This essay revisits the 1946-7 “Politics and Literature Debate” (Seiji to bungaku ronsō), a pivotal controversy among leftist Japanese writers and intellectuals that is conventionally cited as the starting point of postwar literary history. Situating the debate in tandem with three influential texts published at roughly the same time in the West—Lionel Trilling's The Liberal Imagination (1951), Ruth Benedict's The Chrysanthemum and the Sword (1946), and The God That Failed (1950), edited by Richard Crossman—the essay argues that the debate should be considered an early instance of the Cold War culture that would emerge globally in the decades that followed.

This essay explores new aspects of wartime Japan's industrial mobilization by analyzing how the country's struggling silk industry persistently exploited the emerging myth of Japan's paratroopers. With the outbreak of the Pacific War, Japan's silk manufacturers suffered from a ban on luxury goods and the collapse of the U.S. export market. After several spectacular Japanese airborne operations, the Dainippon Silk Foundation successfully campaigned for the large-scale production of parachutes. Silk now was a material for military consumption, and silk weaving companies became designated munitions factories that publicly compared the self-sacrifice of their young female workers with that of the death-defying paratroopers.

There is widespread concern over the scale of China's consumption of fossil fuels, and particularly over recent increases in coal burning in the electric power sector. Nevertheless it is a fact that China is greening its power sector more than blackening it. We present updated evidence that China's electric power system has been greening – in terms of capacity added from renewable (WWS) sources, growth in electricity generated from WWS sources, and investment in new generation infrastructure. We present the results for the green renewable sector (WWS), the black fossil fuel sector (thermal) and the nuclear sector (growing, but not nearly as fast as WWS). This evidence reveals that China's extreme dependence on coal and other fossil fuels is moderating, as it ramps up alternatives – particularly the generation of domestic power from renewable sources based on water, wind and sun (WWS). In short, China's energy system is diversifying: it is greening within a large and growing carbon-intensive existing system. At the same time, China has steadily increased levels of coal burning in the past two to three years – even while the green trend in domestic power generation has continued. China's level of fossil fuel investments abroad (particularly through the Belt and Road Initiative) remain a source of concern. China continues to send disconcertingly mixed messages on the energy front.

On August 6, 2020 Japan's Renewable Energy Institute (REI) released a lengthy and ambitious “Proposals for the 2030 Energy Mix” (REI, 2020). The REI proposals are aimed Japan's strategic energy policy, currently under review. The proposals centre on the power sector, perhaps the most crucial element of any “green recovery” from Covid-19's massive economic impacts. The REI surveys Japan's electricity system and outlines a “sustainable electricity generation mix” consistent with what the REI views as Japan's principal challenges in the context of global energy trends and climate policy. In the REI's estimation, Japan could and should achieve a dramatic revamp of its power mix by 2030. The REI argue that more aggressive policy could allow Japan – in a decade - to attain a 45% share of renewable electricity generation (tripling solar and octupling wind). Over the same period, this massive and rapid expansion of renewable power would be backed up by a huge increase in power generation from natural gas. In tandem, both nuclear power and coal-fired generation would be completely eliminated from the power mix. If achieved, this would rank among the world's most far-reaching renewable energy programs.

The World Bank's “International Poverty Line,” a politically driven standard, obscures the reality that, in East Asia as elsewhere, poverty is increasing alongside enormous wealth for the richest ten percent. The COVID-19 pandemic is driving tens of millions more people into poverty in East Asia than would otherwise be the case, challenging all governments to meet the crisis where it most counts: in health care, food, aid to small businesses, and income. For that to happen, however, requires a dramatically different approach to economic globalization by governments and international lending agencies. Two events, the COVID-19 pandemic and the climate crisis, are playing havoc with efforts by international organizations to reduce poverty. The United Nations, the World Health Organization, and numerous nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are all engaged in poverty-reduction programs, but the World Bank stands out for obstructing a clearer understanding not just of how poverty should be defined, but also of what it takes to lift people out of it.

Representations of blacks in Japan continue to be problematic even when the media itself, a prime purveyor of racial misrepresentations, attempts to address the issue. This has become evident in its coverage of global Black Lives Matter protests for racial justice in the wake of the murder of George Floyd by police in the United States. While protests have occurred in a number of Japanese cities, mainstream coverage has ignored them and remained focused on those demonstrations that have taken place abroad. While these demonstrations have prompted a reexamination of anti-black racism in the United States and Europe, the Japanese media has largely avoided introspective discussion of its domestic manifestations, despite its prevalence on the internet, social media, and television, including corporate mainstream news broadcasts that have feebly attempted to examine the issue.