'Seoul-Tokyo private exchanges intact despite political strife'

Nobuya Takasugi

By Chung Min-uck

Nobuya Takasugi, 72, former chairman and CEO of Fuji Xerox Korea and former president of the Seoul Japan Club (SJC), said that Koreans and Japanese must view their relations from a broader perspective without being sucked into a vortex of diplomatic strife.

“Tensions are running high between Japanese and Korean politicians but economic relations remain untouched,” said Takasugi in a recent interview. “Those territorial and historical issues are difficult to resolve given the stark difference in standpoints. However, contrastingly, doing businesses creates a win-win situation.”

The former president of SJC, a community founded in 1997 by Japanese businessmen here, flashed back to when he first came to Korea.

“I assumed Fuji Xerox Korea’s chairmanship position in 1998 when Korea was suffering from a financial crisis. Via a new marketing strategy and by handling well the labor-management conflict, Fuji Xerox Korea was revived,” Takasugi said. “This surely helped the Korean economy, but the Japanese company as well.”

Stressing the importance of such mutually beneficial cooperation, he said cultural ties are going strong as well.

The two neighboring countries have annually held Korea-Japan festivals ― which make up the biggest bilateral exchanges in terms of scale ― since 2005 which aim to promote cultural exchanges.

Up until now, the former CEO has been deeply involved in every one of those festivals, called Omatsuri in Japanese, and is currently helping organize this year’s festival slated for Sept. 13.

“Political problems don’t affect economic and cultural ties as much as we think,” said Takasugi. “This year will mark the 10th of its kind, and I would love to see the Korea-Japan festival continuing more than 100 years.”

Funding for the festival is provided by the non-government sectors in Seoul and Tokyo.

“What makes the event so special is that it is being prepared voluntarily by people from the private sector,” Takasugi said. “This symbolizes all that holds up Korea-Japan relations despite the negative atmosphere.”

The Seoul-Tokyo relationship remains at a low ebb because the two nations conflict over the ownership of Korea-controlled islets of Dokdo and atrocities committed by the imperial Japanese army during its colonial rule of the Korean peninsula (1910-45).

Besides this, because of defense expansion of China and the nuclear ambitions of North Korea, the geopolitical environment surrounding Japan has been changed as well.

Consequently, the Japanese government is currently moving towards reviewing its post-war Pacifist Constitution.

Regarding this, the Japanese businessman said the accusation made against Japan that the country is attempting to go back to its imperial past is wrong.

“For 99 percent of Japanese people, waging a war is unimaginable. By engaging in wars, nuclear bombs were dropped on us and killed over 100,000 Japanese people,” he said. “We just want the ongoing political conflict to end as soon as possible.”

Takasugi currently serves as senior advisor of Korea’s leading law firm Kim & Chang and as honorary advisor of the SCJ.