On January 30-31, 1968, the Tet holiday, the North Vietnamese and the National Liberation Front (NLF, known to Americans as “the Vietcong”) struck at five of the country's six largest cities, 34 provincial capitals, 64 district capitals, and numerous military bases. NLF sappers even briefly captured part of the heavily fortified American embassy compound in the center of the South Vietnamese capital, Saigon.

Six decades have passed since the end of the Pacific and East Asian War and the collapse of the Japanese colonial empire, but responsibility for colonialism, war, and their accompanying atrocities, continues to agitate Japan and East Asia. It is widely believed that Japan refuses to apologize or face the truth of history, much less compensate victims. Such a belief is, however mistaken, although it is true that it took five decades before any such steps were taken and the adequacy of the steps taken has been debated and continues to be debated.

The Resistance War of 1937-1945 is the centerpiece of contemporary Chinese nationalism and contention over war memory has long exacerbated China-Japan frictions. The present blogged article by the dissident Christian writer Yu Jie, building on an earlier statement by literary critic Ge Hongbing, is both a rare challenge to the Chinese Communist Party's nationalist orthodoxy on the war by a China-based author, and a plea for Chinese reconciliation with Japan. Who are the victims, and who the assailants in the Resistance War? Specifically, were Chinese alone victims? And what is the relationship between representations of the Resistance War and questions of Chinese nationalism and free speech? Yu Jie and Ge Hongbing offer controversial answers to these and other questions. Looking beyond the Japanese government's failure to repent for its war crimes, Yu insists that reconciliation need not require repentance and underlines instead both the shared nationalism of the two parties to the war and the importance of reconciliation for both nations. This is part of a continuing Japan Focus series on reconciliation and community in Northeast Asia of which the most recent contribution is Mel Gurtov's Reconciling Japan and China MS

Maps can be powerful tools of nation building and empire, and therefore powerful historical sources. Whether they delineate tidal patterns, measure altitude, chart seafloors, identify ethnic communities, or bind nations, maps provide a potent lens through which people view the world and, in turn, spatially contextualize their experiences. Because of their power as historical sources, maps also serve as useful pedagogical devices when teaching about Japan. Recently, major research universities have pushed the importance of “original” undergraduate research. This is complicated if the student's interest is Tokugawa Japan, because archival documentation is notoriously difficult to read. Maps, however, offer an alternative. Of course, maps – particularly pre-modern maps drawn before the global spread of the cartographic sciences – contain marginal text; but because they are visual sources, they can, with the aid of an adept teacher, appeal to the creative inclinations of a notoriously visually oriented generation. Students learn that maps often represent – and often even drive – major historical events. This is certainly true of the maps drawn by Mamiya Rinzô, a collection of beautifully preserved pieces held at the Resource Collection for Northern Studies (Hoppô Shiryô Shitsu) at Hokkaido University.

In his brilliant and hilarious short story – “Winding Road To Heaven” – Tongan writer Epeli Hau'ofa unwittingly described Indonesia: …“And not so long ago, when five very, very important men discovered that they had together helped themselves to half a million dollars of public money to which they had no right to help themselves, they prayed for God's forgiveness, they forgave each other, and they neither had to resign from their very important jobs nor return any money to anyone.”

How many directors make great movies after turning 70? John Huston did it with “The Dead,” likewise Kurosawa Akira with “Ran” and Clint Eastwood with “Letters from Iwo Jima,” but the numbers are few.

The 2005-07 spike in petroleum prices topping out at $100 a barrel has prodded economic planners across the globe to reconsider their energy options in an age of growing concern over global warming and carbon emissions. The Southeast Asian economies, themselves beneficiaries of an oil and gas export bonanza through the 1970s-1990s, also find themselves in an energy crunch as once ample reserves run down and the search is on for new and cleaner energy supplies. Notably, regional leaders at the 13th ASEAN Summit meeting held in Singapore in November 2007 issued a statement promoting civilian nuclear power, alongside renewable and alternative energy sources. ASEAN–which in 1971 endorsed a nuclear-free zone concept–also sought to ensure that plutonium did not fall into the wrong hands through the creation of a “regional nuclear safety regime.” In response, environmental activists across the region cited concerns over nuclear power, citing safety and unstable regional geologies concerns. Undoubtedly they were taking a cue from Japan's recent nuclear disaster. Singapore, host of the ASEAN summit meeting, made known its concerns.

Over the last two decades, Japanese popular culture products have been massively exported, marketed, and consumed throughout East and Southeast Asia. A wide variety of these products are prominently displayed in the region's big cities. Many Hong Kong fashion journals, for example, can be found in either the original Japanese or Cantonese versions. Japanese manga are routinely translated into the local languages of South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, Taiwan, and China, and they dominate East Asia's comic book market. The Japanese animated characters Hello Kitty, Ampan Man, and Poke'mon are ubiquitous, depicted on licensed and unlicensed toys and stationary items in the markets of every Asian city. Japanese animation, usually dubbed, is the most popular in its field, particularly in South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Thailand. Astro Boy, Sailor Moon, and Lupin are animated characters seen in almost every shop that sells anime in Hong Kong, Singapore and elsewhere. In China's big cities, too, Japanese popular culture products fill local stores, opening doors into the country's expanding cultural market, though in some markets they also face stiff competition from Korean and Chinese products. The success of Japanese popular culture in East and Southeast Asia has occasioned a flood of academic writing, notably in the fields of cultural studies, anthropology, and ethnography. The majority of works have focused on particular examples, emphasizing the reaction of audiences to cultural exposure in relation to the global-local discourse (Allison 2006; Craig 2000; Ishii 2001; Iwabuchi 2004; Martinez 1998; Mori 2004; Otake and Hosokawa 1998; Treat 1996). These studies consist of specific case studies with a strong tendency to privilege the text and its representational practices. No single study has yet comprehensively assessed the newly created Japanese cultural markets in East and Southeast Asia, nor framed these issues within a regional paradigm.

Can Chinese companies innovate in cutting-edge technology? It is a question many have been asking in the last few years as the size and dynamism of China's economy become apparent. This article focuses on the development of Chinese companies in the information and telecommunication sectors of industry, conventionally known as “Information Communication Technology” (ICT), among the most dynamic, profitable and globalized industries.

This past fall I was thinking once again about the intractability of Japan's part in the Pacific phase of World War II when the news came: Okinawans had staged a huge rally to protest the Japanese government's banning of textbook references to the military's role in “group suicides” among civilians during the Battle of Okinawa. According to some reports, a single examiner at the Japanese Ministry of Education and Science, with dubious outside connections, made the change. To explain it, he pointed to a suit recently filed against Oe Kenzaburo's 1970 assertions.

Richard Tanter, director of the Nautilus Institute Australia, writes that while the violence of the attempted coup in East Timor is shocking, it should not be a surprise. East Timor has been moving into multi-dimensional crisis for several years. He points out that the present crises in East Timor have at last three axes that have led to today's events: rule by the gun; increasing and apparently intractable impoverishment and corruption; and deeply eroded legitimacy of all the major political players. Australia faces a profound dilemma of avoiding on the one hand a turn to East Timor, more than any other post-Cold War UN-led peace-building operation was the model of global stewardship. Unless the triple crises of East Timor are effectively addressed in short order the effects will be felt far wider.

[In this post-hegemonic analysis, Parag Khanna, Director of the Global Governance Initiative of the New American Foundation, posits a tripolar world pivoting around three poles: China, Europe and the US, each of which will be required to pay growing attention to what he describes as “swing states” and emerging “anti-imperialist belts”. The author is particularly upbeat on the possible merger of European and swing state interests:

… nothing has brought about the erosion of American primacy faster than globalization. While European nations redistribute wealth to secure or maintain first-world living standards, on the battlefield of globalization second-world countries' state-backed firms either outhustle or snap up American companies, leaving their workers to fend for themselves. The second world's first priority is not to become America but to succeed by any means necessary.

The main task of Ikuhara Hideyuki's full-time job is feeding the pigs at Yamagishi. However, he gets no salary for his efforts. In fact, he quit his job developing hi-tech industry developing hi-vision televisions and gave up all his possessions for this lifestyle—and he couldn't be happier.

On September 29, 2007, 110,000 people demonstrated in Okinawa to protest textbook revisions announced by Japan's Education Ministry that would delete references to the Japanese military's coercive role in so-called “group suicides” (shudan jiketsu) of civilians during the Battle of Okinawa. Speakers at the protest included Okinawan survivors of the battle who had witnessed the military rounding up civilians at “assembly points” (referred to in war propaganda as “places of shattering jewels”), and distributing hand grenades to them with orders to kill themselves to avoid capture by advancing U.S. forces. Yoshikawa Yoshikatsu, a battle survivor from Kakazu Village, recalled, “After the mayor of the village yelled “Long live the Emperor! “(Tenno Heika banzai), hand grenades exploded all around us. I could hear the screams of the dying.” A few days after the protest, author Kamata Satoshi interviewed a battle survivor at her home on Tokashiki Island, another site of what Norma Field has more accurately termed “compulsory suicide.” “Kitamura Tomi remembered hearing shouts of ‘Long live the Emperor’ as grenades exploded all around her. When she became aware again of her surroundings, her eldest daughter, sitting beside her, and her husband's younger sister were both dead.”

Introduction. All is not as it appears in Dili, that “pestilential place,” as described early last century by Joseph Conrad in his classic novel, Victory. The question posed by Bob Broughton is certainly valid, namely, how did one man – Alfredo Reinado – hold hostage the fortunes of this young nation? The answer is certainly murkier than the standard democratic elections narrative which, remarkably, saw in 2007 a constitutional crisis leading to the reversal of roles of the President and Prime Minister in East Timor. As Boughton highlights, it is important to pay attention to personalities and politics.

Sara Niner of Monash University writes that the death of Alfredo Reinado during the attack he led on the president of Timor Leste (East Timor) on February 11th must be understood in the context of “post-traumatic stress syndrome [that] affects one third of the population” of East Timor. Such personal histories, notes Niner, do “not affect everybody the same. Some have survived such treatment and it has transformed them into deeply empathetic, generous, thoughtful human beings able to forgive the perpetrators” Reinado's childhood experiences and personality “propelled him on to ever increasing grandiose and dangerous behaviour.” Niner argues that “the cycle of violence continues and the pain and trauma remains unaddressed and unacknowledged, even amongst the leadership. Xanana Gusmao's example of forgiveness is instructive but not always possible. In every program and project, every office and workplace, every team and community a strategy to deal with these issues should be built into activities.”

The Japanese Supreme Court's fall 2007 ruling in favor of Korean hibakusha medical compensation rights represents an important, though only partial, victory. The decision denied these Korean atomic victims, who were forced laborers at Mitsubishi's Hiroshima Shipyard, compensation for unpaid wages. Resolving outstanding forced labor cases, as well as fully recognizing, apologizing and compensating all hibakusha, requires a broader international solution of “mutual apology and mutual compensation” by both Japan and the United States.

By the end of World War II, the U.S. government had recognized how important a cultural dimension of foreign policy was to accomplishing its broad national objectives. International relations in the twentieth century was no longer just a matter of relations between governments; it was a matter of people-to-people contact as well. President Harry Truman clearly sensed the advent of a new age. On August 31, 1945, he proclaimed that “the nature of present-day foreign relations makes it essential for the United States to maintain information activities abroad as an integral part of the conduct of our foreign affairs.” In September 1945, Assistant Secretary of State William Benton articulately expressed similar beliefs about the importance of an international information program: “The development of modern means of communication has brought the peoples of the world into direct contact with each other. Friendship between the leaders and the diplomats of the world is important, but it is not enough. The people themselves must strive to understand each other. We must strive to interpret ourselves abroad through a program of education and of cultural exchange.”

In a boon for tourism, record numbers of spotted seals have appeared along the Sea of Japan coast of Hokkaido. Visitors are flocking to the areas to shoot pictures of the popular sea mammals affectionately known as goma-chan.

Japan's unique system of detention, interrogation and trial was recently subjected to withering criticism by the UN. Will anything change?

Even in a culture that frowns on displays of extreme emotion, Yanagihara Hiroshi cannot suppress his rage. The state falsely accused him of rape, imprisoned him for two years then freed him with the odd words of Judge Fujita Satoshi ringing in his years. “I hope the rest of his life will be meaningful,” said Fujita following a rare retrial at Takaoka Branch of Toyama District Court. While languishing in Fukui Prison, Yanagihara lost his job and his father, who died alone. “The judge's ‘not-my-problem attitude’ made me sick,” Yanagihara said after the verdict.