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Author’s Preface
The present author made his first visit to China in 1995 to present a paper on Japanese social security systems at
The Economic Forum jointly organized by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the University of Tokyo
held in Beijing. Since then, he has come to China nearly 20 times. The major aim of his visits was to report papers
on pensions at respective conferences/seminars/workshops, along with making interviews to, and having meetings
with pension experts there. At the same time, he went around art galleries and museums, and took exciting trips
from place to place. Needless to say, every time he fully enjoyed both wafting rich and sweet smells fromflowers/trees/fruits, and absolute heaven of Chinese food.
China is currently under a rapid population aging, and faces serious challenges in designing her social security
pension systems, and also in implementing them neatly. A wider coverage of them is still desperately required, aswell. Japan and other several developed countries have taken a lead in experiencing the population aging, however.
These countries have struggled hard to get over all the difficulties associated with pension operations in societies ofa longer life expectancy with lower birthrates. There are examples of various pathbreaking successes and many
painful failures already shown in these countries, which China can learn. Chinese people will be able to grasp thegravity of the lessons only if they examine them carefully with an open mind. So far, the present author tried hardto deliver the lessons, above mentioned, to Chinese researchers as simply as possible, and as accurately as possible
concurrently. Each time, he was inspired by the uplifting spiritual thought of 徳不孤、必有鄰（孔子）， and of 邪不压正 （唐·韦洵《刘宾客嘉话录》）. It was his sincere hope for China not to repeat the similar failure experienced
in other countries. Obviously, any failures imply an extremely serious tragedy for China, the enormously hugecountry.
This Chinese monograph is the second book of the present author, published in China. It is composed of acollection of papers mainly presented in China and others printed in Japanese academic journals/publications. This
monograph has no paper on reforming pensions of China written by the present author. Indeed, the Chineseparticipants who attended at the meetings above mentioned, often asked him why not make any policy proposals
for revising ongoing Chinese pension programs. The reasons are so many. Among others, he is an establishedprofessional of Japanese pensions; a distinguished key player responsible for his own words of proposals on pension
reform in Japan. His proposals have been fully backed with his profound knowledge on Japanese mentality, theirunique behaviors, and their specific way how to decide things. The present author’s mastery of realities and truths
in current China still remains quite poor, however. He is not in any way familiar with their way of thinking, or any
key persons of policymaking in the field of Chinese pensions, or how to practically make things accomplished.
Furthermore, as an outsider from Japan, he is not able to take the blame for possible resulting failures of his policy
proposal on Chinese pensions. The present author thinks that he has to be completely careful in confining his jobs