In the summer of 1950, at the start of the Korean conflict, the government of Syngman Rhee in the South ordered the massive execution of over one hundred thousand (perhaps two hundred thousand) civilians simply suspected of being communist sympathizers. This war crime by any standard, civilized and uncivilized, has only been unveiled recently and officially by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Republic of Korea http://www.jinsil.go.kr/English/Commission/index.asp.

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.

[Editors' note: The final version of this article was received just prior to the announcement of Fukuda Yasuo's resignation as Prime Minister. Tanter comments: Fukuda's resignation will change nothing in the underlying domestic and alliance strains that lead to his decision to resign. The next Liberal Democratic Party leader, whether Aso Taro, Koike Yuriko, or someone else, will face the same limitations, and the same demands on military policy, but with even more diminished political resources and room for maneuvre. If the LDP moves to a general election following the selection of a new Prime Minister, the Democratic Party of Japan would be under severe pressure, on the one hand, from domestic sources to make good on its criticism of the Indian Ocean deployment, and on the other, from the United States, to recognize US understandings of Japan's global responsibilities – and maintain the deployment - possibly as the price of power.]

No one would have believed in the last years of the twentieth century that this world would be in such tumult over so little that is understood. Unimaginable violence, most of it for triumphs that are obscure. Politics buried so deep in their actions, that the motives disappear in the flames, and the suffering itself becomes the end. Aerial bombardment of entire countries, cold-blooded massacre of citizenries. Armies set in place to hold people down, and themselves held down by their inexperience and bewilderment. Populations motivated for revenge rather than for revolution, harmed beyond belief and then diverted from their oppressors to take their justice where it comes. A cheapened world, where values are given over to pieties, and tears quickly dry into the very rage that created them in the first place. Time is circular: this is the myth of eternal return, with the avenging angel appearing once as Demon, then Angel, then Demon again. This is our cauldron.

This article focuses on energy ties to assess the current state of bilateral relations between Japan and Indonesia in the wake of the August 2007 signing of the Japan-Indonesia Economic Partnership Agreement (JIEPA). With ratification by Japan's upper and lower houses expected by July 2008, the JIEPA leaves unresolved arguably the most important issue between the signatories, namely future natural gas exports to Japan. Indonesia seems determined to more than halve its exports to Japan, its best customer, whilst at the same time charging it more for the same supplies that China will also receive. This paper explains the reasons for the new Indonesian policy before briefly assessing a second strand of recent bilateral energy security developments, that of Japanese assistance to secure the Straits of Malacca.

Japan's defeat in World War II transformed East Asia into a Cold War arena of East-West confrontation. With China's involvement, the bitter rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union flared during the Korean War and the Vietnam War. This article explores the impact of these wars on the people of East Asia.

A large fiberglass boat propelled by a 40HP engine speeds across the pristine waters of Marovo Lagoon, a double-barrier enclosed lagoon with hundreds of stunning islets. The area is on UNESCO's provisional world heritage list. Having left Ramata, a small settlement almost at the Northwest extreme of the lagoon, it is heading for New Georgia Island, locally known as the “mainland” because of its size.

The major reason for writing a paper on Japanese unionism is that much of the debate assessing Japanese enterprise unions was set in the pre-1990s period when the economy was strong and there was a shortage of skilled labour. Thus, whilst some commentators argued that Japanese enterprise unions were little more than an arm of management, it was difficult to refute the argument that this form of unionism had resulted in real wage and benefit increases for a considerable period of time whilst generally ensuring a high level of job security for large numbers of workers. Over the past 15 years or so a different economic context has arisen where wage gains have been harder for unions to achieve, where unemployment and irregular employment have increased, and where globalization has made the market for Japanese goods highly competitive. It is time to provide a more contemporary assessment of this form of union organization.

Declarations made before and immediately following the cessation of the Pacific War pledged the United States mission of the occupation of Japan, after disarming the erstwhile enemy of its military capacity and purging those responsible for the war, to be the introduction of democracy. The same Potsdam Declaration that demanded Japan's “unconditional surrender” appended the notion that through occupation the democratic ideals of “[f]reedom of speech, of religion and of thought, as well as respect for the fundamental human rights shall be established.” This article considers the application of these principles to Japan's minorities. These peoples not only were denied political consideration as “Japanese” but also faced severe discrimination and at times non-recognition during the postwar period. In particular, given its size, its organization, and historical complications, this article examines the plight of Japan's Korean population.

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

As chair of the G8 this year, Japan will host the group's annual summit. The meeting convenes in the Hokkaido resort town of Toyako from July 7th to the 10th. With Wall Street's worsening financial meltdown spreading through credit categories and far out into the real economies of many G8 members, the summit will focus on economic issues. But the environment remains on the agenda, especially as the world moves towards a post-Kyoto agreement. There isn't much time. The current Kyoto Agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions is effective from 2008 to 2012, and the deadline for a new climate treaty is December 2009, at the Committee of Partners meeting in Poznan, Poland.

As the most pressing resource, water holds the strategic key to peace, public health and prosperity. The battles of yesterday were fought over land. Those of today are over energy. But the battles of tomorrow will be over water. And nowhere else does that prospect look more real than in Asia.

It is 63 years since mushroom clouds over Hiroshima and Nagasaki ushered in the nuclear age. The attacks on the two cities are now solemnly commemorated on 6 and 9 August, when the two city mayors issue their messages calling on the world to disarm, messages as necessary as they are certain to be ignored by the powers.

The Republic of Korea has turned 60. Birthdays are a time for looking back over the past as well as for planning the future. The sad truth, however, is that the Republic that was born in 1948 was only the first of six, and that its record contains little to celebrate and much to lament. It is unlikely that many Koreans today remember it with pride or pleasure.

April 9, 2008 marks the 66th anniversary of the fall of Bataan which resulted in the largest surrender by the United States Army in its history. Over 77,000 American and Filipino troops were to become victims of one of the most brutal episodes in the Pacific War—the Bataan Death March.

I claim that Base Ball owes its prestige as our National Game to the fact that as no other form of sport it is the exponent of American Courage, Confidence, Combativeness; American Dash, Discipline, Determination; American Energy, Eagerness, Enthusiasm; American Pluck, Persistency, Performance; American Spirit, Sagacity, Success; American Vim, Vigor, Virility.

“We believe that the remarks of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as recently told to an Israeli newspaper could serve as the basis for immediately starting a new set of realistic negotiations aimed at achieving a just and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians.”

This paper traces the emergence and development of the idea of “exit” as a form of resistance or challenge to the system in the writings of Yoshimoto Takaaki and Karatani Kojin. I show that the rhetoric of exit as resistance grows out of the climate of political disillusion in the aftermath of the political activism of the 60s as a strategy for finding a potential for popular resistance. With Karatani's attempt to create a social movement, NAM (the New Associationist Movement), the rhetoric shifts from emphasizing a defense of withdrawal from the “public” in order to elude control, towards emphasizing exit as an offensive weapon to be used actively by social movements in confronting the system. Today the idea of exit remains an important influence among activists and intellectuals associated with social movements. At the same time, there is a dilemma, which stems from its paradoxical attempt to mobilize political disillusionment and withdrawal from public involvement into a political force.

On the morning of August 26, 2008, aid worker Ito Kazuya arrived at work as usual. Four armed men suddenly appeared and abducted him. Local people witnessed the abduction, and a force of policemen and villagers gave chase into the mountains above north of the village of Bodyalai near Dara-e-Noor, Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan. The result was a tragedy: Ito was shot three times in the leg and once in the left thigh. On the morning following the abduction, his body was found by the local people: Ito had bled to death.