Hiroshima, 18 April 2010∼ In today's world there are two great existential challenges looming over all others. Firstly, the question of climate change. Whatever happened in Copenhagen is far short of what is required. Too many countries are refusing to pay any price for changes that must be consummated if the world environment is to be safeguarded. The other great challenge concerns nuclear weapons and it is this subject with which our meeting in Hiroshima is particularly concerned.

“In the police you see the dirty work of Empire at close quarters. The wretched prisoners huddling in stinking cages of the lock-ups, the grey cowed faces of the long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had been flogged with bamboos.” - George Orwell, Shooting An Elephant and Other Essays.

From late November 1944, the U.S. Air Force began aerial bombing of Japan's main islands. By the time the war ended on 15 August 1945, the United States had dropped a total of 160,800 tons of conventional and incendiary bombs, as well as two atomic bombs. More than ninety percent of these bombs were dropped by B-29 bombers during the last five months of the Asia-Pacific War. In the end, almost 100 cities and more than 300 towns and villages throughout Japan were targeted, causing more than 1 million casualties including 560,000 deaths. It is said that seventy percent of those killed were women and children. The great destruction and carnage from this intense indiscriminate bombing campaign imposed severe physical as well as psychological damage on Japan's society and people.

The Sorge espionage case concerns one of the most spectacular instances of clandestine influence in the history of international relations. In the mid-1930s, the former Soviet Union enlisted the German national, Dr. Richard Sorge and four others in Tokyo, secretly to collect information on the likely policies of the Japanese government and to do what it could to alter them in favor of peace. This concerned above all whether Japan would join Nazi Germany in an attack on the U.S.S.R. Since Germany had already virtually defeated Russia in the summer of 1941, had Japan joined Germany it would have meant the probable victory of the Axis powers over Russia. As it was Russia and Japan maintained their neutrality vis-à-vis each other until the final months of World War II, one of the most amazing achievements of Soviet espionage and secret operations in history. Sorge did not survive the defeat of Nazi Germany, but the Soviet Union and its successors have celebrated his achievements ever since.

KONO MICHIKAZU This year I was in Nanjing on August 15, the anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II. I was with you, in fact, attending the opening of an exhibit that was the product of three years of effort on your part: “My August 15,” an exhibition by Japanese manga artists at the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall. One should probably note here that a contentious debate continues to rage between Japan and China, and among Japanese scholars as well, over the facts of the so-called Nanjing Massacre, including the number of victims and the authenticity of certain documents. And the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall, which has “300,000 Victims” engraved in large letters near the main entrance, is regarded by many in Japan as a kind of rallying point for anti-Japanese sentiment in China. What a bold, pathbreaking idea, to choose this memorial hall, and the symbolic date of August 15, to exhibit cartoons describing the wartime suffering of the Japanese, whom the Chinese have tended to view solely as aggressors!

December 2009 was an historic month for the South Korean nuclear industry. In winning two bidding competitions to design and construct nuclear power plants in the Middle East, it dramatically signalled its arrival as an international force in the sector. The opening announcement concerned Jordan's first nuclear research reactor whilst the second, and most important, was a massive contract to build at least four nuclear power plants in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The South Korean team was one of nine original bidders and beat off competition from France and an American-Japanese consortium from the final shortlist of three. As the USA, France and Japan account for almost half of the world's total nuclear reactors, this was an impressive achievement, especially since it will be the first nuclear power plant that Korea has exported.

Ambassador Edwin Reischauer provided the framework for the Japanese government's betrayal of Okinawan aspirations and Japan's “Three Non-Nuclear Principles” in the 1969 Reversion Agreement.

In China's international relations, 2010 has been the Year of Zero Sum.

On a series of issues, the Western and Asian democracies have demanded that China accept policies that advance their agendas while sacrificing Chinese interests.

On one level this is the inevitable outcome of the Obama administration's repositioning of its foreign policy away from the amoral, Westphalian-style horse-trading of national interests of the Bush administration.

Imagine that you are Thai and poor, as most people in this country still are. Imagine that you are aware of your social position, as most poor Thais are, and that you are educated and understand the complexities and hidden meanings of political life of your country, which most Thais do not. You have basically two alternatives if suicide or emigration is not the option: to support the outrageously elitist aristocracy and the army (many of whose members now paint themselves yellow) whose goal is to preserve society's feudal arrangements, or support the business tycoon accused of tremendous corruption (his people are painted red). If you can't chose between these two camps, you are out of luck – nothing else is on the menu.

A unique feature of the global policy response to the 2008-9 recession is that, as part of their efforts to boost aggregate demand and growth, some governments adopted expansionary policies that also incorporated a sizable “green fiscal” component. Such measures were wide ranging, including support for renewable energy, carbon capture and sequestration, energy efficiency, public transport and rail, and improving electrical grid transmission, as well as other public investments and incentives aimed at environmental protection.

This paper proposes the creation of a Northeast Asian Biodiversity Corridor (NEABC) that would connect in a consistent manner critical habitat in Russia, China, and the Korean Peninsula. Such a corridor may be considered now because of decades of scientific and policy work to establish a DMZ Peace Park, a mountain-watershed ecosystem network in the ROK, nature reserves in the DPRK, and cross-border mega-species migration corridors between the DPRK, China, and Russia. The paper reviews each of these stepping and foundation stones, and refers to proposed regional biodiversity corridors in other regions. It emphasizes parallels between the Northeast Asian context and that of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor (MBC), an existing regional biodiversity corridor which involves eight Central American countries that, like the two Koreas, are trapped in inter-state conflicts. It suggests that the Korean traditional concept of “The Baekdudaegan” that integrates the cultural and ecological landscapes of the mountains and rivers of Korea may be an important cultural device that frames the ecological basis of a regional NEABC. The paper reflects on how indirect and incremental social and political engagement may be a necessary attribute of strategies that build ecological security in a conflict zone. It concludes by contrasting this approach to the characteristics of what the author terms “nuclear insecurity” and suggests that a Northeast Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone may be a form of nuclear insecurity that relies less on balances of terror, and thereby is more conducive to the creation of sustainable security in this region.

With a proud high-heel clatter not becoming a military runway, she rushes forward, followed by her children with slightly shy looks on their faces. A pilot in flight suit awaits them, arms spread. Embraces, kisses, tears. …

The firebombing of Tokyo on the night of March 9-10, 1945 touched off the wave of firebombing that destroyed 64 Japanese cities and culminated in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. While Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been deeply engraved on the consciousness of humanity and commemorated in monuments, museums, films, novels and textbooks, the firebombing and napalming of civilians of many other Japanese and Asian cities has largely disappeared from consciousness, except for the victims. The bombing of March 9-10 took the lives of 100,000 Tokyoites and leveled sixteen square miles of the city in the most devastating raid in human history to that time … according to Japanese and US Strategic Bombing Survey figures, and may have taken the lives of many more. In recent years commemorative efforts have begun to remember the events and the victims, and lawsuits have been filed seeking damages for victims. The Asia-Pacific Journal

Growth in nuclear power generation in East Asia will increase significantly in the next few decades, as will regional stockpiles of spent nuclear fuel. The need for regional cooperation in dealing with the back-end of the nuclear fuel cycle is becoming critical as the key players in the region—China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan— face the growing challenge of managing their spent nuclear fuel.

In 1973, Ogawara Shū (1911-2002) painted a group of Hokkaido dogs in A Herded Society (Gunka shakai). Barking, crawling over each other, and trying to jump out of the picture plane toward the viewer, these are not tame, docile pet dogs, but rather violent animals. The painting does not have a smooth finish or a focal point. The simultaneously expressive yet unsophisticated faces of the dogs add a childish quality to the work. The artist stated that this painting represented the group mentality that existed among Japanese people, not only during the war when they supported the military government without question, but also after the war when they began uncritically embracing U.S. policies. Yet, distancing oneself from the pack is not easy.

Shi Zhengrong, founder and chief-executive of China's Suntech Power, now the largest crystalline silicon solar module producer in the world, tells us that “policy is the only leading force for climate change.” Concerned about greenhouses gases and conventional energy supplies, the International Energy Agency declared in its World Energy Outlook 2009 that the world needs a “much faster roll-out of renewables,” through investment exceeding USD 4 trillion over the coming two decades. And the January 31, 2010 New York Times warns, in tones reminiscent of the 1957 Sputnik shock, that China's policy-driven efforts “to dominate the global manufacture of renewable energy technologies raise the prospect that the West (sic) may someday trade its dependence on oil from the Mideast for a reliance on solar panels, wind turbines and other gear manufactured in China.”

Much recent discussion on anti-base opposition in the Asia-Pacific has focused on island-wide protests against the relocation of Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Futenma. By uniting in mass demonstrations against the construction of a new U.S. base, and by staging a multi-year round the clock demonstration at the proposed site of the new base, Okinawans put pressure squarely on Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama to keep his campaign pledge to move Futenma air base off the island. However, shortly after the sinking of the South Korean warship Cheonan, which South Korea and the U.S. charge was the work of a torpedo launched by a North Korean submarine, Hatoyama reversed his pledge. The Japanese government bowed to U.S. pressure, agreeing to move forward with earlier plans to relocate Futenma within Okinawa to smooth over U.S.-Japan relations.

Dated January 29, 2010, the Foreign Trade Bank of the DPRK (North Korea) issued document No. DC033 10-004 to diplomatic missions and international organizations present in North Korea. They were informed that the use of foreign currency was to be stopped, payments were to be made in the form of non-cash cheques, and that the official exchange rate of the Euro to the North Korean Won was changed from 188.2 KPW to 140 KPW, effective January 2, 2010.

The first American invasion of Iejima occurred on April 16th, 1945. U.S. Army accounts chronicle in meticulous detail the vicious battle for this small island, situated three miles west of Okinawa's main island (hontou). One thousand troops aboard eighty landing craft stormed Iejima's eastern beaches, meeting heavy resistance from dug-in Japanese defenders. In the following five days of bloodshed, two thousand Imperial Army soldiers were killed, together with fifteen hundred civilians. As was the case throughout much of Okinawa, not all of these civilians were killed by the Americans.

It had been three months since the Iwate-Miyagi Nairiku Earthquake struck northern Honshu on 14 June 2008, triggering a huge landslide above Aratozawa Dam. The area hit by a landslide has been further carved by snow and rain, and trees and other vegetation are in disarray. The site looks like the day after a wretched barber had just given it a bad haircut. For the earth, this must be an embarrassing appearance.