Can Russia circumvent European, American, and Japanese embargoes? How does Poland's economy stack up against other post-soviet countries? We discuss those topics with prof. Yoshii Masahiko from Kobe University in Japan, who came to our university thanks to “Visiting Professors” programme.

Marcel Jakubowski: - What will you do here during your two-week stay?

Prof. Yoshii Masahiko: - I came here to deliver lectures for students of Faculty of Economics on bachelors, master and EMBA courses. They’ll concern the economy of Japan.

- You are also writing the research paper with dr Renata Orłowska. What is it about? 

- We, with Professor Renata Orlowska and Professor Krystyna Zoladkeiwicz, are researching the impacts of the Japan-EU Free Trade Agreement, which came into effect in 2019. For example, one of the biggest FTA changes was the trade tariff abolition on the Japan’s import of EU wine. The FTA instantly abolished those additional costs from 15 to 0%. I compared data from before and after the enforcement of this agreement. Turns out that because of that change, import of European wine increased rapidly, especially from France and Spain. We’d like to shed light on other items that were affected by this FTA. 

- For a long time you’ve been interested in the economy of Europe and especially of post-soviet countries. What attracted you to a region that is so far away from your homeland? 

- As a student, I was interested in the economy of the Soviet Union, but not from the positive side. In the second half of the 20th century, Soviet Union became poorer than Japan, although living standards of its citizens in the 1950s were higher than that of Japan. After the 1970s, Japan was much richer. I studied why the Soviet economic system functioned such badly. After the Berlin Wall collapsed, the Japanese minister of Foreign Affairs asked me if I was interested in working at the Embassy of Japan in Bucharest. Russia was an interesting topic, but Romania might have been even more fascinating. I decided to take up the job offer, and came back to Japan two years later, in 1992. I changed my subjects from the economy of Russia to the economy of Romania and other Central and Eastern European countries.

- Do you find this distance advantageous to your research?

- Yes, of course. Japanese scholars look at Central Eastern European countries with  different views. Japan has a different economy. I mean, we are all living in the free market, but Japanese companies focus more on a longer perspective than American or British companies, which have a short term profit maximization orientation. Sometimes our suggestions might be helpful to those countries in transition. 

- In what way did Central-Eastern European countries deal with an economy shift in the 90s. Did every country adapt to this change with in a similar way?

- In the beginning of the transition, the economy of the former socialist countries got worse. In the case of Poland GDP fell about 18%, in Romania almost 30%, Russia-45% and Ukraine-60%.  The transition was especially hard for poor people, who started to think that this change might have been a wrong strategy. Of course, they wanted freedom to speak and so on, but they also wanted a much more stable economy. That’s when the tensions started, many people felt that coming back to the social economy would be better. This backward engine started to blow in some countries, and it stalled the speed of the transition. Poland was the fast runner in transition, because of the effort of for example prof. Leszek Balcerowicz. 

- In the next decades, which countries progressed more and which stayed behind?

- Just before the pandemic, I stayed in Hungary, and now I’m in Poland. From what I saw, I think that these countries are the biggest winners amongst the post soviet and European countries in transition.

- For some time, Poland has been struggling with post COVID-19 inflation. At the same time, it’s dealing with the economic effects of the war in Ukraine. Financially speaking is the worst yet to come, or are we past the point when those two tragedies, intertwined in the worst possible way? 

- Regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, I hope that the worst effects have ended. But because of this global event, some semiconductors factories in China and in  southeastern Asia, especially Vietnam, stopped the production, which halted the production of automobiles. This increased the price of energy in the end. Last year, Russia attacked Ukraine, which accelerated this process. Post pandemic situation might have ended if not for the war. Toyota is still facing a shortage of semiconductors, which are very important parts of today's automobiles. 

- What options does Russia have? It’s not a part of a global market, at least not from the western side. 

- Today, Russia is expanding its ties with Asian countries such as China or India. They buy Russian goods, but also Russia also imports from them. Thanks to products from these countries, Russia has circumvented the embargoes of the EU, United States and Japan also by using the Central Asia. Recently, I’ve read that Russia is  importing refrigerators from Kazakhstan, which were imported from Asian countries. Refrigerators also use semiconductors, so they take them out and use them to repair armaments. Also, Russians can’t go freely to Poland or France, but they can still visit some Asian countries. We see many of them spending their holidays in resort in Thailand. In this way, Russia can survive by using not only economic ties, but also political and social ties with Asian countries, excluding Japan and South Korea. Russia may continue doing that for a while, but it will not be enough to fix the deficits of embargoes. Even if the Russian attack on Ukraine ended tomorrow, American, European, and Japanese companies wouldn’t come back right away. It’ll take a very long time for that to happen. 

- You mentioned Professor Balcerowicz. He is currently a head of  Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski Department in our university. Have you had an occasion to meet him? 

- During this visit? No. But in 2008 I invited him to Kobe University for a guest lecturer about the transition period in Poland. He explained to the Japanese students, how he did it in the 1990s and shared his experience as a Vice Prime Minister, Minister of Finance and the head of the Central Bank. 

- Thank you for this conversation.

- Thank you.  Arigatou-gozaimashita.