Global Opinion Leaders Summit 2019 (1)

 The fifth Global Opinion Leaders Summit was held in Tokyo, Oct.17. The Diet House members and the Former Canadian PM, Stephen Harper were invited to join the summit. Harper addressed the keynote speech, and all members discussed on geopolitical and economic issues.
 The summit was sponsored by Worldwide Support for Development, founded by Dr.Haruhsa Handa. He served as the chairman and moderator of the summit. 
 Harper was a Canada's prime minister from 2006 until 2015. He is now chairman and CEO of Calgary-based Harper & Associates Consulting. He published "Right Here, Right Now; Politics and Leadership in the Age of Disruption." in 2018. 
 In his speech, Harper described a world beset by huge changes made by the revolution in technology and globalization of the economy.
 He said, "Disruption is everywhere today, and the scope, the scale and the speed of disruption are all unprecedented," "Global politics and international relations have not been spared", citing growing inequality, the divide between elites and populists and China's rise. He suggested we should accept as a fact that  the latter has brought forth a country determined to exert global leadership on its own political and economic terms.
 Combined with the emergence of U.S.President Donald Trump and his abandonment of a longstanding bipartisan U.S. policy of engaging China with one that sees it as an unfair competitor, this have led to their ongoing trade war. 
  Harper said, despite strains that changes in the global order have brought to many democratic countries, he still sees the Western model as ultimately prevailing and that China's shift to a more authoritarian governance under President Xi Jinping will prove to be a mistake. 
 He added that the democratic capitalist model, though imperfect, is a system that is resilient and adaptable, and the current strife in some ways underscores the strength of the model. 

 

Worldwide Support for Development Chairman Dr.Haruhisa Handa
delivers a speech during the fifth Global Opinion Leaders Summit
in Tokyo on Oct.17.


WSD

(source: THE JAPAN TIMES, Oct.29,2019）