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Japan's primary objective of the 'free and open Indo-Pacific' (FOIP) strategy is to shape and consolidate regional order in the Indo-Pacific region based on the existing rules-based international order. The concept initially aimed to achieve two different objectives—shaping a regional order in the Indo-Pacific and ensuring the defence of Japan; however, Japan has gradually shifted its strategic focus onto the former, separating national defence from the FOIP concept, which reflects a change in the degree of its commitment to the two objectives. On the one hand, as its overall security strategy, Japan has determined to steadily enhance its national defence by increasing its own defence capabilities and strengthening the US–Japan alliance, while transforming its partnerships with like-minded states, such as Australia and India, into a diplomatic, and potentially military, alignment. This has been brought about by shifts in the regional balance of power, particularly the rise of China and the relative decline of the United States. On the other hand, as part of its FOIP strategy, Japan's attempts to build a new regional order in the Indo-Pacific region aim to defend the existing rules-based order established by the United States from challengers, particularly China. Yet, given the strategic uncertainty over Japan's international coalition-building efforts to create a new regional order, Japan has made its approach flexible; Tokyo is using its ambiguous FOIP concept to gauge other states' responses, understand their perspectives, and change its strategic emphases accordingly—so-called 'tactical hedging'. Japan has pursued similar means to achieve the two key objectives. Nevertheless, the country's core interest, the defence of Japan, is more imperative than building a regional order in the Indo-Pacific region, and Japan faces different types of challenges in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

1919 was not the death knell of empires: it opened new imperial possibilities. The empires of the losers were destroyed; victors added new territories and a new element—the mandate—to their repertoires; Japan was recognized as a major imperial actor; the Soviet Union constituted a new form of empire; Germany, chafing at its exclusion from the world of empires, created the Third Reich; the US, after promoting a new international order, developed its own way of exercising power at a distance. This article describes the varied trajectories of empires in the decades after the First World War. It notes changes in discourse and international institutions after 1919, but argues against fitting 1919 into a linear narrative of 'empire to nation-state'. Self-determination proved a problematic concept both where it was implemented and where it was not. The forced breakup of the Ottoman Empire led to conflicts that have yet to be resolved. Anti-colonial movements fought oppression, but often sought alternatives to both old-style empires and the territorial state. Colonial empires were able to contain challenges, refine their methods of rule and claim international legitimacy. It took another catastrophe for colonial empires to be fundamentally threatened—by a war that was more the result of the reconfiguration of empires after 1919 than of their decline. The Japanese takeover of southeast Asia began the unraveling of European empires after 1945. Even then, political possibilities that reach well beyond the national continued to shape our world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the concept of "hedging" should be understood in the context of the "balancing-bandwagoning" spectrum within the "balance of power" theory, in which hedging is located between balancing and bandwagoning as the state's third strategic choice. Although polarity— unipolar, bipolar, and multipolar—largely determines the likelihood of hedging behavior, during a period of power shift, strategic uncertainty emerges. States, particularly secondary powers, attempt to calculate the risk of balancing, bandwagoning, and hedging, adopting an optimal strategy. To identify states' strategic behavior, it is important to first examine their economic and military capabilities, and if these indicators are not decisive enough to identify balancing, bandwagoning, or hedging behavior, diplomatic factors should be taken into account, although those are a relatively weaker indicator. The use of this conceptual framework reveals that Japan's foreign policy behavior has not involved "hedging" vis-à-vis China; instead, Japan's behavior is consistently associated with "balancing" against the risks of China's rise. In addition, while Japan's behavior vis-à-vis the United States is considered to be bandwagoning, Japan made political efforts to strengthen its own military capabilities—internal balancing—which began in the 2010s when Japan relaxed its political constraints on use of its military. This behavior also aimed both to illustrate Japan's efforts related to alliance burden-sharing and to enhance its external balancing with the United States. Yet, the periods from 1997 to 2005 and from 2010 on represent an aberration because Japan engaged one type of hedging—security hedging—vis-à-vis the risk of US commitment reduction to East Asia. In this sense, while concurring with the realists' argument that Japan's current behavior is characterized as balancing, the argument differs from that of realists who believe that Japan's policy shift to balancing toward China only began with China's rise in the late 2000s or 2010s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Structural realists might reasonably predict that foreign policy elites in countries like Japan and Australia would view China's economic and military rise as a potential threat and seek to balance against it. However, the actual policy behaviour of Japanese and Australian policy elites has been quite complex—pushing forward at times, hesitating at others and generally uncertain if an explicit counter-coalition against China through bilateral security cooperation is the right policy path. Why is this? This paper explains the puzzle by focusing on the perceptions of policy-makers regarding the risk of provoking China; entrapment with the other; and entrapment with the United States. The paper demonstrates how policy-makers' concerns regarding entrapment or abandonment related to their mutual US ally—as well as concerns about potentially provoking China—have had an instrumental effect on the degree to which Japan and Australia have strengthened their security commitments to each other. While the rise of China—and the relative decline of US power—has shaped the overall direction of Japan–Australia security ties, such structural imperatives are of course also complicated by how domestic actors think about the tactical aspects of understanding and surviving these structural features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Japanese government has spent considerably more diplomatic energy on national security and foreign economic policy initiatives beyond north-east Asia over the last decade. Recognizing that its capacity and resolve are limited in ways that restrain its role in maritime deterrence outside north-east Asia, the Japanese government has focused on deploying 'soft security infrastructure' to advance its grand strategic designs. The government is also seeking to position Japanese businesses—and ultimately the Japanese economy—to take economic advantage of emerging production networks and the growing consumer base in 'emerging Asia'—as well as, increasingly, in east Africa, in order to reduce its economic dependence on China and the West. The Japanese government anticipates that promoting the development of horizontally integrated economic corridors throughout subregions in emerging Asia and east Africa will be advantageous to Japanese commercial interests as well as enhance Japan's capacity, and others', to resist Chinese economic and military coercion. Japan's grand strategy and pivot within Asia thus goes beyond reactive, short-term balancing behaviour. It is focused, in the long term, on drawing the centre of regional economic gravity away from China to enable Japan and other regional nations to exist and prosper on the outer rim of Chinese hegemony—and to actively contest it if necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Japan's security posture is unique: it is at once a pacifist nation, controls one of the world's largest militaries, is heavily reliant on its alliance with the United States and remains in nearly continuous political conflict with its nearest neighbours over historical issues. The authors surveyed in this book review essay suggest that Japan's security policy-making has undergone a significant transformation that will reverberate for decades. Andrew L. Oros suggests that Japan is experiencing a security renaissance, and is a much more active player now than during the Cold War. Sheila A. Smith believes that rising nationalism among Tokyo's conservative elite has made Sino-Japanese relations more contentious than ever. Brad Glosserman and Scott A. Snyder state that diverging national identities have driven the increase in tensions between Japan and South Korea. Robert D. Eldridge and Paul Midford assert that the key to success of Japan's Ground Self-Defence Force has been its ability to reinforce peaceful postwar norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Largely driven by Japan's strategic outreach to India, Tokyo and Delhi have rapidly improved relations and enhanced their strategic cooperation since the turn of the century. Today, developments in bilateral relations are moving faster than journalists and analysts can track, leading many observers to posit the emergence of Japan–India alliance. This article analyses the reasons behind Japan's strategic outreach to India and explores the conditions under which an alliance—understood as a formal association of states for the use (or nonuse) of military force in specific circumstances against a third party—might emerge between the two countries. It draws on existing scholarship on interstate alliances to examine the possible objectives, contours, operation and impact of such an alliance. It concludes that there are major obstacles in the way of an alliance forming and operating successfully. These include India's commitment to strategic autonomy; the incentives for limiting commitments and 'buck-passing' within a putative alliance; Chinese opposition and Beijing's ability to economically punish both parties; and differing views on US hegemony, world order and future Great Power status. Ultimately, Japan and India are better off being aligned—as they currently are—and not allied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The creation of the National Security Council (NSC) in 2013 was part of the most ambitious reorganization of Japan's foreign and security policy apparatus since the end of the Pacific War in 1945. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe aimed to create a 'Strategic Headquarters' to better coordinate Japanese grand strategy across a fissiparous bureaucracy and political class. The formation of the NSC is a potential watershed in Japanese strategic policy-making. The improved crisis management, upgraded intelligence and centralized security policy-making that Japanese leaders hope to achieve through the NSC are indispensable if Japan is ever to resolve the inherent tension between its desire to enhance alliance management and its desire to reduce dependence on the United States. However, we conclude that the initial successes examined in this article may not be sustainable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, Japan's foreign policy elite has started to increasingly securitize China in their security discourse. The harsher tone from Tokyo is widely evaluated as a direct reaction to China's own assertive behavior since 2009/2010. Yet, the change in the Japanese government's rhetoric had started changing before 2010. In order to close this gap, the present article sheds light on an alternative causal variable that has been overlooked in the literature: a change in Japan's security institutions, more specifically, the upgrade of the Defense Agency to the Ministry of Defense, in 2007. While utilizing discursive institutionalism and securitization-approaches, the present article demonstrates that a strong correlation indeed exists between the institutional shift and the change in Japan's defense whitepapers in the 2007-10 period. It thus opens up a research avenue for the further scrutiny of the hitherto understudied but significant causal linkage in the study of contemporary Japanese security policy toward China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why might bilateral antagonism prove resilient to incentives for improvement from multilateral cooperation with shared third parties? Prominent theories predict that two actors with a record of cooperation in multilateral contexts would cooperate bilaterally as well; multilateralism is generally thought harder than bilateralism and provides opportunities for exposure and socialization that can facilitate preference convergence. This article presents Japan--South Korea relations as a deviant case for such expectations in the cooperation literature. Rather than think of multilateral cooperative contexts as "bridges" that facilitate closer, positive relations between actors, this case shows that multilateralism can instead be a "buffer" between two actors with negatively valenced ties, mediating bilateral friction sufficient to facilitate functional cooperation while insulating antagonistic national discourses or bilateral policies from pressures for change. In the case of Japan--South Korea relations, a pattern of simultaneous cooperation (with shared third parties) and friction (in bilateral interactions) over the same period illustrates a potential buffering logic of multilateralism; the multiparty context diffuses accountability for cooperative behavior that might otherwise generate domestic audience costs and allows policy elites to frame cooperation in a way that downplays or ignores the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese and Russian foreign policy, in part, reflects both countries' ambitions for higher status in the international system. This implies a critical question: can accommodating these ambitions prevent, or even reverse, the turn toward geopolitically competitive grand strategies by Moscow and Beijing? In other words, might accommodation lead them to channel their efforts in more benign directions? The dominant framework for analyzing the ways in which states seek status-a framework rooted in the insights of Social Identity Theory (SIT)-suggests that the answer is yes: status-seekers will most likely turn toward geopolitically competitive strategies when they face apparently "impermeable" obstacles to their ambitions. I argue that this framework depends on a "mistranslation" of SIT. Properly translated, the theory tells us little about the consequences of persistent status denial for international politics. Instead, it implies that status-seeking will resolve into geopolitical competition when, first, participants view geopolitically significant resources asmarkers of status and, second, when leaders believe that they can successfully change the distribution of status. I use analyses of two prominent cases that should prove friendly ground for the conventional translation of SIT-Germany before World War I and Imperial Japan-to demonstrate the serious problems that plague the framework favored by international relations scholars, especially with respect to its central claim about the link between persistent status denial and geopolitical competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canberra and Tokyo have forged an ever-closening security alignment, which they now designate as a 'special strategic partnership'. This development has generated disquietude among some strategic analysts in Australia who have highlighted the risks entailed in pursuing deeper defense cooperation with Japan, especially if it is codified through a formal 'alliance' treaty. Anchored in a contending Realist logic, this article reexamines the assumptions upon which the critical assessment bases its conclusions and seeks to offer a counterpoint to such negative interpretations of the bilateral relationship. It then goes on to provide a more positive assessment of the strategic partnership, illustrating the many benefits and opportunities that deeper cooperation with Japan affords for Australia. In the process it draws attention to an alternate set of costs that could be incurred by resiling from Japan in order to 'accommodate' Chinese concerns. It concludes that the nature and purpose of the Australia- Japan strategic partnership requires a more nuanced understanding in order for its various costs and benefits to be subjected to a more balanced appraisal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article considers European exploration and colonial expansion in Asia during the early modern period focusing particularly on the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie or VOC), founded in 1602. It compares how the VOC administered its territories such as the Banda Islands and Taiwan. The VOC's relations with China and Japan are also considered.

This paper offers a theory of military retrenchment by states in relative decline. I argue that a declining state will choose to withdraw foreign military deployments and security commitments when there exists a suitable regional 'successor' to which it can devolve its current responsibilities. The degree of a successor's suitability and the strategic importance of the region to the declining state interact to determine when and how rapidly retrenchment will occur. Importantly, this devolutionary model of retrenchment predicts significant variations in retrenchment patterns across a declining state's multiple regional commitments. It advances the literature by producing nuanced predictions of precisely where, when, and how quickly retrenchment will occur. This paper assesses the theory empirically through an examination of Great Britain's varying regional retrenchment strategies prior to World War I. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the author discusses three articles in the journal on the topic of the international history of Japan, including the growth of the organization the Japanese Red Cross, World I in Asia, and the Japanese occupation of Indonesia during the 1940s.

This article demonstrates that during the 1969 Okinawa reversion negotiations, there were both secret agreements and disagreements between the U.S. and Japan regarding the conditions applied to the use of United States bases on Okinawa after reversion. The United States sought to preserve the unrestricted use of its bases on Okinawa for conventional combat operations in regional contingencies including Korea, Taiwan, and Indochina, as well as the emergency re-entry and transit rights of nuclear weapons. Due to the antinuclear public sentiment and fear of the entrapment into regional conflicts, Japan pursued the withdrawal of all nuclear weapons from Okinawa. While the United States insisted on making confidential written arrangements for the nuclear and base issues, Japan attempted to focus on public statements to explain mutual agreements but provided verbal private assurances. In the end, the United States and Japan agreed to maintain U.S. base functions for the continued U.S. deterrent capabilities in East Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article, we consider how states wield shaming strategies to ‘be green’ and to try to influence other states to ‘become green’ – environmentally responsible states. We compare Australia–Japan relations in the international politics of whales and tuna, respectively, and show that only at the level of norms and identities, rather than material interests, can two seemingly contradictory behaviors be reconciled, where a country shames another in one case (whales) and deliberately spares it from shaming in another (tuna). We argue that each issue reveals two different ways in which Australia seeks to construct itself as an environmentally responsible state, following a ‘preservationist’ and a ‘conservationist’ paradigm, respectively. We thus contribute to the constructivist understanding of the role of norms of global environmental politics and of the links between norms, identities, and the choice of shaming as an instrument of foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Australia’s pavilion at the 1970 Japan World Exposition, Osaka, gave physical form to a narrative of Australian innovation during a critical period of change in the nation’s economic and geo-political circumstances. The pavilion’s primary role was to advance Australian relations with Japan, which replaced Britain as Australia’s main trading partner in 1966. Australia’s appeal to Japan unfolded on two levels. A profusion of artefacts exemplified Australian inventiveness, extending back to the rural sphere in the colonial period and culminating in the contemporary example of the Repco Brabham Formula One racing car engine. The representation of Australian inventiveness was amplified by the image and experience of the pavilion architecture, configured for maximum impact; it took the form of a free-hanging circular roof suspended from a giant cantilever, its main display area an immersive, multimedia environment. Although an objectified representation of the nation, the pavilion reflects a process of national identity transformation that aligned Australia’s image with international modernisation trends, to produce a new sense of Australian destiny as linked to industrialisation and the Asia-Pacific region. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As part of its movement toward ‘normal country’ status, Japan has begun to engage in a policy of alliance/alignment restructuring and diversification. This is a twin-track policy – the reconfiguration of existing allied relationships and the creation of new cooperative bilateral links. In recent years, Tokyo has deepened its ties with the United States and Australia on the one hand, while cultivating new partners such as India, as well as several Southeast Asian states. This article examines the nature and dynamics of two of the most important new strategic partnerships: India and Australia. Through a comparative analysis, it seeks to account for their formation, structure, and prospects using a specifically designed model of ‘strategic partnership’ drawn from Organizational Theories literature. It concludes that these strategic partnerships represent a major platform of a more robust and comprehensive security policy on the part of Japan, forged in response to a shifting international environment in the Asia-Pacific region. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this article, we seek to advance the theoretic and empirical literature on the diversionary use of force. We argue that state leaders are more likely to engage in diversionary foreign policy behavior when opposition groups from within the winning coalition press for policy changes, but the government rejects those policy demands. Only when domestic unrest threatens a loss of political support from groups that are politically important to the leadership do we expect leaders to try and rally their support through heightened international conflict. We test this argument in an analysis of Japanese foreign policy behavior from 1890 to 1941 regarding (i) the initiation of military threats, (ii) concessions in negotiations, and (iii) the escalation of military confrontations. Drawing upon new data sets collected on Japanese domestic politics and foreign relations, we find strong support for our argument in a series of statistical tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alliance coordination involves a multiplicity of equilibria, the resolution of which depends on institutions and knowledge known as focal-point effects. Since the end of the Cold War, the alliance has expanded its missions despite difficult coordination problems by taking advantage of multiple focal factors. Although common threat perceptions have continued to serve as a central focal factor, other factors, such as shared democratic values and international norms, have been used to legitimate the alliance's missions that are beyond what the perceived threats could justify. To be a viable focal factor, common threat perceptions, democratic values, and international norms need to be backed up by the causal knowledge that alliance coordination has stabilizing, confidence-building, and legitimating effects on regional and international security, respectively. More recently, however, the allies' perceptions are becoming more complex and divergent, putting increasing pressures on the other factors for maintaining and expanding the missions. Although democratic values and international norms could generate diversionary effects in broadening Japan's policy horizon, this need not be feared insofar as it contributes to the alliance's basic goal. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Vietnam War greatly destabilized Southeast Asia and led to almost a decade of fighting by America and its Asian allies. It was fought on the principle that if communism was unchecked it would overrun the region, with the Southeast Asian countries falling under communist control like ‘dominoes’. While countries such as Thailand, South Korea, and Australia provided military support to assist American strategic objectives, Japan, however, was constrained by its peace constitution and thus unable to provide direct military assistance. Nonetheless, under the leadership of the avid anti-communist conservative leadership of Prime Minister Eisaku Sato, Japan still managed to play a role in the Vietnam War. Although Japan initially entertained the notion of facilitating mediation, with Okinawa's reversion hanging in the balance after 1967, Japan's leadership took a more hawkish approach on Vietnam in order to ensure that Washington would agree to reverting Okinawa to Japanese administrative control. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While there is much theoretical and academic discussion of human security, as well as regional expressions of human security by the Organization of American States, African Union, and the European Union, little of this is translated into substance except for Japan, which has incorporated human security into foreign policy. This paper examines Japan's definition and aspiration for human security, especially its plans to expand development aid through this modality in Southeast Asia. This scrutiny will encompass Japanese human security foreign policy and its substantive action through the Japan International Cooperation Agency and the UN Trust Fund for Human Security. Thus, the potential for Japanese human security cooperation with Southeast Asian partners will be reviewed in light of Japan's projected trajectory. The paper concludes by positing that bilateral engagement might be expected for the considerable future and suggests policy consolidation before regional engagement can be effected. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The conventional view in the field of international political economy – that greater economic interdependence creates an incentive for active foreign policy engagement – is hard to reconcile with Japan's foreign economic policy. To explain this counterintuitive outcome, we develop a new model of domestic demand for policy activism that integrates strands of prospect theory, collective action, and interest aggregation. We argue that both the rationale for mobilization and lobbying capacity are essential elements in understanding the domestic demand for significant foreign policy departures. We apply this conceptual framework to Japanese foreign economic policy in two issue areas: finance (Japan's response to the 1980s Latin American debt crisis and the late 1990s Asian Financial Crisis), and trade (Japan's Free Trade Agreement negotiations with Mexico and South Korea). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study applies content analysis to Japanese prime ministers' Diet addresses in order to examine the Japanese government's perception of the world after World War II. Since the end of the Cold War, many scholars have revealed more strategic and proactive aspects of Japanese foreign policy by investigating broader issues or longer time periods. Methodologically, these studies as well as conventional studies derive the character of Japanese foreign policy mainly from an examination of documentary sources or case studies, thus further empirical evidence can help these discussions. By investigating the long-term perception focussing on North-South issues as well as East-West issues, we show that there are aspects of Japanese foreign policy with an individual character. We conclude that this method provides empirical evidence and helps to construct a multidimensional perspective for characterizing Japanese foreign policy, and thus contributes to the recent lively discussions on this topic. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Historical controversies continue to plague northeast Asian politics today, with Chinese and Koreans protesting Japanese history textbooks and Japanese politicians' visits to Yasukuni Shrine, and Koreans protesting Chinese claims that the ancient Kingdom of Goguryo was Chinese, not Korean. Yet, there is little empirical research exploring what, if any, impact historical beliefs have on threat perception and foreign policy preferences in northeast Asia today. On the basis of surveys of Chinese, Japanese, and South Korean university students, this paper explores the relationships among beliefs about the past, perceived threat in the present, and foreign policy preferences for the future. Results and their implications for northeast Asian security are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

[W]e have an ambivalent view of Japan. On the one hand, it is regarded as a friendly and allied power in Asia that is not utilizing its resources to “do more” for our common security interests. On the other hand, there are residual fears that Japan may, in “doing more,” adopt courses of military preparedness and diplomatic action that are inimical to our interests. 1 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the Japanese-American relations from the end of World War I to the Washington Conference of 1921-1922. During the period, leaders of both nations were aware of the contrast between the Old and New Diplomacy. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson presented his vision of international idealism. Several Japanese government leaders responded positively to the vision of Wilson.

Although Japan and Korea formally normalized their relations in 1965, these neighbours remain wary of each other because of their awkward history during the first half of the twentieth century, when Japan annexed Korea and oppressed the Koreans in many ways. Korean scholars believe strongly that this annexation was "illegal" and that it constituted a violation of international law when it occurred. Japanese scholars tend to admit that the Japanese occupation of Korea was brutal and caused enormous suffering, but they are reluctant to acknowledge that the annexation was "illegal", because other great powers were annexing small countries during that period. The US action supporting the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1893 and annexing Hawaii in 1898 may be helpful in finding an appropriate resolution to the Japan-Korea standoff. In 1993, the US Congress enacted a joint resolution formally apologizing to the Native Hawaiian people and calling for a "reconciliation" between the United States and the Native Hawaiians. This resolution acknowledged that the US diplomatic and military support for the 1893 overthrow was "illegal" and was in violation of "international law". This strong statement seems to he an application of "inter-temporal law", whereby present views of international law are applied to the events of the 1890s, but, in any event, it is a powerful acknowledgment that a wrong occurred, causing injuries that can still be felt today. The reconciliation process between tile United States and Native Hawaiians is now under way and, to be complete, it will require the restoration of the sovereignty of the Native Hawaiians and a return of land and resources to them. Japanese officials have offered apologies to the Koreans, but the reconciliation between the two countries can become complete only if these apologies are accompanied by a transfer of items of real value. This paper proposes that proper payments to the Korean comfort women and a renunciation by Japan of its claim to Dokdo/Takeshima (the tiny islands claimed by both countries) could serve to formalize the reconciliation between these two neighbours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explores the history of U.S.-Japanese baseball in the period culminating the Second World War. Role of the Americans in organizing baseball in Japan; Background of the first all professional American baseball team to visit Japan; History of the first encounter of Japanese baseball team with American baseball.

Focuses on the involvement of Japanese Ambassador Nomura Kichisaburǒ in U.S.-Japanese negotiations in 1941. Citation of the inadequate knowledge of Nomura in diplomacy; Impact of naval background on political views; Fatalism in Japan's relations with the U.S.

This article analyses Japanese policy towards the Middle East in the post‐Cold War era. The article argues that Japanese policy has begun to move beyond the reactive diplomacy of the Cold War years. The focus of this new approach has been Japan's growing contribution to ‘soft’ security in the region. However, Japan retains a tendency to focus on its narrow interests without fully taking into account the broader strategic consequences of its policies. Yet, in order to protect its overall interests in the region, Japan needs to recognize the diminishing utility of this ‘free rider’ approach and adopt a more active role regarding ‘hard’ security issues. Even allowing for the domestic constraints on Japanese policy, there is much Japan can do in this regard, especially in coordination with the US. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Examines the Japanese-South African relations in the period after the end of the apartheid. Japan's foreign policy towards Africa; South Africa's foreign policy towards Japan; Reinvention of the post-apartheid relationship between Japan and South Africa.

Book reviewed in this article: Joseph M. Henning, Outposts of Civilization: Race, Religion, and the Formative Years of American-Japanese Relations . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the critical role played by history and culture in Japan and South Korea's relations with the United States. Role of historical antagonism in the relations of Japan and South Korea to the US; Effect of the Japanese and Korean perceptions of their common great power patron's security commitment on the level of military cooperation between the two quasi-allied states.

Comments on culture theory and practice in the context of the relationship between Japan and the United States. Account on the cultural level of Japanese people; Emergence of Japan as model of Americanization; Characterization of the American culture; List of several terms on issues concerning cultural transfer.

This article examines the role of the United States in Japan's foreign aid policy. The Japanese government often alters its course of action under U.S. pressure even if doing so would apparently undermine its own interests. Japan's unusual responsiveness to U.S. preferences appears counterintuitive given the fact that at least in the realm of foreign aid Japan's power clearly surpassed that of the United States. This article posits that Japan's responsiveness stems in large part from the asymmetry of interdependence between the two countries. After critically reviewing the existing literature, it conducts two case studies to examine the validity of the argument. The article concludes that the United States played a crucial role but Japan's responsiveness to American pressure reflects an act of will rather than a lack of coherent policy stemming from bureaucratic politics. The findings have important implications to the ongoing debate over whether Japan is a "reactive state." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Argues that national `interests' are idiosyncratic and best treated exogenously, focusing on the Japanese interest in the recovery of Northern Territories. Three approaches to specifying interests; Japan's demand for the return of Etorofu, Kunashiri, Shikotan, and the Habomai group of islets; Intrinsic values of the islands to Japan; Assessment of implications for international relations theory.

Discusses the reasons that contributed to the neglected settlement of postwar compensation for foreign victims of Japan during World War II. Japan's political setting during the immediate postwar period; Government's turning away from democratization; Japan's contemptuous view of its Asian neighbors.

Focuses on the current (1996) and future prospects for the United States-Japan bilateral relationship. Effects of divergent interests on the relationship; Examination of the countries' economic conditions; Trade imbalance; Security relationship; Discussion of the public's opinion on the relationships and the domestic pressure on the countries' leaders.

Discusses the reform of political and economy systems in the age of big politics in Japan. Dispute between the capitalist and socialist factions; Yasuhiro Nakasone's respect to both international security and the international economy; Important policy task in Japan; Reasons behind Japan's decision to maintain the same US-Japan alliance strategy; Trade imbalance between the Unites States and Japan.

The Japanese like to see themselves as a unique nation, and their claim is not disputed by the rest of the world.[1] But one element of this uniqueness--Japan's peculiarly passive role in world politics--is now becoming so exaggerated as to be a problem not only for the Japanese, but also for the rest of the international community. The major cause of this imbalance between Japan's power and its role in the international system is the long shadow of the Second World War. The nation's reputation for aggressiveness and brutality in the half-century before 1945 continues to stunt its political life, both domestically and internationally. Old images of Japan still condition current perceptions of it, not only for outsiders but also among the Japanese themselves.
There is no question that Japan's policy between 1895 and 1945 was aggressively expansionist and ruthlessly brutal. But the logic of continuing to hold present-day Japan accountable for its history rests on one or both of two assumptions: (1) that there was something so distinctively and abnormally awful about Japan's record over this period that it deserves to be carried forward into the present and the future; and (2) that there is a real risk of a contemporary recurrence of this old behaviour. Neither of these assumptions is tenable, and it is high time that the constraints they impose on Japan's present-day international role were cleared away. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the international relations of Japan. Policies of Great Britain towards Japan; Attitude of Japan towards Asia; Content over Yoshida Letter.

Examines the foreign policy in Japan. Overview on the Japanese economic and fiscal policies during 1976 to 1977; Factors contributing to the vulnerability of the government to domestic pressures; Contributors to the perceived and translated policy decisions of governmental leaders.

Presents a study on the development of Japanese aid policy to the mainland of Tanzania. When Japan started to aid other countries; Discussion of Japan's interest in South Africa; Political climate in Tanzania.

This analysis covers the reaction of the Japanese public to key issues in Japanese-American relations of the 1960's and the immediate future, as seen in the author's national survey of early 1970, related surveys of the past decade, and the writer's lengthy field research since 1952. It was originally prepared for discussion at the 1971 annual meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, Washington, D.C., March 29-31, 1971. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at the reactions of the U.S. from the first official Japanese delegates who visited the U.S. in 1860. After the Treaty of Amity and Commerce was signed by the U.S. and Japan in 1858, the Tokugawa Shogun sent a mission, lead by Masaoki Shinmi, to the U.S. The article discusses the delegates reactions to the American diet, American table manners, dancing, the American federal system, newspapers, technology in fire-fighting in the U.S., the humane treatment of prisoners, and the cleanliness of American people.

This article is a result of the author's research in the field of propaganda in the Sino-Japanese war and indicates the difficulty of analyzing far Eastern politics within the usual conceptual framework of Western political science. The existing bases of cultural unity in Eastern Asia, however, relied upon as foundation material for political collaboration and economic unity, are almost entirely Chinese in origin. From China these cultural factors have been spread during the past to Korea and Japan, and are now used as articles for re-export to China. In their choice of symbols as a means of political persuasion, the Japanese in China recognize the importance of graphic symbolism to propagandists. The body of ideas which can be associated with them is limited only by the ingenuity of political interpreters. As a matter of fact, graphic symbols of propaganda attached to revolutionary movements have an advantage in their usual revolutionary newness. Tai Chi symbol was first adopted for propaganda purposes by the Japanese during 1937 when the so-called Ta Tao or "Great Way" puppet government was established by them in the Sharighai-Nanking area of eastern China.

The article takes a look at the American attitudes toward Japan and China in 1937-38. The Chinese Cultural Society of New York published in October 1937 a reprint of 39 editorials from American papers on the Far Eastern crisis. The editor, M. Hsitien Lin wrote in the foreword "Of some 5,000 editorials which have been examined, there is none that justifies Japanese aggression or condemns Chinese resistance. In the American press Japan is almost universally treated as the aggressor and China as the victim in the undeclared war. As to American policy, the press generally favors neither extreme isolationism nor political entanglements or alliances, but a golden mean, whereby world peace, it is hoped, may be maintained." The present study is designed to test the validity of this impression as well as to test the utility of a method of attitude measurement by press sampling. It is impossible here to enter into a discussion of the relationship between beliefs as to facts and emotional attitudes such as are measured by the indices used, except to suggest that attitudes, which are at first accompanied by emotions, may in time become beliefs regarding "facts" which are taken for granted.