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In This Issue
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Gavan
McCormack
Jeff Kingston
Komori
Yoichi
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Greetings!
On the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre of
June 4, 1989, we reveal the surprising fact that George Orwell's Nineteen
Eighty-Four is alive and well in China, in translation. Along with Animal
Farm. Find out about it in Michael Rank's report on Big Brother's
availability in Chinese bookshops even as internet censorship tightens. But
are we past the time when Orwell can be read sanctimoniously as a critique
of the totalitarian other, or does he speak to the post-Snowden global
condition? Jeff Kingston provides a major overview of the Abe
administration's attempts to impose nuclear power on Japan in the face of
continued popular opposition, noting that the long anticipated energy
shortfall has not materialized while the massive problems of the Fukushima
plants continue unabated. Literary critic Komori Yoichi offers surprising
insight into Japan's protracted movement to defend Article 9, linking the
issues to the movement for economic justice which has been largely
invisible outside Japan. New insight into the determined US-Japan plan to
impose the new Henoko base on a recalcitrant Okinawa is presented in four
new translations by Gavan McCormack on the current struggle.
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Gavan McCormack
Introduction and Four Texts translated
from Japanese
Tension in and around Okinawa
rises. The Abe Shinzo government repeatedly assures Washington that the
base it promises to construct for the US Marine Corps at Henoko in Northern
Okinawa will proceed, come what may. The process of construction of a
massive new military facility on a region that is at Okinawan law reserved
for the very highest level of protection for its rich biodiversity is
described in joint US-Japan communiques as "commitment to reducing the
base hosting impact on Okinawa." Henoko construction has been made a
condition for the return of the existing Futenma Marine Air Station in
Ginowan City, upon whom, as a result, the "burden" would be
lessened. Yet from 1996 to today, Okinawa has consistently and effectively
resisted all such attempts to build a new base.
Here, the author expands APJ's ongoing coverage of the crisis by presenting
four English language translations of recent related writings: two
editorials from Okinawan daily newspapers, an impassioned plea from
Nago City author Urashima Etsuko, and a short report on the discovery of
significant numbers of the endangered dugong in the Henoko Bay vicinity.
Through their writings and protests Okinawans continue to assert their
rights as citizens in whom, under the constitution, sovereignty resides.
Gavan McCormack is an emeritus professor
of Australian National University and coordinator of The Asia-Pacific
Journal. He is co-author with John Dower of the recently published Tenkanki no Nihon e - Pax
Americana ka Pax Asia ka (NHK Bukkusu, 2014).
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Jeff Kingston
After 3.11:
Imposing Nuclear Energy on a Skeptical Japanese Public
In April 2014 Prime Minister Abe unveiled Japan's new national
energy strategy, reinstating nuclear energy as a key source of energy even
as the shambolic cleanup and decommissioning at Fukushima Daiichi
lurches from one blunder to the next malfunction, and
radiation-contaminated groundwater flows into the ocean. This is a major
milestone in the comeback of nuclear energy despite a seemingly endless
cascade of damning revelations about lax safety practices and perfunctory
oversight since the three reactor meltdowns in March 2011. 2014 may be
Japan's last nuclear free summer for the next few decades as pressure is
mounting to restart some of Japan's 48 idled reactors.
Why has Fukushima not been a game changing event? In this
article, the author articulates the considerable policymaking advantages
enjoyed by the institutions of Japan's nuclear village (principally the
utilities, big business, the bureaucracy and the Diet). Kingston argues
that Abe's nuclear renaissance is possible because the nuclear village has
been relatively successful in damage control while also working the
corridors of power and backrooms where energy policy is decided. The
reinstatement of nuclear energy in the 2014 national energy policy marks a
victory for the nuclear village, a remarkable example of institutional
resilience in the face of extremely adverse developments since the massive
earthquake and tsunami struck.
Jeff Kingston is the Director of Asian
Studies, Temple University Japan. He is the editor of Natural Disaster and Nuclear
Crisis in Japan: Response and Recovery after Japan's 3/11,
Routledge 2012 and the author of Contemporary
Japan, London: Wiley 2013.
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Komori Yoichi
Japan's Article 9 and Economic Justice:
The Work of Shinagawa Masaji
Introduced by Norma Field
Translated by Miho MATSUGU
Shinagawa Masaji, the dean of Japan's
progressive financial leaders of the postwar era, is the subject of this
memorial tribute. The author elaborates on Shinagawa's commitment to the
"no-war clause," as well as his years of union activism and
espousal of "revisionist capitalism." Shinagawa's example prompts
wide-ranging comparison, whether to Nordic models (see the intriguing comparison
recently published by APJ on Sweden and Japan's policies in the face of
financial crisis), or in another era of US capitalism, Henry Ford's brand
of investment in anti-union employee well-being and espousal of pacifism.
The author, who also serves as executive secretary of the Article 9
Association, emphasizes Shinagawa's impassioned commitment to both the
antiwar and economic justice causes, at a time when popular
understanding tends to separate advocates of the two causes.
Komori Yoichi is a scholar of modern
Japanese literature at the University of Tokyo. His numerous books include The Voices of the Dead, the
Words of the Living: In Pursuit of Nuclear Japan through Literature
(Shinnihon Shuppansha, 2014).
Miho Matsugu has taught Japanese language and literature at
Grinnell College in Iowa and DePaul University in Chicago.
Norma Field is Robert S. Ingersoll Distinguished Service
Professor Emerita, University of Chicago and a Japan Focus Associate.
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Michael Rank
Orwell in China: Big Brother in every
bookshop
In this article, Michael Rank explores dystopian author George Orwell's
intellectual and political interest in China during the 1930s and 1940s.
Orwell voiced his anger over Japan's invasion of China and spoke about
Chinese resistance in several BBC scripts. He was appalled at the
eye-witness stories of extreme Japanese cruelty that came to his attention
at the BBC. With unusual insight, he dated the beginning of World War II
not to the German invasion of Poland in 1939 but to the Japanese invasion
of northeast China in 1931. The author also considers China's interest in
Orwell's Nineteen
Eighty-four and Animal
Farm through a close examination of the history of translation
and publication of the two works in the PRC.
Michael Rank is a British journalist and translator. He was a Reuters
correspondent in China from 1980 to 1984, followed by two years in east and
southern Africa. He has written about Tibet in the 1920s for the Bulletin
of Tibetology as well as news reports.
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