In his Sociology of Religion, Max Weber suggested that one of the significant social impacts of religious ideas was to be found in what he called “the problem of theodicy,” the effort to reconcile a vision of cosmic order with the suffering, injustice and waste that marks so much of human experience. Among these religious responses to the problem of evil, he included the doctrine of karmic cause and effect, a notion that has since become commonplace in Western popular discourse. As the following piece by Brian Victoria suggests, karma theory has often been used by those in positions of authority, not simply to explain, but to justify social inequality and oppression. In his survey of twentieth-century Japanese writings on karma and society, Victoria describes some of the ways in which Buddhist doctrines like karma were placed explicitly in service to the state. The idea that our experiences in this life are the result of our actions in a past life was put to use, not only to dismiss calls to social and economic equality, but to redirect responsibility for the death and devastation caused by war from political leaders to the victims themselves. As he notes, however, dissenting voices have argued for a very different view, one more in keeping with Buddhist injunctions to compassion.

[As China-Japan relations entered their tensest period since the reestablishment of diplomatic relations in 1972, Japan's Asahi Shimbun appraised the situation in an article by its China bureau chief and an editorial. Noting the role of the Chinese government in fueling the current wave of protests and of the police in failing to curb violence directed against the Japanese embassy, the newspaper called on it to rein in nationalist actions that could jeopardize the flourishing economic relations between the two nations. The Asahi locates the protests in the context of Chinese responses to Japan's textbook controversy and its bid for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. It warns the governments of both countries that the genie of nationalism, once out of the bottle, may be difficult to curb, a warning with deep historical roots in the China-Japan relationship. The Asahi texts make no mention, however, of rising nationalism in Japan, nor do they specify ways in which Japanese government and people might contribute to easing the tensions that threaten the relationship between Asia's most powerful nations. Japan Focus]

Humankind is truly at a crossroads. It may either degenerate into oblivion destroying its abode, the Earth, or it may change course and sustain its civilization for the foreseeable future. The material that is available to humankind and all our co-inhabitants of the Earth is physically limited, and the energy that is usable for long is only that from the Sun. All other energy sources are exhaustible, and will not last long at the current rate of exploitation. Materials naturally available (or at least readily usable) are usually present in a relatively low-entropy state. Once such materials are processed, utilized and discarded/dispersed into the environment, their entropy is enormously increased. Then it is hardly possible to recover it in a low-entropy state. Hence, though they never disappear, such materials are non-renewable in practice. This writer has attempted to estimate the resource availability of major elements on the Earth and the anthropogenic exploitation rate (Ochiai, 2004).

“To go or not to go is the question. Our man Prime Minister Koizumi, just celebrating his 60th, states that decisions should be ‘based on the situation, whether it is ‘safe’ or ‘unsafe’. I, being over 60 myself, am at the same crossroads in a way. The difference is that our friend [Koizumi] will proceed if it is safe and will not if there is danger, whilst I take the opposite position. Koizumi in his wavy lionesque ‘do’, and me bald as an elephant, our thinking as opposite as our hairstyles.” – Hashida Shinsuke (1942-2004), from his diary, Screaming ‘Idiot’ in the Middle of Iraq.

One feature of contemporary writings on Japan is the framing of a ‘false’ homogeneous Japan ‘myth’ against the ‘reality’ of a mixed or multicultural Japan. One problem with this approach is that it ignores the fact that these positions represent (largely) indigenous discourses which, at different points in Japan's history, have had – and, in the case of the former in particular, continue to have – a key role in structuring both national identity and social reality for many Japanese. This paper uses the notion of discourse, together with associated theories such as invented tradition, imagined communities, and the social stock of knowledge, to re-evaluate the myth vs. reality binary. A number of concrete examples are presented – both historical and contemporary – to illustrate how those discourses which resonate with popular lived experience can successfully take root in the popular psyche and become part of the Japanese world-view. The argument is that rather than dismissing such popular assumptions, perceptions, and beliefs as ‘illusory’, it would be more useful to closely examine their role in constructing and maintaining social reality and public policy in Japan.

The following article by Kokita Kiyohito, on the family origins of Kim Jong Un, the leader designate of North Korea, is illuminating above all for the language, assumptions and treatment of issues related to North Korea in contemporary Japanese media, including the Asahi. Two brief commentaries locate some of the issues in broader perspective. The headline and article are taken from the Asahi's weekly Aera; photos have been provided from other sources. The major story addressed in the commentary by Tessa Morris-Suzuki is the collaboration of the Japanese government and the International Red Cross in arranging the migration of more than 93,000 Korean residents of Japan, who had been deprived of Japanese citizenship following Japan's wartime defeat, to North Korea. Mark Selden examines a range of issues related to the perspective of the Japanese journalist on Zainichi Koreans and North Korea.

This paper documents the fact that distributed power is a rapidly expanding and quickly evolving market with important implications for Japanese and global energy futures. It also shows that Japan has an excellent opportunity to grow a robust and sustainable business area that includes primary, secondary and tertiary industries. Distributed power can improve equity, local resilience, and build a more competitive export sector. But Japan may be handicapped by Galapagos features as well as the capacity of vested interests to block progress in power deregulation and other aspects that favour the diffusion of distributed power and efficiency. These handicaps may become even more pronounced after the December 16 general election, which is shaping up to be - at least in part - a contest over whether to stick with centralized power in the hands of Tepco and other giant utilities or accelerate the distribution of opportunities. The election seems likely to bring on even worse political confusion and gridlock than Japan endures at present, which will almost certainly advantage the status quo.

This paper traces the social history of the household registration system (koseki seido) in Japan from its beginning to the present day. The paper argues that the koseki has been an essential tool of social control used at various stages in history to facilitate the political needs and priorities of the ruling elite by constructing and policing the boundaries of Japanese self. This self has been mediated through the principles of family as defined by the state and has created diverse marginalised and excluded others. The study includes social unrest and agency of these others in furthering understanding of the role of the koseki in Japanese society. The paper also contributes understanding of nationality and citizenship in contemporary Japan in relation to the koseki.

The Asia-Pacific Journal has closely followed the case of a group of Tokyo teachers punished because they refused to stand during school ceremonies for the playing of Kimigayo, Japan's national anthem. Some consider the anthem, a hymn of praise to the emperor, to be too closely connected to Japan's history of militarism and imperialism. For them, not standing is a form of conscientious protest. From 2004, Tokyo Governor and staunch conservative Ishihara Shintaro has led a drive to have the anthem played at Tokyo schools and to take punitive action, including fines and suspensions, against teachers who refuse to stand. That crackdown has spread, moreover, to Osaka and other cities.

Immediately following the ruling by the Osaka District Court on the Okinawa Mass Suicides Suit (March 28, 2008), I was being interviewed by a correspondent from a foreign newspaper, while the plaintiffs were already engaged in the appeals process. Almost by way of greeting, I was asked by the correspondent, “What has this trial meant to your life?” I replied by saying, “If I have spent half my life writing essays and novels, then I have spent the other half of it reading books, or more precisely, focusing my reading on certain topics continuously for three year periods. During the two and a half years of this suit, my job has been to read the preparatory documents submitted by both the plaintiffs and defendants as well as the books named in those documents. This part of my life, trying as it was, was spent reading the works of distinguished writers whom I never would have had the chance to know otherwise.”

Here in Tokyo, I saw two movies last week. One was a feature, and the other was a documentary. Both were about Japan's Kamikaze pilots in World War II.

“I wanted to convey the corps' beauty to young people today.” So writes Tokyo mayor Ishihara Shintaro at the start of “For Those We Love,” (Ore wa kimi no tame ni koso shini ni iku the feature film. Ishihara is the film's executive producer and scriptwriter.

Over the gulf of one century and two revolutions, two groups of Chinese petitioners drafted remarkably similar blueprints for political reform. Both groups sought civil rights and political responsibilities for Chinese citizens and a Western-influenced form of constitutional government to replace rule by autocracy. Today, China's autocratic government is ruled by the Chinese Communist Party, and in the waning years of the Chinese empire, it was ruled by the Qing dynasty. The striking differences between these petition movements are as instructive as their similarities, reflecting not only the qualities of the movements themselves but the radically different political environments—inside and outside China—from which they emerged.

Tahara Soichiro's Nihon no sengo (Japan's postwar), a recent work of Japanese popular history from one of the country's best-selling and most widely read journalists, bears the provocative subtitle “Were we mistaken?” [1] This question, asked of the entire postwar period, is representative of a significant current in contemporary Japanese thought - the idea that Japan has strayed from the “correct” path and failed to live up to international “norms”. In recent years, Japanese debates about war and peace, on both sides of the ideological divide, have been influenced by this view. Conservatives play up the idea that the Japanese constitution, which explicitly forbids participation in armed conflict and the maintenance of military forces, means that the nation has not been able to play a role in world affairs appropriate to its economic might. Progressives criticize the Japanese government's failure to adequately apologize and compensate the victims of colonialism and war for aggression and atrocities. In both views, Japan is abnormal, and incapable of living up to “universals” - either the “universal” right to self-defense and duty to participate in international conflicts like the “war on terror”, or the necessity to inculcate the view that “war is wrong” and the idea that past crimes must be dealt with honestly in the public sphere.

Words don't really do justice to the brutality of recent downturn in Korean and Taiwanese exports.

These look a lot like charts of financial variables after a bubble bursts, not charts of the level of exports. That isn't good.

Looking just as the monthly data risks being misleading. There is a lot of seasonality in Taiwan's exports. They usually dip in February. It is a short month, it often corresponds with the Chinese new year and the data isn't seasonally adjusted. A small dip in December after the end of the Western holiday season also isn't unusual. But such a big dip in December is most unusual. Plotting the rolling 3m sum eliminates the big February dip. The current downturn is real.

At first glance, the Liberal Democratic Party's decades-long denial of clear evidence revealed by the U.S. government that it had secret agreements allowing the introduction and stationing of US nuclear weapons in Japan appears absurd. This was the reality, however, for the nation that long proclaimed the “Three Non-Nuclear Principles,” barring the production, possession or importation of nuclear weapons, as a bedrock of national policy. With the fall of the LDP looming in the September 2009 election, several former top officials of Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who were well informed of these secret deals, came forward to disclose the deal. Their motive was not protection of Japan's “Three Non-Nuclear Principles.” To the contrary, their view is that, as the “Three Non-Nuclear Principle” did not effectively prevent the entry of nuclear weapons into Japan, they should be scrapped.

Reacting to the publication of the US Nuclear Posture Review, Pyongyang in mid-April 2010 officially confirmed its own position on nuclear weapons: “As long as the U.S. nuclear threat persists, the DPRK will increase and update various type nuclear weapons as its deterrent in such a manner as it deems necessary in the days ahead”. Along with other countries, Russia, has to seriously question the viability of the two decades-old efforts for denuclearization of the neighboring country, with special accent on the relevance to the existing diplomatic framework. What is the purpose of the Six-Party talks and what are Russian goals in this exercise? The need to determine real options on the Korean peninsula is obvious. I believe the Russian strategy, coordinated through the Six-Party talks, of making the early denuclearization of North Korea a priority goal should be analyzed from the point of view of broader Russian interests vis-à-vis both the Korean Peninsula and global interaction with major partners, including the US, China, Japan and South Korea.

This is part two of a two part series.

For several days, the winds from the destroyed nuclear reactors at Fukushima Daiichi crashed head on into the myth of the radioactive plume.

There are many other ways of spending time, but I find wandering around inside Fukushima Prefecture's supposedly sealed 20-kilometer “exclusion zone” has a special, although at times macabre, fascination.