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A bamboo curtain descended on Upper Burma in May 1942. Little news filtered in or out. The warp and weft of everyday civilian life during the Japanese occupation is something of a mystery. In 1945 Rev. Stanley Vincent compiled an important booklet, Out of Great Tribulation , containing the wartime recollections of Burmese Methodists. 1 Two army chaplains (Acheson and Brown-Moffett) wrote brief accounts of separate visits they had made to the Chin States during 1944. In August 1945 Rev. U Po Tun wrote a long
The image of Japan does not immediately evoke that of a colonial power. This may have to do with Japan’s position as a latecomer into the club of predominantly European colonisers. Another explanation lies in the fact that its power and influence were not felt beyond Asia and did not seriously challenge the political and military supremacy of Western powers until the late 1930s. Yet Japan has a fairly long history of colonialism, which started within its own realm, and of population settlement abroad. Historians of
8 Governance in Japan: the implications of the research The downfall of the DPJ in December 2012 was unsurprising, given its growing unpopularity (Reed et al. 2013: 34–46). Defeating the Yoshihiko Noda government in the general election of 16 December 2012, the LDP’s Shinzō Abe won his second term as Prime Minister. After his first brief tenure between 2006 and 2007 was widely seen as a failure, not many expected a revival. Therefore, his return as the premier in December 2012 was received with surprise. The power of Abe’s LDP-led Coalition administration has
Introduction This chapter will discuss the legacy of the Obama administration of 2009–17 for US–Japan relations. It will highlight elements of change and continuity that characterised the Obama years in the realms of security and economic policy, as well as the significance of historical memory and the processes of reconciliation between the two countries. It will also discuss policy shifts promoted by the administration of President Donald Trump at around the halfway mark of his 2017–21 presidential term in office. The Trump presidency, it is argued, has
We have it on good authority that, at least up to 1900, the images of, and attitudes to, Japan commonly held in the Western world did not amount to ‘taking Japan seriously’. Whether Japan’s astonishing successes in arms and industry thereafter dispelled the ‘cherry-petal exoticism’ which characterised Victorian perspectives on the Island Empire is less certain. Some
Introduction Since around 2010, the prevailing perception of threat in Japanese public opinion and official policy circles has been centred on the possible dangers posed by a rising China. Specific incidents such as repeated Chinese maritime and aerial incursions into the Senkaku Islands, which are also claimed by Beijing, certainly reinforce these perceptions. The angst and anxiety of a declining Japan being eclipsed by its giant neighbour undoubtedly marked the so-called zeitgeist . In this sense, one might argue that traditional geopolitical
Introduction T he sharp change in Tokyo’s strategy towards regional security multilateralism well illustrates Japan’s decentring from the US after the Cold War, even while nonetheless serving, at least so far, to support, if not strengthen, the Japan–US alliance. This chapter examines how Japan has used regional multilateralism since 1991 for several purposes: to help keep the US engaged in the region; to reassure Japan’s neighbours that Tokyo would not again threaten their security, even as it began playing a
of the Jewish and the Japanese communities of Harbin in the three decades before the Manchurian Incident. Harbin enjoys a unique place in East Asian history. Unlike the great majority of other cities in contemporary China, Harbin does not have a history stretching back hundreds, even thousands, of years. 1 It was constructed at the very end of the nineteenth century by Russian engineers and city planners, and it became something of a melting pot, a city of pioneers. It was a place where even the Chinese were newcomers. As
This book attempts a systematic comparison of Japanese and British climate policy and politics. Focusing on institutional contrasts between Japan and Britain in terms of corporatist or pluralist characteristics of government-industry relations and decision-making and implementation styles, it examines how and to what extent institutions explain climate policy in the two countries. In doing this, the book explores how climate policy is shaped by the interplay of nationally specific institutional factors and universal constraints on actors, which emanate from characteristics of the global warming problem itself. It also considers how corporatist institutional characteristics may make a difference in attaining sustainable development. Overall, the book provides a set of comparisons of climate policy and new frameworks of analysis, which could be built on in future research on cross-national climate policy analysis.
10 Remembering the Japanese occupation massacres: mass graves in post-war Malaysia Frances Tay The violence visited upon British Malaya during the Japanese occupation of December 1941 to August 1945 has prompted several historians to evoke comparisons with the atrocities that befell Nanjing.1 During this time, numerous civilians were subjected to mass killings, summary executions, rape, forced labour, arbitrary detention, and torture. In particular, the shukusei (cleansing) or daikensho (big inspection) operation of February to April 1942 – known locally as the