[We present two articles on a critical moment in the history of Japanese imperialism on Taiwan, the nature of the impact of colonialism on indigenous people, and contemporary ramifications of that history. In the first of these, Robert Eskildsen reflects on the broader issues of Japanese colonialism for contemporary East Asia in light of the 1874 Taiwan expedition and contemporary assessments of it. The second is Nishida Masaru's report on a commemoration of the expedition involving Japanese NGOs and villagers at the site of the Mudan Incident toward framing a people's reconciliation: “Japan, the Ryukyus and the Taiwan Expedition of 1874: toward reconciliation after 130 years.” Japan Focus]

The media claim that North Korea is trying to obtain and use weapons of mass destruction. Yet the United States, which opposes this strategy, has used or threatened to use such weapons in northeast Asia since the 1940s, when it did drop atomic bombs on Japan.

THE forgotten war – the Korean war of 1950-53 – might better be called the unknown war. What was indelible about it was the extraordinary destructiveness of the United States' air campaigns against North Korea, from the widespread and continuous use of firebombing (mainly with napalm), to threats to use nuclear and chemical weapons (1), and the destruction of huge North Korean dams in the final stages of the war. Yet this episode is mostly unknown even to historians, let alone to the average citizen, and it has never been mentioned during the past decade of media analysis of the North Korean nuclear problem.

PALO ALTO, Calif. – The European Union is showing a new independent stance on foreign-policy issues as the logic of its industrial and economic integration plays out in the international arena.

Already the EU has taken a distinct and independent approach to both the Israel-Palestinian conflict and the nuclear crisis in Iran. Now it has broken ranks over the Korean Peninsula, fed up and concerned with the failure to resolve the ongoing crisis over North Korea's development of nuclear arms.

The removal and confinement of some 120,000 American citizens and permanent residents of Japanese ancestry from the Pacific Coast during 1942, popularly (if inaccurately) known as the Japanese American internment, remains a powerful event in the nation's consciousness. In the decades since the war, historians have exhaustively documented the primary role of anti-Japanese prejudice and war hysteria by West Coast Army officers and civilians in bringing about the issuing of Executive Order 9066, which authorized removal.

On August 6, 1945, the day that was to prove the blindingly bright dawn of the atomic age, Little Boy, a 9,700 pound baby with the look of “an elongated trash can with fins,” had already been loaded into the specially prepared bomb bay of a B-29. The night before, in large letters, mission commander Col. Paul W. Tibbets, jr., had had painted under the pilot's window, “Enola Gay,” the name of his beloved mother, who had supported him against his father in his desire to enter the U.S. Air Force. The mission was blessed on the spot by a Protestant chaplain, who delivered an impromptu prayer he had scrawled on the back of an envelop, asking the Almighty Father “to be with those who brave the heights of Thy heaven and who carry the battle to our enemies.”

[In this concise article, Harvard Economist Richard Freeman shows us that a spectre is haunting the industrialized societies, and above all the workers of these countries. Though little recognized in Japan and elsewhere, there has been an effective doubling of the global labour force (that is workers producing for international markets) over the past decade and a half, through the entry of Chinese, Indian, Russian and other workers into the global economy. The effective supply of capital, on the other hand, has virtually remained unchanged. With such a massive increase in the supply of labour, its relative share of the returns from production inevitably decline. One important dimension of this decline is the ability of increasingly footloose capital to find cheaper labour to employ. Morgan Stanley's Chief Economist Stephen Roach has long referred to a “global labour arbitrage” wherein high-wage jobs in the developed world are eliminated in favor of low-wage jobs in the developing world. He has argued that this is not limited to manufacturing, but also extends to such service industries as banking. But capital does not have to move to keep pressure on wages and salaries. Even work that is not at present outsourced may experience this pressure if the cost of labour becomes excessive relative to global benchmarks (including premiums for developed world levels of political stability and infrastructure).

Japan's government remains firmly committed to a large scale nuclear power program despite sustained resistance from local communities. Recognizing the concerns of many citizens about nuclear power and its health and property risks, the government instituted tactics to smooth the path for its nation-wide energy agenda undertaken in cooperation with private utilities. The responsible government office, the Agency for Natural Resources and Energy (ANRE, or Shigen enerugi cho), honed a wide variety of strategies designed to quell resistance to nuclear power plant siting. Despite innovative and expensive programs such as awards ceremonies for cooperative local government officials, pro-nuclear curricula for local schools, and extensive subsidies for host communities, the time necessary for siting new plans continues to increase and some plans have been defeated. Local communities and anti-nuclear activists remain resistant to central government inducements and will no doubt seek to block future siting attempts.

Ironically, in the very year when the fiftieth anniversary of the Bandung Conference is being commemorated, the Manmohan Singh government unceremoniously dumped India's long espousal of independence in international affairs and voted with the United States and the European Union to censure Iran for allegedly violating its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Safeguards Agreement. The vote, at a meeting of the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on 22 September 2005, was doubly incongruous as the Indian Ministry of External Affairs’ website clearly recognizes that these allegations were “not justified” and that it would “not be accurate to characterize the current situation as a threat to international peace and stability”.

The Guardian of June 9, 2005 reported the disappearance from the International Atomic Energy Agency of a set or sets of detailed engineering plans for making nuclear materials and weapons of mass destruction (WMD). While there never have been any significant scientific secrets on the nuclear bomb, there has been somewhat restricted engineering information that would enable others to speed up, make more cheaply and avoid obvious tell-tale aspects of acquisition. Now we must assume that production information is widely available.

Yasukuni is first and foremost a site for the performance of ritual before the kami (gods), those men, women and some children who sacrificed their lives for the imperial cause. This article examines the organizing of space and ritual at Tokyo's shrine to the war dead and the implications for memory.

On October 4, 2002, the United States suddenly confronted North Korea with a damning accusation: that it was secretly developing a program to enrich uranium to weapons grade, in violation of the 1994 agreement that Pyongyang had signed with Washington to freeze its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Since North Korea had cheated, the Bush administration declared, the United States was no longer bound by its side of the deal. Accordingly, on November 14, 2002, the United States and its allies suspended the oil shipments they had been providing North Korea under the 1994 agreement.

Career opportunities have improved greatly for many Japanese women in recent years. More large companies are willing to hire them as career-track employees, and their share of elite civil servant positions has been growing. Although female students at my institution, Osaka City University, still encounter discrimination during the job hunt, they have actually outperformed men in recent job searches. A survey of the top 74 universities confirms the trend, showing that women had higher job placement rates this spring in most of the 395 departments covered. [1] It appears that some businesses are taking more seriously the mantra that ability trumps gender in today's more globalized, market-oriented economy.

The focus of international efforts in North Korea used to be on food aid. With the announcement of a policy change by the North Korean government this fall, sending home humanitarian NGO's and reinforcing the Public Distribution System for food, attention has shifted to developmental assistance. However, the basic question remains the same: Will international support improve the situation in North Korea, or will it just prop up the regime? It will probably do both, not only because “North Korea” and “the regime” are two categories that are not easily separable. But are there any visible developments that would justify taking the pain of further engagement?

From Washington to New Delhi, Caracas to Moscow and Beijing, national leaders and corporate executives are stepping up their efforts to gain control over major sources of oil and natural gas as the global struggle for energy intensifies. Never has the competitive pursuit of untapped oil and gas reserves been so acute, and never has so much money as well as diplomatic and military muscle been deployed in the contest to win control over major foreign stockpiles of energy. To an unprecedented degree, a government's success or failure in these endeavors is being treated as headline news, and provoking public outcry when a rival power is seen as benefiting unfairly from a particular transaction. With the officials of numerous governments coming under mounting pressure to satisfy the needs of their individual countries – at whatever cost -the battle for energy can only become more inflamed in the years ahead.

The severe rainstorm from last night has stopped. The sunshine is bright for early winter. The leaves on the trees have not yet turned a vivid color. Although the gusts of wind blowing in Yausubetsu located on the Konsen Plateau are not as cold as expected, they are powerful enough to sway me. November 5th, before noon, Mr. Kawase Hanji, age 78, took me to his land (35.5 hectares). This is a vacant lot where people organize events in the summer. The area is so large that I can hardly believe I am standing in the middle of the Japan Ground Self Defense Forces (SDF) Training Area. However, every once in a while, I hear the boom of live-fire training sessions.

The foremost Western authority on the life and times of Emperor Hirohito – known posthumously as the Emperor Showa – talked to The Japan Times about the role of Japan's former “living god” and his place in history in comparison with other powerful twentieth century leaders including Hitler, Mussolini, Roosevelt and George W. Bush.

In 2000, historian Herbert P. Bix shattered the image of Emperor Hirohito as a mere figurehead who was detached from Japan's imperialist warmongering in the first half of the 20th century.

[What is the driving force behind Japan's policy in the Middle East? Can it be summed up in one word, oil? Is Japan essentially the lapdog of the United States, or has it established an independent position on contentious issues in the region such as the Israel-Palestine conflict, the Iraq War, and Iran's nuclear development? Raquel Shaoul and John de Boer take up these questions in two articles as they evaluate Japan's impact on the Middle East.]

The nature of Japan's Middle East policy vis-avis Middle East regional issues during the past 30 years can be summarized by the following two main characteristics: First, a low political profile, which has meant a policy of little involvement and non-commitment. Although Japan's political involvement has been increasing since the first oil shock in the early 1970s, and there was incremental movement towards greater economic involvement in the region during the 1980s, a low political commitment remained till the early 1990s.

Few institutions in Japan are as contested, controversial, and complex as Yasukuni Shrine. According to a recent editorial (June 6, 2005) in the Asahi Shimbun and published in Japan Focus, “Yasukuni Shrine… in the past served the purpose of providing a site to publicly manifest both grief and admiration for those who perished in conflict. In this sense, it functioned to enhance the will to fight and mobilize the populace for war.”

George W. Bush might have kicked his alcohol and drug habits, but he still appears to have at least one serious addiction – to nuclear weapons.

Last year, Congress refused to fund the administration's ambitious proposal for new nuclear weapons, largely because both Republican and Democratic lawmakers agreed that the world would be a safer place with fewer – rather than more – nuclear explosives in existence.

Known as a black-belt judoist, Russian President Vladimir Putin has scored wazaari, if not ippon, in his diplomatic bout with Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro.

Putin ended a three-day official visit to Japan on Tuesday (Nov.22), his first in more than five years, after meeting with Koizumi and signing a dozen documents on expanding business cooperation and technological issues. But as widely expected, the two leaders failed to achieve a breakthrough on the long-standing territorial dispute. Even worse, the gulf between the two sides over the islands row had grown so wide that no joint political statement on the dispute was issued, dealing a significant setback to Tokyo. It is quite unusual that no political statement is issued when top leaders of Japan and Russia make official visits to each other's capitals.