Terror in Japan

Observers of early twenty-first-century Japan commonly note economic, political, and social crisis, on the one hand, and pessimism, lethargy, or helplessness about the possibility of reform, on the other. Yet Japan's civil society was idealistic and energetic in the early postwar decades. What happened? The reform movement that captured much of the vitality of the early postwar decades was either foreclosed, as many were co-opted in the “all-for-growth” economism, consumerism, and the corporation, or crushed in successive waves of repression of dissidence as the cold war order took shape. Political parties sacrificed broad vision and ideals to narrow-interest articulation. While the mass base of the reform movement was discouraged, demoralized, and depoliticized, one minority in the late 1960s turned to violent revolution and another in the late 1980s turned inward to seek spiritual satisfaction. Both paths led to violence. This article looks at the course of the student movement between the late 1940s and the late 1970s, with particular reference to the Japan Red Army, and at the new religious movement Aum Supreme Truth in the 1980s and 1990s. Both adopted “terrorist” tactics, by almost any understanding of that term. However, they were children of their times, reflecting the same deep social, political, and moral problems that Japan as a whole continues to face in the early twenty-first century.     

解读日本的造村运动

日本造村运动始于20世纪70年代末,其主要做法包括培育各具优势的产业基地,增加产品的附加值,促进产品的生产流通,开展多元化的农民教育,创设合理的融资制度,促进农村文化建设等。经过二十多年的发展,造村运动取得了巨大成效,主要表现在基本消灭了城乡差别,增加了农民收入,刺激了农村多元化的消费,运动的内容由农业扩展到整个生活层面,运动的地域也由农村延伸到城市。     

"日本制造"的衰落

日本企业接连出现的质量事故以及知名大公司大面积的巨额亏损,使"日本制造"的神话呈现终结趋势.认为技术垄断症与日本的分级制度是质量事件的罪魁祸首的观点是错误的.日本企业沉醉于运作层面的管理而缺乏长远的战略规划,结果坐失战略改革时机才是问题的主要根源.     

Watching Bran Nue Dae in Japan

While recently teaching in Japan, I used the Australian film Bran Nue Dae (2009), directed by Rachel Perkins, in one of my courses. The mixed, but non-Australian students, were interested to discuss why a film that was partly about family and historical trauma was a comedy. Extending from the interest, this article considers whether there has been a similar response in Australia to Indigenous-themed films. Are Indigenous issues in Australia, today, also understood to be best represented as serious; that is, to be presented in terms of trauma and with a focus on the difficult moments? Why might many people—the Tokyo students, but also non-Indigenous people in Australia—find it hard to laugh with (or even at) Aboriginal peoples doing funny things? Using Bran Nue Dae, and my students' reactions, this article examines the usefulness and limits of the sometimes careful attendance to issues of race and pain, which are often the way non-Indigenous people engage with Indigenous peoples and issues. Drawing on the success of Perkins' film, the article also explores the usefulness of comedy.     

日本文化立国战略推动下的文化产业发展

20世纪末,日本提出了“文化立国”的战略构想,在政府的积极推动和大力扶持下,日本的文化产业发展迅猛,具备了较强的国际竞争力。本文主要考察日本“文化立国”战略推动下的文化产业发展现状,并分析日本政府在立法施政、行政指导和完善配套服务等方面所采取的一系列的有效措施及其对文化产业发展的促动作用。     

The Crisis of Over-Accumulation in Japan

Abstract

Japan has now been mired in economic stagnation, punctuated by recurrent recessions, for the past two decades. What are the causes of this longstanding malaise? Is it merely the natural consequence of financial retrenchment and the onset of a pervasive “liquidity trap” after the collapse of the “bubble” economy in the early 1990s, or does the present slump signify a more profound historical phase of structural decline? The aim of this study is to provide several tentative hypotheses. In the first section, some of the possible causes of this phase of prolonged stagnation will be examined. The next section provides a theoretical treatment of the dynamics of debt-deflation from a Minsky-Fisher perspective. The final section evaluates whether the historical evidence lends credence to the debt-deflation thesis.     

Japan eyes China

A research trip to Tokyo found contrasts between Japanese policies of engaging China economically and the U.S. emphasis on human rights. It also found distinct differences between Washington and Tokyo in assessing the present and future security threat of China in Asia. While the United States is apprehensive about increasing military power, Japan is more concerned with China’s political and economic stability.     

论东日本大地震对在日华侨华人未来发展走向的影响

3·11东日本大地震以及由此引发的海啸和核泄漏,给在日华侨华人造成了新的迷茫和困惑.战后日本长期以社会稳定与经济繁荣而为人称道,而现今的日本是否还是值得留恋的宜居之地?在日华侨华人面临着新的抉择.日本《中文导报》与笔者的“问卷调查”显示:尽管感到在日本生活幸福的华侨华人的比例,与地震前相比,基本没有太大变化,但分析问卷结果,可以预测在不久的将来会出现留日学生减少、新华侨华人归国人数增多的现象,日本华侨华人社会将面临成长停滞或规模萎缩的可能.     

东游运动与潘佩珠日本认识的转变

《潘佩珠自判》呈现出了东游运动前后潘佩珠对日认识的变化。赴日前,潘佩珠认为日本是同文同种的新兴强国,期望日本军事援助越南。东游运动失败后,潘佩珠认为日本背弃了黄种人和亚洲,是个重强权、轻道义的国家。他对日本国民素质则始终赞赏,以之为越南人的学习对象。     

中日"文言一致"运动试比较

由于发展史观以及“文言一致”自身“言”直接成“文”这一字面幻象的影响,许多人未能认识“言”与“文”均是为建立近代国民国家所“制定”(胡适)、所“独创”(矢野龙溪)而非固有,更未能深刻认识其核心是为引进西方思想、文化和政治制度而进行的“话语”建树。本文旨在通过对中、日两国“文言一致”运动的对比分析,建构亚欧参照体系,透过幻象剖析其实质,从而为全球化语境下正确解读文学作品,为重新认识国语和国文学的凝聚力和构建和谐社会提供借鉴。     

日本陪审制重建之探究

2009年5月,日本正式实施了于2004年通过的《陪审员法》。这是陪审制阔别日本66年后的重生,是日本司法进入新时代的标志。日本在建立陪审制的过程中,经历过失败,又因为种种原因而无法放弃陪审制。如今,陪审制重建,日本政府吸取了历史教训,从本国司法环境出发,对西方陪审制进行了本土化的改造,并利用5年的时间普及新制,为陪审制的正式实施打下了广泛的民众基础。其改革过程,有许多值得中国司法改革借鉴学习之处。     

The Future of Long-term Care in Japan

This article reviews a decade of implementation of the public long-term care insurance (LTCI) program in Japan, which is now experiencing unprecedented pressure from its rapidly aging population. This overview of the program's features focuses on the incentive mechanisms and diversity and examines official future projections of LTC costs and their accompanying assumptions. Included is the discussion of possible reforms for the LTCI program, with an emphasis on the micro aspects of LTC, with evidence provided by the Japanese Study on Aging and Retirement (JSTAR).     

Regime Shifts in Japan and Switzerland?

This paper compares the development of the Japanese political economy regime and its repercussions for the party system with the, at least at first sight, contrasting case of Switzerland. Rather than pointing out the differences between the two countries, the comparison emphasizes the similarities: both countries are involved in a comparable regime shift, which has its origins in similar domestic structural and cultural shifts as well as in changes in the world economy. In both countries, the mismatch between the socioeconomic realities and the political configurations has been widening for many years. Since the early nineties, the much needed realignment in the party systems has gotten underway in Japan as well as in Switzerland, but it has not yet reached a new equilibrium. In Switzerland, however, the restructuring of the party system has proceeded more steadily and has gone farther than in Japan