Much Ado over Small Islands: The Sino-Japanese Confrontation over Senkaku/Diaoyu

The article reports on the confrontation between China and Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands located in the Western Pacific. Japan calls the islands Senkaku while China calls them Diaoyu. It is noted that 14th century record confirms that China considered the islands as important navigational points on the maritime route between coastal China and the Ryukyu kingdom capital at Shuri. In 1879, Ryukyu was unilaterally assimilated by Japan as Okinawa. The fundamental assertions which serve as bases for the Japanese Senkaku claim are cited

Japan's Client State (Zokkoku) Problem

An essay is presented on the concept of client state and Japan's relation with the U.S. The author provides an overview of Japan's problematic relationship with China and the U.S., noting that Japan resisted becoming China's client state but embraced the role towards the U.S. The view on Japan's servility is noted in Magosaki Ukeru's book The Truth of Postwar (Japanese) History. He explains the formal sovereignty of the client state

Okinawa：Japan’s Prefecture That Keeps Saying NO

Gavan McCormack here explores matters raised in his 2018 book with SatokoOka Norimatsu (Resistant Islands: Okinawa Confronts Japan and the United States,2nd edition), outlines recent judicial, political, diplomatic and ecologicaldevelopments with a bearing on the "Okinawa problem," and considers the tacticsand strategy employed in the long-running contest by Okinawa\u27s social movementson the one hand and the Japanese state on the other. The text that follows is aslightly revised version of the invited lecture he delivered at International ChristianUniversity in Tokyo on 11 November 2019. A postscript includes three documents,dating from 1947, 1951, and 1971, that dramatically illustrate the deep-rooted andmulti-dimensional quality of the “Okinawa problem.

Hidaka Rokuro, 1917-2018 - The Life and Times of an Embattled Japanese Intellectual

Hidaka Rokuro was born in Qingdao, China, 11 January 1917 and died in Kyoto, Japan, 7 June 2018. His life therefore spanned much of the 20th century and the early years of the 21st. He was a witness to the Japanese empire at its height and to its catastrophic collapse and the subsequent rise of a different sort of Japan, as economic superpower and close ally to its former enemy the United States. From the time he entered Tokyo Imperial University (as it then was) in 1938, for 31 years he observed momentous events from the perspective of student, assistant, then professor, at the nation’s key institute of higher learning. Eventually, and dramatically, he resigned in protest against its crackdown on the then burgeoning student movement in 1969. His greatest travails were then still to come. They are discussed in the following under the heading of “The Hidaka Affair.” This essay does not purport to be a biography but hopes to shed some light on moments in the life of a remarkable individual living in remarkable times

The Abe State and Okinawan Protest - High Noon 2018

For more than two decades, the Asia-Pacific Journal has paid close attention to the “Okinawa problem.” However, today that “problem” becomes increasingly complex and difficult to grasp, even as it enters a major, possibly decisive, moment. The more the crisis deepens, the less it is covered by mainstream national and global media. This essay resumes the situation as of August 2018, and reflects on the significance of the 27 July move by Okinawa prefecture towards halting base construction works at Henoko-Oura Ba