experts of Pacific community, our future is much brighter than we think.
In addition to excellent manpower, the community should be proud of its techno-power. In the first place, top experts in communication engineering of the world are found in this community. Not only the U.S. and Japan, but also in Singapore, Korea, and everywhere in the region, you will find inventive engineers and executives in communication hardware and software. As a matter of fact, more than 40% of computer hard-disks are now produced in Singapore. Malaysia is making its effort in the production of IC tips. It will not be necessary to touch the expansion of Nintendo in the world market. Per capita number of comput-er/wordprocessor is probably higher in the region than any other part of the world.
Above all, the number of broadcasting satellite and communication satellite over the Pacific is numerous, and satellite population density is incredibly high. Indeed, in east Asia, if you invest a big antenna of which diameter is five meters, you can receive directly at least 30 unscrambled satellite transmission, other than your own domestic channels of broadcasting. It can be the most beautiful constellation you can observe in the space, if they are properly used under international democratic management.
New problems, such as information spill-over, about which some countries are extremely sensitive, may come up as the result of these technological advancement. Frictions over the issues of intellectual properties, including computer software and copyright of tapes, will be another serious question for community member nations. And we cannot be optimistic about these problems. But I strongly believe that, if we take them as new challenges, our collaborative wisdom can not only solve the problems, but build richer and more understanding Pacific community in the next century, which is waiting for us only in few years.
At this point, as a conclusive remark, I would like to stress the importance of cooperation and collaboration among policy makers, researchers and intellectuals, private business, and above all, peoples of the community. Private business often complain about bureaucratic structure of government, university professors tend to deplore commercialism of private sector, and public sector is concerned about regulations sometimes disregarding the needs of the people. What we are aiming at is "Pacific community", but there are few "sub-communities", such as North America, South America, east Asia, and southeast Asia, and my feeling is that cooperation, if not consolidation, of each sub-community is vital for the larger "Pacific community". Furthermore, within each sub-community, we find fundamental unit called "nation states". And we must be reminded that each nation has its own autonomous social system, policy, and culture.
In other words, those who feel the necessity of communication within Pacific community must pay attention to the need of communication within sub-commnities and most importantly, communication within each country. Without steady efforts in communication within each nation and its people, in my opinion, the idea and the ideal of the Pacific Community will be, in Japanese proverb, " a rice cake painted on the paper", i.e., something which stimulates appetite but not eatable.
Kato Hidetoshi's Data Base
Document ID Number:2619