Yesterday, our institute, the IISIA, successfully singed the agreement for scientific and academic cooperation with the St. Petersburg State Economic University (UNECON). We’ll expand our future-oriented and innovative cooperation on win-win base between Japan and Russia beyond borders.

（Source: Seeking Alpha）

Obviously, we’re heading to the era of global trade war. While Trump Administration has been enthusiastically pursuing to close all the doors of US market vis-a-vis foreign enterprises, the rest of the world can do almost nothing. Every time when international conferences on trade issues are held, the discussions are just heating up and never lead us to peaceful solutions of trade conflicts.

Recently, Japanese Prime Minister Sinzo Abe was allowed to meet US President Donald Trump face to face in New York, where they released a statement in terms of trade issues. Even though Japan managed to save part of her vital national interest in the automobile sector, she fell into a trap of Trump Administration, which could successfully force her to combat against PRC together in the trade war beyond the Pacific.

Having said that, I firmly believe we’re urged to achieve a “Copernican Revolution” to overcome the emerging crisis in the global community. Nobody doubts the fact the modern society is based on the following several principles: Liberalism, democracy and capitalism. The point is, from my viewpoint, we’re about to fail to tackle the on-going trade issues, because we just forget the inevitable discrepancy between “liberalism” and “democracy”, which Carl Schmitt once pointed out in his legendary works on the constitutionalism in the Weimar Republic in Germany.

As one of the Japanese experts in this field, I would say we should just get back to the reality this traditional discrepancy has showed in the world history. When you stick to “democracy”, you’re automatically obliged to exclude those who are (somehow) different from you. Instead of accepting them, you intentionally neglect them by calling them “minority”. According to the principle of democracy, only the majority is permitted to make the rules and execute.

Democracy is geographically limited, since we’re still incapable of making all the people on the globe vote in the same election technically. Even if such technological difficulties would be overcome in the very near future, democracy never ends in the geographically limited manner. Because nations state, where the principle of “democracy” is alway asked and accepted,  can exist, only when a circle is drawn around a certain territory. Democracy and nation state system are thus based on the famous principle of “friend-enemy decision (Freund und Feind Entscheidung (Carl Schmitt))”.

In this regard, all the measures Trump Administration have been taking are genuinely “democratic”, while they intend to differentiate “friends (national interest of US)” and enemies (favors for foreign countries). This is exactly why we, outsiders, can never understand why Donald Trump can still keep his popularity in US. His credo, “America First”, is nothing but the expression of this kind of modern democracy.

Being contradictory to this geographic (or sometimes alleged “ethnic”) limitaion of democracy, liberalism never stops being “unlimited”. Something is not “liberal”, where someone/something hinders it from being “unlimited”. In this context, those who want to remain “liberal” by all means, inevitabily have to become “globalists”, who don’t know national borders any more. They always regard all the obstacles, which block them to do something freely, as “structure” and “barrier” as well, which shall be, from their viewpoint, immediately abolished. For them, the nation state system must be abolished, while they are full of this kind of “structure” and “barrier”. In shotr, liberalism leads us to globalism, where no single limitation is allowed.

The theory of “comparative advantage” has been the traditional propaganda which has managed to hide the discrepancy between democracy and libaralism. However, the irony of the hisotry is we need (financial) capitalism which instinctively motivates to move forward. To earn much more in the market, we need volatilities, which then widens the difference between winners and losers. The latter seeks any opportunities to revenge, which accelerate instability and volatility of the world community. Once and where previous equivalence in the world vanishes, the above mentioned theory of “comparative advantage” comes to an end. That will then highlight the dicrepancy between nation state’s democracy and globalists’ liberalism, as we see right now.

So many leadres of the differents countries appeal for maintaining the peaceful world based on the free trade we’ve enjoyed since the end of WWII. Nevertheless, the dicrepancy is just widening up thanks to Trump’s counterappeal for “America First”. Antagonism against others are rapidly growing up everywhere, while the previous equivalence based on the theory of “comparative advantage” is being lost step by step. Instead of rescuing “libaralism” in domestic politics, democracy accelerates the tendency to differentiate someone from others, as we now see the growing popularity for “Alternative fuer Deutschland (Alternative for Germany)”, a new party in Germany.  All of us are urged to remember the historical fact the Nazi regime was completely “democratic”, when it reached the top of the power (“Machtergreifung”). As soon as the Nazi as symbol of emotional democracy won, liberalism died.

Not to make the history repeat itself, globalists such as ICC, World Bank and IMF are about to launch new approaches in the internet, where no geographic limitation due to national borders isn’t known. However, I personaly think it might be doomed to fail from the very beginning of the project, condionted that a kind of human collective consciousness won’t appear. Only this “human collective consciousness” can remind us of “oneness” and “compassion” which overcome the eternal discrepancy between democracy and liberalism.

The question is how the “human collective consciousness”, or the feeling of “oneness” will be nurtured and expanded in the world community. This is the very question I’ve been asking myself in Japan, the country where all the issues of the advanced economies accumulate and are about to explode in the very near future (maybe by the spring of 2020).

Yesterday, I had an opportunity to enjoy a luncheon with a high ranking guest from the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). I’ve been personally invited to the G20 CEO Advisory Group of the ICC, which discusses recommendations to the G-level on behalf of the global business community. This time, my colleague, who’s by the way an Australian, paid a visit to Tokyo to consult with his partners in Japan in terms of the Japanese presidency of G20 from the forthcoming December.

What he kindoy explained to me surprised me extremely. Within the framework of the B20, we’re used to organize task forces besides “plenary session”, which pick up global issues specifically for gathering collective wisdom of the global business community. However, based on his explanation, the Japanaese secretariat of B20 obviously intends to abandon task forces and hold just a plenary session called “B20 summit” on 14 and 15 March 2019. In addition, Japan never invites global consulting firms such as McKinsey and Co. to discussions under her B20/G20 presidency, which usually play signicant roles to hand over “narratives” of the global issues to the presidency every year. Without their intellectual assistance, Japan and her secretariat for B20 presidency, the Keidanren, obviously cut off any external “noises” to their own economic policies. This is exactly what the Abe Ministration has been doing for protectiong its own political and economic interest vis-a-vis any outsiders including the public.

“To my surprise”, my colleague from the ICC said, “the word ‘sustainability’ my Japanese counterparts enthusiastically used in his presentation seems to have other meaning and connotation than our usual understanding”. Even though his counterpart of the Keidanren enthusiastically pointed out to him that the Japanese B20 presidency will highlight the SDGs, he couldn’t fully grasp what the guy meant to say.

Having heard that, I spontaneously asked him a question: “The word ‘sustainability’, or ‘持続可能性’ in Japanese, only means ‘maintaining what is done’. But I’m wondering whether original meaning of ‘sustainability’ does have any other connotations.”

Laughing abruptly, my colleague from Paris knidly gave me a short explanation in this regard: “Sustainability doesn’t mean conservatism. To sustain a certain situation, we also need an improvement. Something innovative has to be done, so that the status quo remains. I’m afraid the Japanese misunderstand the word ‘sustainability'”. With a smile, I nicked.

The next year, 2019, will show you completely parallel worlds on the globe. The one is Japan where every interest and structure since 1945 still remains. Another one is the rest of the world under the western leadership, where everything has to be improved for the sustanability. Under the B20/G20 Presidency of Japan, this dichotomy will reveal dramatically, which will surely lead us to a fatal crash between Japan and other countries, particularly US and Europe. This will be the end of the conventional world order and kick off the new era with complete destruction of the “world of yesterday”. The battlefield ahead will not be in any other countries and regions, but Japan. Don’t forget it. Stay tuned.

For me as a former chief desk officer for DPRK issues of the Japanese MOFA, it was extremely astonishing to see journalists and mass media have been concentrating on only “denuclearizaion” of DPRK ahead of the sumitt between Trump and KJU in Singapore. Taking various opportunities such as yesteday’s press conference in the FCCJ in Tokyo/Japan, I underlined “denuclearization” as such can’t be the main issue in the US-DPRK relationship. Instead, we should rather focus on “other issues”, which Trump expressively mentioned during his press event, while this expression implicitly means issues of “illicit activities” done by the Kim-regime so far.

Having read through the joint statement of Trump and KJU, you should make sure at first “nothing new and significant as well” is mentioned there. We’d better ask ourselves why Trump could accept such a statement text which obviously prioritizes interest of the Kim-regime as follows:
As for “denuclearization”, CVID isn’t mentioned at all.
Regarding the “end of the Korean War”, Trump just comitted to effeorts for building up stable peace in the Korean Peninsula. Nothing more.
The POW/MIA issue is picked up, even though USG were used to make appropriate “payment ” to get back their identified remains from Pyongyang.
Of course, no single expression such as “Japanese abductee issues” is referred to.
No date of the next summit is inserted.
Again, you should now wonder why Trump singed such a text which unilaterally prefers interest of the Kim-regime. From my viewpoint, this clearly implies there must be a secret agreement between Trump and KJU, which prioritizes covert national interest in return.
Well, let’s see what’s next. You have to forget at least euphoria you had in the last a few days. Stay tuned.

At the dawn of the (hopefully!) forthcoming US-DPRK summit in Singapore, the New York Times on June 3, 2018 quoted my comment on the typical behavior of DPRK delegation in diplomacy as follows. Click the link to NYTs original article:

“The American diplomats should be careful,” said Takeo Harada, a former Japanese diplomat who was the chief desk officer for the North Korean desk in the Foreign Ministry when Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited Pyongyang. “Even though they could be very friendly during preparation talks, you never know how the North Korean side would behave in the last moment during the meeting between Trump and Kim Jong-un.”

On 11 June, 2018, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan (FCCJ) kindly hold a press conference where I’ll be given an opportunity to express my own opinion and analysis on DPRK issues and the future of East Asia. Those who have interest to join us, click this link and ask the FCCJ.

Just uploaded a short video of my statements given on the occasion of this year’s St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), which I reall enjoyed. Besides all the other (few) Japanese speakers and panelists, who are “officially” dispatched by the Government of Japan, I was the only speaker who voluntarily raised the hand to speak out to the audience as the voice of the Japanese civil society.

Well, guys, I’m extremely interested in how you’ll respond to my thought to compare “Gesellschaft and Gemeinschaft” with the on-going transition from knowledge economy to trust economy. Your comments are kindly requested. Many thanks indeed in advance for your swift replies.

On May 3, I was given an opportunity to join the public debate event held by the Cambridge Union, one of the leading debate socities by talented students in the global community. I’m confident I was picked up as one of the speakers for the Oppisition because the society found out my authorship of the book “Pax Japonica. Resurrection of Japan”, which was publiched in the last summer in UK.

I was etremely pleased to be given such an opportunity in Cambridge, where the best and brightest young people still get together. With eternal memory I’ll never forget, I’m now on the way home…. See you again.

Honestly, I can not explain to you in detail how blockchain works technologically. Nevertheless, I can at least make sure it’s one of the issues everyone on the globel should take into account at any time from now on. And the point is the technology as such has been innovated in an accelerated manner while its marketing (that is to say, “becoming popular und understood among the ordinary people on the street) obiviously needs to be followed up much more. In this regard, I’ve been recently supporting a Bahama-based blockchain venture company called “LaunchPAD” in connection with Lancier Corporation.

Today, the company “LaunchPAD” proudly announced its first distribution of the token called “LNCH“. Check out the following press release and join us by clicking its website.

In short the new era of blockchain technology has just get started. Don’t miss it.

//////////////////////////

Bahamian Blockchain Company LaunchPAD Inc. Announces Development of LNCH Blockchain Operating System and Dark Pool Protocol Decentralized Exchange Infrastructure

NASSAU, Bahamas, Tuesday, April 24, 2018 – LaunchPAD Inc. (http://launchpad.services), a publisher of blockchain technologies for the development of businesses, products, and services that encourage communities to engage in different ways with cryptocurrencies, today announced it is developing an open source software for LNCH (https://lnch.org), a new blockchain operating system designed to facilitate consumer-grade applications that support a robust infrastructure for the secure, anonymous, peer to peer transacting of data and information.
The open source technologies being developed for LNCH plan to adopt the asynchronous communication and parallel processing of delegated proof of stake (DPOS), which has been in development since 2014, combined with smart contracts and lightning network engineering in order to support a consolidated array of blockchain applications and millions of transactions simultaneously.
The software behind LNCH is also being designed to make possible applications that will not require blockchain users to pay fees when making transactions. Such applications would include decentralized dark pool exchanges, distributed data services, decentralized search engines, and peer to peer microcredit services that make possible anonymous transacting across incompatible blockchains and cryptocurrencies without trust in corruptible third party custodians. These applications will also enable users to create and scale applications of blockchain technology that eliminate the friction involved with traditional blockchains while also providing secured data exchange privacy and other enhanced blockchain privacy features. This enables new blockchain users to get involved without having to navigate the complex process of purchasing a cryptocurrency and managing a digital wallet.
“It is quite like Windows / Linux / MacOS with built-in cryptonomic incentives for the purpose of supporting the shared and distributed infrastructure of Decentralized Exchange utilizing shared ledger blockchain technologies. In short, an open source Operating System with its own version of a frictionless Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System known as Lightning Cash (LNCH). It will be the infrastructure able to host any sort of frictionless Decentralized Exchange transactions asynchronously, just like the list of operations running ‘at the same time’ in your computer, that can be observed in its Task Manager,” states an article outlining the technology development stack posted February 28, 2018 to the official Medium web blog of LaunchPAD, the Bahamian company developing the open source software for third party users to launch.
Currently the LaunchPAD team is comprised of over 30 personnel with a global footprint, including talented entrepreneurs and advisors:

• Niaoniao Ma, Chief Emissary and Chief of Staff: Tech Entrepreneur, Private Equity and Venture Capitalist.

• Takara Satone, Chief Digital Product and User Interaction Designer: Student at UC Berkeley, majoring in Computer and Cognitive Sciences.

• Takeo Harada, Chief Global Strategical Intelligence Analysis Advisor: CEO of IISIA, President of the Research Institute for Japan’s Globalization (RIJAG), President of the Global Rescue of Initiative for Innovative Humanity (GRIFIH), President of the Platform for Japan’s Contribution to Global Economic Development (PJG), Member of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and the B20 Entrepreneurship Taskforce, Author of PAX JAPONICA.

• Mike Onghai, Chief Venture Advisor: CEO of LookSmart and Snowy August Capital, Independent Director of MGT Capital Investments, founder of AppAddictive, DailyStocks.com, and StockSheet.com, Entrepreneur, Hedge Fund Manager, Venture Capitalist, and Chartered Financial Analyst.

• Dr. Ken Mayers, Chief Creative Advisor: PhD in Comparative Literature, Teacher at Bergen County Academies since 1994.

• Jai Krishnani, Global Partnership and Development Advisor: Who joins through partnership with Bahrain based development company, UrbanSoft.

About LaunchPAD Inc.
LaunchPAD Inc. is a developer of technology solutions including blockchain software development. With consultants and advisors based around the world, including in Asia and the U.S., the company focuses on consumer-grade technology solutions that are free for everyone to voluntarily launch, including LNCH, an open source blockchain operating system. For more information visit the official company website, launchpad.services.
Disclaimer
All statements in this press release, other than statements of historical facts, including any statements regarding LaunchPAD Inc.’s business strategy, plans, prospects, developments and objectives are forward looking statements. These statements are only predictions and reflect LaunchPAD Inc.’s current beliefs and expectations with respect to future events and are based on assumptions and are subject to risk, uncertainties and change at any time. We operate in a rapidly changing environment. New risks emerge from time to time. Given these risks and uncertainties, you are cautioned not to rely on these forward-looking statements. Actual results, performance or events may differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Some of the factors that could cause actual results, performance or events to differ materially from the forward-looking statements contained herein include, without limitation: market volatility; continued availability of capital and formation of capital, financing and personnel; product acceptance; the commercial success of any new products or technologies; competition; government regulation and laws; and general economic, market or business conditions. Any forward-looking statement made by LaunchPAD Inc. speaks only as of the date on which it is made and LaunchPAD Inc. is under no obligation to, and expressly disclaims any obligation to, update or alter its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, by request, subsequent events or otherwise.
SOURCE LaunchPAD Inc.
For further information: http://launchpad.services/

Will appear as one of the discussants in a debate of the Cambridge Union, one of the prominent debate society in UK, on May 3, 2018. The debate will focuss on the issue “The future will belong  to the east”, while I’ll be invited to argue on the opposition.  Stay tuned.