THE TASK AND CHALLENGE FOR JAPAN IN THE 21ST-CENTURY - AN INTRODUCTION

Since the collapse of an asset-inflated economic bubble in Japan start ed in the second half of the 1980s, it has brought about an entirely d ifferent assessment of this country. For all admiration claimed for it , the Japanese economy proved to be subject to Newton's law of gravita tion. Opinions were beginning to divide over Japanese technology, too, after it was once believed to be leading the world. In fact, Japan ha s a big task to solve in the years before the 21st century. How will t he Japanese face up to upheavals in the world, or how will they respon d to their domestic problems such as demographic and rigid structures? Few messages from Japan have so far been available with regard to the se questions. The world is left in a puzzle over the questions. Our ta sk in this issue is to make clear what the Japanese are thinking and p reparing to do in the years before the 21st century, and ''what it is that they have to produce an influence on the world.'' Specifically, d iscussions center on moves toward a knowledge-based society, research and development projects, manufacturing technologies, business strateg ies, industrial ecology, and the possibilities of a trilemma. In this article, I make some observations as a background to those subjects.