“Chinese Embassy officials in the United States went on a phone call frenzy in November to present their spin on a planned joint statement agreed upon just hours earlier concerning Japan-China relations.”
“The Foreign Ministry has published on its website a map released by a Chinese government organ in 1969 calling the disputed Senkaku Islands by their Japanese name.”
“For Abe and his revisionist clique of likeminded ministers, lawmakers and bureaucrats, it’s high time the severity of the situation is realized and all childish gamesmanship ceased, for the future good of the nation, stability in the region and reputation…
“‘Why would he need to change the words? That is why people have doubts,’ said the 78-year-old Kono. ‘He must erase those doubts and the simplest way to do so is to uphold the Murayama statement unchanged…’ Kono also said he…
The Musashi in brief, by Reiji Yoshida: What was the Musashi? Why were such mammoth battleships planned in the first place? Did the Musashi and Yamato contribute greatly to Japan’s war effort?
“Japan is building up its military forces and strengthening alliances to counter threats from China as the country emerges from decades of isolationism following its defeat in World War II.”
“China should stop fixating on Japan’s wartime past and focus on improving future cooperation, Japan’s top government spokesman said Monday. Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga was responding to a comment by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang who said yesterday that…
Presumably democratic governments have at times used states of emergency or “states of exception” (see Giorgio Agamben’s work) in order to ramp up militarily assertive rhetoric, and to claim the right or necessity to suspend or modify existing legal boundaries in order to increase their power.…
“U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed his hope of seeing “a forward-looking, future-oriented vision” in a statement Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will issue this summer to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II.”