Roundable discussion on Japan’s Asian competitors in Central Europe

On March 19, 2021, the Institute of Foreign Affairs and Trade (IFAT) organized an online roundtable discussion entitled „Japan’s Asian competitors (China, South-Korea) in the Visegrad countries”. The event was third in the series launched by IFAT to analyze the present state and perspectives of economic cooperation between the Visegrad countries and Japan in the post-COVID-19 era. Panelists of the events were Bonji Ohara, Senior Fellow at The Sasakawa Peace Foundation, Michito Tsuruoka, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Policy Management, Keio University, Dávid Szabó, Founder of Trimarium Geostrategic Institute, and Ivana Karásková, Research Fellow at the Association for International Affairs, Prague. The event was moderated by Gergely Salát, Senior Research Fellow at IFAT.

From the Far East, Japan was the first to appear with investments in the Central and Eastern European region, right after its regime changes, and is still the number one investor in the Visegrad countries. In the last decade or two, however, first South Korea and then China have also become interested in the region, made significant investments, and the gap between Japan and its competitors is narrowing. However, in many cases, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese investments are not in competition with each other because they operate in different market segments, parallel to each other.

The topic of the event revolved around the question of how much weight Japan’s main East Asian competitors, the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of Korea present in the V4 countries, what strategies they follow, and in which areas they are active. The short presentations were closed by reactions to each other’s statements, followed by questions and answers.

The full recording can accessed at the link below or on our YouTube-channel!