Japan… On History and the “Comfort Women” Debate 12 Oct 201512 Oct 2015 As illuminated by recent anniversaries and commemorations, history is both a malleable plaything and an obsessive object of dispute for states in Northeast Asia. In Tokyo, Abe Shinzo and his Liberal Democratic Party rework histories of colonial expansion into halcyon inspiration…
history and memory… Last Call for Abe Shinzo Congressional Speech Op-eds 17 May 2015 The Stimson Center's Yuki Tatsumi threw down the gauntlet in The Diplomat on May 7 in a piece pointedly entitled 'Stop Obsessing over Abe's Congressional Speech.' The conclusion read as follows: Continuing…
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…