This trip: a simple form completed on a mobile phone, a QR code, scan fingerprints and I walked straight in.<\/p>\n
The motorway to my hotel is one Auckland motorists can only envy.<\/p>\n
Over many visits, I have watched China rise from poverty to a country whose cities rival any in the world. Shanghai is one of them.<\/p>\n
At our 50-storey hotel, robots delivered parcels to rooms. On the streets were marvellous Chinese-made electric cars. I sat in one and realised the seat was massaging my back. My reaction was immediate: I want one.<\/p>\n
China is a dynamic country.<\/p>\n
My Chinese friends say there is virtually no crime \u2013 cameras are everywhere, and I mean everywhere.<\/p>\n
Public behaviour has improved. But people still do not queue. At the breakfast buffet, a young man simply pushed past me. When drivers do the same, it is unsettling.<\/p>\n
There is a cost to this.<\/p>\n
Where trust is low, every transaction becomes suspect. A pair of brand-name sneakers proved so uncomfortable they must have been fake. Into the bin they went. I was reluctant to buy, unsure whether it was what it claimed to be.<\/p>\n
There is an absence of the everyday trust that lubricates a market economy.<\/p>\n
Authoritarian censorship meant I could not ask ChatGPT where the nearest cash machine was.<\/p>\n
The contrast with Japan began at the airport. A two-hour queue to get through immigration \u2013 the worst I have experienced.<\/p>\n
Now that I could again consult ChatGPT, it offered two explanations: a surge in tourism and a bureaucracy that has layered technology on top of existing systems without solving the queues.<\/p>\n
When I first visited Japan half a century ago, I felt I was visiting the future.<\/p>\n
I toured a factory where robots were building television sets with hardly a worker in sight. I was told that robots were more expensive than labour \u2013 but essential if Japan was to conquer the United States market with superior quality.<\/p>\n
They were right.<\/p>\n
Today, everything works in Japan, but I sometimes felt I was visiting the past.<\/p>\n
In one office I visited, the fax machine was still in use \u2013 because of a resistance by customers to change to digital.<\/p>\n
I saw few electric cars. I was told it is too difficult to find charging points.<\/p>\n
In China, I saw a demonstration of BYD\u2019s new generation of chargers, capable of delivering a full charge in nine minutes, powered in part by stored off-peak electricity. The plan is to roll them out nationwide.<\/p>\n
It is hard not to conclude that when China decides to move, it moves at speed.<\/p>\n
While I would not bet against Toyota delivering its long-promised solid-state battery, the Japanese car manufacturers are losing to China.<\/p>\n
Japan is visibly ageing. Young graduates are so scarce they can choose where they work. Leaving a job after a single day is not uncommon.<\/p>\n
In Japan, people queue. Drivers let you merge. You know that what you buy will be what it claims to be.<\/p>\n
My Chinese friends told me that middle-class Chinese travel to Japan to shop because they trust the quality.<\/p>\n
That trust matters.<\/p>\n
On my hotel television in China, there were dozens of channels but no English-language news, beyond RT (formerly Russia Today). Instead, there were many films of the People\u2019s Liberation Army in heroic battle.<\/p>\n
In Japan, there was CNN \u2013 and no films glorifying war.<\/p>\n
The contrast was striking \u2013 and disturbing.<\/p>\n
China shows that when barriers are removed and infrastructure is enabled, innovation can move quickly. Our Government is right to focus on cutting red tape.<\/p>\n
Japan demonstrates the value of social trust. When a society values social trust, it can be preserved.<\/p>\n
When I began in law, the senior partner told me our word was our bond. Lawyers tell me that today that is often not the case.<\/p>\n
We need to again insist on integrity \u2013 in our public institutions, commerce and everyday life. Without trustworthiness, something essential to being a New Zealander is lost.<\/p>\n
But the strongest lesson from my trip is the value of freedom.<\/p>\n
You do not appreciate the ability to ask what you like and read what you like \u2013 until you cannot.<\/p>\n
Once lost, it is not easily regained.<\/p>\n
We must be vigilant in our defence of freedom.<\/p>\n