Tag: China-Japan

  • Yasukuni in Context: Nationalism and History in Japan

    Documents revealed in March that the Japanese government’s long-held position that it had nothing to do with the enshrinement of war criminals at Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo wasn’t exactly, well, accurate. This week at Japan Focus, Akiko Takenaka has written a great update on these revelations. It’s published with an Asahi Shimbun editorial calling for…

  • McCain on N. Korea, Rearming Japan, and Taiwan (Oct. 2006)

    In a Hannity & Colmes interview last year devoted mostly to attacking U.S. efforts to control North Korea under President Bill Clinton, Senator John McCain—now a leading Republican presidential candidate—said if the United Nations doesn’t do enough to control North Korea, Japan will have to “rearm.” And he said, puzzlingly, that something he refers to…

  • Nixon in China Part One: Keeping Japan in Line

    This is the first of two posts in which I will outline some historical context on U.S.–China–Japan relations surrounding Nixon’s 1972 China visit. This material is all drawn from Margaret MacMillan’s Nixon and Mao, which I recently finished reading. (Page citations are included.) The book was full of engaging reconstructions of the diplomatic maneuvers and…

  • Wen: Japan Trip 'Most Important Task' so Far in Office

    Noted, from Howard French’s piece today (emphasis mine): In reality, [Chinese Primier] Wen [Jiabao], too, mostly sticks closely to the script – a fact that he himself revealed in an unusually candid discussion of his preparation for the Japan trip. “This is the most important task since I took office,” he told an audience of…

  • Asahi: Stating the Obvious With a Little Attitude

    The English version of the Asahi Shimbun article about the U.S. action against China in the WTO over intellectual property has a pretty obvious headline: “WTO complaints against China put Japan in a bind.” It addresses the fact that the U.S. government asked Japan to join the action (and they haven’t decided yet as far…