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project was to provide the government of Vietnam with policy recommendations
for its legal systems and national economic plans through intensive
levels of intellectual support. While JICA implemented the project under
its Social Development Studies Program, the project’s research group members,
consisting of scholars and high-ranking officers, were organized by and
worked under the direction of relevant steering committees on both sides.
Shigeru Ishikawa of Japan and Nguyen Quang Thai of Vietnam headed the
project as the general leaders of the research group. Because of the significant
role that Ishikawa played in the success of this project, it was known as
the ‘Ishikawa Project’ in Japan. For Ishikawa’s efforts in this assistance project,
Vietnamese Communist Party Chairman Le Kha Phieu expressed his deep
appreciation to then Japanese Prime Minister Obuchi in person when Obuchi
visited Vietnam in December 1998 (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan,
1999).
A major reason why Chairman Phieu expressed his deep gratitude for the
project was that Ishikawa developed a respectful relationship with the Chairman.
6 When I interviewed Ishikawa in October 1997, I asked what had
been the biggest challenge in conducting this project. Instead of discussing
the economic issues that must have concerned him, he replied without hesitation
that developing trust was the most important issue. Japan’s economic
growth with phenomenal industrialization, Ishikawa explained, was a product
of economic theories and policies that Japan adopted after WWII.
Ishikawa’s team encouraged the Vietnamese team to consider these economic
theories and policies for their future.
But that was still not enough to motivate the Vietnamese side. Without
trust, Ishikawa continued, the Vietnamese counterparts would not seriously
consider adopting these theories and experiences for their own policies.
Rather than imposing his suggestions on Vietnam, Ishikawa waited until he
gained Chairman Phieu’s trust. At the time, the decision to wait appeared to
be both passive and ineffective. However, the decision paid off; and this
would not have been possible had Ishikawa been unwilling to take a big
risk.
A staff member of JICA who coordinated this project told me that the
indefinite waiting period was exceptionally difficult because it not only
created a sense of uncertainty among the Japanese project staff but also
disturbed the entire project scheme that was controlled and administered
under the Japanese government’s annual budgetary system. If JICA cannot
implement a project as scheduled, its competent authorities such as the
6 During the discussion in the fifth meeting of Ajia Keizai-Josei Kenkyukai (Seminar on Asian
Economic Situations) conducted by the Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Finance, Japan, on
February 22, 1999, the Chair of the seminar, Hara, who worked together with Ishikawa for the
‘Ishikawa Project’, clearly stated that the personal friendship that Ishikawa developed with the
Party Chairman had a crucially important impact on the entire project.