2019 marks the 100th anniversary of the Korean March 1 independence movement. I never thought that in such an important year Japan would experience such a vicious explosion of hate not only towards the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), but also towards the Republic of Korea (ROK).

Ever since his debut as a politician when elected to the lower house of the Diet in 1993, Prime Minister Abe Shinzo has stood in the vanguard within the Liberal Democratic Party of a faction championing denial of Japan's war of aggression and the history of the Japanese military's sex slavery and the Nanjing Massacre. Since Abe has been prime minister for a total of eight years, first in 2006-2007 and then from the end of 2012 to the present, the current situation may be the inevitable conclusion to his reign. Distortion and denial of the history of Japanese military sex slavery under Abe's administration has spread through the media to general Japanese society. It has now extended to denial of “forced mobilization” as a whole, and as hate speech intensifies on the streets and in public media including the Internet, right-wingers have even begun to propagate historical revisionism overseas in the name of “history wars.”

News sources revealed in August 2018 that Tokyo Medical University has been systematically tampering with its entrance exam scores to reduce the number of female students at the institution. This scandal led to a government investigation into medical faculties, and initial reports suggest that such gender discrimination is widespread in medical faculty admissions. This issue relates to several stubborn problems facing Japanese society today: It reflects how a more general context of gender discrimination threatens to impede new solutions to the crises facing medicine in Japan as a workplace and as a place of care, and how recent efforts to counter discriminatory practices and encourage “diversity” lack accountability. This article shows how the gender gap in the medical field points to deeper problems in the profession, how recent research suggests that gender diversity may improve medical outcomes in terms of patient care, and how this entrance-exam scandal highlights the inadequacy and lack of accountability behind recent efforts to promote “diversity.”

On 30 April 2019, 86-year old Emperor Akihito made history. He became the first emperor in 200 years to abdicate, yielding the throne to his son. The trigger for this historic moment was an extraordinary event that took place three years earlier. In August 2016, the emperor appeared on NHK and all TV channels to address the nation. His purpose? To intimate his desire to abdicate. The address, of questionable constitutionality, set in motion a debate about the nature of emperorship in 21st Century Japan, and led directly to the April abdication. This article sets out to explore some of the questions raised by the emperor's address, and its historic outcome: What are emperors for? What is their place in contemporary Japan? What, indeed, are their future prospects?

An exhibition of censored artwork in Nagoya city triggers a furious debate on artistic expression.

The artistic director of the Aichi Triennale 2019 had few illusions when he planned an exhibition called “After Freedom of Expression”. By choosing items that poked painfully at some of Japan's most tender spots -war crimes, subservience to America and the status of the imperial family - Tsuda Daisuke wanted to “provoke discussion” on the health of freedom of expression in the country. But what followed, he says, was “beyond our expectations”.

The origins of Japanese Buddhism can be traced back to the early sixth century, when the king of Paekche, occupying the southwestern tip of the Korean peninsula, sent a small bronze statue and Buddhist texts as part of a diplomatic mission to the Japanese court. This cultural exchange marked the beginning of a leading religion that would continue to develop over the following centuries in Japan. Approximately fourteen centuries later in 2013, Shikoku Henro, a famous pilgrimage circuit that visits eighty-eight Buddhist temples around the fourth largest island of Japan, became a site of national controversy when a racist organization posted signs along the route that read, “Let us protect our precious pilgrimage route from the hands of chōsenjin (Koreans).” A site with cultural and religious bonds, forged in a historic diplomatic exchange between the two countries, has instead become celebrated as a “traditional” heritage site—one structured around notions of chauvinism and cultural exclusion. Using the controversy at this location in 2013 as the starting point, my paper examines the ways in which the Shikoku pilgrimage route was presented to the public, and the ensuing claims on the emotional landscape of this site by local, national and international bodies. More than a simple story of Japanese national pride, the dark history of Shikoku Henro reveals complicated circumstances that culminated in the 2013 controversy involving a Korean pilgrim and her journey.

To the question, when did you decide to commit to the abolition of nuclear power, Koide Hiroaki replies without hesitation, “October 23, 1970.” It was March 2015 when Koide retired as assistant professor from the Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute. If we add together the lead-up to that decision and his activities following retirement, we come up with a half-century of dedication to the cause of stopping the nuclear generation of electricity, a keystone of postwar national policy.

In Japan, recent scandals have highlighted severe problems related to government opacity, including tampering of official records about the discounted sale of land to a nationalist school and Defense Ministry officials' lies related to the dispatch of Self Defense Forces to South Sudan. Transparency and accountability are at the heart of any healthy, well-functioning democracy and although the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) might not be perfect, when it is functioning well, it allows the public access to government documents. As such, it functions as one of the pillars of American democracy - however its usage is often overlooked by academics, researchers and journalists writing about Japan and, in particular, Okinawa.

In China, low levels of early childhood development (ECD) in rural areas may inhibit economic development as the nation attempts to transition from a middle-income manufacturing-based economy to a high-income innovation economy. This paper surveys the recent literature on ECD among children ages 0-3 years in rural China, including rates of developmental delays, causes of delays, and implications for the future of China's economy. Recent studies have found high rates of developmental delays among young children in rural China and point to poor nutrition and psychosocial stimulation as the primary causes. This review highlights the need for large-scale ECD interventions in rural China to raise human capital and support future economic growth.

This long, collaboratively written article interweaves several narratives: the 25 yearlong history of an activist group concerned with Ushiku Detention Center against the broader history of detention centers in Japan; description of the detention center system in Japan against an account of daily life at the Ushiku Center and visitations; and sketches from the lives of three detainees, including one man's satirical cartoons.

On the fifth anniversary of the establishment of the Kyoko Selden Memorial Translation Prize through the generosity of her colleagues, students, and friends, the Department of Asian Studies at Cornell University is pleased to announce the winners of the 2018 Prize.

In an effort to combat abuse of police powers by the world's most repressive regimes, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a “Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention or Imprisonment” at a plenary meeting on December 9, 1988. Among other things, these rules declare that “A detained or imprisoned person shall have the right to be visited by and to correspond with, in particular, members of his family and shall be given adequate opportunity to communicate with the outside world, subject to reasonable conditions and restrictions as specified by law or lawful regulations.” Three years later the UN Commisssion on Human Rights created a five member “Working Group” charged with investigating “cases of detention imposed arbitrarily or otherwise inconsistently with the relevant international standards set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights” or in treaties or other international agreements.

As China's financial commitments in Latin America grow, so does its influence. But some countries resent Beijing throwing its weight around

Over the past two decades, China has become a significant player in Latin America. The process began slowly, but as the Chinese economy began to hit spectacular levels of growth in the 1990s, it drove the price of several key raw materials higher. China became the leading buyer of many commodities produced in the region, making it an influential player in Chile (copper), Argentina and Brazil (soybeans), Peru (mining), as well as Ecuador and Venezuela (petroleum).

The trade war and technological competition with China are symptomatic of a much larger issue: a dangerous gridlock in US-China relations that may become permanent, with dire consequences not just for the two countries' economies but also for the global economy and quite possibly East Asia's and international security. Martin Wolf, Financial Times columnist, is right to conclude: “Across-the-board rivalry with China is becoming an organising principle of US economic, foreign and security policies.” The fact that this conflict has occurred at a time of trade, investment, and security disputes between the US and its major allies, US-Russia tensions, and US military interventions across the Middle East and Central Asia, heightens global instability.

Mt. Paektu/Changbai is a 9,000 foot volcano that straddles the border of North Korea and China. As the source of the Korean foundation myth, it has become a potent symbol of both North and South Korean nationalism. Historically, Sino-Korean border demarcation generally followed the Tumen and Yalu Rivers converging on Mt. Paektu. The Sino-North Korean border agreement in 1962, however, is still disputed by South Korea and contentions over territorial jurisdiction as well as cultural claims to the region have generated tensions between China and the two Koreas for decades. How significant is this national symbol in shaping foreign relations on the Korean peninsula? Will it become an issue on the path towards Korean reunification?

In December 2018, the Japanese government announced that it was withdrawing from the International Whaling Commission and would resume commercial whaling in July 2019. This paper revisits four coastal communities that still conduct coastal whaling to see how these communities have developed during the whaling moratorium and what prospects and challenges they face when commercial whaling is resumed.

Pacific Islanders are speaking out after a Texas-based company, the Manhattan Project Beer Co, named one of its handcrafted beers, Bikini Atoll. Based on news coverage and responses on social media, people around the world are listening. An online petition asks CEO Jeff Bezos and other distributors to stop selling Bikini Atoll. It currently has 6,000 signatures. On Aug. 15, the Marshall Islands National Nuclear Commission (NNC) released an official statement calling on the Manhattan Project “to engage in dialogue with the people of Bikini to hear directly from community members about their reactions to their product.”

The present article deals with the ‘educational movement’ of the 1950-60s focusing on the issues of discrimination against zainichi Koreans and Okinawans. It examines the moments of mutual gaze between zainichi Koreans and Okinawans as both struggled for freedom and liberation against the US-Japanese system of domination. Zainichi Koreans and Okinawans were autonomously choosing their respective identities in accordance with the changes in political circumstances. They initially wanted to become liberated peoples belonging to (unified) Korea and Japan respectively. Of course, their goals of withdrawal of foreign armed forces from Korea and Okinawa and social reforms were ultimately thwarted. Nevertheless, the attempts of the marginalized to forge horizontal unity and relativize the Japanese nation state via the concepts of ‘motherland’ merit attention.

In 2015, the Japanese government applied to have UNESCO grant World Heritage status to “Japan's Meiji Industrial Revolution: Kyushu-Yamaguchi and Related Areas.” The serial nomination was comprised of eleven key industrial sites related to iron and steel production, shipbuilding, and coal mining, all instrumental to Japan's “rapid industrialization” during the Meiji period. The “Executive Summary” of the nomination file argued that those sites were deserving of World Heritage status because of their contribution to “Japan's unique achievement in world history as the first non-Western country to successfully industrialize.” The nomination document also attempted to link Japan's modern industrial success to its current status as an economic superpower. The report begins with a letter by Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, which claims that the Meiji era “reflect[s] that period of transformation, fundamental to the essence of Japan today and her position in global society.”

Indonesia's last regional conflict remains intractable. We are reminded of this by demonstrations and mass detentions in 2018 around the 1 December anniversary of Papua's ‘Independence’ Day and the killing a day later of at least 16 construction workers in the central highlands district of Nduga with the military operations that followed. These events will be discussed further in the paper after a brief outline of the conflict in Papua.

2018 was the 20th anniversary of Reformasi, the people-power movement that toppled authoritarian leader Suharto, after 32 years in power, and ushered in Indonesia's democratic transition. The world's largest Muslim-majority nation has since made significant reforms to its political system to become the world's third biggest democracy. The military has been removed from parliament and serving officers are banned from politics so that the military no longer has a formal role in the political process. Wide-ranging decentralizing measures were also introduced as an antidote to the stifling centralisation of Suharto's New Order regime, and the country's first direct presidential elections were held in 2004.