Importing Diversity: Inside Japan's JET Program

by David L. McConnell

  The effect of these local initiatives was to force the Ministry of Home Affairs into an uncomfortable and unfamiliar role. Accustomed to providing top-down guidance to local governments, officials found themselves mere bystanders. In addition, when local governments did approach them for guidance on international matters, they found it frustrating to have to rely exclusively on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and their overseas offices to be their eyes and ears abroad.

  Going international was therefore a logical next step, and in 1985 the Ministry of Home Affairs established an advisory board (kokusaika iinkai) to research ways in which its international profile could be enhanced. The composition of the committee was itself an admission of the ministry's lack of experience in this area. In addition to several ministry officials, it included Okawara Yoshio, former Japanese ambassador to the United States; Eto Shinkichi, the former president of Asia University; and William Horsley, a BBC correspondent. Based on the deliberations of this committee, the Ministry of Home Affairs released a report in July of 1985 titled Plans for International Exchange Projects, which mapped out a variety of possible projects for local governments, including sister-city relationships and exchanges of local government personnel.

  But it was the improvement of English language skills among local government personnel that the board particularly stressed. Its chairman, Tsuchiya Yoshiteru, a former vice-minister of home affairs who became governor of Kagoshima Prefecture, recalls: "When I was in the Ministry of Home Affairs, the government as a whole was making great efforts to encourage international relations, and local governments were beginning to expand the initiatives begun at the national level. . . . But the main barrier to local governments opening their doors to foreigners was English deficiency and that made us realize the necessity of introducing real English over and above the foreign language education provided by the Ministry of Education."3 Eto concurs: "The advisory council was concerned with many different things, including sister-city exchanges, but I remember that Mr. Horsley and I strongly and repeatedly asserted that local middle school English education should be changed, and this educational problem was very well understood by the Ministry of Home Affairs."}

  The push for better English language instruction was given added impetus when a handful of prefectural governors approached the Ministry of Home Affairs about the possibility of expanding the small English teaching programs that the Ministry of Education was then running in public schools. Hyogo Prefecture's governor, for instance, was considering an ambitious plan to place a native speaker of English in every public high school in the prefecture; Kumamoto Prefecture also wanted to markedly increase the profile of conversational English in public schools. But these local requests were being stymied by the Ministry of Education, which refused to allocate money for anything more than incremental increases in its current programs.

  While the idea of improving communication-oriented English looked good on paper, enormous barriers stood in the way of implementation, including internal resistance within the Ministry of Home Affairs, the problem of funding, and the fear of being accused of encroaching on the turf of the Ministries of Education or Foreign Affairs. In the mid-198os, Nose (pronounced No-say) Kuniyuki was a career official in Home Affair's secretariat (a catchall department for high-priority projects); he was charged with drawing up plans for specific programs based on the recommendations of the advisory council:

  I remember when I first made the original proposal for the JET Program in early 1985, my boss turned it down because the jurisdiction of our ministry was primarily domestic affairs. He said we had absolutely no experience with international policies, and that it was something Foreign Affairs should do. At that time my proposal was to establish an exchange program for people in local government offices; it was closer to what became the CIR [coordinator for international relations] category in the JET Program. My idea back then was that municipalities rather than prefectures should play a role in international affairs. I thought that local governments should start to open their gates. We had lots of meetings with mayors and talked about a lot of different options; but unfortunately, at that time there were not many cities and towns who would accept a foreigner.'

  Nose and his co-workers then toyed with the idea of sponsoring foreign youth to teach English in public schools, but this time their superiors raised the objection that such a program would be a clear violation of the Ministry of Education's jurisdiction.6 It was looking more and more likely that the idea for JET was doomed when help suddenly came from an unexpected quarter.

  In late 1985, conflict with the United States over Japan's $5o billion annual trade surplus intensified. Under heavy American pressure, Prime Minister Nakasone formed the Maekawa Committee to study mediumand long-term policy measures to deal with Japan's economic and social structure in a changing international environment. One of the mandates of this high-profile advisory committee was to expand domestic demand and to consider the social or "nontariff barriers" to foreign investment, includ ing the closed nature of local governments in Japan. As this was the turf of the Ministry of Home Affairs, a number of its officials, including Nose, were brought into the process, and the race was on to piece together a package of reforms that would appease the American negotiating team at the upcoming summit between Nakasone and Reagan in 1986. Nose recalls:

  During the year of the trade conflict between Japan and the United States-and I didn't get a vacation at all that summer-I was thinking about how to deal with the demands that we buy more things such as computers and cars. I realized that trade friction was not going to be solved by manipulating material things, and besides, I wanted to demonstrate the fact that not all Japanese are economic animals who gobble up real estate. There was no one in Japan who intentionally planned all this economic conflict, especially out in the countryside. I wanted to show things like that, simple truths in Japan.

  In order to do all this, I decided local governments must open their doors and let people come and see the truth directly-not just any people, but those with a college degree and under the age of thirty-five, since people start to lose flexibility after that age. I thought this would be a much better way of solving the trade conflict than using money or manipulating goods. I thought that seeing how Japanese live and think in all their variety, seeing Japan the way it really is, would improve the communication between younger generations in Japan and America.'

  The upcoming summit provided a perfect opportunity for the Ministry of Home Affairs to revisit the plan for an English teaching program involving public schools. The JET Program was particularly attractive because it would provide a solid nucleus around which to fashion other efforts to enhance the ministry's international reach. Now that the trade conflict had been recast in terms of opening up local governments, it could count on the support of both the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Prime Minister's Office for a major initiative. Nose and others in the secretariat quickly hatched a plan for a large program to be jointly sponsored by three ministries.

  Getting the Yen for Change

  Many a proposal that looks good on paper has fallen under the budget ax, and the first problem that Ministry of Home Affairs officials faced in realizing the JET Program was locating a viable source of funding. Though the initial price tag of approximately $120 million was relatively insignificant during the heyday of the bubble economy, the annual JET Program budget is now more than four times that amount. Clearly, packaging and selling the JET Program to the Finance Ministry was no easy matter.

  In pursuing this task, Home Affairs officials were in their element. Playing to their primary strength as managers of local taxes, they devised an ingenious plan for financing the program through the local allocation tax (kof uzei). The allocation tax is a form of general revenue sharing that provides about one-fifth of local government revenues. Basically, the Ministry of Home Affairs calculates the demand for services that local governments provide, subtracts the annual revenue of the local government, and then s
upplies the difference up to a certain ceiling." By allowing JET participants to sign their employment contracts with the prefecture or municipality in which they were hired, the ministry enabled those localities to include expenses for the JET Program in the list of services they provided. In turn, calculations of the allocation tax benefit for each local government entity would include a sum to cover salary, transportation, and conferences for JET Program participants. In effect, Home Affairs created a program at the national level but presented it to the Finance Ministry as a local initiative.

  Yet we are still left wondering why the Finance Ministry would agree to use taxpayer money to fund what looked like a multimillion-dollar giveaway to foreign college graduates. The answer is that a strong argument could be made for the JET Program as an investment in the Japanese economy. The program would provide additional revenues for Japan Airlines (on whose flights many of the JET participants are booked), Daiichi Kangyo Bank (which is entrusted with the operating budget for the program), and Kintetsu Travel Agency (which arranges travel for the JET participants and accommodations at the Tokyo orientation and other conferences). In addition, roughly 8o percent of the JET participants' salaries ultimately stays in Japan and is recycled into the local economy. Thus the JET Program is not only a generous gift to the youth of participating countries but also a massive public works program.9

  Moreover, Ministry of Home Affairs officials had an inside track in appropriating funding. Unlike the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Education, it had dozens of "old boys" in the Diet. And as we will see, Home Affairs had the blessing of the Nakasone administration on this proposal. Virtually without effort, it was able to acquire funding for the program.

  Once the major hurdle of funding JET participants' salaries was cleared, the next problem was to finance the program's administration. While small grants have been obtained from the Japan Lottery Association and from the Motor Car Racing Association, the bulk of the funding has come from the Sasakawa Peace Foundation (SPF), which agreed to assist with funding for the Tokyo orientation, the midyear and renewers' conferences, and the production of training manuals and teaching resources. The SPF's financial support in fiscal year 199o stood at roughly $1.27 million dollars.10 Support from the SPF has certainly raised some eyebrows, as its founder, Sasakawa Ryoichi, is renowned in Japan for both his philanthropy and his alleged links to underworld crime. Scheduled to be hanged for war crimes in 1948, Sasakawa received a last-minute pardon, and he has gone on to become one of Japan's most generous and visible private promoters of cultural exchange and peacemaking activities. Nevertheless, his conduct during the war years, his sympathy for right-wing causes, and his rumored earlier connections with the underworld continue to shadow his foundation. Though officials in the Council of Local Authorities for International Relations were often reluctant in public to discuss the background of Sasakawa, I found no indication that the SPF influenced program policy. According to one Home Affairs official, "They're a real pain about making sure we publicly acknowledge their assistance, but they've never interfered in decision making about program content."

  CULTURAL EXCHANGE AS DIPLOMATIC STRATEGY: THE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

  Once a viable plan for financing the program had been formulated, the next step was to secure the cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in recruiting JET participants through its overseas consulates. Nose recalls:

  After my proposal was adopted by our ministry we took it to Foreign Affairs. That was the year when the Maekawa Report was written due to the severe economic conflict between Japan and the United States. My counterpart there was Mr. Sato. I believe he was director of general affairs at the time. Anyway, I remember that he was the person who actually acted on the idea. He approved the idea as soon as he heard about it and asked me if it would be all right to present the plan at the Reagan-Nakasone summit.... I believe Nakasone ended up telling Reagan about it directly.]]

  As the agency charged with promoting Japan's image overseas, it is not surprising that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would give the proposal its enthusiastic endorsement. Indeed, the timing could not have appeared more opportune. American pressure was intensifying and the ReaganNakasone summit was just around the corner. In addition, a number of foreign consulates had already approached the ministry about being included in one of the smaller English teaching programs then being administered by the Ministry of Education. Officials immediately grasped the diplomatic potential of the proposed program, particularly if the number of participating countries could be expanded. And the JET Program would also contribute to several other long-term goals crucial to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. By improving the oral dimension of foreign language education in Japan, it would help to cultivate a new generation of diplomats who were comfortable in English and who could begin to chip away at the "3-S" stereotype of Japanese diplomats abroad-silent, sleeping, and smiling. In addition, the proposed program would serve as a visible symbol of Japan's goodwill among participating countries, and it would make a small but significant dent in the "education gap" by giving more individuals from Western countries access to Japan's educational institutions.

  Most important, if implemented smoothly, it would enhance foreign understanding of Japan, particularly among young people who were likely to rise to positions of power in their respective countries. In fact, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had already adopted a more general policy of utilizing cultural exchange programs as an international diplomatic strat- egy.12 While this motive was viewed cynically by some I interviewed-one person from the Ministry of Education scoffed, "All they're trying to do is create a pro-Japan faction (shinnichiha) in participating countries"-most Foreign Affairs officials seemed to genuinely subscribe to the idea of the JET Program as an antidote for a "misunderstood Japan." Jibiki Yoshihiro, the senior ministry official assigned to the JET Program, waxed eloquent about this dimension with particular frequency. Noting that Sarajevo had hosted the 1982 Winter Olympics, he would often point out how quickly the world can change. This is what the JET Program is all about, he would say-people from many backgrounds coming together and, like threads, tying the rest of the world to Japan.

  Officials in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs saw the JET Program as falling into the category of attempts to build cooperative relationships outside areas of binational conflict. John Campbell is cautious in his assessment of this approach: "The widely held hope is that enough friendly ties will eliminate conflict or that feelings of gratitude will outweigh resentment; perhaps a more realistic expectation is that a few positive actions will balance the constant flow of negative news to some extent."13 Ministry officials themselves, however, were quite optimistic. Unless the JET Program was a complete disaster, they felt it could not help but be good public relations.

  THE PRIME MINISTER'S OFFICE: PREPARING FOR GLOBAL LEADERSHIP

  After gaining the Ministry of Foreign Affair's approval, the proposal was taken to the Prime Minister's Office and immediately was favorably received by the prime minister at the time, Nakasone Yasuhiro. Unlike most Japanese prime ministers, Nakasone found in foreign affairs a source of political strength and public popularity. Yet when he first took office, he was widely seen as a puppet of Tanaka Kakuei, the kingpin of postwar politics, whose career was ultimately derailed by the Lockheed scandal. Tanaka's quip when asked who he would support as the next prime minister- "Tanakasone"-was much quoted and captured a general attitude. As Nathaniel Thayer notes, "Nakasone needed to get Tanaka off his back.... He needed a strategy; he needed new allies. The strategy was to bring Japan into active participation in world affairs. His new allies were to be, initially, the Foreign Ministry and, eventually, Ronald Reagan and the summits.""

  The plan for the JET Program was a natural extension of Nakasone's policies, beliefs, and style of leadership. Nakasone was unusually at ease interacting with foreign dignitaries and took every opportunity-such as speaking English before the press-to create an image of himself as competent to
handle Japan's international relations. He preached that a major power like Japan was responsible for promoting "internationalization"indeed, such an endeavor should be undertaken proudly by a nation that sees "its glorious place in the global community of nations."15 The JET Program thus fit in extraordinarily well with Nakasone's grand design. In accord with the broader neoconservative agenda, making Japan into an international state entailed reforming national institutions to bring them more in line with international expectations. Japan had recently staked its claims to a larger role in international policy-making bodies, a role befitting its economic muscle, and the JET Program would further demonstrate Japan's readiness to assume a position of global leadership.

  To the Prime Minister's Office, the JET Program was rich in symbolic capital. The proposal would be taken by the American negotiating team at the summit as a gesture of goodwill and, while not directly related to opening up Japan's economy, it would nevertheless provide a concrete example of Japan's determination to change how it relates to the outside world. The proposal was ultimately presented as a "gift" to the American side and thus represented a prime example of what Aurelia George has called "package diplomacy," a process by which Japanese negotiators present a plan that may be tangential at best to American demands but that nevertheless demonstrates their good intentions.16

  The JET Program also meshed with Nakasone's policy goals in another area-the field of education. In the mid-i98os the sense of crisis over Japanese schooling seemed to climax as the news media ran daily stories of bullying, teen suicides, and students attacking teachers. In response, Nakasone formed a blue-ribbon commission to make recommendations on sweeping changes for public education. This council, according to Leonard Schoppa, was "originally conceived by the Prime Minister as a means of breaking Mombusho's conservative hold on the education system and radically transforming Japanese education."" Schoppa goes on to argue that the council will ultimately be remembered for behind-the-scenes struggles and its failure to deliver significant reform proposals. The ad hoc committee was sharply divided between members chosen by Nakasone, who favored liberalization but were fiscal conservatives, and representatives from the Ministry of Education, including Liberal Democratic Party Diet members with a special interest in education (bunkyozoku). Major changes such as deregulating textbooks, restructuring the 6-3-3-4 system, and building more flexibility into the entrance exams were largely tabled or were blocked by the Ministry of Education during the implementation process.