Myanmar's accidental bombings of China's Yunnan province on 8 and 13 March 2015 are symptomatic of a recent decline in Sino-Myanmar relations. This article will first examine the recent unrest in Myanmar's Kokang region that led to the bombings of Yunnan. The relationship between China and the Communist Party of Burma will be shown to connect the unrest in Kokang with the Myanmar government's long-term suspicions of China. It then shifts to a broader overview of Sino-Myanmar relations, with their close ties during the international isolation of Myanmar after 1988 shown to be one of necessity for Myanmar, which ended with Myanmar's rapprochement with the US in 2011. The final section focuses on the collapse of Chinese investment in Myanmar following the Myanmar government's 2011 suspension of the Myitsone Dam project, and discussion ends with the reminder that Chinese energy concerns, manifest in the oil and gas pipelines connecting Yunnan with the Indian Ocean, make Myanmar an essential component of China's long-term plans for its energy security, thereby making it crucial for the Chinese foreign policy establishment to seek an improvement of China's bilateral relations with Myanmar.

The Governor of Okinawa, Onaga Takeshi, who took office in December 2014 after a landslide victory in the November gubernatorial election, has taken a cautious approach in response to Japanese government action to crush Okinawan opposition to a new Marine base in Henoko Bay. Instead of immediately revoking or cancelling his predecessor's landfill permit to the Japanese government that allowed construction of the much-debated new base to replace the Futenma Air Station in congested Ginowan City, he set up an experts’ panel called the “Third-Party Committee,” which consists of three lawyers and environmentalists carefully chosen for “impartiality and neutrality.” The purpose of the Committee, according to its chair and lawyer Oshiro Hiroshi, is to examine possible legal flaws of former Governor Nakaima's landfill permit, which was approved at the end of 2013 to the dismay of the majority of Okinawans who opposed the new base. Oshiro has announced that the Committee will make recommendation at the end of June, which Govenor Onaga will take into consideration in deciding whether or not to revoke or cancel the landfill permit. To lawyer Kumano Katsuyuki, however, legal flaws of the landfill permit are obvious on the basis both of Japan's constitution and international law. He concludes that the existing landfill permit violates anti-discrimination clauses of both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Constitution of Japan -Article 2 and Article 14, respectively, and Clause 2, Article 98 of the Constitution of Japan, which stipulates that the “treaties concluded by Japan and established laws of nations shall be faithfully observed.” Many observers fear, moreover, that by June, when the Committee's report is expected, irreparable damage to the environment of Henoko Bay will have been rendered. SN

The predicted impending end of dekasegi marks an opportune moment to explore the almost unstudied repatriation of migrants from their country of ethnic origin (Japan) to their country of citizenship (primarily Brazil). I consider issues of adjustment and identity upon “return” through a case study of “Diogo Pacheco Moriyama,” a mestiço Japanese Brazilian who has lived and worked in Brazil, Japan, and the United States.