Prompted by a Nikkei article featuring Eisuke Sakakibara, this essay explores a counterfactual question: what if the concept of “The Turntable of Civilization” had been presented to the world as an academic vision decades ago?
Through the failure of the Asian Monetary Fund (AMF) initiative, it examines how Japan’s intellectual initiatives were blocked within the global financial order shaped by the United States and China.

2016-07-03

What follows is from this morning’s Nikkei newspaper, and I immediately conceived of a single hypothesis.
What follows is from this morning’s Nikkei newspaper, and I immediately conceived of a single hypothesis.
That is to say, more than thirty years ago, when I had completed what was in fact a Nobel Prize–class conception called “The Turntable of Civilization,” if at that time I had not been a businessman but instead—what I should properly have been—a scholar representing Kyoto University, and had presented this conception to the world at that point, how might events have unfolded?
Thinking on Sunday — Examination
Eisuke Sakakibara, former Vice Minister of Finance
Japan’s fund initiative blocked by the U.S. and China
—Why did you aim to establish the Asian Monetary Fund (AMF)?
“When Thailand was struck by a currency crisis in 1997, we were dissatisfied with the IMF’s response. In the midst of the crisis, banks were shut down, and the system was shifted from a fixed exchange rate to a floating one. In fact, the IMF later set up a neutral committee to review the matter and acknowledged that it had been mistaken.”
—Why did the AMF concept end up as an illusion?
“Southeast Asia and South Korea were positive, and Hong Kong was also OK, but the United States opposed it. Discussions with China did not go well either. U.S. influence over the IMF was extremely strong, and the IMF system was convenient for the United States. Since the AMF would ultimately weaken U.S. influence, people like Summers (U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary) were extremely angry.”
“The biggest reason was that China did not agree. Not only because it had been persuaded by the United States, but probably because it disliked Japan’s i-go-shiative. At the very least, it would have wanted to be an equal partner.”
“In reality, Japan took the lead, South Korea and Southeast Asia followed, and China came last in that order—and that was where the United States struck. We should have spoken to China first. At the time, we lacked direct channels to China’s Ministry of Finance and the People’s Bank of China. We relied on people such as Joseph Yam (Chief Executive of the Monetary Authority), whom I personally knew well in Hong Kong, to do the groundwork, but it did not work.”
—After the Lehman Shock, China is now actively moving to reform the international monetary and financial system.
“I think China has the objective of making the renminbi Asia’s key currency in the medium to long term. At the very least, it may be pursuing a long-term plan to create something like a Chinese economic sphere in the realm of currency.”