Interview of Professor Ziegler with JBC, Feb. 17, 2015: “Next thing I know, I’m sitting in my office just like you and I are sitting here today — the door’s open, I have office hours. I was eating lunch. In pops…
“The U.S. government believed the “comfort women” issue was behind South Korean President Lee Myung-bak’s August 2012 visit to islets at the heart of a territorial dispute between Japan and South Korea, a U.S. document revealed on Tuesday.”
“Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Paul Allen and his research team have found the wreckage of a massive Japanese World War II battleship off the Philippines near where it sank more than 70 years ago, he said Wednesday. The apparent discovery of…
“Washington said on Monday that there has been no change in U.S. policy, part of an attempt to rectify controversial remarks made by an American diplomat that seemed to position the United States with Japan on historical issues with its…
“South Korean politicians and media have criticized recent comments by a senior U.S. official, saying she appeared to be taking sides with Japan in historical and other disputes with its neighbors South Korea and China.”
“A top U.S. diplomat expressed hope Friday that an upcoming meeting of the foreign ministers of Japan, South Korea and China could lead to their first trilateral summit despite icy relations in the region.”
“More than 2,100 Japanese, including three living in the United States, filed a lawsuit against the Asahi Shimbun Co. on Wednesday, demanding that the newspaper publisher run advertisements in major U.S. and European dailies to apologize for its past stories…
“450-year-old German artifact that was used to tell time and to make astronomical calculations will be returned to a German museum from which it was likely stolen after World War II, according to the Toledo Museum of Art.”
“Tokyo and Washington are in final preparations for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to address Congress during a visit to the United States this spring, a Japanese government official said Saturday. Arrangements are well underway for Abe to speak before a joint…
“A group of Korean victims of Japan’s wartime sexual enslavement on Monday expressed their gratitude to 19 U.S. historians who criticized Tokyo’s attempts to whitewash the dark side of its history in a joint statement earlier this month… …“Should the…
“Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ’s view of the past is the biggest cloud hanging over the future of U.S.-Japan ties, according to U.S. lawmakers visiting Tokyo this week…”
“Seoul’s demand for new apology over WWII ‘comfort women’ complicates regional security ties… …Polling data show that South Koreans dislike Mr. Abe as much as they do North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. In Japan, polls show that views of South…
“Ambassador to the United States Kenichiro Sasae has rejected criticism by U.S.-based historians that Japan tried to meddle with descriptions in an American textbook over the use of “comfort women” at wartime Japanese military brothels…”
19 U.S.-based Historians, members of the American Historical Association, issued a collective statement entitled “Standing with Historians of Japan,” strongly condemning PM Abe’s recent efforts to revise depictions of ‘comfort women’ in a history textbook published by McGraw-Hill (“Tradition & Encounters:…
In response to a comment to Reuters made by senior U.S. Navy officer Admiral Robert Thomas, commander of the Seventh Fleet and the top U.S. navy officer in Asia, that “the United States would welcome operations conducted by the Japanese Self-Defense…
“Speaking in Parliament, Mr. Abe pledged to increase efforts to fight what he called mistaken views abroad concerning Japan’s wartime actions, when the Japanese military conquered much of Asia.”
Japanese government’s new budget includes a $5 million grant to Columbia University in New York to fund a position for a professor of Japanese politics and foreign policy, position presently occupied by Professor Gerald Curtis who is to retire this year.
In response to two petitions, one urging and the other opposing U.S. pronouncement over option of taking island dispute between South Korea and Japan to the ICJ, the White House “reiterated that it does not take a position regarding the dispute” (Kyodo)
Article by SF teacher and writer Nicolas Gattig: “We mustn’t stand for actual denial, but should let others repent in the best way they can. This means graceful engagement — and humility about our own wrongs.”
Article from Kyodo News International: Japanese Foreign Ministry asks New York-based publisher McGraw-Hill Companies to change description of wartime comfort women in one of their world history textbooks
Click here to view the official White House transcript of the April 24th, 2014 Joint Press Conference with President Obama and Prime Minister Abe. In this press conference, the two leaders commented on the issue of disputed territory and President Obama…
History textbook wars cross borders – This opinion piece in The Japan Times explores how Japan, Germany, China, and the US have confronted their history in textbooks and whether or not any of them have truly escaped promoting a political…