China… Chinese Journalists and the U.S. Occupation of Japan 5 Apr 20156 Apr 2015 At the conclusion of eight years of Japanese occupation of nearly every major city in the Republic of China, Chinese journalists were prepared not just to celebrate victory but to…
history and memory… Keeping Tabs on Revisionist Groups Active on the ‘Comfort Women’ Issue 3 Apr 2015 Gaining even a cursory familiarity with the statements and logic of some right-wing revisionists groups in Japan is a salutary experience. While most Japanese people (judging from polling data) find…
China… Old Chapters, New Chapters: The Memory Wars in East Asia 17 Mar 201517 Mar 2015 From the very beginning of the so-called ‘post war,’ the territorial and temporal parameters of the memory wars between China and Japan were never drawn particularly cleanly. The war ended…
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…
history and memory… Lisa Yoneyama in Toronto; Readings on the ‘Comfort Women’ System 7 Mar 20157 Mar 2015 Yesterday I had a chance to meet briefly in Toronto with Lisa Yoneyama, who is one of the most prevalent scholars working today on issues of transnational war memory politics…
history and memory… Xi Jinping’s Tripod: Updating the National Humiliation Narrative in Nanjing 22 Dec 2014 This essay was originally published at the China Policy Institute Blog at the University of Nottingham on 15 December 2014, under the title 'Xi Jinping’s Nanking Massacre Commemoration and China’s Anti-Japanese Calendar,'…
Japan… On Heartbreak, and Bix on Hirohito 30 Sep 201430 Sep 2014 In our culture of oversharing and social media, there is such an excess of verbiage that the words 'must read' or 'essential' have basically lost their meaning. The same is…
East Asian modernity… Pan-Asianism and the Japanese Wartime Empire 9 Jun 201412 Mar 2016 This past spring, upon the invitation of Peter Anderson, I gave a lecture to all of the first-year History students at Leeds University on the following topic, as part of…
China… Chongqing Hothouse: At Rana Mitter’s Wiles Lectures at Queen’s University, Belfast 30 May 201428 Aug 2015 Rana Mitter, a major historian of early 20th-century China, is currently in Belfast delivering a series of lectures (which I am attending and commenting on) on the history of Chongqing…
EU-East Asia relations… Japan in Winston Churchill’s Postwar Histories 24 Mar 201412 Mar 2016 Living in the United Kingdom, it is practically impossible to ignore the imprint of Winston Churchill on the 20th century in his intertwined roles both as statesman and historian. As…
