Japanese students blame business

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33487, 19 March 1974, Page 12

Japanese students blame business

Japanese economic aggression in SouthEast Asia should be stemmed, the vice* chairman of the International Students’ Association of Japan (Mr Kosaku Yoshino) said in Christchurch yesterday.

Mr Yoshino, who is in New Zealand to gain support for a conference of students from South-East Asia, Australia and New Zealand, to be heltj in Tokyo in August, said that he was concerned at the growing tide of anti-Japanese sentiment, which he said was almost as intense as that after World War 11. “Things are turning against Japan after a period of good relationships with other countries,” he said.

Most of the blame for the changing attitudes towards Japan, could be placed on Japanese businessmen who failed to understand the different attitudes of the countries with which they traded.

Rising unemployment in South-East Asia, and the exploitation by Japanese companies of workers in these countries, were creating a volatile situation, Mr Yoshino said. *

“We hope our conference in August makes young people more aware of the problems surrounding Japanese economic ties in SouthEast Asia and the Pacific. “Japanese businessmen must be more sympathetic towards the ways of other countries. This is fortunately becoming true of many younger businessmen, but we | still have a long way to go, las there is a tendency for

many Japanese to adopt an out-dated isolationist view of the world.” Mr Yoshino has had discussions with student leaders at the University of Canterbury, and this morning he will travel to Wellington to meet the president of the New Zealand University Students' Association (Mr J. Crichton).