We are working on ways to update and equip these institutions to handle the challenges of a liberalized, 24-hour global financial market, to prevent crises, and to better address crises when they do arise. We are working to strengthen them, and make them more transparent. It is not only our two governments that have a role to play in creating a new Asian era. Business, NGOs, and local community groups in both countries must help resolve the problems we face in the region. As a starting point, we must try to learn enough about our neighborhood and our neighbors to know one another not as crude stereotypes, but as people, with apprehensions and aspirations comparable to our own.
Exchange programs are a wonderful way to do that.
The Japan Exchange and Teaching program, for instance, brings Americans to Japan to teach and work. The Mansfield Program gives American government officials a taste of working in the Japanese government. And the Fulbright Exchange gives American and Japanese scholars the chance to share ideas and experiences. There are also many issue-areas ripe for joint cooperation, including health, population and the environment. Worldwide, the U.S. and Japan finance corporate-NGO partnerships engaged in activities ranging from family planning to agricultural research.