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This paper is concerned with the changing informal views of Japan held in Britain in the decade after 1931. It investigates the relationship between understanding and policy, and how the needs of policy, most significantly the subordination of Asia to Europe, impinged on understanding. In looking in microcosm at where Japan Watchers, made up of newspapermen, missionaries and businessmen, interacted with formal diplomats and government officials, this paper focuses on the lectures and journals of learned societies in London, especially the Royal Central Asian Society, which served as one conduit through which knowledge of Japan passed to an audience with a regional interest. A wider audience was reached through newspapers. In trying to influence the reading public, the importance of ideas having to resonate with the concerns of the reader is stressed. It is emphasized that influence on perception is often dependent on a particular time. The views of Old China Hands came to supplant those of Japan Watchers in influencing the British image of Japan by the late 1930s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan is one of the richest democracies of Asia, a pillar of the international liberal order in the region, and a strongly pacifist nation with the only anti-war constitution in the world. It is also one of three major countries which have elected to incorporate human security principles as intrinsic components of foreign policy. However, its implementation of human security principles in some areas, especially refugee policy, belies its rhetorical commitments; it boasts the lowest number of refugees among all industrialised nations. What explains this discrepancy? Through a comparative study of the Indochinese and the Rohingya refugee crises, this study aims to offer a corrective and a supplement to Sarah Tanke's work (2021) by arguing that despite Japanese officials' championing of a human security narrative in the international arena, the gap between declaration and implementation, especially regarding the human security of displaced persons in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond, points to their instrumental use of such a narrative to avoid international censure and free ride on the international asylum regime. It further investigates the domestic political, social and psychological factors modulating this behaviour, and argues for a broader role for international pressure in order to bring about policy change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2001 Tokyo and Brussels had very ambitious plans on paper for international economic, political and security co-operation when they adopted the so-called EU-Japan Action Plan for Co-operation (also EU-Japan Action Plan). However, to date, few of the envisioned joint international policies in the areas of global and regional politics and security have actually been implemented since 2001. The EU Commission has repeatedly referred in its recent so-called ‘information notes’ and official documents to the outcome of envisioned joint EU-Japan policies as being ‘disappointing’, acknowledging that the Action Plan suffered from a lack of focus and sought to tackle too many issues and areas without sufficient resources and adequate instruments. Without dismissing out of hand the achievements of EU-Japan on-the-ground cooperation in the areas of international politics and security, much more could have been done together in international conflict prevention, peace-building and other areas of non-military security cooperation given the resources, instruments and capabilities available in both Europe and Japan. This article analyzes why this did not take place, and is unlikely to take place in the near future. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The content of Japanese history textbooks became the focus of much media and academic attention after the internationalization of the issue in 1982 when Japan was accused by the Chinese government of attempting to re-write its wartime invasion of China in school textbooks. The issue threatened to disrupt the celebrations for the tenth anniversary of Sino-lapanese normalization and, according to some observers, set back Sino-Japanese relations by ten years. In recent years Japanese textbooks have been seen in a more positive light, with progress being made on the inclusion of references to the comfort women and, more recently, Ienaga Saburō's partial victory in his long-standing legal battle with the government. Some have argued that it was the events of 1982 which sparked off the movement to 'liberalize' Japanese textbooks, and that after that date descriptions of Japanese wartime activities in Asia became more 'truthful'. This paper examines the events of the 1982 textbook issue, focusing on the response of the Japanese government to Chinese (and Korean) protests and assessing Japan's foreign policy making vis-à-vis China. Japanese governments are often considered to adopt a 'grovelling' foreign policy with respect to China, giving in to Chinese demands whenever the issue of 'history' is raised. This paper assesses the validity of this claim, using the textbook issue as a case study, and questions whether the textbooks really were radically altered as a result of this diplomatic controversy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the relational nature of globalization between Japan and Britain, and addresses Japanization in this context. Japanization, defined as Japanese influence on UK management styles (particularly in the area of production management), will be examined through three case studieswhich illustrate the context of Japanization in terms of the convergence of British management towards human resource management (HRM). Hallmarks of Japanization are methods and techniques of production management which overlap with those of HRM. It is also significant that the diffusion of Japanization and HRM in Britain took place concurrently, leading to the conclusion that Japanization and HRM represent a synergistic relationship of managerial strategy, on the one hand, offering suitable conditions for Japanization, and, on the other, the enhanced diffusion of HRM in Britain through Japanization. This paper also examines how British academics have reflected Japanization in their research. In this way, it is also possible to pinpoint the influence of Japanese techniques and methods effective for production management. Although Japanization and HRM overlap both in content and period of diffusion, in the long term Japanization may be considered as an integral part of the general diffusion of HRM in Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the Cold War, one of the biggest security challenges in Europe was the war in the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). This article analyses Japanese foreign policy towards the Republic of Croatia, considering it the focal point of the Yugoslav crisis from the end of the Cold War in 1989, through the disintegration of the SFRY in 1991, until the establishment of diplomatic relations with Japan in 1993. Although the general opinion was that Japan did not have strong interests in this region, this article shows that Japan used the trilateral US–Europe–Japan framework to approach the Yugoslav crisis. It is argued that Japan acted indirectly through international institutions. Japan acted bilaterally to condition international recognition and sanctions using diplomacy and aid as its tools and multilaterally through the EBRD, G7, G24, UN, and the CSCE/OSCE by providing Japanese nationals as election monitoring staff. Japan's diplomatic efforts and humanitarian and reconstruction aid in the former SFRY were considerable. The larger implications of this article concern Japan–EU relations. By aiding the former SFRY republics to achieve democracy and market economy, Japan facilitated future NATO and EU expansion to protect its economic interests in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the ways in which various risks, threats and opportunities posed to Japan by the 'rise of China' have been articulated and managed in post-Cold War Japan. It focuses in particular on the period since 2001, and more narrowly on the nature of threat perceptions and risk assessments that emerged during Koizumi Junichirō's prime ministership, but also considers some of the continuities in Japanese perceptions of China since Koizumi's departure. It shows how the discourse in Japan on the 'China threat' has evolved since the 1990s to include assessments of a rising China which go beyond the traditional indicators of capabilities and intentions and which attempt to measure the risks (seen as both opportunities and dangers) posed by new challenges. It suggests, therefore, that the concept of risk helps to explain the multiple strategies adopted by the Japanese government as a means of 'managing' the rise of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan's new treaties with the Western powers came into force in the summer of 1899. These signified Japan's recognition as a modern state, but also opened the whole of Japan to residence and commerce for the nationals of the Western powers. This article examines Japan's legislative response to this new era of both political equality and expanded foreign intercourse and exchange. This comprised two new laws, Japan's first nationality law and new entry restrictions, both of which defined the boundaries of Japanese identity. The West played a paramount role in the crafting of these laws, but often forgotten is the role played by China. By examining the international contexts and the debates that attended the passage of these laws, this article shows that each law enacted a form of exclusion: the former sought to mitigate Western influence, while the latter sought to minimize Chinese immigration. Together, they reflected Japan's international position between two others: China and the West. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sesame Street, the longest running and most popular children's program in world television history, has failed to gain a large fan base in Japan because of notions of place. Since 1969,Sesame Street has taught socialization skills, pioneered programming formats, developed marketing strategies and spread American ideologies. Sesame Street has aired in English in 145 countries; over thirty countries have developed localized versions. Japan's NHK public television broadcast Sesame Street from 1971 to 2004 to teach English to secondary-school students. In 2004, Sesame Street was moved to the commercial TV Tokyo network and was localized. Muppets were added to appeal to younger children. Yet the program was cancelled in 2007. A key to Sesame Street's worldwide success has been teaching cognitive skills and promoting compassion for local cultural differences, while tapping consumer desires for idealized American childhood. When New York was erased and the English language removed, Sesame Street could not compete with Japan's already extensive children's television market. Sesame Street characters, however, became more successful when removed from their original context. I overview five aspects of Sesame Street in Japan and Japan in Sesame Street that best exemplify the program's cultural and consumerist politics, significance in television history and the image of urban society it represents. Namely, I analyze Sesame Street's place on children's television, the reasons for its importation and localization, depictions of Japan, broadcast history and legacy after cancellation. I argue that the kind of popularity Sesame Street has enjoyed in Japan is different than in other countries and provides insight into the Japanese television industry and marketing of American childhood. I explore a historical moment when television was particularly influential in international relations and in constructing notions of ‘home’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This mini special issue introduces readers to an important, but often overlooked intellectual current in post-war Japan: realism. While most attention has focused on pacifism and anti-militarism, this issue reveals the important contributions made by Japanese realists, and how they creatively incorporated elements of pacifism, anti-militarism and even progressivism into forms of realism that arguably made a unique and creative contribution to global realist theory. This issue translates in full into English for the first time major essays by two of the best known post-war realists in Japan: Kōsaka Masataka and Nagai Yōnosuke. This issue also highlights a major preoccupation for Japanese realists, one evident throughout the Kōsaka and Nagai essays, and for Japanese foreign policy in general: the country's relationship with China and the normalization of relations from the perspective of the second half of the 1960s. The third article in this mini-special issue, a translation of a recent work of diplomatic history, shows to what extent the realist considerations of Kōsaka and Nagai are translated by practitioners at the end of the 1960s into Japanese policy toward China on the eve of Sino-Japanese normalization. These translations provide perspective on the challenges Japan faces today when formulating policy toward a China that has become even more important for Japan than it was already in the 1960s. They highlight the recurrence of several tensions and debates, such as Japan's identity as a “western” versus as an East Asian nation, how to deal with a confrontational China, the role of military power versus diplomacy, and how to balance relations between China and the U.S. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article Nagai Yōnosuke uses balance-of-threat-like realist logic to argue that the core aim of Japan's grand strategy must be to minimize potential adversaries while maximizing allies for the sake of deterring attacks from potential adversaries and maximizing the country's freedom of choice. He warns against the idealistic radicalism of both the left and the right in Japan, which he argues is a decontinuation of prewar fanaticism in new ideological clothing. While indicting idealists for suffering from an ‘illusion of omnipotenence’, he criticizes ‘overcautious foreign ministry bureaucrats’, a timidity he attributes to an ‘accumulation of indolence.’ Both tendencies threaten Japan's ability to pursue its core aim of maximizing friends and minimizing enemies. To realize this aim Nagai calls for improving relations with the Soviet Union and even forming a “northern axis” with Washington and Moscow to help isolate China in the short run. Nonetheless, in the longer term he sees this as an indirect means to normalize relations with China. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Lisbon Treaty signalled that the European Parliament had become a central actor in the EU-Japan economic and trade partnership. In 2007, the ‘Global Europe’ strategy formalized the EU's process of expanding trade relationships via free trade agreements (FTAs). The EU-Korea FTA was the first of these to enter into force in 2011. Should Japan and the EU move forward with their own bilateral economic agreement despite a number of pending economic and trade issues ranging from mutual recognition or harmonization in clinical trials to the expansion of foreign direct investment to regulatory transparency? There are two main stumbling blocks to an agreement: linkage of issues and non-tariff measures (NTMs), i.e. local rules and standards that hinder trade. Three case studies in aerospace, telecommunications and food safety show that linkage has not been successful and highlights specific NTMs. The findings indicate that progress toward an EU-Japan FTA (or economic integration agreement or economic partnership agreement) hinges on the sector's regulatory past, the degree of transparency including the presence of NTMs and external factors including global trends and momentum towards agreements in other parts of the world. It remains to be seen if a formal bilateral trade arrangement is likely to result from the adoption of new approaches to negotiations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The year 2011 marked the twentieth anniversary of the Hague Declaration of 1991 between Japan and the European Community. This declaration was originally intended to enhance the bilateral relationship between Japan and Europe, but the reality was little more than a reluctant promotion of several insignificant programs. Meanwhile, although the EU has significantly developed its partnership with China, it has become ambivalent about the future of EU-Asia relations. While endeavouring to expand its economic ties with China, the EU also attempts to be a ‘normative power’, but, because of the limited nature of the EU's influence in East Asia, it needs normative partners in this region. This article argues that the EU-Japan relationship is becoming more vital because of the increasing importance of norms due to the rise of China. In the last decade, the Japanese government has increasingly emphasized the importance of values and norms in its diplomacy. At the same time, both the EU and Japan have been leading advocates of international law and multilateralism, while striving to promote democracy, human rights and the rule of law. Thus, the Cold War ‘trilateralism’, which was the core of the Western Alliance, has been transformed into the post-Cold War ‘normative partnership’. It is argued that the importance of EU-Japan relations can be appropriately understood in this light. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This introduction outlines the EU-Japan relationship and where it stands at present. At the last summit meeting the two sides decided to start parallel negotiations for (1) a deep and comprehensive free-trade agreement or economic partnership agreement; and (2) a binding agreement covering political, security and other areas of global cooperation. Here the factors that have led both the EU and Japan to abandon the former policy of defining the overall relationship with ten-year plans, such as the 1991 Hague Declaration and the 2001 Action Plan, will be analyzed. The present negotiations will be put in historical perspective, and what is new and unique this time will be analyzed. These EU-Japan agreements will be placed in a comparative global perspective relative to other major agreements. Finally, this introduction will also introduce the other articles in this special issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines Japan's relations with the Soviet Union/Russian Federation during the sixteen-year period between Gorbachev's coming to power in 1985 and Putin's completion of his first year as president in the spring of 2001. It identifies five lost windows of opportunity for solving the Northern Territories dispute between these two nations, which might have significantly improved the bilateral relationship. At the time of the first missed opportunity under Gorbachev in 1986-1988, the Cold War rigidity in relations still deeply affected how Japan and the Soviet Union dealt with one another. The second missed opportunity under Gorbachev in 1989 saw structural rigidity on the part of Japanese policy-makers hampering the faster development of the relationship. The third missed opportunity under Yeltsin in 1992 was the consequence of a failure in policy choices on the Japanese side and of policy-makers not fulfilling their responsibility. At the fourth missed opportunity under Yeltsin in 1997-1998, the Japanese side learned lessons from past mistakes and did not hesitate to propose a courageous proposal to break the impasse. President Yeltsin was impressed by this proposal, but the Russian side as a whole did not accept it as a basis for negotiations. Before the fifth missed opportunity, awareness of past failures was very much at the forefront of Japanese and Russian negotiators' mind. The negotiations proceeded unexpectedly fast and effectively in 2000-2001, and then were suddenly crushed because of domestic issues in Japan. Individual responsibility was fulfilled in negotiating with the Russians, but the negotiators were unable to overcome domestic constraint. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although home-grown NGO-type organisations have existed in Japan for a century or more, it has only been in the last two decades that significant numbers of Japanese NGOs have become active internationally, promoting international educational, cultural, scientific, economic and environmental co-operation. This is particularly noticeable in the case of Japanese NGOs' activities in China. With the growth in China's economy, international trade and other activities, Japanese people have become increasingly sensitive to environmental, political and social problems within China. In addition to this are the perennial problems caused by the troubled history of relations between the two countries. To help address these issues, a large number of Japanese NGOs have been set up in recent years to focus on exchanges of people and ideas between China and Japan. In order to investigate the background and reasons for this situation, this article first charts the development of international NGOs in Japan, considering changes in Japan's civil society and international awareness. It then considers why Japanese NGOs have become active in China and what kinds of activities they are focusing upon in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how changes in both the international environment and domestic politics have influenced defence policy and debates on constitutional revision in Japan since the Second World War. Idealism in security policy was institutionalised in Article Nine of the Constitution of 1947 and an idealism-versus-realism schism was entrenched in the political arena during the 1950s. Japan developed its own defence capability from the 1960s, however, and the disjunction between constitutional limits on security policy and changes in the international environment became apparent in the 1990s, which in combination with domestic political changes led to the 'sudden death' of idealism. Despite the new political landscape, however, and the changed international situation, the gap between the unrevised Constitution and the reality of Japan's security remain critical. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The changes in world politics and the upheavals in domestic Japanese politics from 1989 onwards can be surmised to have had an impact on Japan's foreign policy. This article presents a comparison of Japan's official foreign-policy doctrine, aptly called the 'Yoshida doctrine', before and after 1993. The study is based on data from policy speeches delivered by the prime ministers to the Diet. While elements of both continuity and change are discerned, the over-all conclusion is that Japan's official foreign-policy doctrine did not alter after 1993. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ozawa Ichirō was probably the most visible Japanese politician in the 1990s. During this period he was not only active on the domestic political scene, but also in the process of Japan's foreign policy-making. His position towards foreign policy was consistent and he strongly argued and acted for a bigger role for Japan in world politics. This study focuses on Ozawa as an actor in foreign policy-making in the following three case studies: 1) United States (US)-Japan economic issues under the Takeshita administration; 2) the Gulf War under the Kaifu administration; and 3) the Uruguay Round and the US-Japan framework talks under the Hosokawa administration. Although Ozawa was not in an official position with legal authority, he effectively used his informal sources of power to deal with these issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rise of nationalisms in Japan and China in the 1980s and 1990s aroused much interest in Western, Chinese and Japanese academic and journalistic circles and prompted some analysts to speculate about potential conflict between China and Japan. This article questions such arguments by examining nationalisms in China and Japan in the 1980s and 1990s. It identifies similar trends in the resurgence of state nationalism and cultural nationalism in both countries, and argues that, although élites in both countries were active in promoting patriotism in the 1980s and 1990s, their efforts had limited impact, whereas cultural nationalism, on the other hand, managed to capture the popular mood. The article suggests that, nonetheless, because both types of nationalism were predominantly inward-oriented responses to domestic and external changes, relations between China and Japan remained relatively stable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]