trailblazer 復習
日本の将来はどうなるのでしょうか。
Time for Japan to accept the consequences of a shrinking population
Japan was a trailblazer. It led an Asian development model and, in the postwar period, has become one of the world's most successful high-income societies. But the unchartered territory of its demographic transition now calls for unusual policy innovation and entrepreneurship.
Acknowledging that Japan's aggregate economy will inevitably start to shrink as the population decline accelerates is the starting point. Accepting the implications of that for Japan's place in the world and refashioning Japan's national agenda accordingly will clearly take much longer.
Shiro Armstrong is co-director of the Australia-Japan Research Centre and co-Editor of East Asia Forum at The Australian National University. This article is part of a series from East Asia Forum (www.eastasiaforum.org) in the School of Public Policy at the Australian National University.
（一部抜粋）
今回取り上げる単語は、trailblazerです。trailがあるため、なにか跡を残すようなイメージがわきました。
Oxford Dictionary of English (Second Edition Reserved, Oxford University Press)によると、” a person who makes a new track through wild country”または” a person who is the first to do something” とのことでした。
次に『ジーニアス英和辞典』（第五版、大修館）で調べたところ、「草分け，先駆者，開拓者，（木などに）印をつけて道順を示す人」と載っておりました。
つまり文中の” Japan was a trailblazer.”は、「日本はかつて先駆者（的存在）であった。」のような意味になるかと思います。
過去形で書かれているのが、なんだか寂しいです。（Gomez）
