Parents and students in Japan’s “North Korean” schools struggle to maintain their identity in an increasingly hostile environment.
Keeping North Korean in Japan
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Japan
Susan Rice Attempts to Solve the Japan-China Deadlock
Susan Rice presented a plan in her Georgetown speech on how to make a deal with Beijing.
China’s Struggle over Air and Sea
China has grown more willing to assert historical claims to its sphere of influence, but it would be a mistake to regard this as “aggression” that requires an American response.
Surviving Climate Change: Towards a Climate Revolution
Is a green energy revolution on the global agenda?
Branding Japan
Shinzo Abe is back as prime minister, along with his special brand of Abenomics and a whole new politics of hype.
Peer-to-Peer Science: The Century-Long Challenge to Respond to Fukushima
More than two years after an earthquake and tsunami wreaked havoc on a Japanese power plant, the Fukushima nuclear disaster is one of the most serious threats to public health in the Asia-Pacific, and the worst case of nuclear contamination the world has ever seen....
A Brewing Storm in the Western Pacific
A storm is brewing in the Western Pacific. As the Asia-Pacific region descends into a period of destabilizing conflict, the Philippines is quickly becoming a frontline state in the U.S. strategy to contain China—the central thrust of the Obama administration’s...
Preventing the Next Battle of Okinawa
During the Battle of Okinawa, thousands of civilians were caught in the crossfire as U.S. and Japanese troops waged one of the final—and bloodiest—fights of World War II. The combat lasted for more than three months, devastated the south and center of the island, and...
Empire, Capitalism, and Human Trafficking in Northeast Asia
The trafficking of North Korean women throughout Northeast Asia is a process whereby women are commoditized. They are sold to Chinese men as brides, or forced into prostitution to pay off debts accumulated while escaping North Korea. In many ways, North Korean women are inheritors of the suffering of Japan’s “comfort women.”
The Hashimoto Controversy and Japan’s Failure to Come to Terms with its Past
The words were so brazen that they have created a firestorm globally. Characterized as “outspoken” and “brash” in the international media, Osaka mayor Toru Hashimoto has claimed that “comfort women”—the thousands of Asian women who were forced to serve as prostitutes during the Second World War—were “necessary” for the morale of Japanese troops.