Guest Speech

Thank you for your kind introduction. Yes, I am ASŌ, Tarō .
I am happy today, because as I look around, each and every one of you looks happy, extremely happy.
Where are the students from Myanmar? From Vietnam? Indonesia? Sri Lanka?
Very good….! And I know there are more than one hundred forty.
How do you feel? Are you happy? Louder! Let me ask you again, are you happy?
I am also happy today because it is the happiest day today for you all.

I know that you are all COVID survivors. And veterans of ZOOM. So much went on-line. So little, in-person. So sad, wasn’t it?
And yet, still, you made lots of friends and built friendship, everlasting friendship.

Degree? Master’s? PhD?
That is your diamond. That is precious. That is for you to show to your parents.
Friendship IS more important. Friendship IS more priceless.
Friendship stays in your heart and warms you when you are down over the next five, six decades.

You, the Class of 2022! Be proud and stand tall! Because you the Class of 2022 has achieved a lot right in the middle of the worst pandemic, the worst ever environment.

Forty years ago, in 1982 the IUJ was established. There were two men, who worked hard to make it happen. NAKAYAMA, Sohei a banker, and his lifelong friend George Ishiyama, a Japanese American who endured hardship in a wartime concentration camp in America.
Nakayama worked hard to gain support from the founder of Panasonic, MATSUSHITA, Kōnosuke and many others. George Ishiyama was always there helping Nakayama. Their friendship, friendship between Nakayama and Ishiyama, built the school from scratch.
This was forty years ago. At that time, no school in Japan gave courses only in English. They had a vision. And their vision has paid off. The IUJ is now home to future leaders of countries from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, from Bangladesh to Zambia.

To the graduating Class of 2022 I shall say the following. Because you have made it here in Japan, you can make it in the future anywhere you go. No mountain, as they say, is high enough. Be confident. And believe in yourself.

In your home country you will take ten, twenty, or thirty years to grow a tree. A tree you can be proud of, your children and your grandchildren could feel proud of.
Lose no patience, absolutely no patience and believe that your step, however small, shall make a giant stride, someday.
If you cannot make it, your children will do that, your children’s children will also do that. That is the only way to grow a tree.
And that tree is democracy.
Not an easy task. I know that. But worth a try. So, you shall try.

My task as Prime Minister and Finance Minister has been to save the world economy and to maintain the rules-based order.

I became Prime Minister in 2008, nine days after the collapse of Lehman Brothers. The markets all over the world were frozen. They simply stopped working.
In November there was a G20 meeting. And it was there, I led the discussion, and pledged that my government should loan 100 billion US dollars to the IMF.

That was a huge amount. It worked well to save the world.
Sometimes you must think big and do big. Japan under my guidance was the best and the most reliable firefighter. I am still very much proud of what I did to save the world economy from a dire crisis.

I also have a fond memory of having achieved a lot with ASAKAWA Masatsugu, now President of Asian Development Bank.
It took nine long years for us, Asakawa, I, and our colleagues to lead the international community to change the rule of international taxation most profoundly for the first time in a hundred years. Yes. That was a heavy lifting, once in a hundred years.

These days, companies are foot loose. They are mobile. National governments could not tax big internet companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple.
Because they are everywhere. How could you tax those companies where they are up in the sky in the cloud, not on the ground?
It is called “base erosion and profit shifting.” Something had to be done.

Also, there was a race going on to reduce tax for companies. It was almost like a beggar-thy-neighbour policy.

I remember that in May 2013 in Buckinghamshire, England, we had a meeting among G7 finance ministers. There I made a proposal. I called for an end to the race to the bottom in corporate taxation.
I stressed the need for a new, robust international taxation framework in the era of digitalization. And guess what. Germany was the only country who said something nice about my proposal.

And yet finally in October 2021, 136 countries and regions agreed on the reform of the international taxation system. The reform includes the introduction of a 15% minimum corporate tax rate and measures to prevent tax evasion by giant multinational corporations.
G20 finance ministers and central bank governors later endorsed the agreement. This was a historic achievement. We made it, and I was so happy about that.

Did I work for my government? Did I work for Japan? Did I work for the Japanese? The answers to those questions are, yes, yes, and yes.
But on the other hand, I worked hard, helped by my able colleagues such as Asakawa, to help save the world economy, and to help build a new institution robust, strong, and enduring.

Those were the moments, I say that to the class of 2022, when I felt most rewarding as a public servant because my small contribution meant a lot for the world economy.

And I am sure when you will face a challenge that is so much difficult to tackle, you will just call your friends, the members of the Class of 2022. YOU will get calls from your classmates seeking your advice. That is how the IUJ lives on, on and on throughout your life.

Now, the legendary banker Nakayama Sohei insisted that the IUJ students all live on campus. Why don’t you look up to the sky and tell him and his soulmate George Ishiyama that their original design has worked and paid off because you built friendship that will live long.

I have absolutely no doubt that you will hold the campus dear throughout your life, because here you have your home away from home.

Congratulations!! It is a day of commencement. The first day of the rest of your life.
Thank you, and good luck to you all.

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