On May 23, 1988, in Arlington, Texas, Bell Helicopter unveiled with much fanfare a new combo-aircraft; a fixed-wing plane that could climb and hover like a helicopter, but also rotate its giant propellers forward and fly like an airplane. On that day, Peter Van Sant, then correspondent for CBS Evening News with Dan Rather, called the plane a “revolutionary new aircraft” that was the latest “future shock”. He expected it to carry commuters to Washington or Boston from Manhattan, as it could take off and land in downtown business districts, reducing travel times. It was called the V-22. “By the year 2000, there could be a market of five to eight million passengers annually,” a company spokesperson at Bell Helicopter predicted at the ceremony. Twenty-four years later, the V-22 has yet to be used as a commuter aircraft between New York and Boston. Instead, across the Pacific, the Bell- Boeing MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft, having been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, is becoming the next tinderbox issue on Japan's southernmost subtropical island prefecture, Okinawa.

Missile defense (MD) hasn't been much discussed in the Asia-Pacific Journal, but growing US-Japan and US-South Korea cooperation on installing or networking into MD systems, along with US (and NATO) moves to ring much of Eurasia with land and sea-based MD is a subject of growing diplomatic, political and military analytical importance.

As American troops became bogged down first in Iraq and then Afghanistan, a key component of U.S. strategy was to build up local police and security forces in an attempt to establish law and order. This approach is consistent with practices honed over more than a century in developing nations within the expanding orbit of American global power. From the conquest of the Philippines and Haiti at the turn of the twentieth century through Cold War interventions and the War on Terror, police training has been valued as a cost-effective means of suppressing radical and nationalist movements, precluding the need for direct U.S. military intervention, thereby avoiding the public opposition it often arouses and the expense it invariably entails. Carried out by multiple agencies, including the military, State Department, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and, most recently private mercenary firms such as DynCorp, the programs have helped to fortify and gain leverage over the internal security apparatus of client regimes and provided an opportunity to export and test new policing technologies and administrative techniques, as well as modern weaponry and equipment which has all too often been used for repressive ends.

This essay looks at two war memorial museums that commemorate military dead in their respective nations: the War Memorial of Korea (hereafter WMK) in South Korea and the Yushukan, the Japanese war museum located in Yasukuni Shrine in Japan, both of which play crucial roles in enhancing conservative patriotic nationalisms in the two countries. Like other war memorial museums, the WMK commemorates the war dead who sacrificed their lives for the defense of the nation and imbues with patriotic spirit the younger generations who have no memory of war. Yet it also constructs an “ethnic” lineage of the nation, a sacrifice of forefathers for the children of the nation. It seeks to form a national subject based on the idea of Korean ethnic nation as originated from ancient times. The author shows how the museum constructs a tradition of military patriotism in terms of shared ancestry, ethnic purity, and familial belonging and how this process of making a “we” is closely related to the construction of “others,” namely North Korea, Vietnam, and Japan. For a comparison, it examines how the Yushukan seeks to revive imperial Japan's glorification of war based on the idea of the ethnic superiority of the Japanese. Comparing war museums in Japan and Korea, the author argues that despite their antagonistic discourses, they display similar strategies of representation: staging a ritual dedicated to the war dead as an embodiment of national identity. Although embedded in conflicting historical experiences of colonialism and postwar geopolitics, the two war museums demonstrate the growing obsession with the ethnic origin of the nation, which may develop into hostile attitudes towards resident ethnic minorities and foreigners in the increasingly globalizing contemporary social environment.

Ever since German and Japanese leaders were prosecuted, convicted, and punished after World War II at Nuremberg and Tokyo, there has been a wide split at the core of the global effort to impose criminal accountability on those who commit crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and war crimes on behalf of a sovereign state. The law is always expected to push toward consistency of application as a condition of its legitimacy. In the setting of international criminality the greatest danger to widely shared values is posed by those with the greatest power and wealth, and it is precisely these leaders that are least likely to be held responsible or to feel threatened by the prospect of being charged with international crimes. The global pattern of enforcement to date has been one in which the comparatively petty criminals are increasingly held to account while the Mafia bosses escape almost altogether from existing mechanisms of international accountability. Such double standards are too rarely acknowledged in discussions of international criminal law nor are their corrosive effects considered, but once understood, it becomes clear that this pattern seriously compromises the claim that international criminal law is capable of achieving global justice.

Goodman, Roger, Imoto, Yuki, and Toivonen, Tuukka (2012) A Sociology of Japanese Youth: From Returnees to NEETs, Abingdon: Routledge (216 pages, $51.95 paperback, $155.00 cloth)

Furuichi, Noritoshi (2011) Zetsubō no Kuni no Kōfuku na Wakamono-tachi (The Happy Youth of a Desperate Country), Tokyo: Kodansha (304 pages, ¥1,890 cloth)

Internal exposure has become a major public concern as a result of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear disaster. Hiroshima's “black rain” was the first event that revealed the significance of internal exposure. I began working on the black rain problem in 1985 after meeting Mr. Murakami Tsuneyuki, then Director General of Hiroshima “Black Rain” A-Bomb Sufferers Organization. But let me tell the story from the beginning.

I was born on September 11, 1923 ten days before the Great Kanto Earthquake that devastated Tokyo. I am now 88 years old. I studied at the Meteorological Technical Officials Training School (predecessor of the Meteorological College) for two years before joining the Navy. I was commissioned a second lieutenant in June 1945. On the day of the defeat, I was in Taisha Air Base near Izumo-Taisha Grand Shrine, Shimane, which sent attack aircraft to Okinawa. I worked there as a meteorological officer forecasting the weather. Although I did not know about the dropping of the Hiroshima A-bomb on August 6, I heard rumors that huge numbers of people, mainly soldiers, were brought to the Army Hospital near Izumo-Taisha, bandaged from head to foot. I knew something very serious had happened.

If we wish to define Koreans twentieth century in a word, “the century of nationalism” would be the most plausible definition. From the perspective of Koreans internal socio-political situation, nationalism, as Andre Schmid aptly observed, from the very beginning provided the legitimising framework for the modern concept of equal, universal citizenship. Former slaves, members of discriminated hereditary professional groups (butchers etc.), women - all were to be accepted as equal “nationals” since national salvation, prosperity and eventual greatness required national cohesion and everyone's contribution to the national cause. Ethnic nationalism is hardly a popular concept now anywhere, including South Korea (which, at least in theory, switched from the early 2000s to multiculturalism, and strives now to integrate its ethnic minority populations), but, as Henry Em argues, the concept of Korea's ethnic nation (minjok) did possess democratic meaning in the early twentieth-century context. The historiography which focused on the progressive development of the ethnic nation was able to do away with traditional patterns of dynastic history. In a word, nationalism was the main discursive force behind the creation of an all-inclusive democratic vision of modern “Koreanness”. From the very beginning of the modern age, defining all Koreans as first and foremost Koreans became possible precisely in the nationalist context.

Based on ethnographic research in tsunami evacuation shelters in the coastal town of Yamada, this article explores how people have employed hygiene practices to regain control over their lives after the tsunami disaster of March 11, 2011. By considering toilets and baths, shoes and food, face masks and cleaning routines, it discusses issues of health and wellbeing, and shame and solidarity, and shows how people have resorted to han (group) structures and gender division of labor to create a temporary home. Co-operating in cleaning practices has helped them to regain stability and to re-create social order.

As it aims to reduce fossil-fuel use, the country is investing heavily in wind and solar energy. Gansu province, once known for dirty mines and oil wells, is being revitalised.

Of the many gifted directors within Japanese animation, arguably the most imaginative and certainly the most prolific is Miyazaki Hayao. Miyazaki's works over the last three decades have consistently dealt with catastrophe on both a personal and a universal level, often focusing on young people and their reactions to a devastated world. This paper examines the treatment of disaster in the films, concentrating particularly on his most recent film Gake no ue no Ponyo, (Ponyo). Ponyo is discussed in the context both of Miyazaki's general treatment of disaster and in relation to the tsunami of March 11.

Reading this beautifully written appeal from the Afghan Peace Volunteers is like hearing, amid the drums and trumpets of war, the delicate sound of a flute. What is heartbreaking about the Afghan struggle is that none of the main contenders we hear about - the Karzai government, the U.S. military, NATO, the Taliban, al Qaeda - seems capable of hearing that sound. An eye for an eye, said Gandhi, and the whole world goes blind. A bomb for a bomb, it could be added, and the world goes deaf as well - in particular, deaf to the sound of peace. It is heartening, and a source of hope, to hear that sound coming from Afghanistan, despite everything.

American policy should continue to be directed at seeking to persuade the government of the DPRK to give up its nuclear weapons and its capacity to produce weapons grade fissionable material. This goal may not be attainable either because the DPRK leadership is no longer willing, if it ever was, to give up this option, or because its price for doing so is more than the United States or other nations is prepared to pay. However, the costs of accepting a DPRK operational nuclear capability are very high and we should not accept this outcome without at least one more sustained effort to find a solution.

This paper examines the history of women in the Japanese Self-Defense Forces. I focus on policy makers’ reasons for introducing women into the SDF, reasons that have nothing to do with gender equality. I apply a framework of “camouflaging” in my discussion of these reasons.

The Mongolian declaration of independence on 29 December 1911 was a monumental event in the modern history not only of Inner Asia, but also of East Asia; it not only contributed to the fall of the Qing Empire, but more importantly it led to the formation of two separate national states on the debris of the Empire: China and Mongolia. In 2011 both China and Mongolia commemorated the centennial, but the moods were more contemplative than celebratory, for neither thought that their nation has been consummated: China lost Outer Mongolia and (Outer) Mongolia lost Inner Mongolia.

Blaxell and Fedman make reference to the displacement and deculturation of Ainu in the process of Hokkaidō's incorporation into modern Japan. Indeed, the assimilation of Ainu resulted in what some have characterized as near “cultural extinction” and provoked enduring worries about the loss of Ainu identity as mixed marriages between Ainu and Japanese increased; practices in clothing, housing, and food became more Japanese; and the Ainu language fell out of daily use. In response, there have been attempts, especially since the 1970s to protect, revive, and promote Ainu culture. Kayano Shigeru (1926-2006) was a prominent conservationist of Ainu culture who, in 1999, offered in a children's book an adaptation of an Ainu kamuy yakur, a song of gods and demigods. Or more precisely, a yakur is an epic poem that draws on Ainu oral traditions, and kamuy are spirit forces that are believed to control the visible universe. This particular kamuy yakur, translated into English by Kyoko Selden, is about an encounter between Pikatakamuy, the goddess of the wind, and Okikurmi, the guardian god of the Ainu. Consider this song as a primary source that speaks to Ainu views of gods, nature, and the relationship between humans and nature. And compare this to the understandings of the natural environment that were discussed in the Blaxell and Fedman essays, with sensitivity to both resonances and tensions. Kayano Shigeru wore many hats as a promoter of Ainu culture. In one significant legal case he became an environmental activist against the construction of the Nibutani Dam on the Saru River in Hokkaidō during the 1990s. Like many environmental activists in Japan over the last century, one inspiration was Tanaka Shōzō, profiled in the next essay.

Medoruma Shun (1960-), a fiery critic and one of Japan's most imaginative fiction writers, joined tens of thousands who participated in the September 9, 2012 protest against the deployment of MV-22 Osprey aircraft in Futenma, Okinawa. In his blog he mentions Okinawa Governer Nakaima Hirokazu's decision not to join the protest. This he follows up with the speculation that politicians in Tokyo will use Nakaima's absence to point to divisions in the island prefecture, a common ploy to dismiss unity among large numbers of Okinawans. Several of Medoruma's fictional works, ranging from early stories such as “Taiwan Woman: Record of a Shoal of Fish” and “Prizecock” to mature works such as “Hope” and Rainbow Bird make reference to the ongoing protests in Okinawa. The 9/9/12 protest, the largest in Okinawa's history, will surely make its way into a future story. One critic says the spontaneous formation of a crowd in “Droplets,” analyzed below, smacks of Okinawa (Okinawa teki).

In the two years since 2010, the Asia-Pacific region has been roiled by rival territorial claims and counterclaims to islands, islets, and rocks scattered across the East China Sea, Yellow Sea, the Japan Sea and the South China Sea. In 2012 alone, strong claims and counterclaims to insular territories have been made by Japan, China, and Taiwan (Senkakus/Diaoyu), Japan and South Korea (Dokdo/Takeshima), and China, the Philippines and Vietnam among others (South China Sea islets). These official claims, moreover, in many cases have been reinforced by nationalist statements and actions by citizens and groups, and by clashes on the high seas contesting territorial claims. In evoking military alliances, Japan has brought the US into the picture in relation to its claims to the Senkakus, while the US has positioned itself to intervene in the South China Seas clashes, setting up intensified US-China conflict. In a major examination of the Senkaku controversy, Gavan McCormack locates the issues within the broader terrain of the 1982 UNCLOS transformation of the Law of the Seas which has transformed a world of open seas into one in which the major colonial powers, notably the United States, Great Britain, France and Japan, receive huge bonanzas in terms of 200 nautical mile exclusive economic rights that flow from their colonial legacies, while China comes up short. The result is to raise fundamental questions about the premises of the UNCLOS order. Asia-Pacific Journal coordinator.

The triumphant tour of Europe by Burmese prodemocracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been a boost to the forces for change in a country that came under iron-fisted military rule half a century ago. She was received with almost the same honour as a head of state in Switzerland, Norway, Britain, Ireland, and France, where she met leading statesmen, government officials, prominent human-rights activists and even royals. Today, there is an air of optimism as some reforms toward a more democratic system have been introduced since a new quasi-civilian government took over in March last year.