Maximizing U S Interests In Science And Technology Relations With Japan Committee On Japan Framework Statement And Report Of The Competitiveness Task Force

Since 1985 the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering have engaged in a series of high-level discussions on advanced technology and the international environment with a counterpart group of Japanese scientists, engineers, and industrialists. One outcome of these discussions was a deepened understanding of the importance of promoting a more balanced two-way flow of people and information between the research and development systems in the two countries. Another result was a broader recognition of the need to address the science and technology policy issues increasingly central to a changing U.S.-Japan relationship. In 1987 the National Research Council, the operating arm of both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering, authorized first-year funding for the Office of Japan Affairs (OJA). This program element of the Office of International Affairs was formally established in the spring of 1988. The primary objectives of OJA are to provide a resource to the Academy complex and the broader U.S. science and engineering communities for information on Japanese science and technology, to promote better working relationships between the technical communities in the two countries by developing a process of deepened dialogue on issues of mutual concern, and to address policy issues surrounding a changing U.S.-Japan science and technology relationship.

This title was first published in 2000. An account of the 1988 US-Japan Science and Technology Agreement (88STA). The research methodology of the study is based on interviews and analysis of the relevant documents and articles augmented by an analysis of selected studies on US-Japan and science and technology relations. The author hopes to: increase the reader's understanding of the bureaucratic process and negotiations within the US and Japanese government in drafting an agreement and the interaction of the negotiators in the outcome; increase our knowledge about how the US-Japanese relationship in science and technology in the public sector is managed; throw some light on how domestic factors impact on preparing for a negotiating a new agreement between the US and Japan on science and technology; develop insights into the negotiating styles of each country; assess its role as a model agreement for negotiating similar agreements with other countries; learn some lessons for future negotiations with Japan in the science and technology area and with other countries if this Agreement is to be used as a model.

Issues involving science, technology, and health (STH) have moved to the forefront of the international diplomatic agenda. Other vital issues linked to technological developments pervade longer-range foreign policy concerns. Thus, STH considerations are often central to the Department of State's bilateral and multilateral interactions with other governments. STH aspects play a large role in discussions of such critical topics as nuclear nonproliferation, use of outer space, population growth, adequate and safe food supply, climate change, infectious diseases, energy resources, and competitiveness of industrial technologies. In addressing these issues, expert STH knowledge is essential to the anticipation and resolution of problems and to the achievement of foreign policy goals. The Department, recognizing that it requires strengthened capabilities to address such an array of topics, asked for suggestions by the National Research Council as to how it could better deal with foreign policy issues with STH content.

Preface -- The argument in summary -- Choosing among implausible leaders -- Technology choices -- The geo-energy trilemma and its mis-management -- 'Winners' and 'losers' in hotter worlds -- China's limits to growth -- Backing the bio-digital energy paradigm? -- City pathways to the bio-digital energy paradigm -- India, the Janus energy sovereign -- Survival Governance.