Cultural Politics… Karl Haushofer and Japan (1): Geographers and Intellectual Links into the Fascist Period 6 Mar 20186 Mar 2018 This is the first in a multi-post project on German geographers and intellectuals and their interaction with Japan in the 1930s and 1940s, with a nominal focus on Manchuria and…
China… Report on Opium in China from the German Embassy in Tokyo, 1944 2 Mar 2016 On June 8, 1944, the German Embassy in Tokyo sent a report back to the Auswärtiges Amt, or Foreign Ministry. Unlike so many other files dealing with foreign affairs, at…
American Foreign Policy… American Weimar: On Hitler, Obama, and BR Myers’ Diminution of Juche 26 Jan 2016 This essay was written in Seattle in October 2011. Today I spent some time leafing through a solemn black notebook filled with sketches made primarily in the stacks at the…
German… The WIDF and the Debate over Korean War Crimes 1 Sep 201515 Feb 2021 In a recent essay for Japan Focus, Rutgers University historian Suzy Kim includes a retrospective on the Women's International Democratic Federation's 1951 report from North Korea and that delegation's function…
Art… Opera North and ‘The Flying Dutchman’: A Review 1 Jul 20151 Jul 2015 While having ostensibly little to do with the East Asian themes that normally permeate this website, the following post is connected to my interest in German classical music and specifically opera.…
EU-East Asia relations… Angela Merkel and Japan’s Wartime Past 11 Mar 201511 Mar 2015 The German Chancellor was in Tokyo for a couple of eventful days. Although Merkel sees Abe Shinzo regularly, she noted before leaving that she has not been to Japan, the country that…
EU-East Asia relations… New European Writing on North Korea 16 Oct 201416 Oct 2014 In terms of high-quality research being done on North Korea and its ties in Northeast Asia, a great deal of good scholarly work is being done these days in Europe.…
Cultural Politics… Kulturarbeit in Nordkorea 1 Oct 2014 My new essay on matters of classical music in Pyongyang has been posted at Sino-NK: To make a sweeping cultural generalization, German musicians tend to bring great seriousness and historical…
EU-East Asia relations… In Germany, ROK President Park Geun-hye Talks Reunification and a Possible Kim Jong-un Summit 26 Mar 2014 Having dueled with Japanese Prime Minster Abe Shinzo in The Hague yesterday, the flinty President of the Republic of Korea, Park Geun-hye, spoke with Philipp Abresch forTagesschau.de yesterday, as she set…
EU-East Asia relations… New German Ambassador in Pyongyang 19 Aug 20134 Jan 2018 [Updated on 4 January 2018; Schäfer is still in Pyongyang, as reported by Süddeutscher Zeitung.] On August 14, 2013, in Pyongyang, the 85-year-old leader Kim Yong-nam, himself only two weeks…
