*EPF107 06/28/2004
Text: Exchange Visitors Strengthen U.S.-Japan Relations, Harrison Says
(International Visitor Program in Japan marks 50th anniversary) (2950)

The United States and Japan have a partnership based on friendship and respect that is invigorated by the sharing of "ideas, interests, and values," according to Patricia de Stacy Harrison, acting undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs.

The International Visitor (IV) Program has made a "major contribution" to that partnership over the years, Harrison said in a keynote address to the International Visitor Program Memorial Forum, a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the IV Program in Japan. The forum was held in Tokyo on June 24.

"Japan has had the largest international visitor program in East Asia, for half a century, and Japan has consistently been one of the most important International Visitor Programs in the entire world," Harrison said.

"Over the years the Japan program has brought more than 2,000 Japanese to the United States, and the honor-roll of influential Japanese International Visitor Program alumni is very long, and very, very impressive," she added.

Alumni have included former prime ministers Toshiki Kaifu and Morihiro Hosokawa, and Nobel Laureate Kenzaburo Oe, Harrison noted, as well as a long list of leaders from government, business, science, and the arts.

"Each of you, within your own field of endeavor, demonstrates timeless leadership qualities in a very sustainable way," Harrison told the former program participants.

The IV program has also given Americans an opportunity "to get to know individual Japanese ... to learn more deeply about Japanese culture," Harrison said.

"Our partnership is stronger because of the distinguished half-century legacy of the International Visitor Program in Japan," she concluded.

The International Visitor program operates under the authority of the Mutual Educational and Cultural Act of 1961, also known as the Fulbright-Hays Act. The program is intended to increase mutual understanding through communication at the personal and professional levels. The program, which is directed by the Department of State in cooperation with a range of non-profit organizations, brings hundreds of current or potential leaders to the United States from all over the world each year to meet and confer with their professional counterparts and to experience the United States firsthand. Participants are selected by American officials working in U.S. diplomatic missions overseas.

Following is the text of Acting Under Secretary Harrison's remarks, as prepared for delivery:

(begin text)

U.S. Embassy-Tokyo
Press Office
TRANSCRIPT

Acting Under Secretary of State Patricia de Stacy Harrison
International Visitor Program Memorial Forum
Keynote Speech

24 June 2004
Hotel Okura
Tokyo, Japan

ACTING UNDER SECRETARY HARRISON: Thank you. I am so pleased to be here along with Sherry Mueller, who is the president of the NCIV, and my colleagues from the State Department: Charles Moore, the Director of the Office of International Visitors; Helen Mobley, who heads the Voluntary Visitor Program; and Rick Ruth, director of the Office of Policy and Evaluation. We are not only here to celebrate this important milestone, the 50th anniversary of the International Visitor Program with Japan, we are really here to meet with and talk with all of you to ensure that the next fifty years are just as vibrant.

This is my third visit to Japan, and the first time that I came here I was eager to visit the Sengakuji Temple, the memorial to the Forty-Seven Ronin, and I think it helped to remind oneself that in both good headline times and bad, there are those timeless values sustaining people of goodwill. In terms of the Ronin, they followed the canons of Bushido: courtesy, courage, sincerity, self-control, honor, and loyalty - the sacred values of samurai virtue. Over the past five decades, the men and women who were chosen as international visitors, our IV alumni -- all of you demonstrated these values in both large and small ways on behalf of community and country. And the strong and vibrant relationship between Japan and the United States has really been strengthened and deepened by your contributions to both societies.

At the core of this value-centered relationship is both friendship and respect, as Ambassador Baker said. Former Ambassador Mansfield called the relationship between Japan and America, "the most important bilateral relationship in the world, bar none" and it is why Howard Baker, a leader respected by both American parties when he served as majority leader of the Senate, was asked by President Bush to serve as Ambassador to Japan. I visited the Ambassador this morning and I had the opportunity to see something very special -- it's the Presidential Medal of Freedom that was given to him by President Reagan. And I just want to share with you one sentence in that citation. It reads, "Howard Baker is an individual whose character shines brightly as an example to others. He is a force for responsibility and stability." Now I think those qualities are very similar to the values of samurai virtue. President Bush said, "We have a real samurai here in our Ambassador." President Bush said "We send the very best people to Japan because the United States has no more important partner in the world than Japan." I want to just mention we're also fortunate that Senator Nancy Kassebaum Baker is here with the Ambassador in this country affirming this very important value-centered relationship with Japan. And as was said, this marks the 150th anniversary of US-Japan relations.

As the Assistant Secretary who presides over the United States' academic, professional, and cultural exchanges, I was pleased to learn that the official Japanese language designation is not 150 years of US-Japan relations, but rather 150 years of US-Japan exchange. I prefer the Japanese version because it really affirms the importance of our people-to-people relationship...five decades of people-to-people diplomacy demonstrated by your presence here today. IV alumni represent a positive continuum of people of good will achieving at higher and higher levels of responsibility, and because of your willingness taking that first step -- agreeing to be an international visitor -- you have contributed to the strong, mutually beneficial relationship America and Japan enjoy as nations, built, in no small part, on those life-long personal and professional relationships between individual Japanese and Americans.

Over the past half century, the IV Program has made a major contribution to this partnership -- by, as the Ambassador said, inviting many of Japan's best and brightest young leaders to get to know "the real America" beyond the Hollywood hype and the superficial sound bites. At the same time, it has offered Americans throughout the United States the opportunity to get to know individual Japanese beyond the stereotypes, to learn more deeply about Japanese culture.

Japan has had the largest international visitor program in East Asia, for half a century, and Japan has consistently been one of the most important International Visitor Programs in the entire world. Over the years the Japan program has brought more than 2,000 Japanese to the United States, and the honor-roll of influential Japanese International Visitor Program alumni is very long, and very, very impressive. A remarkable number of these alumni have gone on to positions of power and influence within Japanese politics, economics, the media, the non-profit sector, and literature and the arts. The list of successful alumni is just a small reflection of the remarkable efforts of Japanese leaders over the past five decades to build this country into the world political, economic, and cultural power it is today.

I think it is also a tribute to the wisdom of our diplomats at our Embassy in Tokyo, and our Consulates throughout the country, in identifying young Japanese in every field of endeavor who have the potential and promise to become leaders of their nation in the future. I understand that if I start naming any one alumnus in particular I will be leaving others out because so many have achieved in their fields. But I want to mention just a few Japanese leaders who, through this Program, have gotten to know our country and who have enriched Americans with their insights and friendship.

Two Program participants, Mr. Toshiki Kaifu and Mr. Morihiro Hosokawa, went on to become Prime Ministers. The ranks of alumni of this program comprise, in addition to government leaders, leaders from business, industry, the arts and sciences.

The reason for this is each of you, and while I don't know you individually, I already know a great deal about you. Each of you, while very different, have a great deal in common. Each of you, within your own field of endeavor, demonstrate timeless leadership qualities in a very sustainable way. And what this means is that, even though you may have a great need to achieve, it is also coupled with an equally great desire to contribute.

Without this contribution factor, the IV Program would only be of benefit to the person chosen to participate. Instead, over these past fifty years, because of your commitment, there is a multiplier effect. You have ensured that so many others -- Japanese and Americans -- have benefited from knowing you, from working with you, and this multiplier effect continues long after the actual program has concluded.

For example, four years ago at the time of the worldwide 60th anniversary of the IV Program, we selected one outstanding alumnus from each geographic region to return to the United States and help us affirm the long-term positive value of the program. The representative from East Asia and the Pacific was former Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu, and we asked Mr. Kaifu where he would like to go in the United States, and his response was, "Childress, Texas." Now, I bet few people in this room know where Childress is, and I am one of them. Not only did we find Childress, we found the American family that hosted Mr. Kaifu and the interpreter who accompanied the Prime Minister on his month-long trip - Mr. Mike Nishimura. Now this was many years after Mr. Kaifu's visit to the United States, but the friendships in Childress were strong and timeless, and while in Texas, Mr. Kaifu finally had a chance to replace the worn cowboy boots purchased when he first came to Texas.

Ms. Yuriko Koike, the current Environment Minister, is also one of our alumni. At least twelve current and former Japanese Cabinet officials have participated in the program. IV Program alumni have headed almost all the major Japanese political parties. Ms. Mizuho Fukushima is the leader of the Social Democratic Party of Japan and Mr. Naoto Kan, of course, just stepped down as head of the Democratic Party of Japan. Mr. Takenori Kanzaki, the current leader of the ruling coalition partner Komeito Party, participated in 1986. And currently 21 alumni serve in the Diet. As you think about who might be Prime Minister in the future, keep an eye on these 21.

But as the Ambassador said, the United States-Japan relationship is far more than merely a political or economic relationship. The International Visitor Program encompasses all the great fields of human endeavor.

We are proud that Japan's most recent Nobel Laureate in Literature, Mr. Kenzaburo Oe, participated in the program when he was still a young, relatively unknown writer.
Mr. Yasunari Kawabata, the only other Japanese Nobel Laureate in Literature, was offered a spot in the IV Program in 1959, two years before he won the Nobel. Unfortunately, illness prevented him from accepting the Embassy's offer. But he sent the Embassy a very gracious letter in his own beautiful and distinctive handwriting, explaining why he couldn't accept the invitation. This letter is now framed and hanging in the Exchanges Office in the US Embassy here in Tokyo.

In the journalism world, the current heads of seven major Japanese media organizations are IV Program alumni. And many other of our journalism grantees are now high-level media executives.

The IV Program, of course, reflects the fields that are important in building mutual understanding and trust between our countries. Just as remarkable as the success we've had in identifying up-and-coming leaders over the past fifty years, has been the remarkable stability in fields important to helping our peoples understand each other. We took a look at our participants from both the first five years and most recent five years of the program in Japan, and we found that we sent approximately the same number of grantees in both periods, a little over 200 people each.

We further discovered that during the first five years of the program, our focus was on sending journalists, labor officials, academics and researchers, and local politicians. During the last five years, our largest category remained journalists, with academics and researchers close behind, followed by Japanese central government elected leaders and officials.

In recent years, the IV program in Japan has shifted away from Tokyo and toward the regions. This year, almost 25% of the IVs will come from Okinawa. Kyushu and Hokkaido are also well represented. Our embassy here has focused on reaching out to provincial leaders because they are less likely to be familiar with the United States than those in the Kanto or Kansai regions, and we want people from all over Japan to get to know us, and Americans to get to know Japanese from throughout this great and diverse country.

In fact, since becoming Assistant Secretary, my mission truly is to reach wider, younger and more diverse audiences through all of our programs, because talent and intelligence and up and coming leaders can be found in every economic level, every geographic region. And we all know that leadership is not owned by one class of people or one gender. That's why I look forward to the day when there is a network of IV alumni in all 47 prefectures, working closely with Americans, both official and unofficial.

As we are looking at the next 50 years, we're working to provide all of you alumni of the IV Program with the tools and information and opportunity to interact with your peers in Japan, but globally as well.

We are launching in the fall, the International Visitor Alumni Leadership Portal, and you will hear more about that from Chaz Moore. We are also inaugurating through the International Visitor Program, the Citizens Diplomat Initiative. This program will engage American citizens with expertise in specific areas and a strong connection to community to be available to alumni groups worldwide starting here in Japan. Because, ladies and gentlemen, if we are going to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and other countries, it is important that the understanding be a two-way street. So we want to have many more Americans interacting with those people from other countries beyond the Internet in actual face-to-face professional, academic, and cultural exchanges.

Finally, to celebrate its 50th anniversary, and to recognize the extraordinary people who comprise the IV Program as alumni, we are now calling the program "The International Visitor Leadership Program." This change puts the emphasis where it should be -- affirming the purpose of the program, to identify those men and women up-and-coming now, but who, through their leadership qualities, will throughout their lives be contributors to society at every level.

I think, after 50 years of accomplishments, we are ready to declare both you and the program a success. As we meet today in this dynamic city it is clear that Japan is, as so many others have observed, on the verge of fundamental social, political and economic changes perhaps equaling those of the Meiji restoration and the post-1945 period. Your government made the courageous decision to dispatch armed forces and grant significant economic assistance to help in the vital work of building peace in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

The economy continues to open to foreign investment, to your own benefit and the benefit of the entire global trading system. While you are dealing with a rapidly aging population, your young people are displaying remarkable energy and creativity which have made Japan a cultural super power, and have given your country what some call Japan's "Gross National Cool."

Speaking of your young people, they are the best and brightest students, and I want to take the opportunity to tell you that we in the United States are encouraging them to come and study in America. The door is open. The welcome mat is out.

As a result of our strong bilateral relationship, the sharing of ideas, interests and values continues to invigorate our two societies. So while baseball, jazz and film are some of America's important cultural exports to Japan, in recent years it has become a two-way exchange. Ichiro, sushi, and anime have become household words to Americans -- to the hundreds of thousands of Japanese students who've studied in the United States.

The IV program, along with other State Department supported exchanges, such as Fulbright, Sister Cities, the Mansfield Fellowships, and the American Council of Young Political Leaders, along with Japanese initiatives such as JET and the Fulbright Memorial Fund Teachers' Exchange, contribute to building those special and very deep ties between our peoples.

The fact is, today in Japan, important decisions are being taken, vital issues are being debated, and great ideas are being conceived. IV Program alumni are helping to lead this historic change. Our partnership is stronger because of the distinguished half-century legacy of the International Visitor Program in Japan. Courtesy, courage, honor, loyalty -- a great place from which to begin and keep moving forward.

Thank you.

(end text)

(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

Return to Public File Main Page

Return to Public Table of Contents