Japan: Not Enough Globalization

Naota Kan, known as Japan's "Tony blair," is the leader of the Democratic Party of Japan, the main opposition to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. Last year, the DPJ won a majority in the upper house of the Japanese Diet.
Naoto Kan spoke with NPQ Japan correspondent Shun Daichi and editor Nathan Gardels in his Tokyo office in November.     

Borrowed Surfaces

Shuichi Kato, who died in 2008, was one of Japan's leading social critics and author of the definitive three-volume study, A History of Japanese Literature , and Form, Style and Tradition .
In July, 1987, we met twice to discuss what he regarded as "Japan's empty core," first overlooking the Zen garden at the American Club in Tokyo, then at the Hotel Danieli in Venice where he was working on a documentary about the rise of the West.
I've retitled this interview "borrowed surfaces," a phrase used by Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami, to describe how Japan has adopted the forms of the West, but not the essence, as Kato so well describes in his comments.     

朝鲜问题对日本核政策的影响

朝鲜核问题使奉行无核三原则的日本的不安全感增加。悬而未决的绑架日本人问题和朝鲜核问题的长期化，加深了日本对于朝鲜的威胁认知。在日本如何重新界定美日同盟，对美国提供的核保护伞是否有信心，以及究竟从何种视角界定日本的国家利益等问题上，朝核问题都成为一个重要因素。在对朝鲜威胁的认知下，日本的核武装论不断升级。核武装论已经不再是日本的政策讨论禁区，日本核政策面临考验。     

CREATING “REAL LEARNING” FOR CHINA’S SURVIVAL: LIANG QICHAO AND THE MA BROTHERS, 1896–1898

Abstract

Liang Qichao used the Taoist term zhenzhi to express his admiration for the Ma brothers who he felt personified his ideal of seamlessly blending together Chinese and Western knowledge. This article considers Liang’s interaction with the Ma brothers as the vantage point from which to trace the formation and development of his concept of “real learning” and to show the Ma brothers’ influence on his understanding of the West and Western learning prior to the 1898 Reform. It further analyzes Liang’s thought by examining the rationale and logic behind his great appreciation for The Ma Grammar and his dialogue with Ma Jianzhong on how to train qualified translators. The final section employs the reflections of Liang Qichao and Ma Xiangbo in the aftermath of the 1898 Reform to examine the differences as well as their shared views on the synthesis of Chinese and Western learning, and the relationship between language and scholarship.     

War and state formation in Lebanon: can Tilly be applied to the developing world?

State formation in the developing world can be explained as growing centralisation and institutionalisation. To understand why some states struggle with state formation, or the processes of centralisation, the model provided by Charles Tilly, in his analysis of state formation in Western Europe, is applied to Lebanon, starting at the onset of the 1975 civil war and concluding with an analysis of the post-Syrian occupation environment. With the appropriate conditions it is possible to use Tilly’s model of war making and the state to measure state formation, or the lack thereof, in the developing world. Conclusively, in the case of Lebanon, it is evident that progress towards strong state formation has been made because of processes of war that are similar to those Tilly outlines in his historical analysis of Western Europe.     

What Drives Japanese INGOs to Operate in Latin American Countries?

International nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) provide essential aid and public services to less-developed countries. Although most literature focuses on Western INGOs, Asian INGOs have also become globally active. Little is known about what motivates INGOs to provide services in other regions, such as Latin America. In this study, we seek to identify the criteria Japanese INGOs use to select Latin American recipient countries. We propose that Japanese INGO operational location decisions are a function of Japanese foreign policy agenda, Japan-recipient country business relations, and recipient country’s need and liberalization. Using data from Japanese INGOs working in Latin America and 24 Latin American countries on contextual, macroeconomic, and demographic indicators, we find that the significant factors driving INGO decisions to operate in Latin American countries are need and the presence of Japanese businesses in the recipient country. Results have practical implications for foreign aid targeting and economic development.     

网络民族主义运动与中国的公民外交——以2005年“反日入常签名”为例

公民外交是中国外交的新近发展的一项重要内容。2005年反日入常签名是中国公民,借由网络签名请愿从事公民外交的案例。该活动是由中国社会部门、中国经济部门与离散华人社群所组织的。它们通过跨国联系发起网络签名请愿而进行的网络民族主义运动。同时,该活动由于表达了广泛民意,不仅影响了中国政府,也影响了其他国际行为体,而成为中国公民外交的实例。     

Rabindranath Tagore and the Aesthetics of Postmodernism

Skeptical postmodern claims about the viability of authorship and meaning in literature are contrasted in historical persepective with Rabindranath Tagore's views on the power of literary art to illuminate reality and enrich feeling. Consequences of postmodern methods and theories are explored with reference to his defense of art and life as a unity that entails unique knowledge and insight. Although influenced by Western culture, he distrusted theory applied to art. For him, durable meanings are an imperative of life for which literature is a vehicle. A post-Nobel Prize attempt to promote Eastern wisdom as a corrective to Western rationalism and materialism did not succeed.     

Fear of a black planet: anarchy anxieties and postcolonial travel to Africa

Western travel to Africa has historically involved the construction and consumption of African otherness. In the postcolonial era this is most clearly evident in Western tourism to the continent, where Africa is frequently marketed as an exoticised destination to see and consume both ‘nature’ and ‘native’. The Western tourist gaze often requires fixing Africans, both in a spatial site (‘village’) and a temporal site (‘tradition’). Africans on the move (both spatially and temporally) are often seen as threatening to the Western‐established images of Africa, which are grounded in a long‐standing fear of ‘unorded’ and ‘chaotic’ African space. After 11 September and the USA's ‘war on terror’ retributive response, the political implications of these fears are evinced in the writings of Robert Kaplan and his popular ‘coming anarchy’ thesis. The article concludes with a critique of Kaplan's work and a discussion of its implications for Africa and African international relations.     

Heidegger and post-colonial fascism

Alexander Dugin is considered a fringe figure in contemporary Russia. Yet, his writings exert considerable influence and develop a virulent nationalism that exploits the vocabulary of post-colonial resistance in an unaccustomed way. Dugin should not be ignored, and this article gives a brief account of Dugin’s peculiar brand of post-colonial thinking by reference to its central source: Martin Heidegger. Specifically, the article examines how Dugin adapts the anti-metaphysical thinking of Heidegger’s most radical work of the 1930s – a thinking that seeks to renew Western thought in an other beginning – to the context of modern Russia as it tries to free itself from Western (American) domination. Dugin aims at nothing less than the creation of a new Russian identity and destiny that will not only save Russia but also, in a nod to Heidegger, renew the Western tradition itself from the “outside.” If Dugin’s political project is ambitious, so is his interpretation of Heidegger which attempts to bring out the full radicality of Heidegger’s thinking, both as philosophy and as politics.     

APEC and its enemies: The failure of the new regionalism in the Asia-Pacific

This article looks at the rise of APEC as a vehicle for the promotion of free trade in the Asia-Pacific. It argues that, although the Japanese government was more interested in trade cooperation than free trade, it played a key role, along with the Australian government, in the establishment of APEC, while the main challenge to APEC came from the Malaysian Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamed. During the 1990s, however, Mahathir's proposal for an East Asian Economic Bloc which excluded the USA, Australia, New Zealand and all other 'non-Asian' nation-states, was incorporated into APEC and took the name of the East Asian Economic Caucus. The accommodation of Mahathir's proposal to the APEC process, and his inability to get Japanese support for his pan-Asian initiative, symbolised the limits on any and all regional challenges to US hegemony in the Asia-Pacific. The article also emphasises that, with the coming of the East Asian crisis, the prospects of a successful regional challenge to US hegemony have become even more remote. In particular, the growing influence of the IMF in the region since the crisis has made APEC irrelevant, while the inability of regional elites to deal with the crisis in a unified fashion has thrown into sharp relief the serious obstacles which exist to any pan-Asian effort to challenge neoliberalism. At the same time, although the East Asian crisis has precipitated a reassertion of US hegemony and a consolidation of neoliberalism, the present juncture may also herald the start of a crisis of neoliberalism, with regional and international implications.     

The Postcolonial World and the Recourse to Myth: a critique of Albert Memmi’s Decolonization and the Decolonized

The seminal postcolonial thinker Albert Memmi’s reactionary turn with the publishing of Decolonization and the Decolonized provides an excellent opportunity to properly contextualise the conditions of the Third World. In this article, emphasis is laid on the necessity of linking the postcolonial world’s dire condition to the role of Western powers and economic processes of globalisation. Memmi’s primary shortcoming is his failure to examine these connections with any nuance, and instead choosing to blame the Third World’s condition on corrupt leaders and governments. Consequently, a focused critique of his work can serve as a valuable foundation for a broader critique of the general patterns of capitalism and its global effects. By examining the inconsistencies and obfuscations of this work in detail, both Memmi and the ideas he professes can be appropriately confronted.     

Abe's Fall: Leadership and Expectations in Japanese Politics

On becoming prime minister in 2006, Abe Shinzō was feted as the ‘prince’ of Japanese politics. A year later, Abe's Liberal Democratic Party had suffered a major electoral defeat and Abe's time as his country's leader was over. As a study of political leadership, this article seeks to explain the leadership outcomes of Abe's brief prime ministership, in particular the dramatic fall in public support Abe suffered during his tenure. It is argued that, despite the difficult circumstances Abe faced, the nature of his political demise cannot be fully accounted for by structural factors alone. It is also necessary to understand the role played by Abe himself and, in particular, his flawed leadership strategy. In the end, Abe's political demise followed a basic logic: high expectations followed by disillusionment characterised by sudden plunges in approval—a tragedy of hubris leading to nemesis.     

Corporate culture:(1) subtle movement beneath the surface

Dr. Shih here develops the sense and substance of corporate culture as they apply to Asian organizations, seen from his vantage point as CEO of the China Productivity Center, a major consulting firm headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan. Western readers will at once profit from his numerous illustrations and find in them major commonalities with their own experiences.     

Book reviews

Magocsi has held the Chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Toronto for three decades during which he has devoted himself to both Ukrainian and Rusyn history. Critics of Magocsi, particularly in the Ukrainian diaspora in North America, focus on his Rusyn publications while ignoring his great contribution to Ukrainian history which remains unparalleled among other Western historians of Ukraine and other Chairs of Ukrainian History and academic institutions.     

AARON AVSHALOMOV AND NEW CHINESE MUSIC IN SHANGHAI, 1931–1947

Abstract

In this article, I position Russian composer Aaron Avshalomov (1894–1965) within the pre-1949 Shanghai music community at a crucial juncture in modern China’s cultural development. First, I examine Avshalomov’s eclectic background and identity as Chinese-acculturated foreigner, Russian-Jewish immigrant, and multifaceted musician, which uniquely situated him among Shanghai’s influential foreign artists for experimentation with new blends of Chinese and Western music from 1931 to 1947. Second, I discuss how this exploration facilitated his contribution to the forging of a new, “national” Chinese music. Third, I describe Avshalomov’s musical style by offering examples of Chinese-Western fusion composition. Finally, I demonstrate that Avshalomov was historically significant via the influence he had on Chinese musicians and through his foreshadowing of future musical developments. He thus serves as an individual exemplar of hybrid identity, creativity, and agency within a city and newly forming tradition that were also characteristically multivalent.     

Meritocracy Is a Good Thing

At the turn of the 20th Century when Western power was at its height, Sun Yat‐Sen sought to blend the Confucian tradition of meritocratic governance and Western‐style democracy in his vision for modern China. With the “rise of the rest” in the 21st Century—led by China—perhaps the political imagination is open once again, this time not only to Western ideas flowing East, but Eastern ideas flowing West as well. The political imagination has been pried open anew not only because of the sustained success of non‐Western modernity in places like Singapore and China, but because democracy itself has become so dysfunctional across the West, from its ancient birthplace in Greece to its most advanced outpost in California. That liberal democracy is the best form of governance ever achieved in the long arc of history is no longer self‐evident. Today, democracy, which has been captured by a short‐term, special‐interest political culture, has to prove and improve itself by incorporating elements of meritocracy and the long‐term perspective. If not, political decay beckons. In this section, we evaluate the tradeoeffs and ponder the possibilities of combining a more knowledegable democracy with a more accountable meritocracy.     

The Revolution in Portugal's African Colonies: A Review Essay

Controversy over the existence of a gender order among the pre-colonial Yoruba in south-western Nigeria is growing within postcolonial scholarship, including among Western academics. This article argues that Nathaniel Fadipe's ethnographic study, which references the pre-colonial era, sheds light on the debate. Fadipe was the first Yoruba sociologist to gain a Ph.D. Focusing on his discussions of childhood, the domestic sphere and family life, I undertake a textual analysis that compares his unpublished dissertation (1939) with the published version that was edited by Okediji and Okediji (1970). I conclude that both texts present clear evidence of pre-colonial gender constructs. The dissertation, less referenced by scholars, is however more persistent in discussing inequalities. I discuss the portrayal of gender, offer reasons for differences between the two texts and highlight areas of divergence.     

Political Meritocracy and Direct Democracy: A Hybrid Experiment

At the turn of the 20th Century when Western power was at its height, Sun Yat‐Sen sought to blend the Confucian tradition of meritocratic governance and Western‐style democracy in his vision for modern China. With the “rise of the rest” in the 21st Century—led by China—perhaps the political imagination is open once again, this time not only to Western ideas flowing East, but Eastern ideas flowing West as well. The political imagination has been pried open anew not only because of the sustained success of non‐Western modernity in places like Singapore and China, but because democracy itself has become so dysfunctional across the West, from its ancient birthplace in Greece to its most advanced outpost in California. That liberal democracy is the best form of governance ever achieved in the long arc of history is no longer self‐evident. Today, democracy, which has been captured by a short‐term, special‐interest political culture, has to prove and improve itself by incorporating elements of meritocracy and the long‐term perspective. If not, political decay beckons. In this section, we evaluate the tradeoeffs and ponder the possibilities of combining a more knowledegable democracy with a more accountable meritocracy.     

Consumer Society Is the Enemy

Anyone within range of Western television during the 1960s to the 1980s was likely a fan of Jacques Cousteau's famous "underwater adventures" launched from the Calypso research vessel, which roamed the seven seas.
Not surprisingly, as an explorer immersed in the natural environment, Cousteau became a radical ecologist in his later life as the costs of industrialization and consumerism began to take their toll. In the summer of 1996 I sat down with the famed oceanographer at the Paris offices of the Cousteau Society.