[paper] Approach to Developing Japan's Asia Strategy

Yoshinori Yokoyama: Social System Designer

Yoshinori Yokoyama is a former director of McKinsey & Company. He now serves as a part-time instructor at Tohoku University and the graduate school of Hitotsubashi University. His published works include Seicho Soshutsu Kakumei (Growth Creation Revolution), McKinsey Gassho Renko Senryaku (McKinsey's Alliance Strategy), and many translations and reports. Mr. Yokoyama graduated from the Architectural Department at the Engineering Department of Tokyo University in 1966, worked for a Architectural Firm and received a Master of Urban Design degree from the Graduate School of Harvard University in 1972 and an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1975.

A nation's foreign strategy involves complicated, manifold aspects. Bearing that in mind, we are presently pressed to answer a question: what kind of presence should Japan establish in the world? In particular, it is an important issue to clarify Japan's stance toward neighboring countries that are under direct influence of one another. At the core of such neighboring countries are the countries generally referred to as Asian nations.

Japan is apparently at a time when it must review its national strategies, including its foreign strategy. This is because both the external environment and internal environment have started to change away from conventional conditions. We should promptly start reviewing the preconditions that Japan has long been taking into consideration, either implicitly or explicitly, in planning its strategies by conducting a systematic analysis.

In order for Japan to develop new superior national strategies, a basic framework for plotting the strategies must be established. Without sharing this framework, the discussions would lose focus amidst the collisions of diverse principles and views. Then, what kind of strategy-planning framework would attain such an end? It is a framework consisting of the following five steps: (1) insights into the world's medium- and long-term trends from Japan's perspective; (2) objective and analytical comprehension of Japan's strong and weak points; (3) identification of the gap between Japan's desire for identity and the major trends; (4) derivation of options for filling the gap through exhaustive use of Japan's strong points; and (5) evaluation of the options and determination of optimum plans from the viewpoint of achieving long-lasting superiority in Japan. If we accept these five steps as a common framework for the discussions, and develop multifaceted discussions, derive hypotheses, and analytically verify the hypotheses by each step, the discussions would settle into shape and we would at least be able to develop first-phase strategies and action guidelines. The subsequent step would be to continue the discussions, gain wide recognition, and improve quality based on these initial results.

Although the detailed deliberations and strategic options are left to be discussed in the main text, as long as we share the five steps of strategy planning, the discussions will not lose focus. Then, all we need to do is evaluate the derived options by a criterion of whether or not they will lead to achieving long-lasting superiority in Japan as in the fifth step. In this way, we will be able to derive optimum answers for Japan's Asia strategy and other national strategies.