A Message from the President

I enjoyed a restful Golden Week. One day, during my visit to my parents’ home in Osaka, I went to take a look at the expo site. By which I mean not Expo 2025 (Osaka-Kansai Banpaku) now being held so spectacularly, but the site of Expo ‘70 (Osaka Banpaku), which was held 55 years ago. I wanted to check my recall, 55 years later, of the time I successfully visited all the pavilions as a high school student, guidebook in hand, over the course of six months. Looking around the site, now called Expo '70 Commemorative Park, made me marvel that an exposition of this scope could be staged more than half a century ago. There is the sheer scale of its symbol, Tower of the Sun, and also the fact that it attracted 64 million visitors, second only to the Shanghai World Expo, which drew 73 million visitors. At the time, the population of the island country of Japan had only recently exceeded 100 million, so we can but marvel at the drawing power of the expo in attracting over 60 million people.

　Moreover, the Japan of 55 years ago that I remember was not a particularly affluent country. I think that it had finally reached a level where it was on the verge of joining the group referred to as advanced nations. It was an era when things such as overseas travel and family cars could still only be dreamed of. Even so, the state and the entire nation seemed to be energized, vigorously pushing themselves to their limits. From today’s perspective, it is certainly true that there were various issues, but when I look back, it makes me wonder why Japan is now so lacking in vitality.

　KITA was established in 1980, exactly ten years after Expo ‘70, so this year marks our 45th anniversary. Japan was still developing at that time, and the idea of letting countries around the world know our technologies and experiences was, in a sense, a noble one, but it was also possibly an overreach in some way. However, I think that the energy of a country that had made a fresh start from almost zero after the war energized many of the participants from overseas. It has been 45 years since then. The world has changed drastically in that time, and it is sad that one such change is Japan’s loss of vitality. Wars and conflicts continue to persist even as the world changes, and some participants come to KITA from countries involved in such conflicts. At the very least, I would like Japan to continue to be a peaceful country from which people return with vigorous energy, and I intend to continue KITA’s activities going forward so that we can be of help to that end. I humbly request your continued cooperation in this.