“Values and Life Styles in Urban Asia: A Cross-Cultural Analysis and Sourcebook Based on the Asia Barometer Survey of 2003, with a Foreword by Ronald Inglehart”

Takashi Inoguchi, Miguel Basanez, Akihiko Tanaka and Timur Dadabaev, eds.
(Siglo XXI, Mexico City 2005)

Akio Kawato
(Chief Economist, Research Institute of Capital Formation, Development Bank of Japan)
　
Contemporary Asia is facing a major upheaval the likes of which occur once every few hundred years, with what Joseph Nye calls the “re-emergence of China” at its core. One could not ask for a better publication for enabling debate on the dynamically-changing Asia by employing objective data than “Values and Life Styles in Urban Asia: A Cross-Cultural Analysis and Sourcebook Based on the Asia Barometer Survey of 2003” (hereafter referred to as the “Asia Barometer”).

This publication is the first result of the survey project which started in 2003 and has continued every year since then. The project can be termed a “fixed-point observation” for the lifestyle and political consciousness of each nation in Asia. A survey with such geographical reach and continuity dealing with the lifestyle and consciousness of various Asian countries is rare, and this is something that will provide a common arena for international debate related to Asia and the drastic transfiguration it is undergoing.

In 2003 the survey focused on the 10 countries of Japan, China, Republic of Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Myanmar, India, Sri Lanka, and Uzbekistan. While it is primarily a survey carried out at the national level, in some countries like China and India it was conducted only in several large cities and specific areas of the country. The number sampled in each country was 800 people, and multi-stage random sampling methods and face-to-face interviewing methods (excluding Japan) were employed. The survey was designed to, in Takeshi Inoguchi’s own words, “Generally collect detailed information to show how the average Asian citizen in the beginning of the 21st century lives their life; how they feel; what they are satisfied with and what they are dissatisfied with; and how they feel they connect with their own family, their neighborhood, their place of work, the government, mass media, the military, the courts, and the like” (“GAIKO FORUM” October 2005).

Roughly the first half of the publication is comprised of an analysis of the results of this survey. The analyses of each of the 10 countries are interesting in that they reflect the background and personality of each author. According to the Uzbekistani Timur Dadabaev in his analysis of Japan (Chapter 2), “there are also aspects of modernization which have adversely affected the Japanese.” Dadabaev attempts to bring this assessment to the fore, and it is possible that this comment is reflective of the domestic tone in Uzbekistan that tends to praise the merits of its traditional authoritarian, collectivized society while cautioning against the rapid reforms taking place in the country.

The lifestyles and consciousness of the population living in large cities around China (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Xian, Nanjing, Dalian, and Tsingtao) are given an extensive analysis by China’s Guo Dingping (Chapter 3). In 2003, the number of citizens who had faith in their government was no less than 91.1% out of the 800 survey respondents, while the percentage of people currently satisfied with their lives amounts to 51%, which is roughly the same figure as in Japan.

India’s Sanjay Kumar (Chapter 9) focuses his analysis on the values of India’s emerging urban middle class. While he raises the reservation that the “Asia Barometer” respondents are not exclusively from the middle class, he much more specifically depicts the consciousness of the urban population in India, about which only limited data existed previously. His findings include the fact that nearly 60% of the respondents understand virtually no English. 85% of the respondents indicated that they are satisfied with their standard of living, and 92% expressed contentment with their current state of voting rights, with dissatisfaction being strongest concerning the actual performance of the central government regarding the issues of crime, political corruption, and unemployment. Furthermore, it is interesting that 84% of the people approve of a “system whereby decisions affecting the country would be made by experts,” which is not a significant difference from the 89% who approve of a “democratic political system.”

In Chapter 12 Inoguchi offers brief yet superb general overviews and conceptualizations of the analysis of each country. He classifies the 10 surveyed countries into (1) countries influenced by the Confucian tradition, (2) countries where English is used and influence from the British colonial tradition remains, and (3) communist countries and former communist countries. He also measures the possibility of each country for democratization, economic development, and regional integration based on the degree how much they trust other people and how much they adopted meritocratic systems.

The entire results of the survey are disclosed in their undiluted form in the approximately 250 pages comprising the latter half of the book, which is a treasure-trove of data. The most interesting thing is that a majority of the urban population in East Asia perceives their standard of living to be at a middle class level, a fact that is the same even in China which has been indicated as having a substantial income disparity (Japan: 60%, Republic of Korea: 72%, China: 71%). Moreover, the countries in East Asia enjoy a good image among the other countries in Asia. Throughout the entire Asian region, the countries that were offered the most in response to the query “countries that have a good influence on your country” include Japan at 57%, China at 47.7%, and the Republic of Korea at 44.7%, with these three countries occupying the top three ranks (Question 20). In the eyes of others it may appear as if the countries of East Asia constituted a common civilizational sphere which was furnished with many of the virtues.

While East Asia shares these two points in common, there are naturally points of difference as well. First of all, the degree of consciousness toward considering oneself as “Asian” differs from one country to the next. As opposed to 84% of the people in Vietnam, 71% in Republic of Korea, and 42% in Japan who regard themselves as “Asian,” the percentage in China is a mere 6%.
It is possible that Japan taking a large lead in the degree of individualism in society is undermining the mutual understanding between itself and the people in other East Asian countries in a certain sense. For example, out of the 10 countries surveyed by the “Asia Barometer” Japan was ranked the lowest regarding the percentage of people who offered family, relatives, company, place of work, or the area where you grew up for “social circles or groups important to you” (Question 17).

As the preceding demonstrates, the “Asia Barometer” moves the debate from intuition to the realm of fact. On the other hand, it is true that this book contains a number of flaws as a public opinion survey. First of all, in certain countries throughout Asia, questions directly relating to politics have the tendency to call to mind wariness on the part of respondents or public safety authorities, obliging them to respond with vague expressions and wording. While the “Asia Barometer” is too conscious of this problem, certain questions were made needlessly ambivalent as a result of this. “Do you think the following countries have a good influence on your country?” (Question 20) exemplifies this, as in the case of countries like China and the Republic of Korea which have an affinity for Japanese pop culture, yet are politically anti-Japanese. It is likely that the answers of respondents differed regarding which area they assumed “Japan’s good influence” was referring to.

Moreover, as Shigeto Sonoda wrote in his analysis of Vietnam in Chapter 7 it is possible that the “Asia Barometer” questions were insufficient for the purpose of discovering the consciousness of those citizens living under or formerly living under the unique system of socialism.

As far as the above are concerned, however, in light of the great significance that the “Asia Barometer” possesses these are small defects that are correctable. Just the way life in England immediately following the Industrial Revolution was transformed with the spread of electricity and the United States changed in the 1940s and 50s when it was rushing to become a mass consumption society, the majority of countries in Asia are currently experiencing fundamental changes related to their standards of living and lifestyle consciousness. The “Asia Barometer,” which will continue hereafter on a routine basis every year, is something that has the potential to be the best record of its time.