In April 2004, Americans were stunned when CBS broadcast those now-notorious photographs from Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, showing hooded Iraqis stripped naked while U.S. soldiers stood by smiling. As this scandal grabbed headlines around the globe, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld insisted that the abuses were “perpetrated by a small number of U.S. military,” whom New York Times' columnist William Safire soon branded “creeps”–a line that few in the press had reason to challenge.

Tokyo Shimbun, which many regard as one of the few Japanese newspapers that honestly report what is going on at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, ran an important article yesterday, drawing on their own investigative interview with NISA, Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, a division of METI, Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry. Here is a translation of the report. This is a critical article that calls for further investigation, particularly in the wake of PM Noda's “Cold Shutdown” declaration concerning which questions have been raised by experts and international media (See New York Times, Bloomberg, CNN, Xinhua). According to Geoff Brumfiel at Nature: “the reactors are leaking, and TEPCO must continue to inject water at the rate of around half-a-million litres a day, according to its latest press release. Moreover, the plant continues to pose an environmental risk, as evidenced by a recent leak from a system designed to decontaminate water flowing out from the core.” Bloomberg quotes reactor safety expert Narabayashi Tadashi: “Achieving cold shutdown does not change the condition of the reactors. It does mean the government will start reviewing evacuation zones and perhaps lifting restrictions depending on extent of contamination.” He also emphasises that “Work on decommissioning is a long way off. For now, they have to focus on making robots to remove melted fuel and developing new technologies to demolish facilities.” With work on bringing Fukushima Daiichi under control far from over, despite the Japanese government's self-congratulatory tone in the “Cold Shutdown” announcement, Tokyo Shimbun's exposé on the lack of official concern for radiocative water leaks seems particularly important. Even if the situation at the plant itself is improving, honest reporting is absolutely necessary as Japan moves from control to clean-up. Here again, Japanese regulators and politicians seem to be falling short.

By now it has surely dawned on Japan's political establishment, eager for issues of Japanese war accountability to fade away, that appointing Aso Taro to the post of foreign minister last fall was a major mistake. While Aso's provocative comments about Japanese imperialism and war conduct predated his tenure as the nation's top diplomat, the historical record of forced labor in Japan by Asians and Allied POWs is being newly thrust into the media spotlight.

Thousands of Korean labor conscripts were exploited for dangerous work in the northern Kyushu coalfields owned by Aso Mining Company between 1939 and 1945. Most Korean forced laborers never received the wages they earned; the money was deposited in the national treasury after the war and remains there today. The Aso family's coal profits helped bankroll the rise of the dominant political figure in early postwar Japan, Yoshida Shigeru, who was prime minister when Aso Mining and scores of other Japanese corporations quietly deposited the unpaid wages of some 700,000 Korean labor conscripts. Yoshida was also Aso Taro's grandfather.

This article examines the problems associated with the fact that Japanese nuclear power plants have multiple reactors within one plant and are concentrated in specific regions. It analyzes the situation from international, domestic, and local perspectives, revealing features of Japanese state-local relations.

For all who have opposed Pakistan's nuclear program over the years -
including myself - the US-India nuclear agreement may be the
worst thing that has happened in a long time.

Post agreement: Pakistan's ruling elite is confused and bitter. They know that India has overtaken Pakistan in far too many areas for there to be any reasonable basis for symmetry. They see the US is now interested in reconstructing the geopolitics of South Asia and in repairing relations with India, not in mollifying Pakistani grievances. Nevertheless, there were lingering hopes of a sweetener during President George W. Bush's furtive and unwelcomed visit in March 2006 to Islamabad. There was none.

Although Miyazawa Kenji did not start writing Night on the Milky Way Train until sometime in 1924, it is clear that the event that gave him the idea for the novel and, curiously, the strength to complete it, had taken place some two years earlier, on 27 November 1922, to be precise. This was the day his beloved little sister, Toshi, died, age 24. It was Kenji's way to accompany her on the journey he described in the first two lines of his poem “The Morning of Last Farewell”…

Tension rises throughout the East China Sea and especially in the vicinity of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands where Japanese, Chinese and Taiwanese fishing and coastguard vessels jostle, each insisting that the islands and their adjacent waters are their own sovereign territory. National, and to some extent global, attention focusses on an “Okinawa problem” that has, until recently, been almost entirely seen in the context of the main island of Okinawa, where the “world's most dangerous base,” Futenma Marine Air Station, continues to sit in the middle of Ginowan City 16 years after its promised return, where works on a projected new base to replace it at Henoko in Nago City to the north remain blocked, and where plans to introduce the highly controversial tilt-rotor MV-22 Osprey aircraft have roused the entire prefecture to fierce united protest. Yonaguni opens a new front in the contest between the agenda that the governments of Japan and the United States are intent on imposing and local aspirations for an order of peace and cooperation that would finally supplant Cold War confrontation.

South Korea's welfare system has undergone radical institutional expansion since the 1990s, largely as a consequence of the financial crisis of 1997. Despite these changes, however, public social expenditure remains extremely low in comparison with all other Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. The social insurance system and social welfare service sector remain underdeveloped. The current welfare system in Korea can best be characterized as a residual model in which state intervention remains limited and the family and the private market economy play the central roles in providing a social safety net. This situation is largely the legacy of the “growth-first” ideology, which has remained the dominant approach favored by the majority of Korea's political and economic decision-makers since the period of authoritarian rule (1961–1993), together with the adoption of Western European-style neoliberal restructuring, which was implemented following the financial crisis of 1997.

In addition to political participation, women's groups in Japan continue to advocate for equality in employment opportunities and to challenge gendered labor structures. Charles Weathers discusses the question of whether Japan has truly progressed towards equal career opportunities for women after twenty years of legislative interventions (1985-2005). Weathers provides a concise overview of some of the lingering obstacles that women confront in Japan's workforce. First, he highlights the reality that companies in Japan find ways of evading gender equality in hiring and promotion structures. The so-called “dual-track” personnel system allowed corporations to hire managers (men) versus clerical workers (women). Even after the equality laws established in 1985 and 1999, firms could still divide workers into “regular” versus “non-regular” categories. Female employees often fall into the category of “non-regular” workers, which include “part-timers” who may work full hours or temporary employees with limited contracts. Non-regular workers lack job security, an issue particularly discriminatory when some firms continue to offer “regular” male employees lifetime employment.

While other articles in this course reader treat the earlier forces that created and framed Zainichi, Rumi Sakamoto's article deals with the discourse in contemporary Japan concerning Zainichi Koreans. As John Lie recognizes in his article, many Japanese still view Zainichi Koreans with racist animosity; this is also the case in cyberspace.

Bangkok - Seared into Southeast Asia's collective memory is the iconic image of the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, where International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Michel Camdessus towered with crossed arms over a bent-down Indonesian President Suharto as he signed a sovereignty-eroding bailout agreement for his distressed economy.

Shijiazhuang, Hebei, China — Hundreds of feet below ground, the primary water source for this provincial capital of more than two million people is steadily running dry. The underground water table is sinking about four feet a year. Municipal wells have already drained two-thirds of the local groundwater.

Above ground, this city in the North China Plain is having a party. Economic growth topped 11 percent last year. Population is rising. A new upscale housing development is advertising waterfront property on lakes filled with pumped groundwater. Another half-built complex, the Arc de Royal, is rising above one of the lowest points in the city's water table.

Introduction: In recent years controversy has centered on China's advance, both geopolitically and economically, in the South China Sea, East China sea, and in Africa. Here Andre Vltchek provides a look at another Chinese “export” as virtuoso pianist Yuan Sheng brings his music to the slums of Kenya and poses this question: can Africa follow in the footsteps of Venezuela and Brazil in using music as a way out of poverty for some of its youth? APJ.

Historians rightfully insist on learning from history. Indeed, history tends to repeat itself - just as mankind stubbornly tends to ignore that fact. Bruce Cumings’ historical take on the succession issue in the DPRK is thus an important and welcome addition to the many different voices that have tried to make sense of what is happening and to provide a glimpse into the future. However, as an economist I know the risks of applying, implicitly or explicitly, the ceteris paribus condition (all other things being equal). Karl Marx, a classical economist but also a historian, saw history repeating itself in the form of a spiral. Developments tend to appear like a repetitive circle if viewed from the top, but vertical change becomes visible if seen from the side. If we try to understand the nature of Kim Jong- un's leadership, we cannot do so without a long-term understanding of the North Korean system. But we should also consider the many differences between the years 1994 and 2012. The world has changed, North Korea has changed, and even the process of preparation for succession differed. We have yet to see whether the long-term systemic currents will dominate, or whether the many details that differ in Kim Jong-un's case will substantially shape the outcome of the political process in Pyongyang. True, doomsayers were wrong in 1994, and we are able to explain why. But at least some of the reasons for their wrong assessment are gone, opening the possibility that they might be right in 2012. Or they might be wrong again - for new reasons. RF

Escalating tension with China, violently illustrated by renewed anti-Japanese protests in Shanghai and other big cities at the weekend, is increasing pressure on Tokyo to expand its military capabilities and back a deepening strategic alliance with the US reaching from East Asia to the Gulf.

On 29 June, Japan witnessed its largest public protest since the 1960s. This was the latest in a series of Friday night gatherings outside Prime Minister Noda Yoshihiko's official residence. Well over one hundred thousand people came together to vent their anger at his 16 June decision to order a restart of Units 3 and 4 at the Oi nuclear plant . This article discusses the events of the last several weeks which sparked this massive turnout as well as the nature of the protest. It begins by outlining the Japanese government's recent policies affirming nuclear power, from Noda's nationwide address of 8 June justifying the Oi restarts on the grounds of ‘protecting livelihoods’, and continuing with the move on 20 June to revise the Atomic Energy Basic Law and establish a law to set up a new, yet potentially toothless, nuclear regulatory agency.

On June 10, 2014, the Article 9 Association marks its tenth anniversary, more than ever embattled and determined. As illustrated by Alexis Dudden’s recent article on this site, “The Nomination of Article 9 of Japan's Constitution for a Nobel Peace Prize,” business people figure in the broad swath of “Japanese people who conserve Article 9” recognized as worthy of consideration for the Peace Prize by the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Shinagawa Masaji, the subject of this memorial tribute by prominent modern literature scholar and executive secretary of the Article 9 Association Komori Yoichi, was surely the dean of progressive financial leaders of the postwar era. English-language readers who follow Japan are likely to be aware of the political clout of Keidanren (Japan Business Federation), which not so incidentally supports Constitutional revision. Miho Matsugu's generously annotated translation* of Komori's tribute to Shinagawa following his death in August of 2013 provides a glimpse of an association, Keizai Doyukai, or Japan Association of Corporate Executives, that has often projected a contrasting sense of mission. Given the neo-liberal furor reigning over the ever bellicose US and its client state Japan (to borrow Gavan McCormack’s designation, as in “Japan’s Client State (Zokkoku) Problem”), we are right to be painfully aware of the limited capacity of capitalism to benefit all human beings-not to mention our home the earth. It is all the more refreshing, then, to learn not only about Shinagawa's commitment to the “no-war clause” but also his years of union activism and espousal of “revisionist capitalism.” His example prompts wide-ranging comparison, whether to Nordic models (see the intriguing comparison recently published on this site of 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, albeit a pacifism fundamentally flawed by anti-Semitism.

“While it is crucial to explicitly define and communicate the acts or damage that we would find unacceptable, we should not be too specific about our responses. Because of the value that comes from the ambiguity of what the US might do to an adversary if the acts we seek to deter are carried out, it hurts to portray ourselves as too fully rational and cool – headed. The fact that some elements may appear to be potentially ”out of control“ can be beneficial to creating and reinforcing fears and doubts within the minds of an adversary's decision makers. This essential sense of fear is the working force of deterrence. That the US may become irrational and vindictive if its vital interests are attacked should be a part of the national persona we project to all adversaries.” Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger called this the Madman Strategy. For nuclear weapons to serve as a deterrent, it's not enough simply to possess them. The problem is, it's difficult to believe that a person of ordinary human feeling or rationality would actually use them. A first strike would be a moral abomination, and would also mean abandoning the policy of deterrence; a second strike would mean that deterrence had failed, so that its only motive would be vengeance. For nuclear weapons to be an effective deterrent, it's best for a government to persuade adversaries that its leaders are crazy enough to use them – as the document says, “out of control”, “irrational and vindictive”.

Toyota is back on top after one of the worst crises in its history. But has it solved its problems, or just buried them?

In 2008, Toyota faced an embarrassing problem: The Imperial Family's luxury Century Royal, used to carry Crown Prince Naruhito around Japan, was a dud. Memos flew back and forth between managers and senior engineers trying to find the cause of what appeared to be a speed-control fault. “This is a very difficult situation,” fretted one engineer. “The Imperial Household Agency feels there is risk if it should recur.” The unspoken concern was clear: What if a crash hurt or even killed Japan's heir to the Imperial throne?