Grass-Eaters, Closed Circuits and the New Sakoku
Considered one of the world’s savviest financial strategists, JP Morgan’s Jesper Koll has made Japan his focus for over a quarter of century. Consistently upbeat about the country’s economic prospects even when the situation looks bleak, he sees Japan’s strong technology base, low financial leverage, savings levels and smart and industrious labor force as reasons to predict upturns rather than downturns. Earlier this decade, Koll wrote two books in Japanese—Towards a New Japanese Golden Age and The End of Heisei Deflation—that underscored his faith. He also frequently presents his views at high-octane forums and in articles for major publications in Japan and abroad.
But one non-economic expression of Japan’s collective mindset gives Koll pause. While students from regional economic rivals like Korea, China and India spar for spots in U.S. undergrad and graduate programs, more and more of their Japanese counterparts turn away with a shrug. They’ve become “grass-eaters”—content to stay local and avoid risk and close encounters of the international kind.
According to the latest depressing statistics, Japanese undergrad enrollment has plummeted 52 percent since 2000, and 27 percent for grad school. By contrast, South Korea has two and a half times more students in U.S. colleges. In the same decade, China’s student population in the U.S. rose 164 percent, and India went up 190 percent. And U.S. grad schools welcome close to twice as many grad students from South Korea—and over three times as many from China and India—than they do from Japan.
“Clearly the crucial value of an international education goes well beyond the coursework assigned, whether it is in bio-engineering, financial accounting or anime film-making,” Koll commented in the November 2009 edition of the ACCJ Journal. “Rather, it is the people with whom you live, the friends you make while studying, and the shared experience of becoming an adult that are priceless, that are a value that no on-the-job training at a closed-circuit Japanese company will ever be able to provide.”
Will Japan lose out economically because of this passive and shortsighted sakoku (seclusion)? Koll thinks so. “I am worried that this may turn out to be the biggest fundamental challenge for Japan Inc. to be able to maintain its global leadership and sales-champion position.”
Doug Jackson
TEDxTokyo Storyteller
