Snow on the Pine


Book Description

Ch. 1. Unpacking Japanese foreign policy : the case against conventional wisdom -- pt. I. A modern historical background. ch. 2. Tumultuous Japan : regional diplomacy 1868-1965. ch. 3. A junior partner : Japanese entanglements with the United States and Asia 1965-1980. ch. 4. Rising power : Japan attempts to recapture its traditional role in the 1980s -- pt. II. The 1900s - case studies in diplomacy. ch. 5. Becoming a full-fledged power in the 1990s : the purpose behind peacekeeping operations. ch. 6. More peacekeeping operations : the case of East Timor. ch. 7. Hampered diplomacy : Japanese overtures to North Korea. ch. 8. Using economic diplomacy : Japan and the Asian meltdown. ch. 9. Intellectual leadership : Japan's relationship with Vietnam. ch. 10. The consequences of Japanese diplomacy -- pt. III. The economic and political context of Japanese foreign policy. ch. 11. Tatemae and Honne : understanding the post-war Japanese economy. ch. 12. The long arm of the Japanese economy :the role of foreign direct investment in post-war Japan.




Japan's Quest


Book Description

An international team of ten specialists in Japanese and American foreign relations address the crucial question: what role should Japan play in international affairs? This question has not found a fully satisfactory answer since the forced opening to foreign contacts in the mid-nineteenth century. Having copied foreign models and achieved a series of stunning successes -- and some failures -- in many aspects of private and public life, Japan today stands at a pinnacle of economic power and affluence. Despite this, both economics and politics are undergoing major strains and changes during the 1990s, and the quest for true internationalization is fraught with problems and only partially fulfilled. This book is a joint project of the American University in Washington and Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto.




Japan’s Security Renaissance


Book Description

For decades after World War II, Japan chose to focus on soft power and economic diplomacy alongside a close alliance with the United States, eschewing a potential leadership role in regional and global security. Since the end of the Cold War, and especially since the rise of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japan's military capabilities have resurged. In this analysis of Japan's changing military policy, Andrew L. Oros shows how a gradual awakening to new security challenges has culminated in the multifaceted "security renaissance" of the past decade. Despite openness to new approaches, however, three historical legacies—contested memories of the Pacific War and Imperial Japan, postwar anti-militarist convictions, and an unequal relationship with the United States—play an outsized role. In Japan's Security Renaissance Oros argues that Japan's future security policies will continue to be shaped by these legacies, which Japanese leaders have struggled to address. He argues that claims of rising nationalism in Japan are overstated, but there has been a discernable shift favoring the conservative Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party. Bringing together Japanese domestic politics with the broader geopolitical landscape of East Asia and the world, Japan's Security Renaissance provides guidance on this century's emerging international dynamics.







Japan's Quest for Stability in Southeast Asia


Book Description

More than any other region in the world, Asia has witnessed tremendous change in the post-war era. A continent once engulfed by independence and revolution, and later by the Cold War and civil war, has now been transformed into the world’s most economically dynamic region. What caused this change in Asia? The key to answering this question lies in the post-war history of maritime Asia and, in particular, the path taken by the maritime nation of Japan. Analysing the importance of Japan’s relationship with Southeast Asia, this book therefore aims to illustrate the hidden trail left by Japan during the period of upheaval that has shaped Asia today—an era marked by the American Cold War strategy, the dissolution of the British Empire in Asia, and the rise of China. It provides a comprehensive account of post-war maritime Asia, making use of internationally sourced primary materials, as well as declassified Japanese government papers. As such, Japan's Quest for Stability in Southeast Asia will be useful to students and scholars of Japanese Politics, Asian Politics and Asian History.




REIMAGINING JAPAN


Book Description

REMINGINING JAPAN: Contributors to this volume include some of the world’s most brilliant thinkers from fields as diverse as business, politics, academia, science and technology, journalism and art and design. In the aftermath of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis of March 2011, Japan has become a bigger part of the world’s consciousness than it has been for years. But Japan also is grappling with other problems that, over the long run, pose a much greater challenge to its national well-being than the devastation in Tohoku.... How can the country compete with a rising China? Cope with a fast-aging society? Deal with its enormous debt? Rediscover its entrepreneurial verve? Regain its position as a leader in technology and innovation? In Reimagining Japan, McKinsey & Company, the world’s top management consulting firm, asked more than 80 global leaders and experts to consider these questions. In essays brimming with insight, affection and occasional humor, the authors offer their assessments of Japan’s past, present and --most important -- future. What sets Reimagining Japan apart is the breadth and diversity of its contributors. They range from Fortune 500 CEOs to acclaimed writers (including three Pulitzer Prize winners) to a star videogame creator, a soccer coach, a school principal and a manga artist. There has not been such a comprehensive book about Japan in the past generation - and perhaps ever. NOTABLE CONTRIBUTORS Bernard Arnault, Ian Buruma, Gerald Curtis, John Chambers, Steven Covey, John Dower, Bill Emmott, Victor Fung, Carlos Ghosn, Pico Iyer, Bob McDonald, Stephen Roach, Masahiro Sakane, Masayoshi Son, Howard Schultz, Klaus Schwab, Bobby Valentine, Steve Van Andel, Ezra Vogel, Robert Whiting, Tadashi Yanai and more than 50 others.




Japan's Quest for Autonomy


Book Description

A comprehensive and often controversial account of Japan's foreign and security policy before the Second World War based on War Crimes Trials materials, original Japanese sources, and detailed accounts by Japanese historians. Originally published in 1966. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.




Rethinking Japan's Identity and International Role


Book Description

This paper presents a study of Japan's international role with a special focus on its historical evolution. To that end, the following three pillars lay the necessary theoretical foundations: one, the notions of historical and political identity and a discussion of the ambivalent shapes they have taken in Japan; two, the regional context, an examination of Japan's situation with respect to Asian history as a whole, and finally, the "civilian power" concept as defined by Hanns W. Maull.




Japan's Quest: The Search for International Recognition, Status and Role


Book Description

An international team of ten specialists in Japanese and American foreign relations address the crucial question: what role should Japan play in international affairs? They try to find a satisfactory answer to a concern which was first raised in the mid-19th century.




Japan’s Decision For War In 1941: Some Enduring Lessons


Book Description

Japan’s decision to attack the United States in 1941 is widely regarded as irrational to the point of suicidal. How could Japan hope to survive a war with, much less defeat, an enemy possessing an invulnerable homeland and an industrial base 10 times that of Japan? The Pacific War was one that Japan was always going to lose, so how does one explain Tokyo’s decision? Did the Japanese recognize the odds against them? Did they have a concept of victory, or at least of avoiding defeat? Or did the Japanese prefer a lost war to an unacceptable peace? Dr. Jeffrey Record takes a fresh look at Japan’s decision for war, and concludes that it was dictated by Japanese pride and the threatened economic destruction of Japan by the United States. He believes that Japanese aggression in East Asia was the root cause of the Pacific War, but argues that the road to war in 1941 was built on American as well as Japanese miscalculations and that both sides suffered from cultural ignorance and racial arrogance. Record finds that the Americans underestimated the role of fear and honor in Japanese calculations and overestimated the effectiveness of economic sanctions as a deterrent to war, whereas the Japanese underestimated the cohesion and resolve of an aroused American society and overestimated their own martial prowess as a means of defeating U.S. material superiority. He believes that the failure of deterrence was mutual, and that the descent of the United States and Japan into war contains lessons of great and continuing relevance to American foreign policy and defense decision-makers.