about dividing the world as follows: European countries have become mere like medieval nations. In those days, Christianity was a universal morality, whereas present Europe has become a society with something universal. On the other hand, Asia is still in modern times.
Japan is just on the border. When Japan gets along with Europe and the U.S., it should always keep the global agenda in mind. While, with Asian countries, Japan is forced to consider power politics.
Fujita: What will the world look like in the future? How should we cope with future issues? How will the existing systems, such as the U.N. and sovereign states, deal with new global issues? Are there any limits?
Vogel: The U.N. has made a number of achievements successfully, which should be evaluated. However, there is a limit. We should consider organizations other than the U.N. I have three approaches in mind. First, a variety of worldwide specialized organizations should be established. The World Trade Organization (WTO) is one example. In order to solve wide-ranging issues, such as nuclear proliferation, environment and energy, we should create organizations with specific aims in cooperation with neighbors throughout the world. Second, regional organizations should also be expanded. Europe established The European Community (EC) through negotiations by governments. Asia has no overall organization. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is a significant regional body. However, it refrained from addressing delicate issues initially after its foundation in 1967, as consideration to the interests of each nation in the region. As confidence builds, an organization takes up issues that could not be addressed initially. Though ASEAN only dealt with economic issues at first, it began talks on security issues several years ago.
The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Conference (APEC) has been expanding. It was extremely significant that President Clinton and Prime Minister Jian Zemin could meet at the APEC meeting, when a summit-meeting was not held due to the aggravation of China-U.S. relations.
If APEC tries to represent the all member countries, it cannot address extremely delicate issues. However, confidence will be built further among these nations. What we should do now is to create a North Pacific regional organization. The area covered by APEC is too large to deal with issues related to the North Pacific region only.
