|
OKAMOTO
INTERNATIONAL
AFFAIRS RESEARCH INSTITUTE
|
|
- - Asia in the World, and Japan in Asia
- -
Last revised and updated on April 5,
2010
--
click the emblem above for the Japanese version --
We at Okamoto International Affairs
Research Isntitute work in partnership with IRT, Inc. and LLC PARAP
in launching the PARAP/AquaLiv project in the U.S.
and then in East Asia first offering a unique system of water purification
with added health enhancing values, together with many other vital
technological tools with which to deal with the risk of the accelerating
earth warming and the widening gap between the dwellers of the big cities
and the small rural communities. Contact us at SECRETARIAT
|
|
OUR PARAP SITE FOR VIDEO CLIP EXCHANGE
AND ASSISTANCE IS FINALLY UP AND RUNNING
|
OUR SUPPORT OF THE PAN-ASIAN CRESCENT
EXCHANGE PROGRAM
We are determined to
support the projects locally initiated by small groups of individuals in
the rural communities of Asia in collaboration with their counterparts in
the urban centers of Japan and the United States.
[1] The PARAP international program was finally launched
during the second half of 2009 with the establishment of a new corporation
named IRT, Inc. and reorganization of PARAP as an LLC to function in
North America, and then for the entire Pacific Rim region. Communities
in the following regions are invited to participate our project. We
would like to involve the rapidly developing BRIC nations first, and
then the rest of the regions of the Pacific Rim. We will first begin
with a value-added pipe water purification project for major urban centers
in North America, but will, in thesecond stage, work with the rural communities
of the world which remain lagging behind the globalized economic development
and victimized by water pollution caused by it. The English and the
Japanese versions will come first, but we plan on adding the Russian and
Chinese versions during 2009.
COUNTRIES IN NEED OF OUR TECHNOLOGIES
Rural Communities in Alaska
There are a large
number of communities in need of our technology.
Rural
Communities in the Russian Far East
The Bikin river,
a tributary of the Great Amoure which runs north across the Maritime
Province of the Russian Far East and that of Samarga River which pours
into the northern edge of Japan Sea are the target areas. The former
is known to be the home of the Siberian tigers and the latter for rich
Asian salmon stock. They are also the home of the Udehe people who continue
to live in harmony with the pristine Siberian natural environment.
The Udehe people are said to be the descendants of the Jurchen
and the Manchu peoples and thus share the same northern ancestral
stock with us Japanese.
The PARAP project, once completed, promises to be a rural
community development model of the 21st century totally friendly to
the environment.
Rural Communities in Mongolia
There are a large
number of communities in need of our technology.
Rural communities of the other BRIC nations
While the
model of the pilot project was developed with the Russian Far East
in mind, it will be applicable to both the north and northeastern regions
of China as well as in other regions of this vast country in the much
milder climate zone to the south. We are discussing with our Chinese
partners how we can together produce a Chinese model best suited for
the various climate zones on both sides of the great Yangtze River.
See 
this site for more
information.
Rural Community in Nepal
There are a large
number of communities in need of our technology.
|
|
LET US MAKE THE YEAR 2010 THE
1ST YEAR
OF EAST ASIA'S
REGIONAL
PARTNERSHIP ERA
December 31, 2009
Yutaka Okamoto
OKAMOTO INTERNATIONAL
AFFAIRS RESEARCH INSTITUTE
For me with the experience of working for the U.S. Department of
State from time to time as a language specialist during the years of four
Presidents, Kennedy, Johonson on the Democratic side and Reagan and Bush
on the Republican side, I have a special feeling about what goes on today
both in the U.S. and Japan, i.e., the simultaneous shift to the Democratic
rule in national politics which has never happened since the end of World
War II. Added to this is the prominent rise of the so-called BRIC nations,
especially China and India. For Japan, this will mark the first significant
political CHANGE since the Meiji Restoration of 1868.
The primary cause for this is the consequence of the risky Wall
Street game inventing and marketing worldwide of questionable financial
products involving overinflated home mortgage securities in the U.S.,
but as the year 2010 begins, every nation state is taking measures to
ensure its economic well-being as well as moves to get advantageous positions
in the emerging new world order of the 21st century, almost looking like
a new Imperialism Era.
In this process, however, there is no denying that some promising
changes have also taken place. The most notable is the simultaneous rise
to power in the U.S. and Japan of the Democratic Parties. In the case
of the former, the American voters opted to select Obama for their president,
which cames to me as no surprise because of my family experience in the
U.S. raising our four children. While our eldest son suffered severe discrimination
in his school years during the 1960s, the youngest enjoyed an open environment
with little discrimination during his school life in the late 1970s and
early 1980s. Slightly over a decade, the American society had achieved such
a remarkable CHANGE for the better, and therefore in this sense, Obama's
rise to power in 2009 to me was already preordained.
As a result, the future course of America in the global political
arena points to a dramatic shift. Hatoyama's Democratic Party is now
in a secure power position in Japan for the first time ever, and has
embarked upon a dramatic CHANGE of the national political system by abolishing
the rule by the elite national bureaucracy created by the Meiji Restoration
of 1868, and bringing the legislature and the ruling political party chosen
by popular vote on top of it. New Japan thus born will no doubt mark the
advent of a new Asia's own democracy, which, if successful, promises to
open up an Asia-wide move toward the formation of its own regional collaborative
organization comparable to the European Union.
And if this happens to be the reality, it also holds the promise
of Asia's offering a new viable alternative to the stalemated situation
both in Iraq and Afghanistan, which was first started by the Soviet Union
during the Cold War era, and then picked up by the U.S. during the following
Republican era of America's one-nation hegemony. I am of the opinion that
Obama's "Green New Deal" symbolizes the coming of a new era I have described.
I am going to open a new CHANGE Blog at this HP in the near future.
I would like to invite you to participate and express your own views
on how Japan's CHANGE policy should be formulated and executed, and how
Asia can redefine its relationship with the United States and Russia.
END
|
|
|
You are
