Uganda: Japanese volunteer Chiyoko Ichishima teaches children arts and crafts at a school outside the capital Kampala
When Kensuke Onishi decided to use his foreign university degree and fluent English to help internally displaced refugees in Kurdish Iraq, his Japanese mother's friends told her they understood if she wanted to weep. After all, shouldn't a dutiful Japanese son return home and work for a big company, like the droves of salarymen before him? But in 1996, Onishi founded one of Japan's largest international NGOs, Peace Winds Japan, which operates everywhere from Sudan to East Timor. Today, the 41-year-old Osaka native has noticed that his countrymen no longer consider helping less fortunate foreigners a shameful occupation. Two former Peace Winds alumni now serve in the Diet, while Onishi recently has been fielding job queries from disillusioned investment bankers. "People in Japan live in such comfortable, peaceful conditions," says Onishi. "I think more Japanese are realizing that it's our duty to help out overseas and bring some of our values to the world."
Is the world turning Japanese? Even as Japan's domestic economy slips into recession and its politicians dither endlessly, the country's overseas influence is reaching new heights. Limited by a postwar constitution from developing military power, Japan's international clout relies on soft power, the term coined by Harvard professor Joseph S. Nye in 1990 to describe how countries "get what [they] want through attraction rather than coercion." Today, a generation of idealistic Japanese is attempting to sway the world through cultural, social and economic means. Japan doesn't tend to trumpet its efforts — understandable given the nation's imperial past and historic disregard for national boundaries. When a Japanese real estate firm snapped up Rockefeller Center in the 1980s, the deal unleashed unease among some Americans, who feared that Japan was literally taking over America. But this time around, its campaign for global hearts and minds has been far more successful. According to a BBC poll this year, Japan ranks second in the world when it comes to a positive global image. (Germany barely edged out Japan for the No. 1 spot, while the U.S. was seventh.) "Soft power is a very strong force," says Heizo Takenaka, Japan's former Minister of State for Economic and Fiscal Policy. "If we have the right political leadership, it can be even more powerful."
Japan's charm offensive is taking shape on several fronts. Cash-flush Japanese banks, which have only just emerged from their own decade-long debt crisis, are infusing money into distressed companies such as Morgan Stanley. Japan Inc. is going on another of its famous investment sprees abroad, opening factories and representative offices across Africa and Asia. In October, the country's central bank even offered part of its nearly $1 trillion in reserves to financially strapped nations like Iceland. In November, Japan also expressed willingness to lend up to $100 billion to the International Monetary Fund. But it isn't just money that's being spread around. "Because Japan's financial system is the least tainted at the moment," says Japanese parliamentarian Kotaro Tamura, "we have the opportunity to help save the world and spread a message of social responsibility."
That's new. Until recently, the idea of Japanese values conjured up little more than a picture of workaholic company drones. But throughout the world — even in places where Japanese colonialists once unleashed brutal wartime campaigns — the world's second largest economy has suddenly been thrust into the unfamiliar position of exemplar. Developing countries such as Vietnam are studying how Japan refashioned its war-ravaged economy into a technological powerhouse that still maintains its cultural identity. Industrializing nations are looking for ecological guidance from a place that has managed to become an economic giant while still embracing a conservationist ethos. Still others gravitate toward Japan because of its trendy comic books and, not least, for its generous checkbook. Even though Japan has in recent years scaled back its foreign-aid commitments, the nation is still the top bilateral donor to many developing countries, including Cambodia and Nepal.
Japan is benefiting because of what it isn't. The world's renewed love affair with the nation has blossomed just as many nations are growing wary of the rising influence of Asia's other superpower: China. Unlike Japan, China has done little to mask its global natural-resources grab. As a result, Japan outranked China in a June survey of soft-power effectiveness in six countries by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Far from China eclipsing Japan, as many once thought, the Middle Kingdom's emergence has actually reawakened international admiration of its neighbor. "There's a strong perception that China's not doing enough for people's rights," says Yasushi Watanabe, co-editor of a new book called Soft Power Superpowers. "Japan is more naturally accepted as a member of the international community."