Takahiro Miyao's Radio Institute of Global Communications: No. 7, May 2, 2004

Takahiro MIYAO (Professor, GLOCOM)

Partial transcript and translation from Prof. Miyao's Radio Program, posted here with permission of Radio Nikkei

Takahiro Miyao's Radio Institute of Global Communications: No. 7
Radio Nikkei daiichi hoso ; BS Radio Nikkei 300 ch.
Broadcast time:	May 2 (Sunday) 19:00-19:30
Recording place:	Recorded in Radio Nikkei's Studio
Program:	1. Introduction 2. Virtual Discussion 3. Trend Research 4. Concluding Remarks
Audio:	Radio Program  (Windows Media Player) (Mainly in Japanese but some parts in English) Asia Station Web site (in Japanese)

Introduction

Hello, how are you? We are in the middle of Japan's Golden Week and I suppose many of you are taking a vacation right now. But we need to keep working to improve our ability to communicate with the outside world, and for that matter, the concept of "soft power" seems to become more and more important these days. Today we have a telephone interview with Mr. Tomohiko Taniguchi, who was also a guest on our program last time, but this time we will ask him about soft power of the U.S., Britain, China and Japan, based on his rich experience abroad in the past. Mr. Taniguchi is such a resourceful person.

Virtual Discussion

In today's virtual discussion corner, we take up Mr. Toyoo Gyohten's article, "Asian Regional Integrations: Its Potential, Its Limits, and Lessons Learned from Europe," which has been posted on our GLOCOM Platform: (http://www.glocom.org/opinions/essays/
20040430_gyohten_asian/). In this article, Mr. Gyohten emphasizes the importance of Asia's integration in view of Asia's growth power in the world economy and the need for strengthening its financial system in the region as a whole, but points out that Asia is very diverse especially in terms of the member countries's levels of economic development. So, he concludes that the process of Asian economic integration might be slow but steady and more importantly soft and open, compared to other regions such as the European Union.

Trend Research

Today we have a telephone interview with Mr. Tomohiko Taniguchi, an Editor at Large at Nikkei BP, Nikkei Business Publications, who also joined us as our guest last month, but this time we will ask him about the concept of soft power as contrasted to hard power. Mr. Taniguchi is a leading journalist and one of Japan's opinion leaders, very well known not only in Japan but also in the U.S., Britain, China and elsewhere.

(Interview with Mr. Taniguchi, conducted in Japanese)

Closing Remarks

Mr. Taniguchi's opinion in this area is very interesting and informative, isn't it? If you have any comments, please contact us through our GLOCOM Platform homepage (www.glocom.org).

You can listening to our past broadcast program by going to our homepage (www.radionikkei.jp/joho) and click the "on-demand" section in the upper righthand corner. I hope you enjoyed today's program. Our next program will be on the first Sunday in June, that is, June 6. I will see you then.