America is the greatest country on earth

Getting on the F train for the first time in my first week back in New York was quite surreal. After a two-year assignment in Tokyo and Shanghai, here I was reliving the routine I had given up in New York in order to see and experience a side of the world that is growing in importance. It almost felt like a long dream, and I suddenly awoken to see myself back in the big Apple.

I mentioned in the first column I wrote for The Vindicator from Asia that a partial reason for accepting the assignment was so that I could garner greater knowledge about Japan and China, two countries that are economically and politically important to the U.S. government and to us citizens of the global economy. What I learned was both eye-opening and fascinating.

In my two-country experience, I found one economy dynamic, innovative, and forward-thinking, and one stoic, bureaucratic, and somewhat regressive. The irony is that the former is a communist country, China, while the latter is a democracy, Japan. I believe this is more a function of the time that I happened to be in both countries.

In Japan, the country was finally beginning to recover from a 15-year recession. Japan was in a down cycle for such a long period partially due to the country’s resistance to take the needed steps to improve the economy. Junichi Kozumi changed that mentality, focusing on eliminating the cozy relationships between banks and companies, which resulted in hiding bad debts. Lifetime employment, while still in existence, is being complimented with incentive-based systems to reward the motivated. Not all is rosy. A side effect of these measures is that the disparity between the rich and the poor is growing. That is partially the reason Koizumi’s successor, Shinzo Abe, was forced to resign after one year. Japan, as most of Asia goes, is a collective society that looks for supporting all citizens instead of allowing the few to thrive. It’s a model that for better or worse makes Japan what it is.

Economic rival

It was China where I truly wanted to study, to learn, as I feel the country will be an economic rival to the U.S. for decades to come. And there is certainly reason to be concerned. China’s central government is focused on creating an economic hegemony by increasing the buying power of the Chinese consumer, building the needed infrastructure to create more jobs and self-sufficiency in rural cities, all while increasing its global reserves to the tune of $1 trillion.

Now they are focused on slowing the rapid growth in order to not create a bubble that could potentially burst. Most of us who have seen the growth first hand think its too late — the bubble is here. When consumers are maxing out their credit cards to invest in the Shanghai stock market (most have never seen a downturn), when five skyscrapers are being built around my office while vacancy rates are increasing in existing buildings, there is a bubble. And when the pollution is so bad in Tianjin that I coughed for 20 minutes after leaving the airport, there are problems that need to be addressed.

But the biggest problem in the country, in my opinion, is rampant corruption. The central government is intelligent, and sincere in working for the betterment of its people. But the provincial and local governments are more worried about power and money, and act in their self-interest so that party officials may climb in the ranks. Of course these are generalizations that will have exceptions at every level. But corruption is, in my opinion, the most serious problem that will plague China, because it is the root of all other issues from tainted medicine production to environmental concerns to bad debts at the banks.

I wanted to conclude these observations with something that was only reconfirmed in my two years away: there is no place on this earth like the United States. The freedoms we enjoy in this country are unparalleled elsewhere, whether they’re embedded in our constitutional rights to vote, our capitalist capacity to succeed with little in our pockets, or cultural abilities to be on equal footing as men and women. We take these freedoms for granted. The more we participate in ensuring the continuation of these freedoms, whether its attending board of education meetings or campaigning for candidates who we believe in, the better this great country will stay.

We are spending a lot of airtime worrying about China these days. The way the U.S. can stay strong is to focus on the smart domestic policy that ensures better education and immigration policies to keep the U.S. competitive, and an internationalist foreign policy that keeps the U.S. respected.

Japan and China, thank you for an incredible experience. But it’s good to be home.

X Eric Planey, a Mahoning Valley native, is a vice president, U.S. Corporate Banking Group, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ. He lives in New York City.