The Meaning of Internationalization

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Edwin Reischauer. The Meaning of Internationalization

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THE MEANING OF

INTERNATIONALIZATION

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When I speak of internationalization, I do not mean the changing of external life styles but the development of internal new attitudes. Our motivations must be in step with the conditions of the time. For the two to be out of kilter with each other is a recipe for disaster, as Germany and Japan discovered in the Second World War.

World conditions are constantly changing, and attitudes must change with them. If they do not, catastrophe is bound to follow. The attitude that now is most in need of change is the way we view the relationship of ourselves and our countries to other lands. Not long ago it was possible to see ourselves simply as citizens of one country, and we regarded all other nations as potential enemies or at least hostile rivals. Such attitudes are dangerously out of date in a world in which the weapons of military destruction have become so terrible that their full use would destroy civilization and international economic relations have become so complex and interdependent that no country can stand alone. We must see ourselves as citizens of a world community of nations which cooperate with one another for their common good. For Japan, which has become one of the economic giants of the world, these new attitudes have to include a willingness to play a much larger role in world affairs than it has in the past. This is the true meaning of internationalization and world citizenship.

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